Oolite Bulletins

Disembodied wrote: ↑Sat Jun 13, 2020 9:33 am

Abelard Snazz, the man with the double-decker brain - star of occasional stories in the 2000AD - is known to boost his thinking powers by consuming the odd Syrian Sentient Milkshake …

Damn, I remembered that drink but I was looking for it in the D.R. and Quinch collection - for some reason those two never seem to eat / drink anything sentient, which is odd considering their genocide count.

Does Galactus eating entire planets including their sentient inhabitants count?

ffutures wrote: ↑Sat Jun 13, 2020 6:12 pm

which is odd considering their genocide count.

Does Galactus eating entire planets including their sentient inhabitants count?

A genocide a day keeps the doctor ... well, pretty busy really. I don't think a planet with a thin garnish of life forms really counts. They life forms are really a very thin icing on an otherwise quite chunky cake.
"Genocide - keeping the family together for the rest of eternity."
"Once is happenstance. Twice is circumstance. three hundred thousand is a target for the aspiring depopulator."

I'd have to check the numbers, but "Elite" is up in the several thousand range of body count. If anyone were keen enough to get into the hundreds of thousands, are there levels yet like "centi-Ghenghis", a full-Hitler, or an intermediate Pol-Pot?

Another one

Pizza the Hutt, in Spaceballs, is a human-pizza hybrid and mobster. He ultimately eats himself.

https://youtu.be/FPZ4yah3ROU

ffutures wrote: ↑Wed Jun 17, 2020 12:04 am

Pizza the Hutt, in Spaceballs, is a human-pizza hybrid and mobster. He ultimately eats himself.

Autocannibalism - get a grip on yourself! Well, if the Hutt can converse - which he (? it?) evidently can, the it's answered the sentience question better than Alan Turnings Apple (now there is a name for a band? No? Too soon?).
Two to go.

Another one I've used before - the planet Meatball, in James White's Sector General universe (in the collection Major Operation) has living continents which are apparently edible since they are often attacked by smaller predators that eat chunks of them. At least one is sentient - although these are microscopic attacks on the scale of these continents, I think it might count as sentient food.

ffutures wrote: ↑Thu Jun 18, 2020 10:16 pm

Another one I've used before - the planet Meatball, in James White's Sector General universe (in the collection Major Operation) has living continents which are apparently edible since they are often attacked by smaller predators that eat chunks of them. At least one is sentient - although these are microscopic attacks on the scale of these continents, I think it might count as sentient food.

Sector General? That's the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sector_General">"Casualty Interstellarium" series of shorts</a>, isn't it?

If we're going to count that, then we'll have to include everything from the mosquito up to ... well, there's a tricky dividing line. Arctic summer, the biting insects alone can significantly degrade a large mammal's physiology. But are they attacking it for it's sentience, or simply as a mobile mountain of minable blood and skin-flakes?

It's a nice try, but I think that's too distant from the idea of choosing to eat a *sentient* organism. Try waving the midges away and you'll see that they really don't have much idea that "this thing I'm trying to eat can splat me" doesn't really enter their tiny minds.
Two to go, still. But Meatball sounds a nice planet. I've only met a couple of the "Sector General" stories before, but I'll keep the eyes peeled for them.

Slight memory fail - Meatball is the human name, the natives call it Drambo. The Sector General series includes short stories, novelettes, and full length novels. Major Operation was a series of several linked novelettes published in the New Writings in SF anthology series then later as a slightly expanded novel. Think of the series as a whole as a cross between Babylon 5 and Emergency Ward 10, with an emphasis on non-violent problem solving.

RockDoctor wrote: ↑Fri Jun 19, 2020 3:58 pm

Two to go, still. But Meatball sounds a nice planet. I've only met a couple of the "Sector General" stories before, but I'll keep the eyes peeled for them.

Unless I've lost count, we're still looking for the final two SF bits of deliberately sentient dinner
Shall I throw in a Faroese non-SF pilot-whale hunt for variation? We didn't breed them, and they're being hunted for meat, not becacuse they're intelligent. But I'm sure the Faroese "It's my culture" argument won't be dented by the news (?) that their dinner has a mind.

If non sf counts then you could go for some long pig. But I feel this isn't really appropriate for the thread

The Martians in H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds don't seem to have any moral qualms about eating humans (or at least drinking their blood). And in Futurama, everybody loves eating delicious Popplers, even after they find out they're the offspring of the sentient (and downright irritable) Omicronians. Who have been known to eat the odd human being themselves.

Not sure if you would really call it scifi but we also have Tantalus serving his son as food to the gods.

Disembodied wrote: ↑Fri Jun 26, 2020 10:41 am

The Martians in H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds don't seem to have any moral qualms about eating humans (or at least drinking their blood). And in Futurama, everybody loves eating delicious Popplers, even after they find out they're the offspring of the sentient (and downright irritable) Omicronians. Who have been known to eat the odd human being themselves.

I'm surprised that Wells' Martians didn't come up previously, but of course, yes to them.
That episode of Futureama seems to have escaped me - boo - but it certainly sounds within the gamut of Futureama society.
So, over to Disembodied for the next round.

Cmdr James wrote: ↑Fri Jun 26, 2020 10:43 am

Not sure if you would really call it scifi but we also have Tantalus serving his son as food to the gods.

Wasn't Tantalus serving his brother's sons as the main course? Then Tantalus' son carried on with the family tradition ... away down the line to Agamemnon who at least didn't actually eat Iphigenia.

Of course you get different stories from different authors. Damned confusing at times - you need to read them with a notebook in hand to keep score.

OK, my apologies if we have done this already - it's a long thread! - but name five hand-held, non-projectile/shooty-firey weapons (so no lasers, disruptors, micromissile launchers, gauss rifles, blasters etc.) from five different SF universes. The weapons should be specific and wholly fictional, so e.g. the hand axe used by River Tam, or the sword used by the Operative - both from the film Serenity - wouldn't count. Bonus points if said weapons are important to the plot.

Neuronic whip, Omni-Blade, Cosmic knife (I wasn't sure if Mesmetron qualified, as it is technically projectile), Lightsaber, Ahn'woon

I'll add Auto axe and Shishkebab as runners-up...