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8 lines
1.6 KiB
Plaintext
In search of: FTL taxonomy
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<p>I’ve been troping again. This time I found and repaired the TV Tropes page on <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FasterThanLightTravel">Faster Than Light Travel</a>. It had previously made a distinction between three subtypes of FTL drive: “jump”, “warp”, and “shortcut”. The “shortcut” category was confused and confusing, and I’ve renamed it to “portal” and fixed the definitions of both “portal” and “warp” subtropes.</p>
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<p>I’m now looking for earliest occurrences and trope codifiers on these subtypes. I think I have one nailed down, but I can’t push the other two back very far. Instances and cites are solicited.</p>
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<p><span id="more-1843"></span></p>
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<p>The easiest one is the portal drive. This is the newest of the three subtropes; I think it was codified in Niven & Pournelle’s <cite>The Mote In God’s Eye</cite>, 1975. Note that we want to be careful about distinguishing it from FTL involving fixed artificial stargates and/or naturally occurring wormholes. I’m interested in ur-examples.</p>
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<p>The jump (or fold-space) drive goes back at least as far as <s>Robert Heinlein’s 1953 “Starman Jones”</s> Isaac Asimov’s earliest <cite>Foundation</cite> story in 1942. There may well be earlier examples.</p>
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<p>The warp drive goes back at least as far as Murray Leinster’s first “Med Service” story in 1957. Again, I’m certain there are earlier examples. Let the digging begin!</p>
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