General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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I know theoretically the human stomach is above the centaur's stomach so the obvious answer would be no. But seeing as centaurs aren't real and we don't know what their internal biolody would look...
In the deep, outer reaches of our galaxy, there is a rogue gas giant which, due to an unfortunate event, was flung from its native orbit into interstellar space. It has a mass 12 times that of Jupi...
The boom-bust cycle answer I took for my question: Sustainability of Regular Global Wildfires due to Oxygen Rich Atmosphere pends on the atmosphere being rich in oxygen but poor in CO2. I, however,...
Let's say you have a planet about the size of Earth. It has three moons, each roughly the mass of one-third of the Earth's moon. Would this cause tides of different magnitude than those on Earth? A...
You are Alien McGee. For some reason ( don't ask why ) you need to hide an artifact in our solar system for roughly 20,000 years before coming back and taking it. Said artifact is a magical vase ...
My project concerns a world "A", that is a moon of a gas giant "Jovi", in a solar system with no other planets to speak of and a host star much like our own. "A" is Earth-sized, has no magnetic fi...
In my story, there is a planet. The planet's name is not really important for the sake of this question, so we're going to refer to it as "dead planet". Background: Dead planet is entirely hot d...
so according to this website: https://haraldas.wordpress.com/2014/10/21/dragon-fire-ever-wonder-if-its-possible/ it said that it could be possible for any animals to synthesise tert-butyllithium...
In this world, people have the legal right to fight anyone to the death, for any reason, as long as the fights are done before an official whose sole job is to regulate these duels. The officials i...
Imagine an alternate universe where FTL do happens, let's just say the inhabitants discovered a hypothetical particles that allows ordinary matter to temporarily be in superposition of any amount o...
My "magic" mirrors are purely technological and are only able to transmit light. More precisely, they can display the visible and infrared spectrums, and communicate via radio waves. They're basica...
I'm writing a sci-fi world where, if you put it in simple words, a small percentage of population can manipulate the matter. I'm not going to dive into specifics, because I'm still working on WHY a...
I am creating a fantasy world in which Earth has a second moon with an orbit between Earth and the current moon. The orbit of this new moon is faster because it's closer to earth. I'm not much co...
So, as I understand it, the spacecraft would need to move in the opposite direction to the orbit. Are there any calculations I could make to attach a clicking-tock onto this? If the spacecraft were...
Basically, the title. Trying to figure out how reasonable stealth in space would function, and while I have mitigated it, I am looking for methods to improve it. But mainly, is creating a sort of h...
The planet I'm thinking of is of similar size and distance from its star relative to Earth, but it lacks oceans, instead consisting of one massive continent with a huge mountain range (reminiscent ...
Working on a medieval setting I thought of the idea of a biome similar to Minecraft Ice Spike Plains where this ice structures naturally occur. These structures in particular are tall and sharp tow...
I need a planetary system for my novel where an Earth-like warm habitable planet has an orbital period of about 650 to 730 days. I know that is similar to Mars and that Mars would be too cold. What...
My low-fantasy setting features the deadly plant known as the wormberry. It produces small berries of a bright-but-overall-undecided color, all of which contain a small, edible seed. They have two...
Suppose, for instance, you lived in a world filled with nasty monsters and other creatures of the night, all of whom wanted to kill you and eat you in various ways. Now, the good news here is that ...
I know it's not really all that exciting, but things like eating will be very prominent in the cultures and show up a lot in my story... In my world I want my race to have at least two different t...
In my story an area was formerly beneath an ocean or lake. Some form of life leeched the soil of a specific mineral or substance. Technology level is that of ~1700 Spain. Now that the water has ...
Giant dogs aren't uncommon in works of fantasy. Sif from Dark Souls comes to mind. What I want to know is: what's the largest a canine could realistically get, what differences would they need c...
Death, most if not all of us fear it. However, it may be possible to postpone death for a while, and hopefully entirely. One major way of postponing death for awhile is through the biological route...
So how large of an organism can a diet of strictly of blood support? In a modern Earth setting it might be a bit hard for a large hematophagic organism to find a suitable group of prey that it won'...
For the purposes of this post, "word" is defined as a unit of language such that Has some meaning on its own, often relating to the real world. Complex utterances can be formed simply by transmit...
The moon is similar to earth but orbits around a gas giant, the sun has ended its life cycle and so the only energy received on the moon comes from tidal interactions heating its core. On earth an...
My advanced human civilisation often has high-acceleration ships travelling at near lightspeed. I know that time dilation would have a significant effect on the time experienced by the crews, but I...
What would be the economic trade offs of building fusion powered rockets vs building laser relays across the solar system? What assumptions would you need for each one of these to be the superior o...
This is the world's tallest tree--the coast redwood. It can grow as high up as 115.5 meters. Any taller, and the transportation of water in its vascular tissues would not climb all the way. Bu...
There are several questions related to effects of different gravity levels on the human body, but none adequately answer a fundamental question: What is the maximum and minimum gravity that nearly ...
Would it be feasible to have an interstellar vessel be constructed in flight after smaller sections are boosted up to speed? The idea here is about using laser sails which would be easier to use wi...
In Star Trek, going faster then light will take you back in time (Possibly in real life too!). But I've noticed one inconsistency. Ships, even when going faster then light, have a finite speed. By ...
I have a species of megafaunal carnivore that are extremely mobile with territories spanning hundreds of square miles and lifespans of 120-150 years. They lay clutches of 2-3 eggs every 20-30 years...
I was thinking of a story with a Werewolf as a detective, using mostly conversational skills and his sense of smell to solve crimes similar to many of the UK types of detective stories (Morse, Lewi...
The universe as we know it has ended. The concept of "natural" illumination ended when the last red dwarves and quasars died out. Now, only brown dwarves and blackholes dot the empty void that was ...
In an Earth-like planet filled with humanoid creatures (upright, two legs, two arms, head, etc.) the inhabitants have evolved to grow bowlegs. The question is why? What advantage would it bring...
I'm trying to speculate on manipulating things on the level of quarks for a story. What could I do with that type of technology?
For my middle-grade science-fiction novel, I need to come up with an invention or chemical that could rapidly create icebergs to refreeze the Arctic and slow climate change. Kurt Vonnegut's Ice-9 i...
Genetic chimerism is a condition in which a single organism is composed of cells with more than one distinct genotype. Elves inhabit this world, but do not possess magic in this reality. Instead, t...
It's something that's been used several times as a plot device on Star Trek, notably in the TOS episode "The Tholian Web", and the TNG episodes "The Next Phase" and "The Pegasus". I'm certain it's ...
First question on stack exchange I've been lurking and learning for years and finally decided to pose a question for a novel I'm working on. Given the appropriate advances in material sciences an...
In some birds especially owls, we can observe a structure called facial disk, which is mainly composed of feathers and helps to direct sound to their ears. While being more common in owls, adding u...
I was wondering what the best ways for turning minerals mined in the asteroid belt into useable materials would be, so far I came up with three methods, utilizing nuclear, electromagnets, and final...
Most of the humans on my alternate universe's Earth have gone extinct due to a global war, leaving a handful of survivors and the buildings to serve as a reminder of how great they once were. This ...
We may all have some familiarity with winged skulls - from Avenged Sevenfold's album covers to bikie shirts. However, for my science-fiction/horror story, I am curious about how these creatures wou...
I recently started to wonder what a tree would be like on an alien world, and one thing that popped in mind for these trees was their color. The hosts star and environment would have a effect on sa...
Around 5 million years ago, a group of primates diverged from early Baboon ancestors migrated into Sicily becoming Triclopes (here's a rough mock up of what a Triclops skull might look like): som...
as the title, my question is how big a pelican like creature with its pouch mouth need to be in order to carry grown up human and still fly. since as far as i know hollow bone is to fragile for hu...
My planet has a day length of ~52 earth hours. This means storms like hurricaines and thunderstorms will be weaker. How do I combat this and generate really strong storms and winds on a slow rota...
