General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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I'm curious what might need to be considered if a group were exploring the vicinity if a neutron star. Gravitational waves and radiation could be dangers, but what else? Is it possible that habit...
I am writing a fiction set in the 'dark ages', a pre-industrial, pre-gunpowder world. On Earth that would be no later than 800 AD, but this doesn't have to match Earth. There is no magic, and I won...
I recently watched a special on cave divers in the Yucatan Peninsula and part way through that show the divers encountered a feature called a Halocline, a meeting of two different water masses of d...
Quick sketch of how I conceptualize this creature's skeleton. Sorry for the chopped off head, the jaw design and such isn't finished. The 4 yellow bones on the tip of the neck are the base of the...
Inspired by Bonegrass and the local sawgrass I've started thinking about a new creation... Bloodgrass. Bloodgrass typically grows along the edges of watering holes and streams in tall dense thick...
Suppose you have a planet covered in a deep layer of supercritical CO2, and animals evolved to live in it. Discounting the ones who crawl along the bottom, would their method of locomotion be more...
Taking into account the answer by akaioi to my previous question (Would a human-like symbiotic pair of the same race be possible?). Answer: Is it okay if we turn it around a bit? That is,...
This planet is fictional, but I want it to be credible all the same. It is the same size and composition of Earth, orbiting a sun-like star. But that's where the similarities end. The planet's or...
Would a human-like race be possible where the young and their parents live and work etc in a symbiotic pair? My idea is inspired by the character(s) Ferra Torr from the game Mortal Kombat X, th...
This question has similarities to this one but concerns canal travel in more ancient times and is aimed at finding an approximate speed of flow not variables. Background Assume an Earth-like world...
Replicators have become a staple of science fiction. However, many stories treat them as magical, or with inconsistent abilities. This is not a magical device that makes anything for nothing. Whe...
Scaphism, also called "The Boats", was one of the yummiest and funniest most horrific and gruesome execution methods in Human history, invented by the Persians. The condemned would be tied between ...
About 200 years from now, a human scientific expedition, lead by a international coalition of Earth nations, is sent to an alien moon around a habitable planet, light years from earth. Like it's pa...
I need a reason for two antagonistic humanoid lifeforms living on the same planet to be completely incapable of direct physical contact. I don't mean they have a strong aversion to it, I mean the...
I know that light can be affected by gravity. But what if there was a planet where if you shone a light in a direction and it could hit your back. I'm talking about a planet where light is bent aro...
I create a world having three moons. Since precession cycle is influenced by our moon, how do I calculate the duration of the cycle with three moons? Thanks
This is Rainbow Dash: I somehow don't like this design, because this suggests that RD dyes streaks in her mane, which seems to me contrary to her character traits. Which is why I like this fan ...
How would waves and tides work on a planet that is completely covered by Ocean? It would have: Oceans of Similar depth to Earth's Atmosphere extremely similar to Earth's Same type of star and di...
In my desert canal world all water is supplied from the poles to the temperate zones via a canal network. I want to work out the amount of water that that is needed, so that I can work out the dime...
Could you map out all the connections in someones brain just by probing every neuron and tracking them as they send signals to each other (as opposed to every synapse, a much less ambiguous but far...
I'm not certain if it's possible, honestly. I know some cartilaginous fish like sharks and rays that have tooth-like structures lining their skin, called placiod scales, but I've never heard of any...
How scientifically plausible is this? A giant, self-aware fungal supercomputer made or evolved from something like the Blue Mountain honey fungus or maybe a slime mold of a similar size? Could some...
I'm curious about the impact of having a moon composed primarily of a material with a strong optical property: calcite, diamond, glass or something else similar. Would the traditional spherical sha...
Would a starship that was propelled by magnetic monopoles fly faster and longer than ion engines (assuming magnetic monopoles exist) of course.
Background: Most of the population on earth has wings. Wingspans are normally around 13-19ft long depending on the person. Some have lost wings, but I don't want them to be 100% crippled and unable...
Imagine an earth-like planet on which gravity is reduced by 20%-30% every 15 months. The low-grav-effect should start slowly, reaching its peak/bottom of round about 0.7 g after 6 weeks and should ...
I'm trying to find a common or easily transmitted illness that would prevent a person from eating for several days (or keeping down/digesting food). I know there are a lot of things that can make e...
I've been watching the recent news about the close pass of the interstellar object 'Oumuamua'. It apparently passed as close to us as 60 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon at it's cl...
After seeing this question, I wondered what weapon of choice (and, logically, the grand scale of energy amount) is needed to shatter the moon. Let's take our moon, the Moon, the natural satellite o...
Trying to consider how a walking, socially-active sapient plant would evolve and the world it would live in. More specifically, how would something which is essentially a walking tree living in a d...
I was reading the Q/A on water as radiation shielding. The prime answer went in to detail on the cost to lift water from Earth which is cost prohibitive, but how feasible is it to get the water fr...
What would be the design of a near-future extreme-cold environment suit? Consider a protective suit that is not a space suit because it doesn't need to augment the pressure felt by the body. It d...
I'm working out a concept for a story where there's a gas giant with at least 6 habitable moons (willing to use teraforming tech to get over any big hurdles) and the planet itself has a ring of roc...
I've been thinking of ways that an FTL-capable galaxy would prevent weaponized FTL missiles. Ignoring causality violations and paradoxes, I'm looking for a way to keep something based on an Alcubi...
I am writing a science fiction novel where dead humans are turned into diamonds by compacting cremated remains. What size of diamond would the amount of carbon in a human body form? I know that the...
I'm about halfway through a novel about a very advanced alien civilization that is systematically wiping out other species using engineered viruses. I am hoping to have the protagonists test samp...
These planets would be similar in size to Earth. Mars and Venus don't need to exist in this scenario. So how many Earth-like worlds can be squeezed into the sun's "goldilocks" zone? Mars and Venu...
In a fictional setting, an Earth-like planet is orbiting another, Jupiter-like planet. For explanation see my previous question Which astronomical or cosmological event would explain periodical lo...
At the minimum, I'd like to create a creature with a jaw structure that splits into 4 moving parts (like a +-shape or an x-shape). In order to keep food in, the cross sections will have stretchy fl...
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current is a current which endlessly circles around Antarctica. (Deets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Circumpolar_Current ) The key factors I want to highligh...
Some sufficiently advanced species has decided they will move planets. Let's assume earth-like, life sustaining worlds. The only real way to do this as far as I know is using "gravity tugs" or mes...
For a long, long, long time I have had a concept of a world that exists on the inside of a hallowed-out sphere. The basic construction of the world is like this: It is a large world, at the cent...
In attempting to come up with a semi-reasonable method of intergalactic travel, I ended up conceiving a general method of FTL travel relying on brane cosmology and the "bulk" being transversable in...
Faster than light travel is a really cool thing to have in sci-fi settings. It allows humans, in relatable time scales, to travel the galaxy and see a variety of worlds. It allows for conflicts spa...
In this fantasy world there is no day/night but a constant mild light. There are also no seasons and the mild light is akin to the light at dawn or dusk. The sun doesn't really exist. How would th...
I'm working on a story right now where darkness plays an important role, and I had the idea to set my story on a rogue planet, a planet in perpetual darkness because it has no sun. However, from wh...
My case is this: My protagonists live in an earthlike world where living in a city on 90kms approximately, protected by extremely big fences so the sandstorm won't hit them. Anyway, they think...
And if not, how could you reinforce it so that it would? I'm trying to figure out if it's realistic in any possible way for a cyborg to dodge or deflect a bullet, and while my initial assessment of...
What would be the major changes that could happen if Earth experienced a solar eclipse caused by a fictional planet for a minimum of 10 days? Mainly what would happen to the oceans and flora in suc...
Is there any way for a large civilization to get objects into space without using rockets or explosions? I'm considering a planet roughly equivalent to Earth, where (for whatever reason) rockets ...
