Foundation and Traveller

[Sophiathegreen]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
I read the books. There were plenty of planets that didn't have atomic power but did have fleets of starships they could threaten Terminus with. This means that starships didn't need atomic reactors to operate. Instead what they had was an efficient reactionless drive that could be powered by a fuel cell. Diverting that power to the hyperdrive is all thats required to travel many light years. Most of the starship's fuel gets used up climbing in and out of planetary gravity well's. To keep this realistic, I'd say a starship would free fall into a planet and use its heat shields to slow down and only use its fuel cells to climb out again. Atomic power has high tech and fusion was unheard of.

Those starship where old imperial atomic powership they knew how to use then and refuel then but not how to built atomic power units.

 

[Sophiathegreen]

Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> However, I would take issue that Foundation is merely today revamped with Grav Vechiles. True many of the worlds in the Foundation universe seem very technological backward. But, that is due to long fall of the Galatic Empire, not expanding evenly. I think Asimov at heart was always trying to be the Scientist, and suggesting things would evolve only according to the known laws of the universe. Therefore, he took away the fantastic from Speculative Fiction and just speculated what will be is now but forward.

Well of course its due to the fall of the Galactic Empire, but whatever the cause, just list the things a typical Foundation Universe doesn't have. No robots, No A.I.s, No fusion. The only fusion that occurs is at the center of stars. Information is stored on microfilm and is read through viewers. There is no Internet. Basically just rayguns and spaceships. </font>[/QUOTE]He meant the Foundation to be the Gal version of the Decline and Call of the Roman Empire he read. It was very hard to than person in the late 1940's
and early 1950's to foresee the internet an the advance computer we have.

 

[kafka47]

But, the basic problem remains that Asimov only updated his vision of the future incrementally. When it was time to write Prelude or F&E, he essentially relied on his old formulas.

His Robot trilogy is more remarkable as it breaks free from the conventions of the day and are solid pieces of writing. Foundation will always have a special place in my heart, and I love the original trilogy (Mule included) but it simply like Space Merchants (Pohl, I think), it is lodged in a 1950s worldview.

BTW, you are also talking to a hardcore Asimov fan, so I come not bury him but put praise into a proper perspective.

 

[TKalbfus]

Of course he could not forsee the Internet or advanced computers, but because of the decline and fall of the Galactic Empire you can also explain that away as the result of the decline of the Galactic Empire. The Empire might have kept tight contro of those technologies that are no longer in use as of the foundation era. Atomic reactors and nuclear bombs for instance. The Robots from the I Robot prehistory have arranged for themselves to disappear, because they perceive their presence as having a negative influence on human development. Only primitive automata exist in a Foundation setting, with perhaps some undercover advanced robots going around to see that advanced robotics doesn't get reinvented. They might at this point have psionic powers and go around erasing human minds that make this discovery.

 

[hariseldon]

Write from the Second Foundation's point of view. Maintaining the Seldon Plan might seem more entertaining than merely following the Plan. When I read the stories, The Second Foundation, and the subsequent drama,for me, was the more fascinating than the First Foundation winning without half trying.

 

[kafka47]

The brilliance of the Asimov stories is that both are captured and enamored by a plan that goes nowhere. As both are hostages to the logic of the machines which saw the only way out was to escape and become one with the cosmos (a la Lovelock).

But, I truly believe that Asimov toward the end could forsee things like the Internet becoming dominant but saw them in the same light as older technologies. Just as movies were not replaced by television but merely displaced. So, while, I look forward to the movies but I don't think the director has what it will take to make them successful - which is to make them in the same fashion as a Noir film. Gattatica did this brilliantly, the Adjustment Bureau much less so.

I think, if the monies are spent with creating a Sense of Wonder rather focusing on the toys then we might have a worthy film to live up to Asimov's vision. The problem since Star Trek (TOS) and probably before is that we have come to expect Space Westerns instead of Science Fiction and Star Wars just made everything a Fantasy. How to claim the heritage of SF and make it enjoyable is to bring the drama back into film making. TV has done it...why can't the rest of Hollywood learn?

 

[fusor]

Wow, an 8-year necro thread. Is that a record?