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[Question] [ **This question already has answers here**: [Sensors for a clockwork/fluidic robot?](/questions/169026/sensors-for-a-clockwork-fluidic-robot) (3 answers) Closed 3 years ago. Ignoring the constraints of mechanical computation, what sensory modes are even available to such a robot? Even in the 21st ...
[Question] [ **Closed.** This question is [off-topic](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers. --- You are asking questions about a story set in a world instead of about building a world. For more information, see [Why is my question "Too Story Based" and how do I get it opened?](https://w...
[Question] [ Let's assume some things: * The ground under the object is flat land. * The object always remains in the same position. * The object is clearly visible from the ground. * It is a high priority for the people to reach the object. The method used can be anything, such as building a tower or just piling up ...
[Question] [ Are there specific writing ways to differentiate from the two (eusocial vs. hivemind)? I would like to start writing more notes and lore upon something I've been working with, but it does seem hard to not give each creature a specific individual personality and/or mindset. If it helps, here's a few shor...
[Question] [ Silicon carbide is a ceramic often used in vehicle and body armor, but **could a living creature produce and use it the same way?** Assume the creature was genetically engineered. [Answer] **Plants make glass** Stinging nettle, ocean sponges and other plants produce glass. Nettles make their needles f...
[Question] [ In my story I have a strain of virus capable of stealing parts of or changing its hosts DNA, so it could copy the abilities in nature for its next host of choice by taking the genes which control the creation of cells for organs or processes such as an electric eels ability to generate electric fields or...
[Question] [ I am currently in the process of making a world, and am trying to ground it in scientific fact as much as possible. The world is a hard magic setting, and while fantastical creatures exist, they are usually rare or exaggerated re-tellings. Dragons, for instance, do exist, and can fly, but only short dist...
[Question] [ The [Guivre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guivre) is an amphibious dragon from French mythology: [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/oHm1K.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/oHm1K.jpg) Many of its aspects are typical of Western dragons, but there are two which distinguish it from o...
[Question] [ In my Conworld's system, There is a porous asteroid large enough to be a dwarf planet (but it's mass is too small to pull it into a spherical shape) that has rings. How they got there, nobody knows. But could they have a prolonged orbit around the body without interference, unless from another asteroid? ...
[Question] [ A defining factor of my world is the hardships inhabitants have to face when surviving long seasons. Due to the extreme length of a year, time is largely measured by moon cycles. I need to make sure though that the solar/luna cycles are a) Generally possible, and b) able to sustain life. Here is the gene...
[Question] [ My story for a video game has some kind of "enemy" (think "the Others" from Lost—little is known about them; they have control over a small settlement or two and appear to be engaging in some manner of industry involving a network of abandoned coal mines). I'm not really looking to flesh this back-story ...
[Question] [ **Closed**. This question is [opinion-based](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers. --- **Want to improve this question?** Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by [editing this post](/posts/132388/edit). Closed 5 years ago. [Improve this question...
[Question] [ It is the near-future. Breakthrough, mass produced carbon nanotubes have been invented and are relatively cheap. These nanotubes have the [properties that we would expect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_nanotube#Properties), and are manufactured in 'ropes' up to 10 cm long with a tensile strength o...
[Question] [ I have a super-earth world. The surface of the world is shallower due to extra gravity, so shorter mountain ranges and less ocean depths. The world orbits a binary star system at a distance of the furthest region of the habitable zone, both of the stars having masses of 0.93x that of our suns. The world ...
[Question] [ **Closed**. This question needs to be more [focused](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers. --- **Want to improve this question?** Update the question so it focuses on one problem only by [editing this post](/posts/118705/edit). Closed 5 years ago. [Improve this question](/po...
[Question] [ **This question asks for hard science.** All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See [the tag description](/tags/hard-science/info) for more information. In a...
[Question] [ In the future, *Big Business* owns the government. Corporations such as Target, Walmart, General Motors, etc... now have a major hand in deciding policies in the country. This has a major impact on how workers are viewed by their companies. A law called SEDWA (*S*hameless *E*xploitation of *D*ead *W*orke...
[Question] [ Okay, so I was creating a cold-blooded humanoid species (for a story, I'm no scientist) and ran into a problem with some of my logic. Because of their obvious issues with overheating, these lizardmen couldn't be pursuit predators like humans proper can with their miraculous ability to sweat. So I adapte...
[Question] [ **Closed.** This question is [off-topic](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers. --- This question does not appear to be about worldbuilding, within the scope defined in the [help center](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help). Closed 3 years ago. [Improve this questio...
[Question] [ So, out in Den, Colorado, the slave trade is absolutely booming. Slaves from nearby tribal villages and towns like Boulder and Five Families are always coming in and out, and honorable entrepreneurs have decided to start working in this business. To protect slavers from harsh treatment by local villages,...
[Question] [ I am in pursuit of, as the title says, a multi-purpose horse, a single breed that can do all the things that the others were only specialized for: travel, labor, companionship, war, speed, strength. If dog-breeding is any indication, it's that finding the right mix takes some steps. So we start this jour...
[Question] [ It’s the year 2568, exactly 500 years after Nuclear war destroyed the two superpowers that started it, the United States and the Soviet Union, along with others such as China, both Koreas, Japan, France, The UK, India, and the Middle East. What American monuments that weren’t hit directly by the bombs co...
[Question] [ So I have a species of creatures who want to design a cannon using biological processes. Here are some things the cannon needs to do: 1. Launch a 4 pound (~1.8 kg) cannonball at around 1430 ft (~435 meters) to 1700 ft (~520 meters) per second. 2. Needs to take less than 5-10 seconds to load, the less tim...
[Question] [ I'm considering creating a fictional military organization designed in a highly organized and militarized manner such as you might find with the Norse of the 9th century... if the Norse had developed space flight, tanks, and powered armor. Some quick research left me with the impression that the rank str...
[Question] [ I'm working out the back story of a flying castle run by a king who has a squadron of 200 air cavalry. All the knights ride hippogriffs: head and wings of large eagles, bodies of horses. Horses eat oats. Eagles eat meat. How do I calculate how large the grounds surrounding the flying castle need to be, ...
[Question] [ **The Scenario:** My late Victorian Era mad scientist wants to domesticate the dinosaurs and mammalian megafauna of his "Lost World" island getaway, for use as companions, guardians, draft animals, and even mounts for his many henchmen. The problem is that he doesn't have thousands of years to do it. In ...
[Question] [ My Mary Sue Marty Stu has a divine blessing which increases his muscle strength threefold. This has relatively precise meaning: if before blessing he could push horizontally some weight with the force of, say, 500N, after the blessing he pushes with the force of 1500N. Muscles at the moment of pushing st...
[Question] [ One of the strangest and most effective weapons in the wonderful world of arthropods in the proboscis of the famed assassin bug, with even the head of the insect working as part of the weapon. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/HtVO2.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/HtVO2.png) The ...
[Question] [ My Kepler Bb humanoids develop cognitive, social, and motor skills faster than humans. Their growth rate though is slower than it is in humans. And they are physically gender neutral until 5 years old(the only way to tell gender before 5 years is via a genetic test). 1 very important motor skill that is ...
[Question] [ How could you create a forest in a space city, like the Citadel of the *Mass Effect* game? Would this forest provide renewal of oxygen for the population? Is it "simple" to create an atmosphere and airflow to ventilate the entire city? What are the requirements for growing the forest and ventilating the ...
[Question] [ I am thinking about a realistic Earth scenario following total economic/social collapse as well as mass extinction of humans on Earth (90%+). The scenario involved "stragglers" who try and eek out life in a classic survival tale, however it also needs to describe how the elite 1%s prepared and maintained...
[Question] [ For those who have (for some unfathomable reason) not yet watched the HBO series or the 1973 original, Westworld is a robotic amusement park, populated by incredibly lifelike machines (hosts) where park visitors (guests) can go and indulge their thirst for adventure, or alternatively satisfy their darkes...
[Question] [ Two ships planned to establish first human colony of 250 persons to Mars are transported by unknown phenomenon into distant planet that is barely habitable [link](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/59144/choosing-axial-tilt-for-human-habitable-planet-for-largest-temperature-variation). Lef...
[Question] [ I have this dnd campaign set in a world where the only continent is a giant mountain with a mesa on top. I've made it "big enough for the top to be as large as Europe", but never went into details with my players. I was thinking, is there a way I could solve the problem posed by the atmospheric pressure ...
[Question] [ For certain categories of items, namely weapons, armor and machinery (that's pretty general, I know), how well would stone fare vs metal? Assume that any complications with shaping the stone are gone. As far as machinery goes, I would like to know about things as simple as door hinges, to things as compl...
[Question] [ We all like hexapods, from the Centaur to the Griffin. A large problem with the realism of the hexapodal body plan is that there are not many reasons for a creature to have them and is still worth the energy they put into using them. What evolutionary benefits does a vertebral animal gain for having a h...
[Question] [ You have the wild hunt with demons, or faeries, riding antlered stags like horses. Any number of other stories based on that old tale, be it reindeer or creatures designed for fantasy world's. But what are the practical aspects that you need to take into account? I don't recall any stories mentioning any...
[Question] [ **Edit:** Thanks for the answers I've gotten so far, and sorry the original question was so long and unclear. Here's a shortened and reworded version. I'm writing a treatise or research paper from the perspective of a biological or biomedical engineer who's been studying supernatural creatures in a world...
[Question] [ Let's say a 1600s civilization is around, making lots of iron objects: guns, swords, farm implements, etc. One day those people vanish. What conditions would allow their iron implements to be *usable*, not merely recognizable, centuries later? (If it matters, say 200 to 600 years go by.) [Answer] Here...
[Question] [ If I have a civilization of birds, could they, in and of themselves, create an infrastructure of "advanced nests"? Could they build weaponry? These birds, raptors, have an educational system, political, military, blacksmith, etc. So they can do rudimentary things like make a spear, or sew together skins,...
[Question] [ This is a follow-on question from: [How alien can a language be - grammar?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/30371/how-alien-can-a-language-be-grammar) Leaving the grammar behind we can look at how the actual words or concepts are transmitted. Almost all human languages are based around ...
[Question] [ I have a mountainous barbarian tribe that - for cultural and historical reasons - absolutely adores ambushes and surprise attacks. They'll go out of their way to set them up. They also vastly prefer melee combat over ranged. **What melee weapon would be ideal for these barbarians to use?** I'm looking f...
[Question] [ I'm designing a medieval/renaissance world economy but I don't know what resources to consider when it comes to medium or long distance trading. I'm not asking for specific resources that are valuable, I'm asking what makes them valuable. **What are the characteristics of resources that get traded over ...
[Question] [ In the Middle Ages, countries are at war with each other and wealthy nations will often hire mages to aid in their battles. Especially during an intense combat situation on the field, both sides are charging into each other's defenses hoping to overrun the enemy with speed. The mages usually stand afar f...
[Question] [ Let's say aliens were trying to drop rocks on the Earth to kill us all. What could we do so we don't die? * Aliens are orbiting the Earth * They are dropping materials they have mined from the moon. * The rocks are fired from a high orbit, and they spirl inward. What can humanity do? [Answer] The best...
[Question] [ It seems I've been seeing a lot of uses for foam on this site, from a weapon to a spaceship defense mechanism. However, the details on what the foam is made of and how it works always seem lacking to me; thus, I worry that many of these foams are just science fiction. My question is **is there a foam th...
[Question] [ On today's Earth, a mysterious cube of no light has appeared, about the size of a house. It's confounding, because it appears to have the mass of stone, by the way it is difficult to move and the impression it makes in the sand. It appears black, but darker - as in it doesn't reflect visible light. It is...
[Question] [ I am working on a fantasy world with a rich history, but most of it is forgotten by the races that inhabit the planet. This happened because of some kind of magical shockwave that wiped out most humanoids on the planet. What kind of magical effect could it be that specifically targets humanoids? What are...
[Question] [ This question is closely related to, but more specific, than the question/comment that inspired it: [Could a modern times time traveler produce an antibiotic in medieval times?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/13394/could-a-modern-times-time-traveler-produce-an-antibiotic-in-medieval-ti...
[Question] [ **Ancient divers:** Vitruvius connected a long tube of cloth, impregnated with special waxes, with bronze rings every 10 cm to hold the tube open, to a pair of bellows connected to crude cheek valves. This long tube was connected to a mask made of bronze containning a pair of glasses and a checkvalve tha...
[Question] [ Could life be sustained only by a gas? Humans need food, water and air but can a ET or Alien could just live off gas. [Answer] If it were possible, I would think they would be very slow growing, and likely have mouths like a [Baleen Whale](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baleen_whale) or the [Whale Shark...
[Question] [ I put a force field dome over my city. How would that affect the weather inside the city, and outside it? Specification of the city: * 10 × 40 km on the surface * 1 km in height * dome would be 2 to 3 km in height Specification of the area around that City: * tundra-like area * about 50 km to the south l...
[Question] [ Me and my friend have a passion project where we mainly focus on a habitable planet; Ahmokea. For a little while we wanted to include ammonia in the atmosphere on a large scale so it could be part of the animals & plant's equal exchange (just like how O2 is made into CO2 by us and the CO2 into O2 by plan...
[Question] [ So I've been working on a project where I modify the Solar System, and I originally had a small gas planet(like 5-10 earth massses) named Juno orbiting between Jupiter and Saturn. However, as it turns out, the area between Jupiter and Saturn is rather precarious - when I ran the system in a simulation th...
[Question] [ I am writing a science fiction novel therefore I am using the idea of the Alcubierre drive for warp travel which involves some handwavium but has roots in theoretical physics (which is my goal). While looking at the NASA design for their hypothetical warp ship: [![enter image description here](https://i....
[Question] [ This here is a plain, simple, good old-fashioned map of our planet: [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vvHJO.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vvHJO.png) As everyone here would know, land makes up only 29% of the planet's surface. But suppose for a moment that someone has pulled the...
[Question] [ The vampire loves fresh blood and often sneaks into houses at night to feast. It would wait for nightfall when the occupants were asleep and then force their fangs into the neck of it's victims. However there is a mystery that puzzles the authorities who are tracking down these highly dangerous criminals...
[Question] [ Hydraulics commonly use mineral oil or water to provide the pressure needed for mechanical movement, which is good but the liquid just sorta sits there not doing anything else. So I though “why not use battery fluid instead” and with the addition of a cathode and anode voila! You have a system that provi...
[Question] [ In my low-fantasy world wood is a very limited resource because all forests are haunted. Cutting a tree often means drawing the wrath of the creatures living in the woods, resulting in some very gruesome death. Exterminating the creatures in the woods is not even a possibility, because these places are e...
[Question] [ I have a super advanced sentient species that is not human, and developing by itself on a planet. With such advancement, we expect them to think on a higher plane or at least in a different way to humans. And in the beginning they do. They live lives without issues of disease or religious conflicts or po...
[Question] [ It is the not-too-distant future in an alternate timeline, and humanity has tripled-down on solar power. We built a network of solar focusing satellites that orbit Sol at close range (so they can capture more sunlight). "Close range" means somewhere between the orbit of Mercury and the solar corona. So, ...
[Question] [ **Closed**. This question needs [details or clarity](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers. --- **Want to improve this question?** Add details and clarify the problem by [editing this post](/posts/202476/edit). Closed 1 year ago. [Improve this question](/posts/202476/edit) I...
[Question] [ **Background:** Alendyias is a world that was formed inside the Fracture of Reality, one that is *still* forming as the Fracture in Reality grows and absorbs other worlds in its path. Absorbed worlds and all life in and on them are saturated with Chaos Energy, which in many cases turns ordinary creatures...
[Question] [ Bringing this question over from Physics SE where it was closed: I'm looking for an 'as close to our understanding of current physics' doomsday scenario that results from something about the physics of the world changing subtly. The scenario ideally has three attributes: 1. The effect should be detectibl...
[Question] [ This is an extension of [How Dragons Can Hoard People](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/193057/how-dragons-can-hoard-people/193186#193186), and it concerns something that I realized would be quite problematic: **transportation.** You see, dragons share the world with various other danger...
[Question] [ *The atmosphere in the Judging Hall was stretched so thin that it seemed like it would snap at the slightest blink of an eye. On one side of the hall sat the Master Judge and his guards, his hand gripping a metal gavel that could either cause the greatest of pleasures or the most torturous of pains. On t...
[Question] [ **Background:** Agent Jones is pretty close to being peak human: in physical contests he wouldn't win against an Olympic medalist in their discipline but he's easily above the 95 percentile when it comes to fitness. In terms of mental skills, he's sharp and has two decades of exemplary in-the-field secre...
[Question] [ **Closed**. This question needs to be more [focused](/help/closed-questions). It is not currently accepting answers. --- **Want to improve this question?** Update the question so it focuses on one problem only by [editing this post](/posts/182792/edit). Closed 3 years ago. [Improve this question](/po...
[Question] [ I'm working on a creature that uses predominantly its clawed arms and sharp teeth to hunt down prey. The creature is bipedal, is around the size of a large lion and has similar strength, but greater speed (it's in transition to becoming a pursuit predator). Its habitat is predominantly composed of open p...
[Question] [ I've got a bog-standard, handwavium-powered, handheld laser weapon of the "realistic" variety (Lightspeed "shots", a mostly invisible beam, no "pew" noise). When I pull the trigger, an intense laser beam erupts from the gun and goes where the gun is pointed. Assume there's some sort of autofocus that cou...
[Question] [ In the late 23rd century certain groups of mankind stared down the barrel of what may be possible in the future: cross galactic relativistic kill missile storms, gamma-ray Dyson Beams, Kugelblitz black hole weaponry and potentially even exotic matter-based weapons messing with space and time itself. Some...
[Question] [ Glossing over the technological implications of interstellar travel, what sort of human labor might still be required in a future where we are capable of setting up nigh-fully automated endeavors on faraway planets? For example, a commercial mining outpost on a faraway planet operated by mostly autonomou...
[Question] [ For what reason would a civilisation experiencing an almost golden age in industry and agriculture, experiencing no catastrophic plague almost all move underwater in as such that they live entirely underwater in similar sized cities as previous. The land they exist on has not changed and is still as suit...
[Question] [ Premise: Modern society discovers a magic portal that leads to a parallel universe that is almost identical to our own but the earth on the other side never had humans (or any other technology wielding civilization). People who go through the portal may travel back and forth freely but there is one restr...
[Question] [ ![Buffalo Jump](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kkpYf.jpg) The Game Drive system, perhaps best exemplified by the “Buffalo Jump” of the North American Plains Indians is a hunting strategy in which large animals are chased into a preselected kill zone, such as being chased off a cliff. Animals were scared with...
[Question] [ Assume that you have a Rogue Planet hurtling through deep space. Somehow, an alien civilization from, say, 1,000 ly away acquires astronomical data from this planet. This data is in the form of high resolution photographs of the sky above said Rogue Planet (presumably no clouds on an ice planet). This da...
[Question] [ In this world, elves developed along similar lines of homo sapiens, with some major differences that allow for a small metamorphic ability. Their epidermis, the outermost layer of skin, can be shaped and molded to fit circumstances. It can change color, become thicker or skinnier as needed, made to creat...
[Question] [ I am building a world where one side of the planet has normal progression of day and night whereas in the other hemisphere it is always night. At first I had no idea how this could be possible in the real world. But then I came up with this idea: The world of the story is in fact a moon, orbiting a gas g...
[Question] [ This was an idea generated by my sister that I thought was very interesting. I intended to make it work by strapping rollerblades on a person's legs and utilize a compressed gas/steam-powered pumping device that would be worn on the back of the character. A gas pumper would push the character forward at ...
[Question] [ The world I am creating is in a swamp that contains larger than life bugs; this includes fireflies. What I ask is, could the bioluminescence of their glow somehow be harnessed or used as a light source? More Info: * The fireflies are around the size of a human (about 5ft 5inches). * The people are more o...
[Question] [ I've looked for an answer for this, but the only information I could find dealt with the ring itself. All I want to know is what would change on the Earth if all problems were solved and the ring were there to stay. In this particular world, the geography has changed due to a total destruction of Earth's...
[Question] [ Triskeles are popular Celtic decorative motifs. Everyone from modern day retro-Pagans to jewelry makers to Celtic bands uses them for the cool factor. But there is a little known creature, possibly mythical, that is depicted on flags and coins from disparate island regions of Europe. Flag of Sicily: [![e...
[Question] [ I've been toying around with the idea that the Empire in my flintlock fantasy setting is trying to make sure that the money used in all its territories is the same, as the use of localized currencies has resulted in some problems, especially in terms of counterfeiting. The new currency is largely paper b...
[Question] [ I need a mechanism/organism similar to rust and virus, that will both impair the ship's components AND will kill crew, so the only thing left are a few lucky survivors on a crippled ship. Presumably the hull is breached by a tiny comet containing the mechanism. For the component damage, maybe it just att...
[Question] [ In this society, the citizens are given a bracelet-like device that is connected to the radial artery in their dominant hand. The device monitors their health, offers advice, etc and also serves as a tracking device. It is never taken off, it is a permanent part of that person, expanding and contracting ...
[Question] [ I understand that there is wide range of bullet calibers. I am interested in the ones that is 50 caliber or less, and if you can be high enough in a blimp to be safe either by to far to see or to far to reach? [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xVuUa.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.c...
[Question] [ Writing about Fairies, the one thing I can't pin down is there reproductive cycle. My Fairies will be actual little mammals. Not just elementals who are born out of nature. I want them to have similar developmental stages as a human baby would, but I'm wondering how their physical size would affect this...
[Question] [ This is a sequel to my previous question [How big could a moon be before its orbit became too unstable or tidally locked to its planet](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/93700/42857) OK, let's imagine that the thing everyone thought was a moon was actually a *twin* planet sharing a barycentre wit...
[Question] [ The [*Nachtkrapp*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nachtkrapp) is a german version of the [bogeyman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogeyman) or in a more general term a kind of [bugbear](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugbear). *Nacht* is the german word for *night* and *Krapp* is used in southern germany a...
[Question] [ I'm having no luck researching this topic so my terms may be wrong or my entire premise faulty. I have found a related question that might be a corollary: ["Can I kill a cyborg with magnetism?"](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/67546/can-i-kill-a-cyborg-with-magnetism/67562#67562 "Can I ...
[Question] [ # Situation It is 2000 BCE. Seven late bronze age clans descended from the [Fatyanovo-Balanova Culture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatyanovo%E2%80%93Balanovo_culture) which have been warring for control of the Moskva after the disappearance of their culture have finally been united and are currently d...
[Question] [ It is the 10th Century and the hero, [Ibn Muadhe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Mu%CA%BF%C4%81dh_al-Jayy%C4%81n%C4%AB) has discovered trigonometry about six centuries before Cartes, and has received a wonderful gift. A very spiritual Avicenna had rushed by camel and horse from Persia to bring two spe...
[Question] [ I read that our current method of cryonics involves replacing blood with other fluid and keeping the body submerged in liquid as well as on ice (these things being done to the dead, for now, instead of intergalactic explorers and such), and that the process of waking a person up from this sort of 'cryosl...
[Question] [ I want a realistic event to occur that kills the majority of the Earth's population. However, the nature of this event must not effect humans or machinery currently flying at high altitudes (those of passenger airplanes). The event can be singular or be multiple events occurring simultaneously around th...
[Question] [ If the moon had life and it progressed at the same rate as life on earth, including key points of technological discovery. When would we, on earth, have first detected them? Technological discoveries I mention are things like... fire, Stone Age, Bronze Age, industrial revolution, etc... first telescopes,...
[Question] [ I'm trying to figure out how a minimalist style society would work. Its secretive founders have been planning this since the 19th century, hiding in universities, influencing the young to attempt to develop the desired technologies. They hope to wait for the natural collapse of complex global society and...
[Question] [ This *should* be easy, given how close we sometimes seem to already existing in some kind of cyberpunk dystopian vision of the near future, but I'm having a bit of trouble imagining exactly **what the transition(s) to and structure(s) of corporate nation-states, as opposed to our present standard-fare re...
[Question] [ [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6u87K.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6u87K.jpg) 1. If there's a habitable planet that orbits two suns like the above orbital route, what would possibly occur on that planet? 2. Would it have two yearly seasonal cycle (compare to earth)? 3. Would...
[Question] [ **In the spirit of Thanksgiving (US) let's tackle a fun one.** I'm defining "intelligent" in this situation as "*at least on par with hunter-gatherer humans, able to communicate*" What natural, environmental pressures would cause turkeys to evolve intelligence, based on the pressures that cause intelli...
[Question] [ My name is George. I am the true creator of peanut butter. Since my discovery, I fell into a time vortex that landed me in 2014 where I have found that my old rival has taken credit for my idea. I've spent the last 2 years trying to figure out a way to bring justice to my name, and though I have found my...