General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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The largest animals alive today--and to loom into the human imagination--are the whales, a group of mammals that had been going from skinny-dip to full-blown dive in just 53.5 million years. Due...
A rotating object, especially something as large as a planet or a star, has kinetic energy. However, my question is how would you go about harvesting the energy the object has from rotation to go t...
This is the premise: the occupants of a spaceship die hundreds of millions of years in the past orbiting above a Earth-sized planet. It has a supercomputer that allows the ship to still fire its ro...
This is my first time using this site and i'm excited to get answers to roadblocks that have prevented me from finishing my writing in the past. However, you may have to excuse some mistakes I make...
I'm designing an alien plant soecies that has evolved to produce electric shocks, as a way to keep insects away from it. My question is, how would it produce electricity in the first place? Also, c...
How do I define the Classical Elements with Science so that it agrees with science? According to a single property of a substance. So, no Fire = Energy, Water = Liquid, Earth = Solid, Air = Gas.....
In my con-world I went lengths to introduce a plausible lighter-than-air element and did rather large amounts of thinking about landmasses in order to promote the development of airship technology ...
This scenario is based on the kea, the world's only alpine parrot. Even though it eats plants like other parrots, it also eats meat, and therefore could be New Zealand's answer to the smaller d...
I am working on constructing a world which is basically (from the northern pole to the southern pole): smallish frozen over ocean huge land mass encompassing the northern hemisphere tremendous oc...
I am envisioning a very big planet that at the equator Is mostly composed of gases. Further away from the equator a crusts forms of matter - rocks that then also contains an ocean. I am still imagi...
My race use a weapon which has the same dimensions and mass as a kinetic rod. The difference is that it's also a high explosive. It explodes after impact, causing the already weak structure to be b...
How large could a solid planet be (in theory) without becoming a star or black hole? Too much in the way of light elements would lead to thermonuclear ignition, but too many heavy elements would ev...
Some Context I'm creating a universe where humanity has reached the stars. They've colonized a few star systems and, obviously, FTL drives are a common thing. They basically jump you to another lo...
Just a bit of background: one of my favorite zombie causers is from the Dead Rising video game series. In it, the undead are reanimated by a wasp-like insect that lays eggs in a corpse (I think. It...
This is related to the question as to whether or not cetaceans in an alternate Earth be related to a different group. The small but mercurial falcons belong to one order and one family--Falconifor...
Background A colony of humans has settled on a remote planet where there is little to no sunlight, but there is a plentiful amount of earth metals. E.g.- Iron, aluminium, Titanium, etc. There are ...
I'm working on a concept of universe creation. The best way to describe it in a sentence is the Judeo-Christian Creation Story but from God's point of view. My question is, staying as close to har...
My planet is tidally locked to its sun. It has a slightly thicker atmosphere than Earth. Over the planet's sun-side surface, there would be no wind because that area is in the middle of a big cyclo...
I am currently working on a piece that has a planet (about double the size of Earth). It is worth noting that this is a low density planet. Without any other factors (Earth-like atmosphere, same pr...
The Hydra is a Greek mythological creature known for its many head that only increase in number as you fight it. Alcaeus was the one to solidly state the the creature started with 9 heads, a large ...
What examples are there in science fiction of molecular shields that can cancel out or "eat" certain molecules--and are they plausible? Is it hypothetically possible to create a giant levee that is...
My Calisota, which is located in the north of what we know as California and largely resembles the universe seen in German-language Disney comics (Lustiges Taschenbuch), except for the absence of a...
Imagine a planet, 3/4 water and 1/4 landmass. No axis tilt so the climate is moderate throughout the year. IE peak temperatures at 100°F at equator. It orbits a sun about the size of ours and h...
In my fantasy world, monsters of several varieties all exist. However, it seems the majority of them have enough stab resistance that blunt force is the best way to defeat them. I want to have a va...
In the event that both planets of a binary planet system were life supporting, and both ended up developing a sapient, tool using species, at what technological level would they be able to start ef...
In the short story, a man is swallowed by a giant, fictional fish. In fact, he is swallowed whole along with his log cabin and a bunch of hand-crafted tools. In a "The Martian"-like narrative, he m...
On 20 October 1861, while in Paris, Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph Maria von Hapsburg, brother of the Emperor of Austria-Hungary, received a letter from Jose Maria Gutierrez de Estrada, a Mexican nobl...
Let's say that in a different timeline, humans evolved to eat insects. How would that change the world today Note: Suppose that this didn't have any mass changes on our anatomy and that our species...
I've been toying with the idea of a society with alternative forms of families or social structures. In one individuals of coming of age (socially imposed) or due to a biological necessity (biologi...
The starship 'Exciting Undertaking' has set off on a brand new five and a bit year expedition to explore the galaxy. To make such a starship possible, an artificial gravity generator had to be inve...
What I "want": My fantasy world has lots of volcanos. Deep under the surface there is a root-like form of life predominant. It grows in big bundles and searches for important minerals, gases, flui...
In this world human-like people have skin that is unbelievably difficult to cut through and I was wondering what biologically creatable material is flexible enough to act as skin but it also essent...
So I my question is quite simple. With current technology or technology that we are likely to gain this century would it be easier for Lunar colonization programs to develop wheeled vehicles or wal...
In my story, there is a villain who has very powerful magic on his side. Basically, he has his own dimension, where he keeps dragging parts of the earth into, piece by piece. It kinda works like th...
I am a scriptwriter working on a science fiction story. As best as I can I like to reconcile my imaginary places to within the constraints of reality. Here is my problem: Kettrah Kettrah is by m...
NB: This is not a duplicate of this question, because A) it only asks to wipe out humans, not any other life-form, and B) it insists that one person must survive. The survival of anything is not po...
If you had a planet with hostile conditions (25 atm pressure, 400° surface temp) would it be possible that a cave system could exist beneath the surface at a different temperature and pressure, or...
You sure lad? For some of you folks normal beer is already an acquired taste, but this... this beer definitely is. You understand that this stuff is brewed with water from the devil's choke? You...
I'm working on a story where the characters are stranded on a planet that turns so incredibly slow that it acts like a tidally locked planet, with one side burning and the other frozen. However bec...
Saturn and it's moons, minus a few rogue colonies, are under the control of the Saturnine Syndicate. Long have they wanted to turn Mimas into a communication, technology, and data hub. But I've run...
Info I've created a pine tree that stabs its needles into people. Here's the way I did so: Using genetic engineering, my fictional scientists inserted keratin-producing genes into a pine tree (gy...
I have found that, every time I try to make another humanoid species, they end up as basically just humans with extra abilities. For example, I tried making a race of dark-elves once, and they ende...
Let's assume there are more than 3 spatial dimension, for example 4 (the 4th not beeing time, but spatial) Would a common energy discharge, explosion etc. affect the 4th dimension? I am not sure...
This is a fairly simple question with a likely rather complicated answer. Basically, I worldbuilding a planet that has become a complete wasteland of ash, rock and flowing rivers of magma. The civ...
In warlords the Hegemony already has practical usage for cryosleep (no clue how it would be enduced just yet) in the medical field and in long voyages, ex: freighter travelling from Uranus to Ceres...
A civilization of land-living humanoids occupies a patch of land on a continent (patch of land size: a few US States, let's say Montanas) and, without even exploring the continent fully, develops s...
Context: So assume there are an unknown number of near-omnipotent/omniscient beings who have been confirmed to live inside of an area of space called the Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN). To provide ...
I've been playing with different conceptualizations and types of armor for historical settings, especially armor with magic enchantments or made from weird materials. I was stuck thinking about lig...
My story setting's group of AIs and brain-uploaded humans wants to colonize space. They have an advantage over us, meat humans, because they don't need conventional life support (air, water, sewage...
Part of the Anatomically Correct Series. I think we're all familiar with the traditional vampire: pale skinned, blood suckers that drink blood through their fangs and have an aversion to sunlight ...
