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I assume it's probably been said somewhere before, but The Ultimate Question in Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy is probably "Pick a number, any number". Two characters in the show know the question, and they both ask it.

Eddie asks the crew to "Pick a number, any number", immediately after they finish asking about the Ultimate Question. They treat it as a request to generate an improbability number to make the ship go, but it could be Eddie trying to help. It's been established that he knows the Ultimate Question.

The other possessor of the Ultimate Question is Marvin, who scanned Arthur Dent to find it out. Later, to impress a mattress, he asks the mattress to "pick a number, any number", as evidence of his intellect. The mattress' guess of "Seven" is wrong, so it must be "Fourty-Two".

Random Rankings

I thought I'd rank a few things, in order of best to worst:

Star Wars: 4, 5, 6, 3, 2, 1
Star Trek Series: Next Generation, DS9, Enterprise, Original Series, Voyager, Animated
Noble Gases: Helium, Krypton, Neon, Argon, Xenon, Radon
Kubrick Films: Dr Strangelove, Full Metal Jacket, Clockwork Orange, 2001, The Shining, Barry Lyndon, and the rest.
TF2 Classes: Demoman, Medic, Scout, Soldier, Heavy, Sniper, Pyro, Engineer, Spy
British Colonies: USA, Australia, India, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand
Queens of England: Elizabeth 1, Victoria, Anne, Mary 1, Elizabeth 2
Whig Presidents of the USA: John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, William Henry Harrison

Lists are often not comprehensive, too much work.

Psychic Powers

A while ago, I linked a page that listed 5 things they want out of Science Fiction stories. There's one I forgot, Psychic Powers, and anything else that involves "Action at a distance". Faster than Light travel is more plausible than two things interacting without a medium to convey energy. Psychic powers also become a Superman ability, where the narrative often demands that the character forget they possess their powers until the end of the story.

Science Fiction Clichès I'd Cut

I've been thinking about Science Fiction, and what I would like to cut out from it. (Un)fortunately, someone else has already written the list that I had been thinking of, with only the choice of words being different.

I don't think that Forerunners are a terrible idea in and of themselves, I'm just sick of them through overexposure. I don't know of a Science Fiction saga that doesn't have forerunners that left artifacts around the galaxy, not one. It does have negative effects on the story as well, it lets writers break the rules at a whim because someone can always find an artifact beyond our comprehension. If another species already came and invented everything, there's little use for our protagonists to do anything with technology, which is too bad, since Science Fiction is inextricably bound together with its technology.

Personally, I don't mind hearing explosions in space, I always figured that it was the sound local to the explosion, so we're hearing the sound that the people on the ship were hearing. I do agree that strategically using soundlessness would be a great way to add atmosphere (tee-hee) to a space-based story.

Absurdly Human Aliens is a problem for television, but I don't see why video games or fully animated programs can't have non-bipedal aliens. Let's be honest, there's infinitely more variety in mammals on our one planet than in a galaxy of science fiction races. I've developed an easy system with aliens: rate how human they are in appearance from 1-10. If they're 8 or above, they're probably going to have a romantic interest with one of the human crew. Come to think of it, I don't recall a single science fiction romance between a human and exotic alien. This might seem natural until you recall "deviant" sexual activity on our planet is far more expansive than to our one species. A species that actually had the intelligence to co-operate and reciprocate romantic feelings is far more approachable than, say, a horse.

The Firefly Effect

TV Tropes defines the Firefly Effect as a hesitancy to commit to a show since it may be canceled. I would say that it's more of a James Dean effect: when something dies early, it's much harder to see the intrinsic flaws.

The martyred Firefly is infinitely better than the successful alternate universe Firefly that went on for three seasons. In a single season, nonsense and contradictions have little time to accumulate. The super fans of the Star Trek series, on the other hand, could talk about inconsistencies for hours.

The thing that particularly irritates me is the Reavers. Space Pirates aren't practical in the first place, and Zombie Space Pirates couldn't maintain a space ship for very long, not to mention taking over other ships and eating their crew.