General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
Filters (None)
Let's say there is planet, similar to Earth in almost all respects. However, some sort of geological process has shattered its continents, leaving lots of islands no larger than Iceland with shallo...
I'm writing a spaceship that just performed an Oberth maneuver around the sun, 10 million km out, and is accelerating toward a gravity sling with Jupiter. It had a high--not certain how high yet--i...
Need ideas for the evolution of the kumiho, the Korean nine tailed fox that is native in the Korean peninsula. First of all, this species is sex...
Let's imagine that on some planet some clever critters create an AI. Now lets say that while this AI does respect some of the ground rules that were put in place for it, it nevertheless finds nume...
Starting with a creature and its environment, how does one create its psychology? Evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology attempt to explain attributes that we observe in our fellow human...
It's hard to create a new animal from scratch. If you genetically modify an existing species until it becomes a drastically different species, then implant the fertilized embryo in a female of th...
In populating a fenland region similar to the Somerset Levels in England, I'm finding a need for an aquatic ambush predator to haunt the region and snack on the occasional disrespectful traveler wh...
Say, we had a teleport in all bigger cities (let's say circa more than 1 million) in the world (and some other "important" places, like military bases). What would be the impact of this? Would the...
There are 20 percent oxygen in our atmosphere, what if the oxygen is higher above 20 percent but instead was 35 percent oxygen. If so would an advanced civilization exist in this environment? Would...
Based on an answer of mine from a few months ago, I've been inspired to adapt the concept to my own Life Ball. Fair warning- this question and some of its links are not for the squeamish. May con...
Each technology, that is evolving, begins with simple piece of programming code that starts with variables of certain data types. It is interesting to note that many calculative and computing techn...
Here's the background. I'd like the planetary year to be just under 800 days, with a longer number of hours per day-cycle. If the settlers live in the Mediterranean type climate area only and use g...
Current technological level. (in the setting there is an awful tech stagnation, so waiting for better DNA engineering technology is considered as waste of time) Possibility to use all contemporary ...
If I have a typical Dyson sphere, around my star, it will block the light needed to live on an orbiting planet. Is there any other megastructure that can function like a Dyson Sphere, but does al...
As in, could negative matter (N.B. not the same thing as antimatter) exist on the macro-scale as a solid, liquid or gas without the weird effects that cause it to repel normal matter and possibly v...
These people inhabit an underwater city. In the city there are pools that connect the dry habitat with the outside ocean, this of course mean that the habitat is unpressurized and therefore the in...
I'm building a Dyson sphere - a real one, like Freeman Dyson originally proposed, made of swarms of solar collectors in independent orbits that fully surround the star, something like this: Each...
When the earth is flung out of the solar system as per Josh Pirhi's question, not everyone embarks on a spaceship. Instead, as earth becomes a rogue planet, a group of survivors created a self sust...
Obviously, it's not a good idea. The premise: An advanced species has a plot to remove everything in our airspace and place it 1.5 million kilometers away from Earth. Their purpose is a misguide...
Let's say you have a cyborg who's replaced their whole body, everything but the brain, with machinery. Next, you put them on a spaceship pulling dozens or even hundreds of gs. How are they going to...
Was there a geological era in which the rain on earth was harmless and with the same temperature of the water in a hot shower?
There have been many questions of moving, floral animals, most of these focus on their intelligence, but what about their sense of sight. I fail to understand how a botanic based alien would be abl...
There have been a few questions on mobile plants on this site and even more on their intelligence, but one that has not been asked so far is related to the lifeblood of creatures: blood. Inside of ...
A plethora of previous questions have queried the existence of botanic (plant) intelligence and they all have created good solutions, but their still remains a even bigger problem to even the dumbe...
I want to set up a long-term self-sustaining colony on Mercury. What and how needs to be done for a colony to survive and thrive on the planet Mercury?
How would we compile our code if all the binaries in the world disappeared and we had only the source code? At first you might think "It's all okay: I have my Roslyn code here", but wait! It's in C...
Let's say that, in a universe modelled after Patema Inverted, there are two "flavors" of matter: one which is attracted by gravity (so when dropped on Earth it would fall down), and one which is in...
I'm working on a deconstruction of a high fantasy setting. The plot starts with a female protagonist being forcibly summoned into said setting with few to none of her memories. The world is popul...
After reading Is it possible to build a bridge between planets?, I wonder: what situation would provide technology support that enables them to make the trip, but limits them to walking speed? Th...
To elaborate on the title, can alien plant life on an Earth-like planet look similar to ours, or would plants on an alien planet be radically different, unrecognizable, or incomparable to Earth pla...
[WARNING] Approximate physics incoming A few months ago I was looking for a way to get to Gliese 581 within 100 years. So I've been reading a lot from Wikipedia and other sites about different pro...
Cancer works by making cells split and reproduce at an accelerated rate, slowly and painfully killing the afflicted. Its true weapon lies in its ability to surpass the immunity system. As far as ...
I sometimes tell my kid that when he grows up, he might be living on the moon. Last night he was worried that Santa won't be able to bring him presents there. To which I replied that sure, Santa ca...
My city's founders had the short-sightedness to place it on the coast. Now, for mysterious reasons, the sea level is rising. The municipal government has decided that building dikes is "too Dutch" ...
Take the earth-moon system. Shift the moon's orbital plane about 90 degrees so that it is passes over both poles. What would the tides on this world look like? Sub-questions: What would the cy...
I have a super luxury space hotel. It has artificial gravity in the living and shopping area and 0g in some parts of the recreational area. There is a 0g pool available for the guests. I want it ...
Alternate question title: From Fungi to a Fun Guy So, I asked a previous question about which non-animal would be the likeliest to evolve sentience. The answer turned out to be fungus, since mycel...
Today, most mammals have dichromatic vision, meaning that they have two color receptors. Which color depends on which species you're asking. For example, the real reason bulls charge at matadors ...
Supposing that we can create an entire synthetic being, what material would be best to make its bones of attending to: Weight Strength Durability Reparability Let's set some scenarios: Case 1...
Spaceships are a peculiar thing. We've got them in all forms, sizes & colours. They have vast computers needed to do all the real-time calculations required for astrogation. Assuming our compu...
So this sentient supercomputer is lonely. It wants to create human beings. It created many things but creating a human being is at the top of its list. And it is super determined to figure out what...
Nowadays there are warning labels on most everything: this is flammable, that will cause injury because it's sharp, this substance is poisonous, and that canister is under pressure, but what types ...
Say a terrestrial planet is orbiting two stars as if they're a single gravitational well.(I haven't worked out the distance yet as I still on the phone...) I don't need the planet to be habitable b...
I have a series of astronauts landing on an asteroid. I'd like to know the threshold of mass for them to not fly off into space. Specifications: Assumption is all astronauts are under 180cm, 80...
For story reasons, I'd like one planet habitable, plausible, but in some noticeable way older than Earth. Just not all planets are 4,5 bilion years. Tidally locked planet that orbit red dwarf, save...
I'm designing planets for a hard (ish) science fiction RPG setting. So I want to find out if there are any clues or theories as to what proportion of planets with life will have the basic biochemis...
On the Life Ball of my fantasy stories, a particular species of delphinidae- I call them black dolphins- have evolved and advanced at least as much as humans and other intelligent races. A prior q...
There was a question on here a while ago about lighting a massive Dyson sphere, that has gotten me to thinking. Obviously, such an item needs some unobtainium to build, but ignore that. I'm figur...
The AI is working as same principle as we know today. It is rational AI, which goal is to get the job done at most optimal ways. Their roles have nothing to do with human psychology, so the manufac...
I have an idea for a scify/lost technology world, that I would like to check the plausibility of. What I want A terran world of large size. The crust of the world is thin, and hostile gas-organis...
