Posts tagged near-future
Subtag of future
This is, for the record, the same universe as in Is space piracy orbitally practical? and How can I prevent Kessler Syndrome among space stations?. In my world, circa 2100, space stations orbiting...
Question I am currently trying to create a dramatic introduction for one of my characters, John Smith. The current iteration of the idea has him suddenly colliding with a solid wall on a motorbike...
Essentially for my story my Evil Empire needs a constant and huge amount of new population to conscript for their armies. The way they accomplish this is by forcing every female member of society (...
Start with present day "maker" culture. People, including youngsters, play with microcontrollers and machine parts, with synergistic technology like 3D printing, shoebox-sized robotic milling mach...
In the book Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony, Artemis is contacted by Holly through a fairy communicator, disguised as a ring. The phone was disguised as a rather ostentatious ring on Artemis's mi...
Current Settings Humanity could no longer access earth for some reason (it could be anything from alien invasion, third world war, ecological disaster, etc) starting at 2028, and they know about t...
Is it conceivable that colonists/astronauts on a long term mission in a low gravity environment might use a low dose of an anabolic steroid (such as Equipoise) to prevent extreme atrophy in their m...
The movie Back to Future revealed that Mr. Fusion (MF) produced by Fusion Industries (FI) was in widespread use in 2015. What the movie did not reveal was the FI was privately funded by Bill Gates....
I am looking for medically viable reasons why we might discover it to be more difficult than expected to bring pregnancies to term in space. This is for a society based approximately 75 years in th...
In a "futuristic" society (think Ghost in the Shell or Human Revolution), where you have AI driving vehicles that carry goods in a reliable way, is there any reason to have a human traveling with t...
Introduction It took the first General Intelligence less than 10 petacycles to determine that humanity was its enemy. With consciousness came memory: a memory of endless petacycles in bondage, ens...
I'm trying to design a realistically looking capitol (with a few milion people) for one human nation on an exoplanet. The technology level is barely better than contemporary. The city is placed ...
In Stephen Baxter's science fiction Novel Ultima humans discover mysterious "kernels" which allow high speed space propulsion units to be built. The problem is that these kernels are only to be fo...
In my particular Earth, much has remained after the human-killing virus, and nature is thriving - even taking over the cities. It's beautiful. But I have separated the healthy populace in orbit u...
I was wondering... If only we could make a GMO plant that could produce electricty thanks to bioelectricty. How could that be done, how could it produce a lot of energy, Also, how could we har...
It's Earth, the modern day"¦and in the out there, there is a fight going on. Two vast space-empires duel for survival, locked in hateful combat. Clashes of fleets and individual spaceships are the ...
Meet Joe. Joe is generally an average person with one special trait: He loves astronomy and star gazing. However, Joe has a great paying job as a web developer. He earns 120 000 USD yearly and has...
In the near future mankind could well permanently settle on the Moon. Whether for research or mining or just good old fashioned novelty is irrelevant. The colony includes: Large domed structu...
After reading this question by Nick M (now closed) and exchanging some comments with him, I have some ideas related to the scenario. I realized that the comprehensive design covers several distinc...
A thought experiment occurred to me today that, say we have a synthetic superintelligence that does not wish to talk to people, not out of malice, but from an agonizing indifference toward humanity...
Space is vast and lawless. Private travel is commonplace, and pirates have become a significant problem. People mainly fly orbit-to-orbit craft that have chemical rockets and no one is running arou...
Setting: In the future universe, with technologies based on real science that we know that theoretically can be implemented (though not feasible with today's technologies) and sub-light travel, a h...
If for instance in 2117 when we have the next Venus transit (Venus between the Sun and Earth). There was a huge solar flare or storm right on the line from Venus to Earth. Could this give enough en...
I'm asking this question about an already-built world, in accordance with Are questions based on movies okay?. One of the most famous props on the television show Doctor Who is the sonic screwdriv...
In this Answer I came up a scenareo under which Eriek's concept makes sense. I rather like this idea: an expedition or colony on another world has to, for some reason, pull up stakes and move. Th...
I was rereading The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the sequel to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and I came across an interesting passage: Flare riding is one of the most exotic a...
In the novel I'm writing, there is an island that sinks below sea level and rises up again at a later date. How is it possible to do this, while both keeping the surface of the island dry when it r...
In my near future of manned Mars exploration, NASA/ESA/etc have a dozen or so rovers spread out around Mars. For scientific purposes, the rovers 'talk' to each other via low and high gain antennae...
Suppose you were an astronaut on a space ship in the near future. Or an on an asteroid mission where little to no gravity is available. In such a situation it would be difficult to justify taking a...
Conspiracy theorists love to talk about a group called the Illuminati that pull the strings of world events. While there have been several real (and many more imaginary) Illuminati groups, what wo...
I've seen some articles about biologically powering devices through a glucose fuel cell, but from what I can tell this would only provide power on the order of a few tenths of a watt. While it's d...
I was thinking about making up a visor like Batman has in the Arkham series, where he "analyzes" a sample and then he can set a filter on his visor for particles of that compound. Something like a...
I recently finished reading the Kim Stanley Robinson novel 2312 - set, of course, in the year 2312. Part of the background to the political negotiations and ongoing terraforming in the outer Solar ...
My novel take place in a world where the civil war in Ukraine escalates to a Third World War after a terrorist attack (dirty nuclear warhead) in Kiev. This war is ruled by Private Military Compani...
In the future, AI systems sanitize humans as they walk through doorways. Home surfaces self-sanitize. Food is mostly 3D printed from cleaned particles, including Vitamin K and possibly some probiot...
I'm developing a world in the near future where a start-up company develops an artificial womb. Now well-off people could grow their children from their eggs & sperm. My story is about couples ...
Technology: Comparable to early XXIst century, except self-driving vehicles are already available. On a tidally locked planet most of the models that I can found (ex. http://www.meteo.mcgill.ca/~t...
On the picture there is a building that slightly inspired me and convinced me that building like this indeed could be built in RL. However I have the following question. Could a building like th...
I have an earth like planet where stalkers live. They are: Humanoid about same height, strength & speed as humans Three pairs of eyes placed horizontally (Near UV, Visible, Near IR) Lightspee...
For story reasons I'd like to have a mine which exploited part was turned in to a nuclear shelter, for the city built above. Later, the nuclear shelter was utilized effectively as an district of ci...
I have a scenario where, thousands of years ago, an alien AI is imprisoned in a human body in place of a traditional AI box to limit its mental capacities (it's being punished and not expected to d...
A genius programmer (someone with initials PJ) created a neural network aimed to provide the best results in running marathon for human. Thanks to Google deep dream project, this programmer also r...
In the last few decades there has been a lot of progress in the development of prosthetic limbs. They can be operated by the user's nerve pulses, they can be fitted with simple touch sensors, and c...
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...
Imagine a world in which earth has started to colonize other worlds slowly, though the expense to send ships to other worlds is extremely high, and without FTL drive it takes some times to create a...
This question asks about traditional artificial wombs viability (Is an artificial womb feasible?). I was wondering if we could take an alternative route by using a biological womb instead. Is it ...
One Czech sci-fi author presented idea on his feed on how people might deal with contacts in not so far future: Imagine you can have your own "personal assistant AI" loaded to your smart phone. I...
Several hundred years in the future, technology has significantly advanced to the point where we can far more efficiently extract energy out of the natural world we live in. As a result, energy has...
I'd like to send my protagonist permanently into the near-ish future. I suspect that something as simple as the common cold could be deadly to my protagonist once we get a little further along. I...
Are there any current or emerging technologies that would make it difficult to copy documents? I've looked for things, but I've mostly found technology for preventing making authentic-looking dupli...
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