General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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In this universe humans have advanced far enough to be able to colonize planets in our system but not enough to do interstellar travel. Earth is united and they have moved beyond countries and bord...
I have a character in my story who is immortal and heals very quickly (think Wolverine). Ignoring physical side effects (but keeping in mind psychological ones) what sorts of drugs could he take to...
A tragic event strikes the Earth, killing all living plants and animals except humans. With no other food source, humans turn to cannibalism. Assuming fresh water and oxygen is still available, how...
Huge numbers of genetically modified flying insects (purpose not disclosed here but it relates to affecting the whole of humanity) are to be dropped into the Earth's atmosphere from space so that t...
In my world there are a group of female warriors with an unusual ability: the resources of their bodies are fungible. For instance, they can make the muscles in one part of their bodies stronger a...
Dwarfs are intelligent creatures, with stronger bones and muscles but smaller than humans. They live mostly under ground (caves, mines, etc.) and reproduce sexually. How long the gestation period w...
My current ongoing project, about which I've asked many questions, is about a world in which evolutionarily plausible legendary and folkloric creatures roam the Earth. One such creature is the sea ...
When you have around 500 soldiers with state-of-the-art equipment and superhuman reflexes, you might also want to invest in a reliable way of controlling them without hampering their ability to thi...
Consider: A spacecraft is travelling between planets. It accelerates at a constant rate for the first half of the trip, and then decelerates on the other half. Throughout the journey, aside from ...
I am building a world that has a single giant continent and nine island chains around the equator. I watched Artifexian's video on ocean currents and made a basic map, but it has no information re...
In many stories, the transformation of human to demon has been interesting to think about. This of course extends to mythology: In multiple folklore, it's said that Lilith became a demon of her ow...
My idea is a device that gives its user great power over the ocean, its currents, and presumably temperatures. Could this be used to dramatically (and in relatively short time) effect the climate o...
Okay, we know the type-IIb FG muscle fibers are the strongest stuff we can use. So, the only thing we can do is attach more, but how? Dragons are 180 cm tall at the shoulders with a total neck+hea...
Researchers are developing increasingly powerful Artificial Intelligence machines capable of taking over the world. As a precautionary measure, scientists install a self awareness kill switch. In t...
Preface Evolution is great for trial and error over millennia. It creates wonderfully intelligent creatures that are suitable for a variety of habitats. All it needs to start with is a creature th...
Setting: In my world I've introduced some science-defying material. I use it to grant the ability of flight to airships that are less Hindenburg-y and more ship-y. They are not literally ships that...
With specific attention to national electricity power grids. Some pertinent details needed to answer the question might be. What parts of the power grid get damaged by such an event How do they...
In this scenario, humanity has managed to colonise some of the solar system, including Mars, some of the moons of Saturn and Jupiter and some of the larger asteroids of the belt. In most places th...
A defining factor of my world is the hardships inhabitants have to face when surviving long seasons. Due to the extreme length of a year, time is largely measured by moon cycles. I need to make sur...
Thinking about the question about Arcologies I was wondering using known science and even a little speculated science would it be possible to safely land a large space ship on a planet similar in s...
Though ceramic plates are harder than a math exam, and can practically obliterate projectiles, they are one-hit wonders. Self-repairing has been demonstrated for a composite of silicon carbide and ...
This is how time travel in my question works: You go back to a certain point in time, physically, regardless of means. Be it a spaceship or a time machine. So you've reached to the past. You kn...
A spacecraft enters an unnamed system and spotted a gas giant with a pulsating planetary ring, it glows bright intermittently. What natural phenomenon could be responsible for such brilliant displa...
If the entire Earth's gravity immediately shifted so it was pulling from East to West, what should people do? Keep in mind that this is not reversed, but merely tilted sideways, and maybe at an an...
Specifically, I'm referring to an ice age that covers most of the Northern and parts of the Southern Hemisphere. Long after it began, how would weather in regions along the Equator and Southern Hem...
Earth is under attack, the empire has gathered thousands of battleships each has a displacement of 500,000 metric tonnes and 20 motherships with a displacement of over 15 million metric tonnes now ...
I'm currently contemplating ways to make dragons have a sustainable energy source in a medieval world, while still acting like the traditional soaring, adventurer grabbing, gold hoarding dragons (n...
Let's say that one day scientists discover proof of demonic possession when scanning the minds of patients with unexplained mental illness. My goal is to write a realistic scenario using current-...
Basic idea: Primordial black hole (2.5% of Sun's mass) directly approaches Sun at fairly rapid pace (300 km/s). Consequently, six days after passing Earth's orbit, it will collide with the Sun; ac...
I wanted two characters unaffected by the heat and gravity to be close to a super massive black hole within the accretion disk, at times moving in orbit and at times completely still. Stars and p...
Given there is no other species that can do the job better. How much can you change a species to fulfill a specific task. The evolution of horses was pretty extreme from what I remember. Are those...
Medrunner Lao Dorn and his team have been given a mission. A young woman has contracted some sort of parasite that is slowly eating away at her vital organs. The doctors on Oberon are unable to do ...
Sort of an extension of With minimal terraforming, what features/structures would need to be built to protect a 25mi radius city from wind? but with some more items to consider. For whatever re...
On our world, human minds can be transferred intact into animals. It was originally intended for people with medical conditions, but some genius thought it would be clever to store violent prisone...
Let's say two super-intelligent, self-improving AIs have, for whatever reason, decided "THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!", and are now trying to kill/delete each other. How would they conceivably go about do...
In an earth-like world, what can I provide as examples of areas where high energy is generated naturally? I'm looking for sources of energy other than heat, for e.g, volcanoes and geothermic vents.
I have been drafting the concept of a future world based on current research. I have been contemplating the long lasting transportation tunnels of the future. I am asking about the likelihood of th...
So, in my story, in a prelude to an epic aquatic fight scene, my main character gets chased by a great white shark. He swims as fast as he can but he can't escape. Just to clarify, he's wearing one...
Rogue planets are generally not to healthy for us humans to live on. No permanent source of heat or light means that generally they are a pretty cold place. Plenty of other problems arise too, but ...
Having read the answers to the How much mayhem could I cause as a fish? of the salmon mayhem gang series, I was wondering, what means the salmon gang had to actually figure the impact of their evil...
On one (of many) of the planets that I am planning out, there are no seas. The planet is mainly composed of enormous mountains, with some deserts in between. There are no seas or large bodies of w...
Medieval bestiaries describe a creature, a type of desert-dwelling ant that digs for gold. It was also said to be the size of a fox, but I'll ignore that in this question. Why would ants unearth p...
How do I figure out the temperatures of certain latitudes on a planet with factors such as sunlight and the emission of heat and energy from a planet's interior? Assume the planet is smaller than E...
I've been working on a system with a habitable moon (Moon A) for a story, and I'm now trying to populate the other moons around the parent planet. I'm considering placing one (Moon B) in a co-orbi...
I am trying to create an island with a large settlement on it, the people of this settlement need to be able to sustain themselves and according to Medieval demographics made easy (MDME) A squa...
Is it possible for a planet to have a liquid ring rather than a ring made of solid particles? If it is, how long would it be stable for? If not, is there any other configuration of a liquid that c...
We've found all sorts of interesting stuff in arctic ice & permafrost around the world. Bacteria & the like far older than the more media friendly mammoth specimens have been found, living...
We know through the works of Babbage, Lovelace, et al. that mechanical computers (computers operating through gears, cogs, etc., and powered by steam or some other arbitrary non-electric power sour...
There are other Groundhog Day questions and other Simulation questions. I believe this differs from all the others. [This movie features a] ...TV weatherman who, during an assignment covering...
@Gryphon has made me aware of this The Least Interesting Substance It is very close but I need a planet that can form naturally. Would any of the substances mentioned in answers to that question b...
