General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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This is a small civilization (more than just a town or two) almost under the shadow of the regional hegemon. The dominant civilization knows they are there, but don't go too deep into that swamp be...
For practical purposes I think about something in line of Cessna 172. As it was the most produced aircraft, then it must have hit some sweet spot or be near it. atmosphere with barely noticeably ...
I have an idea for a futuristic way to travel for my Story. People get into a capsule, and it launches itself extremely fast in the air. What would be needed to make this happen for real and what c...
In a brand baby spanking new world I am building, appropriately named Escargard, punningly named by the AndyD273, mollusks have become the dominant form of life. Resulting in aliens similar to thos...
My previous question ruled out having a moon orbiting a gas giant. I've got an interesting ecosystem (my bad, biome was the wrong word) that evolved based upon the idea that the world is eclipsed ...
I've been reading some of the excellent answers on this question about galactic empires and it led me to imagine a reasonably realistic multi-system 'empire' might keep most or all of its populatio...
So I have been thinking about making a building on the moon that would create a 1g environment for the people inside without making the structure too inconvenient to attempt to get into. This is my...
I am still puzzled by the original The Planet of the Apes movie from the 70's. How come that sentient species invented weapons, but was unable to develop powered flight, or spacecraft. Thus, the qu...
Is it possible to keep the egg of my humanoid character without hatching for centuries, but still able to hatch when proper care and the appropriate environment is provided? My planet is a extremel...
I was doing some research on how to design a scientifically possible alien, when I came across an interesting section on metabolism. I found it very interesting and read about the weak force, as op...
If a planet always faces the same side to the sun, so that it has a permanent night side and a permanent day side, it will have a twilight zone in between the two sides. This will be a band around ...
What would it take to build helicopter blades that can fold in several parts? This is the continuation of a question on Aviation. Unfortunately, there have been no use case for this for existing h...
I am an aspiring science-fiction novelist. I am experimenting with a world I'm trying to create and I wanted a couple of expert opinions on Atmospheric composition; 53% Nitrogen 27% Oxygen 3% Xen...
One of the beliefs about the Fair Folk is that they are repelled or even damaged by iron. For purposes of this question, let's focus more on the latter: namely, how would an elf manage to live to a...
In this question, we're looking at a humanity that has adapted one of the most conspicuous ways of keeping cool--larger ears. Desert animals usually have larger ears to have more room for blood ca...
Setting Overview My world suffers from an abundance of a particular type of energy. This energy can be safely absorbed and utilized by living cells, enabling, for example, a dragon's flight and fi...
If a planet like Crait existed and was covered by (mostly) white sand, what would its average albedo be? Crait is a planet from Star Wars that has a thin layer of white salt on its surface.
A follow-up to my previous question-barrage: Properties of magnetically confined plasma shielding After some of the feedback, I'm splitting it into several smaller questions. In the world I'm b...
There's a lot of talk on futurist blogs about mining asteroids for propellant and other resources for space travel, but I have something else in mind. Could a spaceship, starting out in geocentric...
Two Earth-like planets collide at a (relatively slow) speed of about 1,000 kph. For all questions regarding the size and composition of these planets, just think about Earth - and these two planet...
I'm making a world which is set on a planet with two smaller "bubbles" of atmosphere at the poles, and a more stereotypical atmosphere that surrounds them. Each of the three atmospheres has a diffe...
I have an enormous civilization spanning a large amount of the universe. It is able to both travel and send information much faster than the speed of light without violating any laws of physics. Re...
Suppose there exists a magic-based civilization. Their mining techniques are medieval and their understanding of organic chemistry and biology are on the Enlightenment era level. However, they are ...
In my world there is a forest of huge trees which people can't or won't chop down. The trees are similar to redwood trees but they have a large crown and no lower branches. The forest is quite dark...
In a lab at Caltech Ken Libbrecht has been simulating snowflake formation and under absurdly exact laboratory conditions, they have been able to create almost identical snowflakes. Clearly, in th...
Premise This is a world in which humans are blissfully unaware of their own vulnerability. Needless to say, there are many vulnerabilities to address, however, this question deals only with the vu...
I was inspired by geckos which can sever their own tails. I wonder if a creature which has such an ability, especially with a high regenerative power to grow its body parts, can sustain itself ove...
I'm working on a far-future SF story taking place on a terraformed Mars and would like a fact check. Current estimates (see here and here) are that the CO2 on Mars could be released in gas form to...
Our protagonist lives on one of a group of remote islands where she makes her living harvesting a peculiar fruit. The edible part grows in the middle of liquid-filled sacks that hang near the top o...
By now, everyone is familiar with the remarkable achievements of special-purpose AIs like Deep Blue and Watson. Now, it is clear that as our accumulated knowledge of algorithmic methods and of the ...
An artificial endocrine gland is cultured in the lab and is to be inserted in a person. This gland functions by secreting special substances in the blood stream. It needs to be placed in a positi...
What about the atmosphere of earth makes green the best color for plants, and what would have to change to make blue the best color? The fact that these changes could not happen on earth, an so wou...
I am trying to recreate King Arthur's the Sword in the Stone using chemistry. I have a couple ideas how this could be done Would any of these work or how it might work? Arthur removes the sword f...
We occasionally get questions and answers that discuss how close to each other planets can be and still meet some criteria. For example, this answer to the question ''Habitable'' planet close to a ...
I have a civilization that lives on a planet located inside a nebula (and orbiting a normal, sun-like star). Would this nebula somehow interfere with/ obscure the sight of a rogue neutron star/ b...
I would like to know if there'd be any way to forge a metal with an amorphous natural glass such as opal or obsidian into an alloy. Could such a thing be crafted into tools? Would it be conchoidal ...
Background In case you haven't heard: there are places in the Amazonian Jungle called Devil's Gardens. The gardens are large swaths of land composed of almost entirely one single tree the Duroia h...
The Lusca (its name meaning 'Octopus Shark') is a cryptid from the Bahamas, supposedly a 6-9 meter (or even 23 meter) long man-eating Octopus that lives within the blue holes, dragging victims down...
Suppose some magical civilization on Earth-like planet can create portals. Any given portal entrances are spherical surfaces of the same radius. Any particle enters one sphere and exits another in ...
I'm allowing for approximately 150 years of technological advancement. This is in Earth's future, so I want to be realistic based off of what we are capable of now and projections for declining res...
Is it possible for a planet to be heated and illuminated by a black hole due to Hawking radiation at the same intensity as by a star? What mass and size should a black hole have to produce the sam...
It's the Olympics, and it'll be one the world won't soon forget. The sprinters are in position on the starting blocks, the signal is given and the runners are off! However, one man gives off a fart...
I want to write a story on Earth as it is now, with the sole exception of one large island nation. I plan to introduce elements of mysticism into the story as well, but I would like to keep these s...
As far as I know airships, specifically rigid-airships, do not have an upper size limit other than what is required by practicality and how willing you are to build gigantic airship sheds. But one ...
Consider such a tidally locked planet: Many issues with tidally locked worlds have been discussed, but I'm not clear on how the water cycle for an otherwise Earth-like tidally locked world, woul...
Are there any unique challenges life would face evolving on a planet orbiting a Cepheid Variable star? I'm aware this is a broad question, so to narrow it down, consider this a question about Grea...
Humanity just disappears tomorrow, let's say it is like the Thanos-snap but it kills everyone. How long until the last unambiguous evidence of our existence disappears? What was this last relic? Th...
Can we create any electrical equipment which works in the opposite way to a bulb, such that is whilst it is switched on all the light in the surrounding area gets absorbed creating darkness?
I understand it might happen in a weak gravitational field. If I have twins on Earth, but one of them suddenly gets transported to intergalactic medium (without any great mass nearby), then the tra...
Characters with powerful telekinesis are portrayed as being able to exert a superhuman force using only their minds. For example, they can throw a car. Based on what I remember from high school ph...
