General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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Say you were to drop a (bunch of) human(s) at some past era of our Earth. I'm assuming they might encounter a few problems such as the composition of the air not being breathable, the water being t...
There have been a few questions about an intelligent avian species lately and they have gotten me thinking. It seems to me that it would be hard for an avian species to evolve to be more intellige...
There's a Kardashev scale in which Earth civilisation is at 0 (the lowest) level with all following levels being purely hypothetical and describing civilisations more advanced than human. Is there...
Consider a dual-star system, with the distances between S (larger star) and J (smaller star) similar to Sun"“Jupiter. A planet P rotates around J on a 90-degree ecliptic and is Earth-like otherwise...
I'm starting a story taking place around 2080 AD/CE, and I'm wondering if the key element - global pollution - is plausible. In my storyline, the XXIst century brings no huge technological advance...
Would it be possible to raise a piece of land (say the size of Texas or France) from the bottom of an ocean (say, the middle of the South Pacific)? More specifically, would it be possible (given th...
If there are several races with very distinct appearances (e.g. Nordic-pale vs. Arabic-tan skin, red vs. black hair, etc.), how much space / natural barriers do I need between their homelands to ju...
Suppose a very large planet orbited a star or other spacial body in an oval shaped path, similar to Earth's but closer to induce a varying gravity during orbit. The planet has a large gravity wel...
That is to say, could a planet be big enough to have other planets orbiting around, while not orbiting around any star? Cha 110913 seems to be close to what I'm looking for, but its classification ...
I have a "simple" question that is the basis for an idea I'm developing: Is it possible to terraform the moon and, if so, what type of technology would be needed? I understand that this isn't th...
Ragnarök is the Norse rendition of the apocalypse. A major event during this apocalypse is Fernir devouring the sun. If we assume that the sun and all of its influence disappear entirely for 3 day...
I am referring to the situation described at the start of the movie 28 Weeks Later, where Britain had been wiped out by a zombie virus, but the rest of the world was (seemingly) fine. What would b...
Let's say I have a binary star system. The planet is orbiting the smallest star similar to the Sun at 1 AU, the same Earth-Sun distance. The other star is located at around 50-100 AU from the Sun...
In the limit, how small can a brain get and still host an identifiably human-like consciousness? Obviously, they can be smaller than an adult human's, since children (with smaller brain volumes) a...
Given ideal circumstances and a type 4 or 5 Kardashev scale level of technology to set the system in motion (but not to maintain the motion over time): How many planets 1/4 of the Earth's mass co...
(Disclaimer: I tried this question earlier in the scifi site as well as real science sites, and was told should be on topic here) I'm writing a speculative story about aliens coming to earth - and...
I am recalling the Space:1999 nuclear waste containment explosion; this has been criticized because such an explosion would have actually destroyed the moon. I am curious for events that could happ...
Could two planets be tidally locked to each other at such a small distance from one another that they share their atmosphere, and material is floating around between the two?
Could a civilization exist on a planet/dwarf planet like Pluto? It is so cold and barren. Is it possible? What would they live off? They don't have to be humanoid.
I'm building an alien world for a game mod, and want to avoid any blatant mistakes from a world-building perspective. The world has three moons visible in the night sky - two on one side near each ...
I'm working on modeling how a civilization can progress from some known state making conscious choices about the fields in which to apply its resources. Is there some good / theoretically sound / w...
The basic question is: When is a location good enough to build a space centre on it? Some info to the function of the space-centre: The space centre has a lot of traffic, also humans. I imagine...
I'm inventing a constructed world for a personal exercise in writing, and I was wondering if a theoretical cube shaped planet could have a moon. Is that physically possible? I am going on the assum...
There are plenty of threats out there that could terminate all life on our little planet in varying amounts of time (Solar flares, meteors and supernovas to name a few). Are there any disasters th...
Those of you who have read Game Of Thrones will know that in the GOT world seasons do not have a fixed duration, e.g., a winter might last three times longer than the previous one. I find most int...
After asking my question about seeing black holes in your path between the stars, I also wondered abut other more mundane objects. Black holes affect large areas of space so even if you didn't get...
If two circular portals of 2 meter (arbitrary) diameter were created allowing uninhibited flow between surface atmospheres of Venus and Mars, what would be the environmental effects on the two plan...
Take any well-known aggressive/dominant/predatory animal - wolves, big cats, bears, dragons, etc. Now say this animal were to have two heads, each equal in all capacities. What would realistically ...
If a planet existed in an orbit where the asteroid belt is, would the orbits of all the planets be stable, and what would the climates be like on these planets? Assuming there could be a planet in...
After reading the question on inbreeding (Could fictional species benefit from limited inbreeding?), I started to wonder if there could be any reasons why an species (intelligent or otherwise) woul...
If two (or more) planets are within travel distance from each other and they often trade with each other, how likely is it that these planets cultures influence(d) each other? For example: On plan...
What would be the effects of high or low gravity on human body development? How would the human body develop under a different gravity? Many science fiction stories explore the idea that people fro...
What would happen if a powerful explosive went off in the core of a planet? On Earth, you have several layers of the planet, the crust, the magma, the outer core, and the inner core. Right now, hu...
I have found that, every time I try to make another humanoid species, they end up as basically just humans with extra abilities. For example, I tried making a race of dark-elves once, and they ende...
I can easily set a story in a dystopian environment not subject to ethics, but I would rather try to create a backdrop that is as ethical as possible given the requirements. I feel that writing abo...
It seems like nothing can move faster than light and this is quite bothersome for interstellar travel. It takes decades in the best case to get anywhere interesting in our little Milkyway (Many tho...
This question comes up from Is there a man-made or natural event that can cause an abrupt climate change within hours/a day? "“ trying to get KaguraRap a functional answer to an abrupt temperature ...
What would cause an area to get continuous rainfall (a la Blade Runner), and what implications would that have for other parts of the world? Ideally I'd like to hear about both natural conditions ...
Initial situation: I have cold planet with an average temperature below the freezing point. There is a magnetic field. The planet is almost as big as Earth and can have an atmosphere. The planet...
In a world without enough land for a massive (and growing) population, but plenty of water surface, experimental cities have started to spring up along the edges of various continents. The first is...
I was reading this question and realized that I didn't actually know enough to give the answer that I wanted. Obviously in the near term, all our raw materials come from the Earth. The only oth...
I am looking at different ways to destroy a planet. I am assuming the planet is of a similar size and composition to the Earth just to keep things simple. I am starting at boiling the atmosphere t...
Given a planet about the size of Earth, and a moon the Size of the Moon, how could one destroy the moon without flinging the fragments onto the surface of the planet or into outer space? How can o...
If a human is kidnapped by an alien vessel and taken to another planet - and, for the sake of argument, let's assume that the alien life-form lives in a completely different environment from Earth'...
Would it be possible for the atmosphere of a planet to reach beyond its planetary ring so that earth-like biology could develop on some of the asteroids there? This question is mainly about whethe...
This question focuses on the initial creation of landmasses. What are the processes that causes land-masses to form, and continents and islands to rise up from the sea and sink back into it? How...
In a hypothetical world where multiple humanoid races develop independently of each other (such as a world that contains Elves, Dwarves, and Humans for instance) what are the conditions for half-br...
All life we know of to date (presumably) formed on a rocky planet (more precisely: earth). Fiction has been written about life in more exotic locations. Though as far as I know, these lifeforms wer...
I remember a cartoon about some spy guy. In that cartoon they did mass media by projecting from the surface of the earth to the moon in the night sky. Would that technique be possible? Could an e...
In the book 2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke, Jupiter is turned into a star. Presumably this is done by making it more dense, so if Jupiter were to reach that density and become a star, what w...
