General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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In some parts of the world, termites are consumed opportunistically by humans. I'm considering the possibility of using mound-building fungus-farming macrotermes as livestock for a culture of corvi...
The older man looked at the younger one. He took a deep breath and began to tell his tale, just like he was told before when he himself was that young. I've been here way longer than you, let m...
Imagine a very long bridge (Visbi Bridge - named after the designer) across an immense canyon - really almost a wide deep gorge -use on an earth-like world. My concept is that part of the support o...
I am designing a rather sizable (~ 2000 kg) carnivorous predatory species and I want it to expel all the waste it produces in the form of dry, compacted pellets (similar to owl pellets, except of c...
What I am imagining is some sort of gargantuan beast that encloses a star with its monstrous jaws and then feeds off the rays released by the sun to power itself. I am curious what kind of creatur...
Scientists seem to be vacillating as to whether a Red Dwarf planet could support life or not. Imagine a G-Type star much like our Sun. Imagine an orbit that would make an Earth-Sized planet warmer ...
We all, perhaps, know the theory behind space elevators. Similar to the principal of a bucket on a string, suspend a large anchor in space that orbits the planet in synchronous orbit around the equ...
I'd like to have a large underground world. Imagine the "Underdark" which will be familiar with DnD folks. A huge network of large and small caverns connected by winding passageways. The occasio...
Many animals have ears that revolve and pivot when they hear noise. Humans have vestigial structures in their ears that allow them to wiggle their ears somewhat. How would elves achieve this same e...
This excludes metal stakes, knives etc. to the heart, it's not the bleeding out that's the issue. Just for some reason, a wooden stake to the heart ends a vampire. Why? Assume the type of vampire ...
Because I need a spine that works for massive and small creatures I'm thinking of making a plant-based spine (which has its own DNA). The spine acts kind of like a cucumber, in that when it sucks u...
I'm thinking of making a species that evolved in a planet that has a type of algae that secretes a nutrient rich sludge that the species only has to drink to survive. I know that this would make th...
I'm sure there have been questions on here about fire-breathing dragons, and I recently saw a question about a lightning-breathing dragon, but back in fifth grade I wrote a 150-page story about a d...
Given ample access to uranium and a race that is naturally resistant to radiation poisoning, how soon could a civilization invent nuclear reactors?
Friends, Many years ago"”in a book about building space stations"”I read that humans can thrive and maintain enough bone density and muscle to successfully reacclimatize to live at 20% Earth's Grav...
The light from the sun is dissipated in a sphere, so there is a squared relationship between the distance from the sun. Would it be possible to place either a lens or solar collectors with a laser...
I am trying to figure out how to build a human colony on a moon (75% of Earth size) of a gas giant. Some details of the planetary system chosen for colonisation: K-type main sequence star (about...
Using today's (real) genetic engineering methods, would it be possible to engineer a horse with a single spiral horn? Maybe rub a horse on a narwhal? I know mythical Unicorns have other "powers",...
I know that certain animals have the ability to see in darker areas but not in pitch black due to a special ability they have in their eyes which also gives them that glowing effect. Could elves ha...
I have a planet which was created by a God, who is experimenting with it by making it spin at an incredible speed. At the equator, the gravity is reduced to half by the centrifugal force generated ...
I am attempting to make my species of elves more alien to humans. My plan is to change their physiology in a very specific way. How realistic would it be for them to have retractable claws simila...
We have a lot of weird questions come up in chat and fun comments about how we destroy worlds over a lunch break. Here is one that though I might share. You are a power that can affect cosmic bodie...
Bioluminescence and/or extremely large eyes to take in the almost nonexistent light beneath Europa's ice sheet, or eyeless sockets and a transparent body with senses better equipped to detect minut...
In a world naturally formed where some magic exists but is mainly used by sentient species, I'm trying to come up with a more or less scientific way to explain how this special, rare ore (going to ...
If I were to attempt the colonization of a planet with preexisting life, how would I manage to pinpoint a candidate planet from the comforts of Earth's orbit? I am interested in the stars somewhere...
Is it possible for an asteroid belt to form around a sun? Think of our asteroid belt, but instead of where it is now, it would be where Mercury is. Also, and I didn't have enough room to put th...
In a SciFi world I'm building with other people, we'd like to create a planet with an infection outbreak going on. There are wildlings. They are pretty primitive, have stone tools and wood houses. ...
I'm thinking primarily in terms of the macronutrients, carbohydrates and proteins. I know that fats are 9 calories per gram and both proteins and carbohydrates are 4 calories per gram, which makes...
I'm trying to build a setting in which humankind would have no other choice than to live underwater to survive. Suppose there was a nuclear war in which a huge part of the human population died, ...
I'm working on a sci-fi game about conquering little asteroids (about 1 km diameter). You can go into one of them and make it Earth-like so other humans, animals or plants can live there. To do th...
My story premise is that a human expedition to Europa has happened and the travellers have tunnelled through the ice and formed a colony in the ocean. When they breached into the ocean, they disc...
Spaceships are a peculiar thing; as are the things inside them. Humans... Humids... Humies - the colloquial term for those crazy enough to make a living by crewing these hulks of metal. A special b...
Premise One of the many conditions needed to support life (as we know it) is a planet with a surface protected from deadly radiation from a sun or even other sources. In the grand scheme of things...
So I'm thinking about writing a fantasy and I want certain parts to be plausible (though I'm sticking way towards the end of soft sci-fi). In the world I'm creating there is a cataclysmic tide tha...
Hybrid dirigible airplane with an extremely large surface area on the top and bottom. Talking at least 100 km2. It would likely be several modular pieces put together, given its size. It would n...
In my world I've created an alloy that can melt at low temperatures and solidify at high temperatures. This got me wondering, is something like this actually possible/does it exist. With most mater...
There are few examples of radiotrophic ecosystems on Earth. Of those discovered, the radiotrophs are limited to single-celled organisms and unique mutant fungi. The reason seems to be due to a lac...
Imagine technology, possible achievable in short time (maximum half of the century), that we can use to build aquarium that won't break because of internal damage (water pressure, badly distributed...
Horizontal gene transfer via retroviruses that change an organism's germ line DNA exist, even in humans, and account for a minority but not insignificant portion of the genomes of many, if not most...
I've heard that the atmospheric pressure on venus is 90 times that of earth, but I don't know the melting point of $SiO_2$ at 90 atm nor at what temperature its vapor pressure hits 90 atm. Basicall...
I was just reading this question, which just got me thinking about whether evidence of civilization would last longer on the moon. Civilization What sort of civilization am I talking about? I'll ...
TL,DR: Kinetic weapons are great at taking down shields, but can't take out the hull. I need an explosive that works in a vacuum to take out the hull. Nukes are out, since they'll hit the atmosphe...
Basically, I need one main character to be comatose and the other one trying to save him. The antagonist has to give the main character a specific time period to jump through hoops or whatever to g...
I'd like to set a story in our solar system with Earth and the inner planets becoming uninhabitable and a new planet being required. If human beings decided to build a world by making slight deviat...
The capital of the society my story revolves around is built on top of a cliff, similar to the White Cliffs of Dover (pictured below for reference). For story reasons, they settled in this location...
I need maps of climates and prevailing winds for my desert-dominant world. It has one continent stretching in a band around the tropics and into the subtropics, making up about half the planet's su...
I want the temperature of the earth's poles to be higher so that they have a temperate European climate with yearly temperatures averaging 15-20 degrees Celsius. What will the climate of the rest ...
I was thinking of writing a story and had the idea of having a society exist on the core of a gas planet. The core would be similar to earth with a breathable atmosphere similar to ours above it bu...
As suggested in this article, the evolution of the adaptive immune system didn't actually give vertebrates a huge benefit, it just led to an escalation of the arms race between vertebrates and path...
In a world similar to us, but in which an evil mastermind is trying to create an armour to force their country into submission. Our villain is trying to make it out of a ceramic composite. What wou...
