General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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I want to build a seastead in international waters that starts small. It has to be in the Atlantic, preferably in the northern hemisphere close to either the american or european continent. Due t...
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'...
Could a life form that uses superfluids as part of its biology exist? I've read in places that the issue for life outside of Earth and especially the theorised silicon lifeforms is that the existe...
This is not so much for a story as much as something I've been thinking about for a while. I'm really drawn to the idea of a sort of world that exists on a server somewhere. The "˜gods' that eve...
To make things simple, assume Earth had a slower rotation than it does. How would that affect daily highs and lows in temperature? Is there a simple way to figure it out? Was thinking a week-long r...
I was wondering if there's some sort of online anatomy creator or maker? I'm wanting to make a model of a modified human body... is there some sort of anatomy creator that allows you to add organs ...
Fireflies are amazing little insects. They have the ability to produce a pulse of light without the help of a symbiotic relationship with bioluminescent bacteria. This works via a chemical reactio...
I'm creating a fictional universe in which several races exist that are very different from each other due to long term separation. One race is specialized for archipelagos and more specifically, d...
I'm creating a fictional universe in which several races exist that are very different from each other due to long term separation. One race is specialized for the tundra, and is subjected to sever...
In the near future, humanity has spread out across the Solar System. A new planet is discovered, let's say 30 light years away, that shows it to be Earth-like and could harbor Earth life without to...
Space explorers have landed on an Earth like planet and, to their surprise, the place is luscious and covered in life, to the point of resembling some earthly tropical atoll. What they don't know ...
I'm working on a story where the main character has to search for titanium (or rather ores containing titanium) in order to repair the hull of a ship. She's on a habitable world that's essentially ...
Ok so my creature will look like this They're not big, about 2 feet tall. They're technically amphibians but have the scaly hide of a reptile. They live near the sea. Their life cycle is simila...
In my post apocalyptic world, a virus has spread, essentially changing the roles, with infected animals gaining sentience and intellect close to a human and humans degrading into a more animalistic...
I have decided I will add my whole question"¦ I'm new give me a bit of grace"¦ I am creating a superhuman and I am in need of some helpful tips and answers. To get straight to the point I need t...
I am creating a superhuman that can raise her overall body temperature to 3,000 °F (1648.889 °C) but I need to know the exact requirements of how that could happen. Let's say this superhuman co...
Vampirism. There are benefits and drawbacks, but one of the benefits is not aging. Great if you get turned in your early twenties, but... what happens if you are turned earlier? Being turned as an...
After looking at concept art of various humanoid creatures portrayed in science fiction I noticed many artists tend to make the abdominal muscles of their creatures/aliens look similar to those mus...
My world has a medieval level civilization that has remained unchanged for millions of years. They look and act a lot like humans; they have language, culture, government, literature, and basic te...
The fleet in my setting are forced to leave the planet due to a volatile virus, and leave in pre-prepared spacefaring vessels capable of transporting ten million people per ship. The ships have alg...
The eyes with vertical pupils of small cats and some reptiles are very good at seeing better in the dark and avoiding being blinded thanks to their ability to regulate the amount of light that ente...
The advanced civilization in my story is trying to reach as many galaxies as possible in the next few billions years before the expansion of space has sent those galaxies permanently out of reach w...
We are using a Morris-Throne Wormhole Metric. Let's presume the throat of this wormhole (in internal hyperspace) is short, let's say 1km. Now, as you are travelling through the entrance wormhole,...
The local sapient species on a relatively Earthlike planet has constructed a space elevator. It is anchored along the equator. Due to unfortunate circumstances (and potentially divine intervention)...
Ok, so this is a culmination of a few questions into one final question: am I doing this right? I am trying to figure out the gravitational difference from one end of a continent to another. There ...
An intelligent creature who's natural life span is around 50 years in which they need to feed to not die of starvation after which they naturally die. But killing other beings of their own species...
A group of aliens are off to save the human race from extinction caused by a Lovecraftian monstrosity. In order to accomplish this feat, they go to Earth in order to harvest as many humans as po...
So, I'm creating a fantasy setting, and because why not, I decided to have giants. Not giant giants, just roughly 2 times the height of a human. Now, because physics is dumb, a giant species would ...
I've seen Which is easier to develop: a piston prop engine or a jet engine? and my own Effects of ~10atm pressure on engine design neither of which answers this. Would different atmospheric densit...
I have a spaceship which I want to have travel very quickly around a system like our own solar system -- let's say about 10 million miles per minute, which would go from Mars to Earth in ~15 minute...
Background A McKendree cylinder is a spinning space habitat in the style of an O'Neill cylinder (below), but orders of magnitude larger. McKendree habitats are hundreds of kilometres in diameter a...
Let's say that in an alternate universe, humans developed on a relatively small supercontinent, so their languages and cultures were somewhat similar. After a while, all of the nations merged into ...
The first two answers in the anatomically correct succubi question suggest a parasitic approach to the concept of succubi which snatches off human organs, either the tongue or the vagina and feed o...
Is my planet realistic? It doesn't need to be able to support life as it's just another planet in my solar system, but is a planet with such a high density and gravity really possible? I calculated...
In world building it is often interesting to consider extreme landscapes "“ how tall can a mountain be on Earth for example. But what is the tallest mountain possible in any gravitational environme...
I want to know what kind of toilet design for mermaid is, considering they live surrounded by water and they poop through the anus (or whatever the organs name is) that located in the front rather ...
The crafts would have to contain large farms in order to sustain the immense amount of people, and they'd obviously have to be large and spacious to have good living conditions. I did some research...
I'm building an earthlike world that has a moon orbiting a gas giant. Is it possible for the moon to always be between the planet and the sun? Also, is it possible for a moon to rotate around its o...
In my world a moon is reached and colonised but only in space stations for a long time. They gain the ability to reach the surface and then story happens. It needs to be something that can be bypas...
Starliners are huge colony ships. They carry enough equipment, building materials, embryos, colonists and nutrient rich rations to permanently establish a sizeable colony on a far-flung world. Alth...
I have a mountain in a story that basically needs to be taken down (inadvertently) by human action in a world with premodern (so mediëval/ early renaissance at best) tech levels. I have been thin...
Suppose we walled off a 1000 km square. These walls would be made of unobtanium (so they don't break), and have no cracks or holes that go all the way through. They are also around 15 kilometres hi...
Extraversion and introversion are a central dimension in the Big Five personality model (or OCEAN model). Being introverted or extraverted may not be mutually exclusive, but, when averaging out ove...
The last time I asked something similar, I asked if it would be possible for xenarthran mammals (armadillos, sloths and anteaters) to be thrown off of South America from life-giving rafts to other ...
Could a planet be hot enough that oceans could form at the poles, but would boil at the equator? And would oceans form at all on this planet?
I'm designing a creature which possesses a decently unusual trait: despite having a developed head, it's mouthparts are attached to a tentacle that retracts into the creature's belly when not in us...
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 ...
So, I'm having trouble with one of my character designs. Guardian angels are former humans who died in such dumb ways that Heaven simply couldn't let them in, not before they proved they can preve...
just suddenly struck by curiosity, i vaguely remember that big quadrupedal or hexapodal (if you count the wings) animals cant fly well basically. I dont remember why, but i think it was related to ...
If you were inside of a gas that was producing its own light (for example, air at 900°C), what would it look like? Would it look foggy, or would objects that aren't the same colour as the glow sti...
