General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
Filters (None)
One can indeed brew love in a bottle The love potion set comes with two vials. One is for the intended lovee, and one for the lover. The lovee must drink their potion first, and will be emitting p...
I am working on a book that features a form of "colonization" by destroying all life on a planet by basically doing on a large scale of what a "fuel-air-bomb" does. My question is what would be the...
Life on Earth has developed with one Earth-gravity, more or less, as a constant for epochs. Our bones and organs both are adapted to this amount of pull, (or push, depending on how sciency you wan...
Setting is described here: Handwavium-based-artifact by a Kardashev III+ civilization. We're talking about a 1-AU-radius world (except people live on the outer not inner side of the hollow sphe...
The planet in question is Earth-like in size and composition and orbits a Sun-like star. Its atmosphere is less than 5% Oxygen and plants (lichens, some grass and river vegetation) have started col...
Many planets don't have habitable surfaces, though at least Mercury has good temperatures underground (source: http://www.einstein-schrodinger.com/Mercury_temperature.pdf). So I'm wondering how la...
What sort of circumstances would allow for a parasitic relationship between two dominant species of an Earth-like planet? The criteria for an answer is as follows: The relationship must involve n...
In this alternate Earth, there is a clear ecological distinction between trees depending on altitude. The lowlands are exclusive to broad-leaved deciduous trees while conifers can be found only on...
Htrae is a planet with an abnormally strong gravity. In Htrae, the escape velocity is greater than the speed of light. Suppose a civilization like humans (call them snamuhs) evolves, with the uniqu...
I know that with a vacuum, you'll be able to gain a whole lot more lift than with any gas. I'm just wondering how you'd do it. What would be needed to make a vacuum balloon as opposed to a hot-air ...
For most of us, meteors are by far the ultimate planet killers. All it takes is one direct hit to suddenly wipe all life from the face of a world. But, rather than taking life away from a planet, w...
When we talk about orbits we often imagine a ship or station orbiting a planet outside its atmosphere. Is it possible a ship could go into orbit inside its atmosphere (perhaps to hide from other c...
I know that rivers do not usually split but they can. e.g. It can occur due the glacial shift. Are there any other ways that this could happen? And if it did would one river become dominant a ...
In the book The Host by Stephenie Meyer, a parasitic species (Souls) attach to the back of the spinal cord of alien creatures to control their brains, but I find this a wee bit unbelievable. As it ...
Imagine a space cataclysm, where the Earth is hit by a deadly wave sterilizing all life of the bright side, but the dark side is more or less intact (at least the atmosphere and life are still in p...
Would it be possible to move Ganymede into Mars' orbit causing them to fuse together like the two proto moons of earth? The new planet "Marmede" would have a mass equal to 13.2 % of Earth. Ho...
Briefly on world setting: Roughly classical age technology, magic is rare, difficult and shunned, flora and fauna is inspired by a remix of the Neogene period. Practical concerns for long distance...
I am designing a world where humans have somehow developed or have been put onto a planet in a primitive state. This world has only been habitable for about ten thousand years and therefore only ha...
The Eternal Emperor wants to throw a party the likes of which the galaxy has never seen. The billionth anniversary of his reign is fast approaching (a mere hundred thousand years away!). He has bro...
I'm working on a Dieselpunkish Science-Fantasy setting and I am trying to find an alternative to conventional electrical systems used in computers. Computer and telecommunication systems in the se...
Like in video games where characters are able to control the temperature around them by simply removing the heat. Is it possible for a machine or biological creature to have the power of absorbin...
In the distant future, a multinational corporation has become more powerful than any government. To deal with individual enemies of the corporation, the company created the enforcer line which spec...
Suppose the mermaids share similar intelligent and technology with us, they also practise performing surgical operation like we do in hospital. Negate the issue of negligent during the operation th...
Lets say that, for some reason, humans decide to breed true sapience into one of the great apes (chimps or bonobos). They start to use active selective breeding to encourage increased intellect an...
Several hundred years in the future, technology has significantly advanced to the point where we can far more efficiently extract energy out of the natural world we live in. As a result, energy has...
Lets assume we humankind can not only wormhole the spacecraft, but planets and moons. So, what would've happened to Earth if we pulled Europa to be Mars's third moon? What if we moved Titan in betw...
This is for a storyline that I have been building. Currently, scientists are able to teleport spin cubits in laboratory conditions. This is often mentioned in connection with information transfer....
So I posed a question (Calamity breaking a supercontinent in days - Would there be any survivors?) about a calamity that would break a Pangea-like supercontinent in a matter of days. I assume that ...
I've drawn up a set of landmasses for my story, and now there's a tsunami headed for them. I know where the tsunami is coming from, and I could decide how big it is, or any other characteristics o...
This questions came to me after some discussion on my previous one about a civilization living under Antarctica. I somehow have the feeling this is a dumb question - sorry if it is -, however I ca...
These settlers live on a planet, which surface temperature and pressure are compatible with human life. However humans cannot breath its atmosphere. The gas in the atmosphere is not necessarily tox...
In my world, I want to create cultures resembling cultures of old Earth ages. This applies both to state structure and culture. (e.g. ancient Egypt revival) Since this does not happen spontaneousl...
Recently I have become obsessed with the idea of twin sapient species developing on separate planets of the same horseshoe orbit. As I was considering the technological advancement of this planet, ...
On Earth today, even though most people speak some English, there is seemingly no reason to believe that future generation's main language will be the same in decades/centuries to come (i.e., we'll...
I've got a planet with a very special atmosphere. The properties are as follows: Surface pressure = 0.7 atm Composition: 60% NO 20% NO2 10% N2O 5% N2 5% O2 traces of CO, CO2 My question is: ...
Can asteroid fields ever exist locally in a system, or do they tend to form belts exclusively? And by asteroid field, I mean clusters of asteroids scattered around a planetary system.
Assume that this earth is celestially equivalent to ours: e.g. same solar system, same position, same orbit, etc. Would the sunset look similar to ours on a floating-island earth? The earth itsel...
I was thinking about how there are some instances of convergent evolution between marsupials and placental mammals and was thinking about a parallel universe in which there is convergent evolution ...
We all know that Titan has an atmosphere that consists mainly of N2. What I want to have is a planet with an atmosphere that consists mainly of various nitrogen oxides (NO, NO2, N2O). My question...
Let's pretend the clouds got there via magic or some bizarre scientific experiment gone wrong. The why isn't important for the question. Question: How would the earth be affected if its entire sky...
Imagine a human colony with the concept of an Earth day being transported somehow into the deep, deep space between galaxies. As we know, gravity wells affect the relative passage of time. So, in...
Okay. I have been piecing together the elements of another story for my school PDF newspaper (we publish one to a wiki page every two days). Yesterday I asked this question on whether a second habi...
If Earth would have been sucked into black hole. Would it be crushed by gravity pressure or not?
In my world, a web of space stations was built around the planet to save humanity from ~as of yet unspecified horrible disaster~. Now, it's been a thousand years, and the space stations have begun ...
This creature is a waterdweller that somewhat resemble a fish. It lives in the retreating oceans of a planet orbiting a star that is reaching its red giant stage. The planet is now experiencing ver...
Let's say that after decades of development there are now cities on Mars. Most of their facilities are located underground in order to protect them from radiation and small meteorites, as well as p...
A scientist has recently invented a gravity machine. This machine pulls all mass within a certain radius (say 50 feet?) towards it at an adjustable rate. The machine can... create as strong a g...
So the design of the planetary system in the previous question goes on, following some of the precious suggestions and reference links, I somehow made the model work. I've been digging for similar ...
Let's presume there's a world much like ours in the not so distant future, but as time goes by storms become stronger and more frequent. That as far as I understand this is already something relat...
I've got a near future setting where humanity has colonised the solar system. The setting is relatively hard science fiction, with realistic spacecraft and space flight. However, it is also a setti...
