Questions tagged [internal-consistency]
Asks if a given concept is consistent, or being used consistently, in the context of the referenced world rules. Answers should say yes or no, with supporting info. This tag should not be used with the science-based, hard-science, or science-fiction tags. Comparisons to the Real World should use the Science-Based tag. This tag may not be used alone. This tag may not be used with the science-fiction, science-based, or hard-science tags.
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Is there a way to reconcile inertial dampening fields with conservation laws?
So I wish to make a sci fi setting that uses gravity manipulation tech and inertial dampeners.
I have a number of ideas for how such a system works, and about how it should go. At the moment I'm ...
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Magic apocalypse in a fantasy world: which branches of knowledge should be preserved? [closed]
In a sufficiently advanced fantasy world, magic was exploited so much to cause an impending and unavoidable apocalyptic disaster that would ravage the surface of the whole world for decades and ...
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Indian Ocean continent - which humans get there first?
Trying to develop an ATL in which several 'lost' continents in the Indian Ocean - namely Kerguelen, Broken Ridge and the Mascarene Plateau (just east of Madagascar) - never end up being submerged and ...
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Why is Hyperspace more hostile to computers than human brains?
For stylistic reasons, I wanted to impose some limits on the use of computers and automation to justify my setting's retro-aesthetic and elements for my science fantasy story.
Basically humanity has ...
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Why would a sublight Alcubierre drive be more useful for braking than for propulsion?
To get to the point, ships in the setting I'm working on still use a conventional, albeit very advanced, form of rocket propulsion.
However interstellar ships also use a sublight Alcubierre drive ...
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How can I make the rules of my Faerie Portal free from contradiction?
On the hilltop in the field near my house, there lives a coven of witches. Or, more accurately, there is a coven of witches living in a pocket of the Faerie Realm which has recently become attached to ...
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IF you had a territorial struggle based on magic, how would it play out? [closed]
A large part of the political power in my world building for my book is based around a concept called "grinding" where a faction would gradually amass influence and natural resources by ...
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Peak Copper Age Society
How far could the technology of a copper age society get; Could they work up to the level of late antiquity?
Context:
Im working on a si-fi/fantasy world were people have been transplanted onto a ...
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What would it be like for a human to maneuver while at supersonic speed?
The person is superhuman. There is both magic and sci-fi involved in the setting. They have the physical strength required to accelerate to supersonic speeds. They have the ability to latch ...
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Genetics of a human-animal hybrid
It’s the age of genetic engineering, and Scientists, in league with shady corporations, have created a group of human-animal hybrids, hereafter referred to as Metamorphs.
Metamorphs are designed as ...
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Could you use the gravity of an extremely close gas giant to assist in leaving a planet
Scenario: A gas giant knocked off orbit is projected to make an extremely close approach to our planet. Close enough to cause miles high tides, continent wide earthquakes, and send our planet on an ...
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Using superstrength to save falling people
In a world where superpowers exist, two office workers are trapped on the Nth floor of a burning skyscraper.
Superstrong Sam is 100 times as strong as a regular mortal. That means his muscles can ...
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Could bioengineered trees grow high explosives?
The setting I'm trying to develop is a post-apocalyptic partial Dyson Swarm. The world has very advanced AI and one of those developed the system as a caretaker god inhabiting the star. It has gone ...
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How to design a geckskin grappling hook to attatch to surfaces like a rocks and builidngs?
For a while now, I've been very into grappling guns and the ability to swing around buildings, etc. Specifically been very interested in the odm gear present in the show "Attack on Titan". ...
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How to store and release vast amounts of electricity for industrial processes?
What Is It For? (skip if desired)
It's been less than a decades since the Ilus system was cut off at its interstellar phase-gate, a few short years after the keidran were created and a disaster forced ...
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How to make chocolate safe for Keidran? (Basically Dog-people)
Backstory (skip if desired)
Let's take our cute and self-conscious protagonist, Jayden! (For the people that read and responded to the post about the genetics behind keidran and the colonization of ...
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What would the technical problems be of mass genetic editing? Keidran Animal-Human Hybrids
The Setting
I hear you, I'll make this brief. It's been almost 30 years since the Aurea slow cargo ship arrived at Ilus. When they launched the Aurea, almost a century ago, they had the technology to ...
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What would a laser-powered interstellar cargo ship look like?
Blurb
What would a ship with a 100 thousand tonne budged that needs to carry cryo-frozen cargo through 20 lightyears of interstellar space at 0.35C coasting velocity, using laser sails at both ends of ...
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Would mechnical resonance-induced decay affecting only hard supplies from Earth be plausible?
The year is 21XX, humans are trying to run away from the hot dumpster Earth has become. Space travel is possible thanks to an accidental tech discovery allowing long-distance jumps in space. The ...
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How Well Would Humans Fare In A Romero-Styled Zombie Apocalypse? [closed]
The Story takes place in the modern world, and starting from one day anyone who recently died with their brain intact will revive as a zombie to feed on living flesh.
In this question we will not ...
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Is "too few people left" a credible explanation for a global knowledge loss of this magnitude?
My setting is what I would call "post-post-apocalyptic", meaning that our civilization doesn't exist anymore, but the collapse has happened in a past distant enough that people aren't really ...
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How would we make antimatter in industrial quantities?
The Setting
Let's say, for the sake of argument, we have a dyson swarm. This very small torus of swarm mirrors collects over 20 exawatts of power in photons. Most of this power is lost, leaving only ...
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A virus that causes adipocyte degeneration
In my world, there is a virus that causes acquired degreasing body syndrome (also known as ADBS) (sorry, the original French name of this disease is syndrome de dégraissage corporel acquis) (the ...
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Can you destroy a dyson swarm?
The Swarm
Let's suppose we have a dyson swarm with an orbital trajectory analogous to the star-link constellation over earth, although only over a relatively small belt (lets say about 20 degrees from ...
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How could I justify use of swords, bows, and similar in a technological setting? [duplicate]
First, a quick explanation of the world's functioning.
It was home to nature-worshipping tribes, which had such a strong connection to the goddesses that developed to be like super-humans (longevity, ...
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Balancing ecosystems with monsters [closed]
When worldbuilding, I am trying to fill my world's nature with a lot of dangerous monsters. However, there was something I realized I forgot to do, and something that I notice many fantasy creators ...
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How could my characters be tricked into thinking they are on Mars? [closed]
In the not-so-distant future, a corporation announces their plan to turn a colony on Mars into a competition-reality show. This is a believable claim, because others have already colonized Mars, but ...
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Would forgetting something make it inaccessible to psychokinetic hackers? [closed]
So my organization in my planet needs a way to dispose of information such that it cannot be retrieved by people with PK. The PK people generally can enter a person's mind, read their mind, access ...
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Is it viable to have a school for warriors or assassins that pits students against each other in lethal combat?
There is an elite and secretive school of warriors known for its ruthless method of training. Very few students (only around 10%) ever complete their training; this is because the training is often ...
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Would these centaurs be able to copulate with their human genitals? [closed]
The centaurs externally appears very human-like. They have human-like hips with regular genitalia in their natural place. The horse body is similarly sized to the human body, and is connected ...
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How could a misotheistic society kill belief in powered gods?
In my setting there is a religion of giants (gaians) who believe magic/the supernatural are an affront to nature and must be exterminated by any means necessary.
For magic users this isn't to much of ...
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How can I make my fantasy cult believable?
In my world, there is a notorious cult. Despite its weird (and comical) origins, it manages to be one of the most infamous cults ever in existence. Originally, it was one big cult, formed during their ...
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1
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Armor design for fighting flying monsters?
In my setting, there is a type of monster which is an aggressive, airborne humanoid which oftentimes preys on humans travelling through its habitat. Its prevalence, and the danger which it can cause ...
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Is it feasible for a quadrupedal species to walk on hooves and hands?
I was working on a chimerical creature with the back legs of a goat and a ape’s upper body when the question occurred to me-how would this beast even walk? I tried looking to mythology for the answer.
...
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How difficult would it be to reverse engineer a device whose function is based on unknown physics?
Premise - A technological device of unknown origin is found by modern day humans. by messing with its controls, it's discovered that its function appears to create some kind of anomaly such as a ...
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Could a single, hyper-advanced civilization develop among many unadvanced societies?
In my world, there is a confederacy of citystates, ruled by witches and Pagans. They left to escape persecution from Christians (of my world) in the 13th-14th centuries, though they do not know that ...
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Survivability of a suddenly increased aphelion
I have long been wanting to write a story about Earth freezing relatively fast. In the past I have asked some questions here considering a scenario where Earth becomes a rogue planet... But I also ...
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How can a secret organisation enforce their plans without blowing their cover?
In my story there's a global organisation called Wormwood Foundation of which its very existence is classified. This organisation is tasked with protecting human civilization (and earth's biosphere) ...
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My Tripod Machines Have Flexible Legs like a Squid - - How do They Work?
In my world, a race of intelligent cephalopods have created mecha similar to the Fighting Machines from War of the Worlds (long story short; it makes sense for then as they evolved and continue to ...
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Glowing Eye Lenses: Why are the Mooks parading their location?
In many a sci-fi, the villains (and sometimes the good guys) have glowing lenses attached to their gas masks to help both identify them and provide a useful target for the protagonists. The obvious ...
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Is there an Evolutionary advantage for 10% of my mammalian species from the Homo genus to have Von Willebrand blood-clotting disease?
In my world, there is a species of human called Homo hematophagous (blood eating human).
Traditionally, these vampires are a cannibalistic race: In war they often drank the blood from their rivals' ...
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Reality check: Can Polar CO2 lakes coexist with an equatorial H2O ocean?
So I've created a cold water-world super-earth where the majority of the planet is covered in ice caps, but has an equatorial water ocean that moves north and south with the seasons. Meanwhile, much ...
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What will be the impact of stone-eating bacteria on human architecture? [closed]
There is a world, similar to ours, but not entirely.
In this world, there is a species of bacteria that eats stone. Actually, in our world, there are such bacteria also. It is called bioweathering and ...
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Why would a society be matriarchal but patrilinear?
In my universe, there is a species from the Homo genus named Homo haematophagus (which means hematophagous human) (they are still humans, just not Homo sapiens) (their scientific name is a reference ...
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Island-hopping, gigantic-sized predator?
I wish to create the necessary/sufficient conditions for an island-hopping super predator. Relevant characteristics below:
In terms of size, it is to be massive, perhaps akin to a
Tyrannosaurus while ...
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A genetic disease that is characterised by both gigantism and intellectual disability [closed]
In an Of Mice and Men parody I want to write, Of Rats and Women, there is a 30 years old woman named Léonie Petit (her surname is ironic, because petit is a French adjective that means small/little/...
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Would a post-apocalyptic village full of only children be sustainable? [closed]
In Fallout 3, there is an infamous settlement the player has to go through called Little Lamplight. Little Lamplight is a cave town that exclusively consists of children and tweens under the age of 16....
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1
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A genetic disease that makes humans of any origin have epicanthic folds (slanted eyes) [closed]
I imagined for a future film, a 21 years old human of French nationality and citizenship named Thérèse Arielle Huguette Flavie Alexandre (Alexandre can be both a given name and a surname, in this case,...
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Teenager increased to adult proportions. Will he notice?
Another crazy story. Another crazy idea I want to realistically implement.
The protagonist in this case (Ryker) just entered a mysterious, abandoned, but actually very boring "diner" with ...
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Why would a language lack gendered given names? [closed]
Most real life human languages only have gendered given names (they can only be female or male).
In my world, there is a species of Euarchontoglires from the Homo genus named merfolk (their scientific ...
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