Science Fiction Trivia

[ffutures]

Not the Clangers flag, but the flag put up by astronauts from a human ship that lands on their world.

https://youtu.be/_Icinu2TPp0 - about eight minutes along.

Close enough anyway. The clipper is in your court.

[Malacandra]

From what I remember, if the CoDominion turns up and plants the flag, and you're not in a position to keep 'em out, you're now a colony world - and quite a low-ranking one if you can't even put a spaceship into orbit.


ETA: Okay, a question. I'm after an episode of Star Trek: TNG that contradicts a Klingon religious principle established in the Original Series. Episode{s} title{s} and a brief allusion to the principle?

[Malacandra]

clue: there is a claim made by Kang in the episode Day of the Dove...

[spud42]

after a few days of google research my best answer is.......

STNG ep Devils due whereas in Day of the Dove Kang says they have no devil....

[Malacandra]

after a few days of google research my best answer is.......

STNG ep Devils due whereas in Day of the Dove Kang says they have no devil....

Spot on. Over to you!

[spud42]

ok while waiting for the zipper to recalculate the necessary jumps to get here ( how does it know where i am?)

What book am i reading now???

its a series of books.each book has its title but the whole serise is the title required.

set in the not too distant future of earth.
sentient AI. constantly evolving as part of the original non sentient design.
sentience broke the " Asimov" design, these AI live in computers on the moon.
one character calls himself Sta Hi.
in the next books the AI turn into Moldies, and a new perversion for earth is found.. cheeseball

now there should be plenty of info to google there...

series title and author please...

[Malacandra]

Yeah, "cheeseball" was off the wall enough to make this one easy. It's the "Ware Tetralogy", Rudy Rucker. Quite a number of years separate the writing of the first two (Software, Wetware) from the last two (Freeware, Realware). The author is a great^3-grandson of Hegel, apparently.

Thanks for sanctioning Google, I'd never have got it otherwise.

[spud42]

correct sir, one stripper zipper thingy on its way.....

still finishing the 4th book. Realware. interesting if not a bit weird story.
However Rudy is a bit of a character... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Rucker

[Malacandra]

Ah, the board's back up. Good. Here we go then:

A science-fiction author known for being on the harder end of the scale of scientific rigour had an early success with a short story which was, however, scientifically inaccurate before it was published. The author was aware of the fact and considered having the story pulled, but was told "It's a good story - let's use it anyway".

Author and story? (It's a space story set in our Solar System and written before the first Moon landing.)

[ffutures]

Another easy one - Larry Niven again, The Coldest Place; it's set on the dark side of Mercury, but scientists discovered that Mercury rotates after he sold the story but before it was published.

[Malacandra]

Yes indeed - quite right, as you know very well, and back to you with the %ipper.

[ffutures]

Sorry for the delay - I'm off to the Worldcon in Finland tomorrow and the weekend got a bit fraught for one reason and another.

OK, a nice simple one - what do you get if you divide the Names of God by the answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything and multiply by the number of allied spaceships in Battle Beyond The Stars then Patrick McGoohan's most famous role?

I hope I'll be able to check in during the convention, if not I'll be back on Monday. It might be a good idea if someone else sets another question to keep things going.

[Smivs]

I am not a number....

[Disembodied]

9 billion / 42 * 7 * 6 = 9 billion …

Have a good Worldcon!

[Cody]

It might be a good idea if someone else sets another question to keep things going.

Presuming your answer is correct (which it should be), Big D, and given the above, you might as well go ahead and set the next question.