Science Fiction Trivia

[ffutures]

*ahem*

There’s also the Nucleus, the initially microscopic baddy from Doctor Who and the Invisible Enemy.

Sorry, missed that one somehow and it certainly counts. Four down, one to go.



Incidentally, choosing this eliminates several other Doctor Who creatures, most notably the Vashta Narada from Silence in the Library

[RockDoctor]

Microscopic protagonists. Hmmm.
I remember a story, but I don't remember the author - it was anthologised with Uncle Tom Cobbley and all : a planetary survey ship crash lands on somewhere fairly nasty, radio smashed, can't call base for whatever McGuffins. They can't get away, so decide to gene engineer human genes into something that can live in the abundant ponds. I can't remember the McGuffin for avoiding the atmosphere. Generations later, the micro-humans are developing a technology and we follow them fighting through the problems of being microscopic, specifically piercing the film of "Surface Tension" separating their watery world from the atmosphere above - which I think was the story's title.
OK, off to Google (well, DuckDuckGo), with an outstanding concern that they'd be over the 1mm cut off. Somewhere they were described in reference to spider size.
Ohhh, well done brain cell! Good hit on a James Blish story, a literal Hall of Famer. And since the protagonists are clearly described as "microscopic", I'll let my caveat hang in the wind.

Oh, the Internet Archive has the whole number scanned : https://ia800804.us.archive.org/26/item ... 952_08.pdf

[ffutures]

Microscopic protagonists. Hmmm.
I remember a story, but I don't remember the author - it was anthologised with Uncle Tom Cobbley and all : a planetary survey ship crash lands on somewhere fairly nasty, radio smashed, can't call base for whatever McGuffins. They can't get away, so decide to gene engineer human genes into something that can live in the abundant ponds. I can't remember the McGuffin for avoiding the atmosphere. Generations later, the micro-humans are developing a technology and we follow them fighting through the problems of being microscopic, specifically piercing the film of "Surface Tension" separating their watery world from the atmosphere above - which I think was the story's title.
OK, off to Google (well, DuckDuckGo), with an outstanding concern that they'd be over the 1mm cut off. Somewhere they were described in reference to spider size.
Ohhh, well done brain cell! Good hit on a James Blish story, a literal Hall of Famer. And since the protagonists are clearly described as "microscopic", I'll let my caveat hang in the wind.

Oh, the Internet Archive has the whole number scanned : https://ia800804.us.archive.org/26/item ... 952_08.pdf

OK - you have the story I was actually thinking of when I set the question - later incorporated into the fix-up collection The Seedling Stars. And that's number 5, which puts you in the hot seat to set the next question! I hurl the question-master's hat in your general direction.

[RockDoctor]

And that's number 5, which puts you in the hot seat to set the next question! I hurl the question-master's hat in your general direction.

Oooof!
Well, it could have been a paving slab.
I have a plan of Baldrickesque cunning. Having been plagued by laying paving slabs in the garden for a week, I am thinking of construction projects which go wildly, hilariously or catastrophically over budget or over schedule. Name five, with a few exclusions :

1. Lucas's repetitive destruction of Death Stars has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous.
2. Star Trek universe is also continually rebuilding/ blowing up Vulcan, Romulus, StarBase and the enterprise, along with the RedShirts. So we'll leave those usual suspects off the table.
3. H2G2 hyperspace bypass is going to have to go back into the locked filing cabinet in the basement toilet/ leopard pen. H2G2's "Earth" too - and all it's plurals. Too obvious.
4. We still don't really know when or why the Pak built the Ringworld, or if they have a concept of "budget", so that one's lateness or cost is rather moot.

Give us your five most horribly/ hilariously (inclusive OR) over budget/ schedule construction projects in the universes of SF.

[Disembodied]

The Xeelee "Great Attractor" from Stephen Baxter's Ring might count, given that the Xeelee had to travel back in time to engineer their own evolution in order to get it completed …

[cbr]

From Mortal Engines, Traction cities...

[cbr]

The silver Dolphin from Axel Moonshine...

http://vagabonddeslimbes.overblog.com/v ... er-dolphin

[ffutures]

Deep Thought, the all-powerful computer in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_T ... characters

Asked to give the ultimate secret of life, the universe, and everything. Takes 7.5 million years to say "42"

They then have to build Earth and experience it's entire evolutionary history etc. to get an explanation. Which would be fine except the Vogons blow Earth up first....

[RockDoctor]

Deep Thought, the all-powerful computer in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I inhumanely slaughtered the whole H2G2 canon, Arcturan Megacow and all, in setting the question. While I love DNA's work, "trivia" isn't really part of their description.

[RockDoctor]

The Xeelee "Great Attractor" from Stephen Baxter's Ring might count, given that the Xeelee had to travel back in time to engineer their own evolution in order to get it completed …

(Reads furiously to catch up.)
Well, the scale is ... challenging. But how badly over-schedule did the project go? Which is a very complex question for a species who can use time travel as a simple alternative to stirring their tea. And the influence of time travel on defining a budget at the "start" of an project is challenging too.

I fear that time travel throws an unexpected (naturally!) spanner in the works of the "over budget/ schedule part of the question. Sorry but Eschaton say : "No Time Travel". Or more succinctly, "Thou shalt not violate causality within my historic light cone. Or else."

[RockDoctor]

From Mortal Engines, Traction cities...

DuckDucking ... I don't see how the Traction Cities are a "project", with a schedule or a budget to exceed? They're more like an economic force or an emergent property of their situation. A big property, I'll grant.
Sorry, no. Unless you can come up with a precís where they are the project of some entity within the story.

[RockDoctor]

The silver Dolphin from Axel Moonshine...
http://vagabonddeslimbes.overblog.com/v ... er-dolphin

The Silver Dolphin - so much more than your basic, garden-variety spaceship !
The Dolphin is Axle Munshine's only true home ; his best weapon ; his main remaining communication link with his missing father ; an amazing vehicle enabling him to explore the galaxy ; and a constantly surprising, informative contact, with whom Axle interacts.
For this spaceship is actually "alive"

Well, it's another "big thing", but it's story doesn't seem to have involved having gone over budget or schedule. Sorry.

[Disembodied]

The various but gamely ongoing attempts to set up a functioning Jurassic Park visitor attraction, maybe? (Who is insuring these things?)

[ffutures]

The Babylon Project series of space stations - numbers 1-4 lost in various mysterious ways, each replacement was bigger than its predecessors and presumably a lot more expensive, culminating in Babylon 5 which was supposed to prevent war and failed abysmally.

[RockDoctor]

The various but gamely ongoing attempts to set up a functioning Jurassic Park visitor attraction, maybe? (Who is insuring these things?)

Oh yeah - good one - for number one. I hadn't thunk of that at all.