Science Fiction Trivia

[Commander_X]

[...] I asked for examples of stories with black holes performing some function between the narrative extremes of being just a passing reference and being a main focus of the protagonist's actions. I'm asking for stories with gratuitous inclusion of black holes, that could be easily written out, but not so easily as just a passing reference that could be written out with one paragraph. IOW, stories from the time when black holes were shiny and new and authors were shoe-horning them in to stories where they didn't need to be.

1. is a black hole.
2. is not the main story.
3. is more than just a mention.

Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda:
1. Starts near a black hole where Andromeda spent 300 years close to the event horizon
2. Several (3-4?) episodes touch a black hole in their story line, but the main story of the series is not "black hole bound"
3. I can remember two of them presented:
- first one (in Hephaistos IV system) where the story starts, Andromeda is pulled from close to the event horizon, and the crew returns some episodes later, to use it for some back-in-time action (assisted by the black hole presence)
- second one that presents herself as an avatar (we also have other celestial bodies avatars; a main character is a star avatar) in a sort of a dream Andromeda's captain is having

[spud42]

not sure if this is a black hole but it seems to work in a simmilar way.
a Hawking M-Sink from Peter F Hamiltons Void Trilogy. The Cat fires one at Hanko ( a planet ) and it consumes the planet entirely slowly at first by memory it took about 48Hrs?

[ffutures]

Have another one - in 2010 Odyssey 2 (novel by Arthur C. Clarke 1982, filmed 1984) alien monoliths in Jupiter's atmosphere start to multiply, apparently by converting atmospheric gases into solid monolith material, forming an expanding black spot which eventually implodes as a short-lived black hole, starting a fusion reaction that will turn Jupiter into a small star for the next thousand years or so. This is a major plot element but the story is more about the voyage and trying to communicate with the aliens and figure things out, later trying to survive the explosion, rather than the black spot and hole itself, which appears fairly late in the book/film and is only a black hole for a few seconds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%3A_Odyssey_Two

A weird idea I had a couple of years ago - this could have happened in the last Harry Potter book, when the coins in the Lestrange vault started to multiply thanks to the "gemino" spell. Someone did the sums for me, it turns out that regardless of the starting mass of the object being doubled you get a singularity after approximately a hundred doublings, all other things being equal. I weaponised the spell in one of my fanfic stories, and later added the "oops, we destroyed the Earth" ending as an omake at the end of the story.

[Wildeblood]

Have another one - in 2010 Odyssey 2 (novel by Arthur C. Clarke 1982, filmed 1984) alien monoliths in Jupiter's atmosphere start to multiply, apparently by converting atmospheric gases into solid monolith material, forming an expanding black spot which eventually implodes as a short-lived black hole, starting a fusion reaction that will turn Jupiter into a small star for the next thousand years or so. This is a major plot element but the story is more about the voyage and trying to communicate with the aliens and figure things out, later trying to survive the explosion, rather than the black spot and hole itself, which appears fairly late in the book/film and is only a black hole for a few seconds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%3A_Odyssey_Two

Excellent, since it was also one of Sir Arthur's novels that inspired the question:-

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

Imperial Earth is a science fiction novel by British writer Sir Arthur C. Clarke, published in 1975 by Gollancz Books. The plot follows the protagonist, Duncan Makenzie, on a trip to Earth from his home on Titan, in large part as a diplomatic visit to the U.S. for its quincentennial in 2276, but also to have a clone of himself produced. The book was published in time for the U.S. bicentennial in 1976.

The spaceship Makenzie travels to Earth aboard is powered by an "asymptotic drive", a device which uses the gravitational attraction of a microscopic black hole to accelerate any random fuel to near light speed, and expel it rearwards. In one chapter, Makenzie and a few others go down to the engine room to look through a microscope, embedded in the rocket nozzle, at the black hole.

Reading this chapter, I assumed it was a Chekov's rifle ("If there's a rifle hanging over the fireplace in chapter one, someone gets shot in chapter three.") and the story would develop with "What could possibly go wrong?" But in fact, it's never mentioned again.

[RockDoctor]

and later added the "oops, we destroyed the Earth" ending as an omake at the end of the story.

Is that a .. Japanese manga ?? term?

[ffutures]

and later added the "oops, we destroyed the Earth" ending as an omake at the end of the story.

Is that a .. Japanese manga ?? term?

I think so - in fanfic it's used for alternative ideas/plotlines/outtakes that weren't actually used in the story but might amuse the readers.

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

[ffutures]

How many do we have now?

[RockDoctor]

How many do we have now?

Sure you've done the counting up and got to the same non-answer as me, but for the record, I get 2 rejected entries, and 4 which are still with the Returning Officer to count postal votes, stuff ballot boxes, or (since we have an Odyssey in several senses) weave whole cloth for inventing a result from. A declaration may be imminent?

1- [rejected] RockDoctor » 2024-10-21T21:00:57+00:00 "Inconstant Star" by Fred Pohl, in the Man-Kzin Wars universe. [the grounds for rejection being "IOW, stories from the time when black holes were shiny and new and authors were shoe-horning them in to stories where they didn't need to be." Which means ... before 1850 (the first century-odd of BHs being a published idea)? Or before 1967 (the half-century anniversary of the modern understanding of BHs being set in maths on the Eastern Front)?
2- [rejected, same grounds] Nite Owl » 2024-10-21T21:41:52+00:00 "THE BLACK HOLE"
3 - [undeclared] ffutures » 2024-10-24T00:54:40+00:00 "The Heechee series by Frederic Pohl ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heechee_Saga"
4 - [also undeclared] Commander_X » 2024-10-24T04:32:08+00:00 "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda: 1. Starts near a black hole "
5 - [also undeclared] spud42 » 2024-11-10T16:20:11+00:00 "a Hawking M-Sink from Peter F Hamiltons Void Trilogy. The Cat fires one at Hanko"
6 - [also undeclared] Post by ffutures » 2024-11-12T00:58:04+00:00, "2010 Odyssey 2"

While we're waiting for the RO to, uh, Return, I'll just add to Nite Owl's horticultural sidetrack that potatoes are, of course, not root tubers, but stem tubers. Regardless of where they grow. (One of the hints is, leave them in the light - even dim light - and they'll turn on their chloroplasts and start photosynthesising.)

[Wildeblood]

While we're waiting for the RO to, uh, Return,

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

How many do we have now?

Sure you've done the counting up and got to the same non-answer as me, but for the record, I get 2 rejected entries, and 4 which are still with the Returning Officer to count postal votes, stuff ballot boxes, or (since we have an Odyssey in several senses) weave whole cloth for inventing a result from. A declaration may be imminent?

Going with the most obvious answer of all time.

THE BLACK HOLE

What's obvious from Nite Owl's "most obvious answer of all time" is that he didn't read the question properly. I was originally going to mention this movie, as the antithesis of the correct answer, but decided not to, as I thought it was so obviously so that I didn't want to insult your intelligences.[1] Nite Owl (probably not his real name) has been added to the list of people who won't be receiving a Christmas card this year.

name a story (in any format) featuring one or more black holes
Black holes are doing something, not merely being mentioned as existing, but the story does not involve space-farers trapped in a black hole's gravitational embrace, fighting their apparently inevitable doom.

OK, one of the "Man-Kzin Wars" Novellas set in Niven's "Known Space" has the protagonists off hunting a missing ship with Joe Random tiger (a Kzin), and an astrophysicist (father of the obligatory nordic sex-interest character). Turns out the odd astrophysics signal they saw was a black hole of very small size radiating away merrily in the X- and γ- bands. An incomplete "micro Dyson sphere" partially surrounds the BH, producing the intermittent signal which the astrophysicist noticed. The Kzin wants to turn it into a weapon. Well, he would.
"Inconstant Star", by Poul Anderson

This one is trickier, as it doesn't involve the stereotypical trope. When I read this the first time, it sounded as though the black hole was central to the story, though. Though re-reading it now, perhaps not.[2] RockDoctor might like to tell us more about this tale? Is discovery of the Dysonic contraption near the culmination of the story, or a chapter passed along the way?

So, we might have four, or five, valid responses.

I'll just add to Nite Owl's horticultural sidetrack that potatoes are, of course, not root tubers, but stem tubers. Regardless of where they grow. (One of the hints is, leave them in the light - even dim light - and they'll turn on their chloroplasts and start photosynthesising.)

Potatoes are cool. I highly recommend anyone and everyone grow their own potatoes. Even I have successfully grown potatoes, and I've possibly killed more plants than you've had hot dinners. Plants are my communism: I've wasted so much money buying plants, thinking, "It will be different this time."

[1] There is also a 2006 telemovie called The Black Hole. (I've seen it; not recommended; available for free on youtube, if you're curious.) That one will really insult your intelligence.

[2] All three of those thoughs are grammatical and functional, though I may be piqued to consult a dictionary regarding just what the actual part-of-speech of "though" is.

[Wildeblood]

While we try to figure that mess out... can anyone beat this example of things that came true sooner than you expected them to?

I recently saw the pilot episode of The Lone Gunmen for the first time. I'd seen the series at the time it was first broadcast, but to the best of my recollection, not the first episode.

The Lone Gunmen investigate the suspicious death of Byers' father, a top tier government agent, and discover a top secret plan for a false flag operation to crash a plane into the World Trade Center.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0635314/

Now, this spin-off from the X-Files is officially described as science-fiction, though you'd have to be generous to agree. But, with Summer and Advent looming, I'm feeling generous. I was surprized as I watched it, because I thought it dated from 2002 or 2003. So I immediately consulted the internetz to learn it was first broadcast on the 4th of March, 2001. (That's just 191 days prior to the 11th of September, 2001.)

[ffutures]

While we try to figure that mess out... can anyone beat this example of things that came true sooner than you expected them to?

I recently saw the pilot episode of The Lone Gunmen for the first time. I'd seen the series at the time it was first broadcast, but to the best of my recollection, not the first episode.

The Lone Gunmen investigate the suspicious death of Byers' father, a top tier government agent, and discover a top secret plan for a false flag operation to crash a plane into the World Trade Center.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0635314/

Now, this spin-off from the X-Files is officially described as science-fiction, though you'd have to be generous to agree. But, with Summer and Advent looming, I'm feeling generous. I was surprized as I watched it, because I thought it dated from 2002 or 2003. So I immediately consulted the internetz to learn it was first broadcast on the 4th of March, 2001. (That's just 191 days prior to the 11th of September, 2001.)

The ideas that went into this were around much earlier - Tom Clancy's novel Debt of Honour had a Japanese suicide airliner crashing into the US Capitol in 1994, and the time travel TV series Seven Days had terrorists fly a light aircraft loaded with cyanide gas into the White House in 1998. There was also a false-flag terrorist operation to boost funding for the CIA in the film The Long Kiss Goodnight in 1996. The World Trade Center involvement does seem to be unique to The Lone Gunmen, but it was the tallest building in New York at the time and a B25 bomber had previously crashed into the Empire State Building in 1945, so it isn't entirely coming from nowhere.

[RockDoctor]

name a story (in any format) featuring one or more black holes
Black holes are doing something, not merely being mentioned as existing, but the story does not involve space-farers trapped in a black hole's gravitational embrace, fighting their apparently inevitable doom.
...
Though re-reading it now, perhaps not.[2] RockDoctor might like to tell us more about this tale? Is discovery of the Dysonic contraption near the culmination of the story, or a chapter passed along the way?

OK : pécis of "Inconstant Star". Obvious spoilers, which are the Scylla and Charibdis of this particular Odyssey. Highlight to make it legible.
Setting : the Man-Kzin wars ; the aliens have controlled Alpha Centauri Aa for approaching a generation (after a handful of generations of slowly growing human colony). Kzinti Boondocks Regional governor HissSpit (whatever the names) becomes aware that one of his slaves/ meals has enough time to do a little astronomy on the side (time not working for The Patriarchy! Treason! Send him to the eating/ recreation grounds!), and decides to launch a small expedition (one ship, small crew, human prisoner) to investigate this interstellar MacGuffin as a possible weapon. Trebles and Full Names all round!. It's nearby (high proper motion), fast.moving (high proper motion), and spewing hard-X and Γ-rays intermittently (<i>a propos</i> nothing at all, why are X-rays capitalised, but gamma-rays not?) The MacGuffin-icity of the object is there in that anything which put these protagonists in space, away from the big fleets, after "the Liberation", so that the rest of the protagonists can go looking for them. An interplanetary giga-lobster which would have fed the Patriarchy through the next 6 generations of the War would have sufficed to get the first generation protagonists into space, and later the second generation protagonists off chasing them.
Here endeth the spoilers.

A different author in the "Shared Universe" is (was? I think he died mid-COVID, but I'd have to check.) in the habit of taking classical Bogart movies and re-setting them in this part of "Known Space". I didn't realise what was going on until the fat, black (Samoan) pianist sat down to tinkle the ivories. "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" has also been done. There was a terrible re-casting of "Treasure Island", but I don't think Bogart ever donned the wooden leg and parrot.

With that meta-universe context in mind, I consider the black hole a pure MacGuffin, and thus eligible for this round. I'm now trying to think if there was a story in that sequence that paralleled the ultimate MacGuffin - the Maltese Falcon?
(On review : the Maltese Falcon devotes several minutes of screen time to it's origin story. Both as voice-over, and in the character's mouths.)

I tried - not very hard - to work out the mass of the black hole, and the rate at which it could convert infalling matter to outgoing radiation. I didn't get very good answers. I don't think that the actual weapon would be terribly effective. Which discussion did occur in-story too. It's also not very aimable - rather a requirement for a weapon. Maybe the interstellar equivalent of area-denial ordnance (cluster bombs) as the West are now supplying to the children of Gaza. Whatever.

The biggest problem is that the explanation of the MacGuffin in-story was that it had been "floating around" for 2 billion years (since a previous galaxy-scale war) ... which really doesn't work with the radiated power and effective temperature of the accretion disc. But if we can make our "cluster bombs" time-limited, surely the interstellar war of "2 Billion Years BC" could do the same, before pressing their Big Red Button.

Whoops - I just realised an error in the early parts of the story. The astronomer detected the X-ray and Γ-ray signature ... using a ground-based telescope. "Loud QI Klaxon.wav" As a later part of the story arc suggests, the best way to get gamma rays down to the ground is using a dumb rock travelling at half-c with respect to said ground.

[Wildeblood]

So, we might have four, or five, valid responses.

Well, that looks like five, and as though ffutures provided the fifth. Again, my sincere apologies for blundering into here and upsetting the smooth running of things.

How do things proceed from here? Is the Golden Poisoned Chalice of Destiny a perpetual trophy? Do I wait for ffutures to send me his mailing address, stuff this back into its cardboard box, and send it to him? Or is there a 3D printer somewhere, knocking out a new chalice already, and I get to keep this one forever?

Addendum:
Oops, I almost forgot: the other 1970s novel that inspired the question was Jack Williamson's The Power of Blackness, which despite the title and cover art, isn't really about a black hole (or anything else, really).

[RockDoctor]

Well, that looks like five, and as though ffutures provided the fifth. Again, my sincere apologies for blundering into here and upsetting the smooth running of things.

When I receive the Chalice of Destiny (which has it's own account with Oohaul, and will make it's way to the recipient automagically), I make a point of checking in here several times a week and dealing with the contenders there and then with an update message : "Yes {this one}, because {excuses} ; no {that one}, because {insufficent Wombat : grease ratio}" as befits your challenge. That way, people who want to play an obscure Latvian fan-fic example but don't want to lose (by winning the Chalice ; there are two games going on here - winning and losing) know when to play their card without fear of enChalicement.

But ffutures will be along with his contribution to the "Bigger Bald Spots Through skull-sweat" campaign shortly.