Science Fiction Trivia

[spud42]

Harry Harrison : A Rebel in Time.

a racist colonel, Wesley McCulloch. The theft of a World War II–vintage Sten submachine gun and the plans for such also add to the mystery about what McCulloch is up to.
the conclusion McCulloch has used a secret experimental time machine to try to change the outcome of the American Civil War, giving victory to the Confederacy through the introduction of the easily manufactured Sten gun.

so the small thing to change the earth is the Sten gun.. if you consider that too big then the PLANS for the sten gun that he took back in time with him...

[ffutures]

The thing actually going back in time that makes the difference is the villain, I think, not the gun itself. Yes, he takes the gun with him, but presumably he has to act to get it to people who will take an interest, and convince them that it is worth sinking a lot of resources into developing it. So I think I'm going to have to say no to this one.

[spud42]

fair enough... so that pretty much rules out any time travel by a person or persons then.

[ffutures]

fair enough... so that pretty much rules out any time travel by a person or persons then.

A time travelling toddler or baby might be OK, I suppose.

[RockDoctor]

so the small thing to change the earth is the Sten gun..

The only person who I've known who might reasonably have used an actual Sten gun (so, none of the squaddies - Stens were out of service long before any of them went into service, TTBOMK) described it as a "drainpipe with a spring in the end".
The reload mechanism is probably a bit more complex, but never having even been in a building with one (to my knowledge), I wouldn't claim to know.
But surely ... the manufacturing plant for the ammunition, in considerable quantity, would also be necessary. It took about 20 years of building Haber-Bosch ammonia plants in the Real World™ before there was surplus fixed nitrogen to waste on things like fertilizer, instead of important propellants and high explosives.

[RockDoctor]

The thing actually going back in time that makes the difference is the villain, I think, not the gun itself.

Hmmm, clarification needed on this one? Is all time travel off the table?
My 10¢ contribution (and I've lost count too) was from Niven's "Svetz" series of short stories, where Svetz is sent back by time machine to the Cretaceous, and there is startled by the roar of a Tyrannosaur (a deep-throated chirp was more likely, but "Meh") and stepped backwards off the "safe" area, crushing an insect. Return to the present with his carefully selected gift for the 3rd hereditary GenSec ... and there is no "present". "Butterfly effect", as they say. The challenge being that there was no villain in this time machine - the destruction of the modern universe (well, the future light-cone from Cretaceous Park) was unintended, was planned against, and accidental.
<P>I think it was a Svetz - "Flight of the Unicorn", perhaps? But I'd be surprised if the field wasn't ploughed by someone else too.

[ffutures]

The thing actually going back in time that makes the difference is the villain, I think, not the gun itself.

Hmmm, clarification needed on this one? Is all time travel off the table?
My 10¢ contribution (and I've lost count too) was from Niven's "Svetz" series of short stories, where Svetz is sent back by time machine to the Cretaceous, and there is startled by the roar of a Tyrannosaur (a deep-throated chirp was more likely, but "Meh") and stepped backwards off the "safe" area, crushing an insect. Return to the present with his carefully selected gift for the 3rd hereditary GenSec ... and there is no "present". "Butterfly effect", as they say. The challenge being that there was no villain in this time machine - the destruction of the modern universe (well, the future light-cone from Cretaceous Park) was unintended, was planned against, and accidental.
<P>I think it was a Svetz - "Flight of the Unicorn", perhaps? But I'd be surprised if the field wasn't ploughed by someone else too.

That's a good question - the butterfly itself is definitely smaller than my breadbox. The swat a bug or whatever idea is VERY old (I think there were stories from the 1940s onwards) and if we accept it as being a random accident to something that simply happened to be near a time traveller, and that the actual thing destroyed is teeny, I think I'm going to have to accept it. But in the interests of fairness I think I'm going to have to reverse my decision on the sten gun thing too, since I've just accepted one where a human action is part of the process.

OK, so that's a right answer to you and a MBP for careful logic, and a right answer and an apologetic MBP to Spud42. The moral of this is that I should have defined my terms more clearly in the original question. That makes four answers so far:

Nite Owl for infinity stones
Disembodied for The Winslow
Soud42 and Rockdoctor for their time travelling objects.

One to go - and PLEASE, NO MORE TIME TRAVEL!!!

[RockDoctor]

One to go - and PLEASE, NO MORE TIME TRAVEL!!!

Composed before the time travel ruling was received, but routed via Planet 9 (Brown/ Batygin, 2016, as modified) so only arriving just now ...

In, IIRC, Charlie Stross's "Iron Sunrise" there is a careful scheduling of a space armada being launched via a complex route of FTL flight to arrive in "response" to a "diplomatic incident", the incident then being triggered, and the armada arriving inside the light cone of the "diplomatic incident", in an attempt to avoid angering the "Eschaton" (actually a super-powered computer from the past of the civilisation/ universe ; effectively "god", without the pretence of supernaturality, which has outlawed "time travel" like this. The complex routing through multiple FTL hops is to attempt to conceal the fact that the armada was launched from <b>outside</b> the light cone of it's apparent triggering event.
Which is complex enough - but basically it was careful use of timing to make actual time travel look like accidental breaking of "god's" rules on not having time travel.
I rather suspect the "diplomatic incident" might violate the "something small" criterion too - all they did was drop a bomb which turned the degenerate helium core of a perfectly normal sun-like main sequence star into a blob of iron (plasma, not metal). Oh, and a big enough flux of neutrinos to blow the star apart without an intervening warning million-or-so years of red giant phase. Which was rather terminal for the planets involved. The titular "Iron Sunrise".

I suspect the whole story was a way of Charlie getting to describe his mechanism for having FTL communication of information without having FTL travel of massive particles. But it was a fun way to bend (if not break) the rules.

[ffutures]

I think you're right that this comes up against the "no bigger than a bread box" rule - or at least that it's impossible to prove that it doesn't from the information we're given.

I really liked Iron Sunrise and its predecessor Singularity Sky, SS especially was a lot of fun. But Charlie thought he'd painted himself into a corner with the first two books and couldn't figure out a way to resolve all the problems so gave up on it to work on other things. And given that he wrote all of the Laundry books after that I'm certainly not going to complain!

[spud42]

The thing actually going back in time that makes the difference is the villain, I think, not the gun itself.

Hmmm, clarification needed on this one? Is all time travel off the table?
My 10¢ contribution (and I've lost count too) was from Niven's "Svetz" series of short stories, where Svetz is sent back by time machine to the Cretaceous, and there is startled by the roar of a Tyrannosaur (a deep-throated chirp was more likely, but "Meh") and stepped backwards off the "safe" area, crushing an insect. Return to the present with his carefully selected gift for the 3rd hereditary GenSec ... and there is no "present". "Butterfly effect", as they say. The challenge being that there was no villain in this time machine - the destruction of the modern universe (well, the future light-cone from Cretaceous Park) was unintended, was planned against, and accidental.
<P>I think it was a Svetz - "Flight of the Unicorn", perhaps? But I'd be surprised if the field wasn't ploughed by someone else too.

that was the actual story i was looking for but couldnt find in my library! as far as i remember there was a zmall groupkitted up and taken back in time. they were warned often not to stray off the path. a typical "safari" and as you said one of them steps off the path and bam the future they return to is not theirs!
i chose the sten gun as the only other idea i had. BTW he took the plans as well. this was to the 1863 american civil war time and they had plenty of black powder and other ammunition items available. simple chemistry for the propellant and the primer cap probably mercury fulminate... They had plenty manufacturing ability then so its not a huge stretch... besides never let the facts get in the way of a story!

[RockDoctor]

this was to the 1863 american civil war time and they had plenty of black powder and other ammunition items available. simple chemistry for the propellant and the primer cap probably mercury fulminate... They had plenty manufacturing ability then so its not a huge stretch... besides never let the facts get in the way of a story!

I think (though I really ought to check) that the chemistry of making "cordite" (by dunking cellulose-rich material into fuming nitric acid) was known by the time of the US Civil War - Nobel funded his "Peace Prize" with his development of Dynamite™ from the mid-1850s - but the industrialisation of the process was still a "work in progress". There is a reason that Dynamite™ plants of the era consist of lots of little sheds, well separated, and sometimes nestling in their own regular array of little craters - it's a rather hairy process!

The US Civil War battlefields were notorious for the literal "fog of war" - where after the first couple of volleys, neither side could see the other through the clouds of "black powder" smoke. Looking at just the chemistry, black powder (potassium nitrate, sulphur, and charcoal) would produce some mixture of potassium sulphates and carbonates (whitish solids melting in the red heat range), plus CO2 and SOx (gases at room temperature), while cordite/ "guncotton" and the like (approximately Cp(H2O)q(NO2)r {p~=11, q~=10, r 2~3) goes to a mixture of CO2, H2O and N2 - all of which are colourless gases at room temperatures.
The importance of their advertising claims as "smokeless powder" is often overlooked today - but the military certainly understood it then.

Weapons history isn't really something I'm interested in, but the chemistry more so. I vaguely remember that the development of automatically-reloading weapons (machine guns, the "Gatling gun" and relatives) was somewhat held back by the need of the gun's operators to be able to see past the end of the barrel. Which required cartridges loaded with "low-smoke" compositions. Which was all happening in the weapons proving grounds and chemical industry of America during the Civil War. I don't think anyone had attempted to patent the fundamental nitration process, because the effects of strong nitric acid were known from the distant past - "aqua regia" and "aqua fortis" (high-strength mixtures based on nitric acid were) well known to the alchemists and mineral assayers of the 17th century. Besides, in time of war the involved military have a tendency to use whatever process they want, and noisy patent lawyers can accept what money they're offered, or accept their shiny new conscription papers into the Regiment of Suicidal Nutters. Or a starring rôle in front of a firing squad.

[ffutures]

OK, we seem to have come to a halt here - since there was so much confusion about the two time travel ideas I think that the best thing I can do is give it a couple of days, if nobody comes in with another answer I will time travel to one of the four we have so far (e.g. roll a dice and choose one randomly) and make it the winner.

[RockDoctor]

OK, we seem to have come to a halt here {...} the best thing I can do is give it a couple of days,

That's a "couple of days" taken. When are the contenders to be dragged to the "Chalice Throne" - the one with the wrist straps and head restraint? Sunday at drum-roll o'clock?
{SELF : exits to review my collection of questions}

[ffutures]

OK, we seem to have come to a halt here {...} the best thing I can do is give it a couple of days,

That's a "couple of days" taken. When are the contenders to be dragged to the "Chalice Throne" - the one with the wrist straps and head restraint? Sunday at drum-roll o'clock?
{SELF : exits to review my collection of questions}

And the winner is (drum roll)

Disembodied for The Winslow!!!!!

Disembodied inherits the poisoned chalice!

[Disembodied]

Arrgh …

OK.

How about: five examples of scifi set on, or at least involving, "rogue" planets - i.e. planets which do not orbit a parent star. They might enter or pass through a pre-existing solar system, but they are not in any sort of conventional orbit - so this excludes planets on long-period elliptical orbits (and, just to avoid argument, it also excludes planets on chaotic orbits around binary stars à la The Three-Body Problem).

Usual rules, one answer per author/universe.