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[Question] [ If I understand it correctly, moving in the absence of forces like gravity and without friction doesn't require energy, only accelerating and decelerating does. So you could move a spaceship a very long distance with very low energy requirement if you just move it very slowly. Now spending more energy to...
[Question] [ From the moment it was born, a Spartan was bred to service the state. If a baby passed inspection with a clean bill of health, he or she would be spared until age seven--agoge season. If a baby showed a visible physical deformity, then that baby would be vulture fodder. At the age of seven, the child who...
[Question] [ Planetary invasions are usually depicted using drop-ships which come straight down from the sky. Pretty much armoured Apollo Era capsules. These can be bigger, for example Warhammer40k has company sized drop-ships, or smaller as in Starship Troopers (the books). However they seem very woundeable coming s...
[Question] [ Reading [this answer](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/3795/809) I realized that for my purposes I don't really want a fully steampunk world. All I want is lack of cars and planes as we know them, and lack of oil, or inaccessible deposits of oil, would work like a charm. Still, I do need access ...
[Question] [ One of my favorite bits of set dressing is magic glowing rocks. You see them in movies, video games, and every other manner of medium conveying fantasy settings. Personally, I'm perfectly okay with light sources with no needed fuel and operate indefinably, but I had an idea that I thought might be intere...
[Question] [ ## Setting In the near future a group of explorers land on Mars and proceed to explore the cave system under [Pavonis Mons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caves_of_Mars_Project#/media/File:Pavonis_Mons_lava_tube_skylight_crop.jpg). While exploring the gigantic interior of the lava tube, sensors indicate ...
[Question] [ So, there's a closed question [So we have aliens in orbit. Now what?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/9593/so-we-have-aliens-in-orbit-now-what) - but there's an implied assumption: That somehow, there will be some unified / coherent response from humanity to aliens in orbit. I find that...
[Question] [ I'd like a gravity room on my space vessel for long space stays to avoid osteoporosis. They would spend a few hours each day in this room, reading or doing paper work, to maintain bone-mass. I'm imagining a chamber (it doesn't need to be large) where the astronauts stand against a wall as the room rotat...
[Question] [ Ley Lines are straight alignments crisscrossing the planet from east to west. These lines contain sources of magical power called mana, and coalesce at various locations around the world. This allows for the use of magic in the world to produce spells, but has also given rise to technology that has revol...
[Question] [ --- **Dungeons and the System** --- Shortly after the year 20XX, portals connected to extra-dimensional dungeons appear in the most densely populated areas on Earth. Chaos ensues as dungeon monsters spill out in “dungeon breaks” from the portals, devastating the population. Luckily, with the appearance ...
[Question] [ I'm making a world which is set on a planet with two smaller "bubbles" of atmosphere at the poles, and a more stereotypical atmosphere that surrounds them. Each of the three atmospheres has a different gaseous composition (one of the smaller ones is mostly Earth-like, with an abundance of oxygen, while t...
[Question] [ Background: Aliens are debating whether to launch an invasion of Earth in medieval times, say the year 1000. They launch a satellite to orbit Earth and send pictures of Earth to see whether it is worth taking. What would images of the Earth look like? I am guessing that the day half would look sorta the ...
[Question] [ Whether exhaust from a solid rocket engine, or something released by spaceships in flight (like [aerobatic smoke](http://contrailscience.com/things-that-are-not-contrails-or-chemtrails/) in the atmosphere), could extended trails behind a ship be created that would not dissipate in the vacuum of space? Co...
[Question] [ Dragons are biologically immortal creatures that have evolved the most versatile sexual reproduction in existence, they can morph through a cocoon into any other species from the animal kingdom that posses a brain in order to reproduce with other species and spread their genes globally. A dragon morphed ...
[Question] [ Just for curiosity, I am a diabetic and I was wondering if humans would suffer from the same ilness if they were on other planets? Does the climate on other planets help the immune system? Will there be some new health problems? [Answer] Human diseases come from *many* causes. **Intrinsic**: Some dise...
[Question] [ From dimension Omicron, came a being that could split planets (not that it will do it, but you get the idea). Open your favorite superhero power encyclopedia, it got **All the cool** superpowers, most of the OK ones, and even some of the lame too. It intends to stay on Earth, and live without hiding itse...
[Question] [ **Could a cow produce bottled milk?** The answer is, of course, no; there is no way a cow could do that; obviously. Perhaps I should be more clear on what I'm asking. **Is there any way a mammalian creature could evolve to create a substance within its body that is somewhat similar to one of the compoun...
[Question] [ Democracy appears to work, but why? **Assumptions** Back in the oldest days of democracy, the least fortunate set of people were always the largest set of people (workers / slaves). Today, if you are a minority, and you want something, your fate is in the hands of the majority voters. Given many (most) p...
[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/85805/edit). Closed 6 years ago. [Improve this question]...
[Question] [ I have a robotic species on a distant planet (not necessarily similar to Earth, but it is indeed rich in metals and other materials necessary for making robots). They are born in a factory (duh!), made by "hand" from other robot(s). They are programmed (by an ancient civilization that perished a long tim...
[Question] [ I am part of a small group of scientists who have recently created a virus to turn people into zombies. The virus is highly contagious and is transmitted through bodily fluids, like blood or saliva. I've just released it in my city of about 2,500 people. When I released it, I did so by contaminating the ...
[Question] [ So, it's happened. We have a robot overlord who follows the [3 Laws of Robotics + the Zeroth Law of Robotics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics#Zeroth_Law_added). How we got such a thing or the process by which it makes its decisions is outside this question's scope. All we know is tha...
[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 8 years ago. [Improve this que...
[Question] [ In the very near future, we find out about a secret society whose sole purpose is to raise children who have absolutely no online presence. They are moving to a mysterious "phase 2" of their plan and the children (now grown) are released to operate Covert Plot Devices online. But...the society was create...
[Question] [ I am thinking of a world where bubbles of hydrogen emerge from the seafloor, and are trapped by people for use as fuel. But what is the source of the hydrogen? In other words, what geological or maybe biological/bacterial processes would cause masses of H‚ÇÇ to bubble up through the sea in a reliable way...
[Question] [ I saw that in A Song of Ice and Fire the dragons have flames of varying colors depending on the color of their scales. Balerion has black flames with red swirls, Tessarion has cobalt blue flames, Rhaegal has normal flames with green veins, Sunfyre has golden flames, Viserion has normal flames with a pale...
[Question] [ I wanted to create a main destination/headquarters for each galaxy in my story but a single planet or megastructure didn't seem grand enough. My idea is to have a vast number of structures from rotating space habitats to non-rotating structures used for storage, computers etc. All structures will be join...
[Question] [ **How efficient would hydropower be at pumping water upward?** Waterwheels are the cornerstone of unmanned power and are basically gravity powered (solar too if you count the water cycle,) which is very weird. Down is easy and up is hard. Over the course of history there have been many inventions to pump...
[Question] [ I'm creating a world inspired by [Immaterium](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Immaterium) from warhammer 40K. **TL/DR** There is an alternate dimension which is a realm of chaos, which enables lot of goodies in the real world, like faster than light travel, enormous power source. However all psykers...
[Question] [ The angels in question aren't angels in the "pretty people with wings" sense, they're more of horrific flying abominations that share the gilded and glowing aspects with the angels most would think of. There's varying forms, but the kind I'm working with here are the only ones with recognizably humanoid ...
[Question] [ Human torso on horse body, classic centaur. Actually let's just say "horses" for simplicity sake. Can horses do tug of war without breaking their legs? [Answer] ### Yup. Totally doable. Horse can easily win against 10 people: [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/OeW5y.jpg)](https...
[Question] [ Consider a hot desert with temperatures between 30-40 degrees Celsius year round and 100 mm of precipitation annually. Suppose some corpses are placed on racks and predators are kept away. Sand is removed if it accumulates on the corpses. What would the corpses look like 30 years later? I imagine that th...
[Question] [ I'm thinking of having a world that has a moon that's been partially split (so not fully halved) with the debris slowly separating from it. At night you'd see the split moon mainly and lots of various-sized mirror reflectors around that. How would a moon like this effect the planet, tides, etc? Assuming...
[Question] [ I want you to meet Gary. Gary looks like a human, walks like a human, and talks like a human. But he's not. He's a superhero, or a magician, or... something. He's not really sure. He just knows that he has the mysterious ability to be able to safely transfer the entire mass of an object he touches into h...
[Question] [ So based on my limited understanding, some luxury cars have taken to using their sound system to make the cabin quieter when on the highway or something (Active noise control via wikipedia). And I learned about destructive wave interference in high school physics. First of all, this is a thing, right? S...
[Question] [ The question [Could we still live if Earth's spin speed slowed down by 90%](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/8408/could-we-still-live-if-earths-spin-speed-slowed-down-by-90) assumed Earth's spin speed slowed down by undefined human activities (as if climate change was not bad enough). On...
[Question] [ I have an empire that occupies its own landmass, defined by water boundaries. At some point in the past (maybe 200 to 400 years) it was two main cultural regions, the East and the West. The modern empire was formed by two great leaders from each of those regions who formed their own empires in the East a...
[Question] [ Because nature is never straightforward, there are different levels of carnivores. On the lowest rung of the ladder are the hypocarnivores, in which meat can't take any more than 30% of their caloric intake. Ursidae (bears) and maybe Amphicyonidae (bear-dogs) stand on that rung. On the opposite side are ...
[Question] [ I basically have a mechanism in my universe that allows humans to travel to different worlds (called offworlds) filled with different creatures and systems of magic, and this is very integral to the plot of the story. Currently I have things set up in such a way that humans are allowed to go to these wor...
[Question] [ On earth, as far a we know, there are two main ways that bacteria gain energy. 1. there is Photosynthesis, the transition of light into chemical based energies such as ATP. 2. there are chemical processes in which the cell breaks down a variety of molecules to gain energy from the reactions. A example of...
[Question] [ I've looked into the question already and no one really seems to answer it very well. I'll sum up what I've found so far. Some people say that it would not work: * "the parameters would always limit the decisions a computer could make and because no set of parameters could include every possible data se...
[Question] [ The scenario is the following: a civilization with technology level similar to humanity's current, on a planet similar to Earth, shall be hit by a massive celestial body in approximately one year. The impact would be around three times more powerful than the one that caused the end of dinosaurs, but stil...
[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/14741/edit). Closed 7 years ago. [Improve this question](/pos...
[Question] [ This question is about creating a world or society where people can try to advance their own idealogy. In the real world, people can become trapped in a society or country with cultural or political situations with which they do not agree. For example, a freedom minded may have wanted to leave Russia dur...
[Question] [ Imagine a very long bridge (Visbi Bridge - named after the designer) across an immense canyon - really almost a wide deep gorge -use on an earth-like world. My concept is that part of the support of the bridge would be a ballon-like, lighter-than-air technology of some kind. The ends of the bridge would ...
[Question] [ Considering that interplanetary trade will likely be limited because of cost of shipping vs product value, how would interplanetary money be valued against each other? I'm thinking more along the lines of tourists or even business travelers. How would you know if your 80 green Martians should buy you a b...
[Question] [ [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DJtr5.gif)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DJtr5.gif) In my world mostly composed of arthropods, I wanted one to fill a niche similar to that of a common snapping turtle (an ambush predator that extends its long neck to strike quickly at prey), and si...
[Question] [ I looked through some posts discussing worlds without oil. Those posts mainly focus on fuels and transportation. But I realized that the distillation of oil produces lots of organic compounds - ethene, propane, butane, which are all important industrial chemicals. My question is, without oil (and gas per...
[Question] [ I am trying to plot the background of an alternate history story revolving around an Irish-British teenager living in a post-Troubles London where tensions are much higher. Unlike our timeline, the Troubles ended with Northern Ireland reuniting with the Republic of Ireland sometime during the 1990s throu...
[Question] [ Aliens have arrived to Earth from the depths of space, and thankfully they are peaceful and only want to learn about us and interact with us. Despite some initial trepidation, first contact goes well and the Aliens quickly learn our languages and offer an exchange of cultural and scientific knowledge. Th...
[Question] [ Let’s get some backstory first: So I’ve recently came up with the idea of this combat support anti-zombie unit that’s dedicated towards fighting both human enemies and zombies (but mostly zombies (think of these zombies like the ones from The Walking Dead or World War Z (novel), except that they’re capa...
[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 4 years ago. [Improve this que...
[Question] [ Hopefully this isn't a duplicate; I wasn't able to find another question which addressed this, at any rate. Let's say I have a generational spaceship going off to another solar system to establish a colony. The problem is, I need to feed my colonists for generations, not to mention for a while once they ...
[Question] [ I’m writing a D&D campaign. The closest period of time in the real world that the setting of my story comes to is medieval Europe. (I don't know exactly where or when, but it doesn't matter since it isn't historical fiction.) The campaign involves the player characters spending time in several small vill...
[Question] [ ## Premise I envisage a world of would-be navigators with roughly Bronze Age technology, sailing on ships to explore their planet. In contrast to our [history of navigation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_navigation) where we "cracked the code" around the dawn of our Bronze Age, I want the narr...
[Question] [ It would be cool if this entire planet could use zeppelin roadways instead of tarmac roads. Especially for countryside transport away from cities. A zeppelin for one person is about the size of a lorry, and with future materials, we can have fold-up, safe zepellins, with safety sensors, weather predictio...
[Question] [ In the story I have been writing and asking questions for, the main conflict is parasites. What I have so far is that the parasite lives dormant inside of "pure-bred" aliens (which have softer brains), but once human genetics are introduced (alien-human hybrids), the parasite becomes active and begins bu...
[Question] [ Continuing in the theme of bringing creatures from video games into the [Anatomically Correct series](https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/a/2798/44805) is the [Chocobo](http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Chocobo) of Final Fantasy lore. ![Chocobo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6...
[Question] [ For this question I'm assuming a utterly infeasible technological breakthrough suddenly makes wormholes technology possible. However there is a major catch, the 2D "windows" as they're called don't allow through matter or gravitational pull. The "windows" can be opened for about a half a million USD. Onc...
[Question] [ After a particularly large bombing raid during a war, a mountainous rural region is left mostly destroyed. Villages are in ruins, bands of survivors look everywhere for food and shelter, and all hope seems lost. The government of the small country has collapsed, and anarchy reins. Then one inquisitive yo...
[Question] [ On Terra, many many people used to be nomadic. Now very few are. An exception is Mongolia, where now in 2023, about 30% of the population remain nomadic. The world I am building is a sort of global-Mongolia. A large percentage of the world's population remain nomadic amidst 21st-century technology. This ...
[Question] [ I'm designing a lower gravity planet that's got enough mass to hold onto an atmosphere but around 75% of Earth's gravity. I read that lower-gravity planets will have more pronounced geological features - so, higher mountains, for example. Does this also mean the crust would be more uneven, with higher an...
[Question] [ The Valyn are a Roman analogue who have been exiled to live in a hostile mushroom forest with daily mist in the vein of a Cloud forest. The air is absolutely brimming with mold, spores, and aeroplankton. The amounts of air particulates are a concern over a long time period. A month of breathing it is eno...
[Question] [ I'm planning a Dungeons and Dragons 5E campaign for my friends where they're going to take on the role of divers who use magic to explore the ocean's depths in search of sunken treasure and they need a ship to take them from one dive site to another. While I could easily use a generic 'sailing ship', I t...
[Question] [ **This question already has answers here**: [What is the most efficient and safest way to communicate with an alien should first contact occur?](/questions/62583/what-is-the-most-efficient-and-safest-way-to-communicate-with-an-alien-should-fi) (3 answers) Closed 3 years ago. Let's say that in the ...
[Question] [ I am looking for a (preferably economic or environmental) force/system that would every few months or years force a random sample of the middle/lower class of an area to migrate away. This would be taking place in a mildly dystopian, realistic world set in either current time or within a hundred or so ye...
[Question] [ Our hapless friend –let us call her [**Alice**](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/search?q=user%3A3510%20alice) – has a prisoner – Bob – and a problem. Here's the situation: for reasons that are too long to detail here, she must bring the prisoner to a distant location. Using the means of transit c...
[Question] [ This question has two parts: 1. Could biological processes create an organism than can see in wavelengths outside the human-visible spectrum? ("Outside" meaning some significant amount outside. There are known organisms on Earth than can see in near-infrared or near-ultraviolet, but that's not I'm asking...
[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. I wa...
[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/213855/edit). Closed 2 years ago. [Improve this question...
[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/205034/edit). Closed 2 years ago. [Improve this question](/po...
[Question] [ I'm in the early stages of thinking up a space science fiction story about a particular group of scientists and young explorers on mission to investigate some points of interest in the galaxy. Their mission is to visit some interesting phenomena (unexplained astrophysical phenomena, possible signals from...
[Question] [ Year 2730 AC¹. Generation Starship Epsilon arrives to the planet Gliese 180 c. Obivious signs of intelligent life are observed. To prevent interference, inhabitants of GS|ε stay on the ship for the time being. For the next few decades GS|ε has actively sent small groups consisting of scientists and exodi...
[Question] [ Think a Lord of the Rings-esque quest to save their kingdom. This quest would also involve detours, but I can just factor those in later. The continent is around the size of Australia, with a lot of grassland and a dense jungle in the middle. There's also a relatively large mountain range they have to cr...
[Question] [ I've created a city at the joining point of two rivers, and I'm trying to determine the population ceiling. I'm just going for a general idea of relative size, and so far I've just been making towns and settlements get larger as I go downstream from the mountains to the ocean. This city I justified the e...
[Question] [ How can we have a world that is inhabited only by zombies and yet continues to be populated? For the purposes of this question, I envisage the type of zombie that has been infected by a virus, is clinically dead, yet still able to move around, is compelled to seek out non-infected living people, and is ...
[Question] [ I recently came across a game called dead space and a certain main antagonist species inside of the game. In this game you play as the main character who is trying to protect humanity from sentient race of beings called the the brethren moons. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/B...
[Question] [ Which would work better for a small tank designed for urban use on low gravity worlds (inside cities on moons and such) tracks, wheels or something else? [Answer] **Short Version : a [Bren Carrier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Carrier) type vehicle.** Urban environments are not good places ...
[Question] [ I am currently writing a story, and part of it involves the invention and use of powered armor by the military. What I was curious about was how useful this armor would actually be, and what roles it would perform. Assuming battery power isn't an issue, the armor is capable of lifting 150kg (counting the...
[Question] [ This is a world with underwater merfolks and other humanoids. They have opposable thumbs, so they can use tools humans can use. Lets assume there's different subspecies and races of these merfolks, so they have very different dietary needs. They have human level intelligence. They cannot get goods from l...
[Question] [ I've done a question about [Aerial battle of knights riding flying creatures... How would they fight?](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/79065/aerial-battle-of-knights-riding-flying-creatures-how-would-they-fight), that was put [on hold] for being too broad. So I'm splitting the question ...
[Question] [ For my story, I'm trying to figure out where to send a probe that might have a chance at finding an alien civilization similar to ours. What is the closest star system to ours that might have a chance at supporting life? [Answer] **Question being answered: "What is the closest star system to ours that...
[Question] [ In a world geologically much like [Dune](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(novel)), there's no less than 300m of sand above compacted sand-stone across the planet. An Earth example would be [Rub Al Khali](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rub%27_al_Khali), where sands reach 300-350m above ground level. [![...
[Question] [ **The Problem** In a world I am building, the days are 9 years long, this means 4 and half years of cold darkness following 4 and a half years of blistering daylight. I have asked questions on this Year long Day world before, but now I have a new thought on the night side. In an environment with little l...
[Question] [ **This question already has answers here**: [What is the amputationility of a monomolecular wire weapon?](/questions/19249/what-is-the-amputationility-of-a-monomolecular-wire-weapon) (5 answers) Closed 7 years ago. So the [monomolecular wire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomolecular_wire) weapo...
[Question] [ [Elementals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elemental) are based on the 4 classical elements: earth, fire, air, and water, as those were all that the ancients knew of. However, with science we have learned that none of those are actually elements as defined by the periodic table of elements. What would ...
[Question] [ Considering that men and women actually do wind up with a variety of nonreproductive physiological differences (unlike many fantasy worlds which ignore them), among them: * Men wind up with more skeletal muscle mass than women, on average * Men have more fast-twitch muscle fibers (speed), while women hav...
[Question] [ In a superhero setting, a thunder clap is where someone claps with superhuman strength, causing damage such as broken windows and burst eardrums. What I want to know is, taken to the extreme of the extreme what is the maximum possible damage a thunder clap can do? Read <https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/> for a...
[Question] [ Lets say I want to send a generation ship to colonize a distant planet. Because of the ships mass it's going to take a long time to get up to speed. I can send smaller probes on ahead since they are smaller and can accelerate quicker. Some of these have machines to start terraforming the planet. Others h...
[Question] [ In science fiction a common plot device is for a planet to be surrounded by electromagnetic interference that prevents an orbiting ship from scanning it with sensors or communicating with people on the surface. My question is: How realistic is such a plot device, assuming either current-day or near-futur...
[Question] [ I am designing a world where humans have somehow developed or have been put onto a planet in a primitive state. This world has only been habitable for about ten thousand years and therefore only has the most basic of life, including a few sea animals and slug/worm creatures that can be eaten safely. Sinc...
[Question] [ [![The Demonic Paradise](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iZqgo.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iZqgo.jpg) Mu was a mythical continent that was believed to exist in the Pacific Ocean. It was part of pseudohistory back in the 19th Century. Hawaii and other Polynesian islands were believed to be the remnants of M...
[Question] [ I’m designing a society in a hostile climate which transports its energy from remote stations to a city with an absolute minimum of maintenance and infrastructure requirements. The concept is to use a constantly circulating lazy river to transmit power to the city. A canal flows continuously between two ...
[Question] [ Is it possible to have accessible underground/dungeon in a swamp area? Wouldn't it get flooded? Is there a way around it? In my case the area was flooded and turned into a swamp - would it make it all underground areas inaccessible? Could potentially elevated areas be saved from that fate? [Answer] **...
[Question] [ Am trying to build a floating town with a starting resident population of about 3000 inhabitants. The setting: Around the end of the XXII century. The town 'Pioneering Pinnacle' is floating in the Northern Atlantic, off the coast of Maine / Terranova. (I would avoid it going further to the North as I...
[Question] [ In my world I would like to have a cyborg-inspired veteran, but am not sure what kinds of prostheses would be possible, ideally without the use of electrics. My main concern is how the prostheses might be controlled (or whether they need to be controlled in the first place), since processing input and tr...
[Question] [ There are many tiny humanoids in fiction, the Arquilians of Men in Black, the Gargantians of Buzz Lightyear Star Command and a few others. This raises the question, is it possible for a humanoid species to evolve to be so small? [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VHJXJ.png)](http...
[Question] [ The setting that I am working on has a population of humans living in a place that does not have abundant copper or tin resources, so it is unlikely that they'd discover Bronze. However, bog iron is reasonably common, so is it feasible that such a civilisation might make the jump from pottery kilns direc...
[Question] [ **TL;DR:** How early can windows made of transparent glass (can look through) be readily available (not a rare luxury) to "common" citizens (at least top 10% of population)? **Disclaimer:** I know very little about the history of glassmaking or the modern processes involved. I dabbled a bit looking for a...
[Question] [ Yesterday you were leading a pleasant easy going life as a 20 year old lazy, intelligent but good natured, young adult who's father just happens to be the a notorious totalitarian dictator of a very small, but somewhat oil rich, country. Unfortunately your father just died of a heart attack early this mo...