Popular Series FAQ

[Currald]

The Warhammer 40,000 Fluffbible, an enormous 235 page PDF document detailing the history, politics, religions, militaries, etc. of the Warhammer 40K universe.

[NecronLord]

The Warhammer 40,000 Fluffbible, an enormous 235 page PDF document detailing the history, politics, religions, militaries, etc. of the Warhammer 40K universe.

Which is, I'm sorry to say, illegal.

[Currald]

Oh. I guess it was just too damned good to be true. Sorry 'bout that.

[NecronLord]

Can we get a Lexx FAQ?

[Jade Falcon]

Battletech

Patrick's Battletech Archive

Space:1999, there's a whole list of links there.

Space:1999 Net

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Battletech

Patrick's Battletech Archive

You done screwed that link up. No double http!

Another excellent info site
http://www.jump.net/~fearless/tech.htm

404

Oxford Military Technical Center is still under construction, but you can check out what's there now.

404

www.asteroidblues.com - another good site with episode guides, galleries and character info.

40... well the author took it down.

[Skelron]

One of the linked to 40K threads on this site may now contain slightly modified data, but I don't want to conduct unholy thread necromancy, so... What to do? I guess I'll put it here.

It was on the nature of the Eldar at the time we where all I think operating under the impression that the Old Ones who created the Eldar where their God's and that they created them for the war with the C'Tan.

This may not be exactly true, it is now clear that the Eldar God's where not the Old Ones rather they started life as the Eldar's belief system, much like how ancient peoples attributed a God to just about everything, (A War god, a Smith God a Mother Goddess a King of the God's Etc) the Eldars great Psychic abilities, allowed these beliefs to gain a weak form within the Warp.

At this point the Old Ones had allready started the Eldar race, and it is unknown if this was Pre-War with the Yngir or Post-War. however it seems unlikely they where created for the war initially, likely a part of the 'Creating life' hobby of the Old Ones. When the War started they returned to the Eldar and enhanced them, allowing their Proto-Gods to grow in power, at first into Weapons then into real God's as Old One controls started slipping as the war got intense.

How this affects the thread I was thinking of is that it makes being soldiers a little less hard-wired into the Eldar but also makes the God's a litttle more linked to the Eldar. Simply put the Eldar's two remaining God's are a part of their very being as a race, Khaine was created by the Eldar from them, and as such has a great connection to their emotional existence....

[Admiral Bravo]

Could I get a FAQ on the Xeelee and the Culture?

[Jason von Evil]

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=7419

That has some Culture stuff.

[Jason von Evil]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Covenant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Halo

Should be helpful for Haloites.

[Kartr_Kana]

You Falcon surat!!! You linked to Microsoft.com!!!!

Never trust a Falcon, freebirths all of them!!!

[Dartzap]

You Falcon surat!!! You linked to Microsoft.com!!!!

Never trust a Falcon, freebirths all of them!!!

May i be the first to ask you this?: What the Hell's is that about?

[Kartr_Kana]

Among the clans in battle tech calling someone a freeborn/freebirth is a deadly insult. Calling them a surat is like calling someone a bitch. By the way the link does lead to Microsoft.com.

[Dartzap]

oooh, right

Sorry, thought you were drunk for a second there....

[Jade Falcon]

http://www.kerensky.tierranet.com/btech/btech.shtml

That side is Patricks Battletech Archive

[Ghost Rider]

Our Culture bit

[PainRack]

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=79235
Btech tech archive

[dacis2]

the Weber "Infodump" url has changed to http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com

[Jade Falcon]

Sci-Fi Database, a general sci-fi site.

http://www.sfdb.optibrain.co.uk

[Kadaeux]

http://www.wcnews.com

For anything you've ever wanted to know about Wing Commander and probably some you didn't.

[mr friendly guy]

Doctor Who FAQ

1) What is the show about?

The show's premise has the lead character, an alien known as the Doctor travelling throughout time and space, in his stolen time ship called the TARDIS. As such, the Doctor can travel to different alien worlds and different times. To use the Doctor’s own words, during his travels he “fights evil”.

The show was originally intended to be an educational programme for children. From its humble beginnings, Doctor Who has become longest running sci fi television show, with 26 seasons from 1963-1989. Considering that B5, and Andromeda only lasted 5 seasons, while the later Star Treks only lasted 7 seasons each, that is quite an achievement.

During the show's tenure its episodes didn't just cover a sci fi theme, it also had plenty of action, horror, historical, and comedy. The show reached its height during the 1970s (in terms of ratings). The new series looks set to recapture past glories.

An attempt was made to relaunch the series with a movie in 1996. This did not pay much attention to continuity, or plot. Needless to say it flopped.

In 2005, BBC started a second series, continuing the Doctor's adventures in time and space.

2) Doctor Who?

The title comes from the first episode of the series, "An Unearthly Child" (also known as 100,000 BC), where the character Ian Chesterton calls out "open up Doctor Foreman", in which the Doctor replies, "Eh, Doctor Who?".

Later, when Ian realises that "Foreman" is not the Doctor's name, Ian asks Barbara, "Who is he? Doctor who?"

As for the Doctor's real name, it has never been mentioned. However his code name among Time Lords is Theta Sigma, mentioned in "The Armageddon Factor".

3) What is a TARDIS?

The Doctor's ship which besides being capable of travelling through time (including parallel time lines), also has the property of having the inside bigger than the outside. It stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space.

It resembles a 1960s police telephone box, which was quite common back when the show debuted. The TARDIS has a chameleon circuit which allowed it to disguise itself to match its surroundings. Unfortunately it worked once than malfunctioned causing the TARDIS to retain its now classical blue box shape.

4) Why do they change actors to play the Doctor?

This was originally done so that the show could continue when the first actor William Hartnell left the show.

In universe it is explained as the Doctor "regenerates". Time Lords (of which the Doctor is a member) has this ability to change bodies (or rather the old body renews itself) when the old body is about to die from old age or injury.

The Doctor regenerates when the old actor leaves the show.

5) So how many actors have played the Doctor?

Currently he has been played by 10 in the series, although there are more (see below). They appear in order of appearance

William Hartnell
Patrick Troughton
Jon Pertwee
Tom Baker
Peter Davison
Colin Baker
Sylvester McCoy
Paul McGann
Christopher Eccleston
David Tennant

Matthew Smith has been scheduled to replace David Tennant in 2010 as the eleventh Doctor

Other notables are Richard Hurndell played William Hartnell's role in the 20th anniversary special "The Five Doctors" since Hartnell had died years earlier.

The Doctor has also been played by Rowan Atkinson, Richard E. Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, and Joanna Lumley in the parody story "The Curse of Fatal Death" (for charity).

Richard E. Grant again played the Doctor in the webcast "The Scream of the Shalka". However this must seems to be relegated to apocrypha with current series head Russell T Davies declaring that Christopher Eccleston is the ninth doctor (and not Grant).

The other actor worth noting is Peter Cushing in 2 movies released in the 1960s.

6) Is the Peter Cushing stories canon?

No. In the movies the Doctor was a human who invented a time machine as opposed to being an alien.

7) Can't the Doctor just keep on regenerating?

Short answer no. Each Time Lord can only regenerate 12 times, ie there can be a maximum of 13 doctors.

Long answer maybe. There are instances in the show where it shown to be possible to get past this 12 regenerations limit. However the Doctor has shown on inclination to pursue such a course.

The consensus on this board is that if Doctor Who is still profitable BBC would find a rationale for the Doctor to go beyond the 12 regeneration limit.

8. How old is the Doctor and how long can he live for?

The Doctor must be somewhat over 1000 years old. Each body could live for at least 1000 years (as per "The Leisure Hive"), however as an adventurer who constantly fights evil, he does tend to wear out each body quicker.

9. So who are the Time Lords?

Essentially the Time Lords were one of the first races to appear in the Whoverse and one of the most powerful to grace sci fi. They originate from the planet Gallifrey. When the Gallifreyans mastered time travel, the elite renamed themselves Time Lords. As such Time Lord is more of a title than a race, although it has been used to denote both.

Time Lords besides having the ability to regenerate and longevity, also have two hearts, telepathy, and some of them even have limited telekinesis.

Besides the Doctor, other famous Time Lords include
The Master (one of the Doctor's enemies, himself to have been played by several actors - Roger Delgado, Peter Pratt, Geoffrey Beavers, Anthony Ainley, Eric Roberts, Derek Jacobi & John Simm.).
The Rani
Susan Foreman
Rassilon (the First Time Lord)
Omega
Romana

Interesting to note that while the very first episode mentions the Doctor mentions he and Susan are from another world, it isn't until The Time Meddler that another Time Lord appears and not until War Games (6 years after the show first screened) that the name of the Doctor's race is mentioned to be the Time Lords.

While early Time Lord history showed them quite willing to interfere with time itself to forward their own interests, by the "modern" age, they had become quite decadent and their greatest law had become not to interfere in the affairs to others (except on rare occasions). This puts them in conflict with the Doctor who we note "always interferes" to fight evil.

10. Whats this about Doctor Who companions screaming all the time?

Over the history of the show, Doctor Who has been accused of portraying women in a bad light. To a certain extent this was true. And while there were particularly strong female characters to grace the show : Leela was a warrior who would protect the Doctor, Ace blew up the bad guys, Sarah Jane Smith taught an alien queen about Women's Lib, while Romana and Liz Shaw were capable scientists in their own right; the show has also been plagued by females who seem to just scream the whole episode. This got particularly bad during the 1980s, and interestingly wasn’t overdone during the show’s height in the 1970s.

One particularly damning scene which I find amusing in regards to its un PC attitude was a clip where the companion Polly asks the second Doctor whether she can do anything to help. The Doctor replies that he hasn't solved the problem yet and asks Polly to go make some tea. Polly enthusiastically agrees. To be fair, another episode had Polly capturing a British soldier through ingenuity.

Thankfully in the new series is they did not go back to the woeful portrayals of female companions which characterised most of the 1980s.

11. What is with the lame special effects?

Unfortunately BBC could not afford the special effects which graced American sci fi shows. Or perhaps more accurately they weren’t willing to give the show much of a budget. As such most of the special effects in the old series are on par with say Star Trek TOS. However what some people don't seem to understand, was that people did not watch Doctor Who expecting awesome special effects, but good characterisation and plot.

In the new series, BBCs budget has certainly improve. I would say the aliens look more alien than say, ones onStar Trek Voyager and the CGI in my opinion looks about what we see in Babylon 5.

12. Whats this about kids watching it behind the sofa?

When the Daleks first appeared in the second story, they scared the beejesus out of little kids. A lot of kids back in those days watched it behind the sofa because they were scared of the monsters.

Other instances which have impressed themselves on the collective psyche include the Yeti appearing in the London underground (yes, British kids became afraid of taking the train), the Doctor peeling a policeman's face off to reveal an Auton (Scotland Yard actually complained to the BBC about negative attitudes towards police as a result) and a child who refused to sleep with her dolls for fear it would strangle her (a scene from "Terror of the Autons").

13. There are episodes missing?

Unfortunately during the 1960s and 1970s for a variety of commercial and space-saving reasons various episodes were erased. Some of these episodes have been "rediscovered", noticeably "Tomb of the Cybermen".

Doctor Who is fortunate enough to have all of its missing episodes surviving in audio form, recorded off-air by fans at home. Some of these have been released in CD as audios.

14. What are the uncompleted episodes?

Basically I consider these stories the ones which were never finished filming for one reason or another.

During the 1970s there was a strike at BBC. As a result the Tom Baker story “Shada” (written by Douglas Adams of Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy fame) never finished filming. Years later Tom Baker provided the narration to fill in the parts that weren’t filmed. Also note that BBC did another Shada story, this time having Paul McGann narrate it.

During the 1980s, the show was temporarily suspending during Colin Baker’s time as the Doctor. A decision prompted by the BBC controller Michael Grade due to “low ratings” (while no where near the heights of the 70s, Doctor Who’s ratings was always in the several million mark). When the show was recommenced, it was decided not to film those stories initially scheduled and start afresh. The stories which were never filmed are “The Nightmare Fare”, “The Ultimate Evil” and “Mission to Magnus”. They stories currently exists as novels only.

15. Who are these Daleks I hear so much about?

They were created by British writer Terry Nation who initially didn't want to write for a children's show. They first appeared in the second story, which made the show a ratings success, and contributed significantly to making Doctor Who what it is today. They are undoubtedly the most popular of Doctor Who "monsters".

Externally, Daleks resemble man-sized salt or pepper shakers, with a single mechanical eyestalk in a rotating dome, a gunstalk containing a directed energy weapon (or "death ray"), and a telescoping robot arm. Contrary to popular belief, the Daleks are not robots. Rather they are more like tanks, with the "Dalek alien" inside their travel machine.

In universe, they hail from the planet Skaro. They are the remains of the Kaled race, who would mutate after a nuclear war with another indigenous race of Skaro, the Thals. The chief Kaled scientist Davros realised the "final" mutated form would be essentially a blob with tentacles, so he created the travel machine which would later be known as Daleks.

The Daleks were the original space nazis. The ultimate racial supremacists. They see themselves as superior and other races are only good as slaves. Their catch cry is the word "exterminate" in a stacato delivery.

To give you an idea of how prevalent Doctor Who has pervaded British culture, the word Dalek appears in the Oxford Dictionary.

More can be found Here

16. But the Daleks can't climb stairs, can they?

This is a common misconception. In the 1960s BBC did not have the resources to show the Daleks climb the stairs, so they would resort to showing the Doctor and companions being chased up stairs by a Dalek, and the next scene showing the Dalek up the stairs.

It was until the 1980s where the BBC showed a Dalek actually conquering stairs in "Rememberance of the Daleks". In the new series Daleks are shown to be able to fly quite easily.

17 If the Time Lords are so much control over time, why don't they just eliminate the Daleks before they were born?

They tried. With mixed results

18. Are there any spinoffs?

Yes. Doctor Who has novels, audios, comics, webcasts as well as the tv series. There is also going to be new spin off series more adult orientated called Torchwood.

19. Are these (non tv media) canon?

This is somewhat debatable. My e-mail posing that question was met with "it is if you want it to be?", which doesn't really help. Nevertheless it does seem possible to squeeze a lot of it into continuity if you allow for things like alternate time lines being created with the actions of time travel.

20. So who are the Cybermen?

They were originally humanoids from the tenth planet, Mondas. They "cybernised" themselves becoming Cyborgs, with only a few organic parts remaining (noticeably the brain). They first appeared in the 1966 story "The Tenth Planet". They are arguably Who's second most popular monster.

The Cybermen were created by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis. BBC at that time needed a new monster to fight the Doctor as they had disputes with Terry Nation, creator of the Daleks.

The Cybermen replenish their ranks by Cybernising other humanoid races. They are generally more technologically advanced than humans of the equivalent era, have superior strength and endurance, highly resistant to most human energy weapons but a vulnerability to gold (gold clots up their respiratory devices - which is interesting considering that while their organic brain presumably still needs oxygen, they can survive in a vacuum).

Later Star Trek would rip off, er I mean coincidentally create an alien race known as the Borg who are cybernetic, generally more technologically advanced than humans of the equivalent era, have superior strength and endurance, highly resistance to most human energy weapons but vulnerable to computer viruses.

The Cybermen have made an appearance in the new series, albeit these ones were from an alternative dimension and less advanced technologically than the Cybermen in our universe.

21. Which episodes should I watch?

As the format of the old series consists of stand alone stories (with a few exceptions such as "The Key to Time sextant", "The Mawdryn Undead Trilogy" and arguably the new series, you can generally watch from which ever episode you like. Generally most stories were 4 episodes (25 minute per episode) each. The shortest story "Mission to the Unknown" was only one episode long, while the longest "The Dalek Masterplan" consisted of 12 episodes.

Tom Baker is my personal favourite Doctor and I believe also the most popular (if you go by the numbers), so I would suggest starting with him to watch the classic series and also start with the new series with Christopher Eccleston.

FAQ updated on Jan 2009

[Ghost Rider]

Many other picks, notables of Shep's as well for military science fiction.

[Tellos]

Since it may appear later in topics I make or some other one made by soembody else I am going to try and beforehand give us as much of a infromation base on the Babylon 5 series as possible here is a link that is fairly good and even has some nice calulations for some of the tech used. In addtion I also have all the series DVDs and will be transcribing to the best of my abilities the data is gives reguarding technology and races in the series. The fallowing link I am fairly sure is unoffical so as stated i shall be working as soon as possible to take information from the DVDs which I can conclude should be cannon and most accurate as it is from the people who produced this series.

Babylon 5 tech manual Website
http://www.b5tech.com/

[Teleros]

My Lensman tech thread:

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=143122

[Ahriman238]

Our own thread on the Posleen War. I think we thrashed that one out pretty well.

For 40K, besides Connor's many, many threads on the subject, I'd recommend people go to Lexicanum, go right to Categories and start looking at Species and Factions.

Similarly helpful sites exist for Halo, Crysis, Dead Space, Metroid, Fallout, Andromeda, and even the frakking Honorverse.

There really is a wiki for everything these days.