# Sci-Fi Guessing Game **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 7, 2002, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-guessing-game/131147 "2002-10-07T04:19:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MikeG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikeg/32/4329_2.png) [@MikeG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeG)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-guessing-game/131147/21 "2002-10-08T01:31:19Z")
Grrr, Ihit the wrong button… GREAT Grand daughter impregnated by his grand son while being imprisoned on Ellis Island ---
**Author:** ![Ankh\_Too](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3ab097/32.png) [@Ankh\_Too](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ankh_Too)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-guessing-game/131147/22 "2002-10-08T03:28:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Balance \* > \*\*next: I was a prisoner who, while unable to comment knowledgably on wines, taught my captors a thing or two about coffee. \*\* His Excellency Horace Hussein Burry, _The Mote in God’s Eye_ and _Gripping Hand_ by **Pournelle and Niven** Mine: Barbarian princeling to merchant prince and almost founder of an interstellar empire. From Canberra to battling the Emergents and beyond. ---
**Author:** ![lurkernomore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@lurkernomore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lurkernomore)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-guessing-game/131147/23 "2002-10-08T13:09:35Z")
Mike’s is Tachyon from the Wild Cards series. I won’t post to keep this thread from getting multithreaded again. Ankh’s stands. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-guessing-game/131147/24 "2002-10-08T13:10:33Z")
Hi! I’m not Darth Vader. Really. I mean, I have mystical powers, use a blade made out of energy, wear scary armor, command a really big spaceship that got blown up, and killed the also-mystical mentor of the really-mystical child while he watched, but I’m not Darth Vader. Really! ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-guessing-game/131147/25 "2002-10-08T13:40:20Z")
> [@](#): > > Hi! I’m not Darth Vader. Really. I mean, I have mystical powers, use a blade made out of energy, wear scary armor, command a really big spaceship that got blown up, and killed the also-mystical mentor of the really-mystical child while he watched, but I’m not Darth Vader. Really! Do we have to pick just one of those? There’s so many it’s hard to chose… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ferrous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Ferrous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferrous)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-guessing-game/131147/26 "2002-10-08T15:56:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Miller \* > **I’m pretty sure Ferrous’s is from David Brin’s _Red Mars_ and it’s sequels, but as I’ve never read any of them (couldn’t get more than a hundred pages into RM), I can’t guess the character’s name.** Close. The Mars series was by Kim Stanley Robinson, not David Brin. Nobody read it? Well, 😛 ! I ain’t tellin’. **Ankh\_Too** ’s clue is Pham Nuwen from Vernor Vinge’s _A Fire Upon the Deep_ and _A Deepness in the Sky_. Here’s another one: As captain of NASA’s deep space exploration vessel _Ringmaster_, I got more than I bargained on when I was sent to investigate an enormous artifact discovered in orbit around Saturn. The “artifact” turned out to be a massive, intelligent entity and a self-contained world inhabited by a race of musical centaurs, who ended up worshipping me. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-guessing-game/131147/27 "2002-10-08T16:26:10Z")
Oh, yeah, I (The not-Darth-Vader guy) have a Rome fetish. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-guessing-game/131147/28 "2002-10-08T16:33:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ferrous \* > \*\* > > As captain of NASA’s deep space exploration vessel _Ringmaster_, I got more than I bargained on when I was sent to investigate an enormous artifact discovered in orbit around Saturn. The “artifact” turned out to be a massive, intelligent entity and a self-contained world inhabited by a race of musical centaurs, who ended up worshipping me. \*\* Cirrocco (“Rocky”) Jones, from Varley’s very weird series **Titan/Wizard/Demon** I was a poor orphan boy being raised by a relative before I embarked on a quest to save the world. I met a bunch of archtypical characters (a sneaky thief, a big viking type, etc) before I eventually saved the day. Then I had do it all over again. Exactly the same way. :rolleyes: Fenris ---
**Author:** ![mlerose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@mlerose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlerose)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2002, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-guessing-game/131147/29 "2002-10-08T22:20:20Z")
Are you Garion from David Eddings’ _The Belgariad_/_The Malloreon_? Earth got taken over by these aliens, and I got kidnapped and sent to teraform this new planet, only we fought back and were smart and actually survived, and I fell in love with one of the bad guys, but we couldn’t have any babies because he was gray. ---
**Author:** ![Narile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@Narile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Narile)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-guessing-game/131147/30 "2002-10-09T01:15:13Z")
Fenris > [@](#): > > I was a poor orphan boy being raised by a relative before I embarked on a quest to save the world. I met a bunch of archtypical characters (a sneaky thief, a big viking type, etc) before I eventually saved the day. > > Then I had do it all over again. Exactly the same way. (Bel)Garion in the Belgariad/Mallorian On an expedition to Mars, I managed to use an old science classrooms blackboard to learn to read the extinct martians language. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2002, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-guessing-game/131147/31 "2002-10-09T02:52:24Z")
Sounds like “Omnilingual” by H. Beam Piper (a story, BTW, that is based on an extremely ridiculous assumption). **I discovered I could live my life over. And over. And over – each time going back in time a little less far than the time before.** [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-guessing-game/131147.md?page=1)