Questions tagged [modern-age]
For questions based in contemporary Earth, current technology and social norms.
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If the USA disbanded, who would California rely on?
Background: The American Commonwealth
The USA is no longer a legal entity. A popular "statism" movement saw the election of a single-issue president, who legally and peacefully oversaw ...
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How might modern humans leave a message for 50,000 years?
I recently played my way through the Mass Effect game series, and one of the ideas I found most intriguing was the emphasis placed on "time capsules" sent from one cycle to the next: not only did ...
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Dealing ethically with future human monsters
My world is similar to modern-day Earth, though with additional magical realms not readily accessible from the Rational Realms that are familiar to us. In this world, as many as ten people in every ...
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Is it reasonable that magic would become a subject and magi would become students in military academies in a world with rediscovered magic?
Until twenty years before the time at which my story is set, the world was pretty much as our modern-age world is now. Magic was thought to be nothing more than myth and superstition. Alien worlds ...
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When did creating a new assumed identity for yourself become hard? [closed]
I have a concept for a story (see below) and a rough idea of what some of the characters will do to create the central plot point in it (again, see below), the issue is, I'm not sure what point in ...
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When universes collide, how much of an emergency is it?
The world of Pandemonium is a world in another universe where humans may exist, that is gravitationally connected to Earth in our universe. Over the course of history since the big bang, these ...
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Detectability of a Type III Civilization with a specific set of conditions
Conditions:
The civilization is in a galaxy which is not the Milky Way. For the purposes of this question, assume the target galaxy is 0.5 Mpc away.
The civilization has elected, for whatever reason ...
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Noticing a space-fight or, A muzzle-flash on the deep
It’s Earth, the modern day…and in the out there, there is a fight going on.
Two vast space-empires duel for survival, locked in hateful combat. Clashes of fleets and individual spaceships are the most ...
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Modern warfare helmets for cat eared humans
TL;DR Justify helmets that work for humans with cat ears for a modern army
There has been a few cat species from medieval/fantasy like khajit and mithra and they have taken a few different methods ...
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Seal off a modern town
Say I have a modern Era USA town. This town has a population of about 30,000 and an area of about 30 square miles (79.4 square km). It is a predominantly rural area, lots of farmland around the town.
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How many people are needed to staff a "school" like Hogwarts?
What I mean by "a school like Hogwart" is that:
students range from age 11 to about 18, with about a thousand students in total
most students live here during most of the year
it works in ...
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Near-instantaneous inter-star communication utilising wormholes
This is my first question on the worldbuilding stack exchange, I discovered this place last night when double-checking that my world's river-carving-through-a-mountain-range is possible (it was, which ...
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Most effective long-term zombie killing weapon
So I asked this question a few days ago, with excellent and certainly useful feedback. I've decided I'd like to build upon that question with some ways to combat our 'new and improved super zombies'.
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Modern soldiers carry axes instead of combat knives. Why?
In my alternative history story, taking place at the end of the 20th century, one country has an army with platoons of airborne scouts. But unlike modern special forces they don't use combat knives as ...
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In modern day combat, what would warrant singing during battle?
Cicad the singer is having a downtime in his career.
Over the millennia, Cicad sang anywhere from royal courts to farmers' cottages and have been rewarded with many, many hand-claps.
But to keep ...
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How would a society be structured so everyone can die in combat?
Many ancient religions place value on dying in combat. For example, in Norse mythology, only those slain in battle are able to enter Valhalla.
In this alternate universe, a the population of a small ...
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What do fairies wear and how can they evade detection by our cameras?
Set in the modern day; fairies are tennis ball sized humanoids with wings residing within the dense rainforest throughout the world. Local human populations consider them to be guardians protecting ...
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Scooped up for military research: How realistic is it in this day and age?
Being 'scooped up' for military research - or being a creation of military research - has been a common trope of movies and TV for many years. However, in most western nations, if not most nations ...
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Could a humantaur in the US be accepted to West Point and/or have a career in the US Military?
For the last seventeen years, Kerner Syndrome children, known colloquially as humantaurs (as in the image below, having a fully functional second abdomen and second pair of legs, plus a horse-like ...
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Would an active-duty modern US special forces soldier be able to have retained foreign bodies from previous injuries?
I'm working on a character for my story. He is an active-duty US Army Ranger performing combat missions. I would like him to have had a previous injury suffered in the line of duty in which foreign ...
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How would California Child Protective Services deal with a feral humantaur child?
For the last thirteen years, Kerner Syndrome children, known colloquially as humantaurs (as in the image below, having a fully functional second abdomen and second pair of legs, plus a horse-like tail ...
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Reason for a good parent to have to give their child to another to be raised for two years with minimal interaction [closed]
I want a protagonist to have to take over raising a friend's baby for ~ 2 years, fully knowing they will have the child for a long time. I want the friend to have chosen the protagonist to care for ...
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How can I make combination weapons widespread in my world?
I'm writing a low fantasy fiction in a XVIII century-tech kind of world.
The reason of the setting is that I love early modern muzzleloading weapons, and I think guns can make fantasy more interesting....
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When dealing with a drought or a bushfire, is a million tons of water overkill?
The people of the Vorfall Panzer Werkstat gesellschaft build the largest aircraft in the galaxy. The pride of their fleet is currently the Gyre Explorer, which is an aircraft weighing in at 140,000 ...
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What would a modern fortified castle look like?
Assume that paramilitary siege weapons were proliferated to the general public after America fell. Details below, but basically short of multi-billion dollar tactical weapons such as advanced fighter ...
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The Jumbled Jaunts of Jormungandr: How predictable is the Snakebot of Doom being? [closed]
Jormungandr, the Snakebot of Doom has left New York. The world's armies and air forces have been decimated and cannot stop it. It has moved on from New York, and has flattened the following North ...
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What would be the best area of medicine for a doctor that moonlights in fighting evil to specialize their career in to deal with unexplained absences?
I have a character who is involved in the typical, secretive supernatural shenanigans of my setting (think something like a superhero, a monster hunter, or the vampires in Vampire: The Masquerade) but ...
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The "Exciting" Drilling company dug an underground canal connecting Death Valley to the Pacific. How much electricity can it generate on tidal forces?
Badwater Basin, part of Death Valley, is 282 feet (86 m) below sea level at its lowest point.
The "Exciting" drilling company, based in Nevada (they are exciting and not at all like their b**...
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The "Exciting" Drilling company dug an underground canal connecting Death Valley to the Pacific. How does it change the Mojave climate?
Badwater Basin, part of Death Valley, is 282 feet (86 m) below sea level at its lowest point.
The "Exciting" drilling company, based in Nevada (they are exciting and not at all like their b**...
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What is a reasonable timeframe to build a funeral pyre with a hundred corpses, with five apocalypse survivors
Survivors reaching a post-apocalyptic urban area in the north-western quadrant (North America or Europe) need to remove and dispose of all corpses in the building they intend to live in. They have ...
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What are some animals a fifteen year old boy should be able to hunt, easily, in an Early Modern Setting?
Overall I am trying to show the romance between a fifteen year old boy and girl as they both grow and age over the next few years. One of the major points of attraction is his incredible hunting ...
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How to design tentacle massage machine?
I started to wonder about the possibility of a tentacle massage machine. To make the setting even more bizarre, it was intended to be a mass market home appliance. The tech level should be comparable ...
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Why would guns not work in the dungeon?
In my setting I need to have a dungeon where people cannot use guns or other gunpowder weapons.
The reason can be anything: it's impossible to bring guns in, guns don't work inside the dungeon, ...
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What would be the ideal date and time for a magical zombie apocalypse to occur to cause the most death and destruction?
An invisible eldritch entity has enveloped the entirety of modern planet Earth. As a result of this, any human who dies becomes a zombie. This is not spread by bites or anything like that, death of ...
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How would a completely bulletproof clothing affect modern warfare?
Let's say in a few years a brand new material is discovered, a kevlar like fiber that is strong enough to stop any kind of bullet from a regular firearm (pistols, rifles, machine guns etc.). Anything ...
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How does the Law handle temporary curing of sociopathy?
I know that sociopathy isn't technically in the DSM any more, but what I mean by the term is an individual devoid of a conscience. They don't feel guilt no matter what they do and as such so long as ...
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Government assisted suicide process, can it work and what should be the steps? [closed]
Imagine a country similar to the USA but one that is not completely opposed to suicide. This country believes there can occasionally be situations where death can be preferable to living in pain (be ...
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Why does this society eat bones? [closed]
Animals eat bones but most human societies do not. I have a fictional modern society which engages in this practice, but what sort of history or culture would lead to it?
Objectively, there are health ...
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How can demigods living among us in the 21st century prevent losing powers?
Generations of demigod and semi-demigod have been hiding and living among us to this present day, they made a pact with the god to never reveal the existence of God or themselves in public unless they ...
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The Secretary General of the UN is dead. Who acts in his place?
António Guterres, the Secretary General of the UN, and many other UN employees were killed when Jormungandr, the Snakebot of Doom steamrolled New York city in January 2017.
Now, in early February 2017,...
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Post-democratical political system
Question: how will this idea fail?
Preferably in a way that is fundamental, and can't be easily fixed with small changes. And politically based, being unable to respond to problems because of the ...
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What is the stumbling block for a world of "Alphas"? [closed]
In 149597871's utopia, there will be no need for that as only a small minority of "alpha" males would be allowed to impregnate girls while the rest of the (beta) men will only support them ...
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How badly has the snakebot doomed the world?
First, on January 20th, 2017, the capitol cities of the Nuclear Club were destroyed by (very clean) 80 megaton nuclear blasts: Washington DC, Moscow, London, Paris, Beijing, New Delhi, Islamabad, ...
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How many people can be evacuated from Boston before it is flattened by the Snakebot of Doom?
Jormungandr, the Snakebot of Doom, has left the rubble of New York from where it has just finished destroying all the world's petroleum refineries and metal smelters, and has just made a right-hand ...
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Could ectotherms keep warm in winter?
While ectotherms are generally able to operate at a wide array of temperatures, there are still limits
This would present a problem to any ectotherms wishing to visit (or even live in) colder regions. ...
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An anthropomorphic personification of the new year [closed]
We humans have a long tradition of inventing personifications for otherwise impersonal events... such as Santa Claus, Krampus, the Easter Bunny, Jack Frost, the Tooth Fairy, Time, Death, Pestilence, ...
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Would we notice ridiculously healthy birds?
Consider the following situation:
Over the last 2 to 3 years, all the world's birds and bats outside of those in human captivity or domestication have stopped getting sick; sick - even terminally sick ...
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I want to simulate Purchase Power Parity in my own universe, how can I do that?
I am currently working on a modern fantasy world, in which I am working on gdp and statistics for, I'm having a issue simulating PPP for each of the nations, and I can't find any good articles on it. ...
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Possible Reason, why magic can't be recorded by modern technology
I am imagining a Harry-Potter-like magical scenario: A secret parallel society of magic wielders in our modern-day era, only known to those, who grew up in it or those, who got initiated.
I find it ...
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Is non-manmade pandemic a realistic threat to modern first world?
Inspired by this question, and my own answer to it: Avoiding galactic pandemics. World ending pandemics are a common disaster/after-the-end story trope, I'm trying to determine if plausible, and how ...
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