General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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There is this idea that we find in a few books, mainly The Swarm by Frank Schätzing and in the Ender Saga by Orson Scott Card, that some species could communicate via DNA exchange. Technically, y...
I was recently learning about pressure in my high school science class. I will admit that I am not extremely well educated in the subject and thus this may be an extremely stupid question. But anyw...
Worldbuilder in dire need! I'm trying to figure out the eclipse length of a habitable Earth-like moon that is rotating around a gas giant. The story that I work on is centered on the Earth-like mo...
I'm creating a world with different oxygen density, about 15%. When given same fuel and air pressure, how will the fire burn up in this 15% oxygen density atmosphere compared to our world? And the ...
I am writing a short story and would like to know what would be the most realistic way to introduce a human to robot interface (exchanging data with an AI robot)? I was thinking of some kind of a c...
Conspiracy theorists love to talk about a group called the Illuminati that pull the strings of world events. While there have been several real (and many more imaginary) Illuminati groups, what wo...
What I am proposing is a bridge making it possible to travel between two planets, I have some ideas but I would like to know if and how it would work. Maybe somehow stopping their orbit and locking...
Suppose a civilization in which every possible appliance is a bio-machine. There are automobiles, but each one has a human-like head under the hood. Each datacenter is a bunch of over-grown brains....
Supposing you are trying to colonise planet that has no life what-so-ever but is otherwise an earth analogue. First thing that I realised is that there would be no oil. So they would need to make ...
The year is 3030 and the robots (who have replaced humanity as the dominant intelligent beings on Earth) have decided to build a Dyson sphere around the sun. They're planning on disassembling Venus...
I have in mind this alien species that can reproduce with humans. The result will always be of the same species as the alien; the human is used only to vary the genetics so the newborn won't be a c...
Tau Ceti e is possibly a good candidate for colonisation as it has a yellow dwarf sun like earth. But it's mass is estimated as >4.30 ± 2.1 of earth. (See Wiki) I remember from a documentary th...
Lets say in 2069 a big interstellar corporation needs to create a "love potion" to subdue a religious pacifist rebel group that refuses to reproduce until they get independence. This love potion d...
The orcs in my world are humans who have been infected by two different diseases: An airborne mutagen that permanently denatures their myostatin receptors, which prevents their muscles from being...
I'm aware of hard radiations from space can wipe out life but I believe that would also causes the planet to be inhabitable for a period of time. Is there any other kind of energy that could destro...
For this question, let's say we have a space faring civilization. They are at least 100 years more advanced than us, and are drawing up plans to send colonists to a neighboring star. The catch is,...
I am writing a science fiction story that would greatly benefit from a plot device that causes a large localized darkness effect. I'm aiming to get at least 3 days of darkness that covers a signifi...
If the ground end of a space elevator was severed, what would the unfolding event look like from the ground? What would the movement(s) look like, and over what period of time? I'm assuming that ...
This question may be a bit broad, but I'm basically wondering what minimal things humans need to have in an atmosphere in order to survive. Let's assume we have Earthlike gravity, and are only deal...
The way the Earth travels is dependent on the gravitational influence of matter that surrounds it. This question is of how/if we can prevent or reduce certain objects effects on Earths movements th...
EDIT: I eventually managed to find the absorption spectra of SO2 online - it absorbs in the ultraviolet range only, not in the visible light range, so the only factor affecting light transmitting t...
This new idea/story includes an ancient subterranean race, but they need to survive harsh conditions. Developing a nervous system/brain is important. Are certain proteins necessary to form a comp...
Say that America/NASA has developed a small city with around 100 or so inhabitants on the Moon. Would a cannon or slingshot or trebuchet type machine be able to launch cargo out of Earth's orbit a...
Question inspired by discussion under this answer: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/70360/2071 Dear people of Proxima Centauri. Our planet is dying. Our suns are dying. As you all know. W...
In a large body of liquid helium below the lambda point, what would be the best way(s) for submarine like vehicles to achieve acceleration and directional control? I'm willing to accept an answer ...
Would any creature ever need to evolve a second (or multiple) brain(s)? If so, under what conditions, why, and what implications would it have on the creature's intelligence? Note that while an o...
If a spaceship left earth traveling at near or at light speeds (that being possible in this situation) would they not when coming back to earth, arrive many years in the future due to Einstein's th...
In the movie Interstellar, they go to a planet where time flows by much slower for them while on it because of the increased gravity that planet is experiencing due to the nearby black hole. My que...
Is it possible for an earth analog planet* to have more than 3 convection cells per hemisphere? In our system we only have Jupiter and Saturn with 20 atmospheric bands, even Uranus and Neptune hav...
In an effort to accurately map and predict earthquakes and tectonic plate movements, scientists wish to insert sensors through the earth's crust and into the upper mantle. Through some Excel wizar...
The Premise Setting a near-ish future world, where people live a full life and then upload their minds into different hardware and continue on. Setting a timeline for this, when (what year) are w...
Inspired by this question. Imagine a sea of liquid helium. Some people like to use submarines, but we've got a better plan. Jet-Skis. Impeller pumps are used in jet-skis and can also be used to ...
A message arrives from several light years away. It is a complete prepared document, not a two-way communication. The document can contain line-drawings and diagrams, both 2D and 3D, plus movies ...
On a fantasy-themed planet with Earth-like humans and plants, over a very long period of time, a dryad-like species has evolved. Dryads look mostly like regular humans, but they have a few qualitie...
I'm trying to build a designer organism that would prove a threat to all life on Earth. Sort of a semi-organic von Neumann ecology of microscopic nitrogen-eaters that rapidly consume nitrogen to fu...
What I mean is: instead of a "rat" evolving into primates and those tree hugging primate becoming bipedal great apes, imagine a "rat" evolving into a dog-like or cat-like animal, then that animal b...
I'm creating a bronze age setting and one of the civilizations gets their powers from a river whose irrigation produces a vast food supply. So, I decided to figure out where the most powerful city ...
I am writing a book where organ printing has advanced such that humans can grow full hands, arms, legs, and every inside organ. This process is used to "make" soldiers in Earth's future because clo...
In a world I am building, the planet's days are longer than its years, with a single day taking 9 years. In all other ways, this planet is similar to Earth, but are there other differences I am mis...
I'm currently creating a world with a population of about 4.5 billion people and 21st century technology. In fact, the world is strikingly similar to ours. Oh, except the islands that is. The en...
Looking at a race based on Hobbits or Halflings, and I am wondering about the average weight and if that is affected by denser muscle mass (than human children of the same height), and the realism ...
I've seen some articles about biologically powering devices through a glucose fuel cell, but from what I can tell this would only provide power on the order of a few tenths of a watt. While it's d...
You gotta admit. That roguish guy you just met at space bar looks cooler with cig in his mouth. Not only he always shoots first, but also he manages to do so while puffing awesomely looking clouds ...
I'm building a small, naturally inhabited world where usable water is scarce or difficult to access. Is it possible to have a planet with groundwater, ice caps, temporary rivers and lakes, seasonal...
Modern education teaches citizens that the point of an individual in society is to contribute labor. In a world with limited natural resources, we use this idea to measure an individual's worth in ...
I read that our current method of cryonics involves replacing blood with other fluid and keeping the body submerged in liquid as well as on ice (these things being done to the dead, for now, instea...
I'm working on a sci-fi/fantasy story that involves a future earth that has become tidal locked with the sun. Part of the story has an advanced civilization that has built a ring (halo) that circle...
My people are traveling in a generation ship. For some reason they can't make the ship radiation-proof. Their solution: genetically modify their descendants to be radiation proof. How could one mod...
Assuming a robot with similar intelligence to us humans came to existence. He could pass the Turing Test, the Coffee Test, the The Robot College Student Test and the Employment Test (taken from her...
The idea is that a species very similar, but not related to humans have evolved on a different planet and are living in a medieval society. Humans from Earth must be able to live on this planet wit...
