Posts tagged reality-check
I was trying to create a world that has extensive massive rain-forests unlike anything on earth where the trees interlock with thick branches to allow them to rise much higher into the air (several...
For a civilization like this, firstly, I would like to know what dangers there are, e.g: radiation, cave-ins, temperature. I also want to know about the sustainability of this colony, power I'd ima...
I've been hearing and reading about that solar flare in 2012 that could have sent us back to the 18th century, by causing huge geomagnetic storms which would have prevented (every?) electricity-bas...
I've been toying with an idea for ages that I think could be pretty fun but I want to make sure it's not wildly unrealistic before going too far with it. The idea is that the Equator is fiercely h...
Inspired by this comment: What if every animal as large as, or larger than, a ice-age vintage horse, except for those that are acclimated to cold climates, went extinct during the last Ice Age? I...
This is loosely linked to my nature Mage questions. In my fantasy world I want a race of Orcs. These are the characteristics they have to have: Stand between 6 and 7 feet tall Have crude weapons ...
One science fiction short story I read (I don't remember the title or author, sorry!) featured some small creatures (unnamed) that were formed from metal, with the argument that "just like life dev...
Major Camila de Ocampo, "La Comandante", wakes with a start. As she's been trained to do when coming out of stasis, she flexes each muscle, beginning with her toes until she finally finishes by rai...
Are there scientists currently, who could describe their specialization as "xenobiologist" or are they merely a thing of science-fiction? Assuming an alien is discovered today, and willing to coope...
In a story I am working on, I need a scene in which one of the main characters finds himself outside in precarious weather conditions, unable to see unaided much farther out than an armlength or so...
Instead of flying say tons of metal and/or water and other raw materials/molecular matter to the Moon or Mars, could we shoot it there in ionized form by accelerating these sufficiently? Maybe sub...
I'm writing a very nontechnical science fantasy with a star-ship (literally a giant spacecraft toting around a star) in stable orbit around a black hole. It uses one of the "stellar engines" mentio...
Take a modern nuclear reactor complex. Now picture a catastrophic meltdown, not unlike Chernobyl. But this time there is nobody around to do damage control, and all control mechanisms do fail. Th...
I was wondering if there is a realistic way that one can "travel" to the future, using today's technology. Two scenarios I have thought of: An individual is put under cryogenic freezing and then ...
My answer to this question essentially came down to the pilot being in a sphere with anything large jutting out of it. Some of the arguments made against me I feel are true if we assume fights like...
Several science fiction books I have read (including, IINM, Nightfall by Asimov) have featured planets with several suns. Some worlds where this happened wrought interesting effects on the inhabita...
And what would be needed to expand this effect, scaling up to the size of a city, or maybe a country? I've seen this question, and it seems that while one could do it with gravity, the effectivene...
In my world, I would like to have a certain configuration and I wonder if it's plausible or not. There is a continent with a climate similar to the Amazonian basin, covered by a very dense forest...
A recent question concerning generation ships made me come up with a rather original alternative in my answer. It was pointed out that the concept of embryo space colonization has already been thou...
Yes, this is about Dr. Evil's dream: Sharks with frickin' lasers. Except that the lasers would not be artificially attached, but be part of the animal itself (bio-lasing instead of simply biolumine...
In this world I'm building, I need it to be possible to have enclosed spaces/worlds connected to the main one. Ideally the main world would closely resemble ours, with the same laws of energy/physi...
We've discovered stars that are contact binaries. This means that they orbit so close together that their photosphere reaches through their Roche lobes and links the two stars together. This sta...
Imagine that humankind finally takes wing and reaches out into the heavens to claim its vast cosmic birthright ... ... only to find that a previous wave of dinosaurs from Earth, who left ~65 milli...
Fits into the planetary transfer of energy category...for whatever reason and using whatever means, one planet is used to generate a massive amount of energy, ultimately as electricity. This power...
Assume a plant was engineered to cope with a wide range of different environments, and to have seeds that were capable of traveling through and surviving both the depths of space and re-entry into ...
I was experimenting with various star system designs with a gravity simulator, and one of the patterns I ended up with is best described as a planet with a very elongated elliptic orbit that itself...
I've just come across a subplot in Jack McDevitt's Firebird where the earth-like planet Villanueva and the rest of its planet system was moving towards an unspecified dust cloud that made the plane...
I have a fictional technology in my world that involves being able to create "tubes of compressed space" -- essentially, you have two stations and a (straight or curved) line of space between them ...
So, just read a good number of the answers over at Is a jet dragon possible?, and it seems that a jet dragon doesn't make much sense due to supersonic flight pre-jet engine being required. Rocket ...
This question is related to the following question on whether complex life is possible without oxygen but is not a duplicate. I was doing some searching and found this and this link, the first on w...
Suppose the universe contained a species of planet sized turtles1 that can travers at least interstellar space. How can I explain (without invoking magic) that these turtles are not spherical? If ...
In the world I have been working on my planet has a gelatinous mass of cells coexisting but not a technical single creature. It bridges the gap between single celled and complex and it grows in siz...
If humans were to vanish completely from the Earth rapture-style, other primates would possibly slowly evolve and eventually take our place (in a few million years?), since they have both the basic...
I've been thinking about a cyberpunk universe where nanobots are a universal force capable of achieving many things, examples include: Biological and medical modifications of the human body Const...
I recently wrote a silly little flash fiction piece in which some party-goers go hide in a bunker under an apartment building in NYC because of a "megablizzard." In said silly flash fiction, I buri...
I define "Venusian world" to be high pressure, thick atmosphere, and high temperatures. Assume the atmosphere is similar to Venus, but whatever gets the same effect and supports life is fine. I'm ...
A frog has already been levitated without any magnetic object attached to it. I'm wondering if it's possible to reverse this for transportation purposes, by having a vehicle levitate itself using m...
So I've been trying to create a world and I've been planning on the continents being drowned out almost completely in water from a terrible tsunami, storm, earthquake or an act of one the gods or s...
Could one construct a statue out of materials that could be made to move in controlled or semi-controlled ways? The question is essentially can one make a robot without the internal mechanics? I'm ...
Looking at the recent questions on dragons and aviation bureaucracy has got me thinking about some animals I could include in my story. I want these animals to be jet powered. One of the answers o...
I have had some time to ponder my previous question, and here's what I came up with. You take your freshly baked AI (or your destructively uploaded human), and put it in a box$^1$. As far as it c...
This is the second question in my Arctic Airships series of questions. The first one is Arctic Airships, Part 1 - Generating Electricity. The setting is outlined in Part 1, but I'll rehash the pre...
What ethical/legal implications would there be if we invented a technology to make it possible to communicate intelligibly with some (or all) animals? The constraints on this technology would mak...
So imagine this scenario: Sapience (which I define as Human-like intelligence or better) is a relatively common occurence once a life-form is on a specific brain-arms-race path like Hominins have ...
What would it take in terms of impact size to interrupt or stop Earth's (or an Earth-like planet's) magnetic field?
I have a head-world idea where one of the planets in it has four magnetic poles. It is a desert rocky planet with carbon based lifeforms on it (mostly underground or in bio-domes). What would the...
While we develop space travel technologies, the Moon will always be the first destination. By its proximity to Earth is the obvious target to test our technology. Before we can establish some kind...
Is it possible for humans to live on a world with the following conditions? Atmosphere: 50% nitrogen; 30% oxygen; 20% carbon dioxide. Climate: The rain in some areas is acidic. (Is there som...
Imagine that you lived in this world: The planet has a diameter of 5000 km. The rotation time is the same as the orbital period. And here it comes: the orbital period is 1027 years. The planet's ...
Could a Manned Maneuvering Unit-type device provide a few hours of light artificial gravity* for a small person on an object with minimal gravity of its own? What sort of fuel would it need? * Com...
