Questions tagged [alternate-earth]
For questions relating to radically changed Earth. This alternate Earth could be a post-apocalyptic Earth, or Earth with major changes in the current social/political/economical schemes.
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What POD Would I Need For Earth's Lost Worlds to Exist Today?
This is a map of Earth as depicted by the DeviantArtist ToonHolt:
As you can see, many new landmasses have been added, from lost worlds like Sundaland, Zealandia and Kerguelen, to fictional worlds ...
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Naturally occurring temperate meadows
On a largely uninhabited world with geology, climate, biome etc very similar to prehistoric Earth, I have some scenes taking place in a temperate grassland. It's at moderately high altitude, and I ...
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Without tides, would we have beaches?
Consider a world similar in most ways to Earth, except with no tides. (No moon, and for some reason outside the scope of this question, solar tides are negligible.)
Would it have beaches as we know ...
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What will Earth's orbit around the sun look like if it were standing at an axial tilt of 66.5 degrees? [closed]
Earth currently stands at an axial tilt of 23.5 degrees, low enough for seasons to form. Here is the diagram below:
In the spring and autumn months, Earth parallel to the sun. In the summer, it ...
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How species-specific are tropical diseases and parasites?
Following on from a recent question about animals, concerning a group of people traveling sideways in time, to a world that resembles Earth as it would have been had humans never evolved, it occurs to ...
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How feasible would a Gaza - Gulf of Akaba canal be, purely technically speaking?
Note: partially inspired by the recent ship that ran aground in the Suez canal.
In my alternate history novel, I'd like there to be a second Red Sea-Mediterranean Sea canal roughly along what's in our ...
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How dangerous are animals with no history of human contact?
Wild animals like wolves, lions and bears rarely attack people. They behave as though they know humans are dangerous and generally best avoided.
Imagine a group of people traveling sideways in time, ...
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How much pressure would sea level be if the atmosphere were as thick as mentioned below?
Here is how thick our atmosphere is:
Troposphere: 7-20 kilometers
Stratosphere: 20-50 kilometers
Mesosphere: 50-85 kilometers
Thermosphere: 90-1,000 kilometers
Here is the thickness of the ...
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Roughly how many levels of command were there in a large WW2 army?
I want to build the command structure for a WW2 technology level fictional army. I’m struggling with all of the different units and especially the HQ’s. I need to understand how a real army of this ...
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How many species does a virus need to infect to destroy life on Earth? [closed]
Okay, let's say that there's a virus that can infect multiple species, is very hard to cure, extremely contagious, can linger asymptomatically for long periods of time, and likely to be deadly. It ...
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How Bright Would a "Summer" Night Be on This Extreme Alternate Earth?
Here is the oversimplified map of the solar system of an alternate Earth:
It is actually two separate binaries--one consisting of a red giant 100 times as wide, one-third as massive and 1,000 times ...
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Is The Climate Map for My Alternate Earth Accurate?
Here is a map of an alternate Earth that I've been building and rebuilding for years:
To make things easier on all of us, myself included especially, at the bottom left is a legend on this world's ...
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Dodgy Radio Communications
This question relates the same world discussed in this post: Horseback Travel in an Unpopulated Pacific Northwest
Two mounted patrolmen are tasked with navigating and policing a reimagined Coastal PNW,...
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Effects on World Climate without (Most of) northwest and central Europe
So I'm considering creating a fantasy setting heavily modelled on Earth with the exception that most of what we consider Northwest and Central Europe is replaced by sea. I decided to as a reference ...
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What Would the Climate Be Like on this Extreme Alternate Earth?
In an alternate universe, Earth orbits not one sun, but two.
As you can see, both stars are orange dwarves, each one only 40% as bright as our sun. All the same, this alternate Earth orbits from ...
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In This Picture, How Far Can One Binary Orbit the Other?
In an alternate Milky Way in an alternate universe, there is a cluster of stars so dense that nights are over 60 times brighter than our full moon. In that cluster is a solar system presented (albeit ...
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How would medieval Europeans react to discovery of fantasy races? [closed]
My question is inspired by this question
Infinite flat world
Basically instead of the Earth being a planet it is instead a small portion of an Alderson Disk. According to the writer Larry Niven "...
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Navigating under a starless sky: how to determine the position?
My alternate Earth is placed, together with the whole solar system and nothing else, in the center of the Boötes void.
At nearly 330 million light-years in diameter (approximately 0.27% of the ...
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Is my alternate earth possible? [closed]
You see, my alternate earth has lots of monstrous, uncivilized beasts like the Cipactlis and Timberwolves. My planet was formed long ago duel to molecules becoming these beasts like normal Earth. This ...
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How Can a Mammal Be Green and Blue? (No Camo, Please!)
This picture is of a horselike mammal drawn for an alternate Earth project that I've been working and reworking on for years. The drawing itself--and the coloring--was done by the DeviantArtist "...
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Gravity in a Flat Earth
So I have seen the never ending clash between those who believe in a Spherical Earth and those who believe in a Flat Earth. It thus made me wonder what a Flat Earth would even be like. One of the ...
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How Would the Moon Differ From Our Own for an Alternate Earth With No Seasons?
Four-and-a-half billion years ago, our planet suffered the nearest miss imaginable. Theia, a rogue planet the size of Mars, crashed into an infant Earth. Earth itself survived, but nothing was the ...
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What if Theia Never Hit the Earth? [closed]
Let's say that for some reason, Theia never hit Earth during the formation of the solar system. However, the two heavenly bodies ended up in a stable orbit around each other. Due to this, the Earth's ...
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What is the best place to rebuild humanity [closed]
Imagine that time goes back, no apes smarter than chimpanzees appear, and then in year 2020,
100000 random humans with all the knowledge we have now spawn naked in one area.
In what region of the ...
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How can I have gadget-using superheroes?
A reason why I dislike comic books:
Superheroes/meta-humans/etc..
You see, superhero and supervillain powers need to be impossible (or extremely hard) to reproduce, in order for them to work as ...
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What factors would limit the size of an ancient wagon and how big could they get?
I would like to create a setting where it would have been beneficial to use very large wagons. You are free to choose the setting, cargo and route, within the limitations below. The wagons don’t have ...
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In This Comparison, Are the Continents Moving Too Quickly?
This is a map of one of my alternate Earths from 233 million years ago in comparison to a map of our Earth today:
And this is a map of the same alternate Earth, this time from 100 million years ago, ...
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What Will My Alternate Earth's Climate Be Like? (Basically Speaking, Not Asking Much)
Ultimately, this scenario will depend on whether or not this alternate Earth would orbit one G-type star or two, and whether dawn would still be in the east, like back home, or in the west, like in ...
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Could Prehistoric Species of Animals Eat Modern Species of Plants and/or Animals?
One of the most recurring elements of paleofantasy is anachronism.
For instance, this still is from the 1966 film One Million Years BC, and yes, that is a Triceratops fighting off a Ceratosaurus, a ...
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Biplanes landing on top of skyscrapers by means of a wind tunnel in retro-future Earth
In a retro-future version of Earth, one of the main modes of air travel is by gasoline-powered biplane (design circa 1914).
I want these to land in places where in real-life Earth only helicopters ...
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The 42-Hour Day: Instant Extinction?
The information presented in the previous episode is out of date.
In an alternate universe, there is still an Earth in geochemistry only. This one, Alternate Earth 600, is a "backwards Earth"...
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Would Plate Tectonics Act Differently on an Earth-like Planet Where Water Makes Up the Minority of the Surface Rather Than the Majority?
My apologies for the extra long title, so let's get to the point. There is an Earth-like planet with a very dry personality. Six to ten percent of the surface is water, averaging in at 30-100 meters ...
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How Long (Or Short) Would Human Limbs Be if Proportioned Like Those of Gibbons?
Here is what I've got on Reddit about how long human limbs are in proportion to the lengths of their bodies:
With regard to humans, in ideal proportions, an adult is 7.5-8 heads
tall. The legs (...
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What Would the Arctic Ice Caps Look Like in This Current Map?
This is a map of my alternate Earth with a focus on ocean currents, courtesy of Mikael Asikainen:
As you can see here, Greenland looks smooshed, but that is because it is arranged to the extent that ...
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Would This Chosen List of Animals Occupy the Earthworm Niche?
To say that the earthworms are essential to the health of the planet Earth would be a gross understatement. So much so that there is no way that I can list you all their benefits at once. But what ...
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How Would a "Lungshark" Breathe Out of Water?
Allow me to introduce to you the epaulette shark:
This one species stands out over the other 511 in that it can breathe out of water. How? It actually has several adaptations:
They slow down their ...
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The 42-Hour Day: Episode I: Ocean Currents
Presented here is a map of an alternate Earth from 542 million years ago.
It is 5% narrower in diameter and 20% lighter in mass than our Earth. A single day lasts 42 hours, a cycle that it must ...
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How would human civilisation develop with little iron?
Imagine a planet that's identical in pretty much every aspect (including Homo Sapiens) to our own current Earth, with only a single exception - the continental crust has, for whatever reason, much ...
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Biological duck tape - how does it grow and how did it evolve?
Imagine vast areas covered in sheets of a (preferably grey) biological waterproof material that is stuck to the rocks below it.
Humans come along at harvest time and cut these sheets into strips, peel ...
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How to Terraform a Dead Earth
In the foreseeable future, a scientific community has discovered an alternate universe in which the solar system centers around a binary system of G-type suns, unlike the one G-type that ours orbits. ...
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Is it plausible for a tribe to have a standing army?
I'm creating a parallel world inspired by migration period in the dark ages.
I have a tribe that has a something akin to standing army consisting of
infantry
cavalry
rangers
Wealthier clan leaders ...
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What do I need to consider for a justice system for powered people by powered people?
In one of my stories, there are people with powers. Inherited from parent to child or through accident and experimentation. There's the main government like ours, and a para-military agency ...
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Giant bugs part 1: nature
So a little bit ago I asked a question that asked multiple questions so my new strategy is too ask multiple questions. First off this first question is going to revolve around the bugs themselves and ...
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Would more options of the death penalty be believable to present day audience and setting? [closed]
In one of my stories, my MC is a spy and has an ability to come back from the dead (but can't reveal such a fact) and after her first murder (she got killed by a mole and had her arm cut off with an ...
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A fictional world where morals and ethics are completely reversed? [closed]
I want to create a world that exist in an alternate universe where all ethics and moral behaviors on earth are completely reversed/backwards.
What would society in this alternate world look like?, to ...
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How Cold Will Earth's Equator Be at a Martian Distance?
At 93 million miles from the sun, Earth is in a perfect place for liquid water to exist, which is crucial for the evolution of life. Currently, it averages in at 14 degrees Celsius (57 degrees ...
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What would happen to the moon if Earth shattered?
In relation to one of my questions, Earth was destroyed after hit with a weapon that tore the planet apart by magnetic and gravitational force which does leave a large segment left floating. The rest ...
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Could a new impact basin be responsible for desiccating an entire planet?
Situation: A planet similar in size to the Earth has a Eurasia+ sized continent at its South Pole. It is hit by a huge asteroid near its South Pole. This would produce a very large crater/basin. ...
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How could a world develop where it was necessary to mine all soil for agricultural use
I want to create a world were soil mining is a major industry. Imagine a vaguely Earth sized world where almost the entire surface of the planet is under, ocean, ice caps or is a hot or cold desert ...
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Consequences of a Longer PETM: The Lysocline
I've already discussed the backstory of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum more than once already, so let me shorten this into a list of notes:
56 million years ago
5-9-degree-Celsius rise in ...
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