Talk:The Foundation Series

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Contents

[edit] New Asimov/Foundation wiki

The articles on the Foundation Unviverse are outstanding, they cover a great deal of content. However, it seems Wikipedia makes cataloging and joining the Foundation Universe articles a little difficult. So I've found and revamped a Foundation/Asimov wiki on wikicities. Contributors to and readers of the Foundation Universe articles are more than welcome to expand on it, as right now it is basically an empty shell. It can be found here: [1].

[edit] Robot Mystery novels

Are Mark W. Tiedemann's three "Robot Mystery" novels — Mirage (2000), Chimera (2001) and Aurora (2002) — "canonical" or not? That is, does anyone know if they were authorized or requested by the Asimov Estate, like the Second Foundation Trilogy? I discussed them in Three Laws of Robotics, but I haven't found anything on the Web saying just how official they're supposed to be. Anville 10:56, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 20th century popular fiction featured articles

apart from this & The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, there is no other 20th century popular fiction featured articles... so i'd like to invite editors of this page, who know what it takes to get something in the same genre featured, to comment on this article: The Illuminatus! Trilogy. its another cult sci-fi series that has been quite influential in the last few decades. its up for peer review before FAC here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Peer_review/The_Illuminatus%21_Trilogy. any comments in that peer review welcome. Zzzzz 15:38, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

thx to everyone who contributed to or commented on this article in the past few weeks. this article is now up for "featured article" status. please go to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Illuminatus! Trilogy to vote Support or Oppose with your comments. Zzzzz 17:55, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citation for Star Wars claim

Is there any citation for this paragraph: "George Lucas used elements of the Foundation series to construct the universe in which Star Wars is set, including propulsion by hyper-drive, lightsabers (evolved from force field penknives), and the Galactic Empire (although Lucas' Empire was by definition evil, while Seldon openly says that in principle the First Empire is not evil)." Propulsion by hyperdrive and galactic empires are common as dirt in science fiction. It also seems like a stretch to derive lightsabres from the force field penknives. If there's no citation, then we should cut this paragraph. Makgraf 03:43, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I cut the paragraph. Makgraf 02:31, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
See Steven Hart's "Galactic Gasbag" in Salon (10 April 2002). I've found other bits and pieces in the Web, too, even though mirrors of old versions of this article provide an enormous amount of background noise. See here (also here) for lightsabers and other miscellaneous stuff, and here for miscellaneous stuff in general. Anville 19:07, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the links! They still don't convince though. The middle two both claim an Asimovian origin for the lightsabre but neither other any proof, only speculation. "The major inspiration for the lightsaber might have been Foundation by Isaac Asimov" and from the next one "it may be the inspiration for the lightsaber of Star Wars fame" [emphasis added]. Both seek to support the argument by claiming that Coruscant is a direct steal from Trantor (the first mentions this as well). It is true that Coruscant does seem pretty directly stolen. But Coruscant is not in the orginal trilogy. In fact it is one of the few (the only?) element from a Star Wars book incorporated into a Star Wars movie. So their 'Lucas stole lightsabres because he stole Trantor' falls down because it was Timothy (in the Thrawn series) that stole it. Makgraf 08:33, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Not entirely true. An "Imperial Planet" with one big city covering its entire surface has appeared in early screenplays of the first Star Wars. There are even some pretty famous Ralph McQuarrie sketches of the planet. They dropped out the idea of showing it because it would be too expensive in the seventies. Later, in 1991, Timothy Zahn brought it back, and named it Coruscant. Lucas liked the name and continued to use it. But I think it is pretty obvious that, to say the least, Coruscant is an homage to Trantor. Maclaine 13:48, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree that Coruscant is a homage to Trantor. Are you sure about their being a worldcity "Imperial Planet" in the earlier screenplays of the first Star Wars. Because I looked through some scripts [2] and couldn't find it (but again, this really isn't my area of expertise). The Coruscant entry pushes the orginal mention in a script of a world-spanning city to Return of the Jedi. Which would put it out of the timeframe of when lightsabres were being invented. We probably should have something in the article about Trantor/Coruscant but the other stuff seems too speculative. Makgraf 20:22, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, you are right. In early screenplays, the Imperial Planet was known as Alderaan, but it was not a city planet. This notion was only considered for Return of the Jedi. This is better explained in the Star Wars Official Site: [3] Anyway, it still constitutes a Trantor reference, in my opinion. As you already stated, I can't find any indication that lightsabers came from the Foundation series. The notion of a Galactic Empire is pretty common in early science fiction, and it is possible that Lucas borrowed this idea from several places, not just the Foundation trilogy. Maclaine 12:34, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I think it's defintely a Trantor reference. Seems like there's a consensus to not put in any of the speculative things and restore the Trantor section. Makgraf 20:22, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
I do think that "paying homage" would be a better word choice than "direct borrowing". In some ways; Coruscant is the antithesis of Trantor. (Coruscant expands verticly into the sky and is open [at least if your well to do enough to live high enough up]. Trantor expands verticlly downward into the ground and is covered by linked domes; kind of like living in a cave no matter how well off you are.)

[edit] Reading List

I think this section should be split out into it's own article. It's bound to duplicate a similar section in the Empire Novels and a similar section in the Robot Novels section. By spliting it and having all groups link to it, it would making further edits on it much easier. But instead of calling it the "recommended reading list", I'd recomend calling it something like chronical ordering of events in the combined Robot-Empire-Foundation series. Note that this would also allow editors to later add events discribed between the novels that wasn't in any of the novels "present". Jon 14:09, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Along these lines, I'd like to do a little bit of organizational work on the "List of Books" (section 8). I'd like to make three top-level headings: 8.1 Robot Series, 8.2 Galatic Empire Series, and 8.3 Foundation Series. I'd add "main article" links for the Robot and Galactic Empire series. I wouldn't actualy add/remove any of the novels, just a resturcture. Any objections? I agree with Jon's comment above, but don't have the energy to tackle a full split. netjeff 22:35, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inconsistent spelling of "Darrell"

Most sources and my copy of "Foundation and Empire" use two r's in the spelling. The spelling in Wikipedia's articles is inconsistent, and the titles of the articles concerning the Darrell family use the incorrect spelling. 74.119.204.229 01:49, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question from Anonymous

*** A quick request; What order is listed in the Prelude to Foundation? *** (this is meant to be a temporary post. Please remove this note - afterwards.) Comment was from User_talk:24.82.91.150, moved out of article

I put a link to the Prelude to Foundation list in the article, but in case the IP changed and you don't get the message I left on your talk page please don't edit questions into Wikipedia articles. Makgraf 05:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
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