Posts tagged civilization
We divide the year into months of ~30 days because that's roughly the period of the moon, adapted to fit a solar year. However, would a civilization living on a world with no moon but a year of ~3...
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...
In my question: Sustainability of Regular Global Wildfires Due to Oxygen Rich Atmosphere An answer was proposed for a kind of "Boom Bust Cycle". The atmosphere has little CO2 but a lot of O2. W...
In my setting there is a civilization that has a decisive advantage in a fundamentally agrarian world; a crop of exceptional yield and nutritional value. Would it be feasible for a plant to have ...
In my fantasy world, I have created a sentient species descended from an arboreal felid (it evolved to eat squrriels and small monkeys). They are my elves. The one problem is that I want them to be...
In all fantasies that I'm aware of, the setting is in the northern hemisphere (noted by frozen north and barren south). So... Could advanced civilizations exist on a continent that's located in the...
Ancient Man feasted on megafauna. From mammoths to every variety of deer and flightless bird humans have made the most of large wildlife, to the point of tragic excess. So what happens when the ani...
Mankind has been always interested in making contact with another (extraterrestrial) civilization. We have launched the Pioneer 10 and 11 probes with plaques explaining where the Earth is located. ...
What would be the optimal geography for a thriving capital, located in a caldera ? I'm building a fantasy world with multiple intelligent species and civilisations. There is magic in this world, b...
Inspired (loosely) by societies like the Gunditjmara and natives of the Pacific Northwest, I always have envisioned a system of aquaculture for one of my concultures, though agricultural studies a...
or, Anatomically Correct Weebles A group of behaviorally modern humans was cut off from the rest of the earth-like planet millennia ago. (Myths hold that the separation occurred four to five ka BP...
Hopefully this isn't two separate questions - I do feel like they are interconnected enough that they can be counted as one. I'm wondering if it would be possible for primitive human ancestors. Le...
How would human culture and civilisation develop if placed onto a planet permanently psychoactive, e.g. because of low (but inevitable) amount of LSD-like substance in either water or air? To simpl...
If there was a life-supporting planet that was cubical rather than spherical, would it be feasible for there to be a unique but similar civilisation on each 'Plane'? I know that cube planets are i...
On Earth, civilization grew up around river valleys. Rivers are useful as a water source, a food source, and a waste disposal system, but their most important function to a civilization is enabling...
This is strictly Earth based. Would it be possible for a society to develop their own civilization underwater (nothing fantastical like Aquaman or whatever, but more of a grimy, hardscrabble existe...
Planet: earth like, half the radius of earth, gravity is .7g. Assuming this is possible and humans live on this planet, would it be possible to have 90% of the planets surface area be under water?...
I know that currently, black hole civilizations are only theoretical. But here are my thoughts on why black hole civilizations are impossible. Black Hole Civilization Issues 1. Gravity This is...
Imagine a situation kind of like Zootopia with many different creatures all living in one environment, some significantly larger than others. These species aren't necessarily furries like in Zooto...
Modern Earth; a series of connected events (natural disasters, mass migration, drug-resistant pandemic, collapse in biodiversity, armed conflict) have led to a significant reduction in human popula...
Let's say we have an Earth-sized planet and the same general solar activity and climatology. However, the continents are much smaller, and it's effectively impossible to accomplish travel between t...
On another planet there is a life form that has the same level of intelligence as humans on Earth, but it has no appendage to manipulate its environment. It has similar social structures to humans...
Imagine there is a country in which there are all important natural resources (oil, gas, metal ores, wood, etc.) in their natural form and which lies in a temperate climate region. There may be som...
A type 1 civilization is defined as a civilization that can utilize the maximum amount of energy equal available to its entire planet, roughly 1017 watts for Earth. This is equal to the amount of ...
On a planet without axial tilt and with a roughly circular orbit, there would be no seasons. The climate on the planet would be, as far as I can tell, exactly the same at any time of year, and the...
For example, beans and rice cooperate to make a "complete" protein, providing all of the amino acids the body can't synthesize on its own -- in fact, most traditional dishes that combine legumes an...
Unnecessary Setup In my story, a race of gods arrive in our solar system from the far flung colonies of a Type III civilization. When they arrive at Earth and see the rise of hominids, they split ...
One rule: it cannot be caused by aliens or AI invading the planet. But it is okay if an alien race causes the destruction in any other way. It's an Earth-like planet. I need the effects of the des...
Assuming a sci-fi style nebula, like the thick clouds seen in Star Trek, extending several light years and hosting star systems inside, one of which gave rise to intelligent life up to current huma...
According to Natural nuclear explosions natural nuclear fission reactors could occur. Could it happen that a primitive alien civilization has its social, economical and technology evolution trigg...
I'm designing an alien race that hasn't developed electricity yet. Now, one thing about their species is that they haven't discovered fossil fuels on their planet to use, like coal, oil, etc. (The ...
All I know so far is, they're a developed culture of humans who live in cave networks underground, made fit for life. They speak their own language, and they have some contact with outsiders, with ...
In this world there has been a recurring population surge of ferocious insects every 20 years for many centuries. The setting is approximately our own time in relation to the existence of "cave men...
In a world big enough for human civilizations as knowledgeable about medicine as ours to develop without contacting each other, how could they initiate that contact without exposing each other to p...
If humans discovered a diamond exoplanet and then traveled there, how would they set up civilization on a diamond exoplanet? Everything needs a foundation, even on low-gravity planets (below 9.8m/...
Instead of Earth as we know it, humans evolved on a slightly smaller, habitable earthlike planet with different geography. Due to the plot reasons, I would like to keep them confined to one (large)...
I'm trying to create a people that live on this rolling tide (see previous question or on 'millers planet') but I haven't figured out where they would get wood to build their boats/homes. If the ti...
I would like to know if a very advanced civilisation could rule an entire galaxy without mastering teleportation or any other method that allows traveling faster than light (unless you give mathema...
Related to a previous question which focused more on surviving on such a world. This presumes a significant advancement in technologies - that is, to 1940s-1950s level technology. There are some d...
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...
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...
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...
While only counting seasons and years, but not weeks or months, how far can human civilization progress? Can they reach the middle ages? Or is the invention of the calendar such a cornerstone of ...
Ok so first of all, let's imagine a civilisation on a planet. The planet has a relatively low escape velocity, say 6 km/s and maybe an atmosphere 30% - 50% the thickness of earth's atmosphere. Now...
Humans have come and gone. Their aggressiveness and pride have caused their own end. War has torn apart all society, engineered diseases pick them off one by one. The last remaining people have fle...
Imagine a race of humanoids who only eat meat, and are unable to digest vegetables. Is it possible for these humanoid to be able too create/gather enough food(meat) to the point that job specializ...
I have a huge planet with two continents separated by a wide ocean. Inhabitants think that their continent is the whole world because the other side is too far and they never visited it. What if pe...
How do my PA civilizations rebuild after a depletion of the planet's natural fuels? Even with a wealth of information to rebuild, would civilization still be permanently stunted due to being unab...
Human civilization really took off when individuals started to interact with each other, in language and trade and settlements. The transition from stone age to our space faring civilization of tod...
I am looking for information on how the trees and the flora would be in a world with a denser atmosphere and stronger winds. I have read that due to the greater kinetic movement of the wind, that ...
