General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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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...
I am currently designing a megastructure which is supposed to provide living- and workplaces for about 100.000 people. It is supposed to be designed in a way that it provides everything the inhabit...
I wanted to ask about the system described in the following scenario... A villain has built a system consisting of a telescope connected to a computer that runs some autonomous object recognition ...
Summary: I am looking for a portal transportation mechanism that is consistent with the laws of thermodynamics. Portals (or wormholes or gateways, something that connects two different locatio...
One science fiction short story I read (I don't remember the title or author, sorry!) featured some small creatures (unnamed) that were formed from metal, with the argument that "just like life dev...
DISCLAIMER: This question was closed on Astronomy Stack Exchange as off topic, so I'll try my luck here. I'm trying to understand the climatic effects of the far future scenario of an Earth-like p...
I've been thinking about a cyberpunk universe where nanobots are a universal force capable of achieving many things, examples include: Biological and medical modifications of the human body Const...
According to this answer to what the moon is made of, the moon's crust is, among other things, 43% oxygen. Assuming we were to go back to the moon within the next couple of years with the goal of ...
Starting with about 500 humans and allowing for 900 years to pass, about how many people would there be at the end? (Just asking for a rough estimate, maybe a range.) Assuming: People are general...
Planet of hats is the name of a trope where all inhabitants of a planet share a defining characteristic, of which there are many sub-tropes like environment or economy. I'd like to focus on the cul...
Often in films and television shows when a person's brain is 'injected' with more information than it can handle, they suffer from immense pain. What would actually happen if you did supply a huma...
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...
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...
Say we're in a world where it is possible to tinker with biology as easily as it is to tinker with programming nowadays. For feasibility, refer to How soon will tinkering with biology be as simple ...
What kind of a scenario would have to occur in order for human beings to seek survival on the sea floor? It could be man made or natural, ice age or heat apocalypse, sudden disaster or gradual coll...
The question about a diet of dust brought up a few creatures that survive on dust, however they were all insect-sized or smaller. This got me thinking about the Blue Whale, which survives on a diet...
So imagine this scenario: Sapience (which I define as Human-like intelligence or better) is a relatively common occurence once a life-form is on a specific brain-arms-race path like Hominins have ...
This is going to take some imagination and assumptions (and knowledge about physics). Imagine gravitational mass and inertial mass would be different. In classical mechanics it seems a coincidence...
Is it possible that any life on earth could evolve to live off a liquid which is not water? Something like oil or some other natural liquid?
We know that planets can have multiple moons, sometimes quite a few (like Jupiter). Assuming that a planet with several moons were habitable in the first place and has significant oceans (greater ...
If humans didn't exist, what species would populate the earth? Would an animal gain human-like intelligence if humans weren't here? What animal would gain dominance?
As the title suggests, what happens to a planet geologically and geographically over time? This question came to mind from the many sessions of Civilization I have played where when you set up a c...
How would the human body be affected if oxygen levels increased by a lot? Our air is 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen. If it increased to 30% oxygen, what would the effects be and how long would it ta...
Terraforming is the process of transforming a celestial body to become habitable by Earth-like life. Even when I try to imagine an advanced civilization, the cost, time and complexity to terrafor...
If all humans (but no other species) just suddenly disappeared, leaving all of their structures standing, how long would it take for an intelligent species as dominant as the humans to evolve? Woul...
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...
How would the human body be affected if the oxygen levels on Earth suddenly decreased by 15 percent? This is instant. Not over time. How would we adapt? Would some people die and some not?
Racism has been a defining trait in how human civilizations have interacted and developed in regard to each other. It, however, is founded on differences which separate us visibly but not function...
Would a world be able to sustain a constant low pressure area such that there would be a constant wind from one side to the other? Imagine that on one side of the world is a desert with some rock...
Simply put is there an upper bound for the largest possible living creature in a scientifically rational world without incorporating anti-gravity, magic, the force, or other physical concepts we ar...
Let's imagine we have an algorithm that produce an elevation-map for a sphere. I wonder if the ratio between the planet radius and the delta between the highest and lowest altitude is a constant or...
Background story: In near future (max 10 years from now) mega-rich person suffers yet unknown disease. He obviously employs every doctor possible and spends loads from his fortune on researching, w...
In relation to this question, how could I create a force field dome over that city? Specifications of the city: 10 x 40 km on the surface 1 km in height has a city wall of 100 m all around the ...
Imagine a world that reaches the end of its resources in silicon, petrol, coal, metals... everything that allows for conventional technology "” even before it has found a way over it (renewable ene...
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...
What environmental effects (if any) would ever cause blue to be a colour that a plant would choose as an evolutionary advantage? Bonus: I'm looking for light blue plants as a preference. EDIT: T...
Meaning, cause a seemingly normal winter to suddenly take a turn within hours or a day/two into a completely frozen territory? From what I've read, abrupt climate change happens from ocean currents...
Imagine a species (the cause is largely irrelevant - could be alien meddling for all I know) that is Homo sapiens in all except one detail: they have additional organ which is kind of like gills - ...
I am a survivor of the United Nations Space Corp's 2nd Exploration Fleet. On our travel to the distant Epsilon Canares system, our scouts encountered a strange lifeform. We call them 'shapeshifter...
I would like to know what would happen if a new virus arose which could not be cured and which managed to escape the infected areas (and any quarantine zones). In order to scope this question I'm n...
Suppose there is a planet where intelligent life (with intelligence approximately same as that of a being of the human species, say) exists. However, due to certain conditions (such as, for example...
Mars' gravity is 38% of that of Earth's. Supposing a human born and raised on a Mars colony traveled to earth later in their life, would they be able to survive the increased gravity? For example...
My world is science-based with an earth-like biology. The dragons fly when they're young and then grow too heavy and can only glide if at all. They breathe fire by expelling gas and igniting it. Th...
I had in mind a sci-fi setting where humans have begun terraforming nearby planets without the benefit of faster-than-light travel. For example, Wikipedia lists a handful of terrestrial planets wit...
I want to be able to apply tools or methodologies to help ensure consistency in my world. For example: Burning world Imagine a planet with a land mass around the equator on which a great fire rag...
For the sake of this question, let's say that there would be a space mission that would send one man on a 40 year journey that will require him to be in a completely self sufficient habitat for the...
On earth most of our sealife is fishlike (excluding a few other species such as squid/octopus). As far as I'm aware there are no legged creatures which live solely in the sea. In my world I'd like...
You see this in quite a bunch of movies / books (think avatar). What could be a reasoned physical explanation of such phenomenon? Would this explanation impact other things on a planet? Like most...
Scenarios for a technological singularity usually seem to wait for machine intelligence to exceed human intelligence. Say the consumer needs of humans are food, clothing, shelter, transportation, ...
I realize that creating worlds with multiple moons and/or suns is risky, but I'm toying with an idea to see where it goes. So, a planet has 3 moons. One is large like ours, the second is about half...
