General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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In this Answer I came up a scenareo under which Eriek's concept makes sense. I rather like this idea: an expedition or colony on another world has to, for some reason, pull up stakes and move. Th...
Preface With all technology discovered prior to this question, on today's planet, there are still some things we have not observed - which may be used to justify introducing new life forms, right h...
This is a followup to this question about city building on flood plains. There is a civilization that developed along the rich varzea flooded forests of an enormous rainforest river, larger than ...
My colonists have been terraforming a planet for centuries. They chose this exo-planet for its many earth-like qualities (size, gravity, Goldilocks zone, volcanos, similar sun). However, it is like...
While asking another question about Jormungandr, the Snakebot of Doom, a point was made that it is so big and hot that it might produce its own weather effects. To that end: Jormungandr is 446 me...
Assume the observer was on the ground, 4 km from the base (bottom) of the Space Elevator. Assume a "standard" Earth Elevator "tethered" at <= 20 degrees of equator, made of diamond nanothread...
I watched Independence Day: Resurgence the other day. In it, Earth's first line of defense is a lunar base (that gets blown up), followed by an orbital satellite network (that gets blown up). Now...
So one of the aspects of my science fiction world is genetic manipulation and modification of humans by one of the factions. I am wanting to have a subset of humans who receive a single eye transpl...
So I am building giant spider species in my world, but I want to make semi-realistic changes to their physiology in order for them to be possible. Pack hunters like these spiders which hunt coope...
My generation ship aliens have 2 thumbed hands. No, not the 2 thumbs on the same side that some humans have but the 2 thumbs on opposite sides. So it would be kind of like this: Except more rept...
I'm creating a universe where ftl space travel is possible by folding space. You can only travel point to point with direct line of sight. The example I plan to give in the book, to clarify, is th...
So I want robot enemies in my series, but I also want gore without killing living creatures (related to this, because the opponent is the same, the gr8 computer) So basically the robots I talking ...
The Question: So, in my fantasy world, I have a race of human-like creatures that can talk to any land animal. The basic question is what kind of and how many voice boxes would this race need to be...
Hope this isn't too broad. I tried to make it as easy to understand as possible. A list of these technologies would be great
4+ light years away, aliens living on Proxima Centauri B have space travel and incredible technology, but are not interested in traveling out of their system or in returning our radio-babble, rathe...
This is one of a series of questions centered around living on a giant tree. The setting/scenario is described below: In my fantasy world, elves live on a giant tree, very similar in structure...
Rana sylvatica, the only amphibian found north of the arctic circle, has a very unique survival strategy: it pumps its body full of glucose and hormones just before freezing so that ice crystals do...
I want to partially terraform Venus, enough to make it feasible to mine minerals etc,. there. To do this I need to do a few things but for this question I'm focusing on stripping away at least some...
I am building a science fiction universe, and I am currently thinking of many different unique sentient alien species that would populate the galaxy. I have thought of a rocky planet with Earth le...
OK, so I'm writing a Star-Wars-esque science fiction book set some centuries in the future. Rather than break the laws of physics and say that faster-than-light travel is possible, I've chosen to g...
I'm dealing with a planet very similar to Earth, except that it has two suns. So, of course, it would be an extraordinary occasion when the inhabitants of the planet see only one sun in the sky. So...
That is to say, could a planet be big enough to have other planets orbiting around, while not orbiting around any star? Cha 110913 seems to be close to what I'm looking for, but its classification ...
From 359 to 298 million years ago, the "Carboniferous Coal Swamps" dominated the continents. It was the Carboniferous coal itself that sparked one of the greatest watersheds in human history--th...
I was told that building a tunnel into the centre of Enceladus is not possible, since it has subsurface ocean and molten, rocky core. But its brother, Mimas is a bit smaller, and shows no sign of ...
In popular science fiction, we see habitable Earth-like planets with visible, Saturn-like rings. In reality, such rings exist only on gas giants, a category where we can find Saturn. Is it really...
If life were discovered in the supposed ocean on Europa, it would be a popular destination for scientists and researchers. I am curious as to what life on Europa would be like, in terms of engineer...
So I writing a story where we terraform Titan using super heavy green house gases where the lower part of the atmosphere near the surface stays warmer. Because of this, a portion of the moon's icy ...
I'm my previous question I asked about the longevity of caves, now I'd like to figure out the longevity of the cave dwellers. Specifically, I'd like to put some bounds on how long they can hibernat...
The extreme pressure and temperature greatly reduces our ability to drill holes deeper than some kilometers into Earth's mantle. However, on a body smaller, colder and less dense, this would be a ...
I just want to make sure my science and animal biology is correct here. If there's an increase in gravity to 2-3G, would livestock develop to be more lean due to muscle development or would they ma...
I love chocolate. Today, when I was making myself a cup of hot chocolate, I was thinking about Easter and about all the chocolate I am going to eat. And at some point I was wondering: How awesome...
Would it be possible for a gas giant to have differently colored hemispheres? E.g. the northern hemisphere appearing blue when looked at, while the southern hemisphere would appear brown? (or any ...
My Kepler Bb humanoids are externally gender neutral until they are 5 years old. So you can only tell if they are male or female before then via genetic testing or an abdominal scan like an ultraso...
Is it easier to build colonies within the solar system than to send colonies to other stars? Logically, wouldn't we have cities on Pluto sooner than we will have travelled to an exoplanet?
L.Dutch made a worthwhile observation in an answer to a different question: Moreover for close range shots there is almost no time to react and move the limb: for a shot fired at 20 m, with a s...
Assuming that the planet is 20 light years away (so back and forth trips would be impractical) we have no clue whether there is any edible life forms on the new planet hibernation (freezing/thaw...
Someone made the Earth. They placed man on the surface and gave them plants, animals, the waters, and the mountains to make their life compete. The Earth exists within a spherical firmament upon ...
I was wondering, could the use of chitin (assuming it's composed the same as in insect exoskeletons) combined with hydrocarbons feasibly make a working endoskeleton? I know that chitin could be use...
Because of an error in the interpretation of the Mayan calendar I just discovered, I know now that Earth will be destroyed on March 13, 2021 at 11 o'clock in the morning, time zone of Palenque. I ...
For my setting, I wanted my people to have entirely no concept of sexism whatsoever. To facilitate this, I have made it so that the females of my race are broad-shouldered and generally flat-cheste...
This is all about a thought experiment : Is there an hypothetical (or may it be real?) case of a stellar system, in which both methods of transit and radial velocities, are invalidated by some or...
I had a dream the other night about an alien invasion. In this dream, I was one of the first people to be aware that the aliens had landed, and of course I wanted to warn others. The aliens were lo...
For what I'm working on, humans (some humans, anyway) develop the abilities to communicate telepathically, move things with thought, possible premonitions, maybe psychic projection (but that might ...
So in the Marvel universe, Thor and other Asgardians are not Gods. They are simply very advanced human-like beings that have used science and tech to become harder, better, faster, stronger. Thor ...
Say we took an adult racing horse from Earth to a planet identical to Earth, but with half its gravity. Exactly how fast would it be able to run? Would the low gravity have any significant effect o...
A bridge is collapsing, and our poor MC is stuck in the middle. The ground beneath them collapses, but they miraculously are able to climb up the falling debris and safely make it to the main land ...
I'm at the mall and Yellowstone erupts - My, and everyone else's car is covered with ash, fire, and maybe even lava. Lets say it was a big shopping day too, like Black Friday or Christmas Eve, just...
Is it possible that a tiny amount of dark energy(much smaller than even the iron core of earth) could lower the gravity on a planet without breaking the planet apart? I mean, dark energy is basical...
Let's assume you have access to some pretty crazy tech but that you still have to obey the basic rules of biology. If you build your cyborg so that the only remaining squishy bits are the brain and...
Hunger and tiredness both take a long time to cause a human baby to cry but hunger is often the longer of the 2. Now, yes, for us humans, a hunger cry is important, even though it attracts predator...
