General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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Imagine we build a space station much larger than the ISS with more or less today's technology. (For example in a scenario in which price of transport to orbit per kg is significantly reduced by te...
I'm trying to find explanations for a strain of beans (or any other food-producing plant) that have become large, maybe as large as most trees, and about as wide in girth, that overgrows countries ...
Is there an energy substance, element, material, natural or artificial resource with attributes such that: When its moved it loses energy. When its intact, untouched and unmoved it contains energy.
Setting: Earth, in the future, near 2060 or 2100 Technology: a bit more advanced than ours Armies and police forces are already using systems for crowd control. Some devices can generate disco...
The Wold (Forest) is one vast, interconnected, possibly digital mind. The mind is primarily built of one cloned individual of a single plant species, but there are over a dozen 'helper' sub-minds a...
Kaylee is a mechanic on a Generational ship. The ship has several means for propulsion and has a plotted course that goes from star to star, molecular cloud to molecular cloud. It has a Bussard Ram...
I'm sure there have been questions on here about fire-breathing dragons, and I recently saw a question about a lightning-breathing dragon, but back in fifth grade I wrote a 150-page story about a d...
If it is even possible, what would the Goldilocks zone be like - in fact is such a system even possible of holding life - around a binary black hole? Could it have planets orbiting it? EDIT 1: Oh ...
Could a planet have an orbit in the shape of a figure 8 around twin (possibly binary) stars? Mostly curious about the physical possibility of such an orbital arrangement; is it stable over a long ...
Okay, so we are figuring out, that at least for how we are running things now, our Earth can fit about 10 billion people. We can probably raise if your economy distributed resources more efficientl...
How much would the gravitational force (on earth) have to increase to make air-travel impractical (not impossible as escape by space flight to other planets would be a nice option). But to a point ...
This question has two parts: Could biological processes create an organism than can see in wavelengths outside the human-visible spectrum? ("Outside" meaning some significant amount outside. Ther...
In Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (imdb) a single strand of Superman's hair is seen suspending a 1000lbs weight. Is is possible to build a space elevator from strands of a super strong human-h...
I'm working on a comic which is essentially alternate-history fiction, and a big upcoming part of it involves the formation of the Chicxulub crater 63 million years ago. As I am a stickler for acc...
What sort of circumstances would allow for a parasitic relationship between two dominant species of an Earth-like planet? The criteria for an answer is as follows: The relationship must involve n...
Through extreme pollution and large-scale warfare with atomic, biological and chemical weapons Earth has become completely unable to sustain life. The atmosphere is toxic, the water undrinkable and...
It is said that the Moon plays a significant role on stabilizing the obliquity of Earth (or call it the axial tilt). Without it, the tilt of the planet is subject to great variations causing unpred...
The Scenario: The Sun is eternal. We are producing much more oxygen than we need. First off, would the atmosphere grow, or would it just become much more dense? Given the circumstances, if th...
Background We all know that our species evolve during and after the last ice age, (or is it sufficient to say that they evolve at the end of ice age?). A. Initial Condition Suppose I had another...
Buildings are often build on the ground into the sky. Would it be conceivable if instead, we build down into the ground instead? We wouldn't have to worry about wind then. I think we could go farth...
In a short story that I read (don't have the link, but the short story itself is not relevant to this question), it is set about a millennia from now, where humans have long since made contact with...
I want to make a hot planet habitable for mankind. It could be a planet in the habitable zone like Venus or outside of the zone like Mercury. These are just examples. Someone said here:Â Terrafor...
I created a humanoid race called Lantoms for a fantasy world. They are about five feet in stature, have angular body parts, and an extra pair of arms. A layer of skin is attached to the arms, easie...
So we make code for an A.I., and it makes better code, which makes better code, which makes better code, etc... ad infinitum. I'm not going to specify its goal. Maybe it's Robot Overlord Green. May...
I am imagining a race of spider-like creatures that remain still in the water. They glow to attract prey/would be predators. They surround themselves with a thick layer of slime that can catch crea...
In this fantasy world there is no day/night but a constant mild light. There are also no seasons and the mild light is akin to the light at dawn or dusk. The sun doesn't really exist. How would th...
It's the year 2050, and you're the planner for a manned mission to Pluto - New New Horizons. The mission will take 5 years round trip, and there are 40 members of the crew. What's the most effici...
I am currently creating a world from scratch, and while I have a map, I still need to figure out distribution of natural resources. For resources like fossil fuels, while many do appear in deserts...
As a child, I was always fascinated by the propensity of water going down a drain to form a vortex. I created a world with a global ocean where there was a narrow body of land running north-south...
The earth is migrating, somehow (it doesn't matter how, but it's not directly destructive) into a higher orbit over the course of a century. Details: The earth-sun distance will increase by 150...
I am specifically interested in a form of reproductive cycle something like that of aphids on earth, where several generations of female-only parthenogenesis go by, followed by a generation being b...
Would a civilization that is trying to permanently colonize a landless world with no atmosphere (think Europa's sea) be able to do so? Permanence matters - it means you can't simply build domes th...
What if, sometime in the next say 600 years, humanity develops a device capable of manipulating the four fundamental forces in the area around it. (For example, a handheld device could work in a ra...
In a world without enough land for a massive (and growing) population, but plenty of water surface, experimental cities have started to spring up along the edges of various continents. The first is...
Mars' gravity is 38% of that of Earth's. Supposing a human born and raised on a Mars colony traveled to earth later in their life, would they be able to survive the increased gravity? For example...
It's easy enough to figure out how a species might evolve a third biological gender in general (e.g. some sort of asexual drones/workers, ala insects). But what I want to build is a system where t...
The character is badly concussed, unable to stand straight, with nausea, but worst of all, unable to think straight - and he has a critical knowledge / mental skill, urgently needed at the moment. ...
I would like to destroy a Dyson Sphere so it leaves big chunks of scrap metal with no habitable zones left, but still with enough structure to hold building-sized blocks. The destruction shouldn't...
Given a planet without any relationship to Earth, what does it mean for the poles to be "north" or "south"? Is it something arbitrary that can be changed?
We have a pretty good idea of what attributes a planet would need to sustain life and one can imagine how life might develop on a planet, even in difficult environments. I find it extremely diffic...
Pretty self explanatory question...can the Cube Earth described at the link below support a spherical core and a magnetic field? How would a civilization that has been living on a "cube" Earth di...
It makes sense to believe life is more likely to evolve on the surface of large objects like planets, moons, and asteroids. However, a common fantasy trope is the massive space creature: some kind ...
A space colony that resembles the design of a Stanford torus generates artificial gravity by centripetal force. Discussions about benefits of such fake gravity can be easily found: no more constan...
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...
Imagine the Earth is struck by a laser/magic beam capable of piercing it and leaving a lasting hole. What effects would observed? Would there be a difference between the hole(s) being made in the o...
Okay, following my previous core question, after the apocalypse, one of my sets of survivors in this setting, the Usnay, managed to live in a fleet of ships for over a thousand years. This is pro...
This question is about a fictional scenario where an evil suicidal scientist has built a high-energy weapon somewhere on earth. His intention is to shoot a beam of some form of energy (or high-ener...
Many sci-fi words use anti-gravity or artificial gravity to manipulate the weight of their ships making flight much easier. Wikipedia even has an article on it which discusses several attempts to m...
A generation spaceship (a spaceship designed for multiple generations of humans to live in) could sail through the galaxy for hundreds of years before finding another planet, let alone a planet wit...
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...
