Imaginary languages are now par for the course in fantasy literature: sometimes called something like 'the old tongue' or 'the ancient language', sometimes the languages of different types of being or of people living in different places. In many cases these languages aren't developed beyond a few words (e.g. in The Wheel of Time, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, or A Song of Ice and Fire), but some authors have actually constructed whole languages for the purposes of a single work of fiction: e.g. the language of Klingon was invented for Star Trek, and for the Game of Thrones TV series, a linguistics expert was employed to create the Valyrian and Dothraki languages. I suspect Christopher Paolini has invented more than just the phrases listed at the end of each book for his elvish and dwarvish tongues, but I haven't seen this confirmed. Tolkien was already devising his own languages as a young boy, and continued to do so throughout his life, so it makes sense ...

In Chapter 10 of book 2 (tGH), there's this really weird scene where Rand goes into a house in a village and the scene changes every time he blinks. It flickers back and forth between the following scene: A smiling, bald-headed man in rough clothes laid a slice of meat on a plate held by a woman with a worn face. She was smiling, too, though. She added peas and turnips to the plate and passed it to one of the children lining the table. There were half a dozen children, boys and girls, from nearly grown down to barely tall enough to look over the table. The woman said something, and the girl taking the plate from her laughed. The man started to cut another slice. Suddenly another girl screamed, pointing at the door to the street. The man dropped the carving knife and whirled, then he screamed, too, face tight with horror, and snatched up a child. The woman grabbed another, and motioned desperately to the others, her mouth working frantically, silently. They all scrabbled toward a do...

In Back to the Future , to get Marty back to 1985, it looks to me like the Doc connects a cable to the pole with the weather vane on top of the clock tower and fastens the other end to a light pole on the other side of the road. They need the power of the lightning to transport Marty to the future. They know what time the lightning strikes, because the clock is stopped by the lightning and Marty has the pamphlet from the future with the time on. Marty drives the DeLorean, the lightning strikes and goes along the cable. All goes according to plan and Marty is transported to the future. Two questions: If the lightning strikes the pole and travels along the cable to the ground, would not the clock be bypassed and therefore not be stopped? If so, would this not constitute a time paradox? Answer Doc Brown indirectly explained this in Back to the Future II, when he was explaining to Marty what Biff had done when he brought the Sports Almanac back to his younger self. When the clock wasn...

88mph is an important speed to screw the space-time continuum. But, motion is relative... Hey doc, can you please explain 88mph relative to what? What we see in the movie: it was the speedometer reading which matters. So, place the car on a conveyor belt moving in opposite direction of the car having the car's speed and acceleration. The car will reach 88mph without resultant displacement and will go time warp. To confirm, the speedometer was normal without any modification to record absolute speed (which is impossible). You can see in the first time travel (of Einstein) that the remote-controlled car was slipping on road initially but still Doc was recording increasing speed. This means it's clear that the time circuit needed only a revolving thing in space with a tangential speed of 88mph (w.r.t. the axel which is, at rest, relative to the time circuit). In the case of the flying car from 2015, a similar setup in rocket exhaust can be assumed (motion is relative, after all). ...

In the film LOTR: The Two Towers, there's a scene where Merry and Pippin are saved by a Rohirrim who throws his spear into the body of an orc that was about to kill them. The Rohorrim then charge in on horseback and use their spears and swords as skirmishing weapons at short range. Now, obviously the Rohirrim didn't know Merry and Pip were saved this by spear throw and Eomer even said (to Aragorn) that they saw no Hobbits during the attack. So why did that particular Rohirrim throw his spear so early? Answer It is more obvious in the book than the movie, but when the Rohirrim engaged the Orcs, the Orcs were terrified and more interested in running away than fighting (in fact, in the book, the Rohirrim are so confident that, rather than killing the Orcs as soon as they catch up to them, they encircle the Orcs, set up camp, and go to sleep, then wait for sunrise before beginning the slaughter; the Orcs don't attempt to attack during the night, but some of them do try to bre...

I would like to know how much a TIE-fighter costs, preferably in credits. Answer According to the Star Wars Roleplaying Game Revised Core Rulebook , a standard TIE Fighter costs 60,000 credits new, or 25,000 credits used. This was confirmed in the Starships of the Galaxy: Saga Edition sourcebook.

I'm trying to find a story that we read in class back in 1987. The story has two soldiers that find themselves pitted against each other, but separated by some kind of force field or line or something like that. At the end of the story, the protagonist defeats his opponent and crosses the force field to inspect his kill. While looking down at it he's disgusted and repulsed by its physical form. It's then that the reader realizes that the story is being told from the alien's POV and not the human's because he says something to the effect of, "It doesn't even have scales." The whole class was just blown away. When you're a little kid it's incredibly difficult to see something from someone else's perspective so this just messed with us. I'd love to read this with my son. I've often wondered if it was something published in those weekly school magazines, but I just can't be sure. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Master Windu was a very powerful Jedi who was comparable to Yoda. Why couldn't Windu's reflexes block Anakin's attack? Answer The novelisation makes it pretty clear that Windu was too focused on killing Palpatine to worry about what Anakin was up to. He never suspected him of siding with the Emperor in any serious way and he certainly wouldn't have expected Anakin to actually injure him. “I need him alive!” Skywalker shouted. “I need him to save Padme!” Mace thought blankly, Why? And moved his lightsaber toward the fallen Chancellor. Before he could follow through on his stroke, a sudden arc of blue plasma sheared through his wrist and his hand tumbled away with his lightsaber still in it and Palpatine roared back to his feet and lightning speared from the Sith Lord’s hands and without his blade to catch it, the power of Palpatine’s hate struck him full-on. He had been so intent on Palpatine’s shatterpoint that he’d never thought to look for Anakin’s. Dark lightning b...

The Nostromo was a transport tug. How much capacity did it have given in was a multi year mission? Answer The original script indicates that the Nostromo was acting as a tug, pulling a refinery that contains two billion tons of "mineral ore". During the journey, that ore would be processed by the refinery into oil products such as petroleum. EXT. NOSTROMO The Factory Starship lumbering with the depths of inter-stellar space. Function: Petroleum tanker and Refinery. Capacity: 2000,000,000 tons. Length: One and one half kilometers. Battered exterior encrusted with dark sludge. Alien: Shooting Script Interestingly, in the novelisation, "Two billion tons" is described as the total tonnage of the refinery and its cargo . Her gaze rose to the rear-facing screen. A small point of light silently turned into a majestic, expanding fireball sending out tentacles of torn metal and shredded plastic. It faded, was followed by a much larger fireball as the refinery went up. Tw...

I have watched a few random episodes of BSG here and there and really enjoyed it, but now I want to do it right. I want to go back to the start, and watch it all the way through. I understand there is the main series, but have also heard of a mini-series, and movies etc. It makes me quite confused, and I have no idea of where to start and in what order I should watch. Can someone please clear this up for me, and give me a list of the entire viewing order? Answer I've pulled this from a few forum posts and wikis Mini-Series (2 parts) Season 1 (13 eps) Season 2 (20 eps) ... 2.17 the Captain's Hand Razor (movie) Razor Flashbacks (7 part web series) 2.18 Downloaded ... The Resistance (10 part web series) Season 3 (20 eps) Season 4 (19 eps) ... 4.11 Sometimes a Great Nation The Face of the Enemy (10 part web series) 4.12 A Disquiet Follows My Soul ... 4.15 No Exit The Plan (movie) * 4.16 DeadLock ... 4.19 Daybreak (end of series) (*) The Plan is technically a flash back of season ...

What exactly happens if the Jedi just leave the Force to the Sith? I can think of plenty of political consequences - the Sith take political control of the galaxy, build an army, and have an empire of their own. In other words, the consequences have very little to do with Light/Dark balance of the force. However, while that's happening, the Force is probably going to tilt more and more towards the dark. What I'm curious about is - what are the consequences of that ? Now, I am certainly imaginative enough to think of answers like "things start dying everywhere." But are there any canon examples/descriptions of Force imbalance consequences for which we can't directly blame some Sith and his/her hunger for power? Or is there at least any indication that the Jedi's obsession with balance is something more than dogma? Answer War would intensify and the Sith (and likely other dark-siders as well) would gain strength. We know this from to the Star Wars: The Clones ...

I was reading the answer here Snape dressing up as Darth Vader fanfic It mentions a fan-fiction which states Snape joined the Hogwarts staff when he was 20, possibly making him the youngest person to join as a member of staff at the time. And Professor Snape is definitely one of the younger people teaching. But is this true in canon? I think it's mentioned how long Snape had been teaching in OotP, and I think it's possible to figure out Snape's age at the time from the books. How old would that make him when he joined Hogwarts? Incidentally, can Dumbledore just hire anyone that young to be a teacher at Hogwarts? Or was he hired as a trainee first, like he hired Hagrid? Any level of canon is welcome. If this is not specifically mentioned then logical deductions from the books will be appreciated.

The final episode of Star Trek: Voyager , "Endgame" has this sequence: [embedded content] Voyager enters transwarp tunnel . Sphere seen bearing down on Voyager Sphere exits tunnel + explodes At this point, the visuals seem a bit unclear, but the dialog and description in the transcript seem to corroborate the idea that somehow Voyager was inside the sphere. So just how did the Voyager get there? Or does " right where we expect it to be " just mean the Alpha quadrant hidden close to the sphere and they explode the sphere from inside by some other trickery and/or excellent marksmanship? Was this some sort of plan? What was Janeway's 'endgame' in Endgame?

At one point in Game of Thrones , it says that no longer are there Seven Kingdoms, since they have been united, but now there are provinces: That was close on three hundred years ago, when the Seven Kingdoms were kingdoms, not mere provinces of a greater realm. What are the names of these provinces, and which houses control them? Answer It really depends on how you define provinces. But it is mostly agreed that Westeros is divided into these large chunks. Note: this is the political situation at the beginning of Game of Thrones only. The North . Which pretty much includes everything north of the Neck and south of the Wall. It is ruled by House Stark from their seat at Winterfell. The Riverlands . South of the Neck and encompassing the fertile area containing much of Westeros's rivers (hence the name). It is ruled by House Tully from their seat at Riverrun. The Westerlands . The area to the west of Westeros. It is ruled by House Lannister from their seat at Casterly Rock. The Iro...

I vaguely remember this story from my childhood: it was about an interstellar zoo that came to Earth with lots of bizarre and unusual species, and humans would file through and gape at all the crazy looking creatures from other planets. The twist came at the end when the perspective shifted to the other side of the bars and we discovered that the "creatures" were traveling through space on a kind of safari. They thought they were the visitors and we were the animals. Neither side knew that the other side thought they were the zoo creatures. Answer Got it. Zoo, by Edward D. Hoch. Published in 1958. Link to Publication History Link to PDF

Two of my friends are getting married. They're both huge Doctor Who geeks, and actually met through a DW RPG. Their wedding invitation contained a very subtle DW reference (you wouldn't have been able to tell unless you were very familiar with the show yourself.) Doctor Who's been running long enough that there are quite a few nice quotes for basically every occasion in life. I was hoping someone would know a nice wedding-related one, or maybe one about love, that I could include in a wedding card? Answer From The Big Bang : The Doctor: When you wake up, you'll have a mum and dad, and you won't even remember me. Well, you'll remember me a little. I'll be a story in your head. But that's OK: we're all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh? Because it was, you know, it was the best: a daft old man, who stole a magic box and ran away. Did I ever tell you I stole it? Well, I borrowed it; I was always going to take it back. Oh, that box, Amy...

Who is considered to be the most powerful species in the Star Trek Universe? We know the Borg are powerful but they can be beaten by species 8472, but species 8472 can be beaten by the Federation (Not really a species more of a group of species) and then the Federation can be beaten by the Borg, it is a vicious circle but what about other species in the galaxy could any of them be more powerful? Some people might say 'Q' but is 'Q' really a species or a mystical force? I was going to edit this question to exclude 'Q' from it, but there are some species that even 'Q' is scared of for example Guinan's species. In the episode 'Q Who' 'Q' tells Picard that she is a danger to the crew, but 'Q' is scared and becomes agitated by Guinans presence. This is backed up by wiki under plot Guinan confronts Q who becomes agitated and is forced to reveal the reason why he is on the Enterprise' So is 'Q' really the most powerful sp...

In the books, I can't remember what year it was, but Sauron sent orcs and other creatures to Moria, and then a couple hundred years after, Azog declared himself king of Moria. I think it's possible Sauron may have chosen an orc chieftain or champion to rule Moria. Is there any evidence to support or refute this?

Everyone familiar with Harry Potter is likely familiar with the Hogwarts Express, the direct line from Kings Cross station in London to Hogsmeade. But being a direct line, this would seem to require everyone who wanted to use it to first travel to London. Assuming Hogwarts is the only school for students aged 11+ local to England (i.e. Hogwarts isn't just for London locals), are there alternative conventional (Muggle) means of getting students from other parts of the country to Hogwarts or Hogsmeade? Answer How about the the Knight Bus ? Apparently it does travel to Hogwarts, because Ron and Hermione used it to get back after the Christmas break. I imagine that for a wizarding community of many thousands (there are at least several hundred if not more than a thousand Hogwarts students, going by the movies' banquet scenes), they must have some non-muggle transport just because magic tends to foul up muggle tech. Even with apparating, floo powder, and portkeys, they probably ha...

Why couldn't Harry see Thestrals at the end of Goblet of Fire after the senseless and shocking death of Cedric Diggory? At the end of Goblet of Fire , the carriages still appeared horseless to Harry: Hermione turned away, smiling at the horseless carriages which were now trundling towards them up the drive, as Krum, looking surprised, but gratified, signed a fragment of parchment for Ron . Goblet of Fire - Page 629 - British Hardcover - Adult Edition At the beginning of Order of the Phoenix , Harry sees the Thestrals for the first time: Here stood the hundred or so horseless stagecoaches that always took the students above first year up to the castle. Harry glanced quickly at them, turned away to keep a lookout for Ron and Hermione, then did a double-take. The coaches were no longer horseless. There were creatures standing between the carriage shafts. Order of the Phoenix - Page 178 - British Hardcover - Adult Edition We know that only those who have seen death can see Thestrals...

Casting Alan Rickman (a great actor) in the role of Snape would make a great deal of sense if one considers the depth of the character as exposed by all the books up to the seventh one. A great example is the deleted scene from the HBP movie : The still – which does absolutely no justice to Rickman's talent – is on HP Wikia . I'd prefer not to post the links to the video as that might violate copyright. The scene shows the choir singing 'In Noctem` and then Snape looking out at the approaching darkness. But it seems a mite of an overkill (shades of Alec Guinness here) if one merely needs to portray an somewhat evilly guy from "The Philosopher's Stone" – yes, Rickman played those before (e.g. Die Hard), but still an overkill – and he's been known to turn down blockbuster roles before (he turned down the villain role in 007 movie Goldeneye . Is there any support for the theory that the casting of Alan Rickman was done based on at least a rough idea of his f...

In the early chapters of Philosopher's Stone , when Harry presses Hagrid about his time at Hogwarts, Hagrid tells Harry that he was expelled and banned from doing magic (for reasons that come to light in the Chamber of Secrets ). After Harry finds out that the reasons for Hagrid's expulsion were actually due to the actions of Tom Riddle, did Hagrid get anything in the way of compensation (i.e. being allowed to use magic again) to make up for his unjust expulsion and ban from magic? EDIT: I know Hagrid was able to do simple spells (i.e. lighting the fire in the lighthouse, and causing the boat to row itself from the lighthouse) using his primitive "wand-umbrella", but he asked Harry not to mention the how he had used said magic to anyone at Hogwarts; indicating he wasn't supposed to. Answer YES While one can argue about forms of compensation, I am going to focus on your line "(i.e. being allowed to use magic again)". JK Rowling answered this herself bac...

From Wikipedia: Flobberworm – A 10-inch toothless brown worm. So how do they differ from regular worms? what makes them magical? Answer The only known magic thing about Flobberworms is their use in potions. There’s nothing particularly magical mentioned about Flobberworms, unless looking the same at both ends counts (though regular worms also don’t have a clearly distinguishable head end). They may have a magical property not mentioned, but there’s no mention of any clearly magical ability they have, such as turning invisible. “FLOBBERWORM M.O.M. Classification: X The Flobberworm lives in damp ditches. A thick brown worm reaching up to ten inches in length, the Flobberworm moves very little. One end is indistinguishable from the other, both producing the mucus from which its name is derived and which is sometimes used to thicken potions. The Flobberworm’s preferred food is lettuce, though it will eat almost any vegetation.” - Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (textbook) The Min...

I read this story in the 70s; is about an astronaut running from the law, he crash landed in a "deserted" planet and got badly injured, to the point that he cannot move at all. Then this small creatures appear and tend to him, learning from him and developing a culture around him. Later on more humans discover the planet and the creatures and find a statue of the man build by them. I think Futurama did a sketch about it. What's the name of the story? Answer That's Alan Dean Foster's "Gift of a Useless Man". The protagonist was a petty criminal named Pearson. The insect who made first contact was named Yirn, and one of the plot points was Pearson's surprise at the insects' short life span. He has only been on the asteroid for a few weeks or months, and he mistakes one of the insects for Yirn, when it is actually an insect named Yurn - Yirn's son who has taken over from Yirn because Yirn has died of old age.

In "The Prisoner of Azkaban", chapter 17, "Cat, Rat, and Dog": Harry raised the wand. Now was the moment to do it. Now was the moment to avenge his mother and father. He was going to kill Black. He had to kill Black. This was his chance... How was Harry going to kill him, had he tried to go through with it? It's only his third year, and I don't think he knows any killing curses yet. Answer Canonically speaking, I'm going to say that Harry wasn't going to kill Sirius at all. Yes, Harry was blind with anger and hurt, and he dreamed of avenging his parents by killing Sirius, but Harry had not been taught any deadly curses prior to Goblet of Fire and he didn't understand the emotional component of killing another human being. As Bellatrix Lestrange said to Harry, after he failed to cast the Cruciatus curse against Bella in Order of the Phoenix , "You've got to really mean it, Potter!" [Executing the Unforgivables, that is/paraphrase]...

In the latest teaser/trailer for season 8 we see a feather which is being held in Lyanna's statue's hands which falls to the floor as Jon walks past it. Jon does turn to look behind him when the feather hits the floor as well. We then see the feather being the first thing to start to freeze as the cold, and possibly the White Walkers, approach. That is the last we see of it, however, a lot of focus is put on this feather. So, where did it come from and considering its focus in the trailer is there any significance to it? Answer Robert Baratheon put it there Back in the very first episode, "Winter is Coming", Robert asks Ned to take him to see Lyanna. When down in the crypts he puts a feather in the hands of Lyanna's statue and this appears to be the same one. You can see it in this scene: [embedded content] The annotated script on Genius also makes note of it. [Scene changes to the Winterfell crypt, at Lyanna’s tomb. Robert places a feather in the hand of her ...

We know that you can't transfigure food, so you have to grow it or buy it. Ditto money. I'm sure that aside from some medicinal plants Herbology Professor had there were no farmlands at Hogwarts. So they must have bought food (as well as potions ingredients for Snape etc...). And they needed to pay the teacher salaries. Where did all that money come from according to canon ? Ministry funding? Tuition? Patent money on Dumbledore's inventions? Philanthropic donations by Malfoys and co? Other? Answer The Ministry pays for it all, apparently. From Twitter earlier this evening: My friends and I are having a super intense debate about the cost of tuition at #Hogwarts — @emmaonline1 on Twitter (17 July 2015 at 7:53pm) @emmalineonline1 There's no tuition fee! The Ministry of Magic covers the cost of all magical education! — @jk_rowling on Twitter (17 July 2015 at 7:59pm) Given the space allowed by Twitter, it’s understandable that she didn’t go into more detail about the fu...

As I can read, the author of the series created several books in the series starting with the book A Game of Thrones . I'm watching the series on TV (I haven't read the books). When I watched something in the show that I do not fully understand or want to brush up on, I go search the web and usually find the information in Wikipedia. Often I also find a full timeline from before the first book, and I wonder where does this information come from? Whoever wrote this must have this information from somewhere - I just don't seem to understand where, since the first book starts around the same time the first episode of the first series in the TV show? Answer There's a lot more history (both ancient and recent) discussed in the books than on the TV series, since if you're adapting close to 10,000 pages of novels (including the as-yet unpublished ones) to maybe 70 hours of TV you obviously have to leave a lot out. While the action starts in the same place, the character...

I remember starting, and losing, a book in the late 80s, early 90s, that I have been trying to remember for a while now. It's not much to go on, I realise, but the main crux of the plot, until I left the book in a phone booth :/, was an ice age (either implied or stated, I can't recall) was starting, and a (I think implied) glacier was moving closer to the main castle or walled city of the novel. The setting was not specifically High Fantasy, but a medieval style setting. The interesting thing I always remember about the book was that the antagonist appeared to be the ice itself, slowly, but inexorably, getting closer. Answer Maybe The Anvil of Ice by Mike Scott Rohan, the first in his Winter of the World trilogy.

Characters Genius Hacker Kid - Developed Worm/Virus, trusts this leader dude who might be a priest (pretty sure it's something similar). Might have a sister that's being leveraged against him near the end of the story, or hes mislead into thinking that whats hes doing is for her benefit. Bank Net Security Gal - Hacker who works for one of the first banks hit by the virus, catches a glimpse of the worm robbing her bank and proceeds to try and prevent it and fails. Her attempts draw the attention of bad guys and she becomes targeted by them in the real world as they try to kill her. She learns of one of her friends/acquaintances, who worked at another bank that was robbed, and is dead probably because he also saw more than he should have. She escapes her apartment being blown up and while running for her life she stops at a convenience store to buy stuff with a gift card she stole from inside a box of cereal or some such thing because she cant use her money from her real identi...

I'm trying to find a series of stories (a trilogy, I think) with a slew of distinctive features. I can't remember when the books were written (I read them about a year and a half ago), but I can remember several points about the story: 1: It begins in a peaceful city controlled by a matriarchy. 2: Young men and women are tutored in the ways of the world by 'Aunts' and 'Uncles' (who have no actual familial connection). 3: The whole world is actually a colony whose inhabitants are being prevented from developing scientifically by a highly complex mind controlling satellite. 4: The satellite starts to break down, allowing some (including one particularly successful warlord) to fight it's control and develop destructive technologies. 5: The satellite loads itself up with some people (the protagonists) and heads back to Earth for repair. 6: Earth has changed and is now home to two sentient species, one avian ('angels', I seem to recall) and the other subt...

Does Blade Runner 2049 clarify about Deckard's status as a Replicant? The only mention of this that I remember was Wallace's statements implying Deckard having been created specifically to believe having fallen in love with Rachel (whom herself apparently was made fertile on purpose and not by accident) but which was immediately followed by "... if you were made, that is." (to Deckard) If Deckard were a Nexus 6, his lifespan would have been limited, but he could either be a better model or the radiation in Las Vegas was helping somehow. So, did the producers just chicken out of the decision or are there any actual facts? Answer I wouldn't say they "chickened out", but they kept the Final Cut's ambiguity on purpose, yes. In the interview referred to in this Movies & TV answer , director Denis Vileneuve has this to say: So when Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Vileneuve met with reporters at San Diego Comic-Con, someone inevitably had to ask whi...

On an old JKR's website FAQ it is asked: What happens to a secret when the Secret-Keeper dies? And the answer given by JKR herself is: When a Secret-Keeper dies, their secret dies with them, or, to put it another way, the status of their secret will remain as it was at the moment of their death. Everybody in whom they confided will continue to know the hidden information, but nobody else. This makes it sound like no one new will be able to know the hidden location of the given structure because the person required to tell them so is no longer alive. So after Dumbledore dies, how come suddenly everyone who knew the location of headquarters is now a Secret Keeper? Mr. Weasley had explained that after the death of Dumbledore, their Secret-Keeper, each of the people to whom Dumbledore had confided Grimmauld Place’s location had become a Secret People in turn ( Deathly Hallows )

Given that a 10 year-old or so Hermione could mend broken glasses, wouldn't it be very easy for an adult wizard to mend/fix walls/doors/etc... in a building? The principle is the same (restoring things to their unbroken form). For another example, see Dumbledore and Slughorn fixing up a room where Slughorn was pretending to be a chair. Yet, several times, we see wizarding buildings in poor repair, including those where the owners (e.g. the Weasleys) could not be excused with "they are slobs who don't care" like Gaunts or people in Knockturn Alley would. Answer Just because it is easy to cast a spell and clean up or make repairs doesn't mean every witch or wizard will have the time, or be motivated to. Just like Muggles, wizarding families produce the lazy and slovenly. Mundungus Fletcher, for example, is not someone I could see diligently checking his roof to repair broken shingles. Others, such as Xenophilius Lovegood fall into the category of "eccentric...

I'm looking for a book where outcasts from Earth settle on some planet and eventually form seven or so guilds/families/kingdoms/nations. Each nation was known for some special trait. One nation could regenerate almost any wound. Another nation was of spies and could go invisible (?). One nation controlled time to an extent... etc. The name of the book was something like 'outcast' but not that word, only a similar word. Answer The name of the book is Treason by Orson Scott Card

At the end of Mockingjay (both the book and the part 2 movie) a hovercraft drops a bunch of parachutes into a group of children and some blow up. Then, after the rebel medics come in, the rest of the parachutes blow up. In both the novel and the movie, it's never stated definitively who is responsible for that happening. The assumption is that President Coin was responsible. However, I have my doubts. For example those parachute bombs would have needed to be prepared ahead of time, but gathering the capitol citizens as human shields around the presidential mansion only happened shortly before the parachutes were dropped. Also, one of the reasons why Katniss believes it is Coin is that Snow claimed to not be responsible. How do we know Snow isn't just lying about it? Answer It is heavily implied to be Coin. When Snow suggests that Coin was responsible, and Katniss begins to mull it over, we get arguments that Snow has neither the motive nor the means to conduct such an attack....

I'm looking for a book that I read as a young teen before 1992. It was a series. I don't think it was the Pern series. The dragons were hatched and the people lived by the sea. The main character was a girl. I want to say she lived in a cave and found a nest of dragons and befriended one. The cover is in blues and has a dragon flying on front. I for the life of me can't remember the title or author. It was a small paperback. Answer I realize you don't think the book is from the Pern series, but I really think this might be Dragonsong . It is a small paperback, and part of a spinoff series, actually - which may explain why it didn't "feel" like part of the main series. In any case, the story has a main character, a girl, who was from a sea-hold. Descriptions include fishing and gathering along beaches, for extra emphasis. There are dragons (and they hatch) in the series, but the book is more concerned with the dragons' little cousins, fire-lizards. Th...

Watching Star Trek made me think of a few "deeper" questions about Starfleet, which are all related to the Star Trek TV series. So, let's take for example the Dominion War: people are dying every second, ships get destroyed and cadets are still joining although they know they are probably going to die unless they are with Picard or Sisko. As I read and got to understand, money has no value anymore, latinum is the general trading currency in the universe. But people on Earth don't trade and don't earn their paychecks. Earth is a much better place than today and yet young boys and girls from every culture/civilization are joining Starfleet as they are willingly signing their death note. Why are they joining, what motivates them? They might know that they're probably going to die. They don’t earn paychecks. They could be doing any other job, yet they choose this. And what's more interesting how many died on battlefields must be lined up in front of StarFleet ...

When I was younger I visited my local library quite frequently. I loved picking random fantasy and sci-fi books and reading them. There is this one book that I read and it seemed to be part of a bigger series. I can't remember the name at all. It was more than a decade ago. The story takes place in the future. Humans have colonized many new worlds. The author writes from the perspective of many characters. Good ones and bad ones. The most interesting part of the book were the people that returned from the dead. They were not zombies or anything like that. They returned from some kind of darkness. I don't know if you can call it hell. The people that returned took over the bodies that belonged to living people. I don't remember how they did it or when it happened. They also got some powers if I recall correctly. What else do I remember? Hmm, the space ships were alive and had some kind of connection to their captains. There was this one female soldier that had a brain implan...

Telepath mutants such as Charles Xavier, Jean Grey, Emma Frost, etc... are powerful telepaths who can exhibit awesome telepathic feats and abilities. If they can influence the minds of others to the extent that they can control them, why don't they, especially Professor X, bring about world peace and fix the world? Why does Professor X let wars happen, murders to take place, bad things to happen to good people, intolerance against mutants, when he can use his powers through Cerebro to prevent them?

After watching the first part of the new season premiere, something struck me: After impregnating and having a child by a vending machine, Bender is quite surprised. However, as seen in The Beast with a Billion Backs; he already has a son, that appears, knowing what we now do, to have been conceived and born in a similar fashion. How can he not know how this works, or more to the point, fail to even realize that it is a thing? Edit: Realizing that the question is, in its current form, somewhat lacking; I'll amend it: Is there any observed in-universe reason for his failing to keep track of such an utterly basic element of his own "biology"?

I read a book in school (early 80s) where the entire world was paved and everyone traveled in personal wheeled carts. There was a little girl who fell out of her own cart and discovered she had legs. There was a small patch of grass or some sort of greenery near where she fell but it was the only patch around.

Looking for a book I read in the 90's (not sure if it was published in the 90's or not). The story as far as I can remember goes like this. Human-looking aliens evolve on a very hostile planet. They encounter some big bad threat and they cast about for help. They encounter a rich industrialist on Earth and they send a woman to recruit him. She teaches the guy to use magic and how to transform his body. They build a ship and travel to her planet but just before they arrive, she vanishes and he crash lands on this hostile planet. He goes through many trials and tribulations in order to get to her and eventually he has enough and uses the ability she teaches him on how to transform his body. He transforms himself into a half-man, half-dragon-like creature which allows him to travel to the other side of the planet to get to the girl. On the way he manages to neurally link into a large flying creature that flies very fast, only to discover that it is intelligent and they soon become...

In the Terminator franchise, extermination camps are often mentioned. But from a machine-logic POV, wouldn't it make more sense to just kill all humans on sight, period? Or herd them into small areas and nuke them? (even today's military electronics are hardened against EMPs and Skynet wouldn't care about the environment.) IIRC, the reasoning behind ghettoization / concentration camps / extermination camps / gas "showers" is to misdirect or mislead people both inside and outside the country as to what was really going on. But Skynet doesn't have to worry about bad publicity, and can manufacture all the free labor it needs. Is there any in-universe explanation for keeping large groups prisoners?

In Half-Blood Prince , it's revealed that the Minister of Magic tells the Muggle Prime Minister about wizards and witches. Does the M.O.M. also tell the King and Queen of Britain, about the Wizarding World? Answer Book Canon There are no canon confirmations (within the Harry Potter books or tie-in books) that the Queen of England has any specific knowledge of the Wizarding world. The closest we get is a mention that the muggle Prime Minister is kept abreast of certain magical events. Since a major part of his/her formal role is to keep the King or Queen apprised of the "matters of the day" that affect the UK, it would be surprising if he/she wasn't made aware. I personally veer onto the side of yes, they would be aware but without any real confirmation all we have is pure conjecture. Film canon There's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it mention of the Queen in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. " Queen's Corgi Turns into Hamster " It's...