I'm intrigued to see how this plays out, so I'll allow it.
The feeling I'd got is that - RBQ-like - we'd individually chip away at the clues given, until someone gets enough strands together to either hang themselves, or pull the edifice into the harbour. Is that how you envision it?
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Shooting aliens for fun and ... well, more fun.
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I'm intrigued to see how this plays out, so I'll allow it.
The feeling I'd got is that - RBQ-like - we'd individually chip away at the clues given, until someone gets enough strands together to either hang themselves, or pull the edifice into the harbour. Is that how you envision it?
I hadn't really considered the "chipping away" angle. I just had in mind that some questions would have to be answered before others could be tackled. As questions 1 & 6 are really the same question, with one answer, I was intrigued when ffutures demonstrated that he knew the answer while not fully revealing it. It effectively left question 1 answered but not question 6, a scenario I hadn't anticipated.
Still, just 3 & 4 to go now (or just 4 for the win).
OK, number 3 is is the rock group Heaven 17 - there's at least one other with 17 in the name, but this is the right one for various reasons.
Correct! One MBP to ffutures, and one question to go.
OK...
For no. 4, the film is A Clockwork Orange. In the music shop scene in ACO there's a moment when Alex is standing next to a top ten list. Heaven 17 is near the middle of the chart, Cyclops is near the bottom. While Cyclops has nothing to do with Dahlgren, the word Grendel keeps running through the protagonist's mind in the book.
One further link (according to Wikipedia, I don't remember this from the book) is that when the protagonist thinks he hears the name "Grendel Grendel Grendel Grendel" over and over again, he later realises that he'd actually misheard "...gren Dahlgren Dahlgren Dahlgren Dahl..."
1/6 was easy, there aren't that many books like that.
Which gives you either Babel 17 or The Ballad of Beta-2 as the answer to number 2, and Babel 17 is a fairly important work while The Ballad of Beta-2 is pretty minor, and there are WAY too many groups with a 2 in the name.
I could only find two groups with 17 in the name for 3; one was a big South Korean boy band that didn't seem to have much connection to SF (and used the word rather than the number), the other was Heaven 17, whose Wikipedia entry mentioned A Clockwork Orange.
That made number 4 easy, and a clip showing the rock group names was easy enough to find, which confirmed that it was what was wanted.
Simple, really...
Okay. Let's try something different, which I hope will be fairly easy.
Here are six words. FIVE are acronyms, all of them from SF. Give me the source and meaning of the acronym. So far as I know each is unique to one SF source, although it may also be used outside SF, but if you can find another and prove it you'll get the point and a Meaningless Bonus Point. The SIXTH is a ringer, tell me why.
1: FROOMB
2: TMA-1
3: HYDRA
4: UNIT (this might be a trick question)
5: ELE
6: UNEXA
Only one answer per post, please, and please allow a little time between posts for others to have a go!
#2 - Tycho Magnetic Anomaly - 1 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Used in both the book and the movie to describe the Monolith found in the Tycho crater on the moon. If memory serves the Monolith orbiting Jupiter was referred to as TMA-2. Cannot recall if either was ever actually referred to as "The Monolith" or "A Monolith" in either the book or the movie? No matter what you may call it, it is still full of stars.
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