Have the Borg ever assimilated a non-sapient species? Perhaps the equivalent of a large land mammal or a rodent or something of that sort? Answer No, I can`t recall a time when they would ever assimilate anything like that, because the Borg discriminate in the sense that they will assimilate a species only if they can provide a technological or biological use to the Borg. A good example of this would be the Kazon from Star Trek: Voyager who, even though they were more advanced than any run of the mill species, were deemed unworthy of assimilation.

In mainline continuity, is it possible for a Green Lantern ring to be removed without the wearer's consent (e.g. by slight of hand or brute force)? The reason I bring this up is that an odd situation of this occurred in All Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder #9 (infamously remembered as the issue where Batman and Robin painted their bodies and house yellow). Robin manages to steal Hal Jordan's Green Lantern ring without him realizing it. This seems a bit strange to me, as I would have figured that this would be a pretty big weakness for a Green Lantern to be able to have their ring removed so easily, much less without the wielder even being aware that it was removed. Since the series is outside of the normal DC Universe continuity, I'm not sure if this is something that was invented for the series or if it is an established weakness. Are there instances in mainline continuity in which the Green Lantern ring has been removed without the wearer's consent? Or is this s

Some setup is necessary before I can get to asking my question. In Ken MacLeod's Newton's Wake , FTL is possible. There is a form of chronology protection: Say ye try tae send a signal intae the past, or your ship’s course mucks about too much wi the light-cone consistency conditions. Ye’ll find the transmitter disnae work, or your course takes longer or goes a different way than you plotted it, or – as the saying goes – she was never your grandmother in the first place. Chronology protection is leveraged in a combat scene to win a battle: The other two friendly ships, having diverged, were again converging. Another of the enemy ships fittled [went FTL]. The Stanley Blade ’s and the Small Arrangement ’s trajectories instantly halted. The enemy appeared, as it seemed on this scale, right beside them, and as rapidly was destroyed. ‘Ya beauty!’ yelled Lucinda. ‘What happened there?’ Armand asked. ‘Chronology Protection trap. It came out of the jump just too far away to hit them, a

I was wondering if astromech droids (like R2-D2) could fully control any unmanned ship they're mounted in. Answer Yes We see R2 pilot Mace Windu's Jedi Starfighter in "R2 Come Home", an episode of The Clone Wars Not only does he do some pretty fancy flying (surviving a dogfight with Slave I ), he docks with a hyperspace ring and flies all the way to Coruscant. He also flies a Y-Wing bomber in "Nomad Droids", a later episode, and even blows up some vulture droids:

I understand that the first time that the Watcher shows up in the comics is in the Fantastic Four to warn about Galactus, but he is involved throughout several events in the Marvel Universe (such as Civil War). There is also the running gag that Stan Lee is secretly playing that character since he is playing some sort of non-important character in every movie. That all being said, with Galactus, the Silver Surfer and the Fantastic Four being owned by another studio, and the Watcher often being tied to those properties, which studio owns the rights to Uatu? Answer Updated answer: In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 , we see Stan Lee conversing with three Watchers. His character is credited as " Watcher Informant ," confirming who the characters are meant to be. This means that Marvel Studios likely either already held the rights to the race, or made a deal similar to the one they used to acquire Ego's rights from Fox .

As far as I remember, from around the forth book in Wheel of Time , Rand begins to hear and have conversations with a voice in his head that he believes to be that of Lews Therin Telamon -- the Dragon. This seems to stop in The Gathering Storm after he has a bit of a tantrum, and had stopped in an earlier novel for a period when again (if I recall correctly) "Lews Therin" was scared by Cadsuane. So was he actually talking with himself from a past life, or is it the taint?

I remember a chapter book for middle school aged kids, I don't remember much about it but what I do remember is a girl attends a magic boarding school, I think there is a shapeshifter involved, like a student or something. All I remember is at the end there are multiple dimensions and the version of herself in that dimension dies but another lives? And there is some evil involved. The cover art is yellow, with a brown haired girl and bubbles all around her that contain images. Please help me, I can't for the life of me remember what this book is called!! It was definitely English, either American or British.

I distinctly remember that when I read Lord of the Rings , there was a passage told from the point of view of an orc (although obviously still told in the third person). I think the orc was complaining about how things would turn out if they lost the war, or thinking about how things changed since Sauron came back - something to do with acquiring food - but I am not quite sure. I looked for it online for a while now, but couldn't find any mention of it. I looked through the books themselves but couldn't find it either. Where in the Lord of the Rings was the passage told from the perspective of an orc? Answer The internal thoughts of orcs are never described in the LotR. However, several dialogues between orcs are "overheard" by hobbits (Pippin when he and Merry are being carried to Isengard, Sam in Cirith Ungol). Those allow us a glimpse into the orcs' experience of the war. In particular, Shagrat and Gorbag, two company leaders (one from Cirith Ungol, one from

The madder the Hulk gets, the stronger and more powerful he becomes. Could he eventually become mad enough to break adamantium? I've seen a couple of cartoons where it is Hulk vs Wolverine. These typically seem to end in a stalemate. But shouldn't the Hulk be able to keep increasing in strength until he reaches a point where Wolverine's skeleton could be shattered? Additionally, in the Ultimate Avengers Movie, the Hulk becomes angry enough to be able to lift Thor's hammer. Answer It depends on what form of adamantium . Adamantium typically, is almost impossible to destroy or fracture . From Marvel's background information on Adamantium : Although True Adamantium was thought to be indestructible, there are at least two known examples of the alloy within the Earth-616 reality sustaining damage without molecular manipulation. The first involved Thor focusing all of his strength into striking a small cylinder of adamantium with Mjolnir, which only slightly dented. Th

It seems to be one of the major differences between DC and Marvel. Where the Marvel comics are set in New York, LA ... etc., DC uses fictional cities like Metropolis, Gotham and Star City. Was this a conscious decision from the start?

I've never fired a weapon but the design of Star Trek Phasers looks a little bit strange and uncomfortable to me (not the rifles though). If we account for the no recoil effect of particle weapons and looking at the designs for Phasers for different eras of Star Trek, how easy would it be to hold and fire those phasers as compared with real fire arms of today? Does it resembles some kind of realistic approach or they are just made that way to look fancy? Answer Having been paid to shoot and teach shooting for several years... As Tritium21 points out, very much about the way we handle projectile weapons is based on two things: The stability and intuitive position required to aim the weapon The stability required to recover from firing (whether that means maneuver to acquire a second, cover oneself from harm after loosing a shot, or recovering from recoil to line up a second shot) This is true in one way or another all the way from darts to throwing knives to javelins to atlatls

I read a short story (I think, but it might have been a novel), where most races discover a very easy way to travel faster than light at a certain point in their technological development. What I remember: The guys in wooden ships bounced around subjugating the people without FTL travel. Earth had never figured out the FTL, and so had poured its effort in a different path, achieving present day technology. The aliens were freaking out about handing the humans FTL travel. The story was told from the point of view of the aliens. I read it in the last 10 years, but there is no telling how old it actually was, although I do remember them mentioning F-18s or F-14s. Answer I believe you are referring to the Harry Turtledove novelette: " The Road Not Taken ", first published in Analog , 1985. "The Road Not Taken" posits that the secret of interstellar travel is an absurdly simple technological concept (so much so that it seems obvious in retrospect, like the wheel), and

I'm trying to recall the name of a book about a girl who figures out she has magical musical abilities attributing to fairies. When her and her band of rock-playing fairies perform, the audience seems to be under a spell. There is eventually a battle between good and evil. It must be a YA science-fiction book.

Did James and Lily Potter christen Harry "Harry" or "Henry"? I don't recall him ever being referred to as Henry in either the books or the movies, but (in the UK, at least) it would be odd for a boy to actually be named Harry, as it's normally the informal form for Henry. Has JK Rowling said anything about this? Answer There's no evidence that his real name is Henry. Throughout the book he is always called Harry. And his official O.W.L results address him as Harry. Harry James Potter has achieved Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Chapter 5 As this is an official document, it's almost certain that it would use his legal/official name (as evidenced by the inclusion of his middle name). So his name is just Harry, not Henry. As pointed out by ratchet freak in the comments, this also happens during his trial in The Order of the Phoenix . It was a square silver badge with Harry Potter, Disciplinary Hearing on it. Harry Potter and the Order of the

I remember reading a book some 30 years ago (late 1980s) about an experiment to transform a man for space travel. He basically became a gargoyle with thick grey skin and small wings for gliding. The plot was very similar to the Netflix original movie The Titan . Does anyone have a lead on this?

Is there any canon instance where Princess Diana of Themyscira (aka Wonder Woman)'s " Lasso of Truth " has ever snapped? Or is it truly indestructible? Answer It has been snapped on several occasions, notably by Bizarro Superman in " Batman/Superman/WonderWoman : Trinity " and by Rama Khan in " Golden Perfect " She also breaks it (deliberately) in the alt-universe story " Superman : Red Son #2 "

This is a follow on from a prior question , to get some details on the "S" symbol. Prior to the 1978 Superman movie the "S" Symbol had no fixed source. However, it is stated that ' it was Marlon Brando's idea to have Jor-El wear the same "S" symbol on his clothes that Kal-El would later wear as Superman '. With Brando being the highest paid actor in the movie, and exerting a lot of control over the creative process, is there any record of why he wanted to wear the symbol or is it just a case of an actor wanting to wear the iconic Superman crest and using their control to do so?

Why did everyone believe that if Sauron reclaimed the One Ring the world would succumb to him, just like that? Didn't he already fail twice in attempts at world domination, and once even while wearing the One Ring? Answer Elrond and Boromir (at the Council of Elrond) lay out a few good reasons why it's imperative that Sauron's ring is destroyed now ; He'll just keep coming back His Ring was lost but not unmade. The Dark Tower was broken, but its foundations were not removed; for they were made with the power of the Ring, and while it remains they will endure. The Alliance that defeated him the last time is now totally untenable Many Elves and many mighty Men, and many of their friends. had perished in the war. Anárion was slain, and Isildur was slain; and Gil-galad and Elendil were no more. Never again shall there be any such league of Elves and Men; for Men multiply and the Firstborn decrease, and the two kindreds are estranged. And ever since that day the race of N

OK, first of all, my Harry Potter knowledge is a bit rusty so I may be forgetting something. In The Half-Blood Prince Dumbledore made Snape kill him (I know he was going to die anyway) so he could gain Voldemort's trust. In The Deathly Hallows , his portrait instructs Snape to provide Voldemort with the correct date on which Harry was to be moved, again, to gain Voldemort's trust. Why did Dumbledore want a spy in Voldemort's inner circle so badly? Would anything have been different if Snape had not been in Voldemort's inner circle? Answer He was invaluable as a spy. As a double (triple, quadruple) agent, Snape served two purposes: As an Order agent in Voldemort's ranks, he could pass information about Voldemort's plans to Dumbledore and the Order. Since Voldemort believed him to be a spy for him in the Order's ranks, he could pass false information about the Order's plans to Voldemort. Both of these are extremely important roles in espionage. The se

In the sixth book Harry summons Kreacher (and Dobby comes too) when he's in the hospital wing after he was hit by the bludger. Crack and then they just were there. Is this just a mistake in the book? Answer Yes, house-elves are able to Apparate inside of Hogwarts. In Chamber of Secrets Dobby Apparates in and out of the hospital wing when Harry is regrowing the bones in his arm. ‘Dobby must go!’ breathed the elf, terrified; there was a loud crack, and Harry’s fist was suddenly clenched on thin air. He slumped back into bed, his eyes on the dark doorway to the hospital wing as the footsteps drew nearer. Chamber of Secrets - Page 134 - British Hardcover In Half-Blood Prince , Dobby and Kreacher are both shown Apparating in the chapter where Harry asks Kreacher to tail Draco Malfoy. House-elf magic is different than Wizarding magic. I'd give you another example of a house-elf being able to Apparate under conditions that a witch or wizard cannot, but I know you have not read De

This was a book I loved reading and it was done in the style that you made choices of how to do things and then turn page to see what would happen. It had some beautiful illustrations, but for the life of me I can't remember the name. Also you could die and much of the flora and fauna were dangerous. If anyone could think of what it was, I would greatly appreciate it. Answer It might be " Can you survive on an Alien Planet? " By David Fickling. It has never been published on its own but appeared in the collection Planetfall (ed. Douglas Arthur Hill) . It is a choose-your-own adventure story featuring full-color illustrations on most of the pages, and tells the story of an astronaut crash-landing on a planet called Abthaze, claimed to be the most dangerous planet in the galaxy. In the beginning of the story, you are instructed to choose just three pieces of gear to bring with you from your crashed ship, which may or may not help you along the way. You encounter a number

Can anybody identify a short story about the last two men on Earth? The first part of the story occurs in the years before humanity began colonizing other worlds. One man was an evil mass-murdering megalomaniac who was defeated in a huge war that costs tens of millions of lives. He escaped justice and defeat at the last minute by hiding in a hibernation chamber to wait a few centuries to emerge. However, due to a malfunction, he did not emerge until hundreds of millions of years later. The second part occurs millions of years later after humanity has spread throughout the entire galaxy. A single government oversees the entire collection of human inhabited worlds. One man, who is extremely ethical, comes up with an alternative system of government. Because he is a threat to the current powers that be, he is tried and exiled. His exile is to be displaced into the far future. He chooses to live out his exile on an Earth that is no longer inhabited. The third part occurs back on Earth in t

I'm pretty sure the title was "T". It's about an alien race at war with humans. They decide to end the human race by destroying Earth before humans evolve. They send some humans through space and back in time to do the job. I think the humans have single letter names (A, B, C, etc) They have raised/cloned the humans just for the job and to save space in their ships they have only a head, a body and one arm. Most don't make it. The aliens don't know that there were 2 more planets in the past and they count the planets in from Pluto. One human hits a planet and completely destroys it and T hits a glancing blow and just breaks up his target forming the asteroid belt. Answer This is Brian Aldiss's " T " from 1956. Amazon Review : `T' (1956) (7 pages) 3.75/5 (Good): In the distant future a strange alien mutant with one arm is breed to navigate an interstellar missile. Pumped with nutrients and subjected to periodic propaganda, it steers its dead

In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets , Hermione, Colin Creevey, Sir Nicholas, Mrs. Norris, and others became petrified because they saw the Basilisk through something else - with the exception of Sir Nicholas who looked directly at it but could not die again. Hermione and Mrs. Norris had both seen it through a reflection and Colin had seen it through his camera, so what would happen to someone wearing glasses? Would that person die because he or she saw it directly or simply become petrified because he or she had seen it through something else? Answer JK Rowling answered this in an interview with Edinburgh “cub” reporters in 2005 (emphasis mine): If you see a basilisk and you are wearing glasses, will they protect you? And if they do, why did Moaning Myrtle die, and if they don't, why not? That is a really good question. And I have been asked that before. I had to decide the glasses couldn't protect you. I just had to, because obviously there would be quite a few peo

In Errand of Mercy , Captain Kirk says to the Organian council members, "I'm a soldier, not a diplomat," at about 9:20 (also, transcript here ). This seems very much at odds with depictions of Starfleet as having primarily a mission of exploration and diplomacy, and with several clear statements in TOS and TNG about Starfleet being very much a non-military organization, some of which have been discussed on this site. It appears that this was very much an official concept, originating with Gene Roddenberry himself. If so, how did a line like that end up in Captain Kirk's mouth? Answer The United Federation of Planets not a military organization, and it's true that the primary mission of the Enterprise is of exploration and investigation. However, I think it's clear that Starfleet is at least partly a military organization, and the crew of the ships that make up Starfleet as military personnel, regardless of how its Public Relations department tries to spin

I read a trilogy about 10 years ago, and I can remember a lot of the plot, but have no idea the name of the book or the author, so any help would be appreciated. The plot from what I believe is the first book is below: It starts with a man who wakes up with no memory of who he is or where he is from. I believe there is a talking crow there to greet him too. He goes to a city and gets in a fight, and so he is put to death, but a princess says that she will marry him to save him. She has scars on her face and also turns into a psychopath and tries to kill him regularly due to a madness she gets. He gets sent beyond the walls to help against an attack from some tribesmen who wear human skin as a way to show their kills. He does well in battle. He gets sent on a quest to try and fix his wife's madness, although I can't think of the details. He completes this task and says that he wishes that his wife has what she wants most taken away but when he gets back she is still mad but her

There are 4 friends: 2 girls and 2 boys who play video games. A virus program escapes and, with the help of a programmer boy, transforms the world into a video game. But a good program in a white robe turns the four of them into video game characters to save the world. The evil virus mostly looked like The Tick from the cartoon "The Tick". Big strong guy with muscles but in red spandex. Little head without antenas with BIG chin and evil mustache. One hero is the typical blonde girl who can scream loudly with a microphone or headphones. The other chick was shorter, more a grumpy type and with her big metal boots she was able to rock / shake the ground. There was also a funny white boy with red hair, he was a cyber archer. And their black-skinned friend, a typical tech guy with maybe one laser eye. The transformed world has always had a theme: a swamp, a volcano, space, a cyber city, a sewer, once a pinball machine, and so on. For some game points they were able to summon diffe

I read this story in the mid/late 90's, and I believe it was in a Sci-Fi anthology or a magazine (such as Asimov ), so it's possibly much older. Unfortunately, the only details I remember are very generic, so Google searches haven't been terribly helpful; it all centers around a specific scene, which I believe is near the end of the story. Each piece I can remember is a concept which is present in numerous stories/movies/games, which further leads me to believe that this is much older than the 90's. I remember that humans are at war with a hive-minded alien species, and this species initially stomps human fleets in virtually every battle. Because they're a hive mind, they are perfectly unified in strategy, politics, and scientific research. At the end, it's revealed that this race is doomed to lose, because it's unified. Humans are constantly fighting, so our strategies quickly adapted to the enemy's, and we were able to rapidly reverse-engineer the al

As the best starfighter pilot in the galaxy, does Poe enjoy the privilege of a technically more advanced X-Wing model or at least the freedom to modify it? Is it technically different from stock X-Wings of the period?

We all knew from ANH that Leia was on a mission to bring Obi-Wan to Alderaan. Now, in Rogue One we saw Mon asking Bail Organa to call "his jedi friend". Since Yoda always took a position of leadership both among the Jedi Order and among the Republic, shouldn't the Alliance have called for him, instead of Obi-Wan? Bail also knew that Yoda was in hiding, they meet together at the end of Episode III. I realize that Yoda is in hiding so the Emperor and Vader would not feel his presence. Also, I know he said to Obi-Wan: Yoda: Until the time is right disappear, we will. Meaning they would stay in hiding until it was time to train Luke. But, since you are already going to call for a Jedi for help, why Obi-Wan and not Yoda? Or even both? Answer Bail Organa has a close relationship with Obi-Wan. She was on the same wavelength as him. Obi-Wan Kenobi had been a faithful friend long before he’d become one of the galaxy’s most hunted fugitives. Bail didn’t want to disturb the ma

I remember a story where public offices were filled not by candidates running, but by selection, similar to jury duty. Does this ring any bells?

I read a book nearly twenty years ago when I was in Jr high. What I remember is a man traveling around with a teenage girl, (nothing twisted) in a camper I think, and there were these weird blocks of fog or mist. I believe there may have been a dog also. It was a novel in English. I believe it was written in the 70's or 80's. I remember a part in the book where two blocks of the fog got stuck right where a woman's house was. The man and girls stopped there for the night. I remember the girl didn't talk much. That's about all I can remember. I don't even remember the story behind what caused the fog and I really want to reread the book. Answer It's a long stretch, but it's possible you're thinking of Gordon R. Dickson's Time Storm from one of the reviews on the Amazon link above:     Gordon Dickson's "Time Storm", first published in 1977, is an excellent post-apocalyptic novel concerning the catastrophic after effects caused by on-

In Star Trek: The Next Generation , Season 6, Episode 20 ( "The Chase" ), we find out some genetic components were seeded throughout the Alpha Quadrant by an ancient race of beings, known in canon as "ancient humanoids" . The holographic message which is played depicts a being which looks strikingly similar to the Founders / Changelings who rule the Gamma Quadrant's Dominion in Deep Space Nine . In fact, the voice was so similar I had to look up the actress and sure enough Salome Jens played both roles. If memory serves, the ancient alien in "The Chase" said they knew they would not survive forever and seeded the genetic material to leave a legacy. There was no hint the race was actually dying and could have continued for a very long time after the seeding took place. They would have had plenty of time to spread into other quadrants. In DS9 , the female changeling explained their race had once been like the solids but that they'd evolved. It seems

Every so often, there's an episode of Star Trek involving time travel, and more often than not, the "rules" seem to change from episode to episode. For example, Future's End , Braxton explains that they're all caught in a causality loop, which they break out of at the end of the episode. Then, in Timeless , Kim sends back a transmission and alters the past (he does this multiple times, in fact, and the signals seem to not conflict). In the film First Contact , it's plausible that the Phoenix only flew because the Enterprise showed up. It seems like there's not much consistency in the way that time travel works (the closest we get is Annorax's vague explanation in Year of Hell ), but is there a plausible in-universe explanation as to why the "rules" seem to change so much?

Watching Terminator 2 again, I find the statement "The T-1000 can't form complex machines" to be intriguing, mainly in the sense that the T-1000 itself is a complex machine. This got me thinking about how the T-1000 operates as a machine, in particular the computing side of it, and specifically how data is stored within it. It is clear that the T-1000 contains some very sophisticated programming (by our standards). Its abilities include: participating in natural language conversations (to at least some extent) mimicing voices that it hears reshaping its appearance to nearly perfectly match humans that it only briefly encounters seeking and acquiring information required to track a target, and strategizing for the disposal of that target operating a wide variety of machinery: cars, trucks, helicopters, etc. The first ability above is a significant marker of the programming sophistication behind the T-1000, but so too is the third: it implies that its programming includes

Several years ago (4-5?), I read a story online that I believe was still being actively being published in a serial format. The principle idea, as I recall, was that an artificial intelligence determined that it could essentially prevent people from dying altogether by suffusing everything with nanomachines (or something to that effect). The end result was that, years after the fact, a group of people made a sport of trying to kill themselves in increasingly inventive ways, with an ultimate goal of finding a loophole that allows them to die before the AI can prevent it. I think one of the main characters was the oldest woman on Earth prior to everyone becoming immortal, but that may be a different story. I can't recall what the name of it was, and every attempt to google anything with 'AI' in the search just gives a bunch of current news articles. Thanks for the help! Answer As per Short story about a virtual world. Protagonist is a female who specializes in torture exper

I want to learn the history of Wolverine from the beginning. What comic issues should I read and in what order to understand how he became what he is ( what he actually is) and he came to the present day? I would prefer historical event order, but whatever you think is the best to understand the whole story is welcome Answer Wolverine's history is so long, rich and convoluted that this could almost be seen as a list-question. There are so many stories that help paint the picture of Wolverine that I feel like I could just keep adding more and more stories, but I think this list gives you a good "at least read these" point. Wolverine Origin 1-6 (Collected as Wolverine: Origin) - Canon information regarding the circumstances of Wolverine's birth, discovery of his mutant powers and adoption of the name "Logan". Marvel Comics Presents 72-84 (Collected as Wolverine Weapon X) - The first attempt at an official origin of Wolverine and his claws. Later stories re

This is a question that always bugged me: Why did they (the Sith, actually) choose to use Jango Fett as the single template for the entire clone army? OK, in the EU it is explained that there was a kind of casting procedure initiated by Lord Tyrannus which yielded Jango as an extremely talented fighter ( http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jango_Fett#The_hunt_for_Komari_Vosa ). I'm sure he had certain qualities, but isn't it quite a risk to base an army of millions of men on one single individual? I think there were real practical alternatives: Obviously, the Kaminoans were quite a high-tech people. It should have been easy for them to create a clone that combines the strength of different individuals, maybe even of different species, or even create a new species of uber-soldiers. And there would be some quite good reasons to do so: First of all, Jango is a Mandalorian, and as such sort of human, and even though humans have some good battle qualities (agile, versatile), there also

I recently saw "Ant-Man" and was able to get a general understanding of Ant-Man's powers and limitations. I've also read DC comics for years, and while I know about the Atom and have a general understanding of his abilities, he is rarely featured. The two characters and abilities seem very similar. I was curious how they stacked up when compared to each-other. Specifically focusing on Hank Pym, and Ray Palmer; both being scientists that have found ways of manipulating the physical size of a human. What major things distinguish one from the other? Answer At first glance, the two heroes might seem very similar and it would be so easy to look at their publication dates and say Ant-Man is a ripoff of The Atom and be done with it. Both characters are scientists, mavericks and creators of unique technologies. Over the history of their characters however, they become markedly different. Both characters are born of the Silver Age, when the comic industry was struggling to r