General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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A problem I've run into is the use of ultra massive beings due to the effects of the square-cube law which means that I cannot within the current laws of physics have the world I envision. My world...
So, out in Colorado, in the city of Den (population 1600), there is a huge problem. Before the war, a geneticist lab was trying to create police dogs that were stronger and superior to normal dogs....
Context For reasons unknown a large, powerful company wants to engineer colossal squids to catch or kill sperm whales. They have tons of money to do this and even more resources.Just one thing... ...
I'm currently playing with a geographical setting that's flat rather than round and thus doesn't follow a lot of the same rules as one modeled as a planet. I've found resources concerning climate i...
A caldera is usually the remnant of a volcanic eruption powerful enough to collapse the structure surrounding the magma chamber. Many of our examples, like Yellowstone, Crater Lake, Toba and even ...
I've read the other answers relating to this area (and discovered to my disappointment that my great ideas have been done before... hey ho). But I'd like to get the science right. I have a nation ...
If the water on earth were displaced to surround the earth in the atmosphere to create a water canopy, how thick would that canopy be? I apologize I should have been more specific in my original qu...
This is, for the record, the same universe as in Is space piracy orbitally practical? and How can I prevent Kessler Syndrome among space stations?. In my world, circa 2100, space stations orbiting...
I have a planet in earth's solar system that is on a comet's orbit rather than like the orbits of the planets we have. I need some help picturing how this would work to meet a few requirements for ...
Let us assume that we are settlers on some alien land and we run into a terrestrial, territorial pack carnivore among the local fauna. This animal has many of the traits needed for domestication: ...
I'm making a simple planetary system with a primary similar to our sun and a planet like our earth. This earth analog has a moon similar to our moon, just smaller and closer. How do I calculate ...
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...
Take for example, Neptune, a planet with a slushy mantle and outer core. Imagine we want to mine for water (or some substance beneath it - maybe an exotic ice form under all that liquid). How do ...
Humanity is often said to have 5 senses, but this isn't entirely accurate. This is one question of several in a series I am asking regarding going beyond the 5 senses. One of the senses is somethi...
An integral species in a large worldbuilding project I'm working on right now is based around the concept of extreme agility. The species shall be a megafauna (Is that grammatically correct - "a m...
In the future, a high-tech human civilization has colonised a distant planet. The planet is basically Earthlike in gravity, climate, terrain and vegetation. They want to build Forevertown: A city w...
Life had been good for a certain class of tetrapods. They evolved two layers graphene in a specialized collagen creating a relatively thin yet seemingly impenetrable hide. All of their natural pre...
While there are approaches to make a habitable Dyson sphere that are technically reasonable, I am curious about what the climate would be like. For simplicity, consider a scenario where a thick she...
Background story: Current Earth, in the close future. Astronomers have found first signs of extraterrestrial life: huge sheet-like objects (with surfaces easily as large as the surface of the Eart...
I have four similarly-sized planets (5000-6000km radii) all in circular orbits 10 million km apart (i.e. 300M, 310M, 320M and 335M km from the sun respectively). They are 0.37, 0.61, 0.64 and 0.83 ...
So what size comet/meteor/rogue planet could wreak havoc on a populated world without killing off intelligent life entirely or actually ruining the planet for life? Assume the world being affected ...
Say a computer running an AI exists on a planet with no biological life. Say it has access to a rather extensive preexisting manufacturing plant and can control a fleet of machines capable of perfo...
I'm working on a class of tetrapods similar to mammals with warm blood. I am planning for their metabolisms to be quite high on average, among the carnivores especially. They range in size from tw...
We have a regular Earth as we know it, but instead of humans, there is this worm-like race, intelligent similarly as nowadays humans. Their inner physiology is different from our worms (and not imp...
Let's say I'm a secretive organization who's recently come into possession of two individuals of the genus, Giraffatitan (a sauropod similar to the more famous Brachiosaurus for those unfamiliar wi...
Is it possible for a technologically developed society to make some invention which could allow trees to be like AI (Artificial Intelligence) and communicate with human? To be like AI (Artificial ...
I am writing a novel, in which the main character has their mind transferred to a wolf body, losing all thier memories in the proccess. My current explanation is that the state of every neuron in ...
With Mars' color coming from the iron oxide, is it possible for such a small body without an atmosphere to support that color?
So my Keplerians have a menstrual cycle that typically lasts 45 days on average. My proposed menstrual cycle is dependent on ovulation. So multiple ovulations without a period could occur but multi...
In my fictional world I am planning to have a humanoid species living on an arctic continent, and I am wondering what type of biological adaptations a humanoid (as in, anatomically modern humans or...
It's the height of humanity's space-colonization golden age when casual interplanetary travel has become possible and humans have either colonized or established large space stations around nearly ...
What is the best dinosaur to have as a pet, if the goal is to have it do tricks? It all started as a joke among us, the idle children of the technocratic class that effectively, in all but name, t...
I need an Earth where the atmosphere has become unbreathable for humans and animals because all plants have died. But everything else should stay pretty much the same. So here are my questions: ...
Assuming that the observer is on the moon for a full lunar cycle, would the appearance of the planet wax and wane, would the moon's shadow occlude the planet during an eclipse while on the moon?
I have made this planet for my creatures and it is constantly dark, night or day. No it's not a rogue planet, it's dark because of the 1,000 feet tall autotrophs that suck up all the sunlight and...
Is it possible to have a structurally self-supporting hollow Earth where the weight of the shell is balanced against the atmospheric pressure inside? It must be human habitable (gravity is nice b...
Question I am currently trying to create a dramatic introduction for one of my characters, John Smith. The current iteration of the idea has him suddenly colliding with a solid wall on a motorbike...
Full version of the question: How would a plant adapted to living at -23 degrees Celsius keep the water vapor it transpirates from flash freezing to the surface of/within its leaves and clogging it...
In Japan, there is a legend about scuzzy little creatures known as "akaname". These things are said to have a humanoid shape, red skin, stringy black hair, and long slimey tongues. They are said to...
It would be cool if this entire planet could use zeppelin roadways instead of tarmac roads. Especially for countryside transport away from cities. A zeppelin for one person is about the size of a l...
A character I have lies on why they survived in the ocean by saying they were in a blue whale's mouth. Is it possible to survive in a blue whale's mouth if the blue whale is underwater? Half-hour d...
What would the effects be on mountains, deserts, and grasslands? I know about the effects of a planet with no tilt, but I was curious about a 10 degree tilt. I am thinking the seasons would still b...
I am in pursuit of, as the title says, a multi-purpose horse, a single breed that can do all the things that the others were only specialized for: travel, labor, companionship, war, speed, strengt...
I want to be able to have interplanetary travel very cheap and fast, within minutes. Seeing as planets are light minutes away from each other, I suppose even for fast interplanetary travel the tech...
Description An Opticoid is an alien species from the tv series Ben 10 and is named and known for having green eyes with slits all over its body except for its head where there are two large bat-li...
I have a planet with a specified sidereal day and sidereal year, and a solar day. But how can I determine the length of its solar year from this? Sidereal day: 1d 1h 52m 11s Solar day: 1d 1h 54m ...
Let's consider that the card game needs to be played, and equipment that may even kill you if you lose (via blades, electric shocks or the like, it could also even kill people by summoning supernat...
I'm working on a tidally locked world. I would like to have some life in the dark side of the world. The sun heats all the air on one side of the planet and winds high in the atmosphere transport i...
I am building a story where there is a rogue AI. However, that AI was under the governance of Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction...
I have this alien race of amoeba-like creatures about the size of humans with the ability to morph their shape and move by constantly making and dissolving muscles by manipulating their membrane an...
