Posts tagged reality-check
On another planet there is a group of organisms that have colorful display patterns allowing them to attract mates. Eventually a branch of this type of organism evolves the intelligence of early h...
I am investigating the possibility of modifying the speed of light in my world. Assuming that the speed of light in a vacuum can (and in my world, is) modified, what lower bound exists that would ...
My story is set in a fortress town built below a mountain, and revolves around the struggle between the witch who protects the mountain and the tyrant who seeks to plunder it for resources (think P...
The title pretty much says it all. I'm wondering if it is possible through "digital" means only (aka any physical disruption of satellites is not allowed) to disable the US GPS satellite constella...
I'm working on a sci-fi setting which includes an aquatic space-faring species. When a human space vessel is ruptured and depressurizes, the gas can escape rapidly and we immediately suffer from t...
On Earth, our atmosphere contains 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, on average around 1% water vapor at sea level, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. Looking through...
Recently, I came across an inverted world map on the MapPorn Reddit made by MChainsaw. "Inverted" as in, the "continents" are now below sea level and the "ocean floors" are high and dry. (Conside...
Me You might call me evil but the facts are I deserve to rule all of the world, everyone & everything in it. What I already have done For years I have worked in the shadows (as much as you c...
This one is rather straightforward. A character falls into a magically-induced coma for about 10,000 years and then wakes up to find the world around him different in quite a few ways. There's not ...
Due to the moon's gravitational pull, objects at Earth's surface directly under the moon are slightly lighter. This tiny lessening of gravity would also take effect if the moon were on the exact op...
On a generation ship, the people living on it need oxygen, lots of oxygen. More than they can realistically carry, thus a generation ship must be able to create breathable air from relatively commo...
Demons have been a staple of multiple religions for thousands of years, just like angels. While some of the points brought up in the Anatomically Correct Angels post (and other posts on flying huma...
Let's assume that there is a lake that has formed from snowmelt and rainfall. The lake has never been in contact with other bodies of water. How might this lake become a complete ecosystem?
Could two planets be tidally locked to each other at such a small distance from one another that they share their atmosphere, and material is floating around between the two?
I'm working on a story in which there is some sort of planetary erosion of language. Humans lose the ability to communicate verbally (orally and written). They can remember having language, can eve...
You're a lone immortal who's decided to breed raccoons to a human-level intelligence (over the course of hundreds of thousands or millions of years). To do so, you need to both feed a significant p...
I'd like to travel really really fast, and I've got some scientists proposing a novel new way of doing so. They've developed the technology to generate extremely powerful controlled gravitational ...
Let's say that some Oriental emperor had decreed that he should move his palatial residence from China to Everest. Specifically, he wanted Mount Everest to be his palace, which means hollowing the...
Scenario: In my Evil Overlord plan, I release a poison into the wild which should kill all humans. However I made some sort of mistake in my poison design and I killed all Vertebrates bigger than 0...
If a three-month dark period was a normal, recurring, part of a 15-month calendar, and plants had evolved to be bio-luminescent, could they survive? Would only some survive and, if so, would it be ...
If a human is kidnapped by an alien vessel and taken to another planet - and, for the sake of argument, let's assume that the alien life-form lives in a completely different environment from Earth'...
How could trees in an environment with 23% Oxygen (The atmosphere is identical to earth in all other respects.) grow bark with Starlite-like qualities? Starlite is a material claimed to be abl...
Heraldic Dragons Heraldic dragons are the creations of a mad god, called Anon, designed after the classical six-limbed ones. Measurements: Head+neck length: 180 cm Body length: 180 cm Height at...
What sort of fireproof liquid could be used by carbon-based life without causing harm to the organism? Whether it be absorbed from exterior sources or produced in the organism's body. I say organis...
I am designing a creature that is quadrupedal but can run after prey on its hind legs. What kind of hip bone would allow for the excess stress to be put on it during bipedal locomotion? The animal ...
Is it possible to have a planet that is both bigger than Earth and weaker in terms of gravity? I've got an idea about it being less dense, but I don't know what to do about its magnetic field. I ne...
On a world similar to Earth minus size, gravity, and a mildly different atmosphere. The weather is much more violent, causing frequent dust storms. The planet is larger than Earth and is mostly scr...
There are lots of examples in fiction of lizard people, bird people or beast people, but I'd like to expand my phylogenetic horizons in conceptualizing my world. To that end, I have conceptualized ...
I'm imagining a scenario where there is a conflict between humans and intelligent octopuses. The humans' main mode of transport is the bicycle. The octopuses decide to stage a night raid whereby t...
I have a hypothetical world in the works and I have a rough idea of what it might be like. My idea is that the planet was life-supporting with a widely varied biosphere. The magnetosphere failed a...
Our planet has a surface full of silicates and a core made of iron. It's due to this that Earth is the way it mostly is - most rocks and many minerals contain some form of silica. But what about a ...
I am creating a speculative evolution project for school (and partially for leisure) and I need a planet for my organisms to live on. I have a rough idea of what it may be like but I'm no expert in...
Let's say there's a planet with 18 times the radius of Earth, but has the same density as Earth. If so, how would it be possible for a big planet to such a density of Earth? Would it have the same ...
Suppose that I have a planet very similar to Earth. It has the same level of gravity, water-land ratio, temperature, air composition, rotation and revolution speed, tectonic activities, temperature...
I want to start by thanking everybody in this community as your posts have been instrumental in helping me to build my world. All I am asking for is a final review of the maps that I have created t...
I have searched for a while now, but I cannot find a definite answer. A character I am writing has been captured by the antagonist, operated on and released, now completely mute. I've looked ar...
On Earth, rivers are possible because rain and snow deposit water in high places. That water then forms rivers when flowing to lower places. Would it be possible to have the phenomena of rivers fl...
In my story, I have a small extended family of 30 to 40 individuals ranging in age from 0 to 50 who are on the run from Chinese and Japanese forces in 1400AD. No place in Asia is safe for them. By...
Information I am writing a fantasy sci-fi, that is almost the same as our reality, the only difference being humans in this world are capable of using drugs (serums in their world) to improve thei...
I was recently looking at this question, which seems to argue that FTL travel within the existing laws of physics can risk resulting in the destruction of half the universe. (Specifically, bad thin...
I am designing a mammal living in a warm environment (like a warm desert) which has developed a switchable metabolism, so that during the day it is cold blooded and during the night (when it is col...
A civilization wishes to create a wormhole connecting its universe to a universe with a different spacetime metric. For instance if we describe a timelike dimension with $+$ symbol and a spacelike...
Recently I was talking with a friend of mine on fantasy stuffens. I brought up that its interesting that dwarves are rarely in the desert and he immediately listed reasons why the dwarf build is ba...
As recorded in Genesis 11:1-9, the ancients allegedly built a tower to the skies in a valley in Babylon (near present-day Baghdad), and God scattered them across the Earth as a punishment. Accordin...
I´m building a hard-sifi setting and want to use Stellasers (abbreviation for stellar laser) to provide thrust and power to interstellar vessels. This part one is only concerned with the construct...
In a hibernating speculative evolution project called The Speculative Dinosaur Project, the "speccers" feature a species of shark called Jasconius pelaganax, the Gigamouth, which is basically a meg...
In Steven Gould's Jumper series, the main character has the ability to teleport, and he eventually realizes he automatically does frame matching when doing so - no matter where on earth his origin ...
As part of a series on plant animals, plantimals if you will, I am now asking about ears. All surface life has them or some sort of equivalent to them and with good reason. Other than sight, hearin...
Storm fronts — especially surprise storm fronts — are a popular Sci-Fi trope. Ion storms and radiation storms and neutronic storms and they invariably look 2D, like ribbons in space. But then I r...
I was unfortunate enough to imagine an ancient setting upside down. I started out with small features and, after connecting them, got the following: cold ^ | sun...
