Posts tagged reality-check
Given any kind of living organism (plant, animal, silicate, gaseous, energy, etc.,) what logical reasons (natural, environmental, evolutionary selection, nurtured, artificial) could result in more ...
Is it feasible that such a race can exist within the following constraints? Body: Humanoid design Average heights at maturity between 2 metres (females) and 2,5 metres (males) Live ...
North America's largest and perhaps most popular volcano is the plume of mantle situated right beneath the surface of what we arbitrarily call Yellowstone National Park. This image shows the two...
I'm building up a world with floating islands. They don't move much and generally stay around the same area. However, would this affect the weather? Essentially, I have giant floating rocks in the...
Does the explanation of this matter sound plausible? A type of exotic matter that allows for generating virtual particles with an energy of 432,541 Mj = 1 uL. The matter is not being converted to ...
In the universe that I am developing the following has occurred... A new type of "liquid energy" has been found/created: 432,540,909,020.0724 Mj in 1 Liter Edit: Description of what the fuel is in...
(First time posting on worldbuilding, be gentle!) For reasons currently unimportant, Earth has been encased in a solid shell which is for all intents and purposes completely invulnerable. The shel...
Imagine you are an evil humanoid alien that wants to destroy Earth (or something awfully similar) for whatever reason. However as an alien, you do not possess any physical weapons. No laser guns. N...
So Murlocs. I'm referencing Murlocs from World of Warcraft since I never actually found any other novels or games that have them. Described as a bipedal, amphibious, intelligent, aggressive[Still ...
It's the near future, and Bob goes for a spacewalk outside the International Space Station or Space Shuttle or some similar type of realistic space craft. Suddenly, and unfortunately, Bob goes spac...
It's common knowledge that one of the things that makes stealth aircraft so stealthy is that the body is covered in a skin of special material that interferes with radar. Would it be theoretically...
Since we're dealing with cat-folk already with the question about the Khajiit, I figured we'd toss a different evolutionary lineage for furry humanoids around, that of the hyena. Ever since the ea...
Here's the scenario: animals on a world with an atmosphere with a significant amount of a certain gas is able to store "air" into a transparent growth (like a crest) and, with an electrical chord i...
Inspired by this answer, If that Lunar-plant is used as a weapon (pointed toward specific cities/forest/seas/lakes), how much damage it could really do? Is that able to burn cities, or anything? I...
Inspired by Can we use science to explain a creature that feeds on emotion? I was wondering if we can somehow use science to explain how a creature that devours dreams and nightmares might have c...
Humans got a one time ticket to the other side of the galaxy, traveling $2r$ in just a few days (where $r$ is the distance from earth to the super massive black hole: 28,000 lightyears) The stars ...
The premise for the the world I'm building is that the Superpowers of Earth lost an interplanetary war with the Colonies of Mars. As a result, most of Earth's governments have either collapsed or h...
I'm creating a world three-quarters the gravity of Earth, and the composition of the atmosphere are as followed: 74% Neon (or Argon) 18% Nitrogen 5% Oxygen 1.6% Carbon Dioxide 0.9% Water Vapor...
Could neon or argon glow naturally in any way? What would be needed in the atmosphere? P.S. Please don't change my question?
Could a planet with an atmosphere composed mostly of neon, with oxygen and carbon dioxide making most of the rest, support life as we know it (specifically on a low gravity planet)? If so, what imp...
Slime molds are a fairly well-known grouping of organisms, performing a valuable function as real-life detritivores and bacterivores, as well as inspiring fantasy tropes such as oozes. Many slime ...
I'm currently working on a story treatment for a monster story. The story is sort of a love letter to many different genres and classic tropes employed and made famous by, John Carpenter, Ridley Sc...
I wonder if it would be scientifically possible, and what would be the explanation for an Earth-like planet with average surface temperature of 14°C, but a very hot ocean, like 80-90° C, covering...
Randall Munroe humorously proclaims that he'd want to live in an example map in a geography book; That means that the geography varies wildly in a small area. Assuming the following: This is ...
I was imaging a system which has a black hole, a star and Earth like planet. The star and planet orbits around the black hole, but the planet has same orbital period as the star, which is a "quasi ...
It's a common trope that during the Cold War (and afterwards) America, the UK, the USSR, and sometimes nations beyond these developed super spies, capable of acts of espionage, sabotage, and direct...
My world is largely based around the production and consumption of 'drugs', chemicals which have physiological affects. Given the variety of drugs in the world, I am looking for alternate ways of c...
Chappie, Johnny 5 and (the more famous) Overwatch all feature robots that are truly and completely artificially intelligent. Each of these series has people react to them in a different way; In Cha...
Coronal Mass Ejection and solar flare produced on the surface of the Sun often can cause disruption to our electronic equipments especially the communication service if it was directed towards Eart...
I've been working on this creature some more and have hit another snag. If my critters communicate through the use of pheromones and chemical trails, how do they communicate the message that it i...
What type of extraterrestrial body could successfully pierce through one side of an Earth-like planet, go through all strata, through the core, and then continuing through the strata and through th...
Hunting is dangerous; even for the predator, hunting can result in death. There have been countless example where a predator was killed by what was supposed to be prey. Animals have evolved many wa...
I was thinking I would have a race and at the most basic level it is a ground covering moss. As it encounters other colonies of itself they will join together to form one contiguous colony while ke...
After reevaluating my sense of perspective on sublight interstellar travel, I'm thinking of moving my planet closer to Earth to cut down on travel time and fuel costs. However, the planet my coloni...
Think stuff like plant only pokemon, Groot (Guardians of the Galaxy), veggie pygmies (D&D), etc How would people react to the fact that a vast majority of their veggies and fruits being much m...
I'm trying to plan a rotating wheel space station for a project. It should be noted that I have to stay as close to real physics as possible, although it takes place in far future. The space statio...
If on a water covered planet, an aquatic species such as the merfolk evolved sapience and now wishes to go into space, how would their spaceship take into account the lack of land? How would a spac...
To start with, i know You measure the Kardashev scale from stellar success, but lets say we have a civilization that are vastly advanced compared to us, so they are equivalent to a type 2 civilizat...
Enter the Argonian: a (really) ugly sentient human-like lizard. Although almost no one plays as this race on their Skyrim playthroughs, they have some pretty astounding capabilities; they are maste...
Behold the Khajiit; Born from the insanely popular game series, Elder Scrolls, the Khajiit are a race of cat people who live in hot jungles. From the moment I saw this race, I fell in love with ...
Sleipnir is Odin's steed - an eight-legged horse in Norse mythology. How and where to place its legs to make it faster than four-legged horses? What other benefits or drawbacks may arise from the a...
Take, if you will, a sci-fi setting in which power is cheap and handheld energy weapons (blasters, lasers, plasma rifles, that sorta thing) are common. In this setting is an isolated community bas...
I'm currently working on an idea for a ring world. Thus far I've worked out the following things: Radius of 1 AU Width of half the circumference of Earth 2000km high walls across the rims to keep...
If humanity decided right now that they wanted to become a space empire and colonize the entire solar system would they be able to do it? One of the biggest problems with theoretically colonizing M...
Consider an Earth like planet is orbiting around a Sun like star, it is almost identical to our Solar system, except the orbital inclination of the planet is 90 degree to the equator of the star (n...
This question discusses what you'd look at from space, but mostly focuses on how you could identify the weather. This question discusses what resources a colony would need, but doesn't discuss ho...
In Pokemon, each individual Pokemon "evolves" into a new stage of its evolution. A lot people claim that this can be explained using mere metamorphosis, but there are no mammals that go through suc...
What if our planet was always lit so that there would be no nighttime? Assume that the scenario is like this, where A is the planet and B and ABb are the stars. And they are all aligned so that it ...
On Earth, life took on a quadruped body plan which has lead to many different sub body plans; 4 legged, 2 legs-2 wings, 2 legs-2 arms, etc. This has made me wonder what possible sub body plans can ...
Set 200 years into the future, humanity's footprints can be seen as far as Planet Nine in the Solar system. The most common propulsion engine is still ion drive and regrettably no one solves FTL. S...
