August 04, 2023

Open Thread 136

It's time once again for our regular Open Thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't Culture War.

Comments

August 18, 2023Bernd said...
Bit of a random question, but when did the word "dreadnought" fall out of use to describe battleships? It seems like it was considered unfashionable by the time of the inter-war naval treaties, and was revived in science fiction sometime in the... 80s?
August 18, 2023bean said...
I'm pretty sure it was in the early 20s, when it stopped being useful because the pre-dreadnoughts were retired under the Washington Naval Treaty.
August 20, 2023John Schilling said...
@Bernd: I'm not sure the term "dreadnought" ever really left use in the realm of science fiction. E.E. Smith was including dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts in his "Lensman" series into the 1950s; to be fair, he started his literary career when the term was still of technical relevance in real-world naval affairs. I can't recall any specific examples from the 1960s, but Franz Joseph's "Star Fleet Technical Manual" posited a Federation "Dreadnought" class in 1975.

At that point, usage took off because a substantial number of authors and game designers preferred to work in the established, popular "Star Trek" universe, but with rather more kinetic warfighting than Gene Roddenberry had envisioned.
August 21, 2023Anonymous said...
John Schilling:

[...]Franz Joseph's "Star Fleet Technical Manual" posited a Federation "Dreadnought" class in 1975.

It was actually the Federation class Dreadnought.