General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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In a world I want to make, sailors would travel at sea for many years, perhaps up to ten, on sail boats. Obviously, they'd normally be stricken by scurvy and such, but I was thinking of some kind o...
is it possible for certain creatures that can use infrasound or even vibrations as a defense mechanism, like: - causing them to get a severe headache or even weaken them - temporarily stunning its ...
On Venus the surface is around 467 degrees Celsius. At the top of the atmosphere it is much cooler, and at around 60 km above the surface the temperature is around 40 to 50 degrees Celsius. This is...
What would cause/allow a planet with very high gravity to have tall, sharp mountains? Mountain height is generally capped off by gravity, erosion, and the mountains composition. On a higher gravit...
When elves decide to conceive, a male must add his genetic material at different intervals over several years to the female. Genetic material could come from a single male or various ones with no c...
I am wondering if it is possible for whales to fly. I'm considering two different cases. How could we alter earth conditions (thickness, gravity) so that whales could actively fly (without changi...
The present day atmosphere is roughly 21% oxygen. Historically high-levels might have been as much as 35%, over 66% higher. This made the carboniferous a period of giant bugs and constant devastati...
Genetic chimerism is a condition in which a single organism is composed of cells with more than one distinct genotype. In animals, this means an individual derived from two or more zygotes, which c...
After surveying customers about their new product, 2019-nCoV™, E.V.I.L. Inc. realized that many of them would pay for an upgrade which allows for the virus to be carried by the wind itself in order...
In my story Orcs, humans, and a bunch of other fantasy races live along side each other and i'm curious as to what sort of environment (on earth) would best suit them? so basic characteristics of m...
My fungus starts out as an extremely small spore, this small spore will bury and implant itself near the spinal cord and cerebellum, and will then secrete an enzyme that hijacks and later puts it i...
Imagine an Earth sized planet consists of only ferrous metals, the creatures living on the planet move around like a maglev train basically they interact with the world and among each other electro...
In a world I'm designing, a group of Homo Habilis or even Australopithecus Afarensis migrated into a northern Scotland environment becoming Trolls. These are not D&D trolls, but something else....
So, Both birdfolk and gryphons have a head structure, similar to that of birds of prey, i.e: forward facing eyes. Sure, the color of the plumage and the beak-type can vary, but one problem is still...
Though this applies to lizardfolk and most creatures with a snout as well, I'm having trouble giving more facial expressions to dragons. Sure, they can wink, bare their fangs and laugh out loud and...
I understand that one does not simply scale up the smallest of creatures to the size of megafauna without violating basic physiological constraints like the square/cube law, among others; so what w...
I came to SE WB while I was researching about space radiators for my sci-fi. I don't remember where exactly I found an answer to my question (Maybe? Idr) but I stunned with this site. You all looks...
So, lizardfolk are humanoid (and, so, upright) creatures with reptilian features and are also part-time endotherms. They're well-adapted to living in water and on trees to a degree. One adaptation ...
There has been materials science research on materials that can harden and soften at need. In nature, we have the example of the sea cucumber, which can go from a squishy compressible state to a r...
At speeds near the speed of light, interstellar particles and gas may affect the movement of the ship, and microscopic particles may even badly damage the ship. Would not it make sense to make the ...
While the intended end state is that this planet can support space-faring lifeforms, the solution under question needs a sanity check. I cannot commit to many numbers with how speculative this all ...
Imagine Earth was hit hard by some force so devastating that Earth now has an axial tilt of 90.0 degrees, a far cry from the usual 23.5 degree. The same force somehow eliminates the Moon. In my sto...
One of the planets I'm thinking of for my book series has all of its landmass in the northernmost half of the northern hemisphere (it is thus mostly a water world) and is completely geologically de...
Imagine similar earth conditions of oceans and currents, and a renaissance type kind of ships of various sizes (ranging from sloops to ships-of-the-line), could a fleet consisting in 1500 (aprox.) ...
One problem, I think writers often overlook, is the problem of flying creatures communicating with each other. I call this the "I can't hear you over the sound of the f@cking headwind!" For my wor...
I'm trying to come up with idea's that have some plausibility of sending information FTL. So we can entangle particles together. When you measure them you influence them. If you measure one up the...
A long time ago, the 60 foot long Megalodon roamed the oceans. Fast forward to 2.6 million years ago and they went extinct. In the story I'm writing Megalodon hasn't gone extinct surviving at least...
Now octopuses are quite smart already capable of camouflage and puzzle solving. given this I was wondering whether Octopuses could Convergently evolve sapience (human level intelligence) and wha...
My fantasy setting is on a wet and humid world of innumerable islands; many of which are quite mountainous. With conditions ranging from Mediterranean to Tropical. The culture here experience onl...
EDIT: Calculations were incorrect, the earth in my comic is not 5.8x larger, it is 2.4x larger. Its surface area is 5.8x larger but the diameter is 2.4x larger. Anyway I'm working on a comic tha...
Set in a distant future, reports of alien and drug traffickings have been on the rise and there was mounting pressure for Mr User6760, president of intergalactic interpol to resign. The traffickers...
My time traveller from the distant future is about to get stranded back in time, but realises that by travelling back a short time, maybe 100000 years, he is going to leave a trail of destruction b...
Somewhere on DeviantArt, there is an insightful tutorial by someone named "Uzlo" on how to create anatomically believable angels. Among the instructed details is the possibility of developing a se...
Tengu are humanoid creatures with many avian features, including wings and beaks. Now, this is a problem when it comes to disguises. Disguises in this setting work by covering one's body in utilit...
The creature was originally a human, altered by an external agent that basically remade its body (carbon based). The creature is roughly 2 meters and relatively light. It is humanoid and boneless, ...
For a story, I need to find a way to justify the limited cognitive capacities of an entire race that thrives on biomass, capable of eating anything that is inherently biological. This race is dri...
Imagine a spaceship entering Earth's atmosphere, it has lost control of its engines and is relying on its reverse thrusters to decelerate before crashing into the Pacific ocean. So in an attempt ...
I don't know much about hurricane/cyclone and how to created it (nor know the difference much, so bear with me if i make mistake), so I want to know what kind of plant organs or ability need to ach...
I'm curious what factors a terrestrial planet impacting the Earth would require for the impact to cause negligible damage to the larger planet, while destroying the Earth.
How might an enterprising spacer, mining the rings of Saturn, go about quickly measuring/estimating the velocity of and distance to a nearby moving object (asteroid, habitat, pirate, etc)? Bonus po...
This, ladies and gentlemen, is Melalo, described in the Book of Creatures website as "the oldest and most feared of Ana's children." His name literally means "filthy", "dirty" or even "obscene"....
What modification would a plant "” especially tree "” develop in a world where everything is made of sugar, caramel, cake, syrup, soda, etc.? Think of something like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factor...
I've got my wizards, who operate by vanilla human biological laws and metabolism. They've got an organ in the pelvis which has its own mechanism - not breaking the laws of physics - which stores en...
A plot point of my novel is that the pilot accidentally finds a planet that is being purposefully hidden (i.e. been deleted from all star maps). It starts with him arriving at a location that is j...
A human crew of 6 has been sent on mission to Mars The lowest energy transfer to Mars is a Hohmann transfer orbit, which would involve an approximately 9 month travel time from Earth to Mars, a...
I have a solar system containing multiple planets, most having an intelligent species inhabiting it. To keep a common peace, they created a large government system to help stop territorial wars bet...
Scenario: Humans need to create a pull factor for people to move to and establish cities and economies in less comfortable and densely inhabited places, because they're a bit full already. The huma...
My creature, called the Kurbish, inhabits a wasteland-world, in my universe. Recently, I have been wondering; "How plausible is this thing, really?" A description: Large, Elephant-like creatures ...
I've been told that having a thicker atmosphere would make it easier to fly, particularly of heavier-than-air designs, so I'm interested in giving my planet such conditions. I'm mainly interested t...
A magical calamity has wiped out an area about twice as big as Germany. The calamity also altered the climate in the region from one supporting forests and grasslands to a desert similar to the Am...
