Looking for a story I read years ago about a multigenerational ship traveling across space and about to cross a huge expanse of emptiness, in a nutshell part of the crew takes over the ship and forces it to turn around and head back to Earth, help!

In Game of Thrones season 2, episode 8, "The Prince of Winterfell" , Jaime Lannister says to Brienne: There are three men in the kingdoms who might have a chance against me [in a sword fight] Who are those three people? [embedded content] I don't believe this quote, or any variation, appears in the books. There was this quote from A Storm of Swords when he is fighting Brienne: She is stronger than I am. The realization chilled him. Robert had been stronger than him, to be sure. The White Bull Gerold Hightower as well, in his heyday, and Ser Arthur Dayne. Amongst the living, Greatjon Umber was stronger, Strongboar of Crakehall most likely, both Cleganes for a certainty. The Mountain’s strength was like nothing human. It did not matter. With speed and skill, Jaime could beat them all. So in the books it suggest that Jaime can beat anyone, though he is only referring to people of great strength, not necessarily of great skill (somebody such as Barristan Selmy, who is not c...

This should be an easy one but I'll be damned if I can find it! It is a sci-fi horror flick like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" but somewhat different. As I recall, the viewer never saw the actual process where humans were taken over by the alien presence. The human replacement had no emotion and when confronted with an actual human, it would let out a high-pitched squeal as a warning to the other aliens. The movie follows two people who seem to be the last of the humans. They adopt an emotionless persona to hide among the now-alien population. They meet at the end of the movie, I believe in a park, where the woman smiles at the man thinking that he still is in hiding when the man lets out the high-pitched squeal of the alien! The movie ends there. What is this movie?

Why wasn't James Potter his own Secret Keeper? The whole thing came about because Potters chose the wrong Secret Keeper (who betrayed them) for the Fidelius Charm on their house. Why didn't James just make himself a Secret Keeper? We know that it’s possible from Deathly Hallows : (Bill and Arthur Weasley are their own Secret Keepers) . “I’ve been getting them all out of the Burrow,” Bill explained. “Moved them to Muriel’s. The Death Eaters know Ron’s with you now, they’re bound to target the family – don’t apologize,” he added at the sight of Harry’s expression. “It was always a matter of time, Dad’s been saying so for months. We’re the biggest blood traitor family there is.” “How are they protected?” asked Harry. “Fidelius Charm. Dad’s Secret-Keeper. And we’ve done it on this cottage too; I’m Secret-Keeper here." Answer Just my guess here, but it could be that it might be possible for the Secret Keeper to accidentally bring people into the Fidelius charm's protectio...

I thought of this while reading another question. Can the White Walkers swim? In this scene where Bran Stark and his friends reach the Weir Tree of the Three-Eyed Raven, the wights are hiding under the ice. When I first saw that scene, I assumed the wights could swim. (Or at least that cold water doesn't hinder them.) [embedded content] At the end of the battle at Hardhome, the Night's King transforms thousands of dead people into wights. If the wights can swim, why not send them out to sea to kill or capture the remaining wildling survivors? The wights could easily swarm over the rowboats and ships in the harbor. Since the king didn't send the army of the dead into the water, that would imply the wights can't swim. We see them wade into the water to kill wildlings trying to reach the boats, but the wights never go more than knee deep. [embedded content] Can wights swim? One episode implies they can, another implies they can't. I prefer answers from the books over ...

There were 2 boys who fit the prophecy - Harry Potter; and the other one - Neville Longbottom, as per the Prof. Dumblefore. Lord Voldemort himself went after Harry Potter. A little bit later, his main second in command (Lestrange) went after Longbottoms - supposedly, to torture them into revealing the location of disappeared Lord Voldemort. Is there any support in the books for a possibility that it was just a cover, and instead it was meant to be a (failed) planned ahead hit on Neville the baby, as a backup to killing Harry Potter? Answer There are 2 reasons to reject this particular possibility (which is actually, as far as I can tell, a popular fandom conspiracy theory - see #2. Guess you were not the only one who found it logical for it to end up as a FAQ on JKR website :) During Battle of Hogwarts, Voldemort asks about Neville (who he is) and basically treats him same as any other pureblood DA kid, not as a possible archnemesis. This is from the books, as you requested. Moreover...

When beaming up out of a dangerous situation, I can only recall a few situations in Star Trek when characters were subject to enemy fire during transport. In Star Trek VI, Kirk and Bones beam up after being captured by Klingons, and during transport, they appear to take phaser fire, but somehow arrive on the destination ship's transporter pad without injury. I don't recall any explanation given for that; only a joke ("Couldn't you have waited a few more seconds? They were about to tell us everything." -- "Do you want to go back?") In contrast, in Star Trek Enterprise, season 4, one of the marines ("MACO") is covering troops while others beam out of a firefight. He is the last to beam out, and as he is dematerializing, he takes multiple hits from an enemy energy weapon during transport which appear to pass through his body. However, upon rematerialization he cletches his chest in pain and later dies due to the injuries. Perhaps in one more examp...

Is there a novelization of Pandorum? If not, did anyone else write about the inhabitants of a generation ship going feral?

The Star Trek Voyager episode "Tuvix" dealt with a transporter accident that took two people and merged them into a unique lifeform, shown to be sentient and sapient and healthy. At the end, he expressed a self-preservation instinct and "[did not] want to die" . The Emergency Medical Holographic program was the only one that voiced a negative stance to Tuvix's murder, invoking the Hippocratic Oath of non-harm and refused to personally perform the procedure. Captain Janeway did instead. The entire plot revolved around the ethics and morality of the situation, to which end that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few... Or the one, as the case may be . Obviously Tuvok would have laid his life down for two others. Neelix much less likely based on his attitudes towards death in previous episodes. Spock, the origination of the quote, laid down his life Voluntarily . Tuvix, regardless of logic or anything, explicitly would not commit suicide for this, and...

Admittedly, the armor of the stormtroopers is not the best, but it's better than nothing. Why don't the rebels strip the armor from dead stormtroopers to use with their best soldiers? I'd really like to understand why they don't do this.

This requires a little bit of context, so please bear with me. Ron Weasley: "Wingardium Leviosa!" Hermione: "You're saying it wrong. It's Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa, make the 'gar' nice and long." — Hermione Granger being condescending toward Ronald Weasley In linguistics, one of the first things you're taught is that with a few exceptions (e.g. onomatopoeia, sound symbolism), the mapping between words and their meanings is completely arbitrary. To quote Shakespeare, "What's in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet;". Nothing about the rose changes no matter what sequence of sounds you use to refer to it, and inversely, nothing about the sound sequence "r", "o" and "z" will tell you anything about the flower. Furthermore, contrary to popular belief, the specific signs of sign languages used by the deaf are just as arbitrary as spoken and written languages in their mapping...

I remember seeing the original Star Wars on the first day it was released in my city (which, sadly, was a few weeks after it was released in many cities). Being a young geek who could only get SF in books and once a week from Star Trek reruns, I saw it as many times as I could that summer and it was etched firmly on my brain. Within a year or two there was a re-release. I'm pretty sure this was not the re-release with footage of The Empire Strikes Back and a few friends and I noticed they had, at the time, added echo effects with Luke and Leia in the chasm. That was my first experience with movies being retconned. As we all know, along the way, Lucas has made a number of changes to the original trilogy, mostly to the original Star Wars (including adding "Episode IV" to the title). Is there a list of what changes, revisions, and retcons have been done to the Star Wars movies and when they've been done? Answer While they describe their own list as "partial...

In the movie, when Ajax was explaining to Wade how they were going to torture him next, he mentions that Wade was dishonorably discharged. There does not seem to be much information on what the actual reason for him being so. Ajax mentions this around 0:42 [embedded content] Although he seemed to have been an assassin, as stated by Marvel Universe Wiki Following a brief stint of military service, Wade began his mercenary career while still in his late teens. Accepting assassination jobs only against those whom he felt deserved death, he made a habit of using plastic surgery and technology to take on a new identity whenever he failed an assignment. Why was Wade dishonorably discharged from the Army? Answer I asked my good friend Fabian Nicieza (co-creator of Deadpool) what incident resulted in Wade being ejected from the military. I am advised that this element wasn't part of his original backstory and was added by another, later writer. Q. Quick question. What did Wade Wilson g...

According to the official rules, are any possible (assuming there will be any) TV series for Star Wars going to be considered T-canon like "Clone Wars"? Looking for an official answer based on Lucas Empire, not a Wiki based guess, please. Answer Let's start with the Wiki and then delve into primary sources. A final summary answer is at the very end for the very impatient: The Wiki for Star Wars canon says: T-canon refers to the canon level comprising only the two television shows: Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the Star Wars live-action TV series. (src: SW Canon Wiki ) That statement actually derives from input from none other than Leland Chee , keeper of the Lucas's internal consistency database (Holocron) and the main authority on all things canon aside from Lucas himself. From http://web.archive.org/web/20080819192442/http://forums.starwars.com/thread.jspa?threadID=152583&start=1348 : Q: regarding the 3d clone wars cartoon and the live action star wars tv se...

From what I recall, he seems to have an ability to shield himself from Xavier when Xavier was mentally chatting with Eric. Then when Apocalypse interferes, he seems to connect to Xavier's mind and use Cerebro to launch all nukes from Earth. So is Apocalypse a telepath and if so, why does he need Xavier at all? My guess is Xavier's mind is still young and could be more powerful than Apocalypse's but perhaps this was explained (I only saw the movie once). Answer Traditionally, Apocalypse has displayed various amounts of telepathy in the comic books, although he doesn't seem to be especially skilled in it in the film: he doesn't detect that his servants are about to betray him in the pyramid at the beginning; during battles, he can't seem to predict his opponents' actions. He does, as you say, display an ability to shield himself from Xavier's telepathic abilities. Regardless of his exact level of telepathy, Apocalypse explains exactly why he needs Xavier...

When you put some hairs/essence of a person into a Polyjuice Potion, the potion ends up a color that roughly represents the person. Mafalda Hopkirk, as a Ministry witch under the corrupt Voldemortian Ministry, was a very bad person by the time Hermione Polyjuiced herself into her, but the Polyjuice Potion that Hermione drinks is described as being a “pleasant heliotrope”. Now this is heliotrope: Looks like a nice color to me. So why was Mafalda Hopkirk such a “pleasent heliotrope?” Answer I'm at a loss to find anything that confirms that Mafalda was a "very bad person". She was certainly working for the Ministry both before and after Pius Thicknesse took over, but there's no special indication that she was in any sort of position of authority or that she wasn't simply keeping her head down and getting on with her job. Percy (in Deathly Hallows) mentions that by the point that it had become obvious that the Ministry was under the control of dark forces, that anyo...

In the chapter A Journey in the Dark in Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring , the Company comes to the western gate of Moria, the Doors of Durin, which is sealed and requires a password to be opened. The door carries an inscription that in the book is depicted as follows: As the picture says, the text inscribed is: Ennyn Durin, Aran Moria: pedo mellon a minno Im, Narvi, hain echant; Celebrimbor o Eregion teithant i thiw hin The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak (= say) friend and enter I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Hollin drew these signs. Now that is clearly Sindarin. In fact, it seems to be very bog-standard Sindarin, with no unexpected features. Yet Frodo cannot read it. That is perhaps not entirely unexpected, since it does clearly say in the caption to the illustration that the inscription is written “in the Feänorian characters according to the mode of Beleriand”, so it could well be like seeing English written using the Russian alphabet to Frodo. (There are inde...

I have seen the meme of Batman slapping Robin so many times. I really want to know the origin of it. When did it occur in the comics, and why did he even slap him? Note: Spoilers are welcome. Answer As recorded in knowyourmeme.com : According to the Comics Should Be Good Archive, the panel originated from the 1965 comic book “World’s Finest #153.” The story is based around an alternate reality in which Batman believes that Superboy and Superman are responsible for the death of his father.

I remember when the Defiant initially got its cloak, the cloak came with a supervisor, Subcommander T'Rul . She featured prominently in the episode, and I expected to see her in later episodes — as she was the cloaking devices supervisor. You get the impression that DS9 is going to have a (semi) permanent Romulan character, even though (to quote Memory Alpha): Upon being introduced by Benjamin Sisko to the senior staff of Deep Space 9 she bluntly told him that she "was not here to make friends". This seems like a pretext for more character exposition, wherein she actually does become friends with everyone in an Odo sort of way. She however never appeared after this episode. What came of this? Why do we never see her again? Answer I've got a partial answer. Subcommander T'Rul was depicted by Martha Hacket who later went on to depict Ensign Seska . According to her Memory Alpha article: ... she was called in to play Subcommander T'Rul, a Romulan on Deep Space...

After year one, nobody really pays much attention to the house cup competition, but clearly each year someone has to be winning it - they don't just cancel it on account of Harry Potter not being Year One anymore. Obviously some things would cancel the House Cup - The Triwizard Tournament probably trumped it in book 4, and Voldemort's rise to power probably cancelled it in book 7, but that still leaves 4 years of House Cups unaccounted for. So which house wins the House Cup in years 2, 3, 5 and 6? Answer Acting on the advice of my attorney, I would direct you to the Harry Potter wiki page on the House Cup which features the chart below; There is no canon reference as to which houses were awarded the cup the in the 4th, 5th and 7th years. The Quidditch Cup was suspended in the 4th year so the House Cup may have been similarly held over. Alternatively it may have been awarded to Hufflepuff in honour of Cedric Diggory's passing.

Back when the series was produced, mental health was not as widely discussed as it is today. I recently re watched S5E03 of Star Trek: Voyager ("Extreme Risk") which shows B'Elanna Torres self-harming to deal with the trauma of discovering that many of her friends were massacred in a battle back in the Alpha Quadrant. The doctor diagnoses her with clinical depression. These topics were not widely shown on TV at the time, and as usual, Star Trek was way ahead of its time in showing the effects of mental health. However, I can't recall any other episode which specifically deals with mental health. Are there other episodes of VOY or any other ST that explicitly deal with mental health/depression/suicide? I was very impressed with how the topic was handled, specifically that grief can cause these symptoms and that they can be handled. Though slightly disappointed that she sort of "magically" recovers... Is there any reference to a character struggling with a l...

Sometime in the 1970s (I think) I saw a really awful film set in a small town by a lake. The film opened with some people camping out in the woods. One of them was zipped up in a sleeping bag. Something (as yet unidentified) moved in between the sleeping camper and the camera, and we heard a "crunch." When the creature moved off, we saw that it had bitten the head off the camper, causing a fountain of blood to spout of of the neck. Far from being shocking or gory, it was so badly done as to be laughable. The main story was that these huge and nasty mutated creatures were coming out of the lake and eating people. A local industrial company was under suspicion for poisoning the lake, but repeated water tests showed it to be clean. In the end, someone had the idea of testing the water at the bottom of the lake, which revealed it to be heavily poisoned with mercury. As mercury is much heavier than water, it had sunk, so the previous tests (done from a small row boat) had missed i...

In Watchmen , Rorschach (Kovacs) and Nite Owl (Daniel) discover Ozymandias' (Veidt) plan after breaking into his office computer. The password he used was incredibly easy to crack: Rameses II. There was a book of that title on the shelf beside his desk, and he was known to be obsessed with Egyptology, Pharaohs, etc. Even worse, his superhero name - Ozymandias - is the Greek version of the name Rameses II. Considering the fact that he's supposed to be the smartest man on earth, it appears that he wanted his former colleagues to uncover his plans. After their discovery, Nite Owl and Rorschach head to Veidt's headquarters in Antarctica. As a result, they aren't killed in the attack on New York City. This might be interpreted as a sign that Veidt is still fond of his former colleagues, and doesn't want them to die. When Daniel visits Veidt earlier in the story, Veidt does seem to be genuinely happy to see his old friend, which could lend some support to this idea; on t...

There are many different Harry Potter works including: books short stories movies card games video games toys amusement parks web content Which ones are considered to be canon? Answer As Stu Wilson said, there's no "official corporate position" of JKR on the topic; so the exact hierarchy of canonicity is somewhat subjective and personal. Having said that, I would like to offer what my personal preference is, together with objective explanation of why that order was chosen. (For other commonly accepted opinions, see @ibid's answer ) Pottermore. This is more canonical than interviews for 3 reasons: A. Interviews are spur of the moment things where JKR may say something off the cuff. She made mistakes in interviews before. Pottermore is "official" content she spents time to think through. B. Much of Pottermore content is much newer than a vast bulk of JKR interviews. C. JKR officially noted in 2012 that Pottermore is currently a replacement for her originall...

What different uses does the unicorn have? Other than the delicious taste of them coming off the grill. At Wit's End #221 Answer According to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them , unicorn horn, blood, and tail hairs have magical properties. Firenze explains to Harry the cost of slaying a unicorn: (I don't know if this means they will live half the amount of time they were meant to, or if it means they will exist in a unfulfilled, unrealised form.) ‘That is because it is a monstrous thing, to slay a unicorn,’ said Firenze. ‘Only one who has nothing to lose, and everything to gain, would commit such a crime. The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something pure and defenceless to save yourself and you will have but a half life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips.’ Philosopher's Stone - Page 188 - British Hardcover (Does this mean that the unicorn blood that Voldemor...

Anyone have clues on what this story was ? All I remember is reading this as a kid. It was an adventure story of kids who found colored chalk on a sidewalk and drew things on it and they came to life. Wow, the smash up of colors that I visualized when reading that still is there. Can't remember the name of this story though.

I know that major plot points are in both novels but I also know that there were changes made to the US version before being published. What were these changes? An English/Irish/Scottish import store opened up near me and they offer the UK publishing. Is it worth the purchase of the series again to buy the UK version? Answer The changes are minor. Mostly some words are changed from the UK to the US versions to better suit the American vocabulary. Here's some examples I can think of offhand: Philosopher's stone instead of sorcerer's stone; boot instead of trunk (for a car), lie-in instead of nap, chat up instead of hit on, lift instead of elevator, some of the food names have been changed. And so on. A lot of the British terms are in the US editions: Scarpers, mental (as in, "He's completely mental!"), knackered, Blimey, trainers (sneakers or tennis shoes). Obviously, there are spelling changes between the UK/US versions: Humour/humor; colour/color; defence/...

Related: How do you listen to a prophecy without smashing it in Harry Potter? How do the spheres with recorded prophecies appear in the Department of Mysteries? Does one automaticlaly get generated, when the prophecy is spoken? Does one get magically generated when someone tells DoM@MoM about a prophecy, with the exact prophecy? Does one simply record what a witness to a prophecy said? In specific examples, would Trelawney's second prophecy (to Harry Potter) have been recorded in Department of Mysteries's prophecy sphere when she spoke to Harry? Or was it only after Dumbledore informed them? And if Dumbledore didn't inform them it wouldn't be recorded there at all?

So, did Dumbledore know what was going on in Defense Against the Dark Arts class during Harry's fourth year at Hogwarts? I have a hard time believing that Dumbledore would have allowed the Unforgivable curses to be used on students, even if he did harbor a soft spot for an old friend. I believe he would have been trusting enough to not investigate, but something like the Unforgivable curses would surely have become a topic of conversation among the students, and thus likely for Dumbledore to get wind of? Is it possible that he let that happen knowingly? Is there any canon proof one way or the other? Answer From Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire , Chapter 14: " [...] Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I'm supposed to teach you countercurses and leave it at that. I'm not supposed to show you what illegal Dark curses look like until you're in the sixth year. You're not supposed to be old enough to deal with it till then. But Professor Dumbledore's g...

Did Padme follow the Earthling Human gestation cycle? Were they born prematurely?

How did Sauron know to torture Gollum on the whereabouts of the ring? We know that Gollum said "Baggins" and "Shire" while being tortured, but why did they think he might know in the first place?

With the news of Jodie Whittaker being cast as the new Doctor, most every article is claiming that she is "the first woman" in the role. However, I've also seen a lot of fans scoffing and saying that she is not. Who is/was the first woman Doctor Who? Answer It depends on what you consider "official". Doctor Who is famous for its very loose and ill-defined canon, with tons of spin-off materials (TV movies, comics, novels, audio-only stories, etc.) piling on top of the TV shows. One, in particular, stands out as an anomaly: the Comic Relief special. Of particular note here is that, in that show, The Doctor regenerates multiple times over the course of the movie, finally into Joanna Lumley. However, the Comic Relief show is generally not considered canon by most fans. It's an obvious parody of Doctor Who, written for charity. (This isn't the only comedy Doctor Who special — there's also one where David Tennant plays The Doctor teaching the class from...

I read this sci-fi story sometime in the 80's (I think). To expand on above, a B&B or small hotel owner takes in a group of guests. They appear young and boisterous party folk, but there is something unusual about them that he can't place. I think he develops a romantic interest in one of the females, but that seems to cause issues within the group. More people arrive, and they all seem to be waiting for certain time. When the time arrives, he realizes the city has been hit by an asteroid or meteor. The story ends with almost all but one of the tourists gone. The authorities blowing up buildings to prevent fires and the spread of a plague, and the proprietor himself feeling extremely ill. The lone individual who stayed behind is apparently an artist who documents the history of human tragedy. In particular, it is noted that the artist received applause in part due to the images he presented, as those were very haunting, notably the sick man (the proprietor). I believe there...

I was under the impression that only Dementors are guarding the prison of Azkaban and are only there to keep the inmates on their cells, though after reading again the following passage it put me into thoughts: 'One night, when (the Dementors) opened my door to bring food, I slipped past them as a dog. It's so much harder for them to sense animal emotions that they were confused ... I was thin enough to slip through the bars. I swam as a dog back to the mainland. I journeyed north and slipped into the Hogwarts grounds as a dog. I've been living in the Forest ever since.' Prisoner of Azkaban ; chapter 'The Servant of Lord Voldemort' So Sirius says that he escaped from his cell when the Dementors brought him food.... I say what??? Dementors dont obey anyone, not even the commands of the Ministry of Magic. So the actual question is, How is the Azkaban prison managed? e.g. who cooks the food? the inmates have blankets, who is washing these blankets etc etc Answer ...

At the very beginning of The Force Awakens , Kylo Ren confronts Lor San Tekka on Jakku, because the First Order has learned that Tekka has part of a map that leads to Luke Skywalker. In the film, Kylo Ren demonstrates on several occasions that he can use the Force to extract information from individuals' minds. It is also made abundantly clear that Supreme Leader Snoke is very interested in obtaining the map, rather than simply preventing it from finding its way to the Resistance. Finally, it is clear that Kylo Ren believes that reading one's memory of the map is sufficient — which is why he suspends the search for BB-8 after he learns that Rey has seen the map. So, instead of executing Tekka, why didn't Kylo Ren attempt to extract the information from his mind? Answer He was (as noted previously) basically a whiny emo teenager inside. Novelization is VERY clear that he basically killed Tekka in a fit of temper tantrum. First, he negotiates with Tekka to get the map: “ Y...

In The Lord of the Rings, Gollum seems to be acting in some kind of complicity with Shelob. He is well aware of her residence above the stairs and he eventually brings Frodo and Sam to her doorstep. Here's a snippet from the LOTR Wiki page on Shelob : At one point, Gollum, after being set free from Mordor, stumbled into her lair; it is not known what he sought there. As he mainly prefers staying away from danger, and the cave being littered with bones from Shelob's meals evidently is dangerous, he must have had a clear purpose. He survived his encounter with Shelob by promising to bring her tastier meats. The Orcs in Cirith Ungol apparently know him well and have seen him on several occasions in the caves; they comment mockingly that he is probably not good for eating. So one can speculate Gollum has served as Shelob's servant on several occasions. This promise was fulfilled when Gollum led the Ringbearer and his servant into her lair in hopes that she would kill them, allo...