General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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The chicxulub asteroid impact caused climate change, and the climate change caused a mass extinction. But many land-based animal groups survived, crocodillians, lizards, snakes, turtles, frogs, sa...
What would be the specific conditions required for a planet to be a more ideal version of Earth? I want the world to have a much larger proportion of land covered by lush jungle and forest ecosys...
A planet approximately 70% the size of Earth with a surface pressure of approxiamtely 0.25 bar at sea level. The atmosphere consists of the following gases: Nitrogen (98%) Oxygen (1.5%) Carbon mo...
This is a progression from my first question, here (if this is too similar to my original question, please let me know of a better way to address this, as I am not getting the answers I need on tha...
The artificial womb has become a reality, freeing many women from the 9 month burden of carrying a child. Unfortunately, it was not the liberating game changer that feminists hoped it would be. The...
I have a rather odd setting where one of my characters gets cursed/blessed with indestructibility, more specifically all of her cells have stopped degenerating and dividing and they all are now imm...
Here on "Earth" organisms tend to evolve only enough mental processing power to handle sensory inputs in modest amounts. Taking "human" brains for a quick example, even though we have millions of s...
I'm trying to find a plausible way to reduce global warming in a world past the tipping point. I recently read this article : https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171127173225.htm. It su...
I will keep this short: I am writing a story about a Society with lots of Superheroes, and I want them to discover that they have powers after inhaling some sort of chemical. I want this to be pre...
A messenger from the stars just arrived in peace but has brought horrible news. A vast swarm of planet devouring phototropic insects are approaching from deep space and our only hope is to obscure ...
The Dreamlands are a vast, alternate dimension that can only be entered via dreams. They are divided up into several sections, all of which are inhabited by monsters who serve the idiot elder god A...
One way, I think, is if the gravity is exactly correct. However, while I think the water might be in a unstable equilibrium, I have been unable to work out the mathematics. Let's assume that such a...
I know there are similar questions on here already, yet this is different because I don't care about traditional farming in this question. Environment This meant for food production on interplane...
A homoculus is an artificial human being that is created through the magical science of alchemy. These creatures are born in artificial wombs by a dark ritual that requires various materials, and t...
Imagine a situation kind of like Zootopia with many different creatures all living in one environment, some significantly larger than others. These species aren't necessarily furries like in Zooto...
Without going into unnecessary detail, one of the races of my world believe that the land itself is a dead god, and that by resurrecting it, it will ascend to the cosmos and carry the faithful upon...
Inspired by this answer: Suppose there is an enormous dragon sleeping underground (let's not worry about the biomechanics of how such a creature could exist). One day, it wakes up, shakes the eart...
Far, far into the future, pretty much the entire Milky Way has been colonised by humans. The thing is that now the Empire has fallen, the technology of FTL travel has been lost in most places. Thos...
The humans in this setting are telepaths who are able to communicate with each other through their minds. This form of telepathy transfers simple phrases, symbols, or emotions to the designated per...
This is a world building question in a preventative context because those people or countries would be left fully functional while others gone and the safe areas is where the world building would b...
Premise Suppose an earth-like world in the near-future. Then aliens come and decide to play a mischievous trick on this world on an epic scale. The goal is to disrupt Earth's time by 18 minutes. S...
I have had an idea for a possible story, where the protagonists are some kind of future, sapient hominid descendants (Not descended from humans; bonobos or gorillas or something). The main premise...
Suppose that there was a tribe of nomadic mermaids whose lives were primarily centered around following pods of dolphins to eat. They live in the equivalent of the frigid antarctic seas. As they ...
On my world, the equivalent of the Cambrian/Avalon explosion happened 5 byr (2 byr after formation) ago as opposed to 0.5 byr ago on Earth. The planets rough parameters are: mass between 0.4 and...
An interesting idea that popped up in my previous question on the feasibility of large scale life on a gas giant was a form of energy production similar to photosynthesis, instead absorbing the EM ...
Based on my reading on some science papers, large, wet terrestrial planets likely exist that are swathed in a thin atmosphere of nitrogen/hydrogen ($H_2$ & $N_2$). If life evolved on such world...
I'm working on setting in which a prison ship crashes on an unexplored/unknown planet, and due to infighting and environmental factors the prisoners return to tribalism at best or feral animals at ...
In recent years, the search for the origins of life is becoming complex. It turns out that oxygen is NOT a requirement for multicellular life to thrive. As stated in this BBC article, poriferans ...
Fantasy and sci-fi works often are set in worlds of dramatic terrain, because, well... it's dramatic. A few examples of the kind of thing I'm talking about: I understand that Earth has som...
I understand the Apollo 13 CM got down to 39°F after it was powered down following the explosion in the oxygen tank. Could the interior of the ISS be cooled (for more than 12 hours) to below 32°...
I'm a supervillain. I have no name, but you can rest assured my intentions are dubious and always result in general harm. My biggest problem these days are these pesky superheroes keep finding my ...
The universe is in a long, slow decline to darkness Sorry folks but it's true, read the article! Here's a much edited-down version: The universe is cooling down, its stars pumping out about h...
I'm looking for notes on my climate map for a continent I've mapped out. Does this set up seem plausible. Map (Imgur) [3 Previous question with general planetary conditions edit Don't have t...
We lived through loads of questions regarding aquatic races, so buckle up, I am going to gather some ideas around insectoids. The homeworld and race This race lives on a planet which has lower g...
Goblins in my setting are around four feet tall, with batlike ears, a keen sense of smell, and lithe, dexterous bodies. They are omnivores, eating slightly more meat than the average human, and the...
Eureka! Our hero just discovered the secret of time travel, but what to do with it? "I know!", he says. "I will travel back in time as far as I can and hand them a modern firearm. They will learn h...
I'm designing a new planet, but I'm having some troubles figuring out the climate. The planet's rotation axis is at a 45° angle relative to its orbital plane, and each rotation takes 24h. The pl...
I want to write a piece of fiction about a female tree caretaker who researches a small group of beeches in a wood. When she arrives, she sees that the trees are dried out. Is it realistic to say ...
I'd like to build a world that has one pole where it's constantly day (all year long) and the weather is very hot, and one where it's constantly night (all year long) and the weather is freezing. ...
Modern Earth; a series of connected events (natural disasters, mass migration, drug-resistant pandemic, collapse in biodiversity, armed conflict) have led to a significant reduction in human popula...
As a way to travel fast, my Earth-like planet is going to have a special train, circling it (the axis of the 'tracks' is aligned with the planet's axis of rotation). The thing about this train - i...
I was thinking of a hypothetical species of snakes that join together for protection called Ladôni, due to their habit of mobilising in massive beds which make them resemble a large multi-headed s...
I have the feeling the answer to this will come down to ''impossible'' but let's ask anyway to be sure. We know gas Giants have no solid surface and if you tried to land on one you would fall int...
In my story, an advanced alien civilization that can travel to other universes has created an infinite energy source, named "an amvelian core". This core resembles a small sphere in appearance (abo...
Judging by our own planet we know what the effects of a moon on a terrestrial planet are. We also know that if a planet has two moons on the same side you would get insane tides and that two moons...
Could a humanesque creature derive all its nutrients from drinking blood? One of the linked question's answers talks about the vampire becoming a filtration system from humans, could the vampire f...
Long ago, I asked a question on how to make possible turning the nine realms of Norse mythology--Midgard, Asgard, Vanaheimr, Jotunheimr, Alfheimr, Hel, Nidavellir, Niflheim and Museplheim--into nin...
Here is what we know of Earth: Mass: 5.972 sextillion metric tons Diameter: 7,917.5 miles Density: 5.51 grams per cubic centimeter Rotation: 24 hours Revolution: 365 days Core: 760 miles wi...
If a person is sent out of their hermetically sealed community and in the process becomes immune to a deadly disease. When the person returns will the immunity make them a carrier and infect/kill a...
Imagine if you will a star comparable with our sun and a planet like earth orbiting at roughly the same distance around this star as our earth around the sun. Would it be possible to place a plan...
