Talk:Trantor

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The Death Star is not a planet but a space station. In this respect it does not resemble Trantor, but DOES resemble Roger's Planetoid in one of E. E. Doc Smith's Lensman novels. (Anybody care to remind me which one?)

It was Triplanetary.

I think the Death Star reference should be removed. The space station is nothing like Trantor and could be confusing to those not familiar with the subject of this article. Thoughts? -- User:Jacob1207.

Disagree. Both are huge, enclosed areas for people to live in. That's the whole reason for the reference →Raul654 23:27, Feb 13, 2004 (UTC)

I think the differences between Trantor and the Death Star are significant enough to cause confusion to those unfamiliar with Trantor (I imagine most are familiar with the Death Star). (1) The Death Star is an artificial space station while Trantor is a natural planet that has been completely built-up and (2) people live on Trantor (and just under its surface) while they live in the Death Star. -- Jacob1207

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Why the link to Retcon? Can it be included in the text? →Iñgólemo← 21:06, 2004 Aug 31 (UTC)

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The radius is listed as both "1965 km", and "two thirds" of Earth's radius. Earth's radius is about 6350 km, more than three times this value. Which is correct?--Christopher Thomas 02:53, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Trantor Size

Where did the 1,965km being ⅔ of earth come from? It seems hard to believe that Asimov, being fanatical about accuracy, would make an elementary mistake. Also, the 1,965km figure would give a total surface are of about 40m square kilometers, well under the 192m square kilometers (75,000,000 square miles) mentioned in Foundation Chap.3. In fact, even the ⅔ number (4,250km) would only just exceed the stated land area.

If the 1,965km is correct then the trantor's average density would be around 18,000kg/m³ which is a little high unless Trantor is almost solid gold! If the ⅔ figure is correct (4,250km) then the average denisty would be around 8,270kg/m³ - still pretty high compared to 5,515kg/m³ for earth.

It would be reasonable to assume that when Trantor was first settled, it was just another ordinary planet so the settlers would be looking for earth-normal size, gravity and land/water distribution.

I think I will treat the Wikipedia data has extremly dubious and continue to believe that Trantor is (will be?) an earth-like planet. Solid gold planets are best left to Slartibartfast and his business associates.

Ian

I eliminated the statement that Trantor's radius is 1965 km...

...because it contradicted the previous statment on land surface area.

--4.235.81.221 18:02, 28 June 2006 (UTC)Tim G

I thought Trantor turned into a plague world?

I seem to recall reading about a city-planet called Trantor that suffered a devastating plague so bad that the whole thing was quarantined and people were still afraid to go in two centuries later. Perhaps I am mashing two memories together, but I'm pretty sure I'm not simply insane.

Does anyone else remember anything like this? 24.118.231.95 07:59, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

--Tantor, a domed city (similar to Trantor but not on a planetary scale) was mentioned in Andre Norton's book The Last Planet. That is what I was thinking of. 24.118.231.95 09:21, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Trantor as the Second Foundation?

SPOILER WARNING
Shouldn't we make a section called "Trantor as the Second Foundation" and just put big spoiler signs in the beginning? This is important in the foundation novels. Slartibartfast1992 21:16, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Not really necessary, in my opinion, beyond maybe a single sentence or two; the planet had no real connection to the Second Foundation apart from being its home base and the target of much of its activities. JBK405 21:24, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh yeah, the home base of an organization of mind manipulating people who calculate the future is not really that important. Seriously, what are you trying to sound like? Did you think the effect of such a contradictory statement would be to shut me up? How about two paragraphs, at least? There's plenty of material: How people mistook the "opposite ends of the galaxy" thing, how they had let the Great Sack proceed so they could emerge, how they now had a world of farmers, only to name a few things. Slartibartfast1992 01:45, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, I just want some consent so that the edits I will try and add this weekend soon about Trantor being the Second Foundation are not considered vandalism. Slartibartfast1992 01:44, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'll get around to doing that soon. Slartibartfast (1992) 21:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Population

I'm confused by something here, the page states that Trantor has a population of 45 billion, but requires around twenty agricultural worlds to feed it. Earth has a population of about 7 billion, but is fully capable of feeding itself. Where in the books does it say that Trantor has such a low population, and why does it need so much food? Wallie79r (talk) 02:52, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

It is mentioned in the original Foundation Trilogy, though which book eludes me at the moment. The following is my personal opinion on the matter: I don't think that the article should be altered, even if this is a point of confusion, unless there is some verifiable source to back it up.

At the time Asimov wrote the books, global polulation and agricultural productivity were both considerably lower than they are today. Using the information currently in the article, if Trantor were to have the same population density as New York City, it would total about 2 trillion, about 800x earth's 1950 population. I think that Asimov chose 45 billion for Trantor's population in order to make an easier comparison to Earth. That would put it at about 20x the then-current population of the Earth, which is relatively easy to visualize. Regarding the 20 "agricultural" worlds, it is possible that Asimov meant that most of each planet was devoted to agriculture for export, but the 20x 1950's Earth population implies that each agricultural planet produced (or exported) roughly as much as Earth produced in 1950, assuming that people consume similar amounts of food in each case and that Trantor produced negligible food itself. As far as the story is concerend, the numbers don't matter nearly as much as the idea that Trantor had a large population that relied on constant imports to survive. From a practical perspective, the matter-to-energy technology of the Empire would have allowed for virtually unlimited hydroponics, which could have easily supported a population in the quadrillions, as is speculated for Coruscant, among other ecumenopoleis. Trantor's Mycogen sector produces and exports food in in the books, and it is not explained why other sectors don't. Perhaps the economics involved favor shipping food in from other planets, but I suspect that the setup for the story trumps other considerations. Awbreu (talk) 20:26, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I was reading something that wasn't there but I got the impression that Trantor didn't grow its own food or make things mainly because the imperial population saw such thins as beneath them.

There is another Asimov book I seem to remember where people abandon space and turn Earth into a world spanning city. - They use the oceans as farms and live in vast multi-story 'hives' or 'hills', I seem to remember the quote that the earth is supporting some 27 or 30 billion (near its maximum carrying limit). Another similar world spanning city was written by (I think) Harry Harrison, and there might have been one in the Lensman series, cant remember. - Lucien86 (talk) 14:01, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Trantor's food needs

The w/u currently reads:

To support the needs and whims of the population, food from twenty agricultural worlds brought by ships in the tens of thousands, fleets greater than any navy ever constructed by the Empire. "Its dependence upon the outer worlds for food and, indeed, for all necessities of life, made Trantor increasingly vulnerable to conquest by siege. In the last millennium of the Empire, the monotonously numerous revolts made Emperor after Emperor conscious of this, and Imperial policy became little more than the protection of Trantor's delicate jugular vein..."

However, I do remember in one of the later books Asimov states this is an "urban legend". A character in the book quips about the fleet of ships bringing in all the food something along the lines "and the story is made better if the ships haul in the food and haul out the crap." In the later foundation book it's revealed Trantor is reasonably self sufficient in food production, producing large amounts of algae in caves were are processed into food. Anyway, an addition to the w/u if someone wants to track the quotes down. Mindme (talk) 14:12, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually google books provides the [1] exact quote from Prelude to Foundation. Mindme (talk) 14:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Remove no ref tag

Put in multiple references. Mindme (talk) 18:39, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Food Production/Tik Toks/second Foundation trilogy - should be clearly labelled.

I think the reference to the TikToks (among others) should be more clearly labelled as being from the second Foundation Trilogy, since it is NOT written by Asimov himself. (Note: I don't know how the second trilogy is treated with regard to being canon, and I admit I didn't like it. I thought it didn't fit in, especially the idea about robots in a world that doesn't know the word robot. That's why I think this should be clarified.)--Cyberman TM (talk) 05:34, 15 March 2015 (UTC)