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Activity for DaaaahWhoosh‭

Type On... Excerpt Status Date
Question Blocking Solar Radiation with an Eclipse
It seems to me like one of the major obstacles to terraforming a planet is to give it a magnetosphere. In our solar system, this is accomplished naturally either by a hot iron core (for example, Earth), or by a heavy, thick atmosphere (for example, Venus). Neither of these things are easy to produce ...
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almost 7 years ago
Question Travel Delays due to the Expansion of the Universe
So, I know that the universe is expanding, and that that means that things are generally getting further apart as time goes on. What I'm having difficulty with, however, is figuring out just how much this might affect things like interstellar travel. The 'world' I'm building is essentially a series...
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about 7 years ago
Question Farming after the apocalypse: chickens or giant cockroaches?
So let's say you live in a terrifying post-apocalyptic world. For whatever reason, this world is now infested with cockroaches the size of chickens (similar to radroaches from the Fallout games, but ignore the radiation). My question, then, is would it be better for a chicken farmer to keep on rais...
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over 7 years ago
Question Effects of increased air pressure on humans
This is a pretty simple question, but initial research only seems to provide the opposite end of the spectrum. What I'm wondering is if there are any known side effects of living in an environment with an increased amount of air pressure. Say, for instance, humans colonized an Earthlike planet whic...
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almost 8 years ago
Question Can life be powered by thermal conduction?
I have a world in mind that is essentially a planet-wide underground ocean. The planet doesn't have a strong magnetic field, so radiation on the surface is too high to allow life, but what I'm thinking is that through conduction, the sun can heat the underground ocean through the ground and allow lif...
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almost 8 years ago
Question Where in the galaxy would one find the most heavier elements?
I'm trying to flesh out the history of a fictional galactic society, specifically the initial settlements and inhabited worlds. Something that I thought would be important to settlers would be an abundance of heavier elements (because hydrogen is pretty easy to come by, but uranium not so much, and i...
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about 8 years ago
Answer A: How to Convince Humans to Allow a Machine Take-Over
I think the best way to make humans give up their humanity is to offer them something better. Say, for instance, you define a human as a creature that walks on two legs (thank you Animal Farm). Then say someone comes up with a cheap, quiet, solar-powered jetpack. Many people will buy this technolog...
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over 8 years ago
Question How would a city of AI be built?
Someone has created an AI of human-level intelligence, and within hours this AI has grown in intelligence and power to the point that human life no longer seems so sacred. In an instant, all life on the planet is extinguished, and the AI begins to rebuild the Earth in a way that best suits its needs....
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over 8 years ago
Question Effects on the Earth if the moon was at 1/10th current distance?
According to Wikipedia and this answer, the Moon is orbiting the Earth at a distance around 20 times greater than than the point where it would break up. As far as I can tell, that means in a fictional world, we could have a moon the size of our Moon, only ten times closer to the Earth (as in $\frac1...
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over 8 years ago
Question How big can a moon be where you can physically jump out of its orbit, to its planet?
So, imagine a team of space marines, fighting some sort of space bug zombies on a planet's moon. Things are going pretty bad for them, and the last surviving protagonists are running for their lives. The thing is, with each step, they soar into the air, higher and higher, until the point where the pl...
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over 8 years ago
Question Size of the volcano that ends the world
One of the theories behind the extinction of the dinosaurs is the eruption of one or a series of volcanoes. Supposedly the ash expelled by these eruptions blocked out the sun, killing plants and thus disrupting the entire food chain. A more recent example of the power of volcanoes on the environment ...
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almost 9 years ago
Question Preparation for Lycanthropic Transformation
So, I'd love to have werewolves in the world I'm building, but as it's a sci-fi setting I don't really want them to be magical. I can stomach some pseudoscience, but I want the process to be as realistic as possible. To this end, I've removed the influence of the moon (it's just a cyclic transformati...
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almost 9 years ago
Question Opening the Windows, In Space
I recently envisioned a fight scene in which the three main characters are in a bar on a spaceship when about a dozen space marines ambush them. They take cover behind the bar, but without weapons or a back door their situation looks pretty grim. That is, until they find the fire alarm. It just so ha...
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about 9 years ago
Question Rapid Planetary Colonization: How to Build a City, Fast
In a futuristic sci-fi world (galaxy?) I'm building, warfare has become highly regulated and commercialized. When two corporations meet on a deserted planet to do battle, they're followed by all sorts of ships: from weapons dealers to mercenaries, everyone wants a slice of the action. But the bigge...
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about 9 years ago
Question What Time is it IN SPACE?
So, let's assume you've cobbled together an interplanetary empire without using transportation methods that violate causality or have the power to blow up stars. You may feel pretty proud of yourself, until you realize a big problem: ship aren't arriving when you think they should; some return just a...
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about 9 years ago
Question How could I scientifically explain ice breath?
I'm sure there have been questions on here about fire-breathing dragons, and I recently saw a question about a lightning-breathing dragon, but back in fifth grade I wrote a 150-page story about a dragon with ice breath, and now I'm starting to wonder if it would be possible without large amounts of m...
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about 9 years ago
Question Implications of 'Respawning'
Let's say you're a soldier in a science-fiction war. Everything is relatively similar to how wars are fought today, except that when you die, your likeness and memories are imprinted onto a flash-cloned husk, thereby creating a near-exact replica of you. From the clone's perspective, you died and the...
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about 9 years ago
Question That's no Moon: Planet-sized Plants Possible?
Inspired by the many great questions asked for this fortnight's tag challenge, I got to thinking, could a plant develop/evolve to eventually consume an entire planet, and keep on living? What I mean by this is that a single organism, or perhaps a colony, both covered the surface of the planet and als...
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about 9 years ago
Question Information Exchange In Space
Something I realized not too long ago about a spacefaring society is that while a lot of technology is going to feel advanced, a lot more is going to feel ancient just because of all the hurdles it has to overcome in order to work in the first place. One example of this is communication. The way I'm...
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about 9 years ago
Answer A: Where should I place my city in space?
This is something that doesn't seem to be mentioned yet, and I'm not sure if it's a problem, but here's what I'm wondering: If the city is alone out in deep space, how would you find it? This is why I commented that it should be near a star: you can see stars from just about anywhere (within reason...
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about 9 years ago
Question Minimal Livable Atmosphere
This question may be a bit broad, but I'm basically wondering what minimal things humans need to have in an atmosphere in order to survive. Let's assume we have Earthlike gravity, and are only dealing with perhaps the first 10 or so elements. Life does not have to have developed there. I'm especially...
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about 9 years ago