Questions tagged [environment]
For questions about an environment or aspects of it such as geographical, atmospheric or climate.
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Giant Freshwater vs Saltwater lakes
I am doing worldbuilding on a region centered around a gigantic lake in the sub-tropical region in the northern hemisphere of a planet. I want the lake to incredibly huge, like around 2 million square ...
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How can my fictional race of humans extend the area of their world they can explore?
This world is an alternate Earth similar size, mass and distance from its star to our Earth. The atmosphere is similar in composition to Earth except at 5000m altitude the pressure is two bar and the ...
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On a planet with 99% humidity all of the time, how would human skin evolve?
This world has an incredibly high humidity rate all year round and I'm curious as to what - if any - evolutional changes might occur in human skin. Would it just be less porous or would there be a ...
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How would a permanent stationary super-hurricane impact the weather of a nearby land mass
How would the weather from a permanent Cat5 hurricane (specifically with sustained 500 mph winds) that spans a 2000-mile area (across the hurricane's diameter) be impacted on continents roughly 500 ...
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Which large marine animals could live in an ocean 60 m deep? [closed]
The setting I'm currently working on, has a sea that is large in area, but even the deep ocean, far from land, is only sixty meters deep. (It's a Banks Orbital, but I don't think that matters in and ...
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Explaining My Planet’s Weather
Alright so my planet is very similar to Earth, but slightly more unstable. Both geologically and atmospherically speaking. It orbits an orange star, slightly larger and more “angry” than the sun. It ...
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Would water-based rain float on top of large sea of liquid mercury?
I was thinking about a setting where two large landmasses are separated by a sea of mercury. Obviously, iron boats would float. In fact, the ships would have to be extremely heavy.
What would happen ...
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What are the advantages and disadvantages an underwater civilization has over a terrestial one?
In my world, mankind isn't the only intelligent species around. Merfolk are present in all of the oceans. The Merfolks look like a cross between humans and dugongs. The Merfolk also have long hair ...
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Is it possible to have a planet with only one plant, one animal and one bug?
The animal species on my planet has a highly sophisticated communication method and part of the reason for this is that they had no enemies on the planet except themselves.
So far, the reason for this ...
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Atmosphere of a Carbon Planet. Are there flaws in my system?
My spec-bio project involves the idea of life evolving on a (Carbon?) Planet, rich with metals (Platinum, Chromium, Etc...) and pre-existing hydrocarbons. Basically life would have to evolve on an ...
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Is Island Gigantism Necessary to have Megafauna even if I have Solved the Other Problems of Energy, Weight and Heat? [closed]
I want to have megafauna on my world. I have already solved the structural problems related to megafauna by having strong but light bones, and the animals breathe a "magic" air that provides ...
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What's a reasonable environmental disaster that could be caused by a probe from Earth entering Europa's ocean?
I'm working on a story involving life on Europa (or at least a place just like it) being upturned dramatically by contact from a probe sent from Earth. Found this community while researching, and have ...
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Environmental effects of a supervolcano eruption
Background:
In this world, a massive volcanic eruption results in ash being spewed into the stratosphere of an earthlike planet, blocking out sunlight. The explosion is on a similar scale as the Toba ...
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Would my world have the environment that I planned for it?
The world where my stories will take place is a moon oribiting a gas giant along with many other barren moons. I envisioned it to have a generally tropical/subtropical climate, with plenty of ...
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What niche would werewolf looking creatures have in an environment? [closed]
By werewolf, I'm not talking about normal humans who can transform into big beasts and transform others to be like them. I'm just purely talking about could the werewolf form be its own wild animal? ...
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Should I add pollution to my worldbuilding even though it's not part of the main story [closed]
So the world I'm writing is a multi-polar world where every nation has their own battleships and aircrafts. And aerial warfare is kind of normal (like Ace Combat). But as I progress with my idea, I've ...
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Is there a scavenger or carrion feeder (Or anything associated with death) that's actually BAD for the environment?
I'm designing a dualistic pair of factions of post-apocalyptic scrappers with views based on opposing concepts of scavenging; renewal, re-use, and removal of hazards versus thievery, opportunism, and ...
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What would still discourage my people from settling on this subcontinent?
Context: The inhabitants of my world, humans, live on a supercontinent divided into three subcontinents separated by seas. The supercontinent is located above the equator in what is roughly the size ...
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Could a body of orbiting debris artificially vary the length of night?
I'm drafting up a world for a pet project of mine. I came across the idea of "what if there was a much longer night every X days?" I thought that would be an interesting theme for the world, ...
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What could reduce sunlight on an Earth-like planet?
I want to create a world where there is very little sunlight during the day -- at noon the light would be about the same as an Earth sunset. The planet would be Earth-like until something causes the ...
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How can a desert be converted into a lush rainforest with magic?
Assuming an elemental form of Magic that allows the mages to control fire, water, earth, and the wind itself (with some limited power to change states, like turning ice to steam and vice versa), as ...
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How can we make an alien atmosphere breathable, but uncomfortable?
In the project I’m working on, sufficiently advanced aliens terraformed a large number of planets in the distant past, giving them an atmospheric pressure and composition similar to Earth. This “...
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How would life develop/adapt in an Earth-like planet but with less sunlight?
Here's the setting:
Advanced human civilizations of an ancient time destroyed the ozone layer of the planet. They managed to create an self-sustaining artificial layer which would function exactly as ...
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Is my environmental map consistent?
This is the map of my alien planet's continents and I want to know if the environments are accurate.
The symbol at the top is the Arctic island. It's like Greenland and has some greenery or should I ...
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Passively redirecting air currents with forest gardening
A group of evil farmers have developed a technique for manipulation of the weather on a large scale whereby the land is altered to effect the temperature of the air above and to act as a trap for ...
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What would happen if a world is full of mountains? How would it affect the geography, environment, and gravity of the planet?
I was thinking of making a world that is filled to the brim with mountains. I'm not saying that the world is just mountains, but the area or terrain is so difficult that it's hard for land vehicles to ...
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How could a planet logically have green clouds but still be habitable?
I am working on a game currently with some predetermined assets, and one of the areas I am developing takes place on a mountainous, lush jungle planet with low-hanging green clouds and a general green ...
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Most hospitable biomes for living off the land
I'm trying to figure out which are the most hospitable biomes for living off the land.
Say we have a small spacecraft fallen through a time warp that takes it sideways in time, where it finds itself ...
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What is the altitude limit at which plants can grow on a low gravity planet?
(My Universe Sandbox Almost Terraformed Mars)
How high can plants grow on a low gravity planet like Mars?
Since lower gravity planets tend to have a greater height differences in terms of geography ...
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How can I force humanity to retreat to the ocean floor
I'm looking for an mass-extinction level event that would cause most life on the surface of Earth to be forced back to the oceans, one that is not feasibly reversible for humanity, before societal ...
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How does ocean productivity vary with depth?
I'm trying to figure out the optimal sea depth on an artificial world (a Banks Orbital as it happens, though I think this would also be an important parameter for many other kinds of megastructure). ...
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How Long Would It Take For A Car To Erode Near-Seamlessly Into The Environment?
I'm writing a short story that takes place many decades into the future. A major plot point is that a car that was promised to a future archaeologist via inheritance has naturaly eroded to the point ...
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How could farmland be turned into a desert?
How would an agricultural world be desertified? I have a community of farmers, and the environment is working against them but they are making it work with nitrates (got the idea from Disney Zorro ...
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How long would it take for humans to evolve on different planets?
Here’s the breakdown of my story:
Humans have basically destroyed Earth, milked it of all its natural resources. We've set on finding new planets to find a new place to live. The result: The ...
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Depth of seas on a Banks Orbital
If one is building a Banks Orbital or other megastructure with a very large habitable surface area, it is not necessarily given that much of the area would consist of seas, but there are several ...
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Could giants fit into a forest?
In my fantasy world, the forests are massive, reaching for miles and miles over the country, full of amazing creatures and just wonderful things. The thing is, I want my world to be relatively young, ...
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What environmental or biological factors would result in assassination being more common and more respected than soldiering?
Essentially, I am imagining this scenario:
Somewhere there is a world where, in all the major civilizations, assassins are more numerous and more highly respected than soldiers. In such a world, wars ...
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How big could a nuclear war be without causing an apocalypse?
It is widely known that an all out nuclear weapon with modern nuclear missiles would probably cause a nuclear winter, billions of deaths, and end life as we know it.
On the other hand, two small (by ...
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How would a massive permanent updraft affect a rainforest?
This world has these massive tunnels in which large quantities of heat and air travel from one point to another, being permanently pushed by magic.
Their exits are basically massive updrafts coming ...
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An earthlike world is flooded with fantasy flora and fauna. What happens to the ecosystem, and how long does it take to recover? [closed]
Let's assume for the sake of argument that:
It's a 50/50ish split between new prey/predators herbivores/carnivores being introduced. So already a bit imbalanced.
The creatures/flora make sense ...
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How Can Crashdrake Live In a Pine Forest?
Crashdrakes. These dragons are, for just about any intent or purpose, a cassowary, or in other words they are big, flightless, highly aggressive and yet herbivorous death birds. Seeing that dragons in ...
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At what point does a human civilization on a dead planet require petroleum?
I’ve gone and designed an entire earth-like planet where life had never evolved. Oil can be reached if needed—the purpose of this question is to find how far they can go and avoid it. (Oil is ...
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Midway through Terraforming Venus
I was watching a quite interesting Kurzgesagt video, Here. How would the surface of Venus look after freezing the CO2 out of the atmosphere? At around 5:28, we see that the atmospheric pressure is 3 ...
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Cooking in a hyperbaric kitchen?
Let's say you're in Atlantis,
which happens to be 1 km below sea level
It's also at equilibrium with the sea. You have been born there and are fully acclimated to the pressure, in air which is made ...
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Would it be possible for a pre-industrial society to construct islands?
I am envisioning a scenario in which, probably for reasons of persecution or overpopulation, a people would begin to construct islands in the sea. Each island would be fairly close to the others and ...
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How could a galaxy be damaged by a civilization's industrial expansionism in ways that mirror our own current climate crisis?
There are several stellar environmental results from sentient industrial over-expansionism that I can imagine ie. star lifting that results in entire systems becoming frozen husks and debris from ...
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Is a harsh environment conducive to the evolution of a peaceful society?
The aliens I am writing are a very soft-hearted civilisation, lacking many of the aspects that make us (humans) pretty vile creatures depending on the perspective. This harmonious behaviour seems like ...
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Low G vs High G planets and floating species
So, i want to make a planet with these requirements:
A higher surface pressure than earth, and an atmosphere that could last long enough for intelligent life to appear.
(If possible), medium or large ...
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How could earths life adapt on a new planet?
I have read the comments and thank you. I'm new to this website and I will continue to fix my mistakes until you people don't get confused.
The planets gravity is 10.8m/s^2. I've read some where that ...
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What would a giant corpse island actually be like?
Context
There is an inland sea called the Poisoned sea (name subject to change), which is around the size of the Mediterranean sea. A vast majority of the land masses in the Poisoned sea are the ...
