In the books, I recall some small, unspecified number of giants escaping South. In the HBO series, Wun Wun is the only giant we see escaping from Hardhome and passing through the wall (and wow does he look tired and existentially unhappy). Book canon seems to be that giants were made extinct South of the wall long ago, and I do not recall the HBO series addressing that. Is there enough canon material to determine whether the giants are now below a minimum viable population in the books, the HBO series, or both?

Do I just not understand the concept of the hive mind entirely? My understanding is, its one voice that controls and orders all the drones in all unimatrices. It seems implausible (at least to me) that one voice, one mind, could control an entire collective.. how would a ship on the other side of the quadrant be instructed by the hive mind that also controls a cube on the opposite side of the quadrant at the same time? And all the mini tasks that a ship requires to operate, or are these tasks done individually by a hive mind directly on that ship? Answer You are falling into the caterpillar's dilemma; there's too much to control, so it seems that there is no way to control it all, when the answer is simple -- Don't bother. Think of the Borg Queen (or any 'lead' Borg) as the brain, specifically, the Super-ego. It's the part that does the 'conscious' thinking, and decides on major courses of action. The individual borgs, on the other hand, have very litt...

Why did Dudley have to have his piggy tail surgically removed? Why wasn't the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad dispatched to remove the tail and modify the Dursleys' memories? After Uncle Vernon insults Dumbledore one too many a time, Hagrid retaliates by giving Dudley a piggy tail: He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley – there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal and next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain. When he turned his back on them, Harry saw a curly pig’s tail poking through a hole in his trousers. [...] ‘Shouldn’ta lost me temper,’ [Hagrid] said ruefully, ‘but it didn’t work anyway. Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn’t much left ter do.’ Philosopher's Stone - page 48 - Bloomsbury - chapter 4, The Keeper of the Keys So Hagrid's magic didn't work right. Dudley subsequently ...

I'm just wondering whether the DeLorean time machine has any restrictions on how far into the future or how far into the past it can travel. Inspired when I was considering an earlier question of mine it struck me that the earliest we actually see the DeLorean travel to 1st of January 1885 - the time circuits may have defaulted to that date because that was the earliest date (i.e. 100 years from when it was made and 70 years from when it was in 1955) that the DeLorean could travel to. Yet, we see in the beginning of Back to the Future that Doc suggests the time machine could travel to witness the birth of Christ (the date he uses is 25 December 0000). So, my question: is there any evidence to suggest there are any restrictions on how far into the future or past the DeLorean can travel to? Answer Well, the controls are 4-digit year. Because Y2K wasn't realized as a problem back then :) So, presumably, even if the Flux Capacitor could take you anytime (as per @N_Soong's a...

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...

One of the main plot points in Chamber of Secrets is Ron's malfunctioning wand: Ron was having far worse problems. He had patched up his wand with some borrowed Spellotape, but it seemed to be damaged beyond repair. It kept crackling and sparking at odd moments, and every time Ron tried to transfigure his beetle it engulfed him in thick gray smoke that smelled of rotten eggs. Unable to see what he was doing, Ron accidentally squashed his beetle with his elbow and had to ask for a new one. Professor McGonagall wasn’t pleased. Since cracking a wand seems like a very easy thing to due, and considering that Hogwarts is made of kids, an age group not known for their responsibility, why doesn't Hogwarts have a stash of backup wands for the students? Please don't answer that Hogwarts doesn't carry backups, because they do carry backup spellbooks (HBP) and backup brooms. Answer (so, I edited this to include the other theories I started to develop in comments. PMar's answe...

SF short story I read as a kid in Galaxy or similar mag, I read it in late 60s/early 70s but story may have been older. A guy is transported, via some means which I don't recall, into Asgard at the time just preceding the beginning of Ragnarok. He is an engineer or scientist and understands the principles and technologies of manufacturing atomic weapons and heavy artillery and instructs the Norse gods in how to create the weaponry, which is then used by the Norse gods to win Ragnarok.