Favorite Questions and Answers from the fourth quarter of 2018

Question

Update

The entry as now been posted.

Original

Please link to your favorite questions and answers which were either asked or answered from October 1st 2018 through December 31st 2018.

You can also highlight any question or answer from the entire year, which wasn't already previously featured in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd quarter posts.

Your answers will be compiled into a blog post like previous quarterly posts.

I will be using DavRob60's queries for a baseline, but I really appreciate people voicing the ones they really enjoyed. Maybe you feel like you answered one really well, even if it didn't receive a lot of votes. Let me know about it.

• Questions with most Votes created within 3 month range
• Questions with most View created within 3 month range
• Questions with best answer created within 3 month range

I will also be linking all blog posts that happened within this quarter. Also the most controversial question of the quarter. Also a sum of all the bounties that were awarded.

Also if there was a meta post you feel should be spotlighted those are also acceptable.

Answer 1

Questions

These copyright questions were rather interesting to read. I hope we see more of these "behind the scenes" questions in 2019:

• When does the copyright on Isaac Asimov's works expire?
• How is the Mary Poppins Sequel legal when the author denied a sequel?

Answers

• My own answer to Why did J. K. Rowling choose to downplay dragons? - Mostly because I like to discuss broader genre trends instead of just the specific details of individual stories.

Near miss

• I really wanted to include Jason Baker's well-researched answer to a Mass Effect question, but it missed the 2018 boat by just under two weeks. Please ask more Mass Effect questions - it's a rich franchise with a lot of backstory.

Answer 2

Questions

• What prevents Asimov's robots from locking all humans in padded cells for the humans protection? - I remember seeing that one in First Posts review, and skipping it because it left me puzzled as to whether action to take, thinking about it and coming to the conclusion that "well s***, this is indeed a pretty good question"
• Who first used spacefaring sapient felines in science fiction? - because there are so many story-id questions about space/alien cats. This had to come from somewhere.
• What does the circular symbol mean that is worn by many men of the House of El? - I never really noticed, but that question made me curious.

Revision history

Seriously, hat down to Looking for a late 1950s to early 1960s movie or TV show with some similarities to "The Zanti Misfits". I honestly haven't even read past the first few revisions; but each new edit still makes me chuckle - this post just keeps getting longer and longer, probably one of the longest posts on SFF. Will that ever stop? (yes, I know of the 30k word limit, but still)

Answers

• Ubik's answer to Is there a calendrical error in Asimov's "The Last Trump"? and the related comments, which made me dwell into how big of a nitpicker Asimov was.
• The Dark Lord's answer to What is this creature from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban?. Go upvote this, people - neat answer, straight from the horse's mouth.
• I personally had a lot of fun gathering the timeline elements to When, exactly, does Justice League (2017) take place?. Turned out some very precise dates could be found, even if that involved squinted eyes and bleeding ears :)

Answer 3

Questions

I quite liked this pair of questions by user Dakkaron

• In Star Trek Voyager: How often did 'distress calls' turn out to originate from antagonists?
• Does Voyager ever answer a distress call from anyone good?

I expected the ratio of genuine vs. deceptive to be very different based on my recollection.

Answers

I thought my answers to these were nicely comprehensive

• Why did Slughorn stop teaching?

• How can the crystal foxes in "The Last Jedi" be living?

And I honestly feel like this answer deserves a special mention since I staked out a 'furry' chatroom for nearly a month waiting for the author to turn up, then finally managed to catch him at 4am on a school night.

• How tall is the slave-bunny David Birkenhead?

Answer 4

I read Lord of the Rings recently. These questions were bothering my curiosity very much.

Why didn't Saruman break Gandalf's staff on Orthanc as Gandalf broke Saruman's?

Why didn't Galadriel take off her ring?

Answer 5

Questions.

• What is this creature on the back of Harry Potter 2 illustrated edition This is one of my favorite questions that I've asked (I still think it needs a good answer).
  
• What does the circular symbol mean that is worn by many men of the house of el I know that this has been said twice now, but it's a really interesting question, if you haven't already go upvote it!

Answers.

• Was the “Something Wicked This Way Comes” tag line to the Prisoner Of Azkaban movie poster taken from the 1962 Ray Bradbury novel of the same name? I honestly think both answers on here are great (along with the question).