General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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The planet is a Super-Earth with 1.839 Earth masses and an average surface temperature of 180.7 degrees farrenheight, the atmospheric pressure is 50 times more dense than Earth's and there's large ...
I've been working on this creature some more and have hit another snag. If my critters communicate through the use of pheromones and chemical trails, how do they communicate the message that it i...
What animals and in what conditions would evolve into something resembling a bearfolk like this one A ''bear'' humanoid of 600"“800 pounds standing in two legs, divided in many sub-species with ...
I need to know what would be the orbital period (so, how long would last a year/day) of an Earth-like planet tidally-locked to a red dwarf. The star is at the upper limit of the red dwarfs (so, ar...
First question What event would cause hydrogen to slowly replace oxygen in the athmosphere? it can be something natural or artifial. it doesn't have to cause too much mass extinctions. Some sa...
What type of extraterrestrial body could successfully pierce through one side of an Earth-like planet, go through all strata, through the core, and then continuing through the strata and through th...
I'm trying do design a feasible passenger/cargo spacecraft stationed on a space station. It's a far future setting, but I'd like to stay as close to real physics as possible, specifically, anti-g...
Is it possible for nanobots to become so integrated with a creatures biology that they could be transferred via the creatures reproduction and passed on to future generations? 'Synthetic Biology' l...
Humans (and most animals) sleep. The reasons aren't really clear but most people believe: We have to sleep because it is essential to maintaining normal levels of cognitive skills such as spe...
I was watching a show, in which spirits, in the sense of Spirits you can summon, etc. are a common place in the world. The spirits, generally can be anything at all that is considered a spirit alre...
I was wondering what is the smallest a terrestrial planet can be and maintain plate tectonics and generate a magnetic field, atleast to Earth's current age?
Hunting is dangerous; even for the predator, hunting can result in death. There have been countless example where a predator was killed by what was supposed to be prey. Animals have evolved many wa...
I was thinking I would have a race and at the most basic level it is a ground covering moss. As it encounters other colonies of itself they will join together to form one contiguous colony while ke...
Terraforming would not strictly be the appropriate term for the type of planetary modifications I am asking about. Say humanity develops advanced AI robots, who are then left alone in space (as hu...
I was thinking of a universe in which there is a relativity that is between Galilean and Lorentzian Relativity. In this universe there would be effects of length contraction and time dilation but ...
I'm looking to create a world with a predefined "once every X years" type of event, I realized that something like a comet would work for this purpose in terms of events but I need a planet with an...
How could an auditory organ perceive sound waves with a completely different anatomy from the vertebrate ear (e.g. canal, typanum, bones) at the same effectiveness?
I have created a world map for a story I'm making. And it has been too long since I studied geography and geology. Assuming earth-like conditions, and a normal distribution of climate based on (a...
After reevaluating my sense of perspective on sublight interstellar travel, I'm thinking of moving my planet closer to Earth to cut down on travel time and fuel costs. However, the planet my coloni...
Think stuff like plant only pokemon, Groot (Guardians of the Galaxy), veggie pygmies (D&D), etc How would people react to the fact that a vast majority of their veggies and fruits being much m...
So I was reading through some stuff and I though to myself, "could there be a square object in space?"
This sounds really stupid, but I'm trying to think of a way to make World Turtle work. And what I got after 5 minutes of careful deliberation, would be that the our earth would have to be 'flat' on...
I got the idea from this answer, which suggests a species that evolved early in the existence if the universe and spreads between stars upon their death. If one of said creatures enters the inner ...
There is a creature. Let's call it a Blop. Blops are fairly simple creatures: They consist of a tough, flexible outer skin and then an inner structure that is (essentially) organs and tentacles fl...
So I'm working on building a city in my world and I've run into an issue with scale/size. I have the general idea of how large the city will be (~8 km diameter) and I am having trouble coming up wi...
As the question asks, what would happen to the Earth if its core collapsed? Now I don't know if this is something that is possible or even realistic, but I found the question interesting nonetheles...
I'm developing a semi-realistic game involving stereotypical dwarves digging into mountainsides and carving out grand caverns for themselves, similar to those in Moria or the Lonely Mountain from T...
I am trying my hand at a matriarchal society (human beings, technology similar to Earth's 13th - 16th century), and I find that for that to work they will need reasonably efficient contraceptives (...
Probably the most well-known exoskeleton suit is Iron Man. In concept, you'll usually see Exoskeleton suits with either tight-fitting joints (perhaps similar to plate armor, I'm not sure), or, y...
I am writing a science fiction short story, which is loosely about terraforming. The drama takes place on a terraforming site, which has been halted, in its early phases, due to the discovery that ...
I always feel like "hypothetical history of science" questions are kind of impossible, but here's a go anyway: Imagine that, for the entirety of human history, EM radiation from anything beyond th...
Suppose an intelligent species evolved on a large rocky planet, one with sufficient mass that the species had little hope of developing anything anytime soon that could achieve escape velocity. The...
How would an organism evolve to ''see''or sense things with high precision way before light hits its eyes or sound reaches their ears, or at least giving the illusion of doing so?
Set in year 2615 A.D. humans have colonized nearby star systems, we can travel between different star systems using artificial wormholes. A spaceship leaving Solar system for Alpha Centauri have to...
Okay so we all know that one planet from the movie "Interstellar" that orbited the black hole Gargantua. How do I NOT get that? What's the minimum safe distance for a planet to be from a black hole...
Having read this excellent question and its answers, I've tried to come up with an evolutionary history for a sapient, avian race that populates part of a world I'm building. I'd like feedback as t...
Suppose all the humans in Britain suddenly disappeared. This gives the animals -- wild, domesticated and feral, free roam. What would the wildlife look like 300 years later? The starting conditions...
I'm trying to plan a rotating wheel space station for a project. It should be noted that I have to stay as close to real physics as possible, although it takes place in far future. The space statio...
What if there was an alternate earth where there was no landmass between North America and South America. For clarification, in place of Central America there would be a sunken land bridge at the d...
Disregarding the fact that we can't create a 'star' on earth, what would happen when a mini star is created on earth with some hocus pocus, technology humanity developed 4 billion years later and E...
In this alternate scenario, only the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians stand firm in the United States. Even so, some differences apply. The Appalachian Mountains (right) have grown to as tall...
The potential story concept I have needs a tattoo that can change colour. I was wondering how possible that might be given small advances in current technology. From research I've found the 'blac...
If on a water covered planet, an aquatic species such as the merfolk evolved sapience and now wishes to go into space, how would their spaceship take into account the lack of land? How would a spac...
Is it possible that a large, multicellular, naturally evolved organism with an advanced intellect on the order of a human's could have evolved to pass on its knowledge and memories in a fashion tha...
And I'm not talking about insects. In what kind of environment could a large number of different species all develop six legs/limbs/appendages the same way most vertebrate species on Earth have fou...
Enter the Argonian: a (really) ugly sentient human-like lizard. Although almost no one plays as this race on their Skyrim playthroughs, they have some pretty astounding capabilities; they are maste...
Behold the Khajiit; Born from the insanely popular game series, Elder Scrolls, the Khajiit are a race of cat people who live in hot jungles. From the moment I saw this race, I fell in love with ...
In an Earth-like world I have long pondered building up, the pre-industrial (roughly colonial) society primarily exists on a single continent, roughly the size of Africa. Another continent has been...
Sleipnir is Odin's steed - an eight-legged horse in Norse mythology. How and where to place its legs to make it faster than four-legged horses? What other benefits or drawbacks may arise from the a...
Yes I'm talking about a living biological speaker. An organism that can produce any physically possible sound at any frequency, at any speed and any intensity. How would this biological speaker...
