History Main / DilatingDoor

** ''Series/StargateAtlantis'': The prisoner cells on Wraith Hiveships are web-like doors that disappear into the walls when opened.

** ''Series/StargateAtlantis'': Inside the Wraith Hiveship are organic doors inside folds into the walls automatically when someone comes near them.

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Outside of this wiki, "Dilating door" is science fiction FanSpeak for the more general trope that we call "CoolButInefficient". This is a reference to Heinlein's advice that you could evoke a futuristic air by casually throwing out details like "the door dilated", as if such things were nothing to really notice.

** Its appearance in Fallout 4 is actually a callback to the [[spoiler: previous]] Mechanist's Lair from ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'', which had a very similar seven layer door.

-->-- ''Literature/BeyondThisHorizon'' by Creator/RobertAHeinlein

* ''Fanfic/RocketshipVoyager''. While the eponymous rocketship has manually-operated hatches, the cube-ship of the Psiborg Collective has dilating doors. At one point a SpaceMarine uses his atomic burner to [[ThereWasADoor make the door deliquesce as well]].

* ''Film/TheAtomicSubmarine'' (1959). A crewman gets crushed when his arm is caught as he tries to dive through the DilatingDoor as it closes. So in this case it was a Contracting Door.

* Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/BeyondThisHorizon'' had a dilating door. There was probably one in ''Literature/{{Friday}}'' as well (it said "the door contracted").

* ''Film/TheAtomicSubmarine'' (1960). A crewman gets crushed when his arm is caught as he tries to dive through the DilatingDoor as it closes. So in this case it was a Contracting Door.

-->-- '''Literature/BeyondThisHorizon''' by Creator/RobertAHeinlein

* The doors on the industrial ship in ''Anime/GhostInTheShell: Innocence'' don't make any sense. They consists of four squared panels fixed to two hinges on each side of the doorframe at middle height which are tilted sideways and into the walls. However, it [[RuleOfCool looks quite cool]] when Batou charges through the corridors and every 15 meters one of these opens just a split second before he reaches it.

* In the ''Literature/DoctorWhoNewAdventures'' novel ''Legacy'' by Gary Russell, the Doctor and Benny travel to Pelanore on a Martian ambassadorial cruiser that uses a "refractive molecular arranger" to make the door simply disappear on command (and their guide apologises that there are still a few flecks of door material in the space). Ace, meanwhile, is travelling to Pakha on a UsedFuture tramp ship with sliding doors that keep getting stuck.

* Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium has a retractable roof that opens and closes by sliding eight triangular pieces on rails back and forth so that the opening that is made dilates like an iris. The stadium opened in 2017 (though it would be another year before the roof itself was finished). Previous stadiums with retractable roofs usually moved the one or two pieces to the side like a sliding door.

* ''The Guns of Pluto'' by Creator/AllenSteele opens with Literature/CaptainFuture making his entrance through an airlock's "sphincter door", making it sound like the hero has been used for an AssShove.