Talk:Tau Zero

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Science Fiction High‑importance

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Themes

"Incidental to the main themes is the political situation on the Earth from which the protagonists set out: a future where the nations of the world entrusted Sweden with overseeing disarmament and found themselves living under the rule of the Swedish Empire."

That is not strictly true, in that there is no Swedish Empire (the word "empire" itself is found nowhere in my copy of the book). What happened was that Sweden was seen as the only country that could be trusted with overseeing the general disarmament of the world, which led to the establishment of "the Control Authority" and over time:

"you [Sweden] become the richest country on Earth, with all that that implies. And the diplomatic center, goes without saying. And when every reactor, spaceship, laboratory is potentially dangerous and must be under the Authority, that means some Swede has a voice in everything that matters. And this leads to your being imitated, even by those who no longer like you. Ingrid, my friend, your people can’t help turning into new Romans."

I suppose it's that final bit that led to the comment about the "Swedish Empire." Idontcareanymore (talk) 23:11, 7 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this not corrected then? 2003:CF:71A:A943:DAA:2D7F:3F92:D6D8 (talk) 18:50, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Something odd

First paragraph: "Tau Zero follows the crew of the starship Leonora Christine, a colonization vessel crewed by 25 men and 25 women aiming to reach a distant star system. The ship is powered by a Bussard ramjet, which was proposed shortly before Anderson wrote the book."

NO! Robert Bussard published his 'Interstellar Ram Jet' in 1960, Anderson did not use the idea until 1970, that is ten years later. The original paper is : Robert Bussard, “Galactic Matter and Interstellar Flight,” Astronautica Acta Vol. 6 (1960), pp. 179–94 — Preceding aajacksoniv (talk) 02:14, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on what one considers to be "shortly before". Circa 2016, I personally don't think one decade necessarily amounts to a very lengthy stretch. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.223.130.32 (talk) 19:30, 10 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this even making an appearance on this page? Obviously just 10 years is shortly before. 2003:CF:71A:A943:DAA:2D7F:3F92:D6D8 (talk) 18:53, 22 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've actually removed this from the article - not because of the pedantry, or because "short" is hate speech, but because the original story was published in 1967. Which leaves us with a choice of writing "...proposed seven years before the original story", which comes across as needlessly pedantic, or "which was proposed a few years before the book was written", or "which had been proposed in 1960", both of which are equally problematic. At that point in the article we're describing the story, but suddenly the text forces us back into the real world. Besides which, why point it out at all? It's just data. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 22:40, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]