Science Fiction Trivia

[cbr]

Perhaps the challenge is to remove the poison from the chalice without the help of the scarred squire?

[Nite Owl]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzmnSyqv37A

[RockDoctor]

Well, if I'm juggling a chalice of poison - red poison, above my pure white fur carpet - then I shall ask for people who got bumped off in a SF story, using boring old poison. Not a Litvinenko-esque radioactive poison, or nanobots bearing crushed glass, or anything sophisticated - just pure unadulterated poison. Inorganic (MBP for something which is not arsenic!) or organic, systemic taking months of small doses, or something fast-acting enough to make "I've been poi..." the full set of Famous Last Words.
Boring poison - in a SF story.
MBPs are also available for real world examples in a "sciency" environment, so I'll take the Edinburgh Atropine Academic and the Thallous Teabreak Louse off the table already.

[ffutures]

Duke Leto Atreides in Dune (1965) - Doctor Yueh is forced to capture him by Baron Harkonnen, but Yueh gives him an opportunity to take revenge by fitting a poison capsule into his teeth. Leto tries to use it to kill Harkonnen and himself, but only succeeds in taking out one of Harkonnen's henchmen as he dies.

[Rxke]

Piter?

[Disembodied]

In the Tom Baker-era Doctor Who story "The Talons of Weng-Chiang", Leela kills a potential assassin using a blowdart tipped with a Janis thorn, a poisonous plant from her home planet (one of several people she disposes of by this method, I think).

[ffutures]

Piter?

Yes, that's the henchman Leto killed, my mind went blank on the name

https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Piter_de_Vries/XD

Another one - an unnamed hit-man who attacks the superhero Ozymandias in The Watchmen.

Spoiler - select text below to make it more visible:

It appears that Ozymandias overcomes him and tries to stop him swallowing a poison capsule; in fact Ozymandias puts the capsule into the hit-man's mouth and breaks it, while pretending to stop him.

[RockDoctor]

Duke Leto Atreides in Dune (1965) -

What a surprise - the toxic (if not themselves poisonous) roll in at #1 because they're mostly too fat to walk, or have a slave ... impeding ... their leg motion.

Another one - an unnamed hit-man who attacks the superhero Ozymandias in The Watchmen.

Yeees, and I'll give a MBP for a duet which I also remember.
Where, I wonder, did this trope of someone dieing frothing at the mouth from a poison originate. Probably her Agathaness, but I'd have to check my Sherlock too. It's probably meant to play on people's memories of descriptions of rabies.

In the Tom Baker-era Doctor Who story "The Talons of Weng-Chiang", Leela kills a potential assassin using a blowdart tipped with a Janis thorn, a poisonous plant from her home planet (one of several people she disposes of by this method, I think)

Another one which I remember. Have a MBP, to keep things even.

Another MBP for anyone who can tell us whose hate-mail "Leela" sometimes reads.

[ffutures]

Re Leela - I remember running a Dr. Who tabletop RPG at an SF con many years ago. Leela was played by SF author Mary Gentle, who really channeled her inner barbarian for the role. At one point the characters were captured inside a bunker belonging to the president of a post-apocalyptic alternate world USA in 1991:

Leela: "I am Leela, warrior of the Sevateem!"
John Wayne (aged 80-ish): "Well hi there, little lady."
Leela (brandishes janis thorn, despite having been searched several times): "Can I kill him now, Doctor?"

Later in the adventure they had to convince the 1950s John Wayne to take a film role that would change history back the way it was supposed to be by pretending that Leela was a rising starlet who would be playing a barbarian slave girl in the film and was really anxious to work with him. She pretended to be rehearsing and used more or less the same line - and somehow made it sound seductive. He decided to make the film.

It's on line via the wayback machine if anyone wants to read it, and should be easy to adapt to most RPG systems:

Curse of The Conqueror

[RockDoctor]

Leela (brandishes janis thorn, despite having been searched several times): "Can I kill him now, Doctor?"

That should give the Church of Incompetent Creationism pause for thought. Their thinking processes are by definition deranged, so quite what those thoughts would be, by there would definitely be thoughts. A rare and unsettling experience for the poor bunnies.

[Disembodied]

In William Gibson's Neuromancer, Molly kills Ashpool (who may be well on the way anyway, from booze and pills) by shooting him in the eye with a dart tipped with shellfish toxin.

[RockDoctor]

In William Gibson's Neuromancer, Molly kills Ashpool (who may be well on the way anyway, from booze and pills) by shooting him in the eye with a dart tipped with shellfish toxin.

That's number 4, but I did a little wobbly on how badly the projectile in the eye would have injured him. Have to choose whether the poison is the killing agent or the projectile. I'm having a mental image of a rockfall trap with poison smeared on <i>one</i> of the cobbles, then ascribing death to poison instead of blunt force trauma.

[Disembodied]

That's number 4, but I did a little wobbly on how badly the projectile in the eye would have injured him. Have to choose whether the poison is the killing agent or the projectile. I'm having a mental image of a rockfall trap with poison smeared on <i>one</i> of the cobbles, then ascribing death to poison instead of blunt force trauma.

A fair point, but the dart made very sure. Later in the book another character says

[Ashpool] had a medical remote planted in his sternum. Not that your girl's dart would've left a resurrection crew much to work with. Shellfish toxin.

[Disembodied]

Another death by poison: in the Star Trek: TNG episode "Reunion", Picard is summoned to the Klingon homeworld to act as arbitrator for the selection of a new Chancellor, after the previous Chancellor, K'mpec, reveals that he had been slowly, but fatally, poisoned.

[RockDoctor]

Another death by poison: in the Star Trek: TNG episode "Reunion", Picard is summoned to the Klingon homeworld to act as arbitrator for the selection of a new Chancellor, after the previous Chancellor, K'mpec, reveals that he had been slowly, but fatally, poisoned.

And that looks like a winner of this ... marvellous ... chalice. With ... additives. Just remember your isolation suit when you pick it up.