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Aka: What I am asking is: what are the basic elements a society capable of space travel needs? What key factors determine a species'capacity to become spacefaring and what cultural and societal asp...
In the background for my book, I'm looking for an alternative way for space travel. What I'm currently considering: A starship travels to the center of a star by using the natural downwards flows t...
Given a "parallel" Earth-like world with 9 days to our own 7 days (ie, each day is around 18 hours, 40 minutes), what other differences would one expect/require to be otherwise "normal" and habitab...
Prologue In my current worldbuilding project, I decided to put a ban for faster than lightspeed travel, and decided that most space flights be done in slower than lightspeed travels. Assuming effi...
Can anyone think of a reasonable man-made or natural disaster that would split a large volcanic island into smaller parts, mostly stone cliff faces, and destroy most of the vegetation? I'd like t...
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...
I have an alien species that is my pet project. Now I'm to reproduction, which I have a specific idea for, I'm just not sure exactly how it works. My creatures are aquatic, and everything goes on u...
I've seen related discussions here before so thought I'd share this idea. It is believed to be the only realistic (doable) method an individual or small group could use to apply such force upon Ear...
Based on The Expanse TV series I wonder how people should build their ships to avoid spreading of highly contagious lifeform. Protomolecule's features: infectious agent with extra-terrestri...
My thoughts go like this: I postulate a superintelligent rational agent, that is given, or assumes, control over its mother civilization. I call this agent "the Ruler". I postulate that in order ...
For what I'm working on, humans (some humans, anyway) develop the abilities to communicate telepathically, move things with thought, possible premonitions, maybe psychic projection (but that might ...
Mind control is a favourite tool of science fiction writers, it allows us to make certain characters do things that they would normally never do without the hassle of explanation. But hard science ...
I was watching a television program recently about Naked Mole Rats and how they are they are one of the only known Eusocial mammals. They have a single queen who produces offspring as well as warri...
The consensus (1, 2) is that the reason most continents have relatively few large animals compared to Africa is that humans, even stone age humans, were able to drive them to extinction. African a...
I need the biggest brain I can realistically get, how big is it and why? I've done a bit of research. I know we (humans) have big brains. We've even got big brains compared to our weight (encephal...
"One other thing. Never drink the water out here without boiling it." the old scavenger added, waving a hand over the bogs and hills. "You'll get rabies, and I don't like accepting payment from ...
I'm going on vacation, and browsing through my texts on the latest iPhone. Uh oh, my private airplane, which for some stupid reason has no tracking devices, crashes onto some undiscovered island. E...
Related somewhat to Gravity on a Minecraftian world? say I have this infinite plane/world, then punch a circular hole through it to the other side. Say I manage to make a circular hole around 1 ki...
So I'm trying to develop a world that's very inhospitable to my characters (humans.) And I'm looking for a some sort of fine dust that is naturally occurring but deadly if inhaled after about a day...
After doing some research to find natural resources in a swamp, I found that a swamp wasn't really able to do anything beyond it being good for fish growth, as a sort of natural water and air filte...
Experience shows me that some people dislike when a given world has monolithic species. By this I mean the planet has one culture, language, empire or purpose that unifies all of its member. Most...
Background A common staple in science fiction is the idea that we can augment humans by replacing limbs with mechanical substitutions that enable superhuman feats - weightlifter like strength in a...
In my world, I am attempting to design a primitive organism to be the ancestor of life on an artificial planet with all chemicals necessary for life. I want the organism to be as small as possible ...
I'm planning on sending a colony ship on an extended, multi-generational voyage to a distant star. My colony ship is an oblate spheroid, 2km long on its long axis and 1km across on its shortest axi...
If I take ten thousand healthy adult humans, strap them into a colony ship, and fire them off on a three-million year journey to a distant star, what will the creatures climbing out of the colony s...
