Posts tagged reality-check
Here's an idea that I've been toying with. The aliens are real, they are here and they dominate at least a part of our galaxy. How did they overcome the vast distances and why haven't we noticed?...
Slenderman is unarguably the most iconic creation of the early internet. It has led to games, stories and even books. But is his design evolutionarily possible? What evolutionary pressures would le...
Would it be a good idea to use a railgun to propel a person into combat in a low/zero grav environment, Ã la human cannonballs in a circus? If a person was strapped into some sort of temporary fra...
Related Question : Can we 'beam' energy from the moon? I was wondering if instead of 'beam'ing energy from the moon, could it be possible to extend a power cable from the earth to the moon? If th...
The Problem In a world I am building, the days are 9 years long, this means 4 and half years of cold darkness following 4 and a half years of blistering daylight. I have asked questions on this Ye...
I'm imagining an electromagnetic wave that could deliberately alter its wavelength. It would be a totally unfamiliar type of creature, but actually, we material beings act because of the electical ...
Technology: Comparable to early XXIst century, except self-driving vehicles are already available. On a tidally locked planet most of the models that I can found (ex. http://www.meteo.mcgill.ca/~t...
Let's say my eyes were ripped out in some horrible accident, and were replaced with cameras. Over the years, the cameras get better and better... 4k... 8k... 16k... etc. Is there a limit to how hig...
Follow up to this question. Is it possible to translate the inputs from the optical nerve to something readable by a computer?
In the marvel universe mutants are much more fortunate than in our world; they often have extremely useful powers; ranging from telekinetic abilities to wings. As interesting and plain fun as this...
I want to have two planets orbiting each other, and there is a ring around both of them, is this possible? I know rings are formed inside the Roche limit, so if the ring lies outside the planets, ...
A common problem I have with modern science fiction and fantasy (Halo, Mass Effect, Narnia etc) is that the aliens and animals are somehow able to speak in perfect human speech. How does an alien o...
I'm creating a world opposite of Les Visiteurs, where modern age structural engineer accidentally time travels to 13th century. When guards of the local lord arrest him on suspicion of being a spy,...
I'm really excited that this topic actually exists here. For the past weeks I've been thinking about creating my own fantasy world - because there are not quite enough yet. My primary aim is to mak...
Gargantuan carnivorous worms with layers and layers of flesh rending teeth are a pretty common sight in some science-fiction stories. They tunnel through earth and sand as fast as a car, sensing th...
For my science fiction universe, I need to mine a lot of deuterium and helium-3. I have 10,000 intake fans each capable of 3,000 gigaliters an hour pushing atmosphere through 5 billion diffusers. ...
Assuming humans live in dimension 3+1; 3 spatial dimensions, length width and height, and one dimension of time, Is it possible to move matter from our dimension 3+1 to another, such as 4+1 (addin...
Let's say that a race of aquatic merfolk have managed to achieve sapience, they are basic hunter gatherers, living in relatively shallow waters of up to 100 meters deep. As I have begun designing t...
It seems like Dyson Spheres are always brought up in the context of harvesting power. However, another use for a Dyson Sphere may be to cloak your solar system/inner planets. If the star's output d...
I'm looking for biological explanations for some traits I want to give to an alien creature. Description of the Creature It looks like a five foot tall praying mantis, or perhaps a centaur. It ha...
Lets say that somehow a cube world came into being, on an axial tilt around its sun, four of the sides are in-habituated by intelligent life, one of these sides (relatively) quickly realized that t...
I need a planet that is a combination of chlorine world and vitriolic world. The planet is extremely hot and under high pressure, covered in oceans of pure sulfuric acid and a chlorine/fluorine atm...
I am writing a book where there is a binary system with a red and blue star. There is planet with the same properties as earth orbiting in a habitable zone around the 2 stars. The question How c...
On the picture there is a building that slightly inspired me and convinced me that building like this indeed could be built in RL. However I have the following question. Could a building like th...
An interstellar civilization has superluminal travel which allows for travel between two points, effectively without traversing the space in between so they don't crash into anything between them a...
So Turbines in Space don't work, how about sticking beefed up versions of regular wind turbines near the top of a space elevator? My thought is that the elevator at the top experiences some serious...
All organisms on Earth produce waste. Whether an organism's respiration has a byproduct, or it just doesn't process all food it consumes, it will always put some amount of matter into the environme...
My setting is a habitable moon with freestanding water orbiting a gas giant. Originally I thought the gravity of the jovian world would tend to draw water toward the tidal bulge of the moon itsel...
On a world I am building, the day/night cycle last 9 years, meaning that there are interesting forms of life. Plants are the most interesting of these living things, which have many interesting for...
I have an earth like planet where stalkers live. They are: Humanoid about same height, strength & speed as humans Three pairs of eyes placed horizontally (Near UV, Visible, Near IR) Lightspee...
Let's say I have a world that contains magical fire and ice creatures. These creatures can utilize magical beams of energy that ignite or freeze the things around them, though doing so on more than...
Would it be easier to build Skyscrapers on a planet with 50% of Earth's gravity, and the same atmospheric pressure of the Earth. I noticed someone asked why the planet has lower gravity, this is be...
To be clear, I'm not talking about AB, O, A, or B type blood. I'm not talking about different colored blood, either; I saw a bunch of those types of questions earlier. I'm talking about anoxygeni...
In the world I'm making I want to have very large creatures that will later be used in organic architecture as housing for the human equivalent in this world. In order to make this world realistic ...
I would like to have a humanoids with three pairs of eyes placed on the same horizontal plane like in Protheans not one below the other like Batarian. I was thinking of one pair being sensitive to...
In a world where travel is limited to the speed of light, reaching a different star, while not necessarily impossible, would be very time consuming. For an empire stretching across several solar sy...
I can think of at least 2 movies that had aliens invading Earth for water. Is this a feasible motivation? I was thinking that Water is H20, i.e. dihydrogen monoxide The vast majority of the uni...
I recently came up with a lizard that had a sort of crystal-gem like attachment on its back. The problem was finding a way for such a thing to have evolved to have a largish crystal on its back. ...
Some information about their homeworld: Their homeworld, 0.34247 (M⊕) 0.54 G, 10156 km. The atmospheric pressure of their homeworld is 62% of the Earth's, and the planet has an average temper...
I was trying to put together an idea for a Gas Giant like planet that could possibly support some kind of fairly complex life, and I hit upon a few ideas: -Located in a habitable zone roughly simi...
Our most iconic bridges can be categorized in two basic types: Suspension... ...and cantiliever. Here is the scenario in question: There is a straightforward (as in radiating out in cardina...
I want to have a star cluster of main-sequence stars (yellow dwarfs [like our sun], orange, and red dwarfs) that are on a distance of 1-2 light years between each other, so interstellar travel is ...
For all who are unaware, synesthesia is a condition in the brain where two or more senses are connected; for example being able to see sound or hear color. Of course they do not actually see color ...
This is an answer I found while looking up random factoids. And it's gotten me wondering. ((If I should take down the picture, and just paraphrase the text, please let me know.)) Charlie here i...
So having read a couple of other questions on here, and postulating over this for a while, here's my question. Is it possible to have two magnetars in a distant binary orbit, with an earthlike pla...
In a setting I am presently working on, I have envisioned a world similar to Star Wars' Takodana, in that its water is mainly in the form of large rivers, or smaller seas (I generally picture it b...
How to get humans that can change their skin color? Approximately 1.6 million years ago, hominids lost their hair and gained dark skin (so says the New York Times). Evidence shows several several...
Inspired by comment under this question "Darling, does this dress make me look fat? QUICKSAVE "Uhm ... no?" WRONG ANSWER, WANNA TRY AGAIN? We all dreamed about having possibili...
Satyrs, fauns, pan, and even the devil are commonly depicted as humanoid bipeds with goatlike unguligrade hooves for feet. However, common as such beings may be in fantasy and mythology, I have bee...
The concept of a planet with several anthropomorphic sapient species (furries, if you will) is immensely popular. But would it actually make sense in the first place? I am aware of the issue of "...
