General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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Those familiar with the Harry Potter series may be familiar with the Marauder's Map, a map that allows the holder to see where people are at any given time. It displays a person as a set of footpri...
Here is the setup: Elves, through magic, have the ability to cause regeneration of limbs/healing of wounds through natural cellular processes. Regenerating a limb, while now possible, obviously tak...
While asking questions about building my fantasy world, I keep hearing about wet/dry seasons. Obviously, one has rain and the other doesn't, and I've gathered that they occur with regularity on an ...
Namely, a creature that is immobile and stone(like) during the day and mobile at night. Something like the old cartoon, but they don't have to be sentient. They don't have to be actual stone, jus...
So, for reasons which may or may not pop up in a later question of mine, I need to light a small Moon-like moon on fire. Well, sort of. See, I need a small object capable of emitting a lot of ligh...
In a story I am working on, I need a scene in which one of the main characters finds himself outside in precarious weather conditions, unable to see unaided much farther out than an armlength or so...
On Earth, the polar bear is among the most sexually dimorphic animals, with males being on average almost twice as heavy as females (Wikipedia claims average weights of 450 kg for males versus 260 ...
On a certain planet, there is a large population of falcon-like birds. They dominate the avian ecosystem. However, a population of nearly-identical birds soon finds its way in. The only difference ...
Back in the days when men were real men, women were real women, and small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centaury, an obscenely rich woman decided s...
Space is full of radiation. When doing long stays in space, no matter whether it's a generation ship on its journey to a new colony, a research ship exploring new worlds, a freighter delivering goo...
Yes, this is about Dr. Evil's dream: Sharks with frickin' lasers. Except that the lasers would not be artificially attached, but be part of the animal itself (bio-lasing instead of simply biolumine...
Suppose it was possible to travel to inside the event horizon of a black hole safely. Also suppose said black hole is large enough that the curvature of the horizon of the surface of the central ma...
It is well known that some organisms can produce electricity. Therefore I think it would not be too much of a stretch to assume that also some plants might have evolved that ability (after all, it ...
Looking at the recent questions on dragons and aviation bureaucracy has got me thinking about some animals I could include in my story. I want these animals to be jet powered. One of the answers o...
This is the second question in my Arctic Airships series of questions. The first one is Arctic Airships, Part 1 - Generating Electricity. The setting is outlined in Part 1, but I'll rehash the pre...
This is somewhat of a follow-up question to my ammonia-based world question. I've found out that the melting point of ammonia is at 25°C at a pressure of about 1 MPa (about 10 times the atmospheri...
A speedometer is a gauge or device used for measuring instantaneous speed of moving vehicle roughly speaking, so for example the reading shown on the speedometer of a car parked at road side displa...
If this earth were cubed shape would it be possible for Magellan to prove that the earth is cube-shaped without going to space and looking at earth? It might seem strange to think that earth might...
The title sums it up pretty well - I'm basically trying to envision the ultimate predator of much larger prey. A couple of requirements: The predator must weigh 44 kilograms or more (Megafauna) ...
My friends and I are building a world with a 50 mile high volcano on it. The mountain is the result of some bored god deciding to play a joke on everyone. Or, some other god got angry and decided ...
Dragons are a grand classic of fantasy. For this question, let's assume we're talking about the following stereotype: hatches from an ostrich-sized egg and can grow to mountain size if nothing l...
I am looking for some guidance in creating a chemical element. I want to know if it is scientifically plausible for a single fictional element to do all the things I need it to, even if at a stretc...
Brad and his family are tired of society and the concept of money. They want to live a primitive lifestyle. They need a strong, comfortable and cheap refuge that will protect them from the elements...
We have modern humans found in a near future, first world country on Earth. The primary technological advancements are in the form of extremely cheap and fast genome sequencing ($10USD/genome) and...
As far as we know Earth and every other planet in the solar system rotate around their axes. Whether it be Uranus which rotates on its side or Mercury which rotates perfectly straight, all planets ...
In a lot of stories there are fights between man and machine; rogue AI that has decided humans are inferior in some respect and chooses to wipe them out. What if the only chance for any remnant of...
I've created a genetically modified race of humans with an extreme height. I've taken into account the cube square law, and added some bones and muscles to help cope with that. I'm planning on maki...
What would be the best way in which to genetically modify (or create through some other method) an animal which breeds normally for a certain number (50?) of generations before becoming sterile? Ge...
It's my understanding that if an Alcubierre drive were to be constructed, it would be able to function as a time machine because there would be certain paths through you could take to get to a dest...
A classic image of mermaids are their long flowing hair that swishes in the water. But in the scientifically realistic sense this makes none. The hair would be nothing more than a nuisance to the m...
In many science fictions we see planets which are designated by a particular terrain type. For example, Dagobah is a swamp planet, Tatooine is a desert planet, and Kamino is an ocean world. Howeve...
I know a tadpole can do this transformation, given enough time, so what about mermaids?
This question is a little nebulous unfortunately and perhaps a bit disturbing. The evil-empire in my WIP captures Mages and breaks them down into loyal and obedient servants. The Mages aren't as d...
I want a mermaid protagonist. If I am to make this story realistic, how should the Merfolk's body structures be made to make them adaptable for both water (swimming) and land (walking, running)? Is...
Assuming that all Equidae went extinct at around the same time as the American Equidae on OTL (Original TimeLine) Earth, 8000 BCE, and in the same way, via Ice Age... What would have changed for ea...
I feel like this is the most noobish question ever. Anyway, imagine an asteroid hits Earth and the atmosphere is now full of particles, successfully blocking the Sun from Earth. There are people st...
So let's say you have a starship like in Star Trek and you want a Replicator, but don't have the ability to convert matter to an energy form to pass their electrical cables. Basically you have an a...
Okay, not literally Krypton style, but let's say some local astronomical event is going to render every rocky surface in our solar system totally uninhabitable. Details aren't terribly important, ...
The Story The year is 2027, singularity happened. A powerful AI (let's call it Eve) was created. In a matter of days, it escaped the control of its creators and hacked all the computers of the wor...
How would it switch between if endothermic and ectothermic and in between and how would it be able to create different temperature in specific areas in the body?
Background: So this Kurzgesagt video talks about quark stars, and how two of them colliding could send strangelets flying towards Earth or the Sun. Now it's been said that since, theoretically (as...
If you're studying radio signals from Earth, is it possible to calculate whether a radio source is 'near' as in near Earth or 'very far away' as in somewhere far out in space from velocity, or velo...
Setting: "One Big Lie" Sci-fi RPG The lies in this setting are an extension of relativity with a couple of extra dimensions allowing for FTL/Backwards Time Travel, and Thaumons. Thaumons (Magic B...
I have seen many science fiction movies that depict traveling in space through wormholes. The appearance though, and the time it takes to cross a wormhole, tends to vary: On one hand, we have the...
How can a character explain baryon asymmetry (there is more matter than antimatter) by the universe being a simulation with a slightly imbalanced random number generator being employed at the point...
Is it possible that a planet/moon will have inverse direction comparing to the rest orbiting material? For example Mars would go in counter direction comparing to other planets in solar system. I...
I was thinking of a parallel universe in which the Planck constant has an exact value of zero. How would this effect the physics of that universe and how would it effect the development of that un...
First of all, in no way do I have advanced knowledge of particle physics, quantum mechanics, or any other necessary scientific concept for a full understanding of this question. Secondly, this is p...
Set during the Cold War period, the then-president rented five (5) flying saucers from the extraterrestrial aliens and a few training exercises were conducted in the air space above Roswell. My fat...
What will be the view of the sky and the distances between stars, living on a planet or in a habitat in a super galaxy that has merged with all its nearby galaxies in its cluster, at a time in the ...