General Q&A about worldbuilding and other speculative developments that can be extrapolated from science.
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Is it possible to directly convert radioactivity to turn it into electricity? If yes, then what is the conversion rate?
The situation I'm considering is as follows: A large research vessel with a crew of about 100-200 attempts to land on a potentially habitable planet, but something goes wrong during the descent. A...
Background We know about the can-and-string telephone. There are various claims about the maximum distance over which this is effective. Let's say 100 feet is possible without too much loss and...
Let's say some magic aliens come and prank us. They, in one step, remove out the innards of the earth, and put everything on the surface on the inside. They make some artificial gravity so we stay ...
As an ancient organism whom currently occupies a large chunk of a planet beneath the surface, I have a pesky issue with an invasive species. These humans have decided to colonize my home, mistaking...
I'm creating a new setting for a novel. I'd like to build a world where the interaction between the planet and its satellite/satellites can generate a normal tide excursion around 6/8 metres. Furth...
Hydrothermal vents are thought to exist on Europa. On Earth, these vents are surrounded by all manner of freakish and bizarre looking creatures, mainly various worms, crabs and octopodes. Europa'...
A universe-destroying parasite is set loose, and basically earth is placed under magical quarantine. (Think of it like the world is wrapped in magical cellophane.) My question is, how would earth's...
My world has a huge crater (4400 miles in diameter) on a world that's roughly earth equivalent (so a circumference of 25000 miles). The native population doesn't need to know how it was formed but...
I have seen some people talk about the idea of ships using their magical anti-gravity systems in a story in order to not only give ships a standard floor layout and inertial dampener systems, but t...
I'm designing the type of ships an amphibious race could use for long distance travel, like a floating house, following oceanic currents. I imagine it shaped like an iceberg, with more structure be...
I once saw an experiment with mice, where they connected the bloodstream of a younger mouse to the bloodstream of an older mouse. And the older mouse became "younger", or at least healthier. If I ...
How would faster-than-light travel appear through window of a space vessel? All the movies and TV shows like Star Trek and Star Wars seem unrealistic: Star Trek credits: passing stars get bigger...
I have read about protagonists who get smashed through buildings, going through earth's atmosphere from space onto earth's surface unharmed , get launched across the sky and smashed into concrete. ...
A creature in my story was largely inspired by the xenomorphs of the Alien franchise. In wondering how long it would take one of these creatures to grow from conception to maturity, I decided to lo...
In the lord of rings the elves invented an incredibly nutritious bread/biscuit, as Legolas clearly says only a small bite is just enough to satisfy the needs of an adult man for 1 day. An adult ...
Let's say that there are two people named S and C. They are not far apart; less than 10 meters. Let's also assume the scenario takes place in late evening or in the night, for simplicity. Normally...
If an earth-sized planet were tidally locked to a star, and was in the life zone of its star with an earth-like atmosphere, what would its wind patterns be like? The planet would have one hot hemi...
FTL (Faster than Light) travel exists,taking around 88 hours 48 seconds to travel 1 light year. FTL communications also exists and takes only 53.28 seconds to travel 1 LY (Light Year). Jumps longer...
In my sci-fi universe (The same as my first question) it is common throughout the asteroid belt to 'Bump' (somehow cut off and then shove a ship off of an asteroid) miners. Usually this is only don...
Unnecessary Setup In my story, a race of gods arrive in our solar system from the far flung colonies of a Type III civilization. When they arrive at Earth and see the rise of hominids, they split ...
In my story the inhabitants of Earth are near extinction. They want to make a capsule of a bunch of human DNA and blast it toward the Andromeda galaxy. They take 1 oz of every blood type still liv...
There is no genetic engineering allowed, just selected breeding and offspring selection. There is no genome sequencing, imagine medieval technology plus mendelian principles. The laws of heredity a...
So in my world it is the future and ALMOST ALL NATURAL METALS are gone. They needed power to get delivered in some form. One scientist thought up a solution: Human hair. The science community was ...
For a SF story I'm wondering how thick a planet's rings can be? When viewed from the inside, can the ring material be so dense that visibility would only be a couple of meters? What would it take t...
If someone in the 14-15th century world had the knowledge required to build an engine for use in locomotives and ships, what kind of engine could be made using technology that already existed back ...
The normal condition of life in a planet (Earth right now) is that below us is the planet's core, and above us is the sky. Now if there's a hollow planet like above, is that possible? How does ...
My world is at the outer edge of the habitable zone. There is enough heat and geological activity to start life, but a snowball earth is looming and threatens to freeze it all. There is some spring...
Say if a planet had either no greenhouse gases or a small percentage of a certain greenhouse gas (roughly 5% or less) in its atmosphere, but all other elements in the atmosphere could support life....
A planet with changing gravity On earth gravity stays constant (besides negligible fluctuations), but it may be possible to change that. What kind of geology, natural satellite, or other anomaly c...
My dragon So to give a quick description, this is a 2 mile long, nuclear powered dragon of doom. I think I'll going with a fission/fusion hybrid creature for this beast. Another piece of relevant ...
On my fantasy planet, humanoid peoples are at war and ride different animals into battle, including wolves. People and their wolves are, for all intents and purposes, extremely similar to humans an...
We, humans, hold a lot of livestock. 19 billion in chickens alone. Cattle, sheep and pigs each also number over 1 billion. Currently these animals cannot evolve freely; they are selected on certain...
I was wondering if there was a way for a creature to survive the vacuum of space for ten minutes with only a tank of oxygen and a mask to breathe the oxygen with. The creature comes from an Earth-l...
I am interested in a character or race of humanoids similar to the green man in the tent in Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. What qualities would the Sun need to have in order to support a race of hu...
The Nanaue (there is no wiki link) is a Hawaiian creature of myth. It is a shark with arms and legs. It can live in both the ocean and on the land. So how do I create the monstrosity that is, the l...
I know a submarine would NOT make the greatest spaceship in the universe, but could it allow people inside to live in space? A submarine can resist pressure, can hold oxygen inside, and there is a...
My world has a continent in the northern hemisphere that lies primarily in the Ferrel cell where the westerly winds are. The continent is fairly large, just a tad bit smaller then than North Americ...
As per my last two questions asked, I still have a niggling query left regarding a humanoid species in production. To further support their matriarchal theme through evolution, I have decided to ma...
Among other things humans are fertiliser. Orcs are capturing humans as slave labor and fertiliser. What do human bodies produce/store that plants need to grow?
The Romans had pumps, aqueducts, water wheels (which were used to grind flour, saw wood & stone etc), valves & pipes (they are known to have used stone, clay, lead & copper for pipes). ...
As we all know, a majority of the Martian soil is composed of ferric oxide ($Fe_2O_3$), which is also coincidentally the formula for hematite, one of the most common ores of iron. I think (persona...
I'm writing a story about a race that has space travel capabilities without rocket technology, instead is using a portal to space and was wondering whether it's possible for them to put something i...
Note - I'm primarily interested in the beast from the original Dr Dolittle books by Hugh Lofting rather than the movie version. The Pushmi-pullyu The pushmi-pullyu (pronounced "push-me"”pull-y...
One rule: it cannot be caused by aliens or AI invading the planet. But it is okay if an alien race causes the destruction in any other way. It's an Earth-like planet. I need the effects of the des...
In my world, humans encounter an alien species. They want to communicate verbally with each other, so I'd like to know what sounds could be shared by both species. The species has no/very thin li...
Idea I'm interested in exploring the following concept: people have discovered a certain kind of matter, let's call it "Unobtanium" (as it always goes). Unobtanium actually has mass and is compri...
What shape would the eggs of a species of oviparous humanoids be? Eggs are common enough that you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn't seen one. While birds' eggs are often thought of more...
Inspired by this great answer. There is a planet with: Floatium, a superconductor that behaves as such at 0 ºC and is found in nature. A stronger magnetic field than Earth's. In really cold a...
I made a question regarding floating cities coming from a misunderstanding of this great answer. Luckily one comment showed me how floating cities could be possible in a slightly different scenari...
