Science Fiction Trivia

[Disembodied]

OK, another

Mondoshawans in The Fifth Element - they're the guys who send Leeloo and the element obelisk thingies to Earth to help humanity, they seem to be benign, or at least what they do benefits humanity; we don't really know why they're doing it but there are probably some ulterior motives too.

Hmm … tricky. Are they helping humanity, or are they simply opposing evil? Whatever: I'll allow it! That makes four: one more to go.

[Disembodied]

No more? How about if we lift the "one per author/universe" cap?

[Cmdr James]

Do conspiracy theories count as fiction?

I can run to the Alien Lizard overlords that have taken over leadership of the earth (the queen, george bush et al), all in our best interests of course

More seriously, how about the Puppeteers (Ringworld) that attempt to breed luck into the human genome? It isnt clear to me whether that was actually for the benefit of humanity, or genetic research or something else. But surely luck is beneficial and it was done intentionally.

[spud42]

i could go to google to find an answer but i mostly prefer to answer from what i have actually read or seen if its tv etc...

being an individual i guess The Doctor doesnt count....

[Disembodied]

More seriously, how about the Puppeteers (Ringworld) that attempt to breed luck into the human genome? It isnt clear to me whether that was actually for the benefit of humanity, or genetic research or something else. But surely luck is beneficial and it was done intentionally.

I can accept the Puppeteers. I think their aim in breeding luck into humanity may have probably been self-interested, but it was beneficial too. That makes five: over to you!

One alien species that is probably here to help - it's what they say, anyway, and they did give humanity a bunch of slightly shop-soiled and second-hand planets - is the Jackaroo, from Paul McAuley's books Something Coming Through and Into Everywhere, which I can recommend. If you'd like a taster his short story "Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was" is available online:
https://www.tor.com/2016/07/20/somethin ... at-it-was/

[RockDoctor]

More seriously, how about the Puppeteers (Ringworld) that attempt to breed luck into the human genome? It isnt clear to me whether that was actually for the benefit of humanity, or genetic research or something else. But surely luck is beneficial and it was done intentionally.

If the Puppeteers were doing it (for all values of "it"), it was for the benefit of the Puppeteers. If it were beneficial to any other species, that was accidental and definitely not a primary purpose. As you get into the 5-novel long "of Worlds" series, you see that they have a very good understanding of human physiology and potential long before Beowulf Schaeffer needed a new battery for his lighter. Or, indeed, Piersson first met and named the Puppeteers.

[RockDoctor]

I can accept the Puppeteers. I think their aim in breeding luck into humanity may have probably been self-interested, but it was beneficial too. That makes five: over to you!

In that case, the Kzinti have also been involved in a human-breeding programme - the first humans they met had severely atrophied adrenal glands, and benifited greatly from learning how to fight, to handle gut-wrenching terror etc. That their manipulation had the side effect of making the meat tastier was an incidental side effect. And the Berserkers are involved in a long term project to make the sum total of human misery in any future years equal zero - clearly benevolent!

[Disembodied]

If the Puppeteers were doing it (for all values of "it"), it was for the benefit of the Puppeteers. If it were beneficial to any other species, that was accidental and definitely not a primary purpose. As you get into the 5-novel long "of Worlds" series, you see that they have a very good understanding of human physiology and potential long before Beowulf Schaeffer needed a new battery for his lighter. Or, indeed, Piersson first met and named the Puppeteers.

True - the Puppeteers were far from benevolent, but a win is a win (and the interference did sort of backfire on them, as far as I remember).

And the Berserkers are involved in a long term project to make the sum total of human misery in any future years equal zero - clearly benevolent!

It's a long-term project to make the sum total of human anything equal zero. Mathematically speaking, it can't be anything more than purely neutral …

[Cmdr James]

Oh, was just wondering why nothing is happening on the thread, and realised I think Im up to set a question?

Its quite difficult to work out which questions have already been asked in this thread... Honor Harrington is, obviously and I think explicitly Horation Hornblower retold in space. Can anyone give me 5 other classic stories retold as scifi?

I know at least one has been mentioned in this thread before, but I think anyone willing to trudge through over 5k posts should be allowed to reuse the answers

[Disembodied]

Can anyone give me 5 other classic stories retold as scifi?

David Weber and John Ringo's March Upcountry and March to the Sea together make up a science-fictional retelling of Xenophon's Anabasis. And the film Forbidden Planet is a loose-ish retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest.

[ffutures]

David Drake's RCN series (With the Lightnings and sequels) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCN_Series is basically (and admitted by the author) Patrick O'Brien's Master and Commander series in spaaaace - the main difference is that it's the Captain who's a naturalist, and the Maturin equivalent is a female intelligence officer rather than a male doctor.

The Doctor Who serial The Brain of Morbius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brain_of_Morbius is basically Frankenstein with a less innocent monster.

[RockDoctor]

Can anyone give me 5 other classic stories retold as scifi?

From Known Space, specifically the Man-Kzin Wars, Jerry Pournelle and S.M.Stirling wrote a couple of stories paying " 'omage" to Bogart movies : "The Children's Hour" (MKW-2) follows the twists and turns of Casablanca down to a Fijian pianist (which is where I caught on) while "In the Hall Of The Mountain King" (MKW5) riffs on "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" with mutually distrustful prospectors searching for buried treasure - in the mountains and within themselves. Well, classic movies, of not classic literature. But definitely classic. I'd have to research to find if there was a book behind "Casablanca" or "Sierra Madre", or just a couple of screenplays.

Also Shelley's Frankenstein can map (loosely) to pretty much any early Asimov Robot story, with at least one of Calvin, Donovan or Powell berating the "Frankenstein complex". Though there Asimov really was talking about the movie for the Monster in the book is a far more interesting character than in the movies. Reading Shelly was much more illuminating about the Monster than reading Hammet's "Falcon" was about Sam Spade.

[Cmdr James]

wow, thats 5!
over to you

[RockDoctor]

wow, thats 5!
over to you

Moi?


OK, thinking cap on.


Oh, that didn't take long, because I was planning a rainfall-incantation and afternoon trip to the park to practice macro-photography of the bees ...


Seven intelligent and aggressive plants. I'll start by excluding the overgrown daisy in "Little Shop Of Horrors" with the "Feed Me" song, because I haven't seen that one. (Wiki ... it's a Venus Fly Trap, he/she/ it is called Audrey, and it's apparantly a musical, which would explain why I've never seen it) And since it was done on the radio recently and fungi aren't plants, the morel in Brian Aldiss' "Hothouse".

I'm going for a slightly longer string to provoke a deeper excavation, so those with a knowledge of 1920s Weimar B+W oddities are encouraged to exhibit their contributions from the greenhouses labelled "Enter at Own Risk"

I'm just going to feed Audrey. I may be gone some time ...

[spud42]

Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan Farscape. quote from Farscape fandom
" Zhaan was arrested for murder and imprisoned by the Peacekeepers. She spent three cycles on Mekkar VII, a maximum labor planet. For nearly 17 cycles after the murder, she was tortured by her own dark impulses."
" Zhaan chose to expend nearly all her hard-won spiritual energy in a quest to restore Aeryn Sun to life. She succeeded in raising Aeryn, but Zhaan was greatly weakened in the process and contracted a fatal, though curable, disease. While Stark and the rest of the crew searched for a planet where Zhaan's plant physiology could heal, she herself grew resigned to a peaceful death."