General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
Filters (None)
So for this question there's a Mad Scientist/Dark Lord that wants to engineer a race that can out breed mankind and carry him to victory. He has access to sufficiently advanced genetic engineering...
We are in a far future setting where humans (or transhumans I should say) achieved two things: be able to modify themselves genetically to the point where they can have completely different organ...
I'm thinking to build an island by pouring lava into the ocean, with the advanced technology, around 40 years later, by making a special pipe connected to the ground (maybe near volcano/es) since t...
Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, and copper is a significantly more abundant metal in the Earth's Crust, at about 70 PPM compared to tin at 2 PPM. Because tin was the limiting factor in bro...
After centuries of careful search and travel, some intrepid extraterrestrial explorers have finally found another inhabited world! Elated with their discovery and exhausted after their long journey...
Previously, I asked about the plausibility of a sulphuric acid dragon. As it turns out, the answer was right on Wikipedia, namely a. thiooxidans and the snottie Snottites are highly acidic biof...
This came out of a discussion of an all female colony world, but I'm interested in the more general version of this question. Is there any function in society that requires male levels of strength ...
Okay, so I want you to think of someone similar to Clayface here, only he's not limited to just clay. What I got for him so far is that he was once an ordinary man until a cluster of specifically...
I will be making several posts on this community regarding questions which involve the design specifications of an alternate human species I designed. Because I'm not a biologist, and I have no ide...
This is a submission for the Anatomically Correct Series Residing in South Africa, the Grootslang is a creature of African folklore being depicted commonly as: Being 37 to 40 ft long having a co...
So, mechanical computers are a thing, as are pneumatic and hydraulic actuators. Combining those ideas, it's not that hard to design simple purely-pneumatic/hydraulic robots--provide them with a so...
Leaving aside the matter of how well would humans fare on the surface of Mercury (we only have to factor in the weight of their life support: air, water, food and spacesuits), and assuming material...
In the "Legend" trilogy and its sequel "Rebel", author Marie Lu envisioned a far future where Antarctica is a superpower decades after the United States splintered into two separate countries. The ...
It's the future. The setting is about as "hard-ish sci-fi" as it is possible to be, with the one big exception of a viable FTL engine. Humans have began spreading out into the galaxy, colonising n...
The year is 2100. While climate change has wrought serious damage to the biosphere, humanity has at last managed to become carbon neutral, and has even developed technology that can be used to redu...
Now, I know that planets can't be disc-shaped. However, if a relatively small planet had a very strong magnetical pull, could it have a ring system that could make the planet from afar seem disc-sh...
So I'm working on a fictional planet which would experience a daytime sky similar to this. This particular picture is from the movie Valerian: City of a Thousand Planets. Fictional alien atmosph...
I am looking for as hard science answers as possible, but I am willing to bend some rules for a good answer. Assume they need to move 10 million 100 million people off of a planet what technology...
A giant pacific octopus has around 250 suckers per arm that it can use to manipulate small items. If theoretically, one of these animals was given human intelligence, and of course proper medical t...
One of many things that differs the pregnancy of my Keplerians and that of humans is that in Keplerians, there is a symptom that is equivalent to a positive pregnancy test. To explain this, first, ...
(As of 2020, February, the 19th, 12:23, I have decided to use a different method than the one originally proposed. The method itself answers the question) Imagine a spell an effect of utterdarknes...
Sulfur hexafluoride is pretty awesome. It is a gas six times denser than regular air, and thus you can actually make tinfoil "boats" float on it. It also makes your voice deep when you breathe it i...
Would it make sense to use screw- and fin-like bending surfaces for propulsion (like what eels or the king of herrings have but in the atmosphere) instead of regular propellers or even flapping win...
I have this setting, about an advanced city state in the middle of a sparsely inhabited wasteland/grassland type area. This state has the 90's level tech on consumer level, and a wide range from 9...
I read a theory once which stated that the natural pain, sickness and general discomfort that humans can experience during sex, pregnancy, and childbirth help control the human population by discou...
I have noticed that there is a common theme in science fiction art to depict one or more very large planetary bodies in very close proximity to the surface of the other world being depicted. (you ...
I have a city which will be completely submerged in water due to a catastrophic earthquake. It is placed on a cliff side, so that it will drop directly into the ocean. Technology is similar to the ...
Assuming I have the technical means of redirecting sunlight from a position in interplanetary space (placing the mirror[s] wherever necessary), how much havoc can I wreak on the planet Venus? Of sp...
On the Earth's surface, we look back to an ultimately high tech evolution of computer hardware and according integrated circuit manufacturing appliances. The knowledge required to build robust mod...
So, me and the boys have decided to take a trip down to Earth for reasons that matter not be it science, leisure or fleeing persecution. It is no concern how we blend in but our spacecraft poses an...
In my setting there is a civilization that has a decisive advantage in a fundamentally agrarian world; it is consistently more efficient in its choices of crops and livestock. Rodents reproduce fa...
The Megapodes are a family of birds in the galliformes order. They live primarily in Australia and are notable in being extremely precocial and laying more eggs than any other bird. They build larg...
In my setting there is a civilization that has a decisive advantage in a fundamentally agrarian world; a crop of exceptional yield and nutritional value. Would it be feasible for a plant to have ...
Sea Wyverns (name not final) nest on small, rocky islands scattered throughout the sea and primarily catch fish going somewhat below the water. Basically, wyverns ingest a piezoelectric crystal whi...
Could alien life use nitrous oxide, N2O, as its oxidizing gas, like oxygen on earth? What biochemical reactions would be needed to produce and utilise this gas? I've also heard conflicting messag...
The goblins in my world are classical fantasy goblins. They aren't too smart, have primitive technology, live in tribes, and use tamed boars, wolves, and other wild animals. They usually have a bos...
A long time ago during the last ice age an early hunter gather human encounter an unknown entity (likely a alien) who granted him the power of immortality with him living at least up into the middl...
The human body can create a quintillion variants of antibodies. Â Resistance to infectious diseases is mainly carried out by the methods: White blood cells (white blood cells) and phagocytes. Whi...
If an extraterrestrial race were to send a signal to earth containing a virus (technological or psychological), how could that signal then infect our technology and then be received by humans?
so in my world the rivers and lakes (not sure about the sea yet) are made of blood that'll never dry up. The blood maybe fresh or not (I still haven't decided yet,probably both anyway) i also haven...
I want to design a realistic interstellar spaceship that uses centrifugal force for only the crew quarters. But while looking up for designs I found the most common ones are the torus or ring desig...
I've been thinking of having an underwater structure in a world with ice, but I would think water from currents would melt the ice. Would there be any way to keep it frozen and have an underwater ...
Imagine a huge salt flat like Bonneville or Salar de Uyuni. Due to other logistical concerns, commerce between the economic powers on either side of the flat is forced travel across it. This has re...
(Edited for focus; see history for previous version) Following up on this question, let's say I have a "coastal" mesa (relatively flat, high land not far from an ocean) with taller mountains behin...
I have a planet where I want all plants to be blue and glowing. I was thinking that they could use something other than light for energy. I want the plants to always glow. The atmosphere is basical...
This is a submission for the Anatomically Correct Series The orang pendek is a cryptid that reportedly inhabits remote, mountainous forests on the island of Sumatra (likely evolving from orangutan...
I found a way to ensure that even if either the Japanese Self-Defense Force or the U.S Army invades my fantasy world, its inhabitants would still have a fighting chance. Utiltiy Fog Hall thoug...
Phoenixes are a unique type of wyvern not only due to their colorful feathers (which resemble flames) but also how they reproduce. Phoenixes lay 7 eggs which require a lot of heat to hatch. Unfortu...
I am creating a humanoid species for my setting and I thought of the idea of "‹"‹making it that can rotate its joints with a 360 angle and can bend its limbs in any direction. Sort of like owl's 27...
I think it will be possible in the far future to take a single person`s cells, genetically enhance and change them using genetic engineering and synthetic biology using new genes, and put it in a 3...
