General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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I'm currently working on a Sci-Fi story. Many of the super-materials in my story are composed of "Neo-Matter". List of Neo-Matter particles: Up-Neotron, Down-Neotron Neo Matter is essentially lik...
This is sort of on the more realistic side of worldbuilding, but maybe somewhat exaggerated for the sake of a setting. What's the fastest atmospheric pressure drop in weather records? This questi...
So, you have eight planets in the solar system. Mars, Saturn, etc etc. **What would happen to poor old Earth if, for some yet unknown law, some handwavium, or that statement, the aliens did it, if ...
How do force field work in many sci fi fictional universes? I remembered the last time I checked the strength of the electromagnetic field a.k.a force field is proportional to the power output from...
Is there any way to explain how did humans in my planet end up with extreme dimorphism without resorting to polygyny nor "magic"? I want men to be around 6ft (183cm) - 230 lb (105kg), while women ...
In a not-so-distant future, around 2300, mankind finally find a way to keep the body intact over hundred of years, allowing a limited number of humans to travel over hundreds of years in order to j...
So I'm working on a world that orbits a blue star that's not much bigger (or even smaller) than the sun. I was thinking that an A-type star would be a good choice for it, but it's still is closer t...
Let's use Mercury as an example, we can pretend it orbits in the habitable zone of the Sun, would Mercury's magnetic field be able to protect an Earth like atmosphere? And would the lower gravity m...
I did some quick research on DNA and I know it can be damaged by different sorts of mutagens. I also know that this kind of damage can lead to cancer. Though I'm not entirely sure of where exactly ...
Assume humans have the technology and motivation to genetically engineer humans capable of breathing underwater and on land. Also assume for this example mechanical technology is somewhat constrain...
Water is different from air, and sound waves propagate through water in a different way than they do in air (caused in part by interactions with the bottom of the body of water). For a society livi...
Humans sleep more then nearly any other creature (true sleep, not low-activity like cats and sloths), and are some of the only true sapient species on earth. Many other intelligent, or nearly sapi...
Say we had a planet which was a gas giant. Is it possible that at the core of the planet where meteors, asteroids, and comet debris had collected that there could be a layer of atmosphere similar t...
Let me pitch you a setting: The year is 2015 and a team of scientists are trying to create a device that allows a person to "Save" right before a major event (in this case, a job interview). Let's...
Assuming a spinning space station shaped like a wheel. With the inhabitant living on the inside of the Wheel to get spin gravity. Something like the station discussed in this post. The needed spee...
My scenario It is 2150, and there are two major human settlements on Mars and a dozen smaller branching-colonies. The colonies, Genesis and Metropolis, founded by Space X and Mars One respectively...
This question is about a phenomenon in the Dark Forest, part of the Three Body Problem science-fiction trilogy often considered 'hard science'. Be warned: there are major spoilers below for those w...
Generally, when you run a long distance or do something particularly strenuous, you start breathing heavily because of a decrease of oxygen in your blood. Your gasping and weezing is in an effort t...
Every species I'm aware of on earth has two sexes (with the possible exception of species which change their sexes to allow self fertilization). Is it possible for a species to evolve which could ...
Your company has just been contracted to develop a purpose built AI. The purpose of this AI is to control a mining station that will be anchored within an asteroid belt. The space station will be e...
In my Fantasy world I thought it would be interesting to have a creature whose eyes would be precious gemstones or crystals. I want to understand how that could be possible, and if any ramification...
The readership of science fiction gets smarter over time, so making your SF "smart" (even if it's not hard SF) is an ever-moving target. This earlier question makes me think about Conservation of ...
It has become common knowledge among mammalologists that the origins of our most iconic rides, the horse, stemmed from the tarpan, a breed of wild horse that became extinct as recently as 1909 CE. ...
Here's the scenario: 400 million years ago, a species of lobe-finned fish created tetrapod history as it gulped up air, not water. Fast-forward to 342 million years ago, and one species immediate...
Though the job of breastfeeding is typically known to the women, there are documented cases of men producing breast milk. However, these reports are few and far between, which means that while men...
Scenario On Earth in the latter half of the 21st century: the increasing ravages of climate change (e.g. droughts and a rising sea level) are creating more conflict between nations over the batt...
Looking for options with at least some grounding in science: Several hundred years in our future, a group of wealthy philanthropists lavishly funded a colonisation project designed to create a Uto...
Inspired by this question, suppose that the Earth decided to move its orbit much further out to reduce the effects of, say, global warming or the effects of a dying sun (or far enough to make this ...
On my planet, the only animals are plankton, krill, shrimp, etc., but no fish or land animals. The colonists on this planet have brought equipment and embryos from the home world, but the only free...
Another mermaid questions I'm afraid! Fish have tail fins which are vertical, whales have fins which are horizontal. My race of merfolk are: Very active (more likely to be warm blooded) Have gil...
Mars gets somewhat nice In about 1.6 billion years, the sun's habitable zone will have moved outward, increasing the carbon dioxide in Mars's atmosphere. According to Wikipedia, its surface temper...
Is there a limit in physics/chemistry I need to change by inventing Unobtainium? Or is it just a matter of economy by making regular fuel much harder to extract, and chemical explosives much common...
Say that a heavy (150ish kg) android was involved in some kind of incident in orbit and came crashing back down to earth (traveling at orbital-ish speeds upon re-entry). Would they be going fast e...
Quite simple really. How large can a bat grow before it is too big to fly. I would like a bat with a similar external and internal structure to a real bat just scaled up. I am willing to accept cha...
What natural environmental pressures or opportunities might drive an alien ophidian species to evolve sapience and caudal tool use? Conditions The species should be lacking limbs prior to the e...
So let's say you live in a terrifying post-apocalyptic world. For whatever reason, this world is now infested with cockroaches the size of chickens (similar to radroaches from the Fallout games, bu...
UPDATE!!!! - FINISHED THE SCULPT :D [UPDATE: Much Much bigger response and feedback than i anticipated, I am hugely greatful and overwhelmed by the ideas and the help, I will keep the thread goi...
In an event immortalised in this Google Doodle, at 4 minutes past midnight (GMT) on Jan 1, 2017, the density of Helium suddenly and inexplicably increased from 0.1664 g/L (at normal temperature and...
So, in this scenario, people are living in an Earth-sized planet, with an atmosphere. They travel via ultrafast train that carries them to the solid core of the planet, where they then transfer to ...
Checkpoints have been a staple of video games for decades and are almost as old as video games themselves, but how? These little tiny features have made a huge difference in the way we play games, ...
In my fantasy world I want fantastically large trees, particularly in the height category. The tallest trees on earth grow just over 100 meters tall. Why can't they get taller? What circumstances w...
So, to make it normal for a human to have tetrachromacy, having four color receptors, would make our night vision nonexistent. In an answer in the question linked above, someone brought up the tap...
How might a fictional parasitic superorganism like the Halo franchise's "Flood" function? Put plainly, how would the biology of a parasitic superorganism that grows by converting the biomass of o...
I am writing a story where a freak magical accident causes a fully-formed landmass to pop into existence like it was there all along. For the purposes of this question, let's assume: the contine...
For this scenario Satellite means an object that orbits the planet, and my satellite is going to be a moon and the structure would be a giant tube going to another planet. What would the people on ...
I was thinking about how one of the reasons humans have been so successful is that we can adapt to live almost anywhere. A big part of this is that we can put on more clothes when it's cold, and ta...
A world, I am building, had been flooded, causing a species of fire ant that makes ant rafts to evolve a collective behavior, ditching anthills and becoming an ant-hill (I'm not sorry). Over thousa...
I am looking for help on the following: Will that have any affect on the length of days and nights? Would having two moons create a higher body of water on the planet due to increased tides? (i....
Entropy in a casual definition is the tendency of things to progress from order to disorder. There are a variety of specific definitions in different arenas of thought. For example, heat will diffu...
