Babelfish

In Dragons of the Summer Flame, Palin Majere was captured after a quick battle by the Knights of Takhisis. He was released to Steel Brightblade in an effort to get a ransom out of him: the portal to the Abyss was to be opened. Now, while he himself did not open the portal, it was opened. He even ...

I am looking for a movie – I must have watched it roughly five years ago. Sadly, I only remember fragments and it’s been driving me nuts… The setting was both modern time and a strange ‘dark city’ and the genre was some kind of magical realism. Very dark and melancholy. One of the protagonists ...

The answer to this question - From what distance can Sting detect Orcs or Goblins? - uses measurements from Karen Wynn Fonstad's Atlas of Middle-earth. This reminded me of a question I've always had about that book. Middle-earth is large and we have limited information on the scale of its geogr...

I read a book... Twice... When I was a kid and want to read it again. The problem is I don't remeber the name of it. It followed this main character (a boy) who was slowly fading out of his reality. He was still there, but nobody could see him. It's hard to explain, but if this rings any bells f...

According to Nintendo Life, Netflix's animated Castlevania series is loosely based on Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. I presume adaptations needed to be made, as the original source material left much room for interpretation. How faithful was Netflix's Castlevania series to the original games?...

In the early 2000s I read a Science fiction book in school. The details I remember are vague. Just little glimpses of the beginning. I believe in the beginning of the book a girl, the protagonist, wakes up in a kind of Laboratory out of a deep sleep. The room glowing a type of violet. She realize...

Repulsor-craft are land-based (usually) vehicles designed to levitate above the surface during operational use. Is there a technical limit to the achievable height? Most seem to hover just slightly above the surface, but Separatist STAPs have been seen on Teth being used like an airborne infantr...

In the Legend series by Marie Lu, there are two countries side-by-side in what used to be the U.S. One is a hereditary military dictatorship that controls every aspect of its citizens' lives. The other is a state where large corporations wield outsized power. The analogy to North Korea and South...

When A New Hope was made in 1977, many British actors, such as Denis Lawson, portrayed x-wing pilots and others in the film. However, they seem to have all been dubbed by American actors. Did George Lucas or anyone else working on the original film give a reason for doing this?

Many times we see the Captain of a Starfleet vessel ask for a probe to be launched in order to scan/examine some debris/star/anomaly/planet etc. Then a member of the crew, usually at the science or tactical stations, press a few buttons on their panels and moments later the probe is launched. H...

I first read this well written story--I believe it was a separately published short novel, not a short story--probably 15-20 or more years ago. This SF novel had the adult heroine (a scientist or researcher of some sort?) build a box made of mysterious cubes or marked, domino like objects--each ...

I just watched First Contact again. It's so great. And then I reflect back on Voyager. What's going on here? Are they gone? Is the queen finally dead or forever lurking?

In the Wheel of Time Lanfear shields Asmodean so he is not dangerous, but can still channel a trickle. I don't think something like this is done in the entire series, but it seems quite like normal shielding, only more complicated. I would actually get the feeling it would be easier to break free...

In Philosopher's Stone, Hagrid says, 'Oh, well - I was at Hogwarts meself but I - er - got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half an' everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as Dumbledore. Great man, Dumbledore.' This presumably means that Hagrid...

I need help identifying a movie. I watched this in the late 90s when I was a kid. It's probably a tv movie but it could be theatrical. Here is all of what I remember about the second half of the movie: There is an alien in disguise that has infiltrated a family of 4 or 5. It is pretending to b...

I'm thinking of a very short story that ran in one of the big science fiction magazines--Asimov's or Analog, probably--maybe a decade or so ago, about a disease epidemic that created puns. Anybody know what it was? Thanks!

I have had a friend give me a rough description of a film and I'm curious to find out what it actually is. I don't know very much. I understand this will be difficult, especially since every time my friend explains the tale it's different so this description is likely to contain some inaccuracies...

I was watching the Fellowship of the Ring, during lunch time. In the Prologue scene, The armies of Men and Elves march against the armies of Mordor. When Sauron came to kill the armies of Men and Elves, Elendil comes by. Unfortunately, Elendil was killed by Sauron's Mace. When Isildur came to his...

We recently got an estimate on how far Sting can detect enemies, which got me wondering if that would be a constant distance regardless of the environment. Is there any material or magic that is known to reduce or disable Sting's ability to detect orcs and goblins?

Han Solo says in A New Hope, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe that there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything. 'Cause no mystical energy field controls my destiny. It's all a ...

We know that robot uprising is similar to the slave uprisings. Robots wanted certain rights, such as right to life, which I guess means right to existence. Then why do sentinels risk losing their existence in a all out assault? What makes them obey the Deus ex Machina? If sentinels are programme...

I'm having trouble to identify a cartoon movie I watched as a kid. It was about a boy who could travel in time and, after exploring many different eras, he goes to the future and discover our society is gone and humanoid creatures now inhabit the earth in a tribal-like culture. Every day they p...

Star Trek-DS9, season 4, episode 19, "Shattered Mirror", all the Klingons in the alternet universe have such beautifully straightened teeth. Is that something peculiar to the alternate universe?

Game of Thrones opens with Robert asking Ned to become his Hand of the King, Ned accepts (grudgingly) and some of the Starks go south to King's Landing while others remain at Winterfell. While Ned is away and to my knowledge Much of this during the War of the Five Kings. If Ned had refuse...

There is a particular scene in I, Robot that raises an interesting issue. Will Smith is telling the story of how he lost his arm. He was in a car accident, and found himself and a young girl underwater about to drown. But Will was saved by a robot that was passing by. The reason given as to w...

I don't even know one German speaking author who write sci-fi literature except Andreas Eschbach. Why is that? Germany, Austria, Switzerland are modern and high-tech countries, especially Germany - the strongest and most advanced country in Europe, yet you don't see any sci-fi from there. Even P...

Help identify a manga / anime / game / comic , these are the clues : Protagonist suffered some kind of head injury during an accident He saw humans including his own friends look like monsters He saw his environment (house , wall , chair , floor) looked like a bloody (red) organic disgusting ...

What is the SciFi story where a guy has to traverse a deadly alien 'trap' (it says in the story that it's possibly a trap or a puzzle but the tech is so advanced that they can't understand it) where the man dies a usually grisly death but is reanimated to test it again and again, each time gettin...

Numenoreans are known to have leveled large forests in Eriador and in (the later) Gondor in their greed for shipbuilding-wood. Did they ever had trouble with the Ents?

Judging by his name and appearance, the Prince of Lies who appears in the episode Why We Fight is an ancient and shify vampire. You dont 'live' that long if youre not shrewd enough. He was also the one to see through the plot to use the vampires for military purposes. So why he was captured so...

This is a question about the Broken Empire trilogy, therefore, unsurprisingly it contains spoilers on the subject. You have been warned... Was Sageous mind-controlling the king, or Olidan merely used some of his abilities and advice, while unaware that dreamwalkers like him were manipulating t...

In World of A Song of Ice and Fire, we know that Knighthood is an Andal institution which is why they are very rare, but not unheard of, in the North and Iron Islands where people worship the Old Gods and the drowned God instead of the the Seven. The Knights there are exceptions such as Ser Haras...

Jack of Shadows has the habit of inviting his women to his castle, Shadow Guard. He invited Rosie: "Is there really a Shadow Guard?" she asked Him. "A castle of high, shadow-decked halls, invisible to your enemies and friends alike, where you would have taken that girl to spend her day wi...

In the movie Shrek the Third (where as usual for the franchise the traditional roles in folktales are subverted), Prince Charming appears as the main antagonist. Prince Charming in a position if power terribly reminds me of Suetonius's account of emperor Nero: vain, theatrical, erratic and murder...

Several sci-fi stories show a person alone on a planet. A World Called Solitude Hobbyist Exile of the Eons Enchanted Village Which story first featured a person alone on a planet? (It could be either somebody stranded on a distant world or the last person on Earth.) Was it a 1948 short stor...

At the 4th season finale of the 100, Clarke is together with a young girl, which I think is her daughter. Clarke had previously gone through a bone marrow transplant in order to acquire radiation immunity. I don't think this procedure is hereditary. For this reason I cannot understand why would ...

Help identify title of a comic with a girl protagonist looking for a cure for a deadly disease that turn human into monsters. the whole comic story is filled with strange combination of tech and organic matters. some clues : - It is never stated clearly if the girl experiencing real world or dr...

In episode S05E11 of "Stargate: Atlantis", Sheppard & Zelenka must hitch a ride on a Traveller ship. The captain takes them to the Engineering room, which is a horribly chaotic mess of hoses, tubes, & wires, She then introduces them to Mila, the 15-year-old mechanic who keeps the engine running, ...

Can anyone identify a short story, published in the last 20 years I think, with the following qualities? It's a Last Man on Earth story -- everyone dies except for one man (the protagonist) and one woman. I think the cause of the mass deaths was a disease, but not sure. The protagonist is a UPS...

The one thing I specifically remember is the boy wishes for the ability to change shape but instead of changing his own form, he kinda possesses other things while his original body disappears for the duration?

In Tolkien's works are notorious elvish blades like Sting that glow when there are orcs or goblins nearby. Although Tolkien's work is profoundly original as a whole, the author himself always attempted to integrate ancient elements of European legends and folklore, especially from the northern pe...

Why do all the Klingons in this episode have such nicely straightened teeth? Is this something peculiar to the alternate galaxy? It looks very strange to me...

I don't remember much about the story in general, but here's the details I can recall. It's a short story, intended for a 5th or 6th grade reading level, and I found it in the early 2000s in a collection of stories, the rest being lost to memory. In the story, somehow a kid finds out his neighbor...

The Japanese TV series of Supaidāman, produced by Toei, ran for 41 episodes with the full blessing of Marvel. Although it was based around the American Spider-Man, it went way further than just translating or modifying its source material for another culture. In this version, a motorcycle racer n...

In LOTR, the sword Sting glows whenever goblins or orcs are nearby enough, and in the movies, it can get pretty bright. Can they see this light? If so, has it ever given the wielder away?

In Star Trek Voyager, the crew needs to travel 75,000 light years to make it home at "top speed". If their top speed is warp 9.97, why would it take them 70 years to get home?

In the Prologue of Book 2 (The Great Hunt), there is a meeting between Friends of the Dark who receive orders about Rand, Mat and Perrin. Do we ever find out who they are? Here is an excerpt describing some of the Darkfriends (bold numbering is mine): (1) The man who called himself Bors [.....

In Lovecrafts "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" the narrator talks to Zadok Allen, who tells him things he isn't supposed/allowed to tell. This includes the following: The conversation ends like this: Zadok Allen isn't mentioned in the rest of the story. Later, however, the narrator notices thi...

The suit in Spider-Man: Homecoming has a "one-hit kill" mode that keeps coming up, and it's only used for comedic purposes in the movie. From what I know Peter Parker doesn't seek to kill anyone, and has only ever wanted to kill one person: the guy who murdered Uncle Ben, but even then he doesn't...

In the conclusive few sentences of Foundation and Empire, the Mule says that: I call myself the Mule - but not because of my strength, obviously - They do not finish the sentence. Earlier in the book some Foundation denizens theorised that it was because of his hard-working attitude to gala...