Science Fiction Trivia

[spud42]

told you it would be quick!
Big D sweeps in with 2 that were also the firs two i thought of...
then in for the kill is ffutures with the needed 3..
Rockdoctor follows up with honourable mention...

all yours ffutures

[ffutures]

OK, let's have another five things - five megacorporations spanning multiple worlds / planets / etc. No two from the same universe / creator, and no two in the same business.

Our example is from the Ooliteverse, Yelloo Cabs. Since I've used that you can't have anything else from the Ooliteverse, or any other cab company. Anything else by the creators of Elite / Oolite / etc. would also be barred.

[Disembodied]

CHOAM (Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles), from Dune: because it has its fingers in so many pies, it's difficult to say exactly what it does, but since the bulk of its profits depend on melange, I'd classify it as a spice merchant.

General Products, from Larry Niven's Known Space stories. Best known for manufacturing starship hulls.

[ffutures]

CHOAM (Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles), from Dune: because it has its fingers in so many pies, it's difficult to say exactly what it does, but since the bulk of its profits depend on melange, I'd classify it as a spice merchant.

General Products, from Larry Niven's Known Space stories. Best known for manufacturing starship hulls.

Both good - three to go!

[spud42]

Megadodo Publications publishers galaxy wide of the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy. I presume other publications as well..

The guide is published by "Megadodo Publications", a publishing company on Ursa Minor Beta.

[ffutures]

Megadodo Publications publishers galaxy wide of the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy. I presume other publications as well..

The guide is published by "Megadodo Publications", a publishing company on Ursa Minor Beta.

Good one - and means I don't have to get terribly depressed about Sirius Cybernetics etc...

Two to go.

[Commander_X]

ExoGeni, one of the corporations mentioned in the first Mass Effect game (it appears as a main side story in the Feros mission). It was a corporation giving assistance with the human colonization (among other activities).

[ffutures]

ExoGeni, one of the corporations mentioned in the first Mass Effect game (it appears as a main side story in the Feros mission). It was a corporation giving assistance with the human colonization (among other activities).

Don't know this one - but it looks like they're not in any of the businesses mentioned so far, more the exploration and exploitation of newly-discovered worlds. One to go.

https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/ExoGeni_Corporation

[Disembodied]

There's the Crimson Permanent Assurance, an interstellar insurance company from Charles Stross's Neptune's Brood.

[ffutures]

And that's #5 - Charlie nicked it from The Meaning of Life, of course, as did I in the role playing adventure The Crimson Claw Assurance Society, a light-hearted adventure for a small team of dragons, a few years earlier.

over to Disembodied!

[Disembodied]

Psi-powers seem to have dropped out of fashion in science fiction of late (or in the SF books I'm reading, at least). Can you list five psychic organisations, from separate SF universes: max 1 per universe, etc.

Randomly psychic individuals don't count: there has to be some group/body/etc. of psychic individuals. Such a group may itself be secret, though!

[RockDoctor]

Psi-powers seem to have dropped out of fashion in science fiction of late (or in the SF books I'm reading, at least). Can you list five psychic organisations, from separate SF universes: max 1 per universe, etc.

Randomly psychic individuals don't count: there has to be some group/body/etc. of psychic individuals. Such a group may itself be secret, though!

OK, here's one. In the RAH/ Spider Robinson posthumous collaboration "Variable Star", the interstellar colony ships routinely deployed halves of an identical-twin pair who had an FTL psychic link at somewhat faster than speech speeds (say, fax speed), At least the colony ships would maintain some contact with Earth while in transit. Whether that was part of World.Govt, a separate company, or serial individualism wasn't terribly clear.
Since I've mentioned the dirty old man of SF, I might as well posit The Good Doctor as well, with the random individual mutant of the Mule as well as the organisations of the Second Foundation's breeding programme for "mentalists" and the machinations of the (I've forgotten how to do spoilers in PHPBBCODE, but the you know who doing you know what)

[RockDoctor]

Randomly psychic individuals don't count: there has to be some group/body/etc. of psychic individuals. Such a group may itself be secret, though!

Would the dimension-jumping of Charlie Stross's "Merchant Princes" quintet by staring at an eyeball-twisting pattern count as psi? If I recall correctly, it was an ability restricted to certain blood lines, so somewhat overlapping with chemistry/ genetics/ physics, but there's a definite air of psi about it too.

[ffutures]

PsiCorps, part of EarthGov, in the Babylon Five universe.

The Zhodani empire (or whatever they called it, can't remember) in the Traveller RPG, which is a benevolent dictatorship based on a mind-reading state - pretty much anyone in any responsible government job is psychic.

[Disembodied]

OK, here's one. In the RAH/ Spider Robinson posthumous collaboration "Variable Star" […]

OK, that's one.

[…] the Second Foundation […]

Two!

Would the dimension-jumping of Charlie Stross's "Merchant Princes" quintet by staring at an eyeball-twisting pattern count as psi? If I recall correctly, it was an ability restricted to certain blood lines, so somewhat overlapping with chemistry/ genetics/ physics, but there's a definite air of psi about it too.

I think so … it's an innate ability, keyed to certain individuals, and those individuals are recognised as parts of families or clans. That's three!

PsiCorps, part of EarthGov, in the Babylon Five universe.

Four, definitely.

The Zhodani empire (or whatever they called it, can't remember) in the Traveller RPG, which is a benevolent dictatorship based on a mind-reading state - pretty much anyone in any responsible government job is psychic.

The Zhodani definitely use a lot of psi, and power pretty much determines rank, as far as I recall … plus the Consular Guard Commandos are specialist psychic teleporters. That's five! Other examples could include the Psi Division of the Judges in Mega-City One, or the Guild Navigators from Dune.

Over to ffutures for the next question.