General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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Let's say there is a planet orbiting a star. The planet is much like our own, with a similar atmosphere. However, the star this planet orbits differ from out star. It differs in such a way that it ...
Unless I am mistaken, a Jaculus, also called a javelin snake, is a creature found in Roman myth, described as a snake that hurls itself from trees and impales its prey. Its head is usually describe...
The cylinder is 32 km long in total, 8 km in diameter, with 3km long endcaps, resulting in a habital area with a length of 26 km (= and an area of cirka 754 km2). The main body of the cylinder is...
A bigfoot is hiding in the Canadian Pine forests. Why haven't the thermal imaging satellites picked up the huge animal all this time? Is there some way an animal can hide from thermal imaging came...
Why I've Chosen Not to Handwave: The fictional galaxy in which this humanoid species (I'll refer to them as Empaths from here on out) lives is protected by a space-faring military/law-enforcing leg...
Not exactly indestructible, at least after flying to certain height it may pop out. I mean something like the bubble is as hard as stone or steel but still elastic and light to float like bubble, ...
Ignoring the plausibility of their evolution and sources of food, could a whale-like creature which internally consists largely of hydrogen bladders/gasbags realistically stay aloft? If these cr...
When you have foresight, it's guaranteed that confusion will be your epitaph (thumbs up to the one person who gets the joke). Basically, it only grants you advantage on actions, so you still can't ...
The metric system (SI units) is a base-10 measurement system based on the meter, kilogram and second. But it is tied to earth. A second, which historically was defined as 1/86,400 of a day, now d...
So I've been browsing Worldbuilding for a while now and the answer to so many questions seems to be "No, gravity doesn't allow it". Gravity (and the square-cube law, but as I understand the proble...
as the title say my question is: What planet composition is need to have giant human that make earth human similar in comparison to ant size to them? i know realistically and probably its imposibl...
I need to wipe out a city. Not a huge one (I won't let them grow beyond a certain limit), but big enough to need to do some pretty serious damage. Let's say something similar in size to Pompeii. (y...
In our timeline Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered penicillin by accidentally leaving petri dishs out over a long period of time. If a person from an earlier time, e.g. ancient Rome, woke u...
I am thinking of writing a story about a Martian civilization. It might involve humans, but, I think it will be more interesting if there are creatures adapted to the Martian lifestyle as well. So,...
For an artificial gravity ring station, could you make a central hub, using similar magnet technology used to levitate magnet trains here on earth, to reduce the amount of mass rotating? My thought...
I'm trying to develop a realistic system with a limited understanding of astrodynamics. Is it possible to have two binary worlds capable of sustaining atmosphere and complex life orbiting one anot...
Set in a parallel universe, in a galaxy far far away, an Earth-like planet orbiting a yellow dwarf star with the mass of 1 solar mass. And yes, indeed that planet comes with a natural satellite tha...
If a dichromatic mammal had better night vision than a human, including tapetum lucidum, could they see large (red) and medium (green) light wavelengths but not small (blue)? Would something simila...
Some say that one of the reason humans developed agriculture is because megafauna (specifically the Pleistocene megafauna) were hunted for food to extinction and humans were forced to develop agric...
I was reading this question, and it made me wonder if something like this is possible or not. So, the question is, Is it possible to have an alien species in whom, the newborns are bigger than adu...
Allow me to present Lyr, one of a handful of worlds crafted by artist Chris Wayan: The one detail among a vast many that is important to this question is that its salinity is about 1.5%, roughly...
So, I was thinking about flavouring psychic damage and thought "If I'm anime > western civilization, then wouldn't it make sense for me to reflect it a bit more?" In an anime, I watched, there ...
What metal or material could be used to make super high-pressure canisters in the 1700s? It is for use as a fuel or propellant for a piston-driven engine to power vehicles, due to the fact that a g...
Would a horse (trained or otherwise) not be wholly spooked by a Dragon merely flying overhead, even more so trying to enter combat with it or just trying to approach it under any circumstances? Wh...
So I'm not really sure whether I get it right or not, but apparently most mammals are dichromatic. Humans have three cones that detect light wavelengths, small for blue, medium for green, and large...
I was imagining a sort of post-apocalyptic/collapse setting, where a few centuries of climate catastrophes brought on by climate change cause essentially your general end of the world as we know it...
In laying out the groundwork for a series of stories I'd like to write, I'm positing a somewhat modernly-realistic take on the "well-aged human empire in the stars" type of setting the classic auth...
I have some research that it needs a good space suit to protect you from heat and cold but I need more so, what does planet mercury need to sustain life for humans? what could we as humans do to ha...
Setup: Earth developed in an alternate universe with small oceans and little water. A little before animals first left the oceans and began to walk on land, when all of Earth's land was barren sand...
In recent years, we have found evidence in the Negev Desert of the Middle East of a striped hyena, a solitary carnivoran, tagging along with a pack of wolves. This sort of alliance is found nowher...
I have a very simple question regarding a small problem I cannot find a single satisfying answer to. I am trying to create a country with a prominent Slavic culture. In my story, an alien world has...
The length of a day on different planets in the solar system varies a lot. For instance, Mars' day is about the same length as Earth, while a day on Venus is equivalent to 243 Earth days (source). ...
I have a K-type star (0.5 stellar masses) as the central body, and the planets are as follows (those I want to be in the habitable zone in bold): I: An uninhabitable rocky inner planet 50% the mas...
There are exactly 2 force laws that can produce stable closed orbits: proportional (spring force) and inverse-square. The inverse square law occurs naturally for monopole central forces in 3 dimens...
Let's imagine a planet that is 5000 km in diameter but has the mass of the Earth. I'd imagine standing on that planet might feel similar to standing on the Earth, because the gravity would be compa...
As asked in the title, what would be the upper limits to a rocky planet's size in orbit of an O type star, like 10 Lacerta's habitable zone? Density of the planet must be enough to stand on without...
I wish to build a sort of Dyson swarm around the sun. Not to transmit energy, but to put supercomputers in each satellite so they can calculate spatial trajectories. The main idea of the project i...
I'm working on a version of wormhole-based FTL travel, and one of the side effects of passing through the wormhole is going to be instantaneous heating of every molecule of the thing passing throug...
"However, King Crimson has already seen through it. Your movements in the future. The trajectory of your movements in the future." "No matter who you may be, everyone goes through their ups...
In a superhero setting, a thunder clap is where someone claps with superhuman strength, causing damage such as broken windows and burst eardrums. What I want to know is, taken to the extreme of the...
In a near-future world we have stopped directly fueling private, public, and mass transit and we have migrated to a hydrogen economy as the standard energy carrier. Consider the following factors:...
I am working on a habitable planet that orbits around a red dwarf star and it is about 1.5 times bigger and more massive than the Earth. Gravity there is stronger and the atmosphere is thicker. No...
As the title says, what modification is needed, so a creature cannot fart while still being able to excrete their waste? So creatures that can't excrete or doesn't have an anus like the Demodex i...
The "Weird" spell in my world is basically a magical version of the US government's goals with the "MK Ultra" project from the 1950s: it induces a shared hallucination in every creature within a 9....
Gunpowder, also known as black powder, is some nasty stuff. It's extremely corrosive, it produces large amounts of obstructive grit and fouling, and using it creates a cloud of obscuring smoke. So...
I ask this question because in my fictional world, I want to create extremely cold, populated areas, especially in Northernmost areas, but I noticed that in our real world, regions with less than -...
Carbon dioxide turns supercritical above a pressure of 73 atm and 304.25 K (31.10 °C). The surface of Venus fullfils these conditions. The density of the air at the surface is 67 kg/m3, whi...
In large doses, the body's ability to change cyanide into thiocyanate is overwhelmed. Large doses of cyanide prevent cells from using oxygen and eventually these cells die. The heart, respiratory s...
I've been recently looking into alternative biochemistries for life and the environments were these could be found. I already asked a question about how ammonia oceans might form a while back. Toda...
Background: It is sometime in the late 21st century. Several unmanned probes have recently been sent to land on and investigate Jupiter and Saturn's moons. Two sites in particular, Europa and Titan...
