General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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Discounting the actually quite good idea of having the asteroids be the site of colonization would it be better to use human miners or automated ones? Both would probably deliver the goods by unma...
Earth, far future: We built multi generation ship which can get 20 000 people to another solar system in next 20 generations (600 years) For scope of this question assume that ship itself is well ...
That's the plot of lot of sci-fi stories, but on most of them the virus just affect all humans and get out of control. But lets say that my Umbrella corporation wants to target a specific human p...
The flight craft in my Dieselpunk-ish Science Fantasy setting are heavily inspired by the Hovercraft of The Matrix series. I think that those ships have a very interesting look, and they are the fi...
I'm planning to build a game for me and my friends where the worlds are procedurally generated. The idea is that different and habitable planets and moons have flora and fauna that has adapted to t...
Definitions Hamada: A type of desert landscape consisting of high, largely barren, hard rocky plateaus, with very little sand because this has been removed by deflation. -- From Wikipedia ...
In these two questions, https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/232141/how-much-force-would-be-required-to-destabilize-the-moons-orbit-enough-for-it-to and https://physics.stackexchange.com/que...
I am building a habitable, Earth like planet, but instead of it being in a solar system, it is inside a Nebula. The actual composition of the Nebula is uncertain at this point, but I am considerin...
I thought about making gigantic round space station that would spin when it moves that could form an artificial low level gravity. Steroids combined with mandatory weight training from young age co...
Characteristics: has close to 80.000km in diameter The atmosphere is composed of: -30% hydrogen (cold gas planets have hydrogen but it makes sense it exists in a rocky planet?) -20% oxygen -...
I understand that the human brain consists of many cells working together but could a single celled life form evolve something like a brain with similar intelligence to the human brain? I was thin...
I'm working on a planet wherein the dominant species isn't humanoid (in this case, mantids.) However, I'm unsure as to whether or not it'd make more logical sense for the dominant species to be co...
Small debris thrown from a satellite down towards Earth will burn up in the atmosphere, but how much precision could it be done with. Would it be feasible with the correct launcher and precise timi...
Let there be an Intelligent alien species of heavily armored but lightly armed folks. Think of sentient crabs without claws. The are physically incapable of fighting each other. They are filter fee...
The Setup A while back, I read an article in which the author compared the rise and fall of civilizations in the universe to a forest. In the forest, small plants come into being, grow, and die o...
If Mars was vaporized by aliens, how would it affect us? Assume that the core of Mars exploded, sending the debris flying in all directions, and that some would pass close by, but not hit, Earth. H...
I would like to make something interesting about a culture of mine in one of my story proposals. I was thinking something along the lines of using living tissue for construction. Hard hides would c...
The situation I'm considering is as follows: A space ship (a transport ship operated by two people) crashes onto a planet on which a swing-by was planned. The crew could escape using an escape cap...
How long can a river be? Are there any physical limits on its length, coming from the necessary altitude drop, the triple point of water, or other factors? You can alter whatever parameters you f...
We know that humans are capable of incredible feats, as displayed by Olympic athletes. However, the superhuman heroes that appear in comic books and fantasy novels tend to not only be able to perfo...
Space exploration is great and amazing, and I want my fictional US government to fund it to the tune of $1 trillion per year, instead of the (comparatively) meager \$17.5 billion it is getting now....
In this more realistic scenario than typical fantasy, the vampire is just an ordinary human being with a certain genetic quirk that results in the following: A reversed circadian rhythm (active a...
Let's say we're composing a message intended for radio transmission to intelligent alien life. We'd like to talk about sizes and distances, so we'll need a unit of length. We're already planning ...
At the height of the last ice age, glaciers as thick as one mile reached as far down south in Europe as London. This is the reason why England and Wales have very little mountains, and why the ter...
The brain is 1 major developmental difference between us and these humanoids. These humanoids start off with larger brains to begin with and so brain development in the womb happens at about the s...
Lets say we have a huge cigar shaped habitat, filled with a breathable atmosphere, and rotating on one axis at the right speed to have about 1 'g' of acceleration on the inside surface. To give th...
I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with Michio Kaku, but he's a renowned physicist who has often talked about humanity's role in the future. He mentions some valuable words about how we are stil...
In this question I asked about temperatures on a planet where a day last 30 days. The data are the same: stellar flux of 1.118 albedo between Earth's and Mars's atmospheric composition of 18% oxy...
Ordinary granite is a tough rock"”the toughest on planet Earth"”but it still cracks easily, exposing it to the wrath of erosion. But the granite that makes up the Yosemite landscape is different. ...
Let's start with these assumptions: We're 300 years in the future. The laws of physics are the same as our world, although new rules and understanding have been discovered. (i.e. not quite "hard ...
The Setting Imagine a generation ship of 10-20 generations (200-400 year trip). The generation ship is divided into living crew and frozen eggs. Upon reaching the destination & for genetic d...
Assumptions Space travel is hard. Interstellar travel takes a long time. Chances for a successful trip and colony becoming self-sustaining are not considered super high. Therefore, each colony ...
Because who needs a space craft? Picture this: While performing a routine spacewalk, outside your small, 1- man space pod, a fault in the propulsion system controls causes the pod to explode, laun...
Assuming current technology, is there any catastrophic event from space/earth that humanity are able to see/detect/calculated it coming. (Would prefer a space event but earth ones are welcomed) Th...
I am building a fantasy world roughly the same size, elemental makeup, and atmospheric composition as Earth. In this world, there is an island (about the size of Australia) known by outsiders as th...
I've been thinking that the natural manner for interstellar dispersion of humanity with relatively hard science is with permanently habited nomadic generation ships. Instead of building a ship, goi...
Here's the set up. In my slightly-futuristic mildly-sci-fi novel, I have a need for an aerial transport vehicle (I have been informed what I need is closer to a VTOl than a hovercraft). These craft...
I want the area I am currently making to have a hot summer climate, but to also some years have a cold winter, including frost and some snow. I understand that this may affect the fauna, but what ...
Imagine a dwarf star and a gas giant orbiting each other around their barycenter. The gas giant does not have enough mass to ignite (but may be close to igniting). Over time, the sun loses mass du...
Ok, so I'm making a setting where people have colonized various objects in the solar system and out of it. One thing I know I want to include to flesh it out a bit* is a sport for low-gravity envir...
In the bible, one of Jesus's earliest miracles was turning jugs of water into wine. Let's assume that I need some wine - and it doesn't have to be good wine - but I need some wine for my guest. I h...
If two different species with different blood bases, say iron and copper, had a child together, how would that affect their child? Which blood base would the child inherit? Could they even have a c...
When I asked my previous question about love on multi generation ship, I left blank the where are the people going. Simply because I do not know. Now I am in search of software which would ease s...
Region 2 is north of Region 1. River and lake description: In region 2 there is a crater lake on what used to be a huge mountain. 2 large streams go from the crater lake and merge into a little r...
After reading the question on inbreeding (Could fictional species benefit from limited inbreeding?), I started to wonder if there could be any reasons why an species (intelligent or otherwise) woul...
This question is closely related to, but more specific, than the question/comment that inspired it: Could a modern times time traveler produce an antibiotic in medieval times?. Imagine a person is...
A character of my story is in the following situation: He is in the middle of a forest and has lost his way out. He wants to be sure to keep straight on and not to move in a circle. He has no co...
With today's technology could mankind create a system of rings similar to Saturn composed of different masses of water particles and silicate minerals that would freeze? How could mankind accomplis...
Specifically, I was wondering if a core of magnitite or some such other magnetic metal could be a planet's core. This is in relation to my other question, found here: Can airborne floating/flying...
Would it be possible for a planet with surface conditions suitable for humans landing on it to have a very strong magnetic field, with field strengths on the planet's surface similar to the surface...
