General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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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 ...
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...
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...
Let us assume at some time in the near future, medical science perfects a biologically safe liquid air solution. It can fill up the lungs of the adult human subject and they can breathe it potentia...
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...
Photosynthesis has an abysmal efficiency with regards to converting solar energy into useful fuel for a plant, and I was wondering: 1) If it would be possible to engineer a plant to accept electri...
It's easy to imagine how would a water-breathing aquatic race outfit its spaceship - take a normal spaceship, insulate it, fill it with oxygenated water, possibly add some enhanced turbines to pump...
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...
In many fantasy settings, a race of mushroom creatures are often encountered. They may or may not look humanoid but still have the biology of fungi. My question is how. How can a mushroom be mo...
For the purposes of this question, let's use the definition of nanotechnology from the tag wiki excerpt: "technology that works with sizes of less than 100 nanometres". An EMP can vary in frequenc...
I've been trying to create a Earth-like planet but I'm not sure if my planet's atmosphere is breathable. (It's mostly the amount of helium I'm worried about). I've tried to make it Earth-like whil...
I fear this question may be somewhat premature as I'm suddenly skipping forward to a period in the species' history that is comparable to our own, a far cry from my last question about the building...
I would like to create a sci fi human faction that resemble vampires without many of the past tropes while reimagining some for a sci fi feel. I would like to avoid any magic and fantastical abilit...
Suppose you want to build a large scale habitable structure in space or on a planet or moon without an atmosphere or any organics, and this would be a long term or permanent settlement, not a tempo...
The scenario Many science fiction novels are concerned with aliens visiting Earth, but what if aliens have no interest in Earth at all and yet they arrive at the Solar system for the sole purpose ...
I'm Wyvera, a young female writer. I've been working on a science fiction project for more than a year now. This project, which I will eventually turn into a novel series, is supposed to remain as ...
Say we have a planet, similar to Earth, which has deposits of a naturally occuring superconductor. Perhaps have it about as common as deposits of gold - Moderately rare, but occurs in veins as oppo...
Would it be possible to "green" the Saharan desert, given near future technology If so what things might have to be done, what kind of plants or bio engineered plants and animals would be introduce...
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...
I once read a novel about a prison-planet which was chosen to make the prisoners suffer. One of the different "tortures" was a gravity three times higher than that on Earth. Would the human body s...
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...
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...
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...
Extremely low possibility, but if life synthesizes from scratch after life has existed on a planet for a few million years, would the two separate lineages be able to co-exist?
So my character (16 yr old girl) got a deep cut (inches across) from a dagger across her torso and is knocked unconscious. (She falls onto her back) She had just enough time to contact her friends ...
At the risk of almost repeating a question I asked some time ago... Scenario: A character has been cured of a deadly disease, but all records of the cure have been destroyed (files, actual meds, e...
In multiple sci-fi, Degenerate Matter is often used for a myriad of applications. Degenerate Matter consists of Neutronium, Quarkonium and other matter coming from dense stars. They have high stren...
(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...
I need the biggest brain I can realistically get, how big is it and why? I've done a bit of research. I know we (humans) have big brains. We've even got big brains compared to our weight (encephal...
The core concept is a bastardized fusion of utility fogs, and the magical barriers of witches from the anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Utility fogs are swarms of 100 micrometer robots, foglets, t...
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...
Currently, NASA is investigating the use of hydroponics, aeroponics, and other low soil techniques to grow regular plants for consumption and oxygen generation/CO2 removal on long voyages in space....
While pondering "Can radioactive moon affect life on a planet?", I got to wondering about plants that send out a tight beam of ionizing radiation. What kind of evolutionary pressure might lead to s...
My Dino theme park business didn't end well and I reluctantly fall into depression and decided to go into suspended animation to seek a cure. 200 years later, a lady claims she works with the milit...
My question is as follows - let's assume our objective function is to have as many humans as possible living outside the confines of the Earth as soon as possible. For this, we need to provide thos...
Assume the surface of the planet is experiencing ice age conditions and the facility was designed to keep the occupants alive for 6 months. An emergency forces the permanent closure of all Heating...
Is it possible for humans to survive on the surface of the Earth, assuming the Sun was, for some reason, not emitting any light/heat/other radiation? Would whether the Sun was actually present affe...
In an alternate version of our world, lycanthropes and vampires were introduced about 300 years ago and are coexisting with us. Unfortunately, they had to adapt to our cuisine and avoid certain ing...
This pure-blood vampiric race is not immortal, but their lifespans are about five times that of mortals. This race has lived in a vast city beneath a small mountain range for thousands of years (th...
So I was surfing this website which gives rpg stats for various fictional characters in various media, when I came across this character called "The Frenchman" who apparently uses biofeedback to bo...
Wait ... what? Basically, this: Most land predators on Earth use their mouths to kill their prey. That is, they have to stick their precious, irreplaceable heads into harm's way every time they ...
In the waters of Iceland, the natives have their own word for a particular brand of cetaceans--"Illhveli", literally "evil whales". And the bloodthirstiest of them all is Raudkembingur, Icelandic ...
I have been making a future colonization scenario where people have vast colonies on Mars and cloud top bases on Venus. These things are unbelievably large. I've already thought of a way to travel ...
When developing a medival fantasy realm, especially one with no known healing and restoration magic, one may need to develop the people's understanding of science and medicine. A unique example of ...
Some humans have been genetically engineered to be able to detect ionizing radiation to better survive the harsh environments found outside of earth's protective magnetosphere. What could be the ph...
A sentient species of water-dwelling aliens achieve space-flight. Their living quarters contain water [no free gases]. They have evolved over millions of years to regulate their buoyancy at will...
In plenty of stories you have beings who age incredibly slowly and are technically immortal. I have a handful of similar such beings who have through some means or other attained the benefits of he...
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...
In my world they live in a swamp similar to the Okeefenokee swamp in Georgia. My question is, would it be possible to farm certain plants like wild rice, milkweed, and lilypads in these conditions?...
