Talk:List of Foundation series characters/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Note to anyone intending on splitting off a section

This page has been processed by N-Bot, which, for browsing convenience, changes links to redirects to lists to links to the relevant list sections: e.g. [[Lewis Pirenne]] is changed to [[List of minor Foundation universe characters#Dr Lewis Pirenne|Lewis Pirenne]].

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Lord Dorwin and the Origin Question

I don't think it's obvious that Earth is the Origin Planet, only based on the Calendar.

1st: the Galactic Standard Day is 86400 seconds, and by Year 20000 or so tidal friction would have increased Earth's Day by something like 0.3 seconds - and since most planets had periods from 22 to 26 hours, there would be about 2000 other planets whose period would be a better fit than Earth.

Just curious: What's the line of reasoning here, either for the 0.3 sec [seems kinda small...], or the 2000 number? Jmacwiki (talk) 04:34, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

2nd: it seems unlikely that leap years would still exist in Galactic Years, making them last 365 days. Again, this would not fit Earth's Year.

But of course all this is not important, because the simplest explanation is that the list of stars does not correspond to the same stars that we know. Arcturus and Sirius aren't nice places to get habitable planets. Albmont 01:32, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Quite true. In one of the books [probably the one with Dorwin], Asimov writes that virtually all inhabited planets had roughly similar orbital (year) and rotational (day) periods. This was taken to suggest that humans came from a single planet, because they would have physiological reasons for selecting planets that roughly matched the single, original planet in those parameters. But it was not regarded as definitive, and it definitely did not single out a particular planet as the original one -- after all, virtually EVERY settled planet had just those values of the periods, to within a few percent. Jmacwiki (talk) 04:34, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Organization

Things done

~~Added more minor Characters from the first 3 cchapters of Foundation~~
~~Alphabetized character names.~~
~~Linked each character to book and chapter as such Name [Book] (Segment Title) Information.~~ Nw15062 (talk) 15:25, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
~~Added Reference list, as well as references to Foundation Series Novels.~~ Nw15062 (talk) 16:17, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

I requested a move because the list is only of characters in the series; another related series (Robot series) has its own character list, and potiential to have a separate list for the Empire Series. Any comments? —Scouter Sig 16:16, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

What's the basis for "Foundation Series" being a proper name (i.e. capitalized)? I don't think I've ever heard it officially used as such. --DocumentN (talk) 17:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Point— the parent article is Foundation series. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 17:08, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh; I guess I got caps happy. Lower-case it should be. —Scouter Sig 17:59, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Retitle

I removed the word "minor" from the title thus moving it. Many of the characters are decidedly not minor as far as the story goes. --Phyllis1753 (talk) 17:43, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Right: So now we have a page whose title suggests it's relatively complete but utterly excludes some of the MAJOR characters! This was a blunder.

There is a difference between primary characters -- of either the series (Hari Seldon, maybe Eto Demerzel, Dors Venabili, ...) or the individual stories (Salvor Hardin, Hober Mallow, etc.) -- and secondary ones. If the page needed retitling, "List of Secondary Foundation series characters" would have been a far better choice.

Not to be confused with list of Second Foundation characters. That being said, why can't we include a summary on Hari Seldon with a see further link? revaluation 23:24, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

So when are you planning to insert short descriptions for all of the missing major characters, now that the new title promises this? Jmacwiki (talk) 15:20, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Lord Dorwin's name

The article currently asserts that Dorwin's name is based on Darwin's. This is a factual (real-universe) statement. It should therefore have a reference. Who said it was based on Darwin? (Asimov himself? someone else? when? where/to whom?) How can we verify this claim? Jmacwiki (talk) 20:54, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Wienis' name

Is this guy's name, by any chance, an intended dick joke? Stonemason89 (talk) 17:03, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Where is Gaal Dornick?

He was the first character in Foundation! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.19.3.208 (talk) 01:45, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Very good question. I will add him. Flaviusvulso (talk) 00:11, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Lord Dorwin

There seems to be original research and personal opinion in the section on Lord Dorwin. I don't have the books handy but here is what I remember:

"Chancellor of the Galactic Empire": I don't think so. I may be mistaken, but that reads like the highest office under the Emperor (I'm reminded of Brodrig), not one of many officers, and I'm sure Dorwin is not so high as that, or he wouldn't be on this minor (to the Empire, though mistakenly, per Salvor Hardin) mission.
"(possibly bogus) status as an aristocrat": This is pure opinion. Nothing suggests he is anything but a nobleman who is representing the Emperor.
"intragalactic diplomat": "intragalactic" is pure addition. He is a diplomat. If the Empire had had occasion to negotiate extragalactically, based on his performance in the story, Dorwin would have been a good choice.
"he claims to have an interest in science": Nothing suggests this is only a "claim". He has an interest in science. He is not a good scientist, per Hardin, but that's a different question.
"Dorwin is a reference to Darwin" is opinion, even though clever; thanks, Jmacwiki.

I think this section needs editing, but I'm posting these points because there could be disagreement. Zaslav (talk) 05:14, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

I have made appropriate changes. Zaslav (talk) 00:38, 27 August 2018 (UTC)