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Tractor Beam: Difference between revisions
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[[File:TractorBeam.jpg|frame|link=http://www.lab-initio.com/index.html]]
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]].▼
▲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|Alien Abductions]] use this as the means of abduction--a small tractor beam just big enough to pull one human. Of course, that kind tends to run in reverse as well.▼
▲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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* ''[[Star Wars]]'' universe.
** It's what pulls the Millennium Falcon into the Death Star in ''[[Star Wars|A New Hope]]''. [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tractor_beam Tractor beams] and ways to get out of them appear regularly in the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]].
** In [[The Thrawn Trilogy]], Luke got out of one by dropping a hastily reprogrammed proton torpedo, letting it get drawn up by the tractor beam to destroy its projector, and doing something unorthodox with his engines at the same time. Later in the trilogy he's caught again and escapes by making an empty freighter explode into a cloud of highly reflective particles, breaking the lock despite the operator's best efforts. Thrawn did not [[You Have Failed Me...|kill that operator]], since he made a novel effort, and instead tasked him to find out how to counter that kind of trick. And evidentally he did; it doesn't work in the [[Hand of Thrawn]] duology.
** The [[X Wing Series]] makes it clear that if a ship tractors something with a larger mass, the ship is pulled towards that mass instead of the other way around. In ''Wraith Squadron'', Wedge uses this to move a ship without giving off drive emissions.
* The 1977 ''Star Wars'' [[Parody]] short ''[[Hardware Wars]]'' has one, of course -- and like the page image, it involves an actual tractor.
* ''[[Spaceballs]]'' has one of these, too (called a "magnetic beam" in the film).
* In ''[[Austin Powers]]: Goldmember'', both Goldmember and Dr. Evil came up with designs for a tractor beam to allow them to pull in an asteroid down to Earth. Dr. Evil calls his "Preparation H", as Preparations A-G were unsuccessful.
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* One of the functions of effectors in [[Iain M Banks|Iain M. Banks']] ''[[The Culture|Culture]]'' novels.
* [[Rudyard Kipling]], in the [[Older Than Television|1912]] short story ''As Easy as ABC'', featured an effect referred to as a "flying loop." When a woman tried to commit suicide to make a political point, the "loop" yanked the knife out of her hand:
{{quote|
** [[John Brunner]] stated he believed this to be the first-ever use of the tractor beam concept.
* Mentioned and used several times in [[Alan Dean Foster]]'s ''[[Humanx Commonwealth]]'' [[Space Opera]] series.
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* [[They Might Be Giants]]: "The Bee of the Bird of the Moth":
{{quote|
Of the hypnotizing tractor beam presenting a production... }}
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* They appear in the ''[[Space Empires]]'' series, along with their opposites, Repulsor Beams.
* One of the gadgets in ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]: [[Ratchet and Clank Going Commando|Going Commando]]''. It only works on objects with a special marking.
* The final Bowser level of ''[[Super Mario Galaxy]]'' has tractor beams that pull you from one planet to the next, but a Launch Star is actually used to get from the second-to-last planet to the one you fight Bowser himself on.
** In ''[[Super Mario Galaxy 2]]'' however, tractor beams are now produced by large doors (which can only be opened by smashing meteorites into it) leading to the planet you fight Bowser on at the end of all three Bowser levels.
* The War Blimp boss in ''[[Heavy Weapon]]'' has a "Meteor Tractor Beam", it makes meteors rain on you shortly after it is fired.
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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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[[Category:Tropes in Space]]
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:
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