In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's

Lots and lots of characters in the Harry Potter books have alliterative names (Severus Snape, Peter Pettigrew, Godric Gryffindor, Stan Shunpike, to name but a few). Is there a complete list of such characters? OK, this is a list question, but it has a finite scope: I want a list of all characters in the 10 books - the main series, Fantastic Beasts , Quidditch Through the Ages , and Tales of Beedle (not counting films, fanfics, or whatever else is out there) - whose first and last names begin with the same letter (to make clear what definition of 'alliterative' I'm using). Answer Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Dudley Dursley Minerva McGonagall Poppy Pomfrey (full name in book 3) Piers Polkiss Marlene McKinnon (full name in Book 5) Bathilda Bagshot Vindictus Viridian Quirinus Quirrell (full name from pottermore) Dedalus Diggle William Arthur (Bill) Weasley (full name in book 7) Gellert Grindelwald (full name in book 7) Bertie Bott Gregory Goyle Morag M

I was wondering what the average lifespan of a human (not in a red shirt!) is in the 23rd Century (TOS)? Answer As per a quick search on Memory Alpha : The average Human life span had gradually increased during their history. the average life spans during the 22nd century was about 100 years (ENT: "Observer Effect"). This average age was still roughly the same during the 2250, but had risen to 120 by the mid-24th century. However, at some point in history the average lifespan for Humans was only 35, and by 1999 it had become higher than a millennium earlier. (ENT: "Similitude", VOY: "11:59"). Leonard McCoy had by 2364 reached the age of 137. (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint"). So the average human lifespan had increased from what we currently have today by the 23rd century. For more information on other specie's lifespans, click the link I have provided to Memory Alpha.

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.

I'm looking for a book I read in the 90's...it was about an experiment a couple decided to do on their child to make him smarter. I think the child ended up being too smart or something but I remember it getting kind of scary...his brain got bigger and bigger. I know I'm being vague but I was really young when I read it and it was way too advanced for me but I'm trying to find it!