General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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In a story I mentioned that an AI overlord in 2036 has one of "her" bases in Ethiopia, and now I want to develop that offhand idea into its own story. My AI is equivalent to a very smart human with...
Lake Eyre in Australia has an area of roughly 4,000 square miles, but the basin itself is over 450,000 square miles. If the entire basin were freshwater, how would that affect the Outback's climate?
At 29,029 feet above sea level, Mount Everest has been credited as the tallest mountain on Earth. The only problem is that Mauna Kea, Hawaii's highest point, is 33,500 feet tall from its peak at 4...
For the purposes of this question, lets assume that we are in Edwin Abbott Abbott's Flatland, but the world is a disk, with living shapes Above, and 'dead' shapes Below (the underside of the disk)...
As far as I understand, when you fuse deuterium (H-2) and tritium (h-3), you get a helium atom and a spare neutron. Basically alpha-rays? Now alpha rays are easily blocked by matter. You can block ...
In one of my Alternate Earths, I have made the following changes to Africa: 1) Re-angle the mainland (meaning Madagascar stays right where it is) to the point that the Mediterranean is connected ...
70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens sapiens suffered a genetic bottleneck that reduced the population of likely 100,000 to 3,000. Over seven billion people of several distinctive races are descended fr...
Currently, the distance between Australia and Antarctica is a rough estimate of 4500 miles. But if that number were cut by half, what would Australia's climate and ecology be?
It is said that the Moon plays a significant role on stabilizing the obliquity of Earth (or call it the axial tilt). Without it, the tilt of the planet is subject to great variations causing unpred...
In this world I'm building, a bunch of previously inactive genes in humans have started expressing, and changed newborns' metabolic system dramatically. As a result, a portion of population cannot...
Today's Mediterranean Sea is just a shadow of its former self, the Tethys. In an alternate scenario, I have rearranged the African mainland to an angle that turns Gibraltar from a strait into an i...
I was wondering if planets die after a certain amount of time, perhaps because of decay? If this is the case, how do they die and how long does it take? Do they implode? Explode or perhaps just f...
Consider a planet similar from Earth: very suitable for life, with vegetal and animal life forms thriving onside. I wonder if one of these life forms could raise as a civilization as humans did, i...
I've been told that if I raise the axial tilt from 23.5 degrees to 25, I'd end up getting hotter summers and colder winters. That's great, except that Earth's diverse climate makes that statement ...
Let's take an imaginary world where, without its inhabitants realizing it, everything is physically influenced by what people thinks, by what they believe, by how they see the world. Of course the ...
I have been told that if I slow down today from 24 hours to 30, I'd end up getting hotter days, colder nights and more intense weather. That's fine, except that Earth's diverse climate makes that ...
Let's say that somehow, Earth suddenly acquired a computer with ridiculous speed. This computer can run a program described in a language of your choice, which can be described by a readme file tha...
There have been countless (literally) stories written that have contained within their pages monsters that are stronger, faster, and bigger than the human heroes. I can think of more than a few wh...
Let's say on an alien planet called Thindor, the surface gravity is 3.27 m/s2 (which is 1/3rd of Earth's). But the atmospheric pressure is only 50 kPa (which is 1/2 of Earth's). Assume the same 20/...
Inevitably, we will be colonizing and impacting other planetary bodies, whether for establishing life or drilling/mining. Today, you can expect on Earth there will be environmental requirements fo...
A Civilization with semi advanced Technology should be able to start climatic changes on a earth like Planet (same land mass to water surface ratio). What would the fastest way be and How? Some...
To protect against blunt strikes, high velocity projectiles, and concussive energy weapons, what type of helmet design would best distribute force of impact and/or redirect blows away from the head?
What are the challenges involved in such a project? Could you use an asteroid re-direct style mission to do the job, or use some sort of fuel based thrust etc. Please limit answers to those concer...
I'm putting together a solar system for a story I'm working on, and in this solar system the most important planet is a particularly large Ice giant and its big moon nestled in the star's habitable...
In my near (+200 years) future world teleportation has been invented and is now in common use especially for off-world travelling, but it works by creating a perfect copy of the travelling human ne...
Hawking's radiation emits particles from a black-hole. Lets play with the idea of harnessing a mini black hole in the center of a star-ship. Let alone harnessing the gravity pull to the front and ...
So, I've been considering the Norse legend of Ragnarök, I'm considering how the legend could come true in a purely scientific setting. In other words what science-based explanation would best fit ...
I'm wondering what types of firearms would be impacted if explosives and combustion in general were to have a random chance of being more potent or less potent. Could new firearms and/or ammunition...
Carbon dominates the makeup of life on Earth. But is there any way that plants could be made out of metals, or somehow integrate metals with their constitution? For example, we use calcium in our...
Aliens steal all our trees. Nothing else happened, just all the trees are gone. Everything not part of the tree was left where it was (apples are stolen, termites are not.) What would be the short...
Can we harvest the fission energy inside of Earth and produce a energy beam powerful enough to destroy Near Earth Object such as an asteroid? Is this technology probable in the next couple of centu...
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...
I'm trying to figure out a realistic mechanism to explain a global drought that only lasts for about a decade. Assume an earth-like planet. My goal for this drought is not to have no rain and kill...
The basis of known life on Earth is water, clear and simple. But what about forms of life on other worlds? Not every world in the universe is as hospitable as the Earth. Suppose a planet had an av...
I'm trying to figure out if a certain city, with these characteristics, is possible, geographically: Assume the city's the size of Renaissance London... With Renaissance London technology Doesn't...
Disclaimer : I'm working on the entire pseudo-science thing , so the scientific part of this whole thing isn't made up properly... Certain things have not been explained , this is to keep the post ...
Easter Island is now home to an extraterrestrial/futuristic/handwavey device. It continuously and instantly removes CO$_2$ from the atmosphere above the island. To avoid harmful effects on plants, ...
I envisioned this method of maintaining breathable oxygen. So each ship would have these gardens generating oxygen like the plants on Earth do. How plausible is this and how would it likely work?
In the terrible movie LA Apocalypse the planet's core destabilized causing the fault lines to erupt, magma spilled out, earthquakes going every 5 minutes. Eventfully things were resolved by detonat...
A creature the size of a bacteria has awakened and starts eating, it eats it's own bodyweight everyday, and it never gets smaller (Unless it mates). The creature is hermaphrodite but it needs a com...
I'm not sure if enough heat would be generated, but this might be a simplest way to get Mars' Magnetic field going, by crashing a large body into it (perhaps Ceres?) - and, I realize the entire ide...
Could primitive human like species evolve into highly advanced race only using bio materials (other than wood) during their advancement (instead of other tools as early humans developed from iron, ...
Al is a rat. He is also an engineer of quite a high caliber. He has developed a suit of power armor, with a movement-assisting exoskeleton that greatly increases his strength, speed, and endurance....
I'm currently working on fantasy setting with a strong focus on sea based adventures. To try and make the setting clearly different from Earth I thought I make large landmasses virtually unheard of...
On today's Earth, a mysterious cube of no light has appeared, about the size of a house. It's confounding, because it appears to have the mass of stone, by the way it is difficult to move and the ...
Background We all know that our species evolve during and after the last ice age, (or is it sufficient to say that they evolve at the end of ice age?). A. Initial Condition Suppose I had another...
I've always heard that FTL travel would be essentially going back in time, but it's conventionally used in terms of traveling interstellar distances. So, if you orbited the solar system via FTL tr...
Often in science fiction, writers attribute the enormous energy capability of an advanced civilization to Dyson spheres. I've never heard of a detailed schematic of how the energy from the star is ...
Is living on an Alderson Disk possible? An Alderson Disk is a large CD-like megastructure, with a star in the center. If the disk is thick enough, it could have its own gravity. Also, the star in t...
I am imagining a race of spider-like creatures that remain still in the water. They glow to attract prey/would be predators. They surround themselves with a thick layer of slime that can catch crea...
