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up vote 12 down vote favorite

For instance, if a Jedi Force-pushes something 1000 meters away, is the effect instantaneous or is there a propagation delay, something like the speed of light?

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8  
On numerous occasions we see events viewed in the Force propogate instantaneously, for example the destruction of Alderaan (as sensed by Obi-Wan) and Han Solo's death (as sensed by Leia). On top of that, both Luke and Yoda use the Force to sense things that haven't happened yet. – Valorum 10 hours ago
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It's somewhere between light speed and ludicrous speed – Machavity 8 hours ago
    
the speed of plot? – user13267 6 hours ago
    
FFS, spoilers in comments, much? – Nij 3 hours ago
    
It clearly propagated at the the speed of midichlorians in a vacuum, unless you buy into the absurd theory about force propagation through midichlorian wormholes. – HopelessN00b 1 hour ago
up vote 15 down vote

The same as the propagation delay for hologram transmissions; presumably instantaneous

As mentioned in a related question, Darth Sidious once Force-choked Dooku from "light-years" away; the hologram of Sidious and Dooku's asphyxiation were perfectly in-sync, which means Sidious' Force use propagated no slower than his hologrammatic self did.

Since holo-conversations (such as many conversations assorted people have with Sidious, or with Leader Snoke in The Force Awakens) don't generally appear to suffer from any kind of lag, both are presumably instantaneous.

It's not immediately clear whether this would apply to Force abilities other than choking, but there's no good reason to suspect they wouldn't.

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Didn't Vader force-choke someone over video chat at the beginning of Empire? That might be an even better example. – Ixrec 10 hours ago
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@Ixrec Admiral Ozzel, yes; but he and Vader weren't nearly as far apart as Sidious and Dooku were in this scene (Vader was on Hoth, and Ozzel was in orbit) – Jason Baker 10 hours ago
    
They were both still aboard Executor, at a maximum distance of just under 12 miles. – Mazura 5 hours ago
up vote 3 down vote

It depends on the power

In the films, we see Yoda, Obi-Wan and Leia reacting to far-away deaths instantaneously. There is also the transgalactic Force choking mentioned in Jason Baker's answer. These seem to indicate that there's no speed limit on the Force itself.

However, other powers (such as Force push, lightning, etc.) seem to happen as a "wave" (see 1:43):

So for some powers at least, it seems like there is a delay.

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