andromeda travel times
so, looking at ambient dialogue from voeld, ice runners do voeld-elaaden in about 3.5 hours. this is... way faster than i expected. wiki says the tempest is built for speed and stealth and that it covers 13 lightyears/day, which is about 0.5 lightyears/hour. this seems to be top speed for FTL travel in the ME universe (going by the wiki), as any faster causes time dilation and other not-so-nice stuff
ice runner ships are probably a bit slower, since the tempest is supposed to be state-of-the-art and i doubt any random pilot can get their hands on that kind of tech. but sheer motor power isn’t the only thing that determines how quickly a ship can travel -- colliding with things at FTL-speeds isn’t very nice, so you need to go around all obstacles between you and your destination. this is where piloting skill comes in, because if you and your competitor’s ships go at the same speed, what you need to do to beat them is save ground. fewer lightyears to travel = less travel time.
(it’s why the millenium falcon making the kessel run in 12 parsecs is impressive)
SAM should be aces at plotting flight paths, so the tempest is very likely one of the fastest ships in heleus. if a highly skilled ice runner pilot (lisana t'lesso) makes voeld-elaaden in 3 hours 18 minutes, then the tempest can do it in less. but! lisana states multiple times that she regularly goes through the scourge, which i can’t imagine the tempest would even attempt -- ryder’s reaction to it tells me that’s probably true.
so: if 0.5 lightyears/hour is state-of-the-art, then i am going to put lisana’s ship at 0.25; she’s not any schmuck, she’s employed by the nexus to deliver water to its colonies, so her ship isn’t going to be that much slower. (i have no idea if that’s reasonable or not, the wiki won’t give me an average speed, but i’m willing to ballpark it there.) she goes through the scourge, so for simplicity’s sake let’s say she goes in a more or less direct line from voeld to elaaden. then,
voeld --> elaaden = 0.825 lightyears
yeah, i’m calling shenanigans. for starters, there’s a bigass black hole in between elaaden and voeld. if lisana is going in a straight line, then she is passing right through it, and i don’t think a black hole cares about how good a pilot you are, it’s going to eat you anyway. second, the closest star(s) to earth is alpha centauri and that’s four lightyears away. you mean to tell me that the entire heleus cluster is less than a lightyear across?
bioware go home you’re drunk