Science Fiction Trivia

[spud42]

will accept

Watney in Andy Weir’s the Martian uses a solar energy powered electric buggy

rocket fuel is too generic a term could be anything...

so Old Murgh has number 4. so 1 to go...

The Simpsons strike me as fantasy not SCI FI. sorry Big D.

[Cholmondely]

Just stumbled across this: THE GREAT GOD AWTO by Clark Ashton Smith

Class-room lecture given by the Most Honorable Erru Saggus, Professor of Hamurriquanean Archaeology at the World-University of Toshtush, on the 365th day of the year 5998.

An amusing short read

https://www.fadedpage.com/books/20120633/html.php

[spud42]

a plethora of MBP to you Sir!!!

that was indeed worth downloading. It took me till halfway through the second page to "catch on". A most amusing read.

Its only 5 pages long and quite fun so please have a read commanders... still 1 answer to go.

[ffutures]

OK. Let's try something fairly obvious - the wind. Several SF settings have wind-powered vehicles.

The most obvious one is Alan Dean Foster's Icerigger and sequels, where ice yachts sail on the surface of a frozen world. The Icerigger of the title is a fairly big ship, but there were smaller examples (just a few people aboard) used for piracy etc., and the natives had feet that worked as ice skates and could get up a fair speed by spreading their arms (and a membrane linking them to the body) since there was a more or less perpetual gale.

An alternative is the RPG Space 1889 where Mars has a natural anti-gravity wood, liftwood. It's mostly used for fairly big ships, but again there are dinghy equivalents. Sail is most common for native ships, with the Terran colonials preferring steam engines, there are also small boats equivalent to rowing boats where the passengers crank a big fan - think of it as a flying pedalo boat.

[RockDoctor]

OK. Let's try something fairly obvious - the wind. Several SF settings have wind-powered vehicles.

I'll grab the basket of low-hanging fruit : In "A Meeting with Medusa", Arthur C. Clarke has his protagonist on (and "as" - I think he was a cyborg of some sort) a hot hydrogen balloon drifting in the Jovian atmosphere and meeting various buoyant organisms. (He probably had propellers as well, but for manoeuvring rather than directed travel - in the same way that sailing ships would navigate an anchorage (including ports) being towed by swabs rowing the jig boat.

Given the recent debate about phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus, it's a scenario worth thinking about. How could that work?

[ffutures]

OK. Let's try something fairly obvious - the wind. Several SF settings have wind-powered vehicles.

I'll grab the basket of low-hanging fruit : In "A Meeting with Medusa", Arthur C. Clarke has his protagonist on (and "as" - I think he was a cyborg of some sort) a hot hydrogen balloon drifting in the Jovian atmosphere and meeting various buoyant organisms. (He probably had propellers as well, but for manoeuvring rather than directed travel - in the same way that sailing ships would navigate an anchorage (including ports) being towed by swabs rowing the jig boat.

Given the recent debate about phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus, it's a scenario worth thinking about. How could that work?

That was actually an answer to the personal travel thing, not the next question...

[RockDoctor]

That was actually an answer to the personal travel thing, not the next question...

Oh, I misunderstood. Or rightoversat. Or something.
In either case, it's a valid answer, regardless of which question it answered. But haven't you got the chalice of doom now?

[spud42]

a bit premature there Rockdoc...lol

ok ffutures that is a valid answer ( both of them)

now the Ball is in your Court Sir. Serve away.

[ffutures]

OK, let's go for a nice straightforward one. Let's have five SF works (books, films, TV, whatever) where a major part of the plot concerns artificially enhanced animals. The enhancement could be intelligence or some other ability. The animals have to be from Earth and not supernatural, imaginary species, etc. The means of enhancement must be something other than just breeding for the desired characteristic - I'm looking for gene splicing, bionics, etc. etc.

Example: in the Thursday Next series the heroine has a pet dodo, which has been cloned from genes found in old museum specimens etc. That in itself wouldn't count, because it isn't an enhanced animal (and is VERY stupid), but it's mentioned that the people who made it went on to modify their genes to produce better versions which were slightly less dumb. Apologies if I'm remembering this wrong, it's been a while since I read the books.

Usual rules: Only one per author or fictional universe, e.g. you can't use anything else by Jasper Fforde or set in the Thursday Next universe because I used it in the example above. And please only enter one answer at a time, and leave an hour or two for other people to respond before posting another answer.

[Old Murgh]

OK, let's go for a nice straightforward one. Let's have five SF works (books, films, TV, whatever) where a major part of the plot concerns artificially enhanced animals. ..

Rushing in with the obvio, Caesar from Planet of the Apes reboots, I think intellectually enhanced by womb exposure to experimental medicines, becoming quite the influential character.

[Disembodied]

The RPG Skyrealms of Jorune has four sentient races - Blount, Crugar, Bronth, and Woffen - which are bipedal, genetically engineered descendants of Earth animals (frogs, cougars, bears, and wolves).

[ffutures]

OK, let's go for a nice straightforward one. Let's have five SF works (books, films, TV, whatever) where a major part of the plot concerns artificially enhanced animals. ..

Rushing in with the obvio, Caesar from Planet of the Apes reboots, I think intellectually enhanced by womb exposure to experimental medicines, becoming quite the influential character.

That's one, have a virtual cookie for the first answer. Four to go!

The RPG Skyrealms of Jorune has four sentient races - Blount, Crugar, Bronth, and Woffen - which are bipedal, genetically engineered descendants of Earth animals (frogs, cougars, bears, and wolves).

Indeed it does - works for me. Have a Meaningless Bonus Point for one I hadn't thought of.

Three to go!

[Nite Owl]

Rick and Morty, Season 1, Episode 2 - LAWNMOWER DOG.

Not sure of the distribution of Rick and Morty around the world but check it out if you get the chance. Not every episode is great but some are darn funny as are quite a few of the humorous bits within each episode.

[Old Murgh]

Another simian, no rule against that?
Mr. Pogo from The Umbrella Academy is an accomplished and eloquent superchimp after getting some serum injection.

[RockDoctor]

OK, let's go for a nice straightforward one. Let's have five SF works (books, films, TV, whatever) where a major part of the plot concerns artificially enhanced animals. The enhancement could be intelligence or some other ability. The animals have to be from Earth and not supernatural, imaginary species, etc. The means of enhancement must be something other than just breeding for the desired characteristic - I'm looking for gene splicing, bionics, etc. etc.

Does "artificial" require "deliberate"? IF you dredge out James Herbert's "Rats" series, ISTR that the original rats were unintended mutants from some radiation leakage from ... I'd have to research it. Which I just did :

investigating possible clues as to the rats' origins and comes to the conclusion that they were illegally smuggled into the country by a zoologist named William Bartlett Schiller from an island near New Guinea which had been near some nuclear tests

It's a very open question if you class this as crap SF, or crap horror, or somewhere in between. Clearly the author was trying to apply a veneer of SF onto a horror story, to try to pick up some more readers.