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[-] marcos@lemmy.world 6 points 7 hours ago

Star Wars even have a city covering an entire planet

Yes, they copied it from Foundation. Trantor has a perfectly fine reason for being the way it is, that would apply to Corusant too.

That is, if physics actually allowed them to be that way. Apparently Asimov didn't run the numbers on that one.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

In Foundation, Asimov suggests that spaceships start running on coal power, after civilization collapses so far that people forget how to build nuclear engines. He was always more of a Big Ideas Guy than a Fine Details Guy.

[-] marcos@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

Wait, wasn't it a metaphor for "some nuclear reactor so rudimentary that they could as well use steam engines"? I really don't remember it well.

Anyway, he's famous for running the numbers for some things. But yeah, he absolutely didn't do it for all things.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago

wasn’t it a metaphor

Maybe. I just remember re-reading the book in preparation for the TV Show's release, and being somewhat set back by how low tech even the more advanced set pieces were in the book compared to the show. It makes more sense when you recognize these books were written in the 1940s, practically before rocketry was a thing. But it's still a bit of a trip to see what Asimov considered the future would look like.

[-] bufalo1973@piefed.social 2 points 7 hours ago

Trantor is Rome and the galaxy is the empire.

this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2026
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