General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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Magneto is way over-powered, even for a mutant. With the given relation between electricity and magnetism, what could be possible? here is already study work on biomagnetism, we know the nervous s...
Back home, the phylum Cnidaria (jellyfish, coral, anemone) and the class Amphibia are two of the most ancient groups of animals on the planet. But let's say that, on an alternate Earth, many milli...
You were born in Rome, when the Roman Republic was still in power. Your father is an upper middle class merchant and you are (or will be) the sole inheritor of his wealth. One day, a m...
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).
For this question lets take a trip to Slyo Dacas: Slyo Dacas (sil-yo-dak-iss) is a world roughly the same size of Earth with a decent magnetic field and no moons. The world is a bit drier than...
In my world I have a couple species of sentient animals, mainly cats, who among other things are capable of communication with human beings. While I am perfectly happy to resort to explanations i...
Background I have a character. He is the master of a particularly specific martial art that is pretty much only movement. But it's pretty powerful, in that he can separately: a) move in a manner t...
During the early medieval age, the population of trolls is declining. These are savage creatures who aren't as cunning as humans, and not only are we part of their diet, humans are in fact their on...
Continuing my line of thought from here: Could you cool the earth's mantle and then bore into it? You cannot bore into the mantle by cooling it as you go because the pressure would crush your littl...
You're in a group of colonists, headed to your new home on Tau Ceti e. Due to some crazy accidents aboard the ship, the diverse flora that was brought aboard (for food during the journey and for ag...
Assuming a fairly earth-like planet, perhaps, higher in minerals and resources. And a race of highly industrious, highly cooperative, very enginuitive people. Their science is comparable to our own...
Set in the year 2015 A.D. Every morning when you wake up from bed and look outside the window, you notice that the sky seems getting darker every day. We were told by the authority that there's no...
NASA's Project Orion created the concept of a spacecraft that detonated nuclear bombs behind it, and rid the shockwaves as a form of propulsion, but the project was abandoned because nuclear bombs ...
In relation to this question, what would plants do if they were taken from their environment to another gravity level, in particular zero g. For example would the daisy manage to grow higher bec...
How do you go about boosting an already-habitable planet's habitability? I want to maximize biomass, hopefully cover the whole planet surface in luxuriant jungles and forests, brimming with insects...
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...
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...
What significant technologies would be lost in a world without "Advanced" Mathematics? Specifically, what technologies required to get to the next level of scientific progress in an area would be l...
Follow-up-question to this scenario: ~ 2750 A.D : Quite a few asteroids/celestial bodies have been move to a stable earth orbit and are beeing mined for ressources. I am currently designing the eco...
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...
