General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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It's my understanding that if an Alcubierre drive were to be constructed, it would be able to function as a time machine because there would be certain paths through you could take to get to a dest...
My question is: What needs to be changed or improved in the structure of human muscle fibers so that my genetically modified person can lift several tons ( from 2700 to 7000 kilograms), taking into...
I need a planetary system for my novel where an Earth-like warm habitable planet has an orbital period of about 650 to 730 days. I know that is similar to Mars and that Mars would be too cold. What...
This story takes place about 300 years in the future and humanity has since come into contact with hundreds of alien races, you get the picture. Basically, I have this character who is half human a...
so according to this website: https://haraldas.wordpress.com/2014/10/21/dragon-fire-ever-wonder-if-its-possible/ it said that it could be possible for any animals to synthesise tert-butyllithium...
along time ago a group Australopithecus somehow manged to get washed ashore on let's say the Antarctic peninsula or at least an island near Antarctica now inhabiting mainland Antarctica and evolvin...
So given an Earth in our near future, year 2100 or so, where some of our tech has improved to the point where we have robots and the usual sci-fi devices for interfacing with computers. A colony i...
Tengu are humanoid creatures with many avian features, including wings and beaks. Now, this is a problem when it comes to disguises. Disguises in this setting work by covering one's body in utilit...
So, vampires here are created from humans with the help of a stone mask. Now, they're supposed to be weak for two things: Having their brains destroyed Prolonged exposure to sunlight The first ...
This is a small arrow shaped creature that can fly without wings. Can it use electromagnetism to fly? Or maybe something to do with ions? Or however ufos are theorized to work? I'm not quite sure...
Tetrapods evolved fingers from the inner-bones of the fins of lobe-finned fish, could hands ever evolve from ray finned fishes if they were to become fully terrestrial, from a mud skipper ancestor?
Under normal circumstances, monolithic diamond is pretty terrible at resisting impact, due to it being weak in certain planes, also known as cleavage planes. To solve this, why don't we just make ...
I want to have air transport as the dominant means of public transportation in my fictional city. But how would such a system operate to handle many commuters with maximum efficiency? Specifically ...
I am creating an RPG and came across an image that I wanted to base my landscape on. It is shown above. Is it possible for terrain like that to form on Earth (ignore the wildlife)? If it is, how ...
Consider a planet with Earth like gravity but an atmosphere that is 10x what Earth has at sea level (atmospheric composition is equivalent to Earth). If the vegetation is similar to Earth's, would ...
If we didn't have the capability to use faster than light travel then how could we stay unified and are any realistic examples in science fiction?
It's the future. The setting is about as "hard-ish sci-fi" as it is possible to be, with the one big exception of a viable FTL engine. Humans have began spreading out into the galaxy, colonising n...
When I say multicellular I mean it's made of more that one viruses. Basically it's a bunch of viruses that act like viruses but use the viruses made by infected cells to build a "multicellular" lif...
A long time ago, the 60 foot long Megalodon roamed the oceans. Fast forward to 2.6 million years ago and they went extinct. In the story I'm writing Megalodon hasn't gone extinct surviving at least...
In the deep, outer reaches of our galaxy, there is a rogue gas giant which, due to an unfortunate event, was flung from its native orbit into interstellar space. It has a mass 12 times that of Jupi...
In my world I want a massive region (7 million mi²) to be as flat as the Great Plains. There are no trees or hills; basically it's just a grass sea. I am trying to figure out what kind of weath...
We have a variety of ways of describing our location here on Earth. We can refer to a nearby landmark (eg "by the City Hall"), we can describe our location relative to an area (eg "in the South of...
I'm curious what factors a terrestrial planet impacting the Earth would require for the impact to cause negligible damage to the larger planet, while destroying the Earth.
It's something that's been used several times as a plot device on Star Trek, notably in the TOS episode "The Tholian Web", and the TNG episodes "The Next Phase" and "The Pegasus". I'm certain it's ...
Imagine a generation ship heading for a distant star. Humanity had means to observe that star up to a point, that it is 99.9% sure the star has a colonizable Earth-like planet (with water and atmos...
As the title: I want to know what kind of organs or modifications need for plants like tree to gain energy from lightning or electricity (and still fine or safe or alive of course). Since I have a...
I want to build a seastead in international waters that starts small. It has to be in the Atlantic, preferably in the northern hemisphere close to either the american or european continent. Due t...
From what I understand, Mount Everest grows about 2.4 inches per year. I am trying to create an area of land that grows very often, often around 1 inch per day. As I'm not very good with plate tect...
Would it be possible for a cilliate, such as Stentor, to evolve into a large multicellular organism similar in form to the original unicellular body-plan?
"Serina" is a popular speculative evolution project in which, apart from a long list of fish, invertebrates and plants, the only terrestrial chordate to colonize this terraformed moon is the canary...
This question answers the issue I was wondering about of how well an exoskeleton suit could help my characters move as normal in higher and lower gravity Could a robotic exoskeleton give humans Ear...
We are in a far future setting where humans (or transhumans I should say) achieved two things: be able to modify themselves genetically to the point where they can have completely different organ...
Recently I've been looking into Metallic Hydrogen as a fuel for the vehicles of my fictional future world. The only issue is that I'm uncertain if the blasted stuff is metastable. And while I kno...
I have been toying the idea of fusing our white blood cells which search and destroy malicious foreign bodies with artificial intelligence to fight various disease causing pathogens, my worry is th...
In my world slimes are intelligent creatures of various sizes which can take the shape of anything they like and change color to camouflage. A slime can camouflage as floor , as a box, a snake or...
A long time ago, Yi Qi diverged into three main groups: Cockatrices, Drakes, and Wyverns. Some characteristics of Wyverns include: They are tetrapods/quadrupeds They are covered with feathers The...
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...
A strange concept which I came up with after realizing that vampires, werewolves and zombies are basically created by an infection from a virus. This has lead me to brainstorm how I could make a mo...
Imagine an alternate universe where FTL do happens, let's just say the inhabitants discovered a hypothetical particles that allows ordinary matter to temporarily be in superposition of any amount o...
I want to make an atmosphere rich in carbon monoxide, but as it doesn't stick around for very long, it will need to be replenished. I'm looking for concentrations comparable to those of carbon diox...
Nivea have developed a hair product which I personally found very special among this filled-with-generic-stuff market of products, which is named in German "Creme-Gel": I find Nivea's Creme-Gel sp...
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...
Premise/question Correct me if I'm wrong, or if humans have terraformed the planet by the time you're reading this, but Mars is mostly desert-like. It has large ice caps which contain most of its ...
So, my understanding of how Alcubierre drives would theoretically work is not particularly complete. I know it involves compressing and expanding space, but I don't really have an intuitive grasp ...
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...
Sulfur hexafluoride is pretty awesome. It is a gas six times denser than regular air, and thus you can actually make tinfoil "boats" float on it. It also makes your voice deep when you breathe it i...
I'm currently working on something where breechloading rifles and cartridge shot are developed very quickly over matchlocks and flintlocks. What major technological hurdles need to be overcome for...
The last time I asked something similar, I asked if it would be possible for xenarthran mammals (armadillos, sloths and anteaters) to be thrown off of South America from life-giving rafts to other ...
Given that you can travel back in time and have a baby there, or alternatively, send your baby back in time, would it be possible that this baby one day becomes your own mother (gives birth to you)...
Many planets out there will be water worlds. Those generally come in two flavors: either the oceans are so deep that the water turns into high-pressure ices like ice-six, -seven, -ten and -eleven o...
