Tractor Beam: Difference between revisions
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Classic [[Applied Phlebotinum]] found on many, many space ships in fiction. At the press of a button, a beam of light comes out of the ship and sucks in anything in its reach. Occasionally used to move things already on the ship, too. The '''Tractor Beam''' thus allows space travellers to capture enemy ships, travel to the surface of planets, and [[Aliens Steal Cattle|steal the farmer's cows]].
Many stories with [[Alien Abduction
Not to be confused with [[Weapons That Suck]].
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== Live Action TV ==
* Used as a large scale, multipurpose tool in the ''[[Star Trek]]'' series. Except on ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise|Enterprise]]'', where grappling-cables are used instead.
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'': the TARDIS has one, first (certainly in the new series, anyway) used in "The Satan Pit", probably because a phone box pulling a massive spaceship looks very weird. Later used on a planet, which was weirder. In the original series it had one in ''The Creature from the Pit'', but that story was the only time it was ever mentioned.
* ''[[Farscape]]'': The Flax, a tractor net designed to capture ships for destruction and salvage by pirates.
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* One of the functions of gravitic technology in ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' is to act like this, usually referred to putting a ship in a "tractor-bubble" or "tractor-lock".
* Robot #1 in ''[[The Easy Breather]]'' uses a tractor beam to [http://easybreather.comicgenesis.com/d/20080919.html pull Ant Woman into its cargo hold].
* [[Wikipedia
== Western Animation ==
* The animated show ''[[Galaxy High]]'' once showed this with a [[Visual Pun]]: a beam with a farm tractor at the end.
*
* Spoofed in just about every alien abduction episode of ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]''. In one, the tractor beam isn't strong enough to lift Homer and they end up having to use two. In another, Marge is hit with what looks like a tractor beam... and then a lasso drops down instead and yanks her into the flying saucer.
* In ''[[Recess]]: School's Out'', the villain's plan is to aim the tractor beam at the moon to redirect its orbit causing a global ice age, eliminating summer vacations and forcing kids to study indoors making test scores go up.
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