At the end of Thor, as Thor is destroying the Bifrost Bridge, Loki says If you destroy the Bridge, you'll never see her again! The implication is that without the Bifrost Bridge, there is no longer an easy way to get to Earth. Then in The Avengers Loki says this to Thor after Thor arrives on Earth With the Bifrost gone, how much dark energy did the Allfather have to muster to conjure you here, your precious Earth? At the end of the movie Thor returns to Asgard via the Tesseract. In Thor 2, the Bifrost Bridge has been fully restored. To me, this implies the Bifrost Bridge was going to be a huge undertaking, but because they suddenly acquired the Tesseract, they were able to easily rebuild it. Did they need the Tesseract (or something like it) to rebuild the Bifrost Bridge? Answer Not without hurting or killing Odin. There’s a Marvel comic called Thor: TDW Prelude which takes us from the end of Thor (destruction of the Bifrost) through The Avengers and to the beginning of Thor: ...

In The Force Awakens, Captain Phasma first chews out FN-2187 for disobeying orders and being disloyal. Loyalty to the First Order seems like a big deal to the Captain. Then later, Captain Phasma under the threat of mere death promptly helps the good guys blow up the Death Star III by helping them exploit the single point of failure. She doesn't even try to resist or trick them, she just straight up submits. I would call this disloyal if not straight up traitorous. What could have caused this change of attitude?

When I started reading science fiction in 1987, I read a lot of “best of” collections and believe I found this story in one. To the best of my recollection, the story involves a man who invents a screen to watch history unfold. He watches the jfk assassination and can view all angles and sees a man on the grassy knoll. As he updates his machine, people use it to watch life unfold in real time. A man sees his wife entering a motel with another man and the husband tracks her down to shoot them. Answer Possibly "I See You" by Damon Knight, which has indeed been collected in a number of "Best Of" anthologies. The story jumps back and forth, mostly a second person tale of someone who grew up in the age of ubiquitous time viewer use, but it also talks about the origins, in which the inventor of the time viewer does in fact look back on the Kennedy Assassination: By trial and error, Smith has found the settings for Dallas, November 22, 1963: Dealey Plaza, 12:25 p.m. He ...

Why does Q click (snap) is fingers whenever he uses his powers? Is there an in-universe reason or is it pure theatrics? Answer I don't know if there was ever an in-universe given by the writers, producers or anyone else but the finger snap was likely that individual Q's method of focusing their power; although as has been seen on mutliple occassions the motion isn't strictly necessary. If you watch all of the various Q episodes you'll see that each Q has their own action they perform when they use their powers (single finger snap, double finger snap, hand wave, etc).

There are training lightsabers, with a low setting so they inflict nothing more than burns or bruises and in Splinter of the Mind's Eye I remember Luke setting his lightsaber, at one point, to produce a thin beam to pick a lock or help him get through a door. What are the different settings most lightsabers (as in a lightsaber your average Jedi might us) that are available? Is it just in terms of power, or are there other adjustments that can be made? Answer From the Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary (now "Legends" continuity) This is confirmed in Star Wars: The Visual Encyclopedia (main canon)

Inspired by Why didn't the Jedi enact Order 65? . Order 65 (copied from linked question): Order 65 was one of the 150 contingency orders that the clone troopers of the Grand Army of the Republic were trained to carry out in the event of different emergency scenarios during the Clone Wars. Order 65 stated that if a majority of the Senate or the Security Council declared that the Supreme Chancellor—at that time Palpatine—was unfit for duty, the Chancellor was to be captured or, if necessary, killed. Is there any canon on what parties make up the Security Council? Is it a mix of senators and Jedi? Is security council = Jedi council?

Often in the story we see characters be promised knighthood. This usually seems to be a big deal to those that receive it. For example after the battle of the Blackwater, Bronn clearly reminds people of his new status. Surely there must be more to knighthood than simple social status or else people wouldn't make such a big deal of knighthood. What are the advantages a man gains when knighted? Does he gain lands? Or simply prestige? Answer Being a Knight puts you above the smallfolk and opens up prospects but you are still beneath the landed nobility. You can say they are sort of a Quasi-Nobility (If they are not descended from nobility itself). Following are some benefits a Knight enjoys: Knights can marry younger daughters of landed houses and thus climb up a step on social ladder like Ser Bronn of Blackwater did by marrying Lolys Stokeworth . A commoner can never hope to marry an aristocrat girl but Knights are considered a valid match for at least younger daughters of impove...

I read this book when I was 15 that I cant seem to find, no matter how many times I search for it. I'm hoping that someone may have read it, and recognize the details. Its really driving me crazy and I would be eternally grateful if anyone recognizes it. The book centers around a princess (with "gilded skin") trying to save her kingdom from destruction. It starts off with a gypsy (?) coming into the kingdom with her slave boy. She had cut out his tongue to prevent him from warning the kingdom of her power. Soon, her friend or followers, her kind began to flock to the kingdom, selling idols that corrupt the citizens with greed and suspicion. The kingdom falls into civil war. When it's too weak to fight back, its neighboring kingdom invades, leading to the princess's inevitable destruction. The princess escapes by using a tunnel that had been hidden in a well. She goes to a old hermit or wizard that was a friend of her fathers. He tells her of Magic Stones that, in ...

As the title says, when and what made Voldemort look the way he does (pale, snake-like etc) as opposed to how we've seen him in his earlier years as Tom Riddle? Is it just a side effect of his unnatural resurrection? Before he died attacking Harry as a baby did he look like a normal guy? Answer Dumbledore says that that the Dark Lord’s transforming looks were only explicable by his creation of several Horcruxes, and the mutilation of his soul that creating them caused. “I, who have gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality.” That was what you told me he said. “Further than anybody.” And I thought I knew what that meant, though the Death Eaters did not. He was referring to his Horcruxes, Horcruxes in the plural, Harry, which I do not believe any other wizard has ever had. Yet it fitted: Lord Voldemort had seemed to grow less human with the passing years, and the transformation he had undergone seemed to me to be only explicable if his soul was mutilated ...

From what I remember of the book: A spaceship goes through a wormhole (I think) and crash lands on a planet They salvage what they can from the ship and build a castle on a mountain, cutting the stone with the lasers from the crashed ship The crew develop some sort of powers, the captain (She) seems to develop some sort of Precognition The planet's inhabitants where men rule and women are second class citizens Some women escape to the crew's castle so they can be equal citizens After they build the castle the crew fight the inhabitants the that came to attack them What is the name of this book? Answer Fall of Angels, by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. Your memory is pretty good, although you're giving Nylan short shrift - that's okay, because the point of the book is partially that Nylan, as a man, gets shorter shrift than he deserves. To shamelessly quote the author's web page : Modesitt moves deep into Recluce’s past to chronicle the founding of the Empire of the Legend, the...

Seems like this is the most powerful weapon of all: transport your enemy into a bulkhead, planet, etc. Transport your enemy's ship inside a planet, etc. Is there some technical reason that it can not be used this way? Answer Your basic assumption is correct. The transporter is "potentially" one of the most dangerous technologies the Federation and its allies could ever have. You could: transport Marines from one ship to another killing crew/disrupting systems ( acceptable ) transport biogenic weapons lethal to organic lifeforms ( frowned upon ) transport photon torpedoes or other timed ordinance to the enemy vessel ( been done ) disrupt the warp core by transmitting matter into the containment field ( possible ) transport the entire engineering crew, deckplates and all into space ( possible ) Technical Considerations I can think of a few others with only the tiniest bit of effort. So what stops this from happening? The primary defense against transporter technology is t...

In Return Of The Jedi Vader read Luke's mind and found out he has a sister. Luke was not able to prevent this, despite being very strong in the Force. Before in A New Hope Vader was obviously not able to read Leia's mind, to find the Rebel base. So how was Leia able to resist Vader's mind-reading and Luke was not, despite Luke being much stronger in the Force than Leia? And if it has to do with Force ability, Vader should have noticed (and wondered and mentioned) when failing to read her mind (" the Force is strong with this princess, she hides her feelings very well "). Answer TL;DR To address your actual question: He was not able to read Leia's thoughts because she was not in the same state of emotional turmoil, AND not emotionally suffering because of specific information about specific person - which is what enabled him to read Luke's mind. Details: One does not simply walk into Mordor read someone's mind with the Force. There's no generi...

According to the Lord of the Rings project , Saruman imprisoned Gandalf at the top of the tower, Orthanc on July 10th, 3018 Third Age. [embedded content] The chief of the great eagles, Gwaihir, rescued Gandalf on September 18th. [embedded content] When Gandalf arrives, we see no Uruk-Hai at Isengard, but by his rescue, there are plenty of Uruk-Hai. That means Saruman transformed Isengard from a garden into an industrial site and made an army in just 10 weeks. How much time did it take Saruman make an Uruk-Hai army? Were the Uruk-Hai already there before Saruman transformed Isengard? Answer He didn't All evidence is that Saruman had been building his army for a good many years prior to Gandalf's capture. In the Council of Elrond we see that the industrialization of Isengard was already at an advanced stage by the time Gandalf was placed on top of the tower: They took me and they set me alone on the pinnacle of Orthanc, in the place where Saruman was accustomed to watch the st...

Inspires by the comments in this question . Is any money given to the Jedi Order taxed, or are they tax-free being that they're supposed to be the defenders of the Republic? Or do they not own money, and thus can't be taxed?

This is a short story, it may have appeared in one of the "Year's Best SF" from David G. Hartwell or "The Year's Best Science Fiction" from Gardner Dozois collection, as I used to read those often. The story details some passengers that are being ferried in a worm-like creature which was retrofitted with seats. At some point something bad happens and the main character needs to help hold one of the worms "arms" so that the conductor can inject it with something. At another point one of the passengers runs off the train towards a mountain, and some of the passengers follow them, the passenger was a woman that talked about something hidden in the mountain. Answer This is Good Mountain by Robert Reed. It was in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection The world is made of living island, which travel around the ocean, until they eventually hit the Continent, and stick to it. Thus, the Continent gets ever bigger. Public tr...

Everyone! I am looking for a story I read as a child that I have never forgotten. I believe it was in some kind of anthology or magazine, possibly OMNI, because my parents used to subscribe to that magazine back in the '70's and '80's. The main character is an alien on a planet with a methane atmosphere. Her face has kind of a puggish, bat-like nose, adapted by evolution on that planet. She has leather-like wings, which others in her culture (if they are rich enough) might hang jewels upon. Thereby affecting their functionality with the weight of the gems. She remarks that one of her enemies has done this, and that he has gotten so fat that he cannot fly. The story is that this native female comes across a sort of robot that is being remote-controlled for the purpose of planetary exploration by a scientist here on Earth. She mistakes the robot for a DEMON and at one point kills an animal for it as a sacrifice and tries to stuff the butchered meat into one of the robot...

After re-watching Return of the Jedi recently, I started to wonder about Jabba and his criminal empire. All the sources I've read agree that Jabba is immensely powerful, and his influence was such that even the Imperial forces were reluctant to cross him. But physically, Hutts just don't seem particularly intimidating. Sure, they're big, and they have huge mouths, but Jabba seems practically immobile, and the Wookieepedia entry on Hutts indicates that this is not uncommon for older Hutts. My first thought was that perhaps Jabba leveraged a family inheritance to build a criminal empire, but Wookieepedia indicates he started small, as a "high risk gunrunner". The details are very sparse: Jabba started small, finding early work as a high-risk gunrunner, along with his lifelong friend Ephant Mon. During Senator Palpatine's rise to power, the Hutt was one of several gangsters who made his bid for dominance. His competitors included Sise Fromm, the then-kingpin o...

I've seen the Adamantium covering over Wolverine's skeleton discussed here before, as well as on many sites on the web. I've also seen different info on what was covered. I'm not a huge X-Men fan, but I do enjoy the characters and stories, so I know I'm probably missing out on a lot, and may have missed the obvious along the way because I didn't read a particular series or something like that. I had a relative die from leukemia a few years ago and that reminded me of basic junior high science: that red and white blood cells are produced in the bone marrow and must be able to reach from the marrow into the blood vessels. The leukemia my relative had was the kind where the "bad" cells would surround the marrow and prevent the new "good" blood cells from getting out to the rest of the body. So just how much of Wolverine's skeleton is covered with Adamantium? If it's the whole thing, there'd have to be openings for new red blood cell...

The book is written in the 1980s. The storyline is about an early 20th century level technology planet getting visited by a spaceship which causes quite a stir. The visitors start helping to consolidate all of the countries on the planet. Everyone thinks this is good but some people accidentally find out they're actually being conquered by using the planets own people to do the fighting. They also find out that when all the planet's countries are defeated and under the control of a single government, the planet will be colonized by a space federation that is reclaiming long lost planets. Through trickery they learn that if they can somehow get space travel they wouldn't be colonized and would have rights and a higher place in the federation. They start sneaking around trying to make a spaceship with their early 20th century tech. Answer It's been quite a while since I read Jerry Pournelle 's novel King David's Spaceship , but there are several points of match ...

In the leaked Age of Ultron footage, we see Tony and Steve have a slight word-fight. In this, they talk about Scarlet Witch's visions, where the conversation goes: Tony : I don’t trust a guy without a dark side. Call me old-fashioned. Steve : Well, let’s just say you haven’t seen it yet. What is Steve referring to here? Is there any reference to this in comics & other canon sources?

The answer and discussion around this question Can warp drive allow for light speed? make me wonder about the following: Warp drive works by warping space so that the ship need not "travel faster than light (within its bubble)" to still travel objectively faster than light would take. And this is necessary because infinite energy would be needed to approach the speed of light according to (both real-world and Star-Trek) relativistic physics. So, is it possible to engage a warp field and use it to get the energy savings without actually exceeding the speed of light objectively? Can I use my warp to get from the Earth to the Sun in 16 minutes rather than the 8 taken by light? Has it been demonstrated? If not, is it not possible or it is simply more efficient (for [handwave] reason) to use half-impulse?

In the Doctor Who episode "The Doctor's Daughter" Jenny is shot in the chest and determined dead by the Doctor and his companions. Later, she breathes out some kind of energy and awakes with perfect health. How did she do this without regenerating? Answer She is revived by the gasses of The Source, the terraforming engine activated shortly before she was shot. The Source was designed to transform the lifeless planet into a fully functioning ecosystem. Presumably this includes some method of stimulating life that could restore Jenny's recently deceased body. The green gas seen coming out of her mouth is the same as shown when The Source is activated.

When C-3PO and R2-D2 were being taken down into Jabba's Dungeon, what was that snake creature that grab C-3PO by the neck?

There was a scene from a sci-fi horror video, not animated, don't know if it's a movie or TV series, where there was this black goo in a glass container and some scientists were looking at it under a microscope. The pitch black goo grew and grew so fast, eventually breaking out of the inner box and the scientists that were inside the "inner lab" were begging to get out but the scientists outside that inner lab refused to open the door. The black goo was spiky (had spikes). It's not any of the "Alien" movies, "The Blob", "Life", or "The Thing". It's not vintage. It was made after 1990, I'm pretty sure. Answer This sounds like Species . About 35 minutes into the movie, there is a scene quite similar to what you have described. The alien substance in the Species scene I am thinking of is not really spiky. I would have described it as more goo-like or visceral. However, maybe you have misremembered slightly. Species is...

In the seventh book (and the 7th & 8th movie) of Harry Potter , it shows that a wand doesn't belong to a person anymore, or loses its loyalty if another witch or wizard disarms or defeats them. Given that, why don't more children from earlier films and novels have to buy new wands? It shows students being disarmed many times. Why was the disarming wand rule only valid in the 7th book? Answer The wand disarming rule only applies so ruthlessly in the case of the Elder Wand, which only shows up in the final book. Wands choose their owner, and most wands seem to stay loyal to their original owners. The Elder Wand is an exception to the rule and chooses the stronger witch/wizard, hence switching owners when its previous owner was defeated. Edit, to clarify a bit, from Wikipedia : As stated by Mr. Ollivander the wandmaker, the [Elder] wand will never fully work for the new user unless he or she directly disarms, stuns or kills (even in Muggle fashion) the previous master. Rowli...

I read a series of books, probably around 1962 - 1970, about some young kid (a teenager) whose name I think was Chris. There was a problem with the Moon, it was being invaded by a mould (mold) which was some sort of threat to the Earth. For some reason, only a single person could go in a spacecraft to deal with this threat, and Chris was chosen. He had a few mentors, there was a friendly one, and a "harsh" one, who Chris thought hated him. In one of the books, his rocket ship became disabled, and one of the adults had to fly up to save him. He naturally thought it would be the "friendly mentor" but it turned out to be the "harsh mentor" who actually had a high regard for Chris, but couldn't let on, because that would endanger the mission or something. I think it was set in England. In one of the books Chris was heading towards the space training centre, when he was set upon by some "Teddy Boys" who forced him to lick their shoes (or something...

At the end of the Phantom Menace, at the celebration on Naboo, Boss Nass (if memory serves), holds aloft a great, glowing orb. I remember reading at the time that Lucas had some great significance assigned to the orb, and that he would address it later in the trilogy. To my recollection, he never did. Does anyone know, perhaps from the novelization or other extracinematic sources, what it was supposed to be or mean? Answer That would be the Globe of Peace : The Globe of Peace was a relic of the Naboo people. It resembled a small sphere which glowed with an iridescent light and symbolized the years of peace that reigned on the planet. As a gesture of good faith and continued relations with the Gungan people, Queen Padmé Amidala presented the globe to Boss Rugor Nass. As to its later significance.. I can see all sorts of ways it could have been used.. Shattered by the people of Naboo, symbolically indicating their plan... Shattering on its own as peace fails. Anakin shattering it as on...

This article about an unrelated movie deploys a piece of terminology I have never encountered: 'Voldemortian'. Unlike most modern film violence, there's nothing exploitative, no sense of boundary-pushing for its own sake. Evil isn't some cheap Voldemortian blood-right. The author (Film critic Phil Hoad) seeks to imply that the level of Voldemort's malevolence is somehow in excess of the conditions of its own fruition: as though to imply that Voldemort was somehow 'inherently' evil to begin with. It seeks to discredit the characterization of Evil within JK Rowling's work as lacking in substance; evil for the sake of evil, without explanation. Its understandable why this would be received so negatively. The concept of someone's behavior being anything other than a result of their conditions of existence is problematic, and the idea of a 'naturally evil' entity is often deployed in horror for exactly this purpose (think The Omen , The Unborn , ...

It was a series of 3 or 4 books. The crew of a ship were on a mission to recover something ( rings I think) from different planets. Humans had been genetically altered to live on each planet. Volunteers were permanently altered to blend in on the planet to complete their missions.

A co-worker loaned me a book in the mid-nineties (it was not new) that followed the astronomers of a non-humanoid species. The story was spread across several centuries, as the astronomers discovered and finally convinced the rest of the planet that a huge celestial body was on a collision course with their planet. I think he said it was out of print (I know he was desperate for me to return it). Another note, the balance of power between the males and females of species varied wildly across the centuries as the species' scientific knowledge increased. I've googled this in every way I can imagine and I've come up empty.

I have this vague memory from when I was a kid of a movie that involved a few kids and one of them, somehow, creates a force-field in the shape of a bubble. My memory is faint but I seem to remember they controlled the bubble with an Apple IIc computer (lol) and they could fly in space, around the world, etc. I cannot remember anyone who actually stared in the movie and none of my searches are finding anything. Thanks. Answer Probably Explorers : Ben Crandall is a young teen living in the suburbs of Washington DC who experiences vivid dreams about flying through clouds and over a vast, city-like circuit board...usually after falling asleep watching old sci-fi films (The War of the Worlds is a favorite). Every night, upon waking from the dream, he draws the circuit board. Ben shows the sketches to his friend, child prodigy Wolfgang Muller. At school, Ben develops a crush on Lori Swenson - but he isn't sure whether it's mutual. Both boys meet punkish-but-likable Darren Woods, w...

Since there is no electricity, wouldn't all the nuclear reactors around the country be down and already released radiation into the air? Why is there no sign of this?

Anyone who has written software with any complexity knows the importance of logging clearly readable error messages to make debugging easier. Cryptic or short error messages like "Error #5" won't work. Part of an astromech's job is troubleshooting, which can often involve reporting errors or issues to a mechanic, which often could be a living being. Astromech droids, at least the R2 models, can parse at least some spoken languages, since R2-D2's comments are displayed to Luke so he can read them on the screen in his X-wing. Astromech droids already have a speaker they can beep through, so providing speech for them would be trivial. I looked through the Wookieepedia, but didn't find anything in the R2 or astromech articles about why they don't have speech abilities. While the article on astromechs covers the topic of communication, it never explains why they can't speak. I know that when Star Wars was written and released, it was well before any prac...

I read this book once as a teenager, I think it might have been written in the 1970s but could be late 1960s or early 1980s. The protagonist is left to die hideously by enemies. He is paralysed and left on some planet (I don't believe it was earth) in the habitat of some kind of crablike creature, which injects him with its young, and periodically returns to force nutrient and a paralytic agent down his throat, as the larvae grows inside him. He is rescued, and his body rebuilt to some kind of superhuman abilities, but he is traumatised and bent on indiscriminate revenge for his suffering. He proves hard to defeat. He is eventually defeated by trickery, when he is shown (or demands to see) something by some kind of video link or remote TV/monitor - perhaps he is told that people he wants revenge on, are held captive for him, I can't be sure. I think maybe he takes hostages or makes a severe threat, and his demands relate to the people he wants revenge on. But he can't be ph...