Science Fiction Trivia

[Disembodied]

i protest!! no wait , i won... never mind... forget i said anything.....


an accidental release of money from the air makes this character a hero.

name the show, episode and characters name.

Firefly, "Jaynestown", and the man they call Jayne Cobb.

[spud42]

Disembodied is now the proud owner of the fishy coconut cigar thingy.... im all out of credits so you will have to supply your own Evil Juice i'm afraid....

[spud42]

Just as an aside, this is probably the most active thread on the forum at the moment, and it is enormous fun as well as being sort of educational.
I mention this because a day or two ago I actually started reading the thread from the start, and back then it was quite a different beast. It almost failed to captivate people in the beginning. Funny how things change and evolve, isn't it?
Originally the questions were supposed to be quite easy and direct- stuff that people actually knew like 'What was the serial number of Kirk's Enterprise?' Complex questions or those that were deemed 'too obscure' were frowned upon. Today, probably because all the 'easy' questions have been asked, obscurity is almost desirable.
'Research' was not encouraged. You either knew the answer or you didn't, and googling etc was a bit suspect <Avoids using the 'c' word> whereas today 'Google-fu' is almost a necessity, not just to answer questions but to fact-check before asking them as well sometimes. Indeed, to offer challenge, I try to make my questions google-unfriendly where possible, and I don't suppose I'm the only one.
It doesn't do much good as they are all solved quickly, and there are many people here who do actually just know the answers anyway, even to some fairly cryptic questions.
But like I said, it's great fun - Long Live the Trivia Thread!

thats the trick isnt it? to use google to get a not so ovbious clue but then ask it in a way thats not just a cut and paste into google search bar....
being cryptic enough to slow people down ,but not enough to be indecipherable......

[Disembodied]

OK … here's a question that doesn't have any one correct answer, but which should be tricky to google directly:

Name five different things, from five different SF universes (restricted to film, TV or books), that are named after birds.

Specifically, named after a type of real species of bird - so that rules out "Warbird" and "Bird of Prey". And it also has to be genuinely named after a bird - so no "Martin Freeman from The Hitchhiker's Guide" (and no "Gull Dukat", either!).

First person to name five takes the fish-coconut humidor …

[DredgerMan]

Combined effort again, I think, since I can only come up with four(non-googled, so they may be incorrect).

Condor class transport from B5
Eagle transporter from Space 1999
Millenium Falcon from Star Wars and
USS Raven from ST (which I believe Seven of Nine was on before she was Borgified.

Last one to get the cherry.

[Cody]

Swoops in with Skylark, from the Skylark series by E.E. Smith.

[Disembodied]

Cody takes the whole ball of wax! (I wrapped the fish, the cigar, the coconut and the cherry in wax.)

You could also have had (among others, I'm sure) the Hooded Swan from the novels by Brian Stableford, or the Shrike, from Dan Simmons' Hyperion novels.

[Cody]

<sticks wick in wax ball> Cool - now I've got a Cismoficoche candle!


Another easy one: open up a deer thief (anagram).

[spud42]

got your answer but i cheated and used an anagram solver... so i will give others the chance to manually work it out..... BTW off to get the book ,might be a good read.

anagrams? whats next enigma machines? Decoder rings? https://shopretroworks.com/products/cla ... coder-ring lol...

[Cody]

Ha - google, anagram solvers, tineye etc - plenty of tools available these days.

It is a very good read - and I notice that I forgot the numbers: (1,4,4,3,4)

[Smivs]

I've been wracking my brain for hours over this - I'm normally good with anagrams and like the challenge. Struggling here though, but having the numbers will help.

[Cody]

I'm normally good with anagrams and like the challenge...

Ditto - and creating them can be harder than solving them.
I'd wager you're a mean Scrabble player - I certainly am!

[Smivs]

I'd wager you're a mean Scrabble player - I certainly am!

<Nods, and wonders if their is an online scrabble thingy...>

[Cody]

The dough-faced ploughboy coughed and hiccoughed on his way through the rough borough.
There's a cryptic clue buried in the above mnemonic, and here's a musical hint - kinda!

[DredgerMan]

Ahh, got it!

The smoke on the water gave me the right push after the numbers clue.

I believe it is: A fire upon the deep.