Oolite Bulletins

Surprises where least expected ...

Cody wrote: ↑Thu Jun 20, 2019 10:18 pm

Asteroids - an example here.

*This might make it legit for tetris fan-fiction to exist, not sure to what extent sci-fi, though

That's #4

#5 is Paranoia and ffutures wins the race!
*Not being a tabletop player, and not mentioning "PC games" as a restriction, makes these other games valid

And Disembodied's Traveller definitely worth's the mention (I think I saw somewhere thoughts on Elite's roots somehow nurtured by Traveller).

OK, wasn't expecting it to be me, but if it is...

Let's have five stories, films, whatever in which someone or something experiences a temporary or permanent LOSS or INCREASE in intelligence. No more than one from any given author / universe, regardless of the genre. And no, computer upgrade manuals don't count...

The example is 2001: A Space Odyssey, where HAL 9000 is lobotomized by Dave Bowman pulling his memory.


And re Tetris fic, there's always this:

https://youtu.be/aUnyUrA34bQ

ffutures wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2019 9:34 pm

Let's have five stories, films, whatever in which someone or something experiences a temporary or permanent LOSS or INCREASE in intelligence.

OK, I'll throw a bent three-cent bit into the hat. How does the "totally ordinary Joe" (whose name I forget) who gets suspended-animationed into the future in Idiocracy count? He doesn't experience any actual change in intelligence, but he also goes from being Mr Knut Outstanding to the Most Intellignet Man In the World (Sponsored by Gator Sweat Plant Food Inc)

ffutures wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2019 9:34 pm

And re Tetris fic, there's always this:
https://youtu.be/aUnyUrA34bQ

I had a brief anticapitalist image of whole floors of Canary Mile and Whorf Street just vaporising when the density of Bankers/ Cubicle reached critical mass. Pleasant moment.

RockDoctor wrote: ↑Sat Jun 22, 2019 12:57 am

ffutures wrote: ↑Fri Jun 21, 2019 9:34 pm

Let's have five stories, films, whatever in which someone or something experiences a temporary or permanent LOSS or INCREASE in intelligence.

OK, I'll throw a bent three-cent bit into the hat. How does the "totally ordinary Joe" (whose name I forget) who gets suspended-animationed into the future in Idiocracy count? He doesn't experience any actual change in intelligence, but he also goes from being Mr Knut Outstanding to the Most Intellignet Man In the World (Sponsored by Gator Sweat Plant Food Inc)

That's a Cyril M. Kornbluth story, The Marching Morons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons
based on some very dubious eugenics, in which the "hero" solves the "too many idiots" problem by creating a big lie of Venus being a paradise world and having them shipped there to die. It ends with the intelligent minority deciding he's too dangerous to live and putting him aboard one of the ships...

OK, that sort of qualifies, though it's not one of the ones I was expecting. Four more to go.

Star Trek the next generation the Nth Degree - the episode where Reginald Barclay gets hit with a pulse from an alien probe that temporarily makes him super inteligent

Brain Wave Poul Anderson

Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes.

In the Red Dwarf episode, "White Hole", Holly's IQ is increased to 12,368 …

Disembodied wrote: ↑Sat Jun 22, 2019 10:22 am

In the Red Dwarf episode, "White Hole", Holly's IQ is increased to 12,368 …

Ahhh that's a good one, I should have gotten that I love red dwarf

All of those are good - Brain Wave and Flowers for Algernon were the ones I particularly expected. This puts Disembodied into the hot seat!

Right, let's have a list of five examples of SF stories - books, film, TV, short stories, etc. - that feature one or more preternaturally gifted children. One example only per author/universe.

"Gifted" in this context means anything from simple genius to uncanny powers/abilities. Because it's too common, I'm ruling out superheroes: no infant Clark Kent, no Kid Flash, etc.

PreBorn Alia, Dune, Frank Herbert

Disembodied wrote: ↑Sun Jun 23, 2019 11:50 am

"Gifted" in this context means anything from simple genius to uncanny powers/abilities. Because it's too common, I'm ruling out superheroes: no infant Clark Kent, no Kid Flash, etc.

There's a Star Bores film on at the moment, so can we carry out the frog-boiling experiment on the remarkably irritating Anakin Skywalker with more mitochondria than a scriptwriter can misspell and capable of being a virgin birth in a slave-holding free republic?

The Midwich Cuckoos - John Wyndham

Alia Atreides, Anakin Skywalker, and a whole clutch of Midwich Cuckoos are all good answers (and The Midwich Cuckoos removes two other John Wyndham possibilities - The Chrysalids and Chocky - from the available pile).

The kids from Childhood's End, perhaps?