General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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I have a solar system containing multiple planets, most having an intelligent species inhabiting it. To keep a common peace, they created a large government system to help stop territorial wars bet...
To try and explain the situation the best I can imagine one of those sci-fi/fantasy situations where whenever someone is asleep they can experience new things. Whether they somehow end up in some d...
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...
Ancient Man feasted on megafauna. From mammoths to every variety of deer and flightless bird humans have made the most of large wildlife, to the point of tragic excess. So what happens when the ani...
The muroids are a superfamily of rodents consisting today of mice, rats, voles, hamsters, lemmings and gerbils. There are at least 1750 different species of them, proof apparent of their environme...
In my story Orcs, humans, and a bunch of other fantasy races live along side each other and i'm curious as to what evolutionary pressures would to a group of divergent hominids to evolve into Orcs?...
Recently, I've taken a small break to establish a story bound universe, so that these questions can actually prove useful in the future Recently, humanity has discovered a vast earth-like planet,...
Working on a medieval setting I thought of the idea of a biome similar to Minecraft Ice Spike Plains where this ice structures naturally occur. These structures in particular are tall and sharp tow...
Assume I have a human colony on The Moon. A meteor fragment gets by the defense system and smashes into a portion of the dome, let's say the hole is 1 meter in diameter, it's big. Safety measures...
I also need to combine two suggestions about changing a person's muscle fibers so that my genetically modified person has both of them. The first sentence refers to the modification of human muscle...
Body: Boron-based lifeforms that use ammonia as a solvent and respires methane & hydrogen, with an atmosphere of mostly methane, hydrogen, nitrogen and in smaller percentages, acetylene & ...
What modification would a plant "” especially tree "” develop in a world where everything is made of sugar, caramel, cake, syrup, soda, etc.? Think of something like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factor...
The boom-bust cycle answer I took for my question: Sustainability of Regular Global Wildfires due to Oxygen Rich Atmosphere pends on the atmosphere being rich in oxygen but poor in CO2. I, however,...
The goblins in my world are classical fantasy goblins. They aren't too smart, have primitive technology, live in tribes, and use tamed boars, wolves, and other wild animals. They usually have a bos...
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 ...
Would it be possible to have a humanoid, a human looking species with a roughly equivalent brain to humans, without iron in circulation in its blood or body? I have found that reptiles could be a...
I actually rediscovered an old story I wrote five years ago and there was this supposedly synthetic material that can float, be programmed to be directed where to be delivered and can carry luggage...
In my post apocalyptic world, a virus has spread, essentially changing the roles, with infected animals gaining sentience and intellect close to a human and humans degrading into a more animalistic...
Some people straighten their head-hair with what's named: Keratin straightening Keratin smoothening Keratin rebonding Keratin treatment It is an external hair straightening procedure in wh...
Phoenixes are a unique type of wyvern not only due to their colorful feathers (which resemble flames) but also how they reproduce. Phoenixes lay 7 eggs which require a lot of heat to hatch. Unfortu...
I'm basically designing a quadrupedal digitigrade alien, which has evolved from a predominantly arboreal animal into a predator with more cursorial adaptations, capable of running fast, but still b...
I'm writing a story about a modern age HEMA medievalist who time travels to the Viking age. Is it possible to make a crossbow with similar performance to modern age crossbows without using modern ...
Having your radiators tactically protected from enemy fire by the armor shape of your space warship is nice, but having a regular one or double-sided radiators is still a vulnerability. Other conce...
On the earths surface, radar is pretty sweet. It apparently penetrates the atmosphere well and bounces back and can be detected. I think this has to do with the wavelengths absorbed by our atmosp...
I'm working on a military sci-fi piece that involves a lot of exo-skeleton enhanced, well, parkour -- for lack of a better term -- and was wondering how to deal with descents from great heights. ...
I am writing a story that has insects the size of humans, but I am having a little trouble with the biology. When you look up why there are no large insects on Earth, the most popular answer is th...
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 the distant future a breakthrough in cryostasis technology can put healthy people into frozen state so that all metabolism halts and cells never age a bit, the spaceship is carrying them across ...
This is a another sequel to my Plutonian questions, but I've decided to take a break from them and focus on another part of the world. Basically, my version of Pluto has five continents, each a si...
To help imagine it and my inspiration, it's basically similar to pictures from Abrahamic religions with burning trees like this one. They can't speak though, they are just trees or plants that are ...
I'm wondering whether it would be possible for humanoids to evolve from bears. bears share many characteristics with primates such as being amazing tree climbers and having the ability to use too...
I am working on a world where an event, like a celebration, occurs during every lunar eclipse. I would like to have lunar eclipses occurring more frequently--maybe even once a month--in order for...
There is a concern that's been brought up only recently--steel and concrete buildings are environmentally wasteful. In further clarification, they waste away too much greenhouse gases. And consid...
Somewhere on DeviantArt, there is an insightful tutorial by someone named "Uzlo" on how to create anatomically believable angels. Among the instructed details is the possibility of developing a se...
Should removing all head-hair with laser and planting new lab-grown head-hair on the head be dangerous, especially if done repetitively (i.e. two times or more)? Should it risk someone in cancer p...
I'm trying to speculate on manipulating things on the level of quarks for a story. What could I do with that type of technology?
In the future, humanity has discovered countless worlds, some filled with life and others not. Likewise, they discover another world that is habitable, they study its various ecosystems, it's var...
The crafts would have to contain large farms in order to sustain the immense amount of people, and they'd obviously have to be large and spacious to have good living conditions. I did some research...
Most arthropods have at least six legs. Some mites have four and some insects have none, but for the most part, they have six or more. What would the anatomy of a large quadrupedal arthropod be li...
EDIT: Calculations were incorrect, the earth in my comic is not 5.8x larger, it is 2.4x larger. Its surface area is 5.8x larger but the diameter is 2.4x larger. Anyway I'm working on a comic tha...
In the movie Primer (2004), there are two main characters who travel back 24 hours in time using their time machine. When they arrive, both they and their past selves exist in this same town at the...
For my story there exists a fictitious element with special properties. In its pure form is most closely resembles metal (for its physical properties) This material is quite abundant in salt and o...
Start with a silverback gorilla, make it roughly three times bigger, assume it's bone and muscle structure is capable of compensating for the increased size: how fast can a thing like that reasonab...
I'm looking for a bullet that makes the target explode. A bullet filled with explosives and explodes on impact does not suffice. It has to make the target explode somehow. Currently, my only idea ...
I want to use the an active large ignious province (LIP) as a "biome" on a continent in my world. This video about the Siberian Traps inspired me. A LIP modeled after the Siberian Traps gives you a...
Let's say I have a bunch of pre-pubescent children (circa 8-12 years old). Let's also say I subjected them to some drug/process/whatever that caused them to stop growing. In particular: Whatever...
I have a planet where I want all plants to be blue and glowing. I was thinking that they could use something other than light for energy. I want the plants to always glow. The atmosphere is basical...
This is a submission for the Anatomically Correct Series Residing in South Africa, the Grootslang is a creature of African folklore being depicted commonly as: Being 37 to 40 ft long having a co...
For the fluff of my story one of the space-ships is equipped with what I hope is one of the biggest F-you weapons in ship-to-ship combat: a miniature black hole launcher. The launcher fires a whop...
I'm new to asking questions so please forgive me if i'm strange. I have a species of plant-based dragons. Small, covered in feathers and intelligent. I just want one thing backed up for me because...