Test Your Geekdom, Vol VI: Big Dumb Objects

A Big Dumb Object, or BDO, often exists as the center of the plot of a story, especially in science fiction. Even though frequently what it is and what it does isn’t really all that important to the story beyond being the reason the characters are shoved together, essentially a MacGuffin to drive the plot, which might be a murder mystery, romance, or blooming odd couple friendship. Like the strange appearance of an alien artifact requiring the most expert and elite (and often eccentric and anti-social) investigators be thrust together to solve the problem. Often when the BDO is revealed it will have its main effects be world shattering and occur after the story, sometimes as a sequel, or simply turn out to be hoax or alien equivalent of an April Fool's prank.

This quiz, for ten points, is all about those big dumb objects. For the most part they have specific names, often titular, others do not and in such cases the actual question may vary a bit, but unless explicitly stated otherwise it will be asking for the Big Dumb Object.

1. Star Trek is famous for episodes about Big Dumb Objects, but in this early Motion Picture the crew encounters a massive BDO that is strangely familiar. Name that BDO.

2. Sci-Fi writer Larry Niven is perhaps best known for this BDO, which is the focus of multiple books which keep the characters running around the world in rings.

3. Another eponymous BDO, this book by Michael Crichton was later turned into a movie starring Samuel L. Jackson as a Dr. Harry Adama, a Mathematician.

4. Yet another Eponymous BDO, these large megastructures and superweapons are at the center of a series of popular first person shooters, the first of which came out on X-Box in 2001.

5. Also a superweapon and definitely big, as big as a moon, this object might not qualify as a BDO since there is no doubt at all who made it and what it’s meant to do, though it only got to serve that function once due to a slight design flaw in a small thermal exhaust port.

6. This all-black BDO appears in multiple books and films, and is actually several BDOs of various size but identical shape. Although a copy of it is found on the moon, its first known and perhaps most memorable appearance is surrounded by primitive hominids who suddenly learn how to use tools. Another version is later found around Jupiter… or maybe Saturn… accounts vary, possibly because of the rather severe computer problems experienced by the crew sent out to investigate.

7. This eponymous planet, actually a living world, feature’s at the center of a classic sci-fi novel by Stanisław Lem which has been turned into a film three times, most recently in 2002 starring George Clooney.

8. Like many books set after some apocalypse ends a bygone golden age of legends, this series features a number of large and often mysterious relics, although the origin and purpose of many are later revealed. Examples includes a white bridge made out of an unknown but impossibly strong but fragile looking white glass, a half buried but very large statue of a man holding a crystal ball, and a set of glass columns that would probably be very popular with genologists. What is the name of this book series?

9. This BDO, like a lot of our others, appears in a movie named after it, filmed in 1997. In this sci-fi horror film the characters travel from room to room trying to avoid being killed, eventually being helped somewhat in this goal by Kazan, an autistic savant with a skill at rapid calculation. Interestingly all of characters are named after famous prisons, which is rather appropriate since the characters spend most of their time stuck in a box.

10. This 1976 novel by Terry Pratchett of Discworld fame features a series of BDO’s made by an unknown group who presumably would be very much in their element the day this quiz was written. The book’s title is very similar to a Pink Floyd album that slightly predates it, and is also the place the ancient builders of the BDO are said to have gone, part of a riddle around which most of the plot revolves. What is the name of this Book?

Bonus Question: This eponymous ship is featured in a 1997 sci-fi horror film when it vanishes only to reappear in a decaying orbit around Neptune. Designed to allow Faster than Light travel, it appears to instead have opened up a Gateway to Hell. Your mileage may very on how good the film was, many liking it and many other felt it was so bad they'd rather gouge their own eyes out than re-watch it, something more than one of the characters in the film chose to do. What is the name of this ship and movie?