General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
Filters (None)
Say a technological advanced civilization wants to create an Earth-like planet using materials from the Oort cloud. Could they really be able to create a habitable world resembling Earth using ju...
Early on in the cartoon The Legend of Korra, we're shown one of the main characters working at his job. He works in a power plant, where he and his coworkers spend all day using Bending (essentiall...
Everything on Earth and in the Solar system is as we know it. However it is discovered that we live in a small but unbounded universe. That is to say if we travel far enough in a straight line we w...
Researching efficient methods of no-FTL methods often turns up engine solutions that are efficient in the sense that they have a higher specific impulse, but most such solutions seem to have a comp...
Since there are living beings (like moth larvae) which feed on textile fibers (wool, cotton, silk, et cetera), I was planning to introduce a human-sized creature with such feature, plus the ability...
A ship is sent through a wormhole to an unknown planet to create a sustainable colony. The colonists know that they won't have further contact with their home planet - this is a last ditch effort t...
Assuming fission thrusters as described here: Would a nuclear fission thruster with continuous fuel injection be possible?, and assuming drilling for the planet's molten mettle core as discussed he...
In today's Dr McNinja, the Vice President of the US (who is also a wizard) detonated all of Russia's nuclear weapons on the edge of space at once: Copyright belongs to Christopher Hastings, 2015....
I'm always interested in the possibilities of human creating an orbiting space habitat like Stanford Torus or O'neill Cylinder. Those habitats were designed to support certain numbers of colonists....
Centuries ago, humanity have been incorporated into an alien hive mind, spread by a bacterial-like infection. The "bacteria" infects the blood and brain and allows the infected to join their minds ...
So, it's happened. We have a robot overlord who follows the 3 Laws of Robotics + the Zeroth Law of Robotics. How we got such a thing or the process by which it makes its decisions is outside this...
If a pair of twins developed when their mother's egg split in half and they were fertilized by different sperm, could one of them develop situs inversus? The child with the condition would be male,...
Imagine a world with a dead core, like Mars, but covered in water. This world has managed to hold on to its atmosphere and quite a bit of its water as well. I'm sure the prodigious life there would...
In short : how far can you technologically go, (mainly concerning building and weapon) having only an unlimited amount of apple? details : About apples : 1) You have an infinite supply of app...
This question has two parts: Could biological processes create an organism than can see in wavelengths outside the human-visible spectrum? ("Outside" meaning some significant amount outside. Ther...
It is not hard sci fi, but I need something plausible. A spaceship falls on a planet and destroys itself. The area surrounding the wreck becomes highly radioactive. It can be because of the leak...
Let's assume that a halfling is of similar build, but half the height of an adult human. If I strap a wing suit onto one, I should have a quarter the surface area, but one eight the weight of an ad...
In a world in which dragons (as animals, minus magical associations) existed, what natural defense mechanisms might other animals or plants evolve in response? How would a creature as devastating ...
I'm curious to the affect a planet would have if it orbited around, or was orbited by another planet of equal, slightly larger mass. Say if Earth had, not the moon, but a planetary object the same ...
If there's one thing that solid celestial bodies have, it's dust. Dust plus water is mud. Mud plus heat is brick (and recoverable water vapor). The heat can come from a reflective solar array. Easy...
I'm working on creating a race of humanoids with "hollow" bones like birds (they have criss-crossing struts for internal support). They are short - an individual is unlikely to top five feet. Woul...
What environmental pressures could drive evolution of a creature that has the ability to float? How it floats isn't important.
I read in this question that the minimum viable population without causing large problems in genetic diversity is about 50. If we have a larger population (say a hundred) and genetic diversity beco...
Earth has three convection cells per hemisphere. These are the Polar cell, Ferrel cell and Hadley cell. These create the trade winds, westerlies and polar easterlies which control many aspects of c...
I'm trying to make a world that human sex ratio is 2:8 (male:female). Most of the females are homosexual, and male is not necessary for reproduction. I thought it was easy at first, just say that t...
I recently learned of a fascinating art project being developed by Sam van Aken involving the grafting of flower buds onto a stock tree. You can find out more about the project itself by visiting t...
I am sure most of you have seen Star Wars. In Episode IV: The Empire Strikes Back our heroes travel to Bespin, a gas planet with a habitable zone to refuel at the floating cloud city. Well of cou...
Running a Steampunk campaign with some friends. The idea is that a massive a destructive plague wiped out the population of an island that was really technologically advanced. The plague needs to s...
If a world containing various biomes (frozen tundra, plains, volcanic etc), was destroyed by an asteroid or series of natural disasters, would the huge chunks of the world be able continue supporti...
Okay so we have the case: My world is Earth-like(Spherical) Slight fantasy, but also some science It has a normal day-night cycle and seasons I need for a particular area to make the sky somewh...
Lets assume we as humankind can, not only wormhole the spacecraft, but planets and moons. So, what would've happened to Mars if we pulled icy Europa closer to the sun, we might use our flaming star...
Back home, one ice age during the two and a half million years of the Pleistocene lasted a total of 100,000 years, ninety thousand of intense cold followed by ten thousand of milder interglacial we...
I just stumbled across this website the other day, and this is my first time posting, so apologies if the question is too vague or improperly worded. I am trying to build an all ocean world. I'm ...
Let's assume a planet like ours, same size and same conditions. My characters live at approximately 60° North, in a boreal forest, with a climate much like the Nordic countries in Europe. They are...
I am trying to estimate how much calories is available in form of plants to mammal herbivores per square meter per year in optimal conditions. By optimal conditions I mean that the climate is tempe...
For 10,000 years since Beringia, the bridge connecting Asia to North America, had vanished, the Asian and Native American races show great distinction. But if Beringia has persisted to this day, c...
As the question title suggests, I'm looking to find out how long a human could live for if they didn't age in their sleep. Assume that this ability kicks in at about the age of 16 and they have com...
In a world where duodecimals (base 12) have never been invented or thought of, how will decimals replace them? We now know that we owe everything related to duodecimals to the ancient Egyptians an...
What could make polar areas of an earth-like planet habitable (non desert) and what side effect would it cause (i.e. how such planet would differ to contemporary earth)?
In a system where 2 planets of similar mass are orbiting around a common barycenter, would the following configuration considered stable on the long run? They orbit at 1,6 AU from their star The ...
Picture this...the sun sets over an orangish red desert, in the distance you see a town rising from three hills, a river snaking between them. The buildings rise from the hills and spread between ...
We are living on a planet where governments are constantly trying to reduce the amount of pollution and emissions in a bid to slow down (or reverse) global warming. But imagine a world where the Ea...
Imagine the speed of light is 100 times that in our universe. Light from the moon takes about 1/100th of a second, the sunlight reaches our eyes in about 4 seconds, from nearby Alpha Centauri in ab...
A race of aliens exists on a distant planet whose biological functioning depends on absorbing a specific type of energy. They have what is essentially an antenna through which they passively absorb...
This is an extension of my first question, and precisely as Jim2B suggests, I want enough time to pass on my network of space stations for their inhabitants to forget why they're there, how they go...
In this scenario, corals, sponges and bryozoans have been extinct for 65 million years. In their place as reefbuilders are echinoderms, bivalves, barnacles and worms of the infraclass canalipalpat...
We're a lovely, ethical, near-future population of Earthlings, and prepared to begin terraforming Mars (yes, I went there: set it aside). We have just stumbled on remnants of an alien civilizati...
I would like to have a world on which humans can live unaided -- they can breathe, the climate is workable, they can eat the local vegetation, etc -- but on which a complete day is substantially sh...
I've been interested in binary systems lately, and I was recently wondering what Earth would be like if it was in a binary orbit with another Earth-like planet. Both planets exhibit the following ...
