General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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Based on one of the comments in my previous question about What is the max size for underground creatures before the square-cube law takes a toll? Makes me want to know the limit size for a long c...
Here is all you need to know about the creodonts: They were a group of carnivorous mammals that, despite having carnassials, had no relation to Carnivora. They were a global force, occupying terr...
As the title says, Is it possible to map the firing of neurons in the human brain so as to stimulate artificial memories to the amnesiac person? This is based on this similar question; Is it possi...
This linked video explains who and what Dr Manhattan is and what are his super-powers Dr. Manhattan's Superpowers EXPLAINED. Dr Manhattan character is from Watchmen Here some quotes from Wikiped...
Iron planets are planets which lack a significant mantle. These planets are essentially lone planetary cores. Since water and iron are unstable together iron pentacarbonyl and other exotic metal-ba...
Just as the title, is there a scientific or possible way to extract past memory from a person brain into some record such as video or visual player ? I know some theory say that it possible to du...
What would be an efficient method of global travel that can take you from, let's say, London to Hong Kong in about an hour? It would preferably be made quickly, but money is no object. I don't want...
Imagine a world where human beings can be organically enhanced to peak physical strength/ speed/ agility and maybe even gain telekinetic abilities to some extent. This enhancement is caused by the ...
I would like to have giant sand worms similar to the ones in the 'Dune' novel. What should the planet be like so that they are realistic? Giant sand worms are roughly 100m long and 5 meters in diam...
I am making a story of a species who lives on a planet several light-years above the Galactic Bulge. With advanced technology, how much could they see from their vantage point? Could they carry out...
So, it finally happened. The Earth was hit by a comet, and anyone outside of a research station at the bottom of the Atlantic is now dead, or dying. So, here's what we need to know: How big would a...
The pillars are spread out about a mile apart each, and they all come straight from the ground, slowly gets just a smidge smaller in the middle, and then get bigger near the top, reaching a height ...
As you see my other question What would be the major changes to our body if we were herbivores?. Instead of being herbivores, what would happen if we were obligate carnivores?
Researching a lot about fantasy, I've always had interest of mushroom humanoids, but I wanted to put my own twist on them. Instead of sentient mushrooms, I wanted to have a humanoid species infecte...
Dragons awesome (that's why sub-par writers and DMs use it as a substitute for an actually engaging story/setting) but they're still just animals, animals that reproduce. Besides it's painful to g...
There were many questions in this site about slaying dragons, butchering dragons, but never one about restraining them. Poor Gyvaris managed to avoid all those fates but the last. Gyvaris is a dra...
And you thought I was finally done with centaur questions. I have a centaur race called the Draconitaurs. They're essentially centaurs, but with western dragons instead of horses. The dragon trop...
Stars are never green. When a star's spectra "peaks" in the green range, it also releases a significant number of waves of the adjacent colors - so "green" stars appear yellow or white. I want ...
Imagine we're in a world where massive, outrageous amounts of energy are available at our fingertips. Perhaps one of those crazy cold fusion ideas panned out, or we eventually built ourselves a --p...
Most of people knowing a bit about AI know the concept of paper-clipper, an AI that was meant to produce more paperclips and eventually turn the entire universe into paperclips at maximum efficienc...
Is it scientifically plausible for reincarnation to exist? When I think of reincarnation I am thinking of the following: Memories, personality, biases, opinions and feelings carry over from one ...
In my late-Victorian-based world, mechanical contraptions are incredibly advanced due to the early discovery and quick popularisation of mechanical computation. The science of writing instructions...
Would a community of around 300 people be able to start producing plentiful food in ~5 years post a civil war and plague? They were an isolated quite wealthy community, in a sub-tropical area, mai...
I am trying to work out the size and (because this is among other things for populating a rotating habitat) weight of an arcology made to house, say, 5000 people - that seems a good number for a se...
So I'm writing a story set in the close(ish) future(say 2130), and space debris is starting to be a real problem. Stations in orbit are constantly having to maneuver out of the paths of orbital deb...
To have a fire you need three things: oxygen, heat and flammable material, therefore the cold vacuum of space is the last place you would expect something to burn. I was, however, wondering if a ve...
What happens to small pieces of debris left floating around inside a derelict space station? My space station had 100 people aboard, and due to sabotage, it decompressed and was abandoned. Inside...
Can large amount space debris be used to block sunlight from falling in a particular land area (about the size of Hawaiian islands)? If so, how much space debris will be required? What will be the ...
A large railgun mounted on the spine of a mega-scale starship (20-32km) or an antimatter-powered missile launched outside the ship? For clarification's sake, when I say "safer" I'm referring to "sa...
And I'm not talking about the wimpy 32"‰MJ kind we have in the real world, I'm talking about the superweapon kind. Anyone familiar with Knights of Sidonia and their flagship's Heavy Mass Cannons wi...
I'm thinking about making a dark (and I mean darker than Grimm dark) short adaptation of Cinderella. The gist of it is that, after a life of manual labor and emotional and verbal abuse at the hand...
I was thinking of an interesting landmark to put on my conworld, and I went with the "large body of acid" trope. This lake would be about the size of Lake Superior, and near the equator. The atmosp...
My story is set within one solar system, which can be assumed to have a similar composition to that of our own: one Class G star, a handful of rocky inner planets and a handful of gas giants on the...
We already have them. They are the future, and they are beautiful. Quantum Entangled Particles. One spins one way. The other, another way. Unobstructed they spin, in complete opposition to each oth...
In a far future, antimatter is used for energy storage: Huge space stations with powerful solar arrays orbit the sun a bit inside Mercurys orbit, using the energy to create small amounts of anti-hy...
Let's say that the aliens exist, do you think that they are smart enough to create their own Mathematics? Or even their own Sciences?
As far as I understand for land animals, the max size is as big as an elephant. For water or underwater animals there's no limit, or at least as big as biggest blue whale. So what is the max size...
When designing a world it is convenient to decide how places will be named: Elements like the continents and the oceans. However, it is likely that the different cultures of the world will not ag...
If somehow Mars suddenly had our exact atmosphere, could there be lots of life in a few million years? Would the temperature rise quickly? Would the ice caps melt? Could the life be as advanced as ...
If our atmosphere was much thinner (half as thin as we have now) how would animals and humans evolve? Would we evolve completely different? Would we have a quite barren planet? Let's just say that ...
Assuming a passenger was sitting in an elevator in a rotating wheel space station, as depicted in the movie 2001:A Space Odyssey and based on this question Elevator on rotating wheel space station...
I'm fairly certain such a creature is impossible, but I was curious to see if anyone could come up with an explanation for such a creature. How would a two-headed giant evolve/function if it was a ...
How could a generation ship "steal" energy or resources from star systems which it passed without changing velocity?
Aquatic races are usually assumed to be stunted in technological development by the inability to create fire or forge metals. But what about doing chemistry at all? The development of chemistry i...
I have a new creature from my complex remembered dreams. It's skin color is a dark color similar to the skin of a Silkie chicken. The thing I saw in the dream also has white feathers. It's body is...
In an alternate Earth, there are no bats. Instead, there are "flying monkeys" (which are actually lemuriform primates, rather like bushbabies or lorises.) And even though they have batlike ears, ...
Thanks in advance for any input you can provide! I have a moon called Vieneo http://www.risetvp.com/Vieneo which has some geological modelling of faults and epicenters over some range of time: ...
In many movies, alien species often have the ability to impregnate "every and any" species and have their mutant offspring. I have a story setup where some, not so conscientious, scientists decide...
Spacecraft in my Scifi setting use strong magnetic fields for many purposes. Fusion containment, magnetic nozzles, gauss guns, magnetic fields as pusher-plates for nuclear pulsed propulsion and def...
A civilization has begun its space program without any knowledge of general or special relativity. How would this affect the program? Would this establish any limits on where/how they could travel?...
