General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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Imagine a red dwarf star orbited by a considerably Earth-sized planet in the star's habitable zone. Assuming the planet has a sufficiently powerful magnetic field to protect its surface from the st...
I bring you all to the planet Krikkit, stuck in a star system enshrouded by a large dust cloud which prevents the Krikkiters from seeing the rest of the galaxy - and, by extension, the universe. Th...
I've been inspired to ask this question based off of my answer, and the resulting discussion, to this question: Why would a species of intelligent parthenogenetics invent males? However, this is a...
Related: How would a completely urbanized city-planet support its population? How a completely urbanized city-planet be maintained? How would the global environment of a completely urbanized city...
As a series of anatomically correct myths, here we have the Nuckelavee. Is there a realistic way that Nuckelavee could evolve? Using Earth or near-Earth biology, how close could I get to the classi...
What would a planet's rings look like from the surface of that planet? Would the rings be perceived to be stationary or move across the sky, and would the alignment of the rings relative to the ax...
Let's take a classic AI revolution scenario: An organic civilization seeking more comfort in their lives created robots with self-learning algorithms to make them more efficient. But while the AIs...
I'm thinking a planet orbiting a nearby star colonized by human settlers sometime in the not near, but not too distant future. How small could a planet be while still standing in as a relatively c...
A modern day Earth nation is at war with another. That other nation is extremely advanced but they are also pacifists. Instead of killing peoples their gun rounds and shells have the effect of worm...
I stumbled across Vincent's answer regarding forests and deserts. He claims an elevation difference of 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) could put a forest and a desert in close proximity. That got me thin...
I have made my billions here in the present day, and I'd like to have a permanent underwater settlement. It is about as useless as the Mars One mission (yes, I went there), but some people may c...
An alien race, for reasons of their own, have decided that it's important to make the third and fourth planets in our solar system about the same size and mass. Since they have a strict moratorium...
Guns, Germs and Steel is a very thought-provoking book. One of it's theorems is that certain cultures - largely due to geographical reasons - were incapable of getting past certain technological a...
Most fantasy worlds have large creatures living in a world with humans and other races. In Tamriel, the province of Skyrim has giants, mammoth and even dragons roaming freely. The Lord of the ring ...
How much TNT do you need to blow up Mount Everest? Is this even possible and can mankind survive a huge explosion like this? Or would the whole world be covered with dust? And if you can survive ...
We've created a series of mechanisms to terraform the temperature and atmosphere to be Earthlike. My geologists are screaming at me, because a lot of features are being rapidly eroded by the new h...
Assume that Uranium is vastly available, as are the building materials. Can you build this device? The fuel tank stores uranium at a high temperature so that it remains liquid. The fuel injector/s...
While world building, I came up with a planet that had the combined traits of very rough and rugged terrain and small seas. The planets surface is covered with mountains and hills are common place...
I would like to have a space whale type creature that can fly through space. It would be very large and fly from planet to planet using orbital maneuvers. I want this creature to be able to do it n...
Imagine a race of humanoids who only eat meat, and are unable to digest vegetables. Is it possible for these humanoid to be able too create/gather enough food(meat) to the point that job specializ...
How would evolution have changed without the "reflex arc", if all reflexes had to go through the brain instead of the spinal cord? Would intelligent species be able to evolve?
How do rats and mice see the world? Because their eyes are on the side of their head with a big nose in the middle, would they see two 180 degree images with a blur in the middle or would it be lik...
With news about the Faroe island solar eclipse, I wondered if a constant solar eclipse would be possible. Is it theoretically possible to move the moon or some large object into the L1 earth-sun L...
With the increase in living standards, the number of children by women is decreasing in highly developed countries. Question: Is it conceivable (with the aggravating factors proposed below) to s...
Back in the days when men were real men, women were real women, and small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centaury, an obscenely rich woman decided s...
Suppose that there are 2 interstellar empires at war with one another, both armed with FTL drives which cannot be used within a certain radius of huge gravity fields, stars, gas giants, etc. Anothe...
The city - a modern, sterile 'utopia' (with the undercurrents of government control and suppression, of course), that can be current tech, or future tech so long as the day-to-day lives are in curr...
For the sake of this question, let's say that there would be a space mission that would send one man on a 40 year journey that will require him to be in a completely self sufficient habitat for the...
If we had Full-Body Immersion MMORPGs, how would morale-boosting and morale-lowering skills work for players? By that, I mean, how would the game forcibly make players more or less confident, even ...
Suppose that there is a species of dogs that are much more intelligent than humans and can speak. The humans know that the animal is smarter too. The only reason these animals can't rule over human...
Note: This question is a follow up to this question, and hence forms part of a bigger complex of questions about geology and biology in this certain scenario. Meta: The planet consists of two en...
So some aliens come, put everyone in space suits, and drop us one the moon. The aliens are super smart, and the space suits have enough air for a year, and can't be damaged easily, and only upon fr...
How do I define the Classical Elements with Science so that it agrees with science? According to a single property of a substance. So, no Fire = Energy, Water = Liquid, Earth = Solid, Air = Gas.....
I'm currently writing a military science fiction story set in a post cyberpunk world I've been building. The story focuses on a tank crew, but it also prominently features an enormous airship that ...
In a few science-fiction books I've read, the world that the story takes place on doesn't have a sun, but does have a "sun belt," where (instead of a regular sun) the world is lit by a stretch of s...
While we develop space travel technologies, the Moon will always be the first destination. By its proximity to Earth is the obvious target to test our technology. Before we can establish some kind...
Mycolaria is my working name for an alien planet featuring a much more visible role for fungi of all kinds, large and small. There are also animals and plants on this world. This is the second in a...
Let's say some magic aliens come and prank us. They, in one step, remove out the innards of the earth, and put everything on the surface on the inside. They make some artificial gravity so we stay ...
I'm working on a comic which is essentially alternate-history fiction, and a big upcoming part of it involves the formation of the Chicxulub crater 63 million years ago. As I am a stickler for acc...
Scenario I'm trying to design a colony spaceship. My main character, a soldier, awakes prematurely from suspended animation (SA) to find that the colony ship she is on, headed for Tau Ceti e, is ...
Let me set the scene: A team of scientists in their lab one day is told that some miners have discovered some strange new substance. Its properties are extremely peculiar, unlike anything ever befo...
There is this setup that I've seen a few times of a ring-shaped world where people live on the inner side. My question is: what is the minimum advancement of technology for such a thing to happen? ...
I want a mermaid protagonist. If I am to make this story realistic, how should the Merfolk's body structures be made to make them adaptable for both water (swimming) and land (walking, running)? Is...
OK, so humanity is going to space, and they are going to take farm animals into space, not only humans on earth value meat, but humans in space do, too. However, they don't want to waste precious r...
I just asked myself what is the role of the mountains on Earth? Well there's a well known role for the climate and weather. But is there a kind of physical or geological role? What would happen i...
This question has no background information here. I just want to know if there are any evolutionary advantages for a species to have 4 ears?(The kind a mammal has).
There is this idea that we find in a few books, mainly The Swarm by Frank Schätzing and in the Ender Saga by Orson Scott Card, that some species could communicate via DNA exchange. Technically, y...
I am interested of a fictional future world where people can walk into a bar, order a drink with the flavors they want, and as that drink flows through their system, their DNA is modified. An exam...
Modern human mothers can now choose the sex of their children, without surgery or procedures. For every pregnancy, the sex of the fetus must be chosen. In a culture that has a strong preference for...
Maybe it was a trick of the light or a strange cloud, or just not enough sleep. A couple nights ago I could have sworn that thin crescent moon flickered. Which led to an interesting question - wh...
