General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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Set in the year 3020 CE, every crew on board has a personal issued portal gun to easily get around the interior of the spaceship. The handheld portal gun can instantly teleport the user along with ...
So, Second Earth had/has a firearm problem. Since my magic is really just advanced science, I can't create firearm-disabling fields, so instead, I created a spell that should be able to ruin firear...
How long would the St. Louis arch stand if humanity vanished from the earth, tomorrow? What would be the failure mechanism? Note: I'm following the directions to ask a specific question, but if ...
Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin, and copper is a significantly more abundant metal in the Earth's Crust, at about 70 PPM compared to tin at 2 PPM. Because tin was the limiting factor in bro...
I found a previous question on using chitin from giant insects to make weapons and armor, but the answer left out something I had considered for the medieval fantasy setting I'm developing. The ans...
I have a really good question. Could it be possible for complex life to have existed in the Precambrian? I'm aware that only the fossilized remains of bacteria have been discovered from that time p...
Leviathans are closely related to hydrophis spiralis. Some characteristics of these leviathans include: continuing to grow until they die and are able to grow almost as large as a blue whale are ...
I am building a setting that is essentially steampunk,being exact it would be pneumatic punk. What electronics and electronic equivalent exists, are primitive and extremely expensive. Thus the majo...
I was wondering, for a speculative evolution project, what could be the bare minimum amount of organisms the common housefly needs to survive? Could they just feed on grass? Or should I add a flowe...
Imagine a cuboid planet with a thick atmosphere orbiting a star similar to our Sun. The inhabitants are as intelligent as humans and recently discovered the universal laws of gravitation and motion...
So, when it comes to humanoid races, this has been a problem for me for quite some time. Sure, mammals (werewolves, gnolls, minotaurs, centaurs) are a no-brainer. I even decided to give tengu somet...
As a thought project, I wanted to make an alien species that eats without any use of the tongue, but I've run into the problem that it's almost impossible to swallow solids without choking without ...
It's my understanding that if an Alcubierre drive were to be constructed, it would be able to function as a time machine because there would be certain paths through you could take to get to a dest...
While reading this question about how non-primate mammals could develop a bipedal stance, I became curious about the broader reasons why animals could evolve to walk on two legs. I found some insi...
I have an idea for a land based mobile organism that moves and uses photosynthesis for its primary means of energy generation. Can a motile organism conceivably get enough energy from photosyntheti...
One trope seen in movies is mind control. This trope involves a person or thing taking over another person's body, whilst visual or auditory cues and friends try to help the original person regain ...
Hideaki Sena's cult classic novel, Parasite Evil and it's video game sequels revolve around the premise of mitochondria gaining sentience and usurping mankind after aeons upon aeons of multicellula...
King Solomon, founder of the Solomonian Dynasty, was the first emperor of China. After he conquered the mainland, he gave his alchemists the single command of creating an elixir that would allow hi...
So in the world I'm building, I'm considering to give one of my characters the ability to quantum entangle specific particles on demand. Now although for many years we thought quantum entanglement ...
Roughly how long could an 'Oumuamua type object get if created naturally or if created artificially using fused rock? What would be the limiting factor governing the length of such objects? Oumaum...
Vocal mimicry for this question refers to the ability to imitate the sounds of other animals, exemplified in this video of a lyrebird mimicking several species of birds, a chainsaw and even a camer...
In my world I want a massive region (7 million mi²) to be as flat as the Great Plains. There are no trees or hills; basically it's just a grass sea. I am trying to figure out what kind of weath...
What are two non lethal substances that will combine to create a strong poison when ingested close together? Hopefully my character would be able to drink one of the substances mixed in to a wine ...
I got an interesting answer to one of my questions and I would like to know some additional info. A myoneme (or spasmoneme) is a contractile structure found in some eukaryotic single-celled o...
Imagine a supercolony of bees (I'm using bees as a metaphor; they're not really bees) which are the constituents of a massive globe-spanning hive mind. The government wishes to exploit this superco...
I want to create a harmless snake that can spit like a spitting cobra as a defense while kills its prey by constriction. Its venom is considered harmless, but when goes to the eyes it causes tempo...
After centuries of careful search and travel, some intrepid extraterrestrial explorers have finally found another inhabited world! Elated with their discovery and exhausted after their long journey...
In my story several flying mythical creatures have been brought in a more realistic world. some creatures like Gargoyles can only fly for short distances while others like the heavenpiercer (a type...
I recently finished watching one of the Star Wars films, the one that features the sarlaac pit. When I saw it, I began to immediately think how such a thing would evolve. The sarlaac pit is essen...
JordanTheCynic here again with another question relating to my Eosi Humans. Most of my questions are NSFW by the way so just a fair warning. I made a post in the past which discussed how Eosi h...
Shamelessly inspired by this question, where a race was capable of counting only 0, 1 and "˜many', I have designed a yet more extreme race!! The Continuuoids are a pretty complex race. They can so...
Earth rocks are largely silicates, combinations of silicon, oxygen, and various other trace elements. What would a planets geography look like if the crust was primarily composed of ceramics like...
On plain Pilar forest biome of planet X, you have mostly 3 types of vertebrates: those who burrow under the ground those who run through the widely separated trees those who live above ground le...
The human brain is a jackass. Your senses are capable of processing large amounts of information to the senses. However, the brain blocks most of this out of the consciousness in order to allow thi...
Now, I know that planets can't be disc-shaped. However, if a relatively small planet had a very strong magnetical pull, could it have a ring system that could make the planet from afar seem disc-sh...
So I'm pretty new to chemistry and all this, but my world involves superpowers, which of course involves immense energy to have the characters use these powers. However, I want to stay consistent w...
first question here (but not last I think). I'm currently thinking about ideas I have to form the base of a book I'll then write, and I need some insights/knowledge about exploration. I'm looking ...
A long time ago homo floresiensis split off into two main groups Goblins and Halflings. Now Goblins are an odd little bunch (here's a rough mock up of what a goblin might look like) and I was wonde...
I wanted to create an extremely large space city which will be made up of many different large space habitats of ringed and cylindrical varieties. Although each habitat will contain its own city o...
In my story characters can go into perfectly simulated virtual worlds where their memories have been replicated down to the individual neurons and their protien structures. In these worlds time pas...
It's the 22nd century and we have discovered a derelict alien craft somewhere in the Oort cloud. The craft contains a star chart showing its origin on an alien planet some 30 light years away. Let'...
A group of English-speaking settlers travel to the Earth-like exoplanet of Rataan, which is 5 light years away. They board the generation ship Genesis that will reach Rataan in 200 years (0.25% of ...
The question is in the title, but I have bolded the main details to reality-check. I hope that makes it easier to read. Details: I had the idea of a fantasy/sci-fi animal that never stops growing,...
Many countries, authorities and companies have the concept of a maximum weight limit for manual handling, both to protect their workers and to protect themselves from lawsuits. Interstellar Shippi...
What would cause/allow a planet with very high gravity to have tall, sharp mountains? Mountain height is generally capped off by gravity, erosion, and the mountains composition. On a higher gravit...
My augmented society of humans have managed to engineer their power-hungry cyborg components to run on a hydrogen fusion reactor. Whilst they have so far managed to fuel it by drinking lots of wate...
A type of dragon in my world, simply named the Thick-horn, has a well-known mechanism to use to defend itself despite its clumsiness. They are freakishly large, tend to be slow, and find it hard to...
Giant dogs aren't uncommon in works of fantasy. Sif from Dark Souls comes to mind. What I want to know is: what's the largest a canine could realistically get, what differences would they need c...
What needs to be improved or added to the structure (device) of human lungs to be able to filter toxic chemical compounds in the air (for example, in mines the air may contain nitrogen, methane, ca...
Now octopuses are quite smart already capable of camouflage and puzzle solving. given this I was wondering whether Octopuses could Convergently evolve sapience (human level intelligence) and wha...
