General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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Regarding the idea of a generation ship carrying a community of people for thousands of years to another planet: Is there is any material for an engineered structure or set of systems that will re...
If there were an absolutely terrible accident, and part of Earth's core was displaced toward the surface, making a bubble of liquid nickel and iron, what would be the major problems with this?
About 100 people settled in a tropical area near a seashore five years ago. They've been feeding themselves by hunting and fishing, but now they're also trying to grow crops, including hemp and cor...
If humans had wings, let's just say in the classic angel position. It's pretty obvious that we don't have the muscles or aerodynamics to actually fly with them. I was looking at hang-gliders, and I...
The Guivre is an amphibious dragon from French mythology: Many of its aspects are typical of Western dragons, but there are two which distinguish it from others: Its breath causes disease It c...
If I wanted to image an Earth-like planet at a resolution where one could read the lips of a human speaking on the surface 1, 10, and 1000 light years away, how large would the telescope reflector ...
Backstory You won't believe it, but I'll tell you anyway. I'm a Level 61 wizard. If you think about it, wands aren't all that hard to use. Point, invoke, joyfully watch your enemy burn in the f...
This question is a different version of other questions that I have found here discussing a similar but different problem. The problem I'm facing here is about the excess or waste heat that an adv...
Subarenaceous animals are those which can move long distances through dry sand - like sandfish lizards, or Dune's sandworms. The main problem they have to tackle is turning the sand immediately aro...
Let's create a creature with the ability to create a loud boom with only its body. We'll start with a terrestrial predator, that gives us a good reason as to why it needs to do this. It uses the th...
I want to have air and STP (standard temperature and pressure) around my spaceship. Other properties: Objects can enter and exit it without bumping into any kind of a barrier? In fact, there doe...
Recently, I came across an inverted world map on the MapPorn Reddit made by MChainsaw. "Inverted" as in, the "continents" are now below sea level and the "ocean floors" are high and dry. (Conside...
I asked a question earlier on here concerning Negative and Heavy Matter - hypothetical types of matter I created to have a working FTL drive. With some extra work, I've tweaked the concept and been...
An alternate world is populated by mainly intelligent trees and other plants. These plants are almost exactly the same, biologically, as Earth's plants. The world's climate and geology are very sim...
In a fantasy world I've been working on Dragons are venerated by many for their ability to seemingly summon rain where ever they roam. It's common for the peasantry of the south to leave offerings ...
I would like to create a map with the help of tectonic plates. I didn't really care before. Can tectonic plates have all possible sizes and shapes? As an extreme example, could a continent the size...
Partly inspired by this question My Venusians are happy in their cloud top city when a small group somehow (with lots of handwaving) crashes to the surface, falls underground, and ends up in a hid...
Me You might call me evil but the facts are I deserve to rule all of the world, everyone & everything in it. What I already have done For years I have worked in the shadows (as much as you c...
Given a rotation rate comparable to Venus & axial tilt like Uranus (about 90deg), what should I expect for atmospheric winds? I anticipate a stratospheric wind only, dropping to the surface at ...
I'm trying to create alien species that is hermaphroditic, with strong sexual conflict. In essence each being tries to trick or force (by mechanical or hormonal means) its partner to take role of f...
Suppose we scale up a human to about 10m in height and their skeletal structure have evolved to ensure they won't succumb under their own weight. Due to their unique blood circulatory system they c...
This one is rather straightforward. A character falls into a magically-induced coma for about 10,000 years and then wakes up to find the world around him different in quite a few ways. There's not ...
I am writing about a blood magic cult, and they drink/paint with collected blood to preform rituals and bursts of magic. Most of their supply is garnered through the use of human cattle, but in a p...
How might a carnivorous tree look or work? The following conditions must be met: Consumes members of the biological kingdom 'Animalia' Possesses something resembling a trunk or stem of any kind ...
Imagine a creature much like ourselves that can control the usage of their own mind. For example, a dying ancestor may tell some parting words which are so important that the individual explicitly...
Due to the moon's gravitational pull, objects at Earth's surface directly under the moon are slightly lighter. This tiny lessening of gravity would also take effect if the moon were on the exact op...
Mariliths are these D&D creatures that are basically nagas except with six arms. OK, technically this image is from Final Fantasy, but you get the point. What environmental factors could cau...
On a generation ship, the people living on it need oxygen, lots of oxygen. More than they can realistically carry, thus a generation ship must be able to create breathable air from relatively commo...
I am a collector traveling from planet to planet, who believes that art is an expression of human emotion and feeling, and can come in all types of forms. Many greats, such as Picasso and Van Gogh,...
Whether exhaust from a solid rocket engine, or something released by spaceships in flight (like aerobatic smoke in the atmosphere), could extended trails behind a ship be created that would not dis...
So I heard about this thing on vsauce a while ago, where scientists use this thing called "acoustic levitation". They use ultrasonic frequencies to levitate various substances, for use of studying ...
Biologically speaking, what would be the best real world explanation for a pyro, torch, fire-starter type mutation. Leeching heat energy from the environment might freeze dry your surroundings. G...
One of the oddest of cryptids is an octopus haunting the lakes of Oklahoma, a landlocked state. The reason this is odd is that although freshwater mollusks are common, Cephalopoda (the class consi...
Ok so I was thinking about a way to hypothetically have undiscovered elements with bizarre properties (for unobtainium purposes). And an idea hit me: replace nucleons with heavier but stable counte...
Demons have been a staple of multiple religions for thousands of years, just like angels. While some of the points brought up in the Anatomically Correct Angels post (and other posts on flying huma...
Let's assume that there is a lake that has formed from snowmelt and rainfall. The lake has never been in contact with other bodies of water. How might this lake become a complete ecosystem?
I have been slowly losing my mind trying to build a somewhat realistic climate map for a fantasy world I'm building for my book. A geographer I am not... I modeled the climate zones and such after ...
In a setting with multiple sapient fantasy races (ie, elves, orcs, humans, dwarves), assuming these races could interbreed and this activity became common, would they eventually reach a point of hy...
I am working on a planet that has insignificant (almost 0 degrees) tilt, no moon, rotates twice as fast as Earth. I intend to create quite an exotic "biome", so to speak, in a subtropical desert z...
The ODESSA network, a highly secretive organisation of former SS members, decides to hold the former Allied nations to ransom; with a giant parabolic mirror in space that can focus sunlight into an...
I am wondering what kind of physical qualities (E.g. Short, thick pillar-like legs) a creature such as this would need to support such an incredible size. The world that it evolves on in almost ide...
I was reading on another question (this one) and was thinking "What if those bullets could return?" What I am looking for is: Practicality Cost effective Combat effective Manufacturability
Take a planet with an atmosphere similar to Earth's but, say, 9-10x as dense. What is this going to mean for the performance and design of the heat engines that are so familiar to us? Higher oxygen...
I am writing a medieval fantasy story in which there is a race of humanoids who have multicolored eyes. Their eyes may change to bring out one color or another if they are experiencing very stressf...
In my overcrowded future setting the Hegemony (government of the Earth) wants to make the metropolises of the world self sufficient when it comes to food production. What farming/food production me...
Could two planets be tidally locked to each other at such a small distance from one another that they share their atmosphere, and material is floating around between the two?
I'm working on a story in which there is some sort of planetary erosion of language. Humans lose the ability to communicate verbally (orally and written). They can remember having language, can eve...
I'm picturing a world without oceans. I'm not after Arrakis; I want a quite lush surface. I'd like no surface water at all, but I'm concerned that makes evolution impossible. (I imagined using chem...
I was wondering whether it would be feasible to have a tree that at times may have light green, at other times dark green leaves. Why would a tree evolve to change the shade of its leaves? Yes, I...
In haplodiploid sex-determination system, female/diploid individuals are developed from fertilized eggs by means of sexual reproduction, while male/haploid individuals are developed from unfertili...
