General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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Imagine an Earth-like planet orbiting a Sun-like star in the inner halo of the Milky Way. As a halo star, it will likely be somewhat metal-poor, having formed early in the life of the galaxy, but o...
I'm wondering whether it would be possible for humanoids to evolve from bears. bears share many characteristics with primates such as being amazing tree climbers and having the ability to use too...
I'm writing a fictional story where non-primate mammals (and marsupials) evolved into different species of humanoids which roamed the earth. In my world humanoids have evolved from animals such as...
I am designing a planet that humans can live on for a few tens of thousands of years, while they are hiding from some sort of inter-galactic police force (or whatever). Therefore, it's important th...
I have some alien creatures which are essentially land-going octopoids somewhat larger than humans. Tentacles not being a good form of propulsion on land, they have rudimentary 'legs' with one bone...
What is a quasi-creature plant? I define a quasi-creature plant as an organism that lives only through photosynthesis that moves with a speed in the same order of magnitude of that of an animal. ...
I did a little looking and it appears stars outside of 10 parsec/33 ly will have very little effect on the Earth. What it did say was that inside that range the gamma rays would affect our ozone l...
What would be the likelihood of an asteroid developing a thin layer of gas? If an asteroid is capable of having an "atmosphere", then how likely would be be for primitive plant life, such as a moss...
I apologize if I continuously ask different questions about different concepts for stories. It's just that I can never make up my mind on what to write, and sometimes, my ideas change. But anyway...
In my military sci fi story in which a squad of private contractors have to contend with hostile creatures reliant on scent and mechanoreception to hunt, I wanted to keep the sci-fi 'hard' and plau...
I'd really like to write a story taking place on an alien world that involves a totally new kingdom of life, and I'd like it to be at least somewhat realistic. The idea I have right now is a whole ...
So you decide to clone yourself, obviously the clone is a infant, but other wise looks perfectly identical. However, you start to think of how your new clone could be perfectly like you, in body st...
Horse were originally native to north america but between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago they went extinct likely due to expanding glaciers into their territory. The question I propose is how could I ...
In short summary A cockatrice is is essentially a a two legged dragon that has the head and body of a rooster, it also has a serpentine like tail and either has feather like wings or webbed like ...
Consider a magic system that follows the Eragon model; "doing it by magic takes just as much (biological) energy as doing it the mundane way". In Eragon, magical energy can be drawn from other liv...
In my fantasy world, I have created a sentient species descended from an arboreal felid (it evolved to eat squrriels and small monkeys). They are my elves. The one problem is that I want them to be...
Say you see a fellow human walking on the street, nothing special, nothing new, but suddenly, BLAM, they're dead. You reasonably run away from the scene out of fear, but when you look back, the bod...
In my story, there is a planet that experiences near constant sunlight. Since sunlight so plentiful and reliable most organisms are, at least in part, photosynthetic. The only intelligent life on ...
So, aqua regia is a somewhat safe material for a living being to work with, but the problem is that it isn't metal enough. Somebody suggested in an answer to another question, that dragons would f...
The setting is in a region of a planet comparable to Earth's California in regards to location. The soil is extremely rich in nutrients and subsurface water. But for the past three million years th...
Anyone who has studied ice ages would know that during the last two-and-a-half million years of Earth's history, there have been periods where there was enough ice to suck up a lot of water. As a ...
Do you think it will become possible to create opposite sex clones in the future? A male clone from a woman or a female clone from a man? I think it will become possible. To create a female clone ...
We've just started 36th century, humanity is colonizing stars right and left. Technology is well developed, you know, typical Sci-Fi stuff. In 23rd century we finally were able to create true AI. ...
As a thought project, I wanted to make an alien species that eats without any use of the tongue, but I've run into the problem that it's almost impossible to swallow solids without choking without ...
In all fantasies that I'm aware of, the setting is in the northern hemisphere (noted by frozen north and barren south). So... Could advanced civilizations exist on a continent that's located in the...
My character is traveling aboard a spaceship through inter-galactic space (it has left the Milky Way). The ship is traveling at the speed of light or so and has been for the last six thousand years...
I remember reading this thing somewhere about how humans born in zero gravity environments would likely be taller than Earth-bound humans but also more fragile and unable to handle Earth's gravity ...
Inspired partially by this comment on one of my answers, I got to thinking on what the quickest way to communicate would be on an intergalactic scale. Say humans have colonised the galaxy, and use...
Strange! this question does not seem to be on site with a search (only what to wear). I am concerned about the psychological aspect of food production and eating. Clearly tube food is out and I thi...
I have an idea for a faster-than-light spacecraft that I would like to run by the expert minds in this community for a plausibility check. Basically the interstellar ship itself is of unspecified d...
A long time ago a group of proto-giants moved high up into a the Sodo-Himalayas. Yetis commonly live up on high mountain plains some of basic characteristics of Yetis are: are as intelligent as ...
Is it possible for there to be a planet where no animals, only plants existed? What evolutionary reasons would cause this, if possible?
A super-reactor was created by SRE, Inc (Super Reactor Energy), and it can provide as much clean energy as needed. There's no way to copy it or make another. It operates without problem or fuel - t...
I am interested in the idea of a moon orbiting only the southern pole of a planet. Could it theoretically be possible (though unlikely) that a moon would, for instance, orbit a planet parallel to t...
The planet I'm developing has iron in low supply but a high concentration of silver. The planet is habitable for humans and for story reasons the sentient race must be humanoid. Is it feasible for ...
How would a biological drop pod make it into the atmosphere and land safely? I have a race of aliens that use biological tools instead of technology. Their ships are living beings that can travel t...
Set in the not-so-distant future, interplanetary travels are the norm. Most spaceships are powered by fission reactors, and accidents do happen due to negligence or flaws in the system. It will pro...
Contrary to popular belief, Unicorns are not related to horses but instead are descended from the Siberian Unicorn. Over time: their fur became whiter they became slightly smaller they have an...
Can a creature evolve to reproduce by exchanging the genetic code of two individuals without having any biological sex? So anything with male, female, both or a third sex is excluded. If it i...
I am attempting to devise a mechanism whereby a species may reproduce in a communal manner. A number of individuals, ranging from two to arbitrarily high, may contribute gametes to a mass spawning ...
(Note: This is a follow-up question to my previous one: Moved into further orbits to protect them, how much damage do Earth and Moon take when the Sun expands?) Thanks to clever stellar engineerin...
Say you somehow invented 50 thousand nanobots that are the size of medium sized bottle caps. Each are capable of hovering for a limited amount of time but do recharge with both solar energy and plu...
Of the living great apes, humans are most closely related to the chimpanzees and bonobos. We retain quite a few features from that side of the simian family, and it got me thinking about what a hu...
Consider this a remake of my Why might a group of insects evolve to resemble humans? post. Fairies are a common trope in fantasy works some characteristics of fairies and their associates are: Fa...
My friend and I are working on a map of a globe. The setting of this universe involve various intelligent animal species divided into 5 clades: Archo (Crocodilians), Avians (Birds), Aquatics (Fish)...
Before anyone points the finger saying this is a tasteless joke, there are some actual good reasons to pick that specific planet for exploration among the giants in our solar system: Smallest mas...
Humanity has spread out in the cosmos, colonizing various worlds, cataloging countless creatures, the usual interstellar species activities. One day, however, humanity finds a species that is argua...
I am working on a planet with life composed of prokaryotic cells, like bacteria from earth but which have formed large organisms. What perplexes me is that I haven't found a single example about ba...
How could astrophysical jets, emitting matter from black holes be used as energy sources by a space-faring nation? How could they be able to collect and use this form of energy?
Next to angels, various types of bird people are among some of the most common depictions of flying humanoids. Revali from BOTW comes to mind. Could birds (or any other flying animal for that ...
