Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by thrash

I have to modify this: in his White Dwarf #23 interview, Marc Miller said, "Movies and television particularly affected me."

Hrmpf. movies and TV pre-77 that even vaguely resemble Traveller are not thick on the ground.

You've go to pick and choose your star Trek even. Cyrano Jpnes and Harry Mudd, the odd mining colony and space station might be it.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by thrash

On the other hand, ObiWan Kenobi is a hero. Regardless, Marc Miller has said that Star Wars came out too late to really influence the original design of Traveller. At best, Star Wars and Traveller drew from the same source material in similar ways.

Kenobi is a sympathetic hero to the audience, but he's still a survivor of the the previous galactic civil war who apparently fought on the side that is losing the current civil war, but more importantly:

Originally Posted by thrash

I have to modify this: in his White Dwarf #23 interview, Marc Miller said, "Movies and television particularly affected me."

This means Marc Miller inhaled as much FORBIDDEN PLANET and its train of influences (TWILIGHT ZONE, OUTER LIMITS) as Lucas et al did.

[Blue Ghost]

Not to get too off track, but there's some speculation by the authors of the French scifi comic book Valeria that he or members of his team drew from their publication.

They've got pics of Leia in her slave getup, the Millenium Falcon and so forth compared with various art in their comic.

Metropolis also helped influenced Star Wars.

I'm not sure if this really has any psionic influence or inspiration for Traveller.

[SteveS]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

. . .
This means Marc Miller inhaled as much FORBIDDEN PLANET and its train of influences (TWILIGHT ZONE, OUTER LIMITS) as Lucas et al did.

Beware the hazards of the Ancients site that is haunted by monsters from the id.

[SteveS]

Michael Andre-Driussi, in the article mentioned in the first message of this thread, says that Emperor Cleon I is the only thing Traveller draws from Asimov's Foundation series. An obvious first point where he's wrong is that there's also a Cleon II (or else Cleon I would just be called Cleon). But in reading more about the Foundation universe, I find that its influences on Traveller are pervasive. The only reason I didn't notice that right away is that I read the Foundation trilogy so long ago that it was still a trilogy, when I was a kid, something like a decade before Traveller was first published.

I don't have time right now to start a new Foundation and Traveller thread, but there is opposition to "Mentalics" in Foundation. The first is the Mule, and the opposition to him isn't very effective, and it's not because he's a Mentalic, it's because he's overthrowing the Empire. But the Second Foundation reinvents Mentalics as a way to perform its Manipulations to hasten the end of the Long Night -- and its Mentalics face a fair amount of opposition too, though my memory of just what opposition is lost in over four decades of faded memory.

Maybe someone with fresher memory of Second Foundation can elaborate. On the other hand, if anyone had read it recently enough, they'd have seen that and maybe added to this thread. But maybe someone else has the books closer than a library or buying new books, and the time to read them.

Edit: right after I posted this, I saw mention of Second Foundation in the immediately preceding message, which I initially overlooked. OK, consider this an elaboration on that point, though I wrote it as an independent thought.