General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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Pretty simple question. Whether you're launching a spy satellite, building a top secret orbital missile weapon, or investigating a mysterious alien artifact in orbit around Earth heralding the retu...
I'm looking for creative people with knowledge of radio waves and space flight to help me out. I'm currently writing a screenplay about a spacecraft that is basically a radio antenna in space. The...
Is it possible to have a world that meets the following conditions? "¢ There are two types of air (in term of its gas mixture) "¢ Each type of air has its own creatures which cannot survive i...
Premise A large spacecraft is powered by a massive fusion reactor - in essence, a miniature star. This star is surrounded by a dyson sphere at the center of the spacecraft. The star's radius is ...
The energy source both in terms of fuel and electricity on my ship is nuclear fusion. Very precise nuclear fusion: there is no helium fusion until there is absolutely 100% helium in the main fusion...
Context Recently, scientists have began researching superatoms and supermolecules in depth. The premise is that existing, natural elements can be rearranged into clusters, in the lab, to exhi...
This is one of a series of questions centered around how an isolated group of people would survive. Each question focuses on a single aspect of survival. Details about the peoples' situation are be...
At the center of my small (one million star maximum) galaxy, there is an incredibly enormous light pillar, originated from a ridiculously huge super-construction. The stars orbit around the giant o...
I have an idea for a story in a post-apocalyptic setting where guns and other explosive devices unusable or otherwise impractical. Is it possible to do this by changing the atmosphere (either by a...
I just had an idea "“ likely an absurd one "“ but it could make an interesting plot. Picture this scenario "“ Present day earth. (easy to picture) But, there is an antagonist. He has a facility ...
Possibly a dumb and outsider question, but my knowledge in the basics of computer networks is terrible. Imagine the possibly not too original concept, that humanity somehow manages to transmit dat...
Would there be any benefit to this? At first I was thinking if you had an outpost on Mars you could spend less money on the actual trip to the belt itself, but I'm not sure if having your launch st...
Why certainly! We have all sorts of exotic drink. Can I excite you for a pint of Tarnesian Starköl - bitter, tart, nutty brew this stuff; or rather have shot of H'elvanian Whisky(?) - 7 years o...
I can think of at least 2 movies that had aliens invading Earth for water. Is this a feasible motivation? I was thinking that Water is H20, i.e. dihydrogen monoxide The vast majority of the uni...
Farmers use dry ice(CO2) to seed the cloud on Earth, can we do the same for Mars? The acidity doesn't matter it can be any element or compound as long as we can recognize it as precipitation, as us...
Phone message to you, Noel, on 10th October 2016 (AD): Hey, Noel, it's Rudolf JelÃnek here. God just send me a message on Facebook (I know it's true, because god gave me a vision in my sleep): ...
A Type II civilization on the Kardashev scale has decided to build a telescope. This civilization spans its home galaxy and wields vast energies capable of moving and shaping matter on the scale of...
Five years ago, our company reached the stage where we were able to create, maintain, and communicate with digitized brain transfer images. These trials were conducted on patients with life-limiti...
Says a F22 with full tank is trying to break through the thin layer of Martian atmosphere and almost moon like gravity(alright that's probably too exaggerated) anyway say there is a runway stretchi...
Imagine I have a device that can stop time for the person who holds it (similar to Bernard's Watch). This device works in a very specific way - it creates a bubble around the user (just large enoug...
I am writing a novel. In that novel, humans have settled a tidally locked planet. That planet is positioned at just such a distance from its sun that the sun heats the planet to an average of 25 °...
I want to create a system orbiting an Orange Dwarf star, approximately 0.5 M☉. I've a 5-planet system, one of which needs to be within the habitable zone of this star; this planet will be 2 M⊕...
I'm looking for a very grounded evolutionary justification for the existence of a hermaphroditic sapient and social species, preferably roughly mammalian but not mandatory, which is not as easy as ...
Aside from resorting to a grey goo-ish nanoplague that kills indiscriminately regardless of biochemistry, how might an alien virus, bacteria or other pathogen still be dangerous to humans? Could a ...
I got to thinking a simple throwaway thought on this video where this dude flushes mercury in a toilet (in a closed loop) For one thing, it's easy to think about the properties of mercury (mostly ...
So, I'm writing a set of short stories (i.e. in the "Martian Chronicles" format). It was going to be centered around life on Earth through the sudden dissapearance of the Sun, but after surprinsing...
I want to have a species based on humans, where everyone is born as female, but switches gender to male later in their life. Assuming that transformation takes 4 years (*) hermaphrodite is born as ...
Our most iconic bridges can be categorized in two basic types: Suspension... ...and cantiliever. Here is the scenario in question: There is a straightforward (as in radiating out in cardina...
A superhuman character in my book has the ability to sense objects outside of his body by simply being around them without touching them. There is some sort of field that extends outside of his bod...
For all who are unaware, synesthesia is a condition in the brain where two or more senses are connected; for example being able to see sound or hear color. Of course they do not actually see color ...
Intro: I have gone some way to make airships more preferable over land-based transport in my beautiful conworld. E.g. making tunneling harder & making flying easier. Though there's plenty left ...
This is an answer I found while looking up random factoids. And it's gotten me wondering. ((If I should take down the picture, and just paraphrase the text, please let me know.)) Charlie here i...
The Idea is to move large amounts of water vapor high into the Troposphere, thereby blocking some of the sun's intensity. Factors that contribute the Earth's solar heat gain include reflectivity/e...
I want to create a terrestrial planet with a very long lasting hurricane similar to the great red spot, I assume the planet will have to be covered by ocean. Could there still be some small islands...
In many stories, there is the idea about "planet essence" or something that: Can be extracted from the planet. Very useful for human industry once extracted. Has large reserve, but not very lar...
We see plenty of seasonal variation on Earth, due to the large axial tilt, but the Earth follows an almost perfectly circular orbit, so we don't get much variation as a result of that. What if we ...
Suppose there was a race of aliens who had created engines for there spaceships that could operate at any speed under light, and Hulls strong enough to withstand the crushing pressure of earths cor...
It's the height of humanity's space-colonization golden age when casual interplanetary travel has become possible and humans have either colonized or established large space stations around nearly ...
Would it be easier to build Skyscrapers on a planet with 50% of Earth's gravity, and the same atmospheric pressure of the Earth. I noticed someone asked why the planet has lower gravity, this is be...
I am wondering if there is any benefit for a rotating wheel space station to be based on mobius strip layout such as more rooms for growing population maybe because both side of the strips are popu...
When in space, the amount of force required to move goes down drastically, due to the virtual lack of drag. In this environment, would be feasible for engines in space (more specifically belonging ...
In the mid-21st century, humanity has an interplanetary colony system principally spanning the Moon, Mars, and Titan (as per usual). The furthest established colony is on Proxima b. Humans have FTL...
To be clear, I'm not talking about AB, O, A, or B type blood. I'm not talking about different colored blood, either; I saw a bunch of those types of questions earlier. I'm talking about anoxygeni...
Would it be possible to recreate planet Earth and it's ecosystem on a desolate planet that has with similar basic properties? This planet has a similar temperature range to Earth, has no soil, onl...
I wonder whether it is impossible. How can I be launched into space without using a rocket? If the planet has some super volcanoes, can a volcanic eruption be used to launch a vehicle into space? H...
I was wondering, how would a civilization of humans who can see only in grayscale live their life? There is none of them that can see color. Everyone sees every thing in gray. Yet, color actually d...
I am trying to fill my world with climates as realistically as possible. In addition to climate science stuff I read on this site, I've been using these two maps of the Earth as a comparison for wh...
In the world I'm making I want to have very large creatures that will later be used in organic architecture as housing for the human equivalent in this world. In order to make this world realistic ...
What would humans look like if they lived 50-100,000 years 20,000-30,000 feet / 6 to 9 km above sea level? Or 500,000 years? Would we have bigger lungs / chests? Bigger wider noses? Thicker skin a...
Let's say I have a world that contains magical fire and ice creatures. These creatures can utilize magical beams of energy that ignite or freeze the things around them, though doing so on more than...
