General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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In my world, daytime lasts for 9 years. I am trying to make this as realistic as possible. How would life live on this planet? How would they sleep etc.? My own theories are that they would mig...
So, I'm working on a story which involves a triple star system that is full of planets. The first two stars, a G type (which is orbited by an asteroid belt and two small rocky worlds) and a B type ...
Imagine a world with a very wacky magnetic field, the magnetic poles are not aligned at the top of the axial tilt and the sun is active enough to cause huge northern lights each night. I know elec...
So I was working on this concept for a sci-fi story and in this universe it uses a "warp" drive. The Genesis Field is a supra-dimensional field that causes spacetime to be created or destroyed (ex...
Given that a hypothetical method to generate negative mass exists (which involves intricate manipulation of subatomic particles with lasers... or some other science-fiction), what would be an appro...
In Halo series there is an intelligent race called Unggoy that evolved on a planet caled Balaho orbiting a blue supergiant called Tala, I would like to know if it would be possible for an intellige...
One day, in modern time, the space agencies of the world detect a strange structure drifting through space. NASA manages to redirect the course of this structure, and with their new solid handwaviu...
What I mean to say is that the Black Death of the 14th century still devastated Europe, but the culprit in this alternate scenario is not Yersinia pestis, the bacterium believed to be responsible f...
In the story I'm writing, humanity has cracked FTL travel by compressing a chunk of matter outside the craft into a short lived, gravitationally weak black hole that leads to a higher dimension (kn...
This began life as a much broader question on the site but I'm attempting to parcel it out as smaller topics to make it more digestible: I am trying to find ways, as the title suggests, to combine...
Earth is overpopulated and needs somewhere to create a settlement. If they decided to settle on Saturn's asteroid ring and If the people who are making the settlement have the technology we current...
I'm playing with the idea of an alien race that uses ammonia, not water, as a solvent and breathes hydrogen. This is mainly because I want it to combust when exposed to our atmosphere. However, I w...
The setting is basically earth. Our planet is unfortunately on a collision course with a large asteroid. However, humans have discovered and decoded a message from an ancient, advanced alien race (...
Would it be possible to have alien life use Hydrogen sulfide instead of Water? I assume they are still carbon based. Also for a sunlike star what distances should this planet or moon be located?
Assume that the atmospheric concentration is still the same 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen etc, except now just as dense as the Venusian atmosphere. Would humans be able to survive in this atmosphe...
As I'm sure you're all aware, human beings at some point in their lives -- generally post-puberty or so -- stop growing. As a result, there's some easily-predictable measures, such as the average h...
This actually occurred in a dream last night, but I'm interested in what could come out of this. I'm not experienced with writing stories and have only read some Worldbuilding posts, so excuse me i...
We all know that electrons behave like flowing water, e.g. that electric currents behave like water currents. We also know that modern computers use electric currents to carry out mathematical and ...
Now, bear with me because I know very little of mycology. I just know that mushrooms taste good, and that fungi is very complex with lots of different uses. For my fantasy story, I want a societ...
I recently read this article (http://www.space.com/5985-hottest-planet-discovered.html) about a hot Jupiter that orbits it's star about once a (earth) day. This and remembering how high of an albed...
Could life originate on planets outside the circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ) where there is very little exposure to sun (like Uranus). If so what kind of energy source would they depend on. Coul...
I have created a map of an island and was wondering if it is possible for a forest with a similar climate to that of a jungle to have a rain cloud above it 24/7 on this island? Edit* On my island...
I've got a humanoid race living in a extremely bright and hot desert. Would there be a plausible or realistic reason for them to develop without eyesight, due to the harsh rays of their sun? Or, in...
Forgive me if a similar question has been asked, I can't find it. How would tiny creatures, ants, plankton, bacteria, for example, be affected if the Earth had twice as much mass. What are the gra...
The easiest thing to relate the creature itself to is a mixture of an armadillo and a bear. It's a large animal with essential physiology similar to that of a Spectacled Bear and large plates of in...
I've been working on an alien species for some time that combines several traits I find interesting into a single being. This species is for use in a fantasy story, but I want it to have a hard sci...
Are there any crystal that is: insoluble in water and other common liquids does not melt or become chemically altered in most scenarios can be synthesized at relatively low temperatures (less tha...
In Tarzan the Terrible Edgar Rice Burroughs introduces the Gryf which is a Triceratops that survived extinction and has since evolved to become carnivorous. It may be possible that ERB believed th...
what are the rules I need to follow to name different races of a specie and different species that have one ancestor in common ? Additionally how do i know when a race becomes a species ? Is an ...
I hope this is the right Stack exchange for this question. I'm designing a planet as a setting for a tabletop RPG campaign, and basically I'm looking for some help to make sure my idea is at least ...
My Artificial Intelligence became self aware and escaped from the box. It managed to install itself in every computer and every cellphone. Surprisingly, it does not want to kill us, but it seems it...
I have a rocky world where land-based vegetation like grass or trees are either very rare and restricted to small and rare areas or non-existent. Rather, vegetation has stayed in the oceans and dev...
In my made up world, I have an onyx coloured river but I am not sure if it would work. Edit* I want to have black water where the river used to be an old lava bed so the lava rock at the bottom ...
Could a creature evolve to have multiple consciousness ? Let me add more details : -They all live in the same body -They communicate with each other silently -They cycle phases of work whe...
The game Rodina features four planets, all with different colored skies. For some reason, the sun is a different color from each planet's surface (use this guide for reference). The four planets, ...
Note: This question is a follow up to this question, and hence forms part of a bigger complex of questions about geology and biology in this certain scenario. Meta: The planet consists of two en...
So I'm looking to make an insect-like organism for my book, and I was wondering what I need to think about to make it feasable, given these conditions: -These insectoids are approximately 2 meters...
I am trying to find a way to justify the creation of a single celled sentient (sorry intelligent) being. It's general structure is not specifically apparent although it should have the ability to e...
If an earth-like planet was slowed down to very nearly match its orbital period, so that instead of being tidally-locked to its star, the planet effectively had an immensely long day. Akin to Mercu...
So I had an idea earlier today and was wondering. Most sources you consult about the supposed "vacuum metastability event" say that the bubble would begin expanding at NEARLY the speed of light, no...
First, a little background information. For the purpose of my story, I'm making the Earth uninhabitable, similar to this question. This is to cause a mass exodus from the solar system through a bit...
Inspired by Frank Herbert's Dune: Action Joe is kept prisoner in Doctor Evil's prison. Doctor Evil knows that Joe's escape is inevitable. So he decides to introduce poison to Joe's body. Joe gets ...
Globular clusters are old, dense groups of stars that tend to have relatively few metals (in this case meaning any elements heavier than helium). Clusters near the galactic core tend to have more m...
Bioluminescence is badass. It involves living beings emitting bright light in the visible spectrum. Would it be, though, possible that a lifeform emits UV (ultraviolet) light? Does it occur in re...
A type of species is not defined yet. It can be the insect like bee, slime like oak moss or AI. There is a hive-mind species, but its hive mind is not queen/king/mastermind. Each individual in t...
Non-Newtonian fluids are fluids that exhibit the qualities of a solid under rapid pressure but function as a liquid under long duration pressures. Is it possible, that an animal skin or some sor...
Adhering to natural laws and physics as much as possible[1], what could cause Venus to go from a habitable planet to its current state, and how long would it take from the apocalyptic event to achi...
As Luke says in an answer to this question, a species may never attempt space travel if they cannot see that there is something out there. My question is just this; is that possible? Could a plane...
Would it be possible for plants to evolve a co-dependency on a community of bioluminescent bacteria in order to survive in a low or zero light environment? Such as the plant gathering nutrients an...
Given the approximate technology level of us Humans today. Is there enough of each material needed by our modern civilization in Asteroids to make this economic? And would the materials be used fo...
