The cloaking device in Star Trek is imperfect.

If you look closely either with eyes or sensors you can observe a disruption where the ship is.

This is because it isn't successfully bending all of the light around the ship.

Some of it is going into the ships sensors, being absorbed or being reflected at random.

And this creates a detectable disruption, but it also means that the ship can still see.

It's only with total invisibility that all of the light has to go through and you'd have issues with seeing.

This might apply to the invisibility question as well.

The only light that has to go through you to be invisible is the light coming from behind (wrt the observer).

As long as you don't reflect the light coming toward your front (wrt the observer), then you won't be visible.

Whoever is looking at you will see only the light coming from behind you.

Of course, this is an issue if there are people on all sides of you.

However, if you only allow certain points to absorb the light instead of bending or transmitting it, then for all practical intents and purposes, you'd still be invisible.

There'd only be a very, very slight disruption right around the sensors.

Or eyes.

The bit about not reflecting on coming light only works in space actually.

Unless you count 'casting a shadow' as being invisible.

Which sometimes happens and sometimes doesn't.

Depending on the story.

I'd like to propose another answer.

Looking at the cloaking technology itself, there are two ways that it could work: First Case:

Light hitting the ship is absorbed and emitted on the other side of the ship without alteration from all directions.

In this case, your technology is actually capturing the light, so it IS "seeing" everything as normal...

it's just not reflecting it back for everyone else to see them.

Problem Solved.

Second Case:

Light hitting the ship is bent around the ship and then straightened again on the other side without any other alteration by the ship.

In this case, you're going to need a small inconsequential amount of light to pass through the cloak barrier and be absorbed (not reflected) by the ship as sensor data.

So the bottom line, as long as you have technology that absorbs light without reflecting it back...

you can "see".

But the more light you absorb without passing it to the other side, the more distortion there's going to be... and

that is a way for the other ships to detect you.

(Of course, any energy being emitted by the ship is detectable...

so you have to turn the ship into a closed sealed system).

Out-of-universe, it's easy to explain: The writers wrote down to their expected audience, who they didn't expect to want to watch episodes about invisible enemies guessing where their foes were.

Alternatively, the writers could have been unable to come up with appropriate stories for cloaked ships being blind.

In-universe, it's probably explained in the same vein as the sensors (which can 'see' events light-hours away in real time).

My guess is 'subspace'.

Sensors positioned outside the cloak would "see" for the ship and wouldn't be detectable in and of themselves as long as they were small passive sensors.

This is sort of like the invisible man problem.

If the invisible man is totally, 100% invisible, he'd have to be blind.

If he can see, then at least his retinas must attenuate light passing through them, and

his lenses have to refract properly.

Artificial sensors would have similar requirements.

But the thing is, in the case of an invisible man, you've reduced the visible area from a square meter or two, to a square centimeter or two, and in the case of a ship, from (probably) several hundred square meters to (possibly) less than a single square meter.

The cloaking doesn't have to be perfect to be effective.

Of course, if you have a ship that's going to go even just a few percent of C , it should probably be capable of detecting quite small particles, and should therefore be able to detect even the tiny reflection/distortion from the sensors of a cloaked ship.

Of course there's also the possibility of 'active cloaking', that if you know where the enemy you're trying to hide from is, and what their sensor systems are, then you can actively beam just the right signal at the other guy to fool his sensors into not seeing you.

There is one difference between this question and the invisible man question.

The invisible man issue is purely limited to the visible spectrum of electromagnetic radiation .

For a space ship, it is conceivable that the cloaked ship is hidden in one part of the spectrum (e.g. visible light) but detects other ships using a different part, perhaps X-rays.

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Question: Related to  Invisibility should cause blindness: how does hard sf cope? , I'm wondering whether the cloaking device implementation in Star Trek includes an explanation as to why cloaked ships can still observe their surroundings.

How come cloaking devices in Star Trek allow the cloaked ship to continue to observe its surroundings?

The cloaking device is Star Trek is imperfect, as total invisibility would cause issues with seeing. For example, if the invisible man was 100% invisible, he would have to be blind. However, there is also the possibility of 'active cloaking' - if you know where the enemy you are trying to hide from is, and what their sensor systems are, then you can actively beam just the right signal at them to fool their sensors into not seeing you. For a space ship, it is also conceivable that the cloaked ship is hidden in one part of the spectrum (e.g. visible light) but  detects other ships  using a different part, perhaps X-rays.

The issue of invisibility and blindness can be dealt with by ensuring the invisibility or claoking is not 100%, allowing enough light to see. Alternatively, sensors can be installed outside the cloak and act as the spaceships eyes. Moreover, the ship can be invisible in one part of the spectrum yet visible in another (visible light versus X-rays). On the other hand, authors may have decided not to deal with the issue as most of the audience would not be aware of it and finding storylines would be more difficult.

The spaceship would only be blind if the cloaking device were 100%. A slight imperfection would allow the ship to "see" Sensors outside the cloak could also be used as eyes.

Active cloaking could allow the ship to continue to see. The shipp could be invisible in the visible light spectrum but still be able to see in the X-ray spectrum

The authors decided not to deal with the issue of invisibility and blindness as most of the audience would be unaware and finding storylines would be more difficult.


Isaac Asimov's 1958 short story "The Feeling of Power" posits a population completely dependent on their "pocket computer" for doing basic arithmetic.

However, they are not described in use for anything other than arithmetic (which is, after all what the big boxes did in 1958), so I don't know if it counts or not.

The way the characters use the things in the Niven/Pournelle reference more closely resemble the things we think of as PDAs/smartphones/netbooks.

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It looks like Asimov has him beat, but Arthur C. Clarke mentioned an electronic news pad in his 2001:

A Space Odyssey .

And in 1980, Allen MacNeill predicted that by 2010, we would have handheld computers (that would be connected to a mainframe).

In his novel The Age of the Pussyfoot (1966/1969 ‡ ), Frederik Pohl describes a device called a "joymaker"; a scepter-like device that is connected to a central network and functions as a voice-operated computer.

The Age of the Pussyfoot was first published as a novel in 1969, but before that it was published as a serial in Galaxy Science Fiction starting in 1966.

In computer science, Alan Kay's Dynabook was first described by him in 1968.

It was a pad style computer with a keyboard and LCD screen, similar to, but smaller then, the Kindle.

I don't recall any science fiction stories using a hand-held computer prior to that.

In Larry Niven's short story, "The Soft Weapon," 1967, the device had multiple modes.

It was hand-held, and in one mode was intelligent, and interacted with Humans and Kzinti.

John Brunner's novel, The Shockwave Rider (1967), had protagonist Nicky Haflinger hacking the "datanet" from a folding pocket videophone (which required a wire connection to the telephone system to operate).

Though one could argue that it, and even the home data terminals almost everyone had, weren't primarily computing devices in their own right, none the less they gave anyone with appropriate skills (in the case of the pocket veephone, the ability to program in phone code groups) nearly unlimited (given the ubiquity of phone connection points) access to nearly unlimited computing power.

A. E. van Vogt's fixup novel

The Mixed Men (1952) has the following passage: There was no whine of sirens, so it was not a battle alert.

He put down his book, slipped into his coat, and headed for astrogation and instrument room.

Several officers, including the ship's executive astrogational officer, were already there when he arrived.

They nodded to him, rather curtly, but that was usual.

He sat down at his desk, and took out of his pocket the tool of his trade: a slide rule with a radio attachment which connected it with the nearest--in this case the ship's--mechanical brain .

Question: Science-fiction writers are often credited with "inventing the future" with some of their ideas. For example, the idea of geostationary satellites is often attributed to Arthur C. Clarke.  What novel was the first to mention or predict a personal handheld computer that anyone could use?  Jerry Pournelle, in several TWiT podcasts, claims that he and co-writer Larry Niven came up with the idea in  The Mote in God's Eye  published in 1974, however, I'm sure an idea like it came along well before that.

What novel was the first to mention or predict a personal handheld computer?

Isaac Asimov's 1958 short story  "The Feeling of Power"  described a population dependent on a  "pocket computer".   Frederik Pohl's "The Age of the Pussyfoot" (1966/1969), describes a device called a "joymaker", which functions as a voice-operated computer. "The Shockwave Rider" by John Brunner  (1967), had protagonist Nicky Haflinger hacking the "datanet" from a folding pocket videophone. Alan Kay mentioned the  Dynabook  in 1968.  Finally, in 1980, Allen MacNeill predicted that by 2010, we would have handheld computers that would be connected to a mainframe.

There are many novels that mention a type of personal computing device long before they were invented. The earliest reference appears to be "The Feeling of Power" by Isaac Asimov in 1958.


The Puppet Masters is based on Heinlein's novel of the same name.

Destination

Moon is based on one of his short stories.

There was also an episode of Masters of Science Fiction based on a Heinlein story.

The story was Jerry Was a Man .

Starship Troopers was VERY loosely based on his book by the same title.

That's the only one I know of.

It's a terrible adaptation, as well.

There was also an animated miniseries made of Red Planet.

There's also Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles , and while not great is better than the Starship Troopers movie (though oddly enough, Wikipedia claims this show was based on both the original book & that awful movie).

It's got to be doubtful if it would ever get made, but there's a screenplay for Moon

Is A Harsh Mistress here

The 2014 Australian film Predestination is based on Heinlein's story '—All You Zombies—' .

As discussed here , Heinlein's novel Red Planet was adapted into an animated mini-series .

You can see it on Youtube .

I've never seen it but this page also lists The Brain Eaters from 1958.

Heinlein sued for plagiarism, so it at least must be pretty close :)

The low budget StarQuest: Beyond The Rising Moon, reedited and upgraded as Outerworld is adapted from Friday, though only various parts, names, actions and the planet Halcyon were used.

Shot entirely in a D.C. warehouse, and using miniatures, it has the look of cheap, but it's quite good, and addictive.

I recommend it as an um-(sort of)Friday.

Not sure whether this counts, but there's a short video of "And He Built A Crooked House".

To the best of my knowledge (And I've been an SF and film buff for decades) the listings above are all the Heinlein stuff which as been adapted.

You could nominally add "The Trouble With Tribbles" as being inspired by it.

David Gerrold was purportedly unaware of any connection until long after the fact, but even he acked that the resemblance between Tribbles and RAH's "Flatcats" from The Rolling Stones is awfully close.

RAH was contacted before its production by Paramount's legal dept. and signed off on the usage as acceptable to him.

I'd also note the similarity between Star Trek's Operation: Annihilate! with RAH's "The Puppet Masters".

I do disagree with the complaints about Starship Troopers.

It's not a particularly close adaptation (Verhoeven really did NOT understand the culture RAH was writing about, as shown by the obviously Nazi-esque uniforms for the Intel Officers) but it's not an awful movie itself, and the book is remarkably didactic and Verhoeven did a fairly good job of getting a lot of that subtle material into the movie with the "internet '

Want to know more?'

" elements -- which at the time was perceived as the future of the internet (i.e., "push" content vs "pull" content --

As usual, the commercial interests Got It Wrong.

One reason why government-directed technology never works, and central-planning schemes always go awry.

It's impossible to reliably predict the direction a billion people will trend things)

In other words, if you look at it as "based on" ST rather than an actual adaptation, then it's not awful.

Stranger in a Strange Land Has been picked up for a TV series for SyFy ( source )

Not sure how well that's going to go, personally.

The controversial elements, and true driving forces of the novel, are religion and sex, which Heinlein’s publisher at the time wanted him to cut out.

But as the author noted to his literary agent, if religion and sex were removed from the text, what remained would be the equivalent of a “non-alcoholic martini.”

I know this

strictly isn't a movie but thought that Heinlein fans might have a passing interest.

Question: Is there any movie based on Robert Heinlein's work? If so, is there more than one?

Are there any movies based on Robert Heinlein's works?

An episode of  Masters of Science Fiction was based on a Heinlein story and The Puppet Masters  is based on Heinlein's novel of the same name. Starship Troopers was loosely based on Heinlein's book; the 2014 film Predestination  is based on Heinlein's story  '—All You Zombies—'; Heinlein's Friday was referenced in StarQuest: Beyond The Rising Moon;  a short video exists of "And He Built A Crooked House"; and there was an animated series of Red Planet.

A number of Heinleins books have been used as a basis for films, such as the Puppet Master, or episodes of series. Some of the adaptations have been looser than others. Moreover, an animated version has been made of Red Planet and a short video of "And He Built A Crooked House".

A number of Heinlein's books have been used as a basis for films or episodes of series, including Puppet Masters. Some are only very loosely based on the original book.

An animated series has been made of Red Planet and a short video of "And He Built A Crooked House".


If you watch the season 2 episode where the Galactica has been boarded by a group of Cylons, Apollo is seen to load an armour-piercing round into the lower, larger bore, barrel of his sidearm.

I guess that most other weapons are also dual-load with standard rounds and armour-piercing.

In addition to the advantages that Pearsonartphoto mentions, there are a variety of aesthetic reasons.

As a TV show it is really important to have visual elements that identify the world when you see them.

Being instantly recognizable, in this case via the double-barreled weapons and various uniform, makes it so casual fans of the show will be more likely to stop and watch as they are flipping through channels.

It also helps to make the universe of the show feel more distinct, which encourages suspension of disbelief.

When a TV show is first 'broken' the creators will put together art bibles and other resources that help tie the show's visual aspects together into a cohesive unit.

Not only does this help brand the show, but it sets a standards bar that helps the visuals of a show maintain a certain visual appeal.

That appeal could be intentionally slip-shod, which is the case with a lot of the syfy original movies that are striving for a B-movie quality.

Or it could be a high bar meant to keep the setting of a show realistic, such as in a lot of HBO programs.

It also can define a setting where low tech flotsam and high-tech marvels come together, like in Firefly.

Double barrel guns have a number of advantages, they have quicker firing rates, reduced maintenance, and accuracy.

Presumably they have some kind of a material that reduces the weight, but the double barrel still gives advantages.

For more, see this Wikipedia article .

The upper barrel of the sidearms is for regular ammunition, and the lower barrel is for high-explosive rounds.

In Vally of Darkness , the entire final battle is predicated on the use and reloading of these single shot

HE rounds to defeat the cylon boarding party.

High explosive rounds have been used other times in the series, but this is the only time they are covered by the plot.

Because two is better then one.

I should point out that many of rifles of our current armed forces have "two barrels" as well--the barrel for the "normal" ammo and one for the grenade launcher.

Question: In the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series, the handguns that the military use seem to have two barrels. What are the reasons behind this?

Why do the guns in Battlestar Galactica have two barrels?

Dual-load weapons are already common in our current armed forces. However, in this case, one barrel may be for regular ammo and the other for high-explosive or armor-piercing rounds. Double barrel guns have faster firing rates and "two is better than one".

Two barrel guns have advantages including faster firing rates and greater accuracy. Each barrel has a different function. Current armed forces also use double-barrel weapons, it is not just science fiction.

The two barrels on double-barrel guns have different functions. Current armed forces also use two barrels so it is not just in science fiction.

Two is better than one: Guns with two barrels have quicker firing rates, reduced maintenance and greter accuracy.


About 6000 years ago.

But I don't think the exact details of when were at all important to Tolkien.

Tolkien had written multiple times that Middle-earth is located on our Earth.

He has described it as an imaginary period in earth's past, not only in The Lord of the Rings (see Prologue and Appendices), but also in several correspondence letters, estimating the end of the Third Age to about 6,000 years before his own time, and in N.W. Europe (Hobbiton for example was set in same latitude as Oxford), though at times he would also describe elements of the stories as a kind of "...secondary or sub-creational reality" or "Secondary belief" in replies to letters.

From Middle-earth on Wikipedia

I'm pretty sure that Tolkien intended his work to be a mythology of our ancient past.

It has been speculated that if LOTR ends at the beginning of the 4th age, then we may currently be in the 7th age.

That said, the length of an age is arbitrary and the events of the 3rd age do not fall anywhere in our own history.

You could think of the 7th age as all of known human history.

Anything older than that can only be considered myth.

It was meant to be in this world, about 6,000 years ago.

In Letter #211 Tolkien addressed this specifically (the asterisk is to the footnote, reproduced below):

I hope the, evidently long but undefined, gap* in time between the Fall of Barad-dur and our Days is sufficient for 'litereary credibility', even for readers acquainted with what is known or surmised of 'pre-history'.

I imagine the gap to be about 6000 years : that is we are now at the end of the Fifth Age, if the Ages were of about the same length as S.A. and T.A.

But they have, I think quickened; and I imagine we are actually at the end of the Sixth Age, or in the Seventh.

I figured the stories took place pre-Genesis (in the Gap-Theory gap) like Robert E. Howard's Conan - Hyborian Age.

Edit:

please note that the question explicitly states the time frame from 'the real world' and makes references to film props etc.

therefore what the author intended is not the question.

The questions is purely concerned with where in the course of real history the films would be fit in.

If you wish to downvote, please feel free but could you also leave a comment

so I know why?

Looking at the films Gondor is about 1450 and the shire is about 18c.

Please note this is based upon the full plate armour used by gondor's soldiers, orcs and elves (eg barbutes), the pole block tactics used by the orcs, the agricultural machines used in the shire and the crockery and cutlery used by hobbits etc.

C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy was a collaboration, taking place in our universe.

In fact, C.S. Lewis referred to Numinor several times over the course of his book That Hideous Strength , which was set in post-WWII England.

From the Prelude he writes: Those who would like to learn further about Numinor and the True West must (alas!)

await the publication of much that still exists only in the [manuscript] of my friend, Professor J. R. R. Tolkien.

According to the antagonists in C.S.Lewis' book

That Hideous Strength , it would have been sometime before 110,000 years ago (before the beginning of the last glacial period ).

In discussing Merlin, Frost states: "What we have here," said Frost pointing to the sleeper, "is not, you see, something from the fifth century.

It is the last vestige, surviving into the fifth century, of something much more remote.

Something that comes down from long before the Great Disaster, even before primitive druidism; something that takes us back to Numinor, to pre-glacial periods.

Of course, these are the same folks that predicted that Merlin would join their side, and were subsequently devoured by their own future vivisection experiments; take what they say with a grain of salt. ;)

Seeing how Lord of the Rings stems from Beowulf and the Nibelung saga as well as the Poetic Edda, 5th to 6th century would be a good guess.

The sword that was broken and remade, the cursed ring, invisibility, the dragon and his hoard, and the stolen goblet, and even many of the names (Gandalf, Balin, Durin, anyone?) stem from there.

Question: I know that  The Lord of the Rings  is located in Middle-earth and by the looks of clothes and props, we're looking at well before the 18th century.  What's the best guess at the time period that  The Lord of the Rings  was set in?

In what time period does The Lord of the Rings take place in the real world?

Lord of the Rings is supposed to be set in this world, approximately 6,000 years ago. Considering the films, some believe that Gondor is set in around 1450 and the Shire is approximately 18th Century.

It is generally considered that the Lord of the Rings is set 6000 years ago. The costumes and lifestyle, on the other hand, appear to be 15th century for the orcs, elves and men, whereas the Shire seems to be in the 18th century.

The Lord of the Rings is considered to be set 6000 years ago by most people. Some say pre-Genesis.

Costumes and lifetsyle appear to be 15 century for the men, orcs and elves and 18th century for the hobbits. Other believe 5th or 6th century because of references to Nordic Traditions like Beowulf and Nibelung.


This obviously looks like an afterthought explanation but here is what I found : The magazine, Star Wars Insider Issue 62, explains that R2's manufacturers at Industrial Automation had limited their factory warranty on astromech rockets to about 20 years, which would explain why R2 doesn't have his rockets in the Original Trilogy.

generalanswers.org

I was dubbing on that reference because I don't have any copy of Star Wars Insider Issue 62.

I also found the same text in a cached Wikipedia page and that section has been removed long ago.

(see Wikipedia Talk on R2-D2 )

Anyway, from the Industrial Automaton Wookieepedia article there's a remark on this limitation of the warranty that cite holonetnews as reference: RORDIS CITY, NUBIA - Rescinding previous consumer documentation that guaranteed a "lifetime" of reliability in their after-market astromech hover rockets, Industrial Automaton has now capped the warranty at 20 standard years.

This decision affects all optional R2, R3 and R4-adapted leg-bracket and barrel-housed propellant rocket systems.

Another possible reason could be that the rockets (even if they had fuel) weren't powerful enough to lift R2-D2 in the gravitational field of Tatooine (which, being a rather large planet, is likely to have relatively high gravity).

If I remember Attack of the Clones correctly that scene took place on an asteroid or planetoid, thus in low gravity.

Rockets powerful enough to lift an R2-D2 in 1G (1 Earth gravity acceleration) -

and it's quite likely

Tatooine had higher than that - would be rather large and bulky.

Thrusters for (near) zero gravity to propel the same mass can be a lot smaller and thus easier to fit into a droid.

As the R2-D2 was designed for use in zero gravity primarily (space ship maintenance and repair, etc...)

the designers aren't likely to have designed it with atmospheric flight in a high-G environment in mind.

It's probable that, as his focus shifted away from starship maintenance (with its requirement for zero-g mobility) and toward 'Rebel hacker/awesomebot' R2 was modified to remove the rockets.

It's also possible that, as a member of the rebellion against the government of the time (instead of as a robot in the service of the present government, as in the prequel trilogy) the fuel was hard to come by.

R2 can't have a lot of storage space for fuel, and I'd be willing to bet that his flight capabilities either require a significant amount of his internal power OR need a separate fuel source.

If it is fuel, then it's certainly likely that he had none at the time - either because the Rebellion didn't think it would be needed or because it had been removed by Jabba's people (why would a drink server need it?).

Keep in mind that there IS evidence for R2 having flight capabilities in Empire Strikes Back (unless you think the bottom of a lake in a SWAMP is a good environment for a wheeled robot, and that it would be level enough for his sensor probe to maintain a flat path).

Among the plausible reasons: because the small repulsorlift engines in R2 might not work over "off the cliff" surface (either not enough power, or problems with control).

It was a faster way down :)

I don't know of a canonical answer.

Since I first watched Revenge of the Sith, I thought a direct answer to this question was given when R2 spits out a full load of petroleum-like fluid and uses his thrusters to ignite it and fry a bunch of battle droids on Dooku's flagship.

It is even clear that he used all his fuel for this, because the thrusters cough and turn off right after.

Why he never refills can be explained in various ways.

Maybe the tank was not refillable as that fuel quantity was intended to last for decades.

Or that particular fuel was never available again after the fall of the Republic.

This is very briefly covered in a footnote in the (Disney-canon)

Star Wars novel Return of the Jedi - Beware the Power of the Dark Side .

Somewhere, deep in his memory banks, R2 remembers a time when he could have fired his rocket thrusters and abandoned ship gracefully.

But they haven’t worked in ages and his warranty is long, long expired.

Perhaps, in the RotJ secne, they were disabled or removed despite the fact that R2 had a restraining bolt.

The foreman robot in Jabba's palace recognized R2 as being a troublemaker and could have accounted for him being wily enough to try to circumvent the restraining bolt at some point.

Furthermore, I would imagine that they would be a limited use item as R2 did not use them for a very extended period on Geonosis.

According to Wookieepedia : R2-D2, during the Clone Wars, utilized a Brooks Propulsion rocket booster, which he used to escape and, in the case of the Battle of Coruscant, offensively.

After the Clone Wars, however, Brooks Propulsion Devices, the company responsible for the development of his boosters, was shut down, and his rocket boosters were eventually damaged and thus could not be repaired.

Despite this, however, R2 hardly regretted the loss of his ability to fly.

Question: In  Return of the Jedi :   Artoo butts the golden droid over the edge and steps off himself, tumbling toward the sand.   But in  Attack of the Clones :   ARTOO uses his rocket jets to fly up and into the factory.   Why didn't R2-D2 use his jets in RotJ instead of ending feet up in the sand?  Update:  I am looking for  an in-universe explanation .

Why did R2-D2 not fly in Return of the Jedi?

scifi.stackexchange.com/users/143/Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE

Theories as to the reason why R2-D2 may not have been able to fly include that the rockets may not have been powerful enough in the gravitational field of Tatooine, his rockets may have been removed, or fuel may have been scarce.

There are several possible reasons why R2-D2 did not fly in Return of the Jedi: the rockets were not powerful enough, the rockets had been removed, he did not have fuel or the rockets were disabled.


This is a very often-debated subject… You'll want to tailor the choice to that person's taste.

Some novels have the same main characters as earlier ones, and they make more sense if you've read the earlier ones.

There's a reading order guide on L-Space , with a dependency graph by Krzysztof Kietzman ( also in picture form ).

Some of these dependencies are stronger than others, for example Wyrd Sisters and Witches Abroad make sense on their own, but Lords and Ladies is really a sequel to Wyrd Sisters .

The Watch novels are really a series, I don't recommend starting in the middle (so, not The Fifth Elephant ).

I'm partial towards The Colour of Magic (the first book in the series) myself, but

I know a lot of people don't like it.

It's a good point of entry for habitual fantasy readers ( The Colour of Magic starts with a Leiber ) spoof; Light Fantastic is a direct sequel.

Wyrd Sisters is a good introduction for a Shakespeare fan.

Soul Music for a rock-and-roll fan.

Witches

Abroad is built on fairy tales.

Small Gods is good for someone who likes philosophy of religions.

Mort introduces Death , and Guards!

Guards! introduces Vetinari

(the ruler of Ankh-Morpork ); both are endearing Pratchett characters.

Monstrous Regiment is good for a feminist.

Going Postal is set in Ankh-Morpork, but you don't need to have read the previous books to appreciate it; it shows the city confronted with modernity, 19th-century style.

Night Watch shows an earlier Ankh-Morpork in a revolution; it's almost independent from the other Watch books.

"Guards!

Guards!".

Although I have other favorites, I think it stands alone well enough not to be confusing and require previous knowledge, but it is also a book in ther series where Pratchett has clearly honed his style.

You could also read the Guards/Vimes books sequentially after that too.

For a younger reader---especially but not exclusively a young lady---consider Wee Free Men , the first of the Tiffany Achings novels.

My niece is sufficiently mannerly that receiving a thank you note was taken in course, but we heard through the grape-vine that she asked for the sequel, so I think it was a hit.

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First one I read was Mort .

But to be honest, if they're new to Terry Pratchett altogether, maybe go with Good Omens .

If they like the sense of humor there they should be good to go, and maybe pick up Gaiman as well.

Two to consider are Equal Rites or Small Gods .

The former covers more of the reoccurring characters, but Small Gods is arguable Pratchett at his best commentary on Round World.

I would always recommend Feet of Clay, I know its in the one of the watchmen series, but I find it's one of his most rounded books.

It has a lot of the running jokes, that are funny when you encounter them in the different books, but stand very well on

it's own.

I would also always recommend that you reread it after you've read a few of his other books.

I wouldn't start with the Colour of Magic, as I think that is better enjoyed by someone who's read a few of his books already.

Pyramids, Small Gods, Wyrd Sisters.

Those 3 are probably the best introductions into the Dyskworld multiverse.

Small Gods might be less appropriate for a strongly religious person for all the obvious reasons :)

For me it would either be the Thief of time or Mort.

I started with the former actually.

In my opinion, both of them plunge you into the extremely defamiliarising Discworld.

If you like the conceits and the humour, you'll know if you are sticking with Terry or not.

The Truth is the first one I read.

It's after Pratchett's mainstays like the Watch or Death have already been developed but those books don't have to be read beforehand to understand who they are in relevance to the story.

It's very good at letting you get a taste of the series without being forced to jump into a whole sub-series.

Start with the Rincewind cycle, continue with the early "stand-alones" (small gods.

pyramids) and DEATH cycle, then launch into the Watch cycle, then finish off with the witches...

but at least do the cycles chronologically, since it adds emotional connection with the characters.

My suggestion is to start where he did, even though RIncewind overall is a somewhat weak character (the other university people are much more fun in the later stories), by the time you get to the best parts of the Discworld saga (namely the city watch) you will know all about the (disc)world.

It's also fun to watch Pratchett develop his style from spoofing and light-hearted parody to the more bitter cynical humor of his later books.

Oh, and Vetinari and don't forget Strata!

Question: If you were going to loan one Terry Pratchett book from the Discworld series to someone, which book would you use?

Which Discworld book to start a newbie on

Suggestions for an introduction to Discworld include The Colour of Magic; Wyrd Sisters; Soul Music; Witches; Abroad; Small Gods;  Mort  Introduces  Death; Guards!; Good Omens; Equal Rites; Wee Free Men; Feet of Clay; Pyramids; and Thief of Time.

Very different opinions exist on which Terry Pratchett book should serve as an introduction to his works. Suggestions include Guards!, Wyrd Sisters, Pyramids and Small Gods, among others.


Yes, the order does matter.

As pointed out in this answer , it appeared that at first glance, Chloe can't do math.

The number of gates just appears to be far too few, she states that there is a 1 in 63 billion chance of randomly dialing a particular stargate.

However, given 38 chevrons, and 7 random dials, that gives the number 38!/31!, or 63,606,090,240.

Thus mathematically and given some random facts in episodes, the order must be important.

Note that the 39th one is unique to each site, and thus isn't included in the calculation.

I have to disagree with Dima - the order of glyphs MUST matter.

My rationale is as follows: We have often seen people having to rush to dial the gate.

They've been taking fire, Jaffa/Wraith/Replicators closing in.

The team has seconds left, and they're trying to dial as quickly as possible.

They dial a few glyphs, then frantically search, hit another glyph, and then quickly punch in 3 more (ending with the Point of Origin), hit the central crystal, and the gate opens.

SG-1 is saved!

It's a scene we see literally dozens of times over the course of SG-1, and at least several times in the Atlantis episodes I've seen.

It would make no sense for people to waste precious time looking for a particular symbol as the 3rd, or 4th, etc, if the order wasn't important.

So, while there's no logical reason, based on Daniel Jackson's original theory of addresses (6 points to define a 3D location, 7th for Point of Origin) for the order to matter, the character's repeated actions demonstrate that it is.

Edit:

Also, in the Atlantis pilot episode(s) "Rising", Ford memorizes the address the Wraith Darts dial, but he didn't memorize the order.

Sheppard and McKay discuss this, and Sheppard explicitly points out that they need the order.

McKay is initially dubious, but points out that knowing the symbols cuts down on the possible combinations.

There's a little humor in Sheppard having already done the math and being ready with the number (6! = 720).

As far as I remember, the glyphs represent stars, which are endpoints of line segments.

There are 3 pairs of glyphs, to represent 3 lines, whose intersection is your destination point.

(Come to think of it, you only need an intersection of two lines to define a point, but whatever...).

So, in that case, the glyphs must be grouped into pairs to represent the lines, and the point of origin must be last.

But the order of the pairs should not matter.

I suppose that it is simply more convenient to memorize a sequence of 7 glyphs in a particular order, which is why they always dial them in order.

Edit:I did not say the order did not matter at all.

You cannot shuffle the glyphs randomly, but you can shuffle them somewhat.

Let's formalize this.

Let's denote two glyphs defining a line segment as a_i and b_i, and let's denote the point of origin as o. One way to specify a valid gate address would be a1 b1 a2 b2 a3 b3

o

In this case, you should be able to swap corresponding a and b without changing the meaning, or you could swap (a_i b_i) and (a_j b_j) without changing the meaning.

Alternatively, you can use this convention:

a1 a2 a3 b1 b2 b3 o

Here again you should be able to swap corresponding a and b, or you can change the position of a pair.

In other words, a3 a2 a1 b3 b2 b1 o should still be a valid address.

This seems to correspond to @Jeff's observation.

Of course, you can come up with other conventions, but these two make the most sense to me.

They have to be in order according to the rules of the show, but it's one of the many bits of Stargate canon that makes little sense.

As previously answered, the points should be reversible, and only 4 of them would be necessary to calculate a point.

It should be noted, however, that calculating any specific position within an area of space using only 38 points within the area isn't possible,

only the 63 billion mentioned.

Sure, that sounds like a lot, but compared to the number of possible positions a gate could be in an area the size of our galaxy, it's ineffective.

Adding in the stellar drift, the address system should not be adequate as described. (Though since the gate can identify one end by point of origin and needs the 6-symbol coordinates for the other, and also given the correlative update system mentioned in some of the episodes, it would seem the gates

all know each other's positions anyway, and the address is little more than a simplified way to enter the destination

(basically the naming system mentioned near the end of season 7.)

I suppose it could be seen as a password system, as well.

Of course, given that they calculate planet locations with the gate addresses in some episodes, the science/simple logic comes into play anyway.

Just one of the heap of plot holes in the franchise (and one of the many they've made fun of themselves for, if I remember correctly.)

The spoken word version of the planet with the ZPM was

Pac La Rush Ta On As At (Paclarush Taonas also means "Lost in Fire" in Ancient.)

Also, the symbols can be spoken, remember.

I recall that hell planet with the zpm that SG1 needed to power the chair on earth, that they didn't know was there, my episode knowledge is shaky. :)

Question: Excepting the final glyph for point of origin, does the order of the glyphs matter when dialing a Stargate?  I don't recall ever seeing someone dial an address out of order, or directly commenting on order mattering.  Looking at the design of a DHD, it would seem like it doesn't matter, as there's no indicator on the DHD itself of the order of glyphs.

Does the order of glyphs matter in Stargate addresses?

The order of the glyphs does matter, and people look for particular symbols in order.

The order of glyphs does matter and it is canon even though it makes no sense. Clearly people would not waste time trying to look for specific symbols if the order was not important.


One good reason is - why?

How were the goa'uld to know, of all the worlds with humans on them, that Earth would advance so far technologically?

The Stargate RPG sourcebook (which I believe at one point was canon but is not anymore) insinuates that the human uprising was part of a long period of internal struggle started by Egeria and the tok'ra.

Probably dozens of worlds rebelled.

Given that Ra (and the System Lords under him) controlled hundreds or thousands of worlds, if one day they find that the Earth gate is not dialing -

so what?

They know that humans originally came from Earth, but they have plenty of breeding stock for implantation elsewhere.

If the planet is just going to give you trouble, you don't need anything there, and you've already got a civil war going, you're going to want to put resources where it matters.

In fact, Earth didn't advance that far - Tollana and presumably Serita, for example, advanced much further.

Langara was almost as advanced, and far more resource-rich.

There's nothing inherently special about Earth that they'd know which would make them want to go back.

(The exception would be Anubis, who knew about the Ancients, but didn't act until much later.)

Finally, who's to say they didn't try?

The beta gate was buried at Antarctica.

If the goa'uld had tried to send some soldiers back, they would've ended up like O'Neill and Carter - stuck under a mountain of ice with an unpowered DHD, and it's unlikely they'd be smart enough to repair it .

If the soldiers went through and didn't come back, that's all the more reason for the goa'uld to just write off the world as lost.

Actually Everyone is forgetting the Stargate SG-1 "Demons."

There SG-1 encounters a population of Goa'uld slaves who were taken from medieval Europe by Sokar.

Daniel speculates that they were taken through the Antarctic gate.

So riddle me this: Why were the Goa'uld still harvesting humans from Earth AFTER the Alpha Gate was buried and the Earth Rebellion?

Granted, Sokar was a black sheep and already overthrown by Ra, it's possible that he discovered Earth on his own hook and acted accordingly, but the question remains: if Goa'uld of any stripe were able to use the Beta Gate, why did they stop coming?

For that matter, why did Sokar?

There must be some aspect of the human rebellion on Earth that kept the Goa'uld away for all those millenia.

Otherwise, why didn't Ra just send a few Ha'taks after the Alpha gate was buried?

As far as I know, this plot hole has never been addressed, and the Beta gate just makes it worse.

We can infer that there may have been something protecting Earth during this time though.

10,000 years ago, some Ancients returned to Earth from the Pegasus galaxy.

5,000 years ago, the rebellion on Earth scared off the Goa'uld (see the SG-1 2-parter, Moebius).

After returning from the Pegasus galaxy, some of the Ancients took part in the Alliance between themselves, the Nox, the Furlings, and the Asgard.

For some reason, they didn't remove the Goa'uld from Earth, but some settled in and mated with the humans on Earth.

However, for the Asgard to influence Norse religions, it stands to reason they may have protected Earth.

This isn't canon

and I'm mixing in actual history, so

things are going to get weird, but looking at the Wikipedia pages for Scandinavian history, the earliest indications of something resembling the later Norse mythology that has Thor, Loki, Odin, etc.

is in the Norse Bronze Age.

That period spans 3700-2500 years ago.

It's possible that's when the Asgard first showed up on Earth.

Maybe they started protecting Earth from Goa'uld attacks then, but that leaves Earth not safe for over 1000 years.

Potentially other races in the Alliance protected us earlier, without any indication showing up in the historical record.

We know that putting an iris on a gate will essentially kill a person who tries to enter the gate.

I'm assuming that burying the gate will have done something quite similar to this, made anyone who tried to use it die.

Secondly, it seems like it's rather difficult to dial the Beta Gate, and that it's only a set of coincidences that caused it to work right in the first place.

Lastly, we know the DHD was buried rather deep in the ice, so most likely anyone who happened on to the beta gate would have died.

Putting all of this together, it seems likely that no one even knew of the Beta Gate's existence, that traveling to Earth through the stargate was essentially impossible.

They wouldn't have known if anyone had succeed in dialing Earth, either way, they were dead.

This is admittedly a short and unverifiable answer, but my personal view has always been that the Antarctic gate remained buried for the majority of the intervening time, until random movement of the ice (earthquakes and whatnot) happened to unearth it.

Under this theory, Jack and Sam would have mistakenly arrived through it within a reasonably short time thereafter (say, a few hundred years).

Recall that this gate was originally unreachable (hence the transplantation by Ra of the Giza gate)

so we know that at least for some duration of time, it was literally buried in ice.

This doesn't quite gel with those buried Jaffa, though.

scifi.stackexchange.com/users/1167/Lightness Races in Orbit

Question: The Beta gate, so far as I can tell, has been in Antarctica functioning for thousands of years. Why didn't the Goa'uld invade Earth through the beta gate at some point in time? Or am I just misunderstanding how two gates on the same planet work?

Why did the Goa'uld not invade Earth through the Beta gate?

It seems likely that no one even knew of the Beta Gate's existence, and that traveling to Earth through the stargate was essentially impossible. it also seems rather difficult to dial the Beta Gate, and that it was only a set of coincidences that caused it to work correctly in the first place. We know the DHD was buried deep in the ice, so anyone who happened on to the beta gate probably would have died. It may also be the case that there may have been nothing inherently special about Earth that would make them want to go back, or there may be some aspect of the human rebellion on Earth that kept the Goa'uld away for all those millennia.

Either the Goa'uld had no interest in returning to Earth or the human rebellion kept them away for some reason. Regarding the Beta Gate, it was buried deep in the ice and therefore anyone arriving at it would probably die. Moreover, it seems likely that its existence was unknown.

It is possible the the Goa'uld had no interest in returning to Earth or the human rebellion kept them away.

The Beta Gate was buried deep in the ice so anyone arriving at it would have died. It was also difficult to dial. It also seems probable that nobody knew of its existence.


E E "Doc" Smiths Lensmen series (published between 1934 and 1948) included fictional profanity, at least in passing.

There's a scene where someone is transcribing a conversation in an alien tongue where one of the parties blanches at the use of an insult, the strongest in the language.

In english it was something like "Shronizfied" with the meaning "descended from countless generations of muck living flatworm" .

I'll dig the books out of storage and see if I can find an exact quote.

Nice to have a reason to re-read a classic ...

Anthony Burgess' "

A Clockwork Orange" was written in 1962, and contained an entire lexicon of "Nadsat" slang.

Some of those words are clearly intended as profanities.

Aldus Huxley's "Brave New World" predates that by quite a bit (1931), but I'd say its debatable whether the terminology in there really equates to profanity ("Gamma minus", a designation from the novel's caste system, is probably the closest thing to a profanity, although "soma", the name given to a fictional drug, is probably the most clearly "made-up" word).

There may very well be other examples, but these are the ones I could think of.

While I think it's a great question, I'm not sure we'll get a real, definitive answer.

In Foundation and Empire (1952) Asimov use the word Galaxy as an obscenity, often emphasizing the middle syllable (gal-LAX-y).

While not a fictional word, it is a fictional obscenity.

Larry Niven was using the term "TANJ" in the Known Space universe in the mid to late 60's.

TANJ ->

There Aint no Justice

I'm sure there are works prior to that though.

In Glory Road Robert Heinlein does actually discuss the use of profanity, and uses a word he considers profane.

Courtesy of Google Book Search

Mork and Mindy had Shazbott that's 1978.

Probably not the oldest but definitely an example of it.

In "I Will Fear No Evil" Heinlein used the word "kark" as an expletive.

Now a Google search reveals that it is all over the Star Wars universe.

What gives?

In Triplanetary, Ralph Kinnison describes an incompetent official (to his face) as lacking "the brains that God gave bastard geese in Ireland".

One of the more original bits of invective.

Question: There's a tradition of sorts in sci-fi where aliens or future humans use profanity that doesn't exist in the real world.  I'm curious when this started.  Which story or novel is the first time the writer made up profanity?  It's acceptable if they used real profanity in addition to their made up profanity.

What's the first instance of fictional profanity in sci-fi?

E E "Doc" Smith's "Lensmen" series (published between 1934 and 1948) included fictional profanity. "A Clockwork Orange" was written in 1962, and contained an entire lexicon of "Nadsat" slang.   In "Foundation and Empire" (1952), Asimov used the word Galaxy as an obscenity, often emphasizing the middle syllable (gal-LAX-y). "Mork and Mindy" used "Shazbott" in 1978. Finally, in "I Will Fear No Evil", Heinlein used the word "kark" as an expletive.

Many books vie for the prize of first made up profanity including "Clockwork Orange", "I will Fear NO Evil" and "Triplanetary". It seems the oldest is the Lensmen series published in 1934 and 1948.


According to the Wikipedia article List of Firefly planets and moons , there are actually five stars and seven brown dwarfs in the 34 Tauri (the name of the system).

The central planets all orbit the White Sun in the center of the system.

The border planets orbit two other stars that both orbit the White Sun.

All of this information comes from

The Complete and Official Map of The Verse by Geoffrey Mandel as specified in the Wikipedia article.

They were terraformed, as mentioned in the Train Job.

The planets most distant from the sun must have more greenhouse gases in their atmospheres.

Or they have warmer cores that are leak heat to the surface that keep it nice and warm on the surface.

According to the RPG, admittedly a source of dubious canonicity:

There are 5 stars in system.

The worlds orbit around their own star at distances where greenhouse effect can be blamed for the temperature in a semi-reasonable manner.

Artificial gravity generators are used to maintain breathable atmospheres on some of the smaller worlds.

More importantly,according to the interview on the Serenity Blue Ray, Joss stuck to the rule of Drama when creating the verse, not to the rule of Science.

Joss didn't worry about it.

I do agree to some extent that a larger sun with a higher metal index could have both a much wider habitable zone and a greater number of planet.

If one could some how control gravity without too much effort the depthof atmosphere could be controlled.

Some feel Sol could have a life supportingplanet beyond Mars if the planet was larger and the right atmosphere depthand gas mixture.

See the Wikipedia article of habitable zones of stars.

Granted

I don't think JW sweated the details......

Trig

Our galaxy is currently 'eating' the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy.

It is feasible that during one (or more) of the passes, planets were captured from other systems that were within 5 degrees of the ecliptic to the (Firefly) system.

This would, in fact, produce exactly the type of orbital path distribution seen in the movie Serenity.

If the star is a blue-white, the star itself would be a pin-prick in the sky, but the light perceived by the human eye (with its self-regulating photo-limiter) would seem to be the same whether on an inner or outer system within the habitable zone.

Question: Is there an in-universe explanation for how it is that the outer planets in Firefly all seem to have temperate climate zones, despite their distance from the sun?  I am assuming here that the outer planets (or moons) must be farther away from their star than Saturn is from our sun.  They should all be frozen, with seas of liquid methane, like Titan.

How is it that the outer planets in Firefly are not frozen?

The planets most distant from the sun must have more greenhouse gases in their atmospheres, or they have warmer cores that leak heat to the surface, keeping it nice and warm.

The planets furthest from the sun have greenhouse gases to maintain the temperature. Alternatively, they have warmer cores that leak heat to the surface.


The disconnection of networks is explained in the miniseries that starts the reboot - the Galactica was one of the only remaining warships that was not networked - and this is what saved it from the malware portion of the Cylon attack.

The newer ships, connected using some sort of advanced networking, were infected by the Cylons, and so destroyed.

Some humans knew that technology could - maybe must - lead to the destruction of their race, e.g. by creating the Cylons (workers who later devastatingly rebelled).

As such, there was distrust of advanced technology - Adama, in particular, expresses this a lot early in the series (he had a lot of experience with the Cylons from the earlier war).

The Galactica was his command (for around three years prior to the start of the series), so the lack of the most recent technology makes sense.

In addition, the Galactica was 50 years old -

it was about to be decommissioned as the series began.

As a result, the technology on board was not as recent as that on the colonies - and this was supplemented by what survivors of a genocidal attack happened to have.

They didn't have time to develop or build new technology during the events of the series, or foreknowledge to pack every high-tech device they might need aboard these ships.

I can't remember where I saw it, might have been a behind the scenes show on sci-fi channel, but there was an interview with Moore that he talked a few minutes about the tech of BSG.

He explained that one of the goals of the reboot of BSG was to keep the technology simple and close to current day "realistic" idea of technology.

Obviously, they had to fudge some stuff with FTL drives and the likes but otherwise he said they didn't want technology to get in the way of the story.

Apart from being old.

Galactica was designed that way.

Because Cylons are machines they can easily use and manipulate advanced technology (so the theory goes) Because of this Galactica was designed with the lisede technology possible so it can do the job but nothing more so it is relatively safe from the Cylon interference.

It is not even networked so even if its captured it will not contaminate other ships.

Was anyone here actually impressed with any of their spaceships?

None of them were built for anything beyond a cruise around the 12 Colonies.

None could handle long duration missions.

And with the exception of the two warships we saw (Galactica and Pegasus), none of them were any good at handling battle damage.

It looked to me like their space technology was fairly immature.

They no doubt retained some of the technology they had at the time of the founding of the Colonies (some of which may have come from the Lords of Kobol), but I don't get the impression that their technology advanced very much after that, until recently.

In fact, do we have any reason to believe that they came from Kobol in FTL-capable ships?

They may have only developed FTL in recent centuries, and it clearly wasn't cheap enough to put on every ship, "just in case".

We know nothing about their FTL technology -- maybe it is fairly simple, either because this is a property of BSG universe or just we are missing something obvious (there was a short story about Earth being attacked by antigravity-

and FTL- capable creatures of an overall middle ages level, but I can't recall the title now :-( ).

Also, the technology development path is rather a tree than a ladder -- some branches may greatly overtake the others, especially with some directed stimuli (for instance rocket technology development during the cold war).

One simple explanation could be economics and expectation.

It could perhaps be very expensive/uncommon to build portable weapons out of plastic, so you expect x-ray machines to be able to detect almost all weapons.

Similarly, you may not expect infiltration from enemies so your security apparatus may be geared toward heavy-duty attacks.

Remember that even the military has to pay in one form or another for things it builds and operates, so they prefer inexpensive things like cables instead of wi-fi.

The galactica was the oldest remaining ship in the colonial fleet at the time of the attack it was 50 years old the computer systems were neither networked nor integrated during these refits due to the fears of its commander, William Adama.

Due to this lack of network integration at the time of the Cylon attack, Galactica was unaffected by the infiltration program used by the Cylons to disable Colonial vessels and defense systems, using the Command Navigation Program (CNP), developed by Dr. Gaius Baltar and subverted by Cylon operative Number Six as a back door into such systems.

Question: On one hand, residents of the Twelve colonies perfected travel in spaceships and FTL jumps, but on the other hand, they have some really low-tech technologies, such as disconnecting a network by pulling at a lot of cables [ 1 ], or having no better way of checking for weapons other than the x-ray machines [ 2 ]. Can that be explained by something other than flawed writing?

Why is there a lot of low-tech in Battlestar Galactica?

Adama expresses a distrust of advanced technology early in the series. In addition, they may not have had time to develop or build new technology during the events of the series, or foreknowledge to pack every high-tech device they might need aboard these ships. Also, one of the goals of the reboot was to keep the technology simple and close to current day "realistic" idea of technology.  One theory is that because Cylons are machines, they can easily use and manipulate advanced technology. Therfore, Galactica was designed with the least technology possible so it can do the job but nothing more, making it relatively safe from Cylon interference.

The idea of Battlestar Galactica was to keep technology "realistic" for its then audience. In the show, there was distrust of technology. Moreover, the Cylons, being machines found advanced technology easy to manipulate. However, they found low-tech mush more difficult to infiltrate.

There was distrust of advanced technology and there was also no time to develop new technology the events of the series.

The idea of the show was to keep the technology "realistic" for the current day audience.

Technology could be expensive and they only built what hey thought they needed.

The Cylons were machines and thus could easily manipulate advanced technology. By keeping the technology simple, it was more difficult for the Cylons to infiltrate.


In the documentary Wishful Drinking , Carrie Fisher brings up her changing accent.

It was because she was going to school in Britain

and she picked up some of the local accent.

I had never noticed that before, but it would fit the story.

The pseudo-British accent is heard coming from just about every character that is a part of the Empire.

At the beginning of episode IV Leia is still attempting to act undercover as part of a "diplomatic mission".

Once out of the undercover environment, and safely around the resistance, her speaking would shift back towards the more American accent used by most of the rebels.

In-universe, the British accent is called Coruscanti , and it was often adopted to give the speaker an air of authority and/or political legitimacy during the days of the Empire.

The difference in Leia's accent is referenced in the novel Backlash by Aaron Allston.

In the excerpt below, two Imperials are watching a holo-recording recovered from the first Death Star, one taken moments before the destruction of Alderaan:

Senator Leia surged forward.

Her body language, the little of it that could be seen, was one of entreaty, pleading.

When she spoke, her voice was not quite right, not quite the voice

Lecersen had been familiar with for many years.

Its pitch was a touch higher, and it carried the clipped tones of the Coruscanti accent, nearly identical to Tarkin's, that so many Senators and other politicians affected back in the days of the Empire, even when they were not from Coruscant.

No.

Alderaan is peaceful.

We have no weapons.

You can't possibly—" Tarkin's voice turned harsh, commanding.

"You would prefer another target?

A military target?

Then name the system!"

Out-of-universe, as explained in the accepted answer, actress Carrie Fisher had been living in England and adopted a British accent prior to shooting, and gradually lost it during production.

In universe, the newly canonical explanation is provided in Bloodline : according to this book, Leia spoke that way to mock Tarkin.

Casterfo had the same sort of aristocratic accent Grand Moff Tarkin had spoken in, the one so many senior Imperial officers affected, the one she’d mocked when she and Tarkin last stood face-to-face.

- Star Wars: Journey to the Force Awakens: Bloodline , by Claudia Gray

scifi.stackexchange.com/users/44025/Wad Cheber stands with Monica

Leia grew up as a princess on Alderaan, which as we all knew developed an accent similar to our "British" accent.

But when the evil Lord Vader blew that planet up all traces of that accent were wiped out from the universe save for the few fledging survivors that were scattered throughout the universe at the time.

And since in the Star Wars universe, traits of the people are only able to carry when there is a large group of people to carry those traits, all learned traits of Alderaan vanished with the planet.

So after the planet was destroyed the accent slipped away from Leia like the other traits of Alderaan (of which I'm sure she didn't miss: the propensity to hoard, be extremely frugal, and get really sad when it rains of a Tuesday.

Also a strong desire to eat meat.).

And since she was a mixed native of Tatooine and Naboo, those inherent traits came back (less bun-hair, more hardass, also a desire for incest, strangely enough).

It's well documented that David Prowse was doing a voice for Darth Vader at the time, but that his west-country accent made him more "Darth Farmer" than "Darth Vader".

It wouldn't surprise me if you could heard the occasional west-country accent coming through any of the actors.

In Episode IV, Carrie Fisher pronounces Han Solo's first name as if he were the leader of the Han Dynasty.

In Episode V, she picks up Billy Dee Williams' accent and pronounces "Han" as to rhyme with Peter "Pan."

In Episode VI, she's back to the Han Dynasty.

I think she picks up the accents of those she hears the most (as do we all).

Question: In the first 30 minutes of Star Wars IV, Leia has a pseudo-British accent.  As the movie progresses she loses her accent and gets a more American-tough girl accent.  Is there a reason behind this?

Why does Leia's accent change during A New Hope?

In-universe, the British accent is called  Coruscanti , and it was often adopted to give the speaker an air of authority and/or political legitimacy during the days of the Empire. When Alderaan was blown up by Vader, most traces of that accent were wiped out, apart from a few survivors. Out-of-universe, actress  Carrie Fisher  had been living in England and adopted a British accent prior to shooting, and gradually lost it during production.

Leia's accent has roots both in and out-of-universe. In-universe, she grew up with a Coruscanti accent and lost it when the planet was blown up. Out-of-universe, the actress who played Leia had spent time in England and picked up a British accent.

In-universe, the British accent is called Coruscanti and was used to give an air of authority. Leia was a princess of Alderaan and grew up with that accent. However, the accent was lost when the planet was blown up by Lord Vader. Leia's accent is referenced in the novel "Backlash" by Aaron Allston.

Out-of-universe, Carri Fisher, the actress who played Leia had been living in England and picked up a British accent.


A Hedge Knight is an individual who has been dubbed as a knight, but does not owe his allegiance to any master.

I guess Hedge Wizard is about the same.

George R. R. Martin actually uses the term The Hedge Knight for the title of one of his short stories.

Update:

I'm not too up on medieval history, but the idea of a roving knight doesn't crop up too much from what I remember -

so I think it is something in-world.

I certainly haven't seen Hedge Knight used outside of Martin's works.

It's a real term that Martin is using for his world.

"Hedge" refers to knights with no masters sleeping outdoors under hedgerows, because they can't afford anything else.

In general, "Hedge Wizard" refers to either a peasant wizard or a dispossessed apprentice of a wizard who has come to function on his own.

In many fantasy settings, it refers to a wizard who is neither a member of the wizard's guild, nor possessed of a license to practice.

A hedge knight is a person, who having been dubbed a knight (elevated to knighthood), but not then sworn to the knighting lord, nor to any of his vassals.

The term is reputed to refer to sleeping in the hedges, but as often as not, those hedges marked the boundaries of particular fields or orchards, and could just as easily apply to one camped just beyond, or even living in the peasant villages who worked those fields.

In either case, the term is derogatory in most contexts, as the implication of living in/under the hedges puts one as poorer than a peasant, as even the poorest peasants had a place to build a hut.

What is a Hedge Knight?

A Hedge Knight is a Knight who does not have service with any Lord and does not posses land himself from a Lord.

Why are they called "Hedge Knights"?

In Chapter 71 of ADWD, Daenerys recalls following:

Viserys told her tales of knights so poor that they had to sleep beneath the ancient hedges that grew along the byways of the Seven Kingdoms.

Dany would have given much and more for a nice thick hedge.

Preferably one without an anthill.

As they have no lands or service with a landed Aristocrat, they do not have any housing facility.

Therefore they have to roam the seven Kingdoms in search of service (whether permanent or temporary).

Because they have no liege lord to pay them and chances of finding temporary services are not very high, these knights are usually low on money and can't afford to live in inns.

So where do they sleep?

Outdoors!

Specifically, under hedges.

Contrary to the apparent impression, Hedges in Westeros are actually very good places to sleep.

The older the hedge is, the better it is.

Is the word "Hedge" pejorative?

In our world, the prefix "Hedge" would roughly translate to Hobo which most certainly is pejorative.

It implies that the said person is landless, jobless, homeless and poor.

So what is Hedge Wizard then?

Unlike Knighthood, Wizardry is not an established institute in Westeros.

Cynical people would mock men claiming to be wizards as frauds while gullible people would believe their claims.

If someone is a Hedge Wizard, that means he is also landless, serviceless, poor and homeless, while maintaining that he is a wizard.

Martin often makes slight alterations to historic terminology to make his world unique from ours, for example using "Banner" to refer to a Knight Banneret.

The historic "hedge knight" was never referred as such, but, rather, as condottiere (Italian) or compagnies grandes (French).

Sir Walter Scott eventually gave them the English name "Freelance" in Ivanhoe.

It refers to a knight who is not committed to any particular liege, and is thus free to offer (and often sell) his services.

Martin splits them into two categories; those ennobled and those not ennobled.

The former is a hedge knight, while the latter is a free rider.

Hedge wizard, as I've always known it, refers to a self-taught wizard, as opposed to one who apprenticed under another wizard.

A good parallel in real life history would be the distinction between a Samurai and a Ronin in Fuedal Japan.

One pledges fealty to a feudal lord and the other has no master.

A knight in Martin's works refers to a person annointed in the 7 oils, stands vigil in a sept, and takes the knight's vows.

The baseborn (concieved out of wedlock) cannot become knights.

A hedge knight is the lowest rung on the knightly totem pole, so to speak.

They differ from landed knights in that they hold no lands and swear fealty to no lord.

However, they may become sworn swords if, during some campaign, a lord wishes to increase his numbers and accepts the hedge knight's oath.

After serving as a sworn sword, the knight generally adopts the lifestyle of a hedge knight again.

It would be misleading to think of hedge knights as being similar to ronin.

There are some superficial similarities (the gentry hold them in ill regard, and they use their martial prowess to make money), but the best way to gain insight into the meaning of "hedge knight" is to learn about knights, not by comparing them to ronin.

I won't go into detail, as your question doesn't concern ronin, but a little research into ronin warriors will give you the info you need to make the distinction yourself.

Think of it this way:

It's similar to a Japanese samurai ronin.

A hedge knight is essentially a roaming sellsword (they all love to call themselves "Ser So-and-so"), but in Martin's works the lack of common Rule of Law and the depressing lack of honor make the vast majority of hedge knights seem to be only barely above the level of brigands.

Question: Reading the Ice and Fire books, I keep on coming across the term Hedge Knight (and, also, the apparently pejorative, Hedge Wizard).   What specifically does the prefix Hedge refer to?

What is a Hedge Knight?

A Hedge Knight is a Knight who does not have service with any Lord and does not posses land himself from a Lord.  Viserys told her tales of knights so poor that they had to sleep beneath the ancient hedges. If someone is a Hedge Wizard, that means he is also landless, serviceless, poor and homeless, while maintaining that he is a wizard.  These wizards may also be self-taught. In either case, the term is derogatory, as the implication is that the person is poorer than a peasant, equivalent to "hobo" in current terminology.

Hedge is a derogatory term,corresponding to the modern term "Hobo". Both Hedge Knights and Hedge Wizards are poor. Hedge Knights serve no master and sleep under headges. Hedge Wizards are wizards who are self-taught rather than having served as an apprentice to another wizard.

A Hedge Knight is a knight with no master. They are poor and sleep under hedges, hence Hedge Knight.

A Hedge Wizard is either a peasant wizard or a wizard who is self-taught rather than serving as an apprentice to another wizard.

The term "Hedge" is derogatory and corresponds to the modren-day term "Hobo"


In A New Hope, he translates R2D2 while they're on the Death Star and R2's getting information from the computers.

Early in Return of the Jedi, while he's working for Jabba.

Later in that film he translates Ewok into Basic, AND provides protocol information about why his friends are going to be killed and cooked.

If I remember correctly he does some translation in the beginning of A New Hope .

He translates some of R2D2's talks especially while Jawas are selling the droids to them.

Also he does some translations between Ewoks and others.

Remember we never see (except possibly during the closing scenes of RotJ)

C3PO in a setting where his function as a protocol droid would be beneficial.

His job is as a court functionary, not a fugitive smuggler or warrior in a rebel band.

As to everyone speaking common, Jabba the Hut didn't.

Nor did several of the people in Mos Eisley so not everyone in the SW universe speaks the same language.

The fact that everyone (or almost) the main characters come into contact with does may be either a fluke or designed that way to make the movies easier on the audience.

A conversation that takes over twice as long as it should because every sentence has to go through a translator doesn't make for very good cinema after all, so I call artistic license here.

The fact that Leia had a protocol/translator droid with her on her diplomatic mission indicates to me that she did expect to need those services in some capacity.

It just never made the cut.

This answer addresses both the original question (e.g. whether C3PO ever did his job) as well as clarifies the discussion in the comments on whether his job was "protocol" as in communications protocol or "protocol" as in diplomatic protocol (e.g. etiquette).

The short answer to the latter is that it was the latter (etiquette) but as part of that purpose he was definitely designed as a specialist in communications protocol.

He was the protocol (in diplomatic sense)

droid, both by design and sometimes (relatively rarely) by function.

This was noted in post-ROTJ books, as well as the following source quoted in Wikipedia: in 1977, Lucas provided a guide for early Expanded Universe creators, in which Threepio's origin on Affa was established, and also the fact that he was "totally reassembled by a young boy working for a junk dealer" before joining the Alderaanian diplomatic corps "several years" later .

Also, from starwars.com Protocol droids are vital in smoothing differences encountered by the many farflung cultures interacting on a regular basis throughout the galaxy.

Programmed in etiquette and equipped with formidable language skills, protocol droids assist diplomats and politicians and also serve as administrative aides and companions for high-ranking officials.

he actually fulfilled that diplomatic function (as opposed to simple translator) a couple of times when Leia was serving as official of New Republic.

I don't have specific book quotes but Wiki C3PO article lists a couple of obviously diplomatic assignments.

Yes.

In the original trilogy, he does his job in each of the three movies.

Episode IV

Translating R2D2's beeping-whistle language for Luke.

Specifically, translating R2's warning about the approaching life forms (Sand People) on Tattooine.

And most importantly, telling Luke that R2 has located Princess Leia aboard the Death Star.

Episode V Speaking with the Millenium Falcon to help diagnose its problemswhile in the asteroid field.

Translating the language of love between Han and Leia, and interceding at the most inappropriate time for the two of them.

Episode VI

This is where C3P0 really gets to shine.

Translating for Jabba the Hutt, which while not exactly heroic,

IShis job as a translator.

Translating the Ewok language for therebel strike team.

Most importantly, translating the strike teamfor the Ewoks, and convincing them that he is a Golden God of greatpower and anger.

I can't recall him doing any sort of translating in the prequel trilogy though, not even for R2.

Though presumably he may have, at some point, acted as translator for Owen Larrs.

And at the beginning of Episode 3, he's clearly working for Padme in some regard, though we never see any of it on-screen.

Question: C-3PO is a protocol droid that is fluent in over six million forms of communication, but it seems like everyone in the galaxy can understand every other language.  Has C-3PO ever had to translate?  I do recall him translating R2's beeps at one point, but I'm not positive.

Does C-3PO ever do his job?

He does translate in all of the movies in the original trilogy. For example, In A New Hope, he translates R2D2 while they are on the Death Star and R2-D2 is getting information from the computers.  He also translates for R2D2 when Jawas are selling the droids to them. He later translates Ewok into Basic, and provides protocol information about why his friends are going to be killed and cooked.

C-3PO does his job in all movies of the original trilogy. He translates Ewok into Basic and translates for R2D2.


The most common suggestion for the third head is Tyrion.

Now that A Dance with Dragons has been released

I believe it's worth adding another answer to this question.

A Dance with Dragons spoiler

It seems more likely now that one of the dragons is Aegon Targaryen.

Aegon Targaryen was the second child and only son of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia Martell.

It is revealed that the baby murdered during the Sack of King's Landing was that of a peasant who Lord Varys put in the cot.

Varys then hid baby Aegon.

When Robert Baratheon and the realm falsely believed him dead, Varys had agents smuggle him across the narrow sea.

Aegon_Targaryen @

asoif wiki .

Also It now seems possible, although not certain, that Jon Snow isn't one of the three; so the other answers could still be just as accurate.

While Mike's answer is correct , I want to say that most of the discussions seem to be weak.

I believe it much more likely that Daenerys' brother was the third head.

After all, nowhere does it say that one of the heads can't die after he/

she is born.

In Book 4, Maester Aemon, dying, says to Sam that he thought he'd be the third.

Spoiler:

It has been discussed.

The most popular contenders for the third head are: 1.

Tyrion (he has a fascination with dragons, also there is a theory that Tyrion may unknowingly be the son of Aerys and Joanna) 2.

Bran (he's a powerful warg and maybe dragons can be warged, also he has a connection with 'flying') 3.

Aegon (though there is some speculation that he may not actually be Aegon Targaryen)

Question: In the series  A Song of Ice and Fire , dragons always occur in groups of three - The three conquering dragons, the three eggs etc.  Somewhere, it's also implied that there should be three dragon-controllers (I forgot where, but this is what I remember).    So if Danaerys is one, Jon the second.   Who is the third head? Has there been any discussions about this somewhere?

Who is the third head of the dragon?

Suggestions for the third dragon head include Tyrion and Daenerys' brother.

Possible contenders for the third head of the dragon are: Tyrion, Aegon Targaryen and Daenery's brother.


There's a difference between consciously and unconsciously knowing.

No, she didn't consciously know this - i.e. she wasn't aware of it.

Leia meant that the connection she always felt towards Luke now made sense - the one that she originally misinterpreted as sexual love, but realised was (appropriately enough), sisterly love.

Even when Leia kissed Luke she had other motivation - to annoy Han in particular - this, combined with a sisterly love she didn't know was in fact a biological connection, was enough for a kiss.

No.

She was not aware of the blood relationship at that time, though she certainly felt the connection that most fiction insists is there between twins.

She may also have felt a strong desire for him, as they are twins (and thus very similar in appearance, though the performers playing them are not).

People in general are attracted to people who bear a close resemblance to themselves, and they were separated literally from birth, preventing the Westermarck effect from occurring.

It's entirely likely that her 'always knowing' represents the way that the Force tried to guide her away from Luke, possibly directed thusly by the spirit of Kenobi.

Not consciously anyway.

She might have "felt" it somehow when she was kissing him.

At least that's the angle they usually spin on those kind of scenarios.

I'm sure I read somewhere that George Lucas didn't know they were going to be brother/sister when he wrote that scene.

Both Luke and Leia are, to some point, force-attuned.

This is proven when Leia is able to hear Luke calling out her name when Luke is hanging off of the antenna after he loses his hand in cloud city:

LUKE: Hear me!

Leia!

LEIA:

Luke...

We've got to go back.

LANDO: What?

LEIA:

I know where Luke is.

In fiction, there is often a sort of psychic link between twins, but in the Star Wars universe, because Luke and Leia are not only twins but force-attuned twins, we can see that a psychic link between them most definitely exists.

However, only Luke has been trained in the use of the force, having to explain the link to Leia:

LUKE:

There's more.

It won't be easy for you to hear it, but you must.

If I don't make it back, you're the only hope for the Alliance.

LEIA:

Luke, don't talk that way.

You have a power

I--I don't understand and could never have.

LUKE:

You're wrong, Leia.

You have that power too.

In time you'll learn to use it as I have.

The Force is strong in my family.

My father has it...

I have it...

and...my sister has it.

LUKE:

Yes.

It's you Leia.

LEIA:

I know.

Somehow...

I've always known.

Since Leia hasn't been trained in the use of the force but she is still a force-attuned individual, she recognizes some sort of a link between her and Luke but she doesn't know exactly what it is (as she hasn't been trained in recognizing the force and being able to understand what the link that she's feeling means).

When Luke tells her that they're siblings, this confirms the link that Leia has been feeling all along, so she states that she has somehow, always known.

Actually Leia is daughter of Anakin which means she has midichlorians.

She has jedi powers which never trained.

That's why she can sense but can not understand if the sense is right because she is not trained.

And the kiss was to make jealous of Han.

Well she didnt know she just felt the connection between them even though thought is fun to play with (third time I watched them

I realized it and got a good laugh out of it)

The kiss was genuine romantic attraction tempered with a motherly/big sisterly approach.

I don't believe that Lucas decided that Leia and Luke were siblings until after The Empire Strikes Back.

In the episode IV Leia was torn between her attraction to the shy, sensitive Luke and the brash, macho Han.

She takes the initiative with Luke because she realizes that he is too shy to come onto her himself.

Lucas created a beautiful triangle complicated by the strong brotherly bond between Luke and Han.

Question: In ROTJ Leia says    "somehow I've always known"   If she has always known then did she know when she kissed him?

Did Leia know Luke was her brother when she kissed him?

Leia meant that the connection she always felt towards Luke now made sense - the one that she originally misinterpreted as sexual love, but realised was sisterly love.  She was not aware of the blood relationship at that time, though she certainly felt the connection that most fiction insists is there between twins.

George Lucas had not, apparently, decided Leia and Luke were brother and sister at the time the kiss scene was written. Hence, Leia did not know Luke was her brother when she kissed him.

Leia did not know that Luke was her brother when she kissed him, although she felt a connection between them.

Apparently, the writer, George Lucas, had not decided they would be brother and sister at the time that scene was written.


It's been a while since I read it, but as I recall one of the points of the book is the relative realism of the method of colonization.

That is not to say that it is the best or the cheapest way of colonizing Mars.

But given enough will and resources, we could pull it off with current technology.

Now the timeline of terraforming that occurs in the next two books may or may not be realistic.

There's some debate about that.

It's been so long since I read those books

so I may be off the topic here, but...; it would be much easier to establish a permanent station at/on (insert location here)

if the people you send there never return.

The space you would have had to spend on return fuel/supplies can now be used for more supplies to build a bigger and better station.

Once the first pioneers build the initial base station subsequent trips can bring more people and supplies to build on that.

For comparison think of the colonization of the Americas.

Most of the initial colonists went there with the assumption that they would never return to their home countries.

Granted the Americas were more hospitable then the Moon or Mars would be, especially at first, but the idea is the same.

As I recall, the first 100 relied on automated factories which mined the raw materials and produced virtually everything they needed, including turning most of Phobos into a giant cable for the space elevator.

I do not believe we are at that level of technology yet.

As to the technology to visit Mars, we've effectively had that since Apollo.

Using that level of technology, we could have sent a manned mission to Mars with a reasonable chance of getting back alive.

It would have required several launches with Saturn V class rockets, but it could have been done.

Establishing a permanent base there we could probably do at our current level of technology (though it would look quite different from the one KSR describes, and be smaller).It might not be self-sufficient however, at least not initially.

But then, neither was the initial colony described in Red Mars (though to a larger degree than I envision a first generation actual colony based on current or near technology to be).

We of course lack the longevity drug that made the settlers in KSR effectively immortal (mind

, I don't recall whether they were treated with it before or after forming their colony).

What is not realistic is the need of resources from Mars.

Everything has an economic viewpoint.

The whole purpose of people going to Mars was profit and is very difficult to make a profit even if you would harvest pure diamonds.

Probably not even from moon is not profitable and wont be for some time.

In terms of space and colonization territories Earth can support still up to 50 billion people without having to build an atmosphere or to take the risks of space travel.

Question: How realistic is the method of colonizing Mars in  Red Mars  by  Kim Stanley Robinson ?Specifically, the part in the beginning, with a 4 person crew to visit the planet first, sending crews, etc. Really I only care for the first visit and the 100 colonists, until other people came.

Is the method of colonizing Mars in Red Mars realistic?

We could probably establish a permanent base in Mars at our current level of technology (though it would look quite different from the one KSR describes, and be smaller). However, it might not be self-sufficient initially and of course we lack the longevity drug that made the settlers in KSR effectively immortal. The whole purpose of people going to Mars was profit and it is very difficult to make a profit, even if you were able to harvest diamonds.

With current technology, it is possible to establish a permanent base on Mars but there is little will to do so as there is no need.  It is also unlikely that anyome would make a profit from such a base.

From a technology point of view, we could probably establish a permanent base on Mars.

There is no real need to establish a base on Mars and no profit to be made so the will is lacking.


As far as I can tell, All Time Lords have the ability to generate.

It's part of their 2-heart DNA.

The Master, The Doctor's Daughter (cloned from the doctor), and Rasalon all were able to change form and regenerate.

Time Lords, according to the new cannon exists in a space bubble on Gallifrey 's Floor.

So I suppose other creatures could exist outside the bubble.

See the image below.

Yes other creatures live on Gallifrey and not all of them are Time Lord:

Native animals of Gallifrey include flutterwings, trunkikes, yaddlefish (Blind Fury), flubbles, tafelshrews, plumboles (The Ghosts of N-Space), rovies, mice, cats and, of course, the Gallifreyans themselves.

In the past, the dinosaur-like Gargantosaurs lived on the planet.

Oddly enough, before its complete annihilation from time and space, no animal had gone extinct from the planet.

See the Gallifrey The Time Lords originated from the Gallifreyan species.

The difference is noted that "Time Lords are possibly just Gallifreyans in possession of a TARDIS."

on that wiki site.

I suspect just a change of name and some features.

Whether regeneration is a feature only to the time lords, I speculate that it is not.

Artificially, a human tried it in "Lazarus" (Season 3 or 4, I don't remember).

The people outside could either be "banished" aliens and Time Lords, or older Gallifreyans.

Some Helpful places... Doctor

Who (Main Wikipedia) TimeLord from the TARDIS Index File

I think she is talking about the Invasion Of Time where Leela is chucked out of the Capitol and meets up with the "outsiders".

This doesn't really answer the question as I believe the question has never been asked in the series.

Sounds like a good proposition for a story though.

My suspicion is that regeneration is something that the Time Lords developed themselves as a technology.

I can't imagine how such a thing could evolve naturally.

So in that case the answer would be no.

In the Invasion of Time I think it is suggested that the "outsiders" are people who were previously Time Lords but had rejected that lifestyle and chose to live outside the Capitol.

So they possibly could still regenerate.

In Underworld it is told how the Time Lords had developed technology to replicate regeneration in other species and given that technology to the Minyans.

It was explained that the Time Lords developed technological techniques to replicate their biological abilities.

The disastreous results of this resulted in the Time Lord adoption of the principle of (almost) non-interference.

The new series has now established that the ability to regenerate has nothing to do with Gallifreyan origin, since River has that ability.

Whether or not she counts as a Time Lady has not yet been established, but her regeneration is explicitly stated as being due to the fact that ... (spoilers, sweetie) ...

she was conceived in the Tardis.

In "A Good Man Goes To War", the 11th Doctor remarks that Time Lords evolved the ability to regenerate over billions of years, because there was a temporal schism on their own planet.

This genetic alteration due to evolving next to unfiltered time implies that it's a species wide ability unrelated to their binary vascular system, which other species also have, presumably without regeneration.

(Such as the species in "The Girl Who Waited")

As for Susan Foreman - bear in mind that at that time, regeneration didn't even exist in the series, so don't expect too much first or second season consistency with later canon .

In the Invasion of Time, the outsiders leader, Nesben tells Leela that they "are Time Lords, or rather we were until we decided to drop out.

All that peace and eternal tranquillity, we decided to get back to nature out here."

(Outside of the Citadel)

Well see I think it has to do with the tardis, because of river song.

She wasn't cloned from the doctor or born on galifrey.

She was conceived in the tardis.

Question: I saw in an question that Susan Foreman might not be a Time Lady. This made me think if she would regenerate like the Doctor. Are all people from Gallifrey Time Lords? I remember an episode where there were people who seemed to live outside of the Time Lord world. Do they all regenerate?

Are all Gallifreyans able to regenerate?

Regeneration may be something that the Time Lords developed themselves. In "A Good Man Goes To War", the 11th Doctor remarks that Time Lords evolved the ability to regenerate over billions of years, because there was a temporal schism on their own planet.   However, some speculate that regeneration is not an exclusive feature to time Lords. Indeed, the new series has now established that the ability to regenerate has nothing to do with Gallifreyan origin, since River has that ability. That said, some maintain that all  Time Lords  have the ability to generate, as The Master, The Doctor's Daughter (cloned from the doctor), and Rasalon all were able to change form and regenerate.

All Time Lords have the ability to regenerate and they probably developed the technology to do so. However, regeneration is not limited to Time Lords. With regard to Susan Foreman, she appeared in the series before regeneration existed.

All Time Lords have the ability to regenerate.

Regeneration is not specific to Time Lords, although they developed the technology for it. Regeneration has nothing to do with Galiifreyan origin.

When Susan Foreman was in the series, regenration did not exist.