Questions tagged [alternate-worlds]
For questions about worlds other than Earth that are significantly different. This could be a water, ice, barren or other planet. For questions about planets similar to Earth with specific differences use the *earth-like* tag.
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World built inside a gigantic drainage pipe
I'm doing a Pratchett style fantasy book, and the setting - the Downspout - is built in a downspout of an astronomically sized gutter drain pipe.
We're assuming an impossibly large structure housing ...
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What effect would a red sky and/or sun have on plants and animals?
If an Earth-like planet had an older, red sun — or maybe just a reddish sky due to some property of the atmosphere — how would that affect the growth and/or adaptation of plant and animal life on the ...
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Would a windmill shaped like a waterwheel work?
The culture I'm working on lives in a constant state of snow storms and tundra. In the snow lives a bioluminescent type of algae that thrives on the cold and only glows when its temperature goes above ...
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How would dimensional travel(similar to Obito's Kamui) work? [closed]
I am writing a story on which several characters are able to create pocket dimensions. For example: character A does this by warping space permanently, through something akin to a programming language,...
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What kind of world could have humanoid size spiders
It is a classic RPG trope to have the humanoid adventurers battle some spiders that are roughly the same size as the humanoids or even a good deal bigger. There are a number of questions about giant ...
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How to stop water runoff on floating islands that lack an available surface
I am building a world with islands floating in air, and I'm looking for solutions to loss of water from runoff/erosion (think rivers emptying off the side of the islands). The islands vary in size, ...
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What would my Sun look like to fit the properties of my Earth?
I want to have a realistic solar system as a home for my planet.
My planet must look like Earth, with the exception that each orbit around its sun takes 365 Earth years. Hence a season would last ...
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Social implication of lion-people living with normal humans and how to make them into free folk and not slaves while maintaing their role as defenders [closed]
Lion-people are kidnapped at birth from humans. Why?
Because Lion-folk prey on humans as a form of sport and entertainment
Kidnapped cubs of lion-folk are groomed in ''loving'' families in order to ...
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How do storms scale with planet radius?
I'm trying to figure out how weather scales with planet size, keeping other factors constant. For a specific example, say a planet with the following characteristics:
Twice the radius of Earth.
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How could a the global economy have no money/collapse? [closed]
I would like a plausible way to tank the world economy. I am trying to make a political horror world, that would be very different from today. The basis should be a lack of money or decreased value of ...
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How can a god that loses its memories in becoming mortal, regain them? [closed]
God looked down at his creation, humanity, and was disgusted with what it saw. The race had become so entrenched in hypocrisy and sin that it considered destroying it. However, evil abominations from ...
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What would the aerodynamics of ships sailing on clouds look like (and thus their design)?
I'm currently working on a TTRPG setting where there is an ocean of caustic clouds surrounding the continents instead of a regular ocean. Tech level is roughly Age of Sail with some deviations due to ...
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What is the tallest mountain possible in any gravitational environment?
In world building it is often interesting to consider extreme landscapes – how tall can a mountain be on Earth for example. But what is the tallest mountain possible in any gravitational environment?
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How likely for a religion to be almost similar in a different world? [closed]
In my secondary world, one of the main religions is a vague medieval Christianity. Of course, there are differences made for it to fit in with the lore, as well as a few other major religions. After ...
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Could humans be able to create a modern society in a water planet? [closed]
If the world we live in is a water planet, or a planet with little land, would humanity be able to survive and if they could, can they reach the type of civilization or society we have. Like able to ...
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Could a Giant Earth planet have lower gravity than Earth?
I'm writing a neo-pulp adventure and one of the planets that appears needs to have the following characteristics:
Is populated by giant non-sentient non-humanoid insect-like aliens, some from the ...
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Could 2 versions of a person from alternate universes be different ages? [closed]
Pretty much what the title says. I have 2 characters who are technically the same person, just from different universes, but for multiple reasons they have to be different ages. Can this make sense? ...
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Effect of lower average temperatures on the tropical savannahs and deserts of a planet
I have a nagging question that has been eating away at me since I am figuring out the biomes that are present in the world that I am building. For all intents and purposes this world is basically an ...
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How to set up exchange rate between two very different world
Related to this question. The Science world, of course, has experienced and discarded gold-standard and is using paper currency and floating exchange rates. The magic world, on the other hand, uses ...
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What type of eyes are best suited towards fog and cloud cover?
I am working on a speculative evolution project at the moment that has a low atmospheric scale. As a result, the ground is almost always covered in fog or cloud-like fog that is universal across ...
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Could a hypothetical planet composed of a neon-oxygen or argon-oxygen atmosphere with Earth-like pressure levels sustain life?
I'm trying to create a hypothetical planet scenario, where there is a planet that has a similar atmospheric pressure to that of Earth, but in this case, it has a gas different than that of nitrogen. ...
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How to catch giant sea creatures?
One hundred years into the future, humanity colonizes the first planet in another solar system. A big ocean world! Yay!
But there is a problem: Most of the flora is toxic for consumption, so the ...
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Living on a giant banana world
In my story, which should be taken entirely seriously, mankind encounters a region of space occupied mostly by giant exo-householdobjects.
That is, planet sized kettles, saucers, teacups, cutlery, etc....
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Measuring Time in a World Where the Sun Never Sets
First time here, so I don't know what to expect.
I'm writing a dark sci fi mystery story that takes place on a hypothetical megastructure called an "Alderson Disk" (Example seen Below). ...
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Could the Deutsche Kaiserreich create a U-Boat with the following capabitities for the WWI if some timetraveler give them the blueprints?
Is possible to design a submarine that follows the following restrictions?
It must have at least the capabilities of a early „the war to end all wars“ U-Boat (e.g. SM U-19).
It must build-able with ...
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Plausibility of an advanced civilization that never found fire?
A world similar to earth (climate fluctuations, the need to cook food), and because the natural atmosphere doesn't have oxygen, the intelligent organisms there don't breath oxygen. How far could a ...
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How would computers work if the number zero wasn't invented?
I imagine a parallel world where people instantly went crazy and kill themselves whenever they try to conceptualize nothingness which we now known as the number zero, so no one I mean absolutely ...
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Shantungosaurus chase, mad max style
I have a scene where there's a Shantungosaurus chase in Mad Max style, except there's no such thing as motor technology and the closest thing to guns are portable repeating polybolos (scoprion ...
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Can sharkmen perceive your emotions?
alledgedly sharks can feel a humans heartbeat from a mile away or something like that, and they can perceive electrical signals, makes you wonder how come then they are dumb enough to confuse surfing ...
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Are there things that can make natural lifespan in other planets inherently longer?
How would things like gravity, air composition and density affect the lifespan of the biological protein based life that inhabits the planet, or would they have any significant effect at all?
Honestly ...
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In a supercontinent would ships still be the primary way of transportation before the invention of engines?
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My world is made of a super-continent with very little isles, it has 100 countries, 97 of which are on land. 3 of those are underwater for folk who are able to live confortably in the ...
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human version of hermit crabs
I have some tribes of nomads that live in pretty harsh places, going around by carts or building shelter is usually not an option. They live and sleep in some kind of heavy primitive armor, I was ...
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what alternative topological shapes could alien life take on?
I've always been intrigued by the idea that alien life would be completely different from life on this planet. recently, I've been doing some research and found out that humans, along with other ...
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What would cause oceans to disappear?
I'm writing a story that happens on a dry and arid planet that has only a few oasis's where life can thrive. Life on this world either lives in the oases or lurks in the sand waiting for migrating ...
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What kind of sounds would a creature from the void make? [closed]
For a place I call The Void, its a place filled in darkness with no elements on the galactic periodic table, what sounds would it have? Especially the entities in the Void called VoidSpawn being ...
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How does the environment shape taste in alternate worlds
We all know there are factors leading to the various ways of flight, walking, running, crawling, climbing and swimming. Those factors are independet of the creature as those are motions and motion is ...
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How would WW2-level navy deal with my "merfolk"?
The abovementioned fictional race aren't exactly merpeople from fantasy, but I call them like that just for the sake of convenience. Rather, they're semi-aquatic humanoids, who are really good at ...
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Weather on a flat world illuminated by static luminaries
Consider a flat world illuminated, not by a sun following a daily trajectory overhead, but by luminaries in static locations, fixed at a finite distance above particular locations on the surface, ...
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Triassic crocodile alternative [closed]
During the Triassic period there were many different varieties of crocodile related species. The dinosaurs weren't as prominent until after a poorly understood extinct event. If this event hadn't ...
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How could a world empire prevent rebellions with minimal bloodshed?
In the world I've thought of, monstrous beings more or less ended civilization on my planet. From the fires of this apocalyptic event, the world empire arose. It took over territory either by force or ...
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Infinite flat world
Instead of discovering that earth was round, we find that we live on a infinite, flat "earth".
What are some cultural implications if we were to live in a world like that (disregarding any physical ...
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Does anyone know how I can convert the time of my conworld into earth hours/days and vice versa? Is there a converter or formula I could use? [closed]
I try to find out how long the years/days/hours in my conworld would be compared to those of Earth.
So here is some information about the conworld's time measures:
100 (earth)seconds = 1 (conworld)...
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If our world was on a turtle... then how big would the planet the turtle is living on be?
This sounds really stupid, but I'm trying to think of a way to make World Turtle work. And what I got after 5 minutes of careful deliberation, would be that the our earth would have to be 'flat' on ...
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Could sound be recorded by door panels and later replayed?
In my novel, a character makes the claim that sound can be recorded by the panels in a door. The door panel vibrates with sound, according to him, and those vibrations are recorded analogically, very ...
CommunityBot
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If John Atkinson Grimshaw's Paintings were actually daylight, what kind of star would this "sun" be?
An Englishman by the name of John Atkinson Grimshaw was known only for his nocturnal paintings of the British landscape.
I don't know about you, but his nocturnes have struck me as a bit...bright. ...
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Weapon developed in modern melee only world
Let's say a global law has been passed in the year 2000 that disallows any projectile, explosive or otherwise long distance weapon or put differently, only allows variations of melee weapons. Thrown ...
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One day, China suddenly stops all exports. What happens to the world economy?
I am more curious about the immediate effects on local and global socio-economics rather than the likelihood of the rest of the world declaring war on China or were the other countries would get their ...
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Appstore application to assassinate anyone [closed]
Being the pessimistic person I am who always looks at the dark side of life, mostly because in this world only a small percentage of humans enjoy the luck and luxury of living in the light side of ...
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How much further could ship-based radar see on a flat world?
On our spherical planet, it is highly advantageous for modern navies to have airborne radar, because it can seem much further than even the best ship-based radar, simply due to the greater distance to ...
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Can a person whose brain was 98% destroyed but then recreated maintain some of their memories?
TL:DR A brain is turned into mush, destroyed, then 98% of the organ is replaced with other brain tissue. Can that 2% account for memories shared between both brains? Can the brain remember things that ...
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