u/KaosArcanna

H.G. Wells was an intelligent man, but he was not trained as a tactician or strategist. Nor is there reason to think he would have been fully aware of British military capabilities.

So, without Martian plot armor, could the British have repelled the Martian invasion?

The Thunderchild shows that the Martian tripods were not made of an indestructible super metal. They were vulnerable to the conventional artillery of the time. (Though I believe they moved to swiftly to be tracked by the arms of the time ... at least as Wells believed them to operate. I have no idea if he was right or not.)

The heat ray seemed to be a line of sight weapon. Gas masks didn't exist yet, but the black smoke's usefulness would be affected by wind direction. Landmines DID exist though I would think the tripods wouldn't be limited to roads that could be easily mined. I don't know if the British army would have time to shell any cylinders that came down after the invasion began but the Martians would have been helpless until they cooled enough to permit them to create tripods.

So who would win? The real British military of the late 19th Century or Wells' Martians?

One of the things that bugs me about the world of the Belgariad is that the Thulls are never really given a good representative. Nathel and his father come across as being rather dim. Even Garion-- a normally kind person-- finds it amusing that Zakath threatened to crucify Nathel's father. (And Zakath DID have the Thull King lashed to a point that could have killed him in real life.)

We never really encounter a Thull that's at least somewhat intelligent.

(Nathel's mother may be reasonably competent. He says that she really runs the kingdom. We never meet her, but even if she is intelligent, she did not raise Nathel in a way that he could be a reasonably good king. As soon as she died, the Thulls would be in a bad situation with Nathel leading.)

On the other hand, it could be something of an act. Polgara says that the Thulls cannot really rebel against the Grolims because they could pick the thoughts of rebellion out of the minds of any would-be leader. Do you think that pretending to be stupid is a Thull survival trait?

Taylor was a such a bitter, misanthropic man. He had such disdain for mankind as a whole.

How do you think he would have reacted to the peaceful future that we saw at the end of Battle for the Planet of the Apes. (Yes, I know that it wasn't guaranteed that it would last but assume for the moment that it lasts until the time Taylor and crew return to Earth.)

There was indeed a war to end all wars. Mankind survives but is no longer the sole ruler of the planet and the civilization is not as advanced as the one Taylor left.

Would Taylor be pleased or dismayed?

Would he try to help the unified ape and human civilization make peace with the mutants or would he want to help the mutants take over the world and restore mankind to supremacy?

(I tried to post it to the Planet of the Apes Forum but it was removed so I thought I'd try here.)

As a Disciple of Aldur, Beldin is respected and feared throughout his known world.

That doesn't change the fact that he spent much of his life being despised for being a hunchback and a dwarf. No matter where he goes in the world, that's the first thing that people see about him.

On the other hand, Feldegast is bright and garish, but he's an acrobat and a musician. He's an entertainer. People are charmed by him. They like him. (My own personal opinion is that it was a physical transformation rather than just an illusion because I do not think that Beldin could have done some of Feldegast's acrobatics in his normal form.) Do you think that Beldin found it tempting to go about in Feldegast's form?

He knew that Belgarion had defeated a god in hand to hand combat. He saw Belgarion devastate the walls of his bedroom with a single word, but it wasn't until he heard Belgarion mention that the Orb could write his name in the stars if he wished that Zakath decided that warring with Belgarion wasn't a good idea?

He wasn't like the Tolnedrans. He knew that sorcery was real. What made him think that he would have a chance against a man who could have turned him into a cabbage?

So I don't know if there was a lore bible that said anything about Herbie in the 1970s cartoon, but I kind of have a head canon that the Cosmic Rays DID make Herbie sapient.

Does anyone know if the Cosmic Rays were supposed to have changed Herbie in any way in the cartoon?

Charlie has her flaws. She doesn't always listen when she should and I think it's arguably true that she makes the same mistakes over and over. She can be awfully naive and reckless.

But ... she's truly a good person.

More than once, she says she's trying to protect her people. Lucifer washed his hands of the sinners. Lilith may have abandoned them. (We really don't know yet.) But Charlie is trying. I believe that she's sincere in wanting to save the sinners.

Charlie cares and she wants to save her people. To her, the best way to do it is to redeem them. She stepped up when no one else did.

She's far from perfect, but at least she does try to change things rather than just accept the status quo.

I just like that she's a nice person. :D

Hippolytus rejected Aphrodite and worshipped Artemis. Angered, Aphrodite orchestrated the events that caused his death.

Hippolytus was the son of Theseus and an Amazon. Some myths say his mother was Hippolyta and others say it was Antiope.

This could make him either a half brother to Diana or possibly a sort of cousin.

Has he appeared in the comics?

So the Katana has all kinds of cool points, but it's traditionally been made out of lower grade iron than what was available in Europe.

Assuming that super science/magic swords are out of the question, what would be the best sword for an immortal? Given that there are different swords and fencing techniques he or she might encounter, what would be the best Jack of All Trades sword they could use?

Are there actors performing for Kong and Godzilla or are they straight CGI built from the ground up in computers?

So most of the giant human movies that I can recall had the humans at roughly 50 feet or so in height, or somewhat less.

If a human were Godzilla sized (over 300 feet in height) would he or she be able to hear a normal person speaking? Would their voice be too loud to be understood as speech?

(Yes, I know the whole Square Cube law thing, but if we're in a universe where kaiju can grow to 300 feet than a human could too.)

So I've been rereading The Sign of the Four lately, and just had sudden thought or two about Thaddeus Sholto.

He's a short, balding little man with bad teeth who's a hypochondriac, but he's also one of the more honorable characters that we meet in the chronicles.

There aren't many people who would be willing to a fortune in gems and jewels with a stranger just because they felt there was a moral obligation to do so.

He never shows up again to my knowledge, but I think he would have made a fine friend to the Watsons, and I hope he was given an invitation to the wedding given that Mary and Watson never would have met without him.

It seems unlikely to me that a separate species such as York's people would not be some branch of humanity. York states that humans and the people of the night (I am trying to be circumspect in case the spoiler fails) cannot interbreed, but I am not sure how he would know that. (His people have to enter heat and it's unlikely a male would do so with a human woman but theoretically a female of his species would be capable of sex without being in heat.

True, the people of the night have organs that normal human beings do not, but they are outwardly identical to human beings. Valerie offers to sleep with Marsh and doesn't seem to fear that he'd pick up that she was not actually a human being so I expect that humans and the people of the night are externally identical.

At the very least, I would expect the people of the night also evolved from primates and might have gradually have evolved to look human in order to get close to their prey even if they looked different originally.

So it's been years since I read any of the Riverworld books, and I don't believe I read all of them.

I remember that Farmer established that children below a certain age were raised separate from the adults of Riverworld, but what about handicapped people?

Helen Keller died as an adult, and her blindness and deafness were not genetic, but she spent most of her life without vision or hearing. How well would she adapt to having a healthy both with both senses restored?

What about people who were born handicapped physically or mentally? Were they brought to life on a safer planet like the younger children or with the other adults?

Did Farmer answer those questions in one of the Riverworld books?