Science Fiction Trivia

[ffutures]

The short story "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" by "Lewis Padgett" (a pen-name for the husband-and-wife team Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore) involves a far-future scientist sending batches of educational toys into the deep past (i.e. 19th and 20th centuries).

Definitely - and have an MBP for choosing one of the stories I was thinking of when I set the question.

Three to go.

[Disembodied]

There's the film Small Soldiers, which I think would count as SF: it "depicts two factions of toys which turn sentient after mistakenly being installed with a military microprocessor":

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

[ffutures]

That's another good one, and one I was thinking of when I set this question, except that I couldn't remember the title! Still have it on laserdisc somewhere. Have a MBP for remembering it for me!



Two to go!

[spud42]

first, i thought the site was down havent been able to log in for a week or so... just lucked out i googled oolite and DUH! i should have thought of it earlier.

*batteries not included

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092494/

would this count? they thought the aliens were toys at first...

[ffutures]

first, i thought the site was down havent been able to log in for a week or so... just lucked out i googled oolite and DUH! i should have thought of it earlier.

*batteries not included

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092494/

would this count? they thought the aliens were toys at first...

I'll accept that in the interests of keeping things going, but it's stretching things a bit so no MBP.

One to go!

[ffutures]

Have some clues...

B (1968 film)
WG (1959 story)
IADWTS (1965 story)
SLASL (1969 story, filmed under another title 2001)
WPS (1943 onwards - fictional character)

[RockDoctor]

"One to go" ...
Have some clues...

Those clues don't help me. But the initialisms remind me of, I think, Harlan Ellison's "I have no Mouth, But I must Scream!", where the computer controlling the "cyberverse" in which the humans are struggling is using them as toys for it's own entertainment.

Is that close enough to qualify? Wrong direction for the normal contributions, but hey - why should all the stories be written from a human PoV.

I checked my collection of "possibles" in the UCP (User Control Panel) and discovered a warning from hiran reminding people to change their passwords on the assumption that they've been accessed in the period the board was down. So, password changed. Antidote for the poison in the chalice to hand (hopefully) and time for the "submit" button.

[ffutures]

Those clues don't help me. But the initialisms remind me of, I think, Harlan Ellison's "I have no Mouth, But I must Scream!", where the computer controlling the "cyberverse" in which the humans are struggling is using them as toys for it's own entertainment.

Is that close enough to qualify? Wrong direction for the normal contributions, but hey - why should all the stories be written from a human PoV.

OK, that's a reasonable argument - let's go with it. It gets the chalice out of my hands, which is the object of the exercise. That's answer no. 5, you are the winner, for want of a better term. Over to you.

About the clues
B (1968 film) - Barbarella, where the heroine's welcome to an alien world was an attack by very creepy dolls.
WG (1959 story) - War Games, by Philip K Dick. Aliens want to sell Earth-children toys. The one that everyone is watching is a toy soldier thing that eventually gets very dangerous, meanwhile their REAL weapon (a game like Monopoly but designed to teach kids to give their money away) gets through unnoticed.
IADWTS (1965 story) - I Always Do What Teddy Says by Harry Harrison - a kid is brainwashed by a mind-controlling teddy bear
SLASL (1969 story, filmed under another title 2001) - Super-Toys Last All Summer Long, by Brian W. Aldiss, filmed as AI. Robot children used as a substitute in a world where childbirth is almost unknown.
WPS (1943 onwards - fictional character) - Winslow P. Schott - the first Toyman in Superman comics etc.

[RockDoctor]

OK, I grasp the chalice - with chemical handling gauntlets ....
And the alarm clock goes off for a meeting.
To quote the Terminator, "I'll be back. Again, and again, and again.

I remember the Brian Aldiss story.

[spud42]

About the clues

IADWTS (1965 story) - I Always Do What Teddy Says by Harry Harrison - a kid is brainwashed by a mind-controlling teddy bear

i vaguely remember this story, i looked it up and it was in the same collectionthat thr repairman story came from....

He had another called "The Toy Shop"
A toy spaceship that was lifted by a thread but only when some coils were energised. The toy was used to entice several scientists to figure out how the coils worked. The two running the scam knew the coils worked but not how or how to increase the efficiency of them .

[RockDoctor]

OK, I grasp the chalice - with chemical handling gauntlets ....
And the alarm clock goes off for a meeting.
To quote the Terminator, "I'll be back. Again, and again, and again.

I remember the Brian Aldiss story.

From my notes (and apologise if I've used this before/ I do try to keep records.)
Spectacular SF suicide methods. MBPs for stars/ galaxies / universes/ multiverses going onto the funeral pyre.

Since I initially thought of DNA and H2G2 , crashing into a sun, taunting the Ravenous Bugbblatter Beast of Trall, attending a Vogon poetry competition, and entering a Total Perspective Vortex (in someone else's customised universe) are already off the table. Otherwise .... Well Thomas Covenant (The Unbeliever) was full of suicidal thoughts, but never actually topped himself before I got sick of the books.

Also, MBPs for vocal encouragement from the peanut gallery. Double MBPs for a successful spectacular suicide who kills a member of the peanut gallery in passing.
I've just (re-)started Ian Bank's "Hydrogen Sonata", so no spoilers there. Not that I think there are any, but I'm re-reading for a reason ..

[RockDoctor]

The toy was used to entice several scientists to figure out how the coils worked. The two running the scam knew the coils worked but not how or how to increase the efficiency of them .

Ohh, fraud by Main Characters? Now there is an entire bucket-full of chalices ...

[Nite Owl]

BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES - Not the best of sequels but it does fit the category in several ways.

[Disembodied]

Spectacular SF suicide methods. MBPs for stars/ galaxies / universes/ multiverses going onto the funeral pyre.

The Predator, in the original movie: after being defeated by Arnie it triggers something akin to a mini-nuke. However, rather than just pressing a self-destruct button, it activates a countdown, giving Arnie time to escape. This might be because it recognises Arnie as a worthy opponent, and doesn't want to kill him dishonourably … or it might be because Arnie has to survive because he's the hero, and everybody loves a countdown.

[RockDoctor]

BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES - Not the best of sequels but it does fit the category in several ways.

The Predator, in the original movie: after being defeated by Arnie it triggers something akin to a mini-nuke.

Yep, they both fit.

I'm going to dial it up a notch - mere nukes are now off the table. (Which also takes one of the minor characters in Banks' "Consider Phlebas" off the table). It's continent-buster and upwards now, which mean really big nukes (say, a gigatonne TNT equivalent and upwards ; I make that 4.20*10^18 J in real money). Or a "Total Conversion" bomb of 47g or more (if my abacus hasn't slipped a decimal place). Feel free to continue in an upwards direction.

Does "spectacular" imply high energies? I guess not. But biological suicides that combine certainty and spectacle are going to challenge. Oh no, I've got a couple, so I'm sure someone has come up with some that fit.