General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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In a civilisation similar to humans (although not necessarily humanoid) living on a planet the size of Earth, could the whole civilisation (no limits on size, although I was thinking a few thousand...
A hero travels to another world that is like the medieval age of Earth. He needs a portable power generator. Is there any portable, low maintenance, at least 10 MW, reactor or energy producer that...
There are a few million cubic miles of water trapped in the ice-caps that line our planet's poles. If all of it were to melt in a matter of a few short years (somehow), London would surely be left ...
In a parallel universe if two objects occupy different positions in space then in the reference frame of each object the other has length contraction and time dilation. If the two objects are very...
I want to create an inland forest on the western side of a large continent that features cenotes instead of rivers. Is this possible, and if so, how can I make it work? Any requirements for altitud...
I was thinking of an organism that has evolved to get its energy through nuclear fusion. It has its own fusion rector inside its body that is capable of fusing hydrogen to helium to derive energy....
I have a species of creatures that live in packs off the coast of my fictional world's one super continent. Humans have lived there for millions of years. At one point these humans had achieved the...
Sorry if this sounds stupid and/or messed up. So I'm writing this goofy splatter story in which my protagonists are fighting zombies. I'm trying to make the fighting as over-the-top and ridiculou...
Unless of course the mermaids can use "super" low frequency like our subs, but wouldn't the quality become poor. How can the mermaids enjoy 4K quality digital TV programmes much like us without lay...
How big can an underwater animal really get before physics get in the way? (I'm sure feeding would likely get in the way first, but ignore that!). The Blue Whale is currently the largest animal...
I have a post-apocalyptic world where some intelligent animals become the new major world-controlling species. In particular, some new/evolved species of Cuttlefish and Octopi are beginning to fill...
I'm making a world with magic and most if not all tech will run on mana. I have airships in this world but I'm having a hard time deciding how large across the world should be. I want - even with a...
On an Earth-like planet, I'm imagining a bipedal sapient species whose juveniles have a largely hollow head so large that they can retract the whole body into the head when frightened, the way a tu...
Sperm whales can go 90 minutes at a time without needing to surface. I am interested in an idea for a creature that is air-breathing, but spends a lot of time at depths of (100m to 300m) and some...
I've got a race of aliens that have no sense of sight. They can measure electromagnetic radiation with instruments, but have no concept of vision. All I know about video encoding and transmission...
James MacGuffin, famous archaeologist goes on one of many expeditions to Egypt. He crosses the Dead Sea from Jordan, and about halfway through, he is amazed at what he finds. A small group of large...
This is going to take some imagination and assumptions (and knowledge about physics). Imagine gravitational mass and inertial mass would be different. In classical mechanics it seems a coincidence...
Somewhat related to this. I've already decided that both orcs and humans are subspecies of homo sapiens (homo sapiens praepotens and homo sapiens perpessio, respectively, because both species are a...
If you've read Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, you might get the reference. In that story, the protagonists, after fulfilling their duty, decide to journey over a large mountain chain to explore t...
I want to have planet with as deep an ocean as plausibly possible. How deep can I go given these restrictions? Planet must be in habitable zone of a star Generally, planet should support life Siz...
I've built a device. It can change matter to energy and energy to matter with 100% efficiency. I've built myself a global presence, and populated the ranks of my employees with people such that I c...
I'm trying to describe an effect (in this case, a magic spell) that affects the mind, similar to caffeine or alcohol, but not a "substance". I want to use the correct scientific language if possibl...
Grab the popcorn ladies and gents, I'm gonna talk about a movie real quick. In the movie Total Recall (2012), the main character and his friend step into a huge earth elevator/public transportati...
Inspired by https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/30400/3434 Related but too different in details for answers to apply Why not build a space elevator starting from the moon? As answered in th...
In a story I am (at least attempting) to write, I plan to have Earth's atmosphere become unlivable by humans. I assume that Earth's atmosphere could not be ignited by a solar flare event, because i...
What immediate effects would a small, short-term black hole have if it appeared in a residential backyard? How small or short-lived would it have to be to be survivable, if it is survivable at all?...
We have all heard about the idea of space elevators, a cable so long that it literally reaches into outer space, to be used for launching payloads cheaply into Earth and interplanetary orbits. Howe...
The time is near-future. For peripheral reasons, the United States and the people of Utah have just had it with the Great Salt Lake: everyone wants it empty. There is a justified need to use the ba...
I have two interstellar civilizations, both of which are extremely advanced and within a few thousand light years of earth. They go to war and make some stars explode in the process. The Combatan...
Pretty straightforward. Is there an event which could get rid of the majority of the Earth's magnetic field quite suddenly, but only for about a decade? Could anything manmade assist in this?
I was at a musical event a while back and as I saw the brass instruments a question popped my mind, could an animal come with an instrument built in? It seems far fetched but evolution has given us...
What would be required for a generation space ship to give residents the best possible living situation while still using the least amount of space, given the possibilities to have access to common...
I have an area of my world that is essentially a large crater. It is a huge barren land surrounded by mountains. The ground is stone, then below are underground rivers, and below those are pools of...
This isn't exactly worldbuilding but honestly, I wouldn't know where else to ask it. The scenario goes as follows. In an utter cliché moment you get summoned by some wizards to help their country...
In my WIP (webcomic in progress) mentioned in my other posts, there is an earth-originated colony based on an alien planet in a semi-post-apocalyptic society with limited technology and resources. ...
In the near future, the last of the human race has been forced to retreat underground due to extreme global warming or some solar flare event. Vertical hydroponic farms provide the food for the s...
Inspired by this question: Talking animals in a parallel universe I wonder, would it be possible, if there were more species which created their own abstract means of communication, would they b...
Suppose there's an earth-like planet, perhaps even modern day earth itself - and at one point in time, it began to be bombarded by a continual stream of Electromagnetic Pulses. For the sake of sim...
These creatures are a few feet longer and about a foot thicker than your average cow. Their skin is covered in densely packed bristles to trap air, and thus heat, close to the skin in cold climates...
Imagine a world that reaches the end of its resources in silicon, petrol, coal, metals... everything that allows for conventional technology "” even before it has found a way over it (renewable ene...
If I had a parallel universe that had all the basic ideas of our universe (gravity, friction, inertia, etc.), how could I logically have certain animal breeds not only talk, but communicate verball...
Would it be possible for a planet to form so it has all of the landmass in only one hemisphere? By landmass, I mean all landmass that is above sea level. And human-habitability is encouraged...
So I'm approaching this question the wrong way. Instead of asking how long a road would last (which is apparently too broad for stackex), let me tell YOU how long I want it to last and you can tell...
In the near future, we've decided to send a permanent colony to Planet W. In my story, this planet has ankle-deep freshwater covering the surface. The 'surface' underneath this ankle-deep water var...
In our universe if there are two objects that are moving relative to each other then each will see the other's length contracted in the direction of motion and it will see the others clocks running...
Suppose, through some fantastical mechanism, all macroscopic (i.e. reasonably massive) objects in the universe were instantly made at rest. In other words, the relative velocity between every two ...
What would be the possible and definite effects of two galaxies colliding with each other? (Milky Way & Andromeda) Long-term and short-term effects are both important. I'd like to know becaus...
Would humans have to become "wild" for this to happen?
Where would you put the saddle? On the neck or on the hip? Thanks for the answers and comments.
We all know the average human eye is restricted to perceiving color in the visible spectrum (or subsets thereof). Beyond the borders of that spectrum, we have infrared and ultraviolet. I understand...
