Questions tagged [creature-design]
For questions regarding the viability of a life-form design. These questions should focus on biologically plausible creatures.
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What is the size of the largest possible flying animal? Realistically speaking?
I’d like to create fantasy creatures that can fly using their own realistic physiology without magic or any kind of supernatural power. Many references on the internet mention that popular dragons ...
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How could I redesign my dragons to have 6 limbs and still be able to fly?
In a previous post, I asked about dragons in my stories and how I could make it plausible for them to fly while also meeting the criteria of having 6 limbs and being 15 to 20 feet long when fully ...
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Are Liquid Brains Possible or Viable?
I'm designing an alien species roughly based on starfish. Starfish in the real world don't have brains or blood, they just let seawater run their nervous and circulatory systems, but I figure a ...
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How would future humans be able to evolve large heads? [duplicate]
In my story there are future humans that managed to build a time machine and for research purposes decided to travel back in time to change past events from taking place. These future humans have a ...
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How would a naga swim underwater? [closed]
Naga is a mix of a human torso and the lower body of a serpent. With this combination, how would they move when they swim?
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Could a creature which evolved in space using sunlight and gas for energy and propulsion, glide in our atmosphere?
I'm imagining roughly human-sized creatures which have 'sails' that they use to absorb solar energy and steer themselves around the solar system. I'm trying to think of a feasible way such a being ...
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Where should an electric organ go in a human
In my story with magic based around the manipulation of electromagnetism, I need the characters to have a hand-wave electric organ. This electric organ is about 10 cm per organ with the capacity to ...
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Alien mobile plant life
I'm inquiring about the possibility of plants on other worlds developing the ability to move over land on their own (they need not be sapient, but I wouldn't rule the possibility of sapience out ...
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How would a balloon-like plant function?
I've been thinking about a floating and photosynthesizing plant, which would either float due to trapped light gasses, or something else that has a very low density. I'm thinking of a plant roughly in ...
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How reasonable is my hypothesis regarding ring-tailed orthostatic bipeds?
So, in my process of designing humanoid/humanesque sapient aliens, I often find myself wanting to have a species which are orthostatic (upright) bipeds like humans but which nonetheless have long ...
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Is my alien foot design viable for a compromise between arboreality and cursoriality?
I keep trying to design humanoid and humanesque sapient aliens, but I often run into issues with the feet; In an orthostatic biped, an enlarged first toe (big toe) is probably essential to maintain ...
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requirements for spatial manipulation [closed]
In my story, I have a power system that allows humans to control certain universal forces. For example, chronomasters could control time and electromancers could control electromagnetism. Some spatial ...
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How are sapient crows utilized if there are phones for communicating?
A shaman society secret to normal humans, in the late 2000s era where phones and the internet exist: why and how would they still put to work their black feathery friends?
They were crucial before all ...
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Could Aluminum-Based Placoderm-like Tooth Structure Break a Human Skull?
I have a monster in mind, but a major part of its introduction to the story is that I want to have it bite a human soldier's skull clean off. Its teeth are similar in structure to a Placoderm's, but ...
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Muons as an Energy Source for Life
I had an idea of making a bacterium use muons from cosmic rays for energy storage purposes.
Muons are heavier versions of electrons, but unlike electrons, they aren't very stable and last only for 2.2 ...
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How will the genetic mechanism of reproduction work in a species with four sexes, where there are two types of men and two types of women? [closed]
I am writing a story about a certain population of people who were artificially settled on a terraformed planet. The main feature of this civilization is that they have four sexes:
Man-man
Man-woman
...
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Explosive Plant/Chemotrophs [duplicate]
I'm looking for an autotroph that produces an explosive compound for either reproductive or defensive purposes that an intellegent alien could harvest and domesticate for the purposes of producing ...
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What would a planet where giant creatures live be like? (gravity, weather, etc.)
I am thinking about a planet on which gorilla-like people live in. Gorilla-shaped, walking on their knuckles, but with the capability of complex speech and a slightly more humanoid face (possessing a ...
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How to make electro kinetic immune to electricity
In my hard science world there is a character that can output electrons around 30000 volts and around 50,000 amps.The problem is that they would instantly die every time they use their ability. So I ...
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Eyes that aren’t spheres: possibilities? [duplicate]
I have a sci-fi-like universe and one of the species has long, vertical eyes.
But would this be anatomically possible without a sphere-like structure? I know that compound eyes are a thing, but how &...
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How can a moon-sized creature evolve? [duplicate]
I wanted to write the evolutionary history of one of the creatures in my story based on scientific principles. This creature is the size of the moon and can live in space. I initially used the limited ...
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How to support the evolution of a giant creature across generations [closed]
In my story, in which I want to rely on scientific logic as much as possible, I want a creature to evolve to become at least the size of a country and you can live in space.
The means of evolution for ...
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How would a species with intangibility-powers deal with war and violence? [closed]
I've got an idea for an alien species with intangibility powers, similar to Kitty Pryde from the X-men or Mira Nova and the Tangeans from "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command". They are capable ...
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Could a species be highly apathetic to their brethren yet have a strong pack/herd mentality?
This species comes from a world 1.7x the mass of Earth that is about 75% water.
I would like them to be very apathetic so that when a space-faring species contacts then there is a definite difference ...
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What explanations can be used for how a humanoid's body is able to spontaneously combust as a natural part of its early stage decomposition?
Some form of chemical reaction interacting with the digestive system for a start?
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How horny can humans get before it's too horny
Trying to create horns which are both ornamental and defensive, I've read somewhere that beards evolved in humans because we punch each other so much that even just a minuscule amount of hair cushion ...
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How big can my giant killer-eel grow?
In my fantasy world, Mainspring, the top of the oceans' food chain is the maculatum, a species of giant eel which originated on another plane/dimension. Maculatum reproduce asexually and wthout any ...
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High Gravity Giant Shell
I am designing a genus of eusocial, high-temperature, extraterrestrials from the planet 61 Virginis b. They are based on tungsten chloride and use sodium chloride as a solvent. This species has ...
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How to serve the gods
TL;DR: How can a mortal become worthy of being listened to by the gods?
I'm seeking a logical framework to establish a specific relationship between gods and mortals.
The Relationship:
Mortals can ...
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Do I need magic to change the colors I see?
Basically, I have creatures that are supposed to see all wavelengths of light which are hypothetically visible to biological life, but the way they do this is by changing the photo-receptors in their ...
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How would a 4-armed, blind species,use firearms?
My blind, intelligent species has advanced technologically to the stage of space exploration through the usage of FTL travel. The reason for their blindness is evolving underground, after the surface ...
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How would life, that thrives on the magic of trees, survive in an area with limited trees?
In my fantasy world, there's 'magic' which is produced by trees; flowing from the roots up to the branches, which send out the magic into the atmosphere, allowing it to flow through all life. Humans ...
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Non-liquid fuel produced biologically in a carbon-based lifeform
I have a creature that was bio-engineered by an extremely capable society, and I need it to "produce" an explosive* fuel that is contained within the outer layer of flesh/fur. This fuel ...
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Can a plant or fruit evolve or be made to look as if it evolved to produce blood?
My question is Can a plant or fruit evolve or be made to look as if it evolved to produce blood? I want to have a story well a benevolent super being not a god a being with powerful tech; transplanted ...
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Ideal weapons and combat gear for prehensile feet
What weapons and combat gear would suit a race of creatures with prehensile hands and feet?
I'm designing a high fantasy warrior who comes from a bipedal race of creatures with prehensile hands and ...
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Is it realistic/plausible to have iron plated scales on an animal? [duplicate]
I've been drafting a fantasy world with dragons, obviously becuase it's a fantasy world. I was thinking about the science behind flying animals and how reptiles and birds are sort of related, yadda ...
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Biped species with trunk evolved to use for locomotion
So currently in my speculative evolution scenario, I have a creature with an elongated trunk that it uses for rock climbing. This species transitions to a savannah like lifestyle and I was wondering ...
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Would it be possible for a creature to change to be able to live in most extreme environments
My world of Find out is somewhat like earth having all the same environments in addition to many more of the extreme ones. For example: bigger temperature differences during seasons, more underwater ...
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How could a radiowave controlled cyborg-mutant be possible?
The cells of certain gene edited superhumans were changed to make them produce molecular radiowave receiver inside the cell to allow the superhuman to coordinate the movements and even change genetic ...
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What could be an alternative for chlorophyll for cyanobacteria that use five micron infrared to make energy?
What would be a viable chlorophyll like protein be for a cyanobacterium that absorbs infrared light at the 5-20 micron range to produce energy in the form of ATP?
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More energy dense alternative for glucose for vampires
I'm making a vampire human subspecies that is hundreds of times stronger than humans and also is immortal, but I can't seem to find a suitable energy source.
First, vampires are humans infected by a ...
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Can combustion create ATP
Could the heat and light from slow and controlled combustion produce ATP from ADP and inorganic phosphate? Could the heat and light drive proton pumps and then could ATP synthase produce ATP from the ...
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Surviving Organ Failure
This is a re-phrasing of the question "How Would Metabolism Work For A Zombie?".
It's the year 2026 and a new engineered virus turns people into zombies who are very stupid and can only ...
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How would a creature evolve a antimagic field? [closed]
I've been designing a group of creatures which one of their defining traits is that magic tends to become disabled once its close enough to them like a anti-magic field. The question I've been asking ...
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Which limbs should be retained or lost to turn this land animal into a swimmer? [closed]
The form of large swimming animals is fairly consistent across distantly related groups. As example, all aquatic mammals, save the quadrupedal semiaquatic forms, have adapted for a fish-like shape ...
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How might this creature evolve a biological gun
I recently started to wonder how an animal could evolve a gun. So I decided that here was the best place to find people that are smarter and/or have different ideas than me.
This creature has an ...
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Would my giants still have a functioning appendix?
In my world, there is a species from the Homo genus named Homo gigas. They are commonly called giants.
They are as massive as polar bears, and they never stop growing like kangaroos.
They have seal-...
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Atmospheric density for sky jellyfish?
My setting I've been working on for the past few years has giant floating creatures (I know, very original) that the local sapients often live on like sky islands, maybe cultivating some kind of ...
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Is it possible for a race of alien humanoids to evolve a diet based of semen?
On this planet there are two species of alien humanoids creatures , one group evolved an omnivore based diet and the other has a semen based diet, both groups are bipedal and share a common ancestor.
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What would life be like that uses liquid nitrogen as a solvent instead of water? [closed]
I'm working on a worldbuilding project and want to have an intelligent species from a planet where liquid nitrogen is the dominant solvent, not water. I plan on building the planet backwards from here ...
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