The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Q: Short story about a man alone in a station on the moon

1:06 AM

0

I read a short story in middle school I've been thinking about recently but I can't remember it's name. I totally know the story but I have no idea what it was called. A man was alone taking care of a station on the moon. Every day he would report back to earth. Some kind of monster shows up o...

story-identification short-stories

How come in some rooms merely typing @ already suggests a user, but in other rooms (including this one) it doesn't?

1:53 AM

@Alex I assume that "@" by itself has too many matches. "@+[a-z]" gives suggestions that appear to go back a couple of days amounting to over 35 users, which is probably more than the UI code knows how to lay out.

@DavidW But in other rooms @ produces precisely one suggestion, not the handful it would if it was including all users from A-Z. In fact judging by the names it suggested I think it's just picking the first name alphabetically.

@Alex ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Q: How many languages does Aquaman speak?

2:35 AM

0

According to the closed captioning for the DVD of Aquaman (2019), Aquaman himself (in addition to English), speaks some lines in Russian, Italian, and Maori, implying that he knows at least some of these languages. How many languages does Aquaman know? Answers from comics are fine as long as th...

dc dc-extended-universe aquaman aquaman-2018

Q: Anime: Dying alien robot merge his head with an human and gives him armor to keep fighting

4:48 AM

0

A humanoid high tech alien robot is being chased by an enemy through space and is partially destroyed as it fights in earth. With only his head still in one piece, it manage to merge symbiotically with a human and make an armor with some kind of nano tech. This human in particular is very bad at ...

anime robots space nanotechnology

Stormblessed

Why are so many users "unregistered"? Not sure what it means, really

Stormblessed

5:08 AM

Is this edit completely empty? It seems to be but the summary says one character changed

Never mind, added a period

5:19 AM

@Alex If the username doesn't start with an alphanumeric character, it'll show up when simply typing @.

Ah, that explains it.

Q: What does it mean when someone's an Unregistered User?

chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/pingable/58631 will give you a list of all users currently pingable in the room.

3

Rand al'Thor

7:08 AM

86

I looked at someone's profile and it said Unregistered User. What does that mean?

support unregistered-users

In fact the US government did plan to fake the Moon landings, and hired Stanley Kubrick as the best man for the job. But being Stanley Kubrick, he insisted on filming the Moon sequences on location. — Mike Scott 12 hours ago

7:19 AM

@Randal'Thor ahahah!

Q: SF book about people trapped in a series of worlds they imagine

7:31 AM

0

I read this story a while ago, before 1990, probably quite a bit eartlier, and I suspect it is rather older than that (60s or 70s?). I think it was a short story, but I am not sure. It is set in the future, and revolves around about six people who are on a tour of a factory or laboratory or simi...

story-identification parallel-universe

b_jonas

8:43 AM

Heh heh. Someone posted another bounty on scifi.stackexchange.com/q/2937/4918 "Story where the number 3 is the monster?"

9:38 AM

That user has earned so much rep off a single post haha

Most bountied post on the network :P

As in most received or highest value?

Also how do you know? Haha

9:56 AM

Most rep made from a bounty on a single post

Also, seen on main meta

Q: Why did man use the word "another"?

10:15 AM

-1

In Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), Han is able to escape the control zone, however Qi'ra is captured. Both Han and Qi'ra are separated by a security gate: MAN: (OVER PA) All units, there has been a breach. Another unauthorized traveler made it through the gate. Why did man use the word "a...

star-wars solo-a-star-wars-story

Q: Does the transformation into Shazam help heal Billy's injuries?

10:31 AM

0

When an injured Billy Batson transforms into Shazam, it is obvious that Shazam no longer has those injuries. However, when he reverts to Billy Batson, are those injuries healed? I welcome all answers from the movie Shazam (2019), comics and all [available] sources.

dc comics dc-extended-universe shazam shazam-2019

Q: Hindu / Hindu Based Mythological Influence in Late 20th Century Books

11:03 AM

0

I've not read too much Sci Fi but I noticed that amongst the most noted books, Hyperion, Rendezvous with Rama and a few others that the books either are influenced or directly source Hindu Mythology. I just wanted to know why that is? Thank you

hard-sci-fi

11:23 AM

@Marvin Listing "Rendezvous with Rama" and missing "Lord of Light" is like talking about Arthurian-influenced SF and including "The Fionavar Tapestry" but not "Mists of Avalon." :-P

2

I don't think I've heard of any of the works you just mentioned

@Mithrandir @SQB, I'm curious - why'd you pin this?

@Mithrandir I found it interesting.

@Mithrandir Lord of Light is exceptionally good.

I'll have to put it on the list, then

Q: Which answer has earned highest bounty in SE network?

@TheLethalCarrot data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/396019/…

From this:

12

An old famous question was recently solved on SciFi.SE and the answer has got 2500 reputation as bounty so far. Answer of famous Number 3 Monster question: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/105743/931 (Check comments on it to get an idea; Blog Post) It got me wondering which answer in SE network...

discussion bounty

Lord of Light

Lord of Light (1967) is a science fantasy novel by American author Roger Zelazny. It was awarded the 1968 Hugo Award for Best Novel, and nominated for a Nebula Award in the same category. Two chapters from the novel were published as novelettes in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction - "Dawn" in April 1967, and "Death and the Executioner" in June 1967. The context of the novel – modern western characters in a Hindu-Buddhist-infused world – is reflected in the book's opening lines: His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman...

11:35 AM

It has shifted a bit at times but we're still thrashing the others :P

Q: Can a identification question be marked as a duplicate of a question with no accepted answer?

Ah didn't think SEDE could be used across sites

Slartibartfast

12:13 PM

-1

I believe that these two questions have the same answer. Anime: main character equips a horned helmet to fight monsters/criminals, pulls out a sword from his arm Anime: Dying alien robot merge his head with an human and gives him armor to keep fighting In fact I've answered them both, but the ...

discussion duplicate-questions story-identification

Q: Did Deadpool rescue all of the X-Force?

0

Note: This is basically all spoilers. If someone has a good way to apply the spoiler markdown (I ended up putting almost the whole body in markdown) please do so. It mid-credits scene we see Deadpool receive a time travel device similar to Cable's and then proceed to fix some of the past wrongs ...

deadpool-2

@Mithrandir In both cases the first book references the mythology, but the second book is inextricably intertwined with it. The second book is also better IMO, but "Rendezvous" is nonetheless a classic of the genre.

Q: How much of the faces power is magic, and how much is it the skill of the wearer?

12:56 PM

0

In the TV Series we see Arya wear various faces, initially the faces seem to be similar to her, young females that she could easily take on the mannerisms and possibly learn to put a voice on for. The faces she wears here we have never seen before and so can't compare the voice or mannerisms to t...

game-of-thrones

?

@Jenayah I thought we had fallen behind.

On the bounties.

But I see that everything is fine.

But why not improve our goals?

Why not get Kyle up to the highest reputation privileges?

With just the one answer.

It would take about 36 more bounties.

And after all it is a very good answer.

Why should we? Does writing a single answer mean that he's familiar enough with our site and policies to have access to all those privileges?

2

1:21 PM

@Mithrandir Well, there's no reputation cap on a single answer, so it's very possible without bounties.

There's one answer on SO that has something like 30,000 upvotes.

From a very active user, obviously, but it's conceivable that a single user could get an answer that gave them a very steady amount of reputation.

And then you might also ask whether they deserve the privileges they have right now from 7,000 reputation, since they've only written one answer.

that's more a bug with the system than a reason why someone with little interaction with a site should have high privileges

@MattE.Эллен Well, the truth is that it doesn't matter much. It's not like they're going to do anything wrong.

Yeah...this dude got a ton of reputation he probably doesn't deserve...let's do the same to this other dude. Or...maybe not. ;-)

so then they're better off without it

They don't do anything on this site.

There wouldn't be any harm, and it would be interesting. Unless someone really is arguing that the site is worse off because we have one user who got 7000 reputation from 1 answer?

1:30 PM

So...the point would be to...rank highest in some useless SEDE query? I don't quite get the why yet.

@NapoleonWilson Right.

Although, we already rank highest for the most reputation given to an answer.

That's...a pretty stupid reason really. ;-)

@NapoleonWilson macklemore said that one person's trash is another person's come up

I'd even say it borders on bounty abuse. But I acknowledge you'll probably find other people that don't see it as strict.

@NapoleonWilson Maybe if it were a bad answer, but the truth is that it is one of the best answers on the site for a variety of reasons.

1:32 PM

@Adamant Well, sure, there's all kinds of stupid people doing all kinds of bullshit all the livelong day. That doesn't have to make me condone it. ;-)

@Mithrandir and that is exactly why there should be a rep cap per answer instead of per day.

@Adamant and I said they'd be better off without it. Michael Jackson asked "are you OK, Annie?". The Rolling Stones said "paint it black".

@Adamant Well, not really. It's a good answer for sure, but the heavy appreciation is due to quite a few different factors, primarily the long-standing mystery of the question itself and the cult status it reached thereby.

@NapoleonWilson Right. It stayed unanswered for so long because it was actually very hard to answer.

Considering what we know about MJ.

1:34 PM

:-o

it sure got dark quickly for a spring day!

@SQB Rep cap per day makes sense initially but the longer you've been on the site the more rep cap per answer probably makes sense. And to be honest at a certain point the rep cap is mostly pointless

Answering it showed significant skill. Then there's good formatting, full documentation of the process, and the fact that it was actually pretty useful to someone.

@TheLethalCarrot the problem is the long tail. Eventually, if you have given some decent answers and been a member long enough, you'll get ALL the privileges.

but not the bag of goodies

@Adamant And it got high appreciation for that. You're not awarding further bounties because you think it wasn't yet appreciated enough. You're doing it for weird gaming reasons.

A: How long was Bill Murray's character (Phil Connors) supposed to be in a time loop in the film "Groundhog Day"?

1:37 PM

366

Allow me to jump in here. Hi everyone. As mentioned above¹ my original intent was that Phil would live for longer than a single lifetime. That was the point of the original script: to see how a person might change if he lived longer than one lifetime (it was always about a man who could not es...

@NapoleonWilson Right, that's why we're doing it.

But it's not hurting anyone, so I don't see any reason to be concerned about it.

As cool as it is to have the original screen writer show up and answer a question, it's his only answer and still slowly gaining him rep.

scifi.stackexchange.com/users/4547/danny-rubin?tab=reputation

@SQB OK, there are a few others like that. But I reiterate, we'd only have a problem if these users came in, starting doing things without understanding the system, and then didn't want to learn.

I'm not concerned about Mr. Hale freakin' out and wrecking havoc on the site. It's the mere fact of abusing the bounty system for a total bullshit reason that's bothering. The fact that noone will likely get hurt by it doesn't really alleviate that by-taste. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

@NapoleonWilson OK Ian Malcolm

1:40 PM

@Adamant yes, but that now depends on those users, instead of on the system.

@Adamant Coincidentally that's exactly the quote a I had in mind for a while now. ;-)

Doesn't this Hale guy participate on other SEs?

The general idea behind the rep system is that more rep means more experience and more responsibility to have more privileges.

And that entire idea breaks down when you take the long tail into consideration.

I mean truth be told if it was me I wouldn't have kept answering and asking from that account. I'd have made a second one (not a sock, just a second one) and kept the "white whale answerer" account at 1 answer.

Just to see how far it goes.

@SQB so what you're saying is that privileges should slowly inflated their required rep?

1:42 PM

The purity of it :D

@MattE.Эллен no, because that makes them unattainable to new users.

What should have been done, when SE was still in its infancy, was to create a rep cap per answer instead of per day.

@SQB but if the site has been around so long that that is the case, then there should be so many highly privileged users that it won't matter.

sites only need privileged users to keep up with the influx of stuff needing moderation

@MattE.Эллен that depends whether your goal is to have "enough" high-rep users, or to engage new users.

or you could instigate universal basic reputation

Q: Can we pick up Captain America's shield if it lies on a flat surface with the front side facing up?

0

We saw Steve pick up the shield in Winter Soldier after he jumped out of the bus in the bridge fight scene. But what if the road were completely smooth?

marvel-cinematic-universe captain-america-the-winter-soldier

1:46 PM

If I had thought the higher rep privileges unattainable, I might not have bothered when I first came to this site.

When did the 10K rep thing happen? I know the 15K rep thing happened after I became a mod (on EL&U)

@SQB or make privileges based not solely on rep, but also on number of useful answers.

@MattE.Эллен true.

The problem is that our current measurement of "useful answer" is rep.

our meause of a useful answer is the score of the answer

Q: Why did the Faceless Men want the Waif to attack Arya?

@SQB technically, it's votes, not rep.

You can gain rep from a heavily downvoted answer if it also had like half of upvotes

Babel fish

-1

I don't understand why the Faceless Men wanted the Waif to keep attacking Ayra and then to try and murder her.

plot-explanation game-of-thrones

Q: Book (or series) about a boy who sees "mirrors"

2:03 PM

0

I read a book quite a long time ago and I would love to revisit it but I can't remember the name anymore. It was a about a boy who saw "mirrors" flowing around. He had a

story-identification books

Donald.McLean

Greetings, Earthlings.

Stormblessed

2:20 PM

@Donald.McLean Greetings, Hubble guy!

> "Hubble guy, Hubble guy, does whatever to make the Hubble fly!" (to the tune of "Spider-Man")

Donald.McLean

2:41 PM

@SQB Gravity does that.

@SQB "The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss"

Q: Difference between locomotor and wingardium leviosa

0

In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, after Umbridge has dismissed Trelawney, the teachers get her trunks back upstairs by using “Locomotor Trunks!” However, wouldn’t this same thing have been accomplished with a simple wingardium leviosa?

harry-potter spells

Q: Looking for a book where the main character dreams of evolving from lower life forms while he is in cold sleep

3:29 PM

0

I cant remember a lot of details other than a scene where the main character is dreaming about being a trilobite who has discovered that he can eat well if he stays close to a large predatory mollusk and collect food it misses. He gets too close though and the mollusk starts eating him. He is a...

story-identification

Babel fish

3:40 PM

0

Q: What initially awakened the Balrog?

I suppose Gandalf was so worried even before entering the Mines because he was alerted to the Balrog's awakening, but how was he so sure? In the movies Saruman said something like "the dwarves dug too deep and found/awakened him", or so I understand. What exactly awakened Balrog, and how long had...

the-lord-of-the-rings the-fellowship-of-the-ring

Q: Story/Tv identification. Videos shown in middle schoool about reading books-Book destroyer was a woman. A face that hypnotizes kids

1

When I was in the 7-8th grade(1994), there were class videos we had to watch about this or that. 1 show in particular had a cliffhanger ending, and I never got to find out what happened. There were at least 2 kids. They find a lady who is destroying books aka "I am the book destroyer". The episod...

story-identification

4:12 PM

Finally getting over the laziness and fixing all those questions with generic books movie tags instead of work tags :P

Will decrease my number of favorites a bit...

Jecleanup.

Q: Does Leo finally come back for Calypso?

-1

He promised her that he would come back for her. Did he actually come back? Leo promised Calypso he would come back for her, but did he actually return to take Calypso home?

percy-jackson

4:28 PM

:P

@Jenayah ?

@DavidW She compulsively sticks out her tongue at me.

@Alex You make it sound like that's an unusual thing to happen.

@DavidW Well most people don't compulsively stick their tongues out at me.

But that might just be because they're too mad at me.

Has anyone written up a story-id question, found the answer just before posting it (happens lots) and then read about the story, realized what a crappy story it was and thought "OMG, I can't believe I nearly publicly associated myself with that?"

4:45 PM

@DavidW "yep Alex, I see what you did there, replacing my Jenoogle nickname with a Jecleanup one. Not very original, but funny nonetheless. And I don't like blanking people but I also don't feel like writing the whole thing, so you get a tongue smiley, ' cause that's faster. Hope you get the whole idea, and if you don't, well, the world still spins."

Summarized: :P

@Jenayah For the record, while I appreciate that you don't blank me, it's perfectly fine if you do.

Yeah I know, I just don't like not reacting

Locked posts don't show on the homepage?

Oh?

While logged in?

Which post?

Well there's a post that doesn't show on the homepage, but on the app it does. Posts with a very negative score which also don't show up on the homepage do on the app. The only factor I can think of is that it's locked.

4:56 PM

Link?

A link won't show you that it's not on the homepage. Let me get a screenshot.

Notice one in the second shot that's not in the first?

Hint: it's terribly highlited.

Well a link would provide me a title, and I could check whether said title appears on the homepage

Q: Best answer contest: Second quarter of 5779

Okay:

5

Have you seen (or written) a recent answer on Mi Yodeya that you thought was really great? Let's have a contest to help you tell everyone about it! This contest has two phases: Nomination and Voting. It is currently in the Voting phase. Nomination - ending April 10, 2019 Post an answer to thi...

discussion featured answer-contest

In case you couldn't tell, it's not on Science Fiction & Fantasy.

@Jenayah TIL "blanking." Great, yet another social anti-pattern to try to avoid...

@DavidW So you were blanking on the word blanking?

5:08 PM

Don't want to start an edit war, but do we actually need another secondary HP character tag... scifi.stackexchange.com/posts/207368/revisions

@Alex oh, really?

@DavidW sorry!

@Jenayah No, we don't. We really don't need any of them.

@Jenayah Just making sure...

@Alex I know right

But your decision whether to have a battle over it.

But I've already edited it out once so that'd feel bad to go at it again

No I'm just dropping that here hoping someone will take care of the dirty work for me ;)

But if nobody does it's also fine

It'll just get nuked by someone else at some point, considering how HP tags go

@Jenayah Maybe leave a comment explaining to the user (who is relatively new). It's possible he/she didn't see your revision explanation.

5:12 PM

Also true.

Or add character tags to every Harry Potter question to show what a mess it would be.

Now to make sure not to come off as bull-headed

Grmbl

Null

Looks like there are plenty of questions about Moody which justify the tag.

How many rooms were there in the Burrow? harry-potter the-burrow arthur-weasley molly-weasley We only have one tag left. Which of the kids ahould we include?

sheesh

5:15 PM

@Jenayah Not blaming you, and it's better for me to be aware of my bad habits... :)

Fine 😶

@Alex tag:weasley-children ?

@Alex we already have a Ron Weasley tag; it's only fair to create a new tag.

Yeah, exactly what David says!

So basically the only character without a tag is Harry.

I guess there aren't enough questions about him.

>.<

A: Why is there a voldemort tag? Is there a criterion for character tags?

5:17 PM

As the main character of the series, he obviously deserves multiple tags!

Null

14

So, I just found out that y'all have some rule about tagging being reserved for "major characters". I found out about it because almost four years later people are still arguing about it. If it takes an acrimonious discussion for every tag to establish whether or not it's appropriate, the test ...

Use this tag for questions about the Weasley children as a whole. If your question doesn't address all seven of them, use individual character tags instead. If your question is about the whole Weasley family, use [weasley-family]

3

Null

Some reading on the subject.

We should use tags for his character traits. Harry Potter stubborn unstable barely-better-than-ron-at-magic arrogant-toerag-like-his-father hero-complex.

2

Oh well, no room for he-can-love.

I'll take that as my cue to leave the tag be, but that won't stop me from ranting about it ;)

5:21 PM

I guess he doesn't have "power the Dark Lord knows not" after all.

We should raise a main Meta about allowing more than 5 tags.

I mean it'd probably be a dupe.

But we have the HP character tags argument for us.

@Jenayah But someone other than me should write it.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Community Blog: Avengers: Endgame Predictions

No, it's main Meta. You're fine.

SFF Blog

posted on April 18, 2019 by Jack B Nimble

Avengers Endgame is the most anticipated new release for the week of April 25th, if not for the whole month of April. There are a lot of rumors, theories, predictions, and secrecy around the film, and here are the Agents of Nothing’s predictions. HALT! This is all unsubstantiated hearsay guesses, but if even one thing ... Read more

@Jenayah Ah, I skipped over that word. Indeed, my questions there seem to be pretty well-received.

Despite the fact that someone like you might think they're a bit twisted.

5:32 PM

Not all of them. Less than on SFF.

Half of them were based on strange happenings here.

Still

Q: Why does the remaining Rebel fleet at the end of Rogue One seem dramatically larger than the one in A New Hope?

5:58 PM

0

The Rebel fleet at the end of Rogue One (even after sustaining many losses) still seems considerably larger than the fleet in A New Hope.

star-wars

Q: When historical-locked questions are bumped, the site front page has fewer questions for logged-in users

6:16 PM

This Meta posts seems to acknowledge that historical locks don't appear on the homepage:

12

Because of reasons, I've been editing a bunch of historical-locked questions on Anime.SE recently (I have a diamond there). At first, I thought I'd have to do them in small batches so that they wouldn't clog up the site front page. Much to my surprise, historical-locked questions don't show up on...

bug frontpage historical-lock

Q: Is there evidence that Yoda was referring to Kylo Ren when he said "there is another" hope in Episode V? (RETCON)

-5

Yoda: "Told you I did. Reckless is he. Now, matters are worse." Obi Wan: "That boy is our last hope." Yoda: "No. There is another." +++ Yoda (dying): "There is another Sky Sky wal . . . k. . er (croak)" +++ Luke: "Yoda spoke of another." Obi-Wan: "The other he spoke of was your twin ...

star-wars luke-skywalker kylo-ren yoda princess-leia

meta-ID master!

Not quite.

This.

I mean, this.

This is perfect. That whole issue was perfect.

You want to set yet another story about the guy dealing with guilt, this month's issue is exactly how you do it.

They nailed the thing by making him facing the Punisher that way and outgrowing it.

Bit out of character? Just means the character is on his way to one hell of a path.

Ah! It'd almost be time to resurrect Karen.

6:52 PM

@Marvin Yeah...totally, even though everyone else says it's Leia and Kylo wasn't even under consideration for the next 5 decades.

I'm sure we can look for "evidence" of Rey's parentage in the friggin' Christmas Special, too, but well...

Canon my a...

@NapoleonWilson no, no. That's like, one of the last things you want to put in there.

But well, to each their own, I guess.

@Jenayah One "n", not two.

Oh, right.

SW Canon is what comes out, not what goes in. I forgot.

Also true, I guess. But that might apply to a lot of these canon things.

Yup

Q: Stack Overflow has engaged in ideological censorship and unwelcoming behavior

7:20 PM

@Jenayah Nice controversial Main Meta:

-4

What happened? On April 10, 2019, a user posted a response to a Meta question discussing how SO might take action in response to the gender disparity in the programming industry. The post essentially objected to the premise of the question, and it was heavily downvoted. A few hostile comments ...

discussion deleted-answers code-of-conduct

Could theoretically have been written by me.

7:39 PM

A...commendable question actually. Despite what the title might suggest he...quite has a point.

Even if about zero productive will likely come of it.

@NapoleonWilson Reading through the responses, the original action comes off a lot more reasonable. Especially since if the claimed problem really existed, we wouldn't be reading this post either.

Sure, the whole truth is always more compelx than one side or the other, and I'd be the last one to further a persecution complex.

It's an interesting addition to the general debate, though, albeit only leading to useless drama, but... every meta post on that topic does so afterall.

@NapoleonWilson For sure. You have no idea how close you came to baiting me into a response. I actually had it typed and had to delete it! :)

Meh, knock yourself out. ;-)

Or...maybe don't.

Pressing enter and then immediately editing it can also help sometimes. ;-)

7:59 PM

@NapoleonWilson Useless drama. What’s that?

Q: Sci-fi film: Underground self-healing machine that fires rocks out of a tunnel

8:11 PM

1

In the late eighties/early nineties I watched a film on the television. The only scene I remember clearly was when the hero is on a desert like planet. Massive great big spherical rocks were flying into a tunnel in which a machine remelted them and reformed them back into spheres. They were th...

story-identification movie

@Alex "Alex"

*runs*

@Mithrandir Without me you wouldn’t have had an inbox explosion the other day. Just saying.

It's unclear if that is supposed to be a positive or negative statement. ;-)

8:29 PM

Negative. Definitely a negative. ;)

I meant it as positive.

8:47 PM

@DavidW Didn’t he also say “size matters not”?

@Alex Isn't that (stereotypically) what every guy says?

Q: Godspeed has white lightning without Philosopher's Stone?

-1

Im not sure if you know it, but 18-4-2019 the new episode of "The Flash" is out called:"Godspeed", and Godspeed is in that episode(of course of the name) aka August Heart, he haves white lightning (just like Savitar, but he does not become not visible for humans and visible for speedsters) in tha...

dc the-flash-2014

0

Q: What if Paul Atreides failed the Gom Jabbar?

I've wondered about the possibility that Mohiam's test was only the threat of death, that she would not have actually killed Paul for failing. However, Jessica's reaction to his success "My son lives!" heavily implies that the test was in fact lethal. What would Jessica and Mohiam have done with...

dune

@DavidW But if he was wrong about that, he might also be weong about why I fail.

Why would he be wrong about that?

Dude's like the masterest pro Jedi ever.

@NapoleonWilson I’m no Star Wats expert, but it seems to be a demonstrable fact that it took a lot more time and exertion to lift the X-Wing out of the swamp or the rocks that Count Dooku was trying to crush Anakin and Obi-Wan with than, say, summoning a lightsaber.

9:00 PM

@Alex That's not 'cause it's heavy, he takes his time so he doesn't flick it out of the swamp like a stick and accidentally ram it into a tree, which would make Luke whine even more.

@Alex I have no idea what this message is trying to tell me in regards to the discussion preceding it, though.

Plus, before he even starts, he has to vent that massive sigh that Luke is so useless.

@NapoleonWilson That just like Yoda was wrong about size not mattering, he was wrong about “that is why you fail”.

@DavidW You probably know Star Wars better than me (though that doesn’t sound very convincing).

@Alex Well, I'm snarking at Luke, obviously, but the other part - that he's lifting the X-wing carefully rather than making a massive exertion - is pretty clear. If you just grabbed the body of the X-wing, and yanked it vertically upward, resistance from the water would rip the wings off, just to start.

So Yoda needs to make sure he's lifting all of the X-wing, clearing any roots that it may have snagged on, and he won't want to lift it out of the water faster than water can drain out of the engines either... IOW, he's being careful. Which one would expect from someone with several hundred years of experience.

9:16 PM

Eh. What about with Count Dooku?

Q: Would Lenipobra be killed on the orbital Vavatch in Iian M. Banks' Consider Phlebas?

9:28 PM

-1

On a structure without gravity and only centripetal (centrifugal pseudo)force how could Lenipobra 'fall' to his death? I've thought too long on this question and come to the conclusion that Lenipobra would live to die another way. (Please see this tiresome discussion for more details. :-) When ...

the-culture

9:48 PM

@Alex There's no such being in Star Wars. :-P

Somewhat more seriously, I would say "George Lucas is worse than JKR about consistency."

In a then-canonical book Luke once mused about, essentially, ripping apart an enemy cruiser using the Force, before he decided that was a big step on the way to the Dark side.

So picking up a snub fighter for someone of Yoda's ability/training/experience can't possibly be a challenge to the strength of the Force. Control, on the other hand...

What about using the force to shove the Death Star halfway across the galaxy?

"the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force." D.Vader

"A Jedi's strength flows from the Force. But beware of the dark side." Yoda

Vader or the Emperor (or any other Sith in the full of their power) might be able to do that, but no Jedi could.

10:09 PM

So Sith > Jedi. Or Dark > Light.

10:24 PM

"Control, control, you must learn control!"

"To answer power with power, the Jedi way this is not."

Sith may have more brute force, but (in theory) the Jedi apply the force they use in a much more focused way.

Compare the Death Star to the Senate (imperfect as it is).

Not that the Death Star is without its faults.

"The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

10:42 PM

(This is actually kind of fun. :)