lord of the rings - Who were the greatest archers in Middle-earth?

Human

According to Tolkien, the greatest human bowman was Duilin, son of Duinhir; the leader of the Men from the uplands of Morthond who fought in the battle of Minas Tirath.

In his "Unfinished Tales", Tolkien specifically refers to him as being a soldier of impeccable physical prowess and has this to say about his abilities with a bow;

Now the folk of the Swallow bore a fan of feathers on their helms, and
they were arrayed in white and dark blue and in purple and black and
showed an arrowhead on their shields. Their lord was Duilin, swiftest
of all men to run and leap and surest of archers at a mark.

---

Orc

The orcs are invariably described as a bit crap with a bow, relying on mere force of numbers and volume of (poisoned) arrows to do damage:

Behind them orc-archers crowded, sending a hail of darts against the
bowmen on the walls. - _{^{LotR: TTT}}

and

Dismayed the rammers let fall the trees and turned to fight; but the
wall of their shields was broken as by a lightning-stroke, and they
were swept away, hewn down, or cast over the Rock into the stony
stream below. The orc-archers shot wildly and then fled. _{^{LotR: TTT}}

and

But orc-arrows are plenty, and the sight of one would not be taken as
a sign of Doom by Boromir of Gondor. _{^{LotR: TTT}}

and

The orcs hindered by the mires that lay before the hills halted and
poured their arrows into the defending ranks. - _{^{LotR: RotK}}

Elves

Arguable. Certainly Beleg (A.K.A. "Beleg the Archer", A.K.A. "Beleg Longbow") is repeatedly called out as being an exceptional archer and possessing the ability to fire arrows great distances:

Moreover Beleg the Archer was great among the people of Doriath; he
was strong, and enduring, and far-sighted in mind as well as eye, and
at need he was valiant in battle, relying not only upon the swift
arrows of his long bow, but also upon his great sword Anglachel. And
ever the more did hatred grow in the heart of Mîm, who hated all
Elves, as has been told, and who looked with a jealous eye on the love
that Túrin bore to Beleg. _{^{The Children of Huron}}

and

Beleg: Elf of Doriath, a great archer; friend and companion of Túrin.
Called Cúthalion ‘Strongbow’.

That said, there's no specific reason to assume he was the single greatest elf archer.

story identification - Trying to find a book about a kid who ends up being summoned as a demon

I´m trying to find a book about a kid who tries a drug, ends up in an out of body experience, and his soul then gets summoned against his will to serve as a demon by a wizard.
At first they think he is a low leveled demon but he tries to escape and fighting back, and they then think he is a high ranking demon instead.... Thus he ends up looking like a huge demon.
I remember the book cover looked like a giant minotaur stepping through a portal (Made in poor CG) but I can´t remember the name of the book or who it was made by.

any help would be appreciated. Many thanks in advance.

When did Star Wars take place?

The issue is one that the Star Wars Galaxy must have 3rd generation (Population I) stars to exist, meaning it's at least many billion years post-Big-Bang.

Given the current estimates of 13.75 billion years of age, it's likely it's not more than 8 billion years ago (BYA), in order to allow for the relatively modern shape portrayed in the films. Moreover, the Milky Way has lots of Population II stars, but those can't give rise to life as we know it in their worlds, as the needed high-metal mixtures won't be present to coalesce into terrestrial worlds until the nova of Population II stars forms sufficient metals to generate the population I stars which gave birth to us all. Note that the oldest Population I stars have less than 2% of the metal content, and that we are, as a life form, carbon, calcium and iron with significant smaller amounts of other stuff, but the lower metalicity of the older stars implies a lack of iron.

So, we can rule out the oldest. Getting to the 5 BYA point, we start looking at stars that might have life as we know it. Not so much heavy metals, but still, enough to have stuff we would recognize.

So, I'd say the "Galaxy Far Far Away" had its "long time ago" no more than 5 BYA and probably no more than 1 BYA, because it looks like galaxies of that age.

star trek - Do we ever find out what happened to Dr. Giger or The Cellular Regeneration and Entertainment Chamber after the DS9 episode "In the Cards?"

DS9 "In the Cards":

GIGER: Doctor Bathkin of Andros Three was the first to come up with
the answer to solving the puzzle of death. Keep the cells energised.
Keep them in the game by teaching them new mitochondrial tricks.
Unfortunately, before he could finish his work, Doctor Bathkin died in
a shuttle accident. Or so they say. And while the soulless minions of
orthodoxy refuse to follow up on his important research, I could hear
the clarion call of destiny ringing in my ears. And now, after fifteen
years of tireless effort, after being laughed at and hounded out of
the halls of the scientific establishment, after begging and
scrounging for materials across half the galaxy, I have nearly
completed work on this. The Cellular Regeneration and Entertainment
Chamber.

At the end of the episode:

WEYOUN: Really? I have a background in, shall we say, creative
genetics. I'd be most interested in hearing your theories.

GIGER: Well, it may take some time to explain. Let me ask you a simple
question. Do you want to die?

Dr. Giger was on DS9 developing technology to make himself immortal. He enlisted the help of Jake and Nog to gain supplies for his project. Ultimately Weyoun and a couple of Jem'hadar transport Giger on their vessel. The episode ends with the conversation above and subsequently Weyoun trying out the chamber.

I am curious to know if Giger ever go the chamber to fully work, did the doctor stay with the Dominion, did Weyon help Giger in any way, etc.

Do we ever learn anything after this episode in-canon, writers notes, EU, or otherwise about Dr. Giger or The Cellular Regeneration and Entertainment
Chamber?

lord of the rings - Why did the Nazgul start on horseback?

This is all described in the essay entitled The Hunt for the Ring published in Unfinished Tales. All supplied quotes are from that source.

At first the intention was indeed to be stealthy, because Sauron did not want the Wise (i.e the Elves and Istari) to know what he was up to:

Yet this weakness they had for Sauron's present purpose: so great was the terror that went with them (even invisible and unclad) that their coming forth might soon be perceived and their mission be guessed by the Wise.

From there they went invisible through Rohan, passed the Sarn Gebir and the Nazgul of Minas Morgul met up with the Nazgul of Dol Guldur.

This was (it is thought) about the seventeenth of July. Then they passed northward seeking for the Shire, the land of the Halflings.

The last point is important here: at this stage the Nazgul did not yet know where the Shire was.

From here they passed north up the Anduin and began searching, finding the old Stoor villages (presumably those formerly inhabited by Gollum's people) and their best guess at the time was that the Shire was somewhere near or even within Lórien:

They were told also by Khamûl that no dwelling of Halflings could be discovered in the Vales of Anduin, and that the villages of the Stoors by the Gladden had long been deserted.
But the Lord of Morgul, seeing no better counsel, determined still to seek northward, hoping maybe to come upon Gollum as well as to discover the Shire. That this would prove to be not far from the hated land of Lórien seemed to him not unlikely, if it was not indeed within the fences of Galadriel. But the power of the White Ring he would not defy, nor enter yet into Lórien.

From here they continue searching north and finding nothing, until they meet messengers from Mordor; here we learn that Sauron had found out about the dream-prophecy in Gondor, Boromir's leaving, Saruman's deeds and capture of Gandalf. Now Sauron panics and orders the Nazgul to Isengard:

From these things he concluded indeed that neither Saruman nor any other of the Wise had possession yet of the Ring, but that Saruman at least knew where it might be hidden. Speed alone would now serve, and secrecy must be abandoned.

Yet again, they still don't know where the Shire is, but on the advice of Saruman (who did know but didn't tell them) they search Rohan for Gandalf, come across Wormtongue, and from him they finally learn the general direction it lies in:

Spare me! I speak as swiftly as I may. West through the Gap of Rohan yonder, and then north and a little west, until the next great river bars the way; the Greyflood it is called. Thence from the crossing at Tharbad the old road will lead you to the borders. 'The Shire,' they call it.

Finally some time past Tharbad they come across some fugitives and learn from one of them (who also turned out to be a servant of Saruman's) where it is:

One of them had been used much in the traffic between Isengard and the Shire, and though he had not himself been beyond the Southfarthing he had charts prepared by Saruman which clearly depicted and described the Shire.

This is the first point at which they actually know where the Shire is; they did not know before then and had to search the various lands they travelled through for it, and - of course - travelling back to Mordor to pick up some Fell-beasts at this late stage would just incur further delays.

So to summarise:

• At first they wanted to be stealthy.


• When Sauron learns what's going on he panics and they abandon stealth.


• And all this time they do not actually know where the Shire is until they are almost right at it's borders.

And:

• Flying directly to the Shire is impossible because they don't know where it is.


• They needed to conduct a careful search on the ground, as well as waylay travellers and obtain information from them, both of which would have been difficult if not impossible if flying.


• The initial need for stealth was not abandoned until the Nazgul were far out of Mordor.

star trek - Did the creators of Into Darkness research Khan?

It would seem that the writers, Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof, were aware of Ricardo Montalban's original portrayal of Khan in The Original Series and The Wrath of Khan, but explicitly chose to depart from it.

First of all, they recognized that Khan was a character of immense importance in the Star Trek canon:

Lindelof said that Khan was considered a character they needed to use at some point, given that "he has such an intense gravity in the Trek universe, we likely would have expended more energy NOT putting him in this movie than the other way around."

The statement about having to expend energy to keep Khan out of the film is fairly contrived, but it does imply that they were at least aware of the character's importance.

References to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan were eventually added to the script, but Lindelof, Orci, and Kurtzman "were ever wary of the line between 'reimagined homage' and 'direct ripoff'." Orci and Kurtzman said they wanted a film which would work on its own and as a sequel, not using ideas from previous Star Trek works simply "because you think people are going to love it".

So it seems that they made a conscious decision to depart from the previous notion of the character.

(Source for Excerpts)

To shed more light on the process by which Khan — or at least a version of the character — came to be in Into Darkness and why he was portrayed as he is, I include the following snippets from an interview with Orci from the official Star Trek web site:

INTERVIEWER: Let's talk about Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch). Take us through why you went with Khan as the villain and, also, can you clarify why he does what he does?

ORCI: OK, I’ll do a deep dive with you. In a way, [fellow co-writer and co-producer] Damon [Lindelof] and I were the biggest debaters about this. He argued for Khan from the beginning and I argued against it. The compromise that we came to was, let us devise a story that is not reliant on any history of Star Trek. So, what's the story? Well, we have a story where our crew is who they are and they're coming together as a family. Then, suddenly, this villain arrives and his motivations are based on what happens in the movie. They're not based on history. They're not based on Star Trek. They’re not based on anything that came before. They're based on his [being] used by a corrupted system of power that held the things he held dear against him and tried to manipulate him. That story stands alone with or without Star Trek history. That's how we approached it, and God bless Damon for going down that road.

So, once we had that, that's when Damon came back and reared his ugly head and said, "OK, now that we have that, is there any reason why we cannot bring Star Trek history into this?" And he was right. So we ended up sort of reverse engineering it. We started with, "What's a good movie? What’s a good villain? What’s a good motivation? We cannot rely on what's happened before. Now that we have that, can we tailor this villain into something that relates to Star Trek history?" And that’s what we did. So, step one was "Don’t rely on Star Trek." Then, step two was "Rely on Star Trek."

(Source)

Within this, we find that Khan's behaviour differs from his counterpart in the Prime Timeline (i.e. the timeline that would have developed if it weren't for Nero's interference in the 2009 film) because of

• the manipulation and abuse that Khan received at the hands of Admiral Marcus (this is the in-universe answer);


• they conceived of their villain and his qualities before they decided he would be Khan Noonien Singh (this is the out-of-universe answer).

As for the issue of Khan crying, it seems to be compatible with this explanation. That being said, it was probably included as a means of adding an extra dimension or layer to the character — although I agree with the OP that it is ill-fitting at best.

star trek - Did Starfleet ever have an Enterprise-class of starship?

In canon, there has never been an Enterprise-class starship in Starfleet.

But a lesser-known fact is that the decision for the Enterprises NCC-1701 and NCC-1701-A to be "Constitution class" was not made until 1987. Before that time, no class designation was given in dialogue in TOS or the films before that year. Prior to 1987, both "Starship class" and "Enterprise class" were used informally amongst Star Trek creative personnel to describe the original Enterprise, and "Starship class" appears on the bridge dedication plaque on the NCC-1701. ("Enterprise class" was specifically floated by Andrew Probert for the refit Enterprise in The Motion Picture, but this idea was dropped.)

Also, in the original script for The Wrath of Khan, the Reliant was described as "Enterprise class", and indeed the ship was intended to be a copy of the Enterprise. However, it was decided at the design stage to fundamentally change the shape of the Reliant in order to better distinguish the two ships in battle. Later, the Reliant was retconned as "Miranda class".

For a history of the complicated evolution of "Constitution class" from "Enterprise class", with reliable citations and direct quotes by Enterprise designer Andrew Probert, see here.