Science Fiction Trivia

[Norby]

Then let's see five different sci-fi universes where personal teleportation is available.

The Tomorrow People (British TV series of the 70s, rebooted a couple of times)
Tiger,Tiger AKA The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester (used the word Jaunt for teleportation, which is the term used in The Tomorrow People.

Both are good, bonus points for classic era.

Hint: short range teleportation is also acceptable, even in parody genre.

[spud42]

the obvious one... star trek

[Norby]

the obvious one... star trek

Yes, still two more to go.

[Disembodied]

Blake's 7 also had shipboard teleporters …

[Malacandra]

And Larry Niven once again - humanity in Known Space (by the time of Beowulf Schaeffer in "Flatlander" and later Louis Wu in "Ringworld") had teleport booths, and the Puppeteers went one better with "stepping discs".

[Norby]

All ok and bonus points awarded for classic stories!

My clue was a pointer to this scene in Spaceballs comedy with the shortest range fixed teleport I ever seen.

There is a long list: Teleportation in fiction.

Malacandra is the next!

[Yak_Forger]

A little case of reality catching up with science fiction : according to this article, self-driving cars are going to become the norm within 25 years and will radically change our living conditions, be it how our daily commute to work (if we still have to leave our home to work, that is), how cities are organised, how we choose and buy houses...

I was disappointed by the year 2000 or being way too like 1999 to my tastes, but it seems like the future's catching up, with self driving cars, 3D printers, Amazon deliveries by drone...

[RockDoctor]

And Larry Niven once again - humanity in Known Space (by the time of Beowulf Schaeffer in "Flatlander" and later Louis Wu in "Ringworld") had teleport booths, and the Puppeteers went one better with "stepping discs".

I always got the feeling the Niven wasn't happy with his teleportation. From day one, he included important issues in the description like the preservation of angular momentum - which limited the ability of a user to teleport from the pole of a planet to it's equator. On the Ring, the longitude around the ring through which an entity could travel on "stepping discs".
(This is probably more of an issue for single lump masses (like a human, or dinner) than for the single atoms or ions of H2 that travel into the fuel tanks, since some single toms can probably be shipped back to ease the strains on the system.)

Somewhere in his essays, Niven discusses the idea of limiting the number of "unobtanium"-plated plot devices in a story in order to have an interesting story. Teleportation, without limits, would mean that all "locked door" mysteries disappear ("people soon learned to put their booths out in the porch, not in the living room" to quote one of the Beowulf Schaeffer shorts). Unobtanium impervious hulls means that warfare becomes ... problematic (several of Niven's stories work out how to destroy a General Products hull without killing all witnesses). Continuous recording and unlimited computer memory means that characters will never forget a piece of data, wrecking a major plank of the "detective" story - until people "can't remember where I put that tape", or just misunderstand the lies they're told.

[Malacandra]

Sorry for the delay! I'm on holiday in sunny* Devon this week and internet access is patchy. Please give me any instance from a non-Asimov book or movie that alludes to his Laws of Robotics. Thanks!

*ha, as if.

[Disembodied]

Charles Stross's Saturn's Children - set in a solar system populated with robots left behind after humanity has inconveniently become extinct, leaving them with no-one to serve - has Asimov's Three Laws printed inside the book, just before the opening of Part One.

[Malacandra]

That ought to do - off you go!

[Disembodied]

OK: name three duels, from different SF universes. For clarity, a duel is defined here as a formalised, armed combat between two individuals, within a defined area, where both participants have (at least notionally) agreed to be there.

[montana05]

OK: name three duels, from different SF universes. For clarity, a duel is defined here as a formalised, armed combat between two individuals, within a defined area, where both participants have (at least notionally) agreed to be there.

Not sure if it qualifies but most lightsabre fights between Jedi and Dark Side in Star Wars come close.

[Disembodied]

Not sure if it qualifies but most lightsabre fights between Jedi and Dark Side in Star Wars come close.

I think, at the very least, that Obi-Wan Kenobi versus Darth Vader from the first movie would qualify as a duel. That's one.

[Cody]

Honor Harrington kills a professional duellist on the Field of Honour - the traditional twenty paces, turn and shoot.