General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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I was wondering if there is a realistic way that one can "travel" to the future, using today's technology. Two scenarios I have thought of: An individual is put under cryogenic freezing and then ...
I've been hearing and reading about that solar flare in 2012 that could have sent us back to the 18th century, by causing huge geomagnetic storms which would have prevented (every?) electricity-bas...
In a world in which dragons (as animals, minus magical associations) existed, what natural defense mechanisms might other animals or plants evolve in response? How would a creature as devastating ...
Let me set the scene: A team of scientists in their lab one day is told that some miners have discovered some strange new substance. Its properties are extremely peculiar, unlike anything ever befo...
The International Space Station(ISS) is by far the most expensive man-made object money can buy and yet we cast it into space, set in near future government threatens to pull out funding for ISS an...
One of the theories behind the extinction of the dinosaurs is the eruption of one or a series of volcanoes. Supposedly the ash expelled by these eruptions blocked out the sun, killing plants and th...
I am working on a project (The Longest Day), and I'm sure some people here have the necessary knowledge to give me some more usefull info. OK, here it is: Lets say that Earth's spinning speed dim...
Giant winged beasts such as the Roc and the western dragon feature strongly in mythology. Is there a maximum size on a biological winged flying creature? How would an atmosphere different from Ea...
I first was thinking centripetal force on a circular ship, but performing external maintenance would be extremely difficult due to the force pushing the person or robot off. Would a spherical ves...
It seems that people who live at very high altitudes have demonstrably "thicker" blood, highly concentrated with red blood cells to overcome the low concentration of oxygen in the air. Moving betwe...
Assuming interstellar travel, and self-sufficient colonies in other star systems, what are some methods of destroying the Earth while leaving minimal impact on the colonies? Context I would like ...
In the near future on our own planet of Earth, an odd plague has descended from space. It affects glass. Any glass whether natural or man-made turns into powder. The chemical elements are the same...
If a centaur were to have one set of organs, how would they be placed and what sizes would they be? What limits would there be on the centaur's body?
If a human is kidnapped by an alien vessel and taken to another planet - and, for the sake of argument, let's assume that the alien life-form lives in a completely different environment from Earth'...
I'm working on a bit of world building, and I was curious if it seemed to much more experienced worldbuders than I that including a collision with Halley's Comet in 1835 or 1910 as a major plot wo...
Say you were to drop a (bunch of) human(s) at some past era of our Earth. I'm assuming they might encounter a few problems such as the composition of the air not being breathable, the water being t...
One of the biggest 'immortality sucks' issues has always been the question of what to do with the new people being born. Without death, a world's limited resources can't keep up with a never endin...
For the purposes of this question, lets assume that we are in Edwin Abbott Abbott's Flatland, but the world is a disk, with living shapes Above, and 'dead' shapes Below (the underside of the disk)...
A global epidemic of H1Z2 virus has rendered 95% of the population into zombies. The zombies have lost most of their frontal and temporal lobes so the following capabilities are either severely de...
The trope here is a world with 3-4 X earth atmosphere with high oxygen content (30%). Nice things about this are it enables heavy beasts to fly, and the high pressure smoothes out the negative effe...
I want a mermaid protagonist. If I am to make this story realistic, how should the Merfolk's body structures be made to make them adaptable for both water (swimming) and land (walking, running)? Is...
Say there is a civilian ship going less than the speed of light, travelling from one star to the next. In the event that pirates board the ship (or some other dangerous situation, like a hull breac...
This question was stimulated by the question How would an aquatic race develop computers?. The answers obviously were based on the aquatic civilization being earth based, but what about a totally ...
I am a writer. In my fictional world, I have an area that is supposedly covered with fairly thick fog during most of the night and nearly all of the morning, basically every day (it can leave a bit...
I have a colony of humans living underground in man-made catacombs on another planet. They are, essentially, digging/blasting as they go; they did not create a complete underground city first and ...
I'm designing a video game in which players command a small crew of aliens (10-20 of them) who are building an outpost on a planet. They are a bit larger than humans (around 2 meters tall) with abo...
The idea of hollowing out asteroids, spinning them on their longest axis, and filling them with air, water, and soil is common in science fiction (Rendezvous with Rama, or 2312 for good examples). ...
Suppose we have a planet whose atmosphere has roughly the same gaseous proportions as Earth, but helium replaces nitrogen, and has a strong hydrogen presence in the upper atmosphere; has a gravitat...
Thanks to the recent discovery of handwavium "¡ filaments that can in principle be extruded to any length, we will be able to build space elevators sooner than most people would expect. The inte...
Faster than light travel is Dangerous with a capital D. The main reason for this is because by the time you see something, you've already smashed into it and vaporised yourself, the target and any...
My entry for the fortnightly topic challenge: You are a space explorer. You are visiting this weird habitable planet in the Alpha Centauri System as part if the first manned expedition to another ...
Is there any conceivable way that a planet with two moons--one being visibly red to the naked eye due to its mineral composition--could align in an eclipse in such a way so that the whole effect lo...
Imagine a big planet, gravity quite strong, 1.5 times earth. Irregular surface, rocky etc... (though flora and fauna will come into it later). It has a very thick atmosphere, drained off by a twin ...
Based on the previous answer here, concerning hammer-proof armor, one of the easiest way to mitigate blunt force trauma, both from swinging hammers and falling off buildings, are with some sort of ...
Stories with shrinking never seen to take into account the Square-Cube law. I'm trying to consider what it would take to do a story like this that actually fully addresses the square cube law. I ...
I've posted a previous question similar to this in the way that it is of my WIP web-comic. The planet my friend and I have designed is strange as she wanted to create either a permanently dark plan...
From Wikipedia: By volume, dry air contains 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.039% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. For example, would humans be able to survive ...
I had in mind a sci-fi setting where humans have begun terraforming nearby planets without the benefit of faster-than-light travel. For example, Wikipedia lists a handful of terrestrial planets wit...
Assuming a fairly earth-like planet, perhaps, higher in minerals and resources. And a race of highly industrious, highly cooperative, very enginuitive people. Their science is comparable to our own...
A not widely accepted psycho-social phenomenon but one our descendents might sometime face, the Three Generation Rule states: that the degree of social discipline needed for a space habitat to ...
Is it possible for humans to live on a world with the following conditions? Atmosphere: 50% nitrogen; 30% oxygen; 20% carbon dioxide. Climate: The rain in some areas is acidic. (Is there som...
Here's the set up. In my slightly-futuristic mildly-sci-fi novel, I have a need for an aerial transport vehicle (I have been informed what I need is closer to a VTOl than a hovercraft). These craft...
The humanzee is the theoretical hybrid of human and another primate. No such humanzee has ever been documented in the modern era, though genetics suggest in our distant evolutionary past primitive...
Related Question : Can we 'beam' energy from the moon? I was wondering if instead of 'beam'ing energy from the moon, could it be possible to extend a power cable from the earth to the moon? If th...
I am looking at different ways to destroy a planet. I am assuming the planet is of a similar size and composition to the Earth just to keep things simple. I am starting at boiling the atmosphere t...
Summary: I am looking for a portal transportation mechanism that is consistent with the laws of thermodynamics. Portals (or wormholes or gateways, something that connects two different locatio...
Looking at the recent questions on dragons and aviation bureaucracy has got me thinking about some animals I could include in my story. I want these animals to be jet powered. One of the answers o...
See A city to last ten million years: Construction for background. Third question on Forevertown: What are the key issues for maintaining the physical infrastructure of a low-tech city over ten m...
More often we have heard countless of familiar sci-fi scenario whereby the inhabitants of a dying planet faces world ending catastrophe most notable the superman origin. My question is can a planet...
Brown dwarf stars are cool. Both literally and figuratively; the temperature profile for cool brown dwarves runs somewhere between 225K and 600K. It's possible if not probable that there exist som...
