The books make it clear that they offer the reverse service (see the following question: What Do the Gringotts Goblins Do With Muggle Money? ). According to the canonical answer to that question, Q: When people trade in Muggle money for Wizard money, what does Gringotts do with the Muggle money? JKR: Those goblins are sneaky people. They manage to put the Muggle money back into circulation. They are like "fences" --British slang, do you understand it? ( src: America Online chat with JKR transcript, AOL.com, 19 October 2000 ) The answer also makes reference to a comment by Dharini Chandrasekaran: Just speculation, but squibs who go out into the muggle world to work will need Muggle money and also wizards might need it while doing Muggle studies research or trying to remain under cover, so I guess they keep it for reverse exchange. This seems entirely reasonable speculation. Nevertheless, I don't recall any example in the books of converting Galleons to British pounds or ot...

The main character gains psychic abilities when he enters a cave on an alien world and a parasite merges with him. Subsequent eeg scans show he has two traces, one normal, his own, and a second which has all the psychic abilities, his parasite. It's not much to go on, other details are fuzzy and may only confuse the issue if they are from a different book. Answer This sounds like it might be 'Healer' by F Paul Wilson. The second mind in his head comes from a cave creature that drops from the roof of the cave and joins with whichever type of animal that has wandered in. The symbiote gains the same intelligence as the host animal. There is also a quotation that is floating about in my memory - 'Of every 100 people that are attacked by the cave creature 99 of them will die'. Then it goes on to say that the 100th will not die. The symbiote can effectively make its host immortal....

In Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality , we get this quote in Chapter 1: "Anyway," Petunia said, her voice small, "she gave in. She told me it was dangerous, and I said I didn't care any more, and I drank this potion and I was sick for weeks, but when I got better my skin cleared up and I finally filled out and... I was beautiful, people were nice to me," her voice broke, "and after that I couldn't hate my sister any more, especially when I learned what her magic brought her in the end -" Later, in chapter 17: Dumbledore opened the book, seemingly at random, and Harry leaned in to see. "Do you see these notes," Dumbledore said in a voice so low it was almost a whisper, "written in the margins of the book?" Harry squinted slightly. The yellowing pages seemed to be describing something called a potion of eagle's splendour , many of the ingredients being items that Harry didn't recognise at all and whose names did...

In Attack of the Clones , when Anakin and Padme decide to rescue Obi-Wan, C-3PO is in the ship with them. Does the novelization or a deleted scene or something explain why he was there? Did Anakin steal him? Did the Lars give him to Anakin? Did Anakin claim legal ownership? Answer Per the AOTC Junior Novelisation "Padmé looked at Anakin uncertainly, but he only nodded and rose to his feet. They made a hasty farewell to the Lars homestead, and Owen told Anakin to take C-3PO with him. Then they all hurried back to Padmé’s starship to play Obi-Wan’s message.". A similar scene takes place in the official novelisation , albeit slightly before Anakin arrives; “Well, Padmé,” Owen said, and when she turned to regard him, Padmé saw that he was grinning widely. “I’m returning this droid to Anakin. I know that’s what my mom would want.” Padmé smiled and nodded. So the answers to your specific questions are yes, no, yes and apparently (albeit the Jedi don't typically own things).

Besides the lately known suicide of King Tommen Baratheon/Lannister. Is there any other suicide either in TV show or books? Please disregard the suicides of peasants and soldiers, just the "important" people. Also, if its known, how did that person kill him/herself? Answer [Note: This answer will be heavily based the materials presented in the main ASOIAF books and the other companion works.] Probably the only other "relevant" character to commit suicide was Ashara Dayne jumped from the top of one of the towers of Starfall, called the Palestone Sword, on the cliff atop the sea. The body was never recovered. Who was rumored to be loved by Ned Stark. It is rumored that she committed suicide after after giving birth to a still-born child. The fan theory is that it was Ned's. Other "important" (not common-folk or soldiers) I can find are: Maester Cressen in his service to Stannis attempted to kill Melisandre by poisioning a cup of wine. Once the cup is ...

I read this short story long ago, about a man searching endlessly on a beach for a miniature galaxy he somehow lost.

When Thor arrives on Earth via the Bifrost, a pattern is left (burned?) onto the ground. The pattern is fairly intricate, and does not appear to be random. However, the pattern seems to change from site to site, or possibly use to use. Is there any significance to the designs, or logic to them? A landing site from the first movie: A landing site from the second movie: Another Landing site: Answer In the script for Thor, it's clear that the Bifröst 'landing sites' are branded with Asgardian "runes from the bifrost". I've edited for brevity; 33 EXT. BIFROST LANDING SITE (JOTUNHEIM) - DAY 33 Snow flurries up when the Bifrost hits, as Thor and his band touch down. RUNES from the Bifrost are imprinted on the ice around them. and 111 EXT. BIFROST LANDING SITE (EARTH) - DAY 111 The Bifrost runes cover the desert sand around them. The patterns appear to serve no specific purpose other than to make the landing site look more interesting. As Visual Effects Superviso...

One of the key climactic scenes in A Memory of Light involves two majors characters fighting and apparently killing each other: Lan manages to kill Demandred by "sheathing the sword", that is, allowing Demandred to land a blow in order to land one of his own. In this case, both strikes appeared to be fatal. This death leads up to the major turning point in the battle: As the Dark One gloats about all of the deaths, Rand "zooms in" on Lan and says something like "You're wrong about one", as we see Lan stand back up and hold Demandred's severed head over his own. I have seen several comments on this site (and elsewhere) that assume the character in question was killed and resurrected by Rand, but I did not get that impression at all from the novel. That, IMO, is counter to everything else we know about how things worked. To me, it was obvious that the character in question was never dead -- the apparently fatal blow was not fatal, merely extremely ...

This is sort of an analytical question. Having seen Rogue One, I re-watched some of the scenes from A New Hope, including the two scenes above and analyzing the dialogue, the answer seems to be "no." Tarkin once says he believes that it is time to test the station's full destructive power, not its destructive power. Note: I didn't have the whole film on me, so I might have missed some key lines.

In the Dresden Files, there's an effort known as the Oblivion War, to sever the connection that old gods and their ilk have to the mortal world. The way to do this is to remove these gods from mortal memory, because the mortals are their conduit into the physical world. (This makes it an incredibly hard war to document.) One of the common tasks of the Venatori, humanity's champions in the Oblivion War, is to destroy ritual books so that no budding sorcerer can call upon that particular deity. Fortunately, spirits' memories don't serve as conduits like mortals do - fortunate, because they all would live forever without outside interference, and mutually prevent each others' disappearance. This means that the Archive, the repository of all mortal knowledge ever written down , doesn't directly block their objective, because the Archive isn't a mortal. But Archive's mortal host can! What if the host, in a moment of mortal danger, decided to access all of th...

I remember a children's novel that I read in the late 1970s / early 1980s about three children travelling to the Moon. There were some illustrations; I think the colour scheme of those was black, white, orange, and purple. Three children (an older boy, an older girl, and a younger girl, probably siblings? plus a dog?) are playing let's pretend in their back yard. They build a spaceship from cardboard boxes and a bucket. They intend to name the spaceship "Moonbeam", but the younger girl misspells it as "Moonbeem" when she paints the name. Overnight, a wizard who needs a real spaceship transforms the children's pretend spaceship into a real one, but forgets to change it back when he has finished with it. The children discover the now real spaceship the next morning, and decide to travel to the moon. The older boy is piloting the spaceship, and at first, he has difficulty controlling it and flies under London's Tower Bridge. After they land on the Moon,...

About twenty years ago, I read a sci-fi novel where, if I recall correctly: The protagonist is a guy, and probably a teenager or a young adult. Like most of humanity, he lives on land; but he's visiting an undersea colony (one of many?), and that's where most of the action takes place. He gets to know a girl there about the same age; maybe he's staying with her family for some reason? (Maybe they're relatives of his?) The girl had an older brother ("Ian", maybe?), but he died. He goes out of the city (i.e., goes for a dive) at some point, and gets in trouble, but is mysteriously rescued. He learns about an underground separatist movement of some sort. (I don't remember the details.) He eventually discovers that: Ian is actually alive, and his family (or at least his sister) is still in touch with him; but they're covering up the fact that he's joined this separatist movement, and (like some other separatists) has modified his body to have gills so ...

I need the name of an early sci-fi movie, 1950s or early 1960s. I'd call it a C-movie. It was a Mars landing, in a spaceship that looked basically like a coffee can. The seats in the ship were low-backed regular chairs. The elevator taking the crew to the surface was the slowest elevator ever seen. On the surface, they discovered a Mars monster which looked like a giant tin-foil ball spray-painted with lighting effects to make it spooky. I think there were only about 4 crew members. It was a wonderfully awful movie, lots of fun. I'd like to see it again and share it with friends. Answer A slightly better match, Mission Mars , a 1968 film. Three American astronauts who land on Mars discover the body of a frozen Russian cosmonaut and a mysterious talking orb. [embedded content] The "coffee can" ship is available around the two minute mark of the video above. Low-backed chair at 2:26. The tin-foil ball creature shows up around the 7 minute mark.

In S05E09 " The Dance of Dragons ", Daenerys Targaryen and her advisors find themselves surrounded in the arena by The Sons of the Harpy, vastly out-numbered. The situation looks pretty grim, when all of a sudden a dragon's roar is heard, and her missing dragon Drogon shows up to defend Dany & her friends. After he is wounded by the Sons, Dany climbs onto his back and flies off. This scene played out differently in the books. In the book, the dragon was drawn to the arena early on, attracted to the sounds of battle & the smell of blood. Once he landed, he was pretty much out of control - breathing fire at everyone and everything, including Dany herself. She ultimately had to use a whip on him, and flew away with him as much to save everyone else as anything. Within the context of the show, how did Drogon know that Dany needed him, and how did he know who to attack? I haven't seen all of Season 5 yet so I'm assuming maybe I missed something. Answer Davi...

I would like to restrict this to televisions shows. It can be a 2 part answer or other answers where novels discuss even faster hyper-drive style technology. Is the jump mechanism of FTL in Battlestar Galactica (in particular the Cylon base ships), a clear winner. Or does the Trek Universe warp factor 9.985 outpace the jump mechanism? I would like to also rule out types of Transwarp in the Trek universe, like the conduits the Borg use, and even the power of the Tardis from doctor who, as these seem to out pace the standard hyper-drive style technology that forms the main story lines in the various universes.

Are there any AT-STs at the Battle of Hoth in the original version of The Empire Strikes Back ? A friend of mine says there is an AT-ST in the Battle of Hoth in the movie, but after re-watching it I haven't been able to find it. Answer Just reviewed the battle from my copy of the original theatrical cut. x One AT-ST is clearly visible walking behind an AT-AT at 30:25. Another AT-ST can be seen at 33:20, just as Luke sabotages one of the AT-ATs. These are the only two seen throughout the entire battle. x These screenshots are from the "Bonus" DVD of The Empire Strikes Back , from the 2008 Star Wars Trilogy (Widescreen Theatrical Edition) boxed set.

In the Voyager episode "The Gift," we see Kes become so powerfully psychic that she leaves the corporeal realm of existence. Memory Alpha states this about her departure from our galaxy in general and Voyager in particular: Kes began to undergo a massive surge in her mental powers. [...] Kes became telekinetic and was able to carry out delicate surgical procedures using only her mind. Unfortunately, she rapidly started to destabilize at the subatomic level and was causing massive damage to Voyager as a result. Taking a shuttle, she left the ship to explore her new condition and, as she left the corporeal world behind , pushed Voyager out of Borg space, 9,500 light years closer to Earth, as a parting gift. (emph. mine) Something that she said during the episode caught my attention: KES: I don't know, and that's what makes it all so exciting. It's as if I can see into a place where the distinction between matter and energy and thought no longer exists. (emphasis m...

In Chapter 33 (The Prince's Tale) of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows , it is revealed that the Sword of Gryffindor "must" be taken under conditions of "need and valor", and that kind of explains why it was placed in the frozen lake, rather than just having it placed outside their tent. "Now, Severus, the sword! Do not forget that it must be taken under conditions of need and valor." We also know, from the same chapter, that Dumbledore himself used the sword to destroy the ring Horcrux. "Marvolo Gaunt's ring lay on the desk before Dumbledore. It was cracked; the sword of Gryffindor lay beside it." This begs the question of whether Dumbledore himself had to receive the sword under said conditions in order to be able to use it on the ring; or is he excluded from that requirement by being the Headmaster, by knowing advanced magic or something like that? Two points to clarify: I take the "must" part to implicitly mean "in o...

I read the story many years ago. The solar system was being invaded by insectoid aliens who greatly outnumbered Earth's population. All available people were involved in the war effort and all women were encouraged to have as many children as possible. The story centers around an officer who must command a war ship crewed by artificial people. The protagonist was sterile, I think. The crew's bodies were made up of the bodies of corpses of war dead. Answer It's "Down Among the Dead Men" by William Tenn. They were called "blobs" not "globs". From the SF Encyclopedia: . . . William Tenn's "Down Among the Dead Men" (June 1954 Galaxy), where "human protoplasm reclamation" creates fully human and intelligent (though sterile) new soldiers who are subject to discrimination and abuse as "zombies" or "blobs" . . . When the viewpoint character admits his sterility, it somewhat reconciles the resurrected soldi...

This question caused me to think of another question. The books/movies establish that Voldemort (as well as Harry) has a wand with the incredibly rare Phoenix feather as the core. Voldemort's wand is also depicted looking like a creepy bone type design (made of yew) to match his "evilness" which was made by Ollivander (at least in the movies) Is this the same wand that was given to Riddle before his first year at Hogwarts? If not, what kind was it? It would seem odd that he would get such a wand designed like that as a child. Answer None of the movie wands were special-looking in the first two films. Prisoner of Azkaban introduced the personalized wands, and the trend remained throughout the subsequent films. Before that, all wands pretty much looked identical - a simple black or dark brown wooden stick. So that's why they look different - there was a redesign of nearly all the wands (out-of-universe). As pointed out in CreationEdge's answer , the wand used by...

In Batman and Robin #4 (of the New 52) Batman makes this remark to his son: Who are the six people (including Ducard) that trained Batman? Answer The list of people who have trained young Bruce Wayne before he became Batman, IN THE NEW 52 , has changed from version to version as DC Comics have revised the character's history, there is a really good story called The Many Deaths of the Batman that shows a killer taking out Batman's trainers but it has been long since dropped from continuity. I only have a partial answer for this question though. In DC's The New 52 , in Batman and Robin #4 we learn that Bruce Wayne was trained by six mentors and that Henri Ducard was the last of these mentors. In the Batman and Robin title he also says he trained with two mentors whose names were Chu Chin Li and Tsunetomo . In the New 52 Detective Comics Annual 2012 we see a young Bruce Wayne training with a master named Shihan Matsuda . Now we know that young Bruce Wayne must have tra...

This was a short novel that was probably written in the 80s or 90s. A young girl, maybe teen, lives in a small village area, and has magic powers. She can see some magical creatures that most people can't, such as some sprite or dryad being. There's a man that's actually a demon, and I think he tries to get close to the girl by ingratiating himself with her caretaker or others in the village. In the forest, there's this big tree, and something is wrong with it. I think there may have been demonic runes making the tree sick. If the tree died, then it meant something worse would happen. I think it meant the demon, the main antagonist of the novel, would overtake her, or the forest would die, or some demonic agenda would be set in motion. I can't remember which, or if I'm mixing up aspects of the book. The demon knew about the girl and her magic, which was apparently a rare attribute. He was trying to gain control of her. His plans were thwarted when she healed the...

We see that in the 9th season of Smallville, both in the first and the ninth episode, the Kandorians - whose genes were laced with blue kryptonite - have powers (example, Alia). How can they have their powers under a yellow sun? In the first episode Alia had all the powers of a Kryptonian under a yellow sun even after her cells were laced with blue kryptonite, and in the ninth episode she was seen using super speed under a yellow sun. Also in the alternate timeline(where Lois went) Major Zod and his men had kryptonian abilities under RED sun but Kal- El did not. Why? How can this be possible? How can they have their powers under a yellow sun and red sun? Answer tl;dr: None of this is ever really explained in the show. Alia's powers in Savior and Pandora in the present time, in particular, are a huge plot hole (in particular, in Pandora she seems to keep her red-sun-given powers when she follows Lois back to a yellow-sun environment.) How the red sun gave them their powers a...

I noticed that Dolores Umbridge was born during the first Wizarding War, so it's very likely she wasn't a Death Eater then (but she is pretty evil -- who knows?). After that Voldemort was not around in a way that could affect many people, and most wouldn't know he was planning to rise again. During that time, and up through Voldemort's return (in Goblet of Fire ), did Umbridge have any connection with the Death Eaters or with Voldemort? Was she doing what she did on her own, or was it because of an association with Voldemort or his allies? Answer Dolores Umbridge was definitely not a good person. However, as Sirius points out, "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters". Remember that he also says that he doesn't believe Umbridge to be a Death Eater, but that she's evil enough (or something like that). I think there are two strong reasons to believe that: Umbridge was proud to do everything according to the law, except when she trie...

In The Once and Future King it is clear that Merlyn was "born backwards in time", but I cannot determine exactly what that means. In The Sword in the Stone , chapter three, Merlyn says: “Now ordinary people are born forwards in Time, if you understand what I mean, and nearly everything in the world goes forward too. This makes it quite easy for the ordinary people to live, just as it would be easy to join those five dots into a W if you were allowed to look at them forwards, instead of backwards and inside out. But I unfortunately was born at the wrong end of time, and I have to live backwards from in front, while surrounded by a lot of people living forwards from behind. Some people call it having a second sight.” ... “Have I told you this before?” ... “You see, one gets confused with Time, when it is like that. All one’s tenses get muddled, for one thing. If you know what is going to happen to people, and not what has happened to them, it makes it difficult to prevent i...

In the Marvel comic books we know that Celestials intervened and created the "X-Gene," do we know exactly how? And with what technology? Or is it never stated? Are non-Celestials able to create the X-Gene? I am aware significant characters such as The Stranger and Apocalypse have been able to tamper with already developed mutant genomes, does that mean other mutants can potentially be created by non-Celestials? (I know that the writers are not genetic experts so many things contradict themselves.)

LATER EDIT: This questions has been resolved, and if the title made you interested in the movie, but you would like to avoid spoilers by reading my more detailed description or the answers, let me just tell you that the movie I have been looking for is Hyper Space (1989) . Having re-watched the movie in the mean-time, I would also like to add that I did in fact misremember a few things, so the description below is not accurate in some points. I decided to leave it like that anyway. I'm looking for a movie that I once saw on German TV in the early 00s. At least I think it was a movie - I cannot say for sure that it wasn't an episode of some TV series. What ever the case, I'll try my best to describe what I can recall about it. The film is set on a spaceship with a crew of roughly six to ten people. The ship needs to be evacuated, but no rescue mission is possible right now - maybe they are too far away from Earth, maybe their communication devices have failed, I don't r...

I have rewatched a number of Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes in quick succession over the past week. One thing I observed that I hadn't before is that the number 47 seems to come up unnaturally often, at least at first glance. I then sampled the episode scripts to produce a list of all occurrences — 203 verbal ones , including variations such as 4-7 and four 7's , as well as appearances within longer numbers (e.g. 247, 0.047 ). Examples include: "Tin Man" : The Ghorusda incident claims the lives of 47 people. "Family" : Picard receives a bottle of the '47 wine from Robert as a gift. "The Loss" : The Enterprise-D will arrive at T'lli Beta in 6 days, 13 hours, 47 minutes. "In Theory" : The Enterprise-D is 4.7 million km from the edge of a certain nebula. "Darmok" : The word "Darmok" appears 47 separate times in the ship's library. "The Game" : Nurse Ogawa tells Wesley that she ...

What is the longest science fiction saga in amount of books that wasn't created after movies or TV shows (that is, discarding Star Trek, Star Wars, X-Files)? Just to name a few: 2001, Rama, only 4. Foundation, 7 (10 if you count the non-Asimov ones) Dune, 6 (17 or so if you count the non-Frank Herbert ones) so, which one is the longest?

In the latest episode of Supernatural Dean Stabs the darkness with a silver knife, which has no effect. Previously Sam and Dean have spent time trying to find a way to kill the darkness but could not come up with any ideas. Is there a reason they have not thought to try using Deaths scythe, which should be in Deans possession because he used it to kill Death. I have considered that it got left behind as the darkness was released straight after, but even so he should still know where to find it. Death once claimed that he would one day reap god and if the scythe can kill god then it stands to reason it could kill the darkness. Sure Death could have been lying but it's got to be worth a shot?

In the movies, the Death Eaters leave a smoky trail behind them as they fly. As the Order arrive in the Ministry of Magic in Order of the Phoenix , they leave a silvery trail behind them. In the books, there’s no mention of how they’re doing this. And J.K. Rowling said in the books that only Voldemort and Snape could fly like this; first seen in the Battle of the Seven Potters. Please can somebody explain how the Death Eaters are able to fly like this?

This isn't unique to Walking Dead , I've noticed it a lot. It is almost like these worlds are always alternate timelines where no one ever thought of Zombies before. Is that the case? Or is there some alternate reason why it seems like this? It really pulls me out of the show sometimes. Answer In The Walking Dead universe there are no such things as zombies. They don't exist in the media and fiction of the universe either. At least not before the outbreak. That's why they don't automatically use that word or understand what's happening around them. Robert Kirkman explains this in the second episode of Talking Dead , a companion TV show that follows the new episode reruns on AMC: One of the things about this world is that people don't know how to shoot people in the head at first, and they're not familiar with zombies, per se," Kirkman said on Talking Dead. "This isn't a world the (George) Romero movies exist, for instance … because we do...

Did the Agents know about the history of the Matrix (the Paradise and Nightmare Matrix, and the transition to the choice-based Matrix) and/or the existence of previous Ones? Most answers assume that the Agents did not know about previous Ones (see, e.g., the answers to this question ). I've been thinking about the Agents' quotes throughout the Matrix universe and there is some evidence that they might know about the history of the Matrix after all. For example: Agent Smith knows about the Paradise Matrix: Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is...

It always bothered me that they needed the wands to do magic. In the first film/book, before Harry went to Hogwarts, there were instances of him using magic unintentionally without the use of a wand (such as turning his teacher's wig blue). Why do they need them? Are there any that don't need them to intentionally use magic, if so, why? Clarification edit: I mean are there any that are able to do magic well without the use of a wand? Answer Witches and Wizards use wands to help channel magic. I would imagine that European wizards like Harry who are used to always having a wand when performing magic, would find it difficult to do so otherwise. However, in some other of the globe, wands are rarely, if ever, used. The wand is a European invention, and while African witches and wizards have adopted it as a useful tool in the last century, many spells are cast simply by pointing the finger or through hand gestures . ( Pottermore - Uagadou ) Some wizards are able to do magic wel...

Harry Kim is an ensign, the most junior of post academy officers. Voyager is Harry's first posting after the academy ( VOY: Non-sequitur ). Kim is the primary operations officer even before half of Voyager's crew is killed, from Caretaker transcript : KIM: Captain, I'm reading a coherent tetryon beam scanning us. JANEWAY: Origin, Mister Kim. KIM: I'm not sure. There's also a displacement wave moving toward us. JANEWAY: On screen. (The viewscreen shows a narrow band of energy heading towards them.) JANEWAY: Analysis. KIM: It's some kind of polarised magnetic variation. CAVIT: We might be able to disperse it with a graviton particle field. JANEWAY: Do it. Red alert. Move us away from it, Lieutenant. STADI: New heading, four one mark one eight zero. CAVIT: Initiating graviton field. KIM: The graviton field had no effect. Recall that, on the Enterprise, Data was the primary operations officer, and he was a Lieutenant Commander, the #3 man on the ship. This is the sa...

Whilst I was watching Episode III of the Star Wars saga, I saw this scene: To our right of Palpatine there is what appears to be a Twi'lek (opposite Om Free taa ). It's possible she's not a Twi'lek, but either way I was wondering if she was important enough to be named (as most characters are in Star Wars) and if so, what it was? Answer She's Pantoran, from Wroona. Her name is Chi Eekway Papanoida and is played by George Lucas' daughter Katie. She has been mistaken as Twi'lek before (from Wookieepedia): As recently as June 2008, Papanoida's species was given as Twi'lek on the StarWars.com Databank. An exclusive action figure produced in 2006 also depicts and labels her as a Twi'lek, though this is no longer canon. Her character also appear in the latest Clone Wars series.

After watching (I'm sure quite too) many Star Trek episodes, I've noticed a number of occasions where the characters seem to step away or onto a more specific location to get transported, even if they are not anywhere near a transporter "pad." Recently, I noticed this at the end of Deep Space Nine, Season 4, Episode 11, Paradise Lost - Part 2 where it's clear that Sisko steps slightly out of the way and closer to the group of other people to get transported, before he actually is ... However, I've noticed this, to some extent in episodes of all 5 live-action TV series. So, the question is ... is there there something inherent in transporter technology that requires people to be either : Closer together in proximity or ... In a certain location before normal transportation is possible? Note: I realize this is sci-fi and an easy answer is "well it's a bit of a plot device, it depends ..." That's kinda weak, I'm looking for a more well-ro...

By all accounts, the Jedi Temple was a storehouse of vast amounts of information. Holocrons, books, and the like. What became of this after Order 66? Did the Emperor take control of it? I've never seen any of its contents mentioned in any of the EU books I've read. I'd imagine there was tons of useful information that he would want to take hold of. Was it destroyed? Stolen? Sold? Something else? Answer Many of the holocrons (particularly the Sith Holocrons the Jedi had captured over the years) were taken by Darth Vader after the events of Operation Knightfall. In the novel Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader , Vader would be sent back to the Temple by his master in order to retrieve the Sith holocrons stored there. Vader knew this to be a test of his will, if he could pass through the Force-imbued Temple without succumbing to the horrors wrought there he would be commended. Vader was accompanied by Head of Imperial Intelligence Armand Isard whose men had detected a hacker...

Memory Alpha for ST:TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint"? states: Apparently at some point during this mission, Geordi La Forge told Data a joke, which the humorless android did not "get" until years later, when he activated his emotion chip during the events of Star Trek: Generations . Is it known what the joke is? Answer possible setup for the joke? [embedded content] transcript: "A monk, a clone and a ferengi decided to go bowling together..."

In the recent Marvel Avengers movie, Captain America gave a helping toss to Black Widow so she could catch one of the chariots flying by of Loki's army. The chariot was flying by at least 80 miles per hour and Captain America threw Black Widow straight up to catch it as it was flying by at a parallel angle to the ground. Black Widow simply grabbed on to the chariot and kept going without ripping her arm off or doing any damage to her at all. Does Black Widow have some special enhancement physically to withstand this type of force? Answer The Marvel Cinematic Universe (Earth-19999) has not given us a complete backstory on the Black Widow for their universe, but in the Marvel canon universe (Earth-616) she has had the equivalent of the Super-Soldier serum (a Russian variant) given to her making her the female equivalent to Captain America. Natasha has received the Red Room's variant of the Super-Soldier Serum. As a result, her physical and mental abilities had been enhanced sl...