Science Fiction Trivia

[RockDoctor]

Well, my reading of "Hothouse" was that ...

Also, I'm far enough from the poisoned chalice to fight for my proposition.

[Nite Owl]

The Consent Rule on this one needs a bit of further definition. While many such fictional relationships start off in the negative light of "who wants to share their body with something that is not me" they do eventually turn into beneficial relationships. It is this eventual turning of the relationship that usually makes for the meat of such a symbiotic story. So does the Consent Rule apply only at the beginning of the relationship or can consent be given at any time during the unfolding of the story? If the former is your choice then all is well and good. If the latter is your choice then several of the stories you have disqualified would need to be amended.

[ffutures]

Re Needle, I tried to make it clear that Hunter's move into an unwary host was very much atypical of his species, and only done because the alternative was probably his death leaving a murderer loose on Earth. He communicates as soon as he can, and gets permission to stay once his host is aware of the situation.

I think we may very quickly run out of suitable species if rules are taken completely literally with no exceptions, regardless of circumstances.

[Disembodied]

A possible answer might be the Leviathan organic spaceships and the Pilots from Farscape. Both are bio-engineered creatures, produced by the mysterious "Builders", but co-exist symbiotically. The relationship seems to be entirely voluntary, and allows members of the Pilot species to leave their homeworld. I'm not certain what benefit the Leviathan host gains, but they were created to have a pilot installed, so are incomplete without one; perhaps they gain companionship, and a sense of purpose.

[spud42]

ok, well my intent was PRIOR consent. https://www.lexico.com/definition/consent im not sure how it could be ambiguous ?

Permission for something to happen or agreement to do something.

coming to accept after the fact negates prior concent.

the leviathan as host mmmm Do Leviathans not under Peacekeeper control accept pilots ? Moya had a control colar on when pilot was bonded... i am really unsure of this one...

Pilots
Moya's Pilot.jpg
Pilots are a species that are chosen by Leviathans as companions and navigators. They are symbiotically bonded to Leviathan craft and essentially become one being, sharing thoughts and emotions telepathically and even sharing the other's pain. A Pilot acts as an intermediary between the Leviathan and its crew, communicating the ship's wishes in a way that others can understand since most lifeforms aren't capable of communicating with a Leviathan directly. As its species name implies, it also navigates and plots courses of travel through the vastness of space. While Leviathans are perfectly capable of travelling without a Pilot, A Pilot and Leviathan are rarely separated after bonding as doing so usually results in the Pilot's death and a sense of extreme anguish and loss in the Leviathan that can linger for the rest of its life. The natural bonding proccess of a Pilot to a Leviathan is unclear since the bonding has only been witnessed when carried out by intermediaries such as the Peacekeepers.

there is a lot of contradiction here. also on Farscape dot fandom . com

i will accept this as number 4. there are enough hints that the peacekeepers are exploiting a normal process..

The Pilot society forbid young individuals to bond with Leviathans until they reached a certain age (Moya's Pilot was an exception).

will leave it at prior consent for now .....

i will accept FFutures answer as number 3 as i missed the "atypical" in my reading. taking his answer as the race and not the individual "hunter" .
sorry Rockdoctor but "becomes more accepting" still doesnt qualify as prior concent.

ok 1 more for the prize.

[Disembodied]

A possible answer: in the 4x game Stellaris there's a random event where you can find "Brain Slugs" on an alien planet. They're pretty much what it says on the tin: slugs that live in your brain. They boost intelligence but crucially they only inhabit willing hosts: if you decide to adopt them into your empire you receive a 10-year penalty to overall population happiness, as a lot of people are unaccountably squicky about the idea. But eventually they get used to it, and you get access to a percentage of brain-slug-boosted scientists and other leaders.

[spud42]

sounds like we have number 5. Disembodied has the prize....

this is the book that gave me the idea... https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/ ... ard-pirate

[Disembodied]

OK … how about five examples of intelligent, biological entities which have been woken up/defrosted/revived/brought out of stasis/etc. after very, very long periods of time - tens or hundreds of thousands of years at least. These should be creatures with whom it would be possible to have a conversation, or at least some sort of meaningful interaction.

As an example, the Martians from Quatermass and the Pit would NOT count. Although the Martians are definitely ancient, they remain dead; the only thing that gets revived is some sort of psychic legacy.

Usual rules: only one per universe.

[cbr]

Whew, time limit.

Eh I go for the Necrons ( 40k )

[Disembodied]

Eh I go for the Necrons ( 40k )

Alas, they're robotic …

intelligent, biological entities

[ffutures]

Various intelligent beings including a human in a long series of fairly dire novels by Neil R. Jones.

In the first of them, "The Jameson Satellite" (1931) the 26th-century hero is cryogenically frozen. He is eventually found by a robotic race, the Zoromes, forty million years in the future. They revive his brain and implant it into a robotic body, and he joins them, and other beings they've "rescued" in the same way, in a long series of adventures.

http://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/jones_neil_r

Annoyingly, your time limit rules out one of my favourite reanimation stories, The Romance of Golden Star by George Griffith (1901), which has various Peruvian mummies reanimated by weird science and conquering large swathes of South America. I used it as a basis for an STL travel RPG idea, with starship crews using reanimated mummies instead of cryogenics for interstellar travel.

[Commander_X]

Stargate SG1, Season 6 Episode 4, "Frozen". The ancient Ayiana is found frozen in Antarctica near the second Earth stargate, resurrects herself, and helps curing the team of a disease she was carrying. The crew estimates her stasis to have lasted "several million years".
<and here I thought there was something similar in Stargate Atlantis, but with the exception of the awakening of the Wraith, nope>

[Disembodied]

Various intelligent beings including a human in a long series of fairly dire novels by Neil R. Jones.

In the first of them, "The Jameson Satellite" (1931) the 26th-century hero is cryogenically frozen. He is eventually found by a robotic race, the Zoromes, forty million years in the future. They revive his brain and implant it into a robotic body, and he joins them, and other beings they've "rescued" in the same way, in a long series of adventures.

http://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/jones_neil_r

Professor Jameson would qualify - that's one.

Stargate SG1, Season 6 Episode 4, "Frozen". The ancient Ayiana is found frozen in Antarctica near the second Earth stargate, resurrects herself, and helps curing the team of a disease she was carrying. The crew estimates her stasis to have lasted "several million years".

The frozen Ancient from Stargate also qualifies - that's two.

[spud42]

Red Dwarf. Dave Lister

The premise of the series follows the low-ranking technician Dave Lister, who awakens after being in suspended animation for three million years to find he is the last living human, with no crew on board the mining spacecraft Red Dwarf other than Arnold Rimmer, a hologram of Lister's deceased bunkmate, and Cat, a life form which evolved from Lister's pregnant cat.

[Disembodied]

Red Dwarf. Dave Lister

Dave Lister would definitely qualify. That makes three.