General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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Similar, but a bit more broad, to Would a zombie apocalypse be possible if a zombie existed? A secret lab (owned by a private company) near Chicago creates a virus strain called 'ZB01' (to be so...
This is steampunk, so assume a non-relativistic, non-quantum world (but more on that shortly). I want a material that insulates against acceleration but not gravity. Full explanation: This is t...
Here is the setup: Elves, through magic, have the ability to cause regeneration of limbs/healing of wounds through natural cellular processes. Regenerating a limb, while now possible, obviously tak...
In the future a major problem arose: a habit spread among the astronauts to make political statements upon landing on a new celestial body, often the statements were unpleasant to their government....
In Dungeons and Dragons lore, there exists a construct called the cosmos used to define a variety of planes of existence. One of these is the Material Plane, on which our normal reality is found. ...
Consider a planet where a day, that is to say the amount of time a specific (roughly equatorial) point is in sunlight is much longer than on earth. A humanoid race has evolved on this planet. You c...
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 ...
I am developing a world on this continent: To know the world, I have to know how the weather works. Inside the white line is the continent. The blue arrows denote the flow of water. Up is north,...
While asking questions about building my fantasy world, I keep hearing about wet/dry seasons. Obviously, one has rain and the other doesn't, and I've gathered that they occur with regularity on an ...
Time travel on movies and tv always say they were able to tell the year by looking at the stars. But how? For example Voyager goes back in 1996 and Ensign Kim says astrometrics puts them in the ye...
Scenario Set in modern day Antarctica, a group of very talented scientists are working on a highly confidential scientific experiment which would one day allow us to manipulate time literally. The...
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...
As you might know, our Universe is expanding. In fact, the expansion is accelerating (due to dark energy). As expansion progresses, patches of the universe will not be visible anymore (they cross t...
You go to sleep one day, and wake up on a different planet. Let's say the atmosphere of this planet has about the same composition as on Earth. Actually, this planet has pretty much all of the same...
Would it be possible to "inject" or tattoo chloroplasts into a human or vertebrate and have them produce energy for said organism? I feel like just injecting plant cells wouldnt work for the body...
I was looking a bit at the evolution of Stars and one thing I sometimes see floated is this idea that in the far flung future, when the sun has ballooned into a red giant and the earth burned to a ...
If a human were cursed with the need to transform into a specific animal (i.e. a canine), would his DNA change after the transformation? I would appreciate help in answering this question. This i...
In my very lengthy story in the near future, there are some great 'Modern Marvels'. The next one I'm going to introduce might not be feasible, but if it is, I'd like to attach some numbers to it. ...
Scenario: Last line of defense. I want to prevent anyone from reaching a highly guarded building. Such building is in the middle of top secret, heavily guarded military area (think of Area 51). I ...
I am super-rich person with a net worth of 32 billion US dollars. Part of my business is being contractor for NASA and SpaceX (so I have knowledge about space technology). I already own my island ...
In most star systems, planets orbit around a star. Is it possible for a planet to be so massive/heavy/dense that a star(and other planets) orbit it instead? Bonus points if the planet is also reaso...
I'm planning to incarcerate a supervillain who has the ability to attract and control metal. As a minimum, I'd quite like to light his cell but obviously putting even small amounts of metal into hi...
Namely, a creature that is immobile and stone(like) during the day and mobile at night. Something like the old cartoon, but they don't have to be sentient. They don't have to be actual stone, jus...
I was trying to create a world that has extensive massive rain-forests unlike anything on earth where the trees interlock with thick branches to allow them to rise much higher into the air (several...
For a civilization like this, firstly, I would like to know what dangers there are, e.g: radiation, cave-ins, temperature. I also want to know about the sustainability of this colony, power I'd ima...
So Earth has just suffered a horrible catastrophe and most of civilization is back in a Middle Ages level of development. A few people live on other planets relatively unscathed, with highly advanc...
As I understand it, the principle of relativity was accepted from Galileo until Maxwell, whereupon the equations which predict constant speed of light imply a preferred reference frame in a Euclidi...
I'm working on a graphic novel that deals with this particular topic but I'm unsure if something like this can happen. Some Nebulae have a luminosity 1000s of times brighter than our sun while dark...
For a (Super super super soft)Sci-fi RP I've been planning, I've been trying to design an alien race to act as a suitable antagonist. The basis of this antagonistic race is that they are far, far m...
Plants in our world evolved various kinds of defenses, like poison, urticating hairs, thorns etc. What i dont see is plants that defend themselves by means of explosions. The explosion by itself ...
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...
I've been toying with an idea for ages that I think could be pretty fun but I want to make sure it's not wildly unrealistic before going too far with it. The idea is that the Equator is fiercely h...
Following up on this question, Would Living Underground during Impact Winter be Ideal, I realized I have more questions. I was asking about an impact winter that was caused by an asteroid and lead...
In Star Gate, the Ori are notorious for keeping the tech level of their planetary subjects at or under medieval tech levels. It has been said (still looking for the exact source) that if everyone l...
I found this on Wikipedia. I'm aiming for the fastest climate change possible without that much advanced notice, e.g. perhaps a regional sized asteroid scientists miss or are too distracted to cat...
I am building a race of humans (or humanoid constructs) that have the ability to alter their DNA (or store a second set and use it selectively) as to gain superhuman (or meta-human) abilities. Is ...
A staple of fantasy involving time travel is the hero (or heroine) zipping off into the future and then meeting a future lover with whom they go on to have wacky time-based adventures before presum...
On Earth humanity has taken the dominant role (excluding dolphins and mice of course). We know of conflicts in pre-history where our ancestors have overtaken other species and slowly wiped them out...
Inspired by this comment: What if every animal as large as, or larger than, a ice-age vintage horse, except for those that are acclimated to cold climates, went extinct during the last Ice Age? I...
In Pokemon, there are many different creatures. Nearly all of them will, at one point, reach a level of experience where they evolve into a more advanced creature. These evolutions are much more dr...
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...
As part of my world's planetary history, an asteroid impact has delivered a sizable quantity of a previously unknown metal to the planet Earth. By sizable I mean a deposit large enough to sustain a...
I'm currently toying with a post-nuclear apocalypse, with most, if not all, human survivors living in underground bunkers or vaults, and probably away from previous population centers"”my test case...
I'd like to tip my hat to this week's fortnightly challenge with this question by revisiting an old one. I asked a question about the Science behind a naturally invisible creature a while ago. At ...
I'd like to tip my hat to this week's fortnightly challenge with this question by revisiting an old one. I asked a question about the Science behind a naturally invisible creature a while ago. At ...
There are lots of posts speculating about a planet (or whatever) where life evolves intelligence and goes on to produce technology, under different differences lacking something or another that is ...
First, is it possible for a planet hit be a meteor to shatter into two pieces?. Then, can the two pieces remain in orbit? Especially, can they develop a sort of co-orbit around each other?
These questions are a sort of follow up of my question about white pupils. I'm designing some other creatures whose defining traits involve "weird" eyes: How would a creature with oddly shaped pu...
If you look at our society, you can see why we developed technology. Each individual wanted an easier life, therefore we invented tools and overcame obstacles to achieve this easier life. One could...
I need to find a way to explain away the simultaneous quiet deaths in the night of a couple of thousand people worldwide such that (were this the only thing to happen, of course) nobody would ever ...
