Science Fiction Trivia

[Commander_X]

Prior to your last (2010) hint: the best box-office movie, Avatar (2009), humans remotely control the avatars (genetic replicas of the native population). Bonus: the main character "merges" with his avatar in the end.

[RockDoctor]

Prior to your last (2010) hint: the best box-office movie, Avatar (2009), humans remotely control the avatars (genetic replicas of the native population). Bonus: the main character "merges" with his avatar in the end.

Isn't that "main character" acting with divergent intentions to the intentions of the people who designed and implemented the alien-imitating scheme? And if so, does that matter for this question?
I never bothered to re-watch the film. The rampant imperialism of the Corporate-American wet dream it expresses was too depressing. Yes, of course we'll treat other life forms with such genocidal contempt.

Excuse me - I have to go. I've a load of highly profitable Narcotics to sell to the Lobstoids of Zaglon-beta. Unless the Felines offer me a better price. Now there's an example of non-overlapping economic spheres of influence!

[ffutures]

Prior to your last (2010) hint: the best box-office movie, Avatar (2009), humans remotely control the avatars (genetic replicas of the native population). Bonus: the main character "merges" with his avatar in the end.

Yes, that one definitely counts - and in response to Rockdoctor's query, most of these stories have the humans at least partly acting against the interests of the aliens they're infiltrating, so it definitely counts for this question. Commander_X, have an MBP for thinking of an example that somehow never crossed my tiny mind, and the poisoned chalice! Your turn!

The examples I gave that nobody seems to have recognized:

Late 1950s novel by a British author later described as a "Terrorist's Handbook".
Described as such by Terry Pratchett
Wasp (1957) by Eric Frank Russell - a human agent is dropped on an alien planet as a saboteur
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp_(novel)

Late 1940s to early 1990s novel and story series by an American author with relativistic interstellar travel.
Planets are named after gods.
The Viagens Interplanetarias or "Krishna" series by L. Sprague De Camp: most of the stories are set on the planet Krishna, which has humanoid natives that humans can imitate by using false antennae - this is often a good thing since most of the characters venture into regions that do not like humans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viagens_Interplanetarias

Early 1970s novel with an alien's corpse under human control.
A very large corpse
Gold The Man by (1971) Joseph L. Green - two human spies inside a capsule disguised as the eye of the brain-dead giant they're controlling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_the_Man

2010s TV series episode - humans impersonate aliens to study their religion.
NOT Star Trek or a derivative.
The Orville (2017), episode Krill - Mercer and Malloy are ordered to pose as Krill soldiers to board one of their vessels and obtain a copy of the Ankhana, a sacred religious text ("the Krill Bible" as it's described) via which the Krill believe by divine right they are superior to all other species in the universe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Orville_(season_1)

one literary example prior to WW1
Featuring a character who appeared in at least ten novels
John Carter, who impersonated Therns (White Martians) on several occasions, beginning with The Gods of Mars (1913) by Edgar Rice Pudding Burroughs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gods_of_Mars

[Commander_X]

I had to think a bit about this, but after reading this here's the ask: 5 examples (books, movies, series, games, etc.) of "everything started on Mars", i.e. where a discovery made on Mars enabled mankind to hop across a much larger area of development (solar system(s), galaxy, and so on).

[Disembodied]

In Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space novels, the posthuman Conjoiner group on Mars develop the Conjoiner Drive, capable of pushing starships to relativistic speeds. It makes human expansion beyond the solar system practicable.

[RockDoctor]

I had to think a bit about this, but after reading this here's the ask: 5 examples (books, movies, series, games, etc.) of "everything started on Mars", i.e. where a discovery made on Mars enabled mankind to hop across a much larger area of development (solar system(s), galaxy, and so on).

OK.
"The Hole Man" by Larry Niven.
Earth's first interplanetary mission lands on Mars, discovering an alien base, clearly not local. but ... abandoned, and for quite a time. As I recall, somewhat larger than humans (higher ceilings and door ways), no privacy taboos (communal sleeping platforms) and ... a peculiar, very massive structure.
For reasons not sufficiently explained, the expedition includes a "Forward Mass Detector" (Robert Forward, physicist ; clearly something of a go-to physicist for SF writers in 1960s Los Angeles) which is showing a sine wave of a large mass being oscillated constantly.
The expedition's resident nerd is mocked by the "jocks" of the "right stuff" contingent, but deduces that it's a long-range (interstellar) communications device, sending a carrier wave. The jocks needle the nerd to prove it, while he is trying to figure out the controls. The needler-in-chief happens to be standing under the massive machine when the Big Red Switch is turned off. Spaghettification makes a mess of a pencil-thick line from his upturned face through neck and torso, and part of a leg ... then into the floor ...
Mars has a limited lifetime. But the change in signal from a carrier wave to a slowly changing wave as it eats Mars from the inside has alerted the Outsiders (generic) that something has happened on their base. They'll be along. But all that future stuff is "offstage, future" from the "Hole Man" 's point of view.

Though it's Niven, I don't think it's part of his "Known Space" universe which has it's own future history of Mars, which I'll leave on the table. I don't think that future history really fits the bill of "it all starts with Mars" though. Mars is a bit of a backwater there - rather like here.
Yes, it's sad to see "Ingenuity" suffer the slings and pebbles of outrageous fortune. On the other hand, at least one helicopter has ditched into the North Sea in my career due to a helicopter blade delaminating mid-flight. I think about a dozen dead. FOD (Foreign Object Damage) or ground strike is obviously remains a hazard on interplanetary missions too. The planned future flying mission on Titan is going to be subject to the same hazards, added to cryogenic embrittlement. Interesting materials science challenge.
There's a Twitter account I follow, of a scientist working on landing pad design for "Lunar Base" (and "Mars Base", indirectly), because the particles picked up by rocket plume impact on the soil is likely to be a real problem for stuff on the surface that you want to use in the future.

The calculation of how long it would take a BH to eat Mars (or anything else) is complicated, since an asteroid-size primordial BH might only pick up a few electrons or protons per orbit about the barycentre. But it'll eat. If it were eating a star, we might not even know about it for a long time. There was a recent paper I read ... Ah yes, here it is : (my write up, under the heading "A Provocative Idea" ; TFP for reading, under the heading "Is there a black hole in the center of the Sun?") Their conclusions (see the Kippenhahn diagrams at the end of the paper, and of my write up) are that the luminosity/ neutrino output consequences of an eating central black hole wouldn't be noticeable until potentially several billion years from now.
Which is a trifle suspiciously convenient - "it hasn't quite happened, yet!". But it's still a fun idea. Testable too - oddly long-lived red giant phase.
Honestly, I thought the idea of (primordial/ small) black holes as a component of dark matter was an ex-idea (choir immortal, Norwegian Blue, etc). But it's definitely a fun idea to nail back onto the perch and play with, particularly for SF types, so it's probably worth a bit of effort to keep it going.

[Commander_X]

In Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space novels, [...]

#1

[...]
"The Hole Man" by Larry Niven.
[...] But all that future stuff is "offstage, future" from the "Hole Man" 's point of view.
[...]

#2*

[*] Trying to close the "offstage, future" loophole. New answers will have to include the "future stuff", i.e. the "everything" (or at least one major thing) that started on Mars.

[ffutures]

The Mass Effect computer game series. The back-story is that human explorers find an ancient alien base on Mars in 2148, which leads to the discovery of the "Mass Relay" - a gigantic machine that is the main mass of Pluto's moon Charon - and lets them reach other solar systems, meet interesting aliens, and go to war with them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Effect

https://youtu.be/gh1s1jBZ4J4?si=teWXlCcpRU035Zdj

[Commander_X]

The Mass Effect computer game series. [...]

#3
+MBP for one of the two examples I had in mind

[ffutures]

Doom (1993) and sequels?

Mars is a research base for experiments in teleportation, unfortunately the experiments open a dimensional breach leading to an invasion from Hell. Not sure of the long-term effects, don't think they ever went beyond the Earth, Mars and its moons, and Hell, but the tech is possibly available for development.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_(1993_video_game)

[Commander_X]

Doom (1993) and sequels?
[...]

#4

+MBP as had to do some extra research, when you mentioned Doom (1993) I jumped on the wikipedia page and read the "plots" for Doom and Doom II (which I'm not sure were ever present in the games themselves). I fired a local copy of Doom II, and through the first 3 levels, I confirmed that there is no plot presented, whatsoever, besides monsters spawn, shoot them, get blue/red/yellow keys, go next level.
This could had been a tough one, but I looked on Youtube on a Doom Reboot (2016) gameplay, and it seems there are some plot hints.
I had to deem this one not exploiting the previously mentioned loophole, as I could read an in-game statement that the "interest of their world was purely for the betterment of mankind".

Waiting for the next victim of this chalice to come through.

[Disembodied]

In the TTRPG Space: 1889, the European colonial powers discover the antigravity properties of Martian liftwood. Liftwood allows for the construction of large Ether Flyers for interplanetary travel, and has spurred further colonial expeditions across the inner planets of the solar system. Germany's lack of access to liftwood means that it has to use hydrogen-filled Zeppelins to get its Ether Flyers into space - although in the swamps and jungles of Venus, where liftwood quickly rots, Germany's expertise with gasbag dirigibles proves to be advantageous.

[Commander_X]

In the TTRPG Space: 1889[...]

#5

+MBP for not using The Expanse (novel series or TV series), which is the more recent example I had in mind; the "Epstein" drive is developed on Mars and advances the solar system volume where the humans spread.

+You're getting the chalice!

[Disembodied]

Right … since WorldCon is in Glasgow this year, let's have five science fiction stories / scenes which are set in Scotland. For the avoidance of doubt, these have to involve things which are genuinely science-fictional, and not merely supernatural - even if the supernatural effects are treading on sci-fi turf e.g. time-travel or time-dilation (so no Outlander, and no Brigadoon - despite the undertones of existential cosmic horror lurking underneath the latter). Aliens and/or technology so advanced as to be indistinguishable from magic: fine; fairies and/or actual magic: not fine.

Apart from that, usual rules apply: only one example per author/universe.

[Redspear]

I'm generally rubbish at these but one answer (and most likely only one) leaped out at me right away...

'Prometheus' and the discovery of the star map (scene).

Although not high-tech in itself it is both a nod to historical sci-fi plot shenanigans and also sets in motion a classic sci-fi tale(s) to come - with space ships, weapons, and arguably the alien. I always thought the original film of that series had mythological elements aplenty embbeded within it anyway.