Question: What's the story behind Mike Barnes? How old is he? Where does he come from?
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Answer: Mike most likely comes from north of LA (northern California, Oregon, or Washington) based on the fact that he said "if I come DOWN here and beat this Larusso kid..." Usually the term for travelling "down here" refers to coming from the north, "up here" is coming from the south, and "out here" or "over here" is from coming from the east or west.
It's not quite as simple as that. It wouldn't be unusual for someone from Kansas City, Chicago, or Detroit, etc. to describe traveling to LA as going "down" there.
Question: Bartleby says to Loki that as angels they have no free will. Yet, he also says that Lucifer, a former fallen angel, rebelled against God. Isn't this an example of an angel demonstrating free will?
Chosen answer: What he means is that humans have the choice to accept or reject God's love, but that angels have no such choice. Lucifer questioned this logic and was prompted to start a war, just as they're questioning it and are prompted to find a loophole to return to Heaven.
Question: Is there a reason the machines use humans for energy? Why not nuclear power or maybe even animals?
Chosen answer: Nuclear power would eventually run out, the impression is that the Machines occupy almost all of the planet's surface, so a LOT of power is needed. Animals are probably not used as their minds are a lot more instinctual and so it would be a lot harder to create a Matrix that their minds could accept, plus most animal and plant life probably died off when the sun was blocked off.
Question: During the first season, Lister is adamant and quite determined about getting back to Earth, so why after a few episodes does he give up?
Chosen answer: He never strictly gives up, he just realises the practicalities of the situation, that it took Red Dwarf three million years to get to where it is, so it would take the same length of time to return. While he originally plans to go back into stasis for the long journey, the "Future Echoes" that he sees while travelling at light speed convince him that he should stay active on board the ship instead and look for alternative ways to get back, something that influences the plot of several subsequent episodes.
Question: What exactly did the Architect mean when he said to the Oracle, "You played a very dangerous game"?
Chosen answer: By encouraging Neo to go to the machine city and negotiate a peace contract she has upset the Architect's "perfect" world. The Architect, ruled by brutal logic, has a method that is tried and true; the death and rebirth of Neo and Zion, the Oracle has created a new order of things and has allowed Zion to survive, throwing a rather large spanner in the Architect's plans.
Question: It's been stated that Seraph is a former angel programme left over from a previous Matrix. Then why does one of The Merovingian henchmen refer to him as wingless?
Chosen answer: A Seraph is the highest level of God's angels, typically depicted with six wings (three pairs), the joke refers to the fact that Seraph physically has no wings in the matrix and that he now no longer works for the machines and so is also meant as a "fall from grace" jibe.
Question: How exactly does the Merovingian protect the obsolete programs such as the twins from deletion?
Chosen answer: Obsolete programs are given the choice of deletion or exile. The Merovingian takes them in and, with his abilities to code the Matrix, allows them to stay under his protection.
Question: What exactly is the Matrix for? Was it designed solely to keep the human mind sane? Or does it have other uses?
Chosen answer: Without it, the human race would effectively be locked in sensory deprivation tanks, their minds active, but with no stimuli, which would have a derogatory effect on their well-being. The Matrix is designed to keep them busy and, yes, sane, ensuring a good survival rate and decent longevity to stop the machines having to deal with a high turnover in their power plants.
Question: Why didn't the Asgard participate or help in the ongoing war with the Ori?
Chosen answer: They have very little resources left after the war against the Replicators.
Answer: They did. There was an Asgard ship present during the battle at the second super gate (the battle in which the Korolev was destroyed). The Asgard ship's fate in unknown, but it is implied in dialog between Landry and Woolsey (which specifically mentions the Asgard being there) that it was either heavily damaged or destroyed like all the other allied ships present. Aside from that, yes, the Asgard did play very little role in the Ori campaign.
Question: How did the accident originally occur aboard Red Dwarf? I know Rimmer was responsible, but what exactly happened? Also, how come the accident didn't completely destroy Red Dwarf and why was the inside of the ship completely clean and tidy with no signs of destruction?
Chosen answer: The crew were wiped out in a radiation leak, something that killed the crewmembers, but had little effect on the structure of the ship other than rendering it radioactive for the next three million years. Any minor damage was presumably fixed by the scutters in the intervening time. The leak supposedly occured after a faulty part of the drive system wasn't repaired properly, something that Rimmer blames himself for. However, as Kryten argued successfully in the episode "Justice", somebody as incompetent as Rimmer would never have been given responsibility for any task that could potentially have such devastating consequences, suggesting that the true cause of the accident may be considerably more complex than one minor drive plate fault.
Question: If Skynet is so worried about its Terminators "doing too much thinking" then why not remove from them the 'read-and-write' learning capabilities and simply set them to 'read-only' at all times?
Chosen answer: Because the gathering of new information is still a key part to what they do. There has to be a write setting, even a restricted one, in order for the Terminators to assimilate new information that can assist them in their missions - possible target locations, voiceprints, even new mission parameters could not be uploaded without the ability to write to their CPU. Skynet can (and does) set restrictions on the Terminators' learning abilities, but, without those abilities, their effectiveness would be compromised.
Question: Was there a specific reason Holly chose to bring back Rimmer as a hologram, someone whom Lister didn't at all get on with? Why not one of his friends?
Chosen answer: He brought Rimmer back because he's the person that Lister had the most interaction with during his time on Red Dwarf and also because all Lister ever did with his friends was get very drunk. Lister may not like Rimmer, but bringing him back probably has the best chance of keeping him relatively sane.
Question: How exactly does the Ludovico technique work?
Chosen answer: It's an extreme form of aversion therapy. The pleasant stimulus (violence in this case) is associated with an unpleasant stimulus (a drug that makes him feel sick). Eventually, it is hard to think of the pleasant stimulus without thinking of the unpleasant stimulus thus making the whole experience unpleasant.
Question: What does the Architect mean when he says, "There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept"? What other levels does he mean?
Chosen answer: The Machines have been sentient for a while, possibly a century or more, so a machine culture has started to emerge as evidenced by the existence of Sati; a program created with no purpose by two machines "in love". If the machines lost the humans then they would lose a significant amount of energy, meaning that a large number of machines and programs would need to be wiped out to ensure the machines survival, but it would be at a much lesser level, "stone age" by comparison.
Question: How does the Oracle get her powers of foresight? How does she know the things she knows?
Chosen answer: The oracle is a program, inside the matrix which is an even bigger program. The oracle is simply able to "read" the Matrix and make predictions based on the balance of probabilities.
Question: This is a five part question: 1) What exactly were the future mechas doing at the end of the film? 2) Why were the mechas were only able to bring people back for a day? 3) How did the human race become extinct? 4) In what year is it set? 5) In what city is it set?
Chosen answer: 1) They are excavating. 2) It is as far as their technology will allow. 3) It is never stated 4) The movie is set in the 22nd century somewhere between 2100 and 2200. The end of the movie is set 2000 years later. 5) The final parts of the movie appear to be set in Manhattan.
1) The same things humans do - what is our past, our meaning our purpose? Who were the "gods" who created us and why were we created? They were searching for meaning. 3) Assume safely the planet became unlivable for humans, as is will b/c...climate change. If I remember correctly, everything was under the ice, and it was frozen all the way to the bottom. Humans could not live with that. The planet will seize up and die...and us along with it.
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Chosen answer: Mike Barnes is another karate champion, someone known in the karate tournament world as being brutal and excellent. It is never stated where he comes from, but it is far enough away to require a plane flight. His age is also never stated, but as it is an under-18 tournament and he can drive a car, we can assume it is either 16 or 17.