General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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Rewriting the question to clarify: The time and location is now in our current Earth. A wandering red dwarf flare star (like Wolf 359) is moving towards our Solar System. The question: How close co...
I'm trying to work on a chapter in my lore but I'm stumped on how agricultural developments could work in tropical settings, and real world examples so far mostly include temperate places, I.e. Bri...
I'm no rocket scientist, but I've been reading up on some basic concepts of rocket science (including some great talks here). As far as I've gleaned, there's two extremes of rocket thrusts: high sp...
In the year 2071 the Dysnomia incident happened. The Dysnomia (a mining ship) suffered a catastrophic failure and violently exploded sending its payload, an aged comet, hurtling towards earth. The ...
I'm am developing a creature, what I want to create is a giant octopus that is able to utilize poison. I would like it to shoot it from its beak if the poison is in liquid form, or emit the poison...
In 1869 a giant space gun was built, with the intent of firing a projectile at the Moon, just to prove that they can do it. Of course, the ludicrous idea to put people inside it was never even take...
I have an idea for a story where human live on world with low gravity and a dense atmosphere. These humans have developed artificial wings that are attached to their arms so they can fly. Since the...
I'm looking for a scientific explanation as to why smaller pebbles and rain would slowly fall upwards without the planet itself orbiting far too close to fry every living thing on the surface. A wa...
In this scenario, an underwater city is a collection of domes interconnected by tunnels 17 feet wide and 17 tall. The largest of the city's domes is 71,000 square feet in area and 137 feet tall. ...
This one might be a bit weird, but here it goes... In designing the evolutionary history of my world, I've devised an evolutionary branch of animals adapting to terrestrial environments. Lacking r...
Scenario: While poking around in an alien ruin, scientists discover a gateway which offers instant transportation to an Earth-like world. The Observed World: The gateway leads to an area that is ...
On the planet Blob there is an unusual phenomenon. It is known to emanate from the planet's core but 2018-level scientists have no understanding of it. The phenomenon Gravity isn't constant. It v...
My story takes place in an archipelagus in world X, inhabited by people X. In the shores of the capital city of that archipelagus, there is a bay of deep, dark waters. It's supposed to be dark and...
You have an underwater civilisation, be they merpeople, octopus people, partially evolved humans or not. One thing that is always considered as a necessity in the development of any society is mini...
In the new setting I'm making, I found an opportunity to make a species of humanoids that I simply couldn't resist. So I got to work, making the tribal herdsmen and hunters of the predominantly car...
I've done a fair bit of research to come up with this scenario. I hope it's not "too broad" to ask for a reality check. Have I overlooked anything? Does it all sound plausible? My world takes plac...
As he neared the outskirts of the city the canyons of multi-storey buildings lined with coffee- and tea-houses gave way to the large squat shapes of factories, storage-halls and other industry. ...
Objective: Replace the human digestion apparatus (stomach, guts etc) From my basic understanding the human body needs food, because it needs ATP (energy unit, some kind of sugar(?)) or you could s...
Ejaculation is the discharge of semen from the male reproductory tract, usually accompanied by orgasm. It is the final stage and natural objective of male sexual stimulation, and an essential compo...
I knew that energy is a scalar quantity, so I wonder can a character move and alter direction of an object at distance by giving it kinetic energy? Thanks.
In post-apocalypse fiction, diabetics, if they are ever even mentioned, are typically portrayed as utterly, irrevocably screwed. In fact there was a pretty cynical example in Dies The Fire (a book ...
A side shot from my series on a computer-less future; see here, here, and here. Project Rho defines a torch-drive as an engine with both high acceleration and high exhaust velocity. A torch-ship i...
Before I continue, yes, green stars don't really exist visually. Although stars like the Sun are green stars, they appear white (and are known as yellow dwarfs) because it doesn't only emit green l...
Instead of the whole egg laying parasitic vagina concept, which was the leading idea in the original question. Assuming the succubus is purely the whole woman like creature. Can she gain enough ...
Okay, i need help here. I'm sure this question has been asked before and if it has, please refer me to it. But a story I have been working on for a while now revolves around the adventures of a col...
As you look at the properties of the atmosphere as you scale up or down, things get weirder and weirder. One good example is the fairyfly and its environment. Fairyflies are so small that at their ...
The outer layer of skin of a human is called the epidermis. It is supposed to be waterproof, however: Using any current science and substances, would it be possible for humans to survive for two m...
Wild boars are well known for their large, bulky body, their aggressivity and their tusks. They are animals from which a predator would gladly stay away if some easier prey is available. And, las...
The eventual heat death of the universe is an awful time to be alive considering you wouldn't have long left after the last star finally fades away. In this scenario there is a small group of about...
In a setting where portals can be opened between one location and another, Suppose you open a portal of area one square meter, with one end at the surface and the other end at the bottom of an oce...
If an expert of some kind travels back in time to the 14th or 15th century with modern tools and machines that don't require power to work and if he were to past on the knowledge of modern technolo...
Today I was thinking about how to make an elf who naturally grows blue hair. Thinking about this I came up with the idea of coloring the hair using microscopic eyes like with blue, green and gray e...
So I know that Fire Tornadoes are a thing, however would you be able to create a hurricane using the firebending powers from the TV series Avatar the Last Airbender? For those of you who are unfam...
The succubi are popularly represented as women with horns and bat-like wings. They feed on the vital energy in myths, but could a humanoid creature resembling a woman evolve and feed only on human ...
One major problem with living underground is you lose all of that wonderful energy provided by the sun. This energy is useful for many things including growing plants for food. A window is effectiv...
In the Land of Metal, there exists a tribe that has upheld the gospel of Manowar with such zeal that it modified their bodies. Metalheads descend from humans, and may look human at a glance. A mor...
This question was inspired by this one, questioning the methods one may use to attach structures to the surface of a diamond world. The idea of a celestial body largely composed of crystal diamond ...
It is said that around 50km above the surface of Venus is the most earth like environment on the whole solar system (source here), At an altitude of 50 kilometres (31 mi) above Venerian surface...
Looking to how I can make Nagas and Mermaids able to exist and evolve in my story, I came across this post which explains how Nagas could evolve from humans: Anatomically Correct Naga In the top a...
I'm writing a story where mars with its current atmosphere is inhabited entirely by women wearing the "spacesuit" with the following features: tight fitting, heated shirt, heated leggings, ful...
The Arctic ice cap is melting away soon. Some (probably misguided) ecoactivists think it would be a good idea to safeguard certain indigenous species of the North Polar region (especially mammals) ...
One of my fictional planets (which is largely terran in nature) is notable for an unique animal. Said animal is a dangerous predator that is notable for several things: It is physically separated...
We have escaped the galactic government, and now our greatest endeavour yet, life in space. How will these gargantuan space entities eat and survive in space? The whale or other in question is th...
A bit of a whimsical question, or a few questions really. What would happen in a world with no air - no oxygen (plant life stop producing oxygen). Specifically, let's say the oceans shut down oxy...
Long ago, I asked for a kind of steel alloy under an alternative recipe. Right now, the list is as follows: Carbon (2%) (Reasonable material and amount) Chromium (12%) (Reasonable material a...
Planetary surface: | 71% Ocean (H2O) | 29% Land | Atmospheric composition: | 2% Trace gases | 58% Nitrogen | 26% Oxygen | 11% Argon | 3% Carbon dioxide | Average surface temperature:...
Ever since I found out about the green blooded skink, I have wondered if it's possible for other blood colours to evolve among vertebrates, specifically blue in mammals.
I am in the process of creating my universe, and have based it on semi-hard science. The universe that I have created is quite extensive, and I thought that it would be unreasonable for the only ki...
In the first question I posted here on Worldbuilding Stack Exchange, I asked if lifting gas would be more effective on a world with 1/3 of Earths gravity but with the same atmospheric composition a...
(Edited for clarification) The general popular conception of how aging works is that your body grows and develops, reaching completion at some point in your late twenties or early thirties, and th...
