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01:04
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Q: A boy with metal robotic arm powered by motor inside it

Jan BBThis arm was activated by puling string inside it. Any one knows ???

 
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02:58
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Q: Graphic novel about a girl and a mischievous green man/creature that only she can see

mediumscarf This was a graphic novel that I read back in the 2010s when I was a kid, so my memory might be foggy. I know for a fact that it was about this teenage girl and a weird creature that sort of followed her around, I think maybe only she could see him. Pretty sure the comic was in greyscale except fo...

 
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04:30
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Q: What year did Wolverine Origins happen in

Wade KilgoreI am talking about the comic Wolverine Origins. I am quite confused on when the story takes place. It looks like 1700s to 1800s but I am almost 100% sure he is no over 200 years old.

 
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05:38
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Q: Short horror story where man's subconscious gives him phone-calls

Hi0401So I was reading "I Am Legend" and when I finished it I found a couple more extra short horror stories tied in within the book so I assume they were also written by Richard Matheson. The name of the last story was literally unreadable (It was covered with black block thingies) because apparently ...

 
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09:16
 
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10:51
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive answer detected, potentially bad keyword in answer (79): What is the Hong Kong Businessman shouting before he tries to jump out the window?‭ by Philip‭ on scifi.SE (@AncientSwordRage)
11:18
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Q: Murder mystery, probably by Asimov, but SF plays a crucial role

AlfredI read this short story at least 50 years ago. It was probably in a collection, probably by Asimov, but also probably in a collection of murder mysteries rather than SF stories. But he wrote so many stories and I don't remember the title, so I cannot find it. The point is that an SF element is es...

 
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15:09
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Q: Looking for specific sci-fi book or story name written over 50 years ago

oldcpuI am looking for a Sci-fi book or a story written over 50 years ago. The backdrop to the story is that earth has been destroyed and those who survived are being chased across the Galaxy by the alien assailants. The story is about one human spacecraft with humans, which lands on a planet when bein...

 
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16:19
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Q: Science fiction story with a boy and girl protagonist and spider-like alien abductors

TortugaVIIThe story begins with the daughter of a NASA scientist before rockets could achieve orbit on earth, and they meet a boy's family who claims that their backwoods family jerry-rigged a satellite to go around the Earth that crashed in Mexico. Then they are abducted by spider-like aliens, and as they...

 
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17:34
What's with the "what's the first instance of [scifi thing]"? Does anyone find this kind of question interesting? I mean, the answer is obviously that some people do, otherwise they wouldn't ask. But am I crazy or is this the most boring possible kind of question to ask of scifi? Or in the words of the immortal Jeff Atwood -- "who cares?"
What's the first instance of a male protagonist? What's the first instance of a magic sword? What's the first instance of a romance in scifi? What's the first instance of a left-handed protagonist? What's the first instance OF A FIRST INSTANCE!?!?
It sounds like such a "filler" kind of question. "I don't know what to ask, but I want to have some activity on scifi.se. I know! I'll ask about the first instance of... lemme see... green dragons in fantasy!"
They're interesting when they're about particular concepts or tropes that have become prevalent in SFF. If they're overly generic, then they become less interesting.
17:50
Yeah because tropes happen when people see other people doing stuff in a story and include it in their own stories. Studying it is like etymology for non-words
It's also interesting when the questions are about society by proxy. For example, a question about early portrayals of women mad scientists (vs men) might tell you something about how society viewed women in STEM, or if that's something that women just didn't/couldn't do. These questions are probably harder to pull off tho
18:14
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Q: Trilogy about technologically advanced society that sends "actors" to an alternative sword and sorcery type world and streams VR

M KThere was a sci-fi/fantasy series I read years ago. The main premise is a technologically advanced society that somehow managed to access an alternative sword and sorcery type world. "Actors" would be sent over to this other world and their experiences would be streamed back to the original wor...

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Q: What's the title to this manga?

KatA struggling writer ends up getting a mysterious game on his phone called: The God Maker. In the game there are ants that if he taps, they get killed and then he gains a god coin for each one killed. However, after gaining a coin he decides to do a hunter evaluation test, but he ends up being a G...

@Laurel that's about the only kind of "first instance of..." question I can think of. All others seem utterly lazy to me.
Otherwise I cannot think of any good reason to want to know
First instance of universe close enough -- ok, you found out. Now what? Who cares?
I mean, a lot of what we do here is of no import. It's not like most people get material benefit from reading SFF
I guess the benefit is that now you have some suggestions about a concept which you find interesting
18:53
Yes, yes, I know. It's just a pet peeve, a sudden understanding of Atwood's opinion of scifi questions (in general): "who cares?"
19:10
@AndresF. These questions also arise from the ban on "list questions". Somebody notices a cool feature in a story, and asks "Are there any other stories which have this feature?" This immediately gets shouted down as asking for an open-ended list, and gets converted to "What is the first example of this feature" (which is a permissible question).
19:33
@AndresF. Since I have a badge in history-of, I'm probably more guilty than most of encouraging them. That said, I only really find them interesting if they're concepts that have been around for at least 50 years, and reasonably broadly used.
And definitely science ones are more interesting than fantasy. Finding out that Wells had imagined an atomic bomb at the turn of the century, or that non-human aliens date back to the 17th or 18th century, those were neat.
"When was the first occurrence of sparkly vampires?" <= not interesting.
Ultimately, though, like any other question here (especially most of the manga ID questions) it really only has to matter to two people; the asker and the answerer.
 
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21:19
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Q: Little boy killed to early, isekais to a younger body, gains wolf companion and a noble adoption

LunaIt's a manga where a little boy is killed to early and as a apology god transports him to another world in a younger body(4-9) and gives him a big wolf as protection. A noble finds him and adopts him and they camp out for a few days till the paperwork is settled. Then they go through the knight's...

 
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22:19
posted on November 21, 2023 by Zach Weinersmith

Click here to go see the bonus panel!Hovertext: If you write a paper against that paper you're -2, which is why negative even Erdos numbers are more prized. Today's News: Whew! Still traveling but trying to keep my update schedule sorta OK.


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