General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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***** Xenobiology expedition 'Profundity': Log entry 504 ***** Glass Ants are a fascinating species. We discovered them on an arid desert world last visited by humanity aeons ago. They seem to h...
When one hears the name "Beringia", we most often think the land bridge that formed as a result of a drop in sea levels during the Pleistocene, resulting in a connection between Alaska and Russia. ...
Would a civilization that is trying to permanently colonize a landless world with no atmosphere (think Europa's sea) be able to do so? Permanence matters - it means you can't simply build domes th...
A generation spaceship (a spaceship designed for multiple generations of humans to live in) could sail through the galaxy for hundreds of years before finding another planet, let alone a planet wit...
Assume that I have some way to introduce nutrients into the body of a healthy human but I do not have any method of changing their biology. No surgical procedures nor special "drugs" that would aff...
Is there a habitability zone between the primary and secondary stars in a binary star system for a planet orbiting only the primary star at a distance less than that of the secondary star and, if s...
Take a planet like Gliese 1214 B, which has no land, an ocean 100s of kilometres deep and a seabed of Ice VII. For the purposes of the question, let's assume that the pressure and/or temperature ne...
Imagine a species in which the ego never developed. There is no self-direction. This species is always making noise, however, and it is through this noise that the society itself experiences the ...
I have a planet circling an M-Class star (M3/M4). I'm trying to figure out what the effects of flaring on the planet's biosphere might be. Background: As some of you may know, M-class stars are re...
This question is in the same context (the same world) proposed by Steven L. Gillett in his book: "World-building". And actually there have been some other questions about this same chlorinated worl...
Researching for a science fiction novel. My character loves math + I have dyscalculia = Problem. Therefore, I need your help. In my story, there are aliens we can see, but we can't hear or touch. ...
This series will focus on a Worldkillers: a group of interstellar outlaws who specialize in destroying worlds. Each question has the objective to explore a different way to kill a planet - a word...
...kill every protohuman who tries to leave the African continent. This comment made me think about one question. Suppose you have robot guards, like futuristic lasers, who just shoot at any ...
Deep within the labs of Nox (the company that brought Soma to the masses) a group of radicals lost in the company bureaucracy are trying to make a substance that either prevents or mitigates aggre...
In my story, the AI on a space ship has been corrupted, causing it to try to kill all living occupants. The ship is on a collision course with a planet, and the main controls are inoperable due t...
Following the Schwarzschild metric, we could consider that a white hole=black hole with no angular momentum (no spin?) or electric charge. Would be enough to slow down a black hole and somehow remo...
Set in the near future, robots and mankind coexist amicably due to the great technological advancement in robotics and artificial intelligence. They are everywhere and some took a human form. All o...
I'm interested in the introduction of bacteria on Mars. If a small base were set up with attempts to maintain some sort of sterilisation protocols, but all the humans died on that base a) what woul...
I'm designing a world with advanced life forms that use a sulphur-based biochemistry (see this link for context). I would like to create a carbon cycle analogous to Earth, where: Photosynthesis t...
Terraforming and maintaining a biosphere suitable for humans is tough, but no worries, Protogon is here! Collaborating with Providence, our scientists have created Hygiea, a series of rapidly grow...
A Snowball Earth is a global condition (which may have occurred many times) in which the temperature everywhere on the surface was, for extended periods (up to tens of millions of years), below th...
In my world, high velocity projectile weapons have become obsolete due to a shield/forcefield that can nullify and deflect projectiles traveling at, or above supersonic speed (EDIT: Firearms are de...
The most popular type of stars are red dwarves, which regrettably tend to be flare stars. Yes, I know that geomagnetic storms and power lines do not like each other. Technology level: More or less...
An asteroid collision big enough and fast enough to see a massive ejection of rock and moon-chunks, from the surface of the earth AND not wipe out the population of the planet. What size and speed...
If a nascent colony world can be wiped out by a geomagnetic storm on a scale similar to the Carrington Event, what could the colonists build either in space or on planet to protect their electronic...
My winged people just have feathers on their wings, and maybe small feathers on their back between their wings (from shoulder blades to mid back). Their bodies look generally human. Here is a lin...
Those of you who have read Game Of Thrones will know that in the GOT world seasons do not have a fixed duration, e.g., a winter might last three times longer than the previous one. I find most int...
I know I won't be able to get a solid answer and I could always just change this detail depending on the setting etc., but in a realistic scenario, I have no idea if they'd be significantly stronge...
Every single depiction out there seems to think that animal teeth and/or mouth are no problem for a perfect speech-therapist approved pronunciation. For instance the Cat People. They never have an...
Okay, so I was working on making a sapient creature that lives underwater ended up with what was basically a two-hundred pound crab. They have human level language skills, and I decided to justify...
If a centaur were to have one set of organs, how would they be placed and what sizes would they be? What limits would there be on the centaur's body?
Many mythological humans vary in depictions. Let's use Trolls from Scandinavia as an example. Some are said to be giants compared to humans (I'd imagine twice the height), and some, like Danish Tro...
A classical trope of fantasy is lizardfolk, or a similar species by another name (see for instance the Argonians of Elder Scrolls fame). In general, though, we're dealing with: Bipedal, often pl...
Whales and dolphins surely do not have ears similar to ours and yet they can pick up ultrasound underwater without fear of water pressure damaging the eardrum. Any idea how the mermaids with ears l...
Centaurs. Half human, half equine. The idea's been bouncing around in my head for the past hour, so I'm going to ask it here: Would a centaur structurally make more sense if the torso was at the ...
I have a humanoid character with wings, made possible by a little fictional magic, but I'm trying to keep it as scientifically correct as I can. All right, so she has wings, but walking through bu...
Details: A culture of dryads has a strange death tradition. When a dryad dies there's usually a medic, or better say a "shaman" that rips a strange looking organ or gland off their head. The gla...
Please avoid the obvious jokes. Now I know there are different versions of the Greek monster Typhon, so first I will try to describe its properties. Incredibly large roughly 50-100 feet tall, al...
A while ago, I asked a bunch of questions about my alternate Earth timeline, which contains plausible fantasy creatures. One of the concepts I've devised more recently is a solution for mermaids (M...
As a series of anatomically correct myths, here we have the Cyclops. One of the most similar creatures to man but with 'one' noticeable difference, one eye. It seems that land animals love their tw...
Prompted by a question about the impact of dietary iron in elves (How would Fair Folk-type elves deal with dietary iron?), I wondered whether haemocyanin could be an alternative to haemoglobin in c...
Assuming a human had 4 legs and could perfectly use them for walking(they are a bit like centaurs,who have the upper body of a human and the lower body of a horse). Would they have any advantages o...
My fantasy species has the ability to swallow small to medium appendages whole. They're known for biting off and swallowing hands and feet. A snake like jaw could work but how would it still mainta...
Assume that a person gets infected by a pathogen and then goes into stasis, emerging several hundred years later transformed into a vampire. Now this vampire can meditate and release a pathogen tha...
Suppose we have a civilisation which is made up of many creatures sharing a single hive mind. Each creature can see, hear and remember what each other member of the species (or possibly hive) has s...
Undoubtedly, one of mythology's most iconic creatures is the centaur, a human being with his or her waist glued to the torso of a horse. For this post, we are avoiding the question of how evolutio...
I've always loved well-done ghosts. However, I've always hated the afterlife-speculation that they engender if used in a story. So I need a way to get ghosts without the fluffy spiritualistic bits...
This is a magic world question, and we certainly do not have anything on this planet which feeds on emotion. But if we did, I'm wondering how it might work with a look at science for something plau...
In ancient Mesopotamian mythology, Humbaba was an evil giant slain by the hero Gilgamesh in the famous Epic of Gilgamesh. In the epic, there was only one Humbaba, but for the purposes of this quest...
As a series of anatomically correct myths, here we have the Nuckelavee. Is there a realistic way that Nuckelavee could evolve? Using Earth or near-Earth biology, how close could I get to the classi...
