Questions tagged [modern-age]
For questions based in contemporary Earth, current technology and social norms.
274
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How can a man forced to fix a computer send a warning that he is being held hostage while being closely watched by a non-programmer [closed]
My character is a Master's student in computer science. He stumbled upon a sort of mini-terrorist cell trying to cause trouble and is now being held hostage by them. They are trying to run a virus ...
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2
votes
6
answers
128
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Retain a piece of live information [closed]
There is a piece of information that is alive.
It is an unique spirit entity
When a human possesses it, the thing will try to insert its own things into the person's output (writing, speaking, ...
- 2,331
1
vote
3
answers
271
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Bending light to create holograms
In my modern fantasy story, magic users are shown creating 3-dimensional light structures or holograms by bending the light source from a flashlight to create a holographic images such as animals and ...
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4
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693
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What security measures can stop robbers from digging a tunnel into a cash vault? [closed]
There is a huge bank vault with billions worth in save deposit boxes (jewelry, bullion, documents, certificates, etc) and cash reserves. It is also a regional base for ATM cash resupply, so there are ...
- 14.3k
27
votes
6
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3k
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Ergonomically correct eagle riders in the modern age
Since Tolkien put people riding on giant eagles in his books (or maybe even before that), the imaginarium of riding the winds on the back of magnificent birds has generated a plethora of images and ...
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55
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30
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Reasons why healthy people would intentionally want to get infected?
What would be a situation in modern times where normal, healthy people would want to get infected by a non-curable, but non-lethal, virus?
A virus that would have pretty nasty symptoms.
There is ...
- 947
1
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6
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359
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How to defeat an AI wizard? [closed]
This takes place in our modern world, combined with a magical setting. All our modern inventions are here.
After reading my question here, a wizard in this world (different world and magic system ...
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3
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7
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How a mage starts his career in a magic system that requires belief from others?
Let me explain about the magic system:
You need people to believe you can do X.
Difficult feat needs more believers.
There's no penalty from those who disbelieve what you can do.
Your power ...
- 10.9k
23
votes
8
answers
3k
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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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5
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4
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823
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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 ...
- 521
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14
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What kind of a tax system would encourage well-off to have many children?
This question is inspired by the Would high fertility rate among the rich crowd out commoners? . The tax rate presented doesn't seem to encourage the desired behavior.
The starting assumptions are:
...
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7
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2
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313
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How to calculate maximum altitude difference between metro stations?
For story purpose I am trying to design a mass transit system for a perfect city. Right ... maybe not so perfect, if you look carefully into the details, but actually the mass transit system is ...
- 10.1k
4
votes
2
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396
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Magic shop with a modern look? [closed]
Inspired from Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Museum and a Chinese medicine shop, compare it with a modern pharmacy, and noting how an apothecary is historically a predecessor to modern pharmacology. It ...
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4
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Would high fertility rate among the rich crowd out commoners?
I'm creating a developed country where due to tax reasons affluent have more children then the lower classes. The marginal tax rate is very high 80% and there are no legal loopholes to avoid paying ...
- 997
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3
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188
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Reasons for leaving rich country? [closed]
Could there be any plausible reasons why citizens of a rich developed country would want to emigrate?
I need reasons strong enough that country would constantly suffer from large emigration.
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4
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306
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Is it possible to make high voltage cables hard to detect?
The tech level is roughly comparable to contemporary. There is a loosely populated planet, where any realistic power grid system should span over continents, with on average a few thousand kilometers ...
- 10.1k
20
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9
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Economic super power with little political clout?
Is it possible for a country to be economic & technological super power but to have relatively little political clout?
If its possible under what circumstances it could happen?
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13
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831
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How to make rich have more children? [closed]
My country has a problem with concentration of wealth, rich people have few children and they tend to intermarry with other wealthy people. The wealth concentrates in less and less hands and soon we ...
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3
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2
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158
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How would intravenous collars/bracelets be best administered? [closed]
Vampires have invented a safe, easy means of removing blood from animals without constantly jabbing them with needles and alarming them. A simple band, with a specially made IV tube in it that opens ...
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2
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How long can New York City sustain the Snakebot of Doom's hunger for Iron and steel?
The time: January 27th, 2017, 7:00 AM local. The place: New York City and environs.
Jormungandr, the Snakebot of Doom, has just finished steamrolling New York City into something more closely ...
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4
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Would there be a plausible strategy to take as POW high percentage of army with high morale?
Side A: Technocracy, highly industrialized, rich, hedonistic, peaceful (sort of ;) )
Side B: Theocracy, poor, ascetic, openly declares that it want to conquer all non-believers
Assets:
Side A: Small, ...
- 10.1k
5
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2
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483
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Can you remove the scent from a person?
I was wondering if it is possible to make someone scentless for life with modern technology.
Requirements
The individual's appearance must remain normal enough that they could walk down a street ...
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22
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3
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3k
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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 ...
- 10.1k
10
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2
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836
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Air routes around a “hurricane eye” on a tidally locked planet
On a tidally locked Earth-like planet a big part of long distance air routes would have to approach the hurricane eye and some may even benefit from it.
On Earth aircraft are able to save time and ...
- 10.1k
1
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2
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613
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Where would be the most suitable place to build a capital for Earth-clone planet for modern society? [closed]
Assumptions, main:
literally Earth like planet, looks just like modern Earth, just without humans, without pollution, without depleted natural resources, even megafauna is left. Just in this timeline ...
- 10.1k
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1
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824
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The sexy zombie outbreak [closed]
Tomorrow hordes of zombies will invade the streets around the world caused by an airborne fungus. The disease is incurable and the symptoms are similar to rabies.
These zombies try to infect and ...
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4
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3
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229
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Which knowledge would be most likely to be lost if one needed to make back up of human knowledge in hurry?
Imagine a situation in which a small group of people, not working for any gov has good reason to think that civilisation (as we know it) is going to be destroyed soon. As usual as in such situation ...
- 10.1k
26
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12
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9k
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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 ...
- 55.8k
4
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6
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How would a minority of psychic humans survive in our modern society?
A minority of humans awakened their psionic potential. I'm going to choose people with Asperger's for this question, because I like to write about my people.
We know that humans fear the unknown and ...
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4
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5
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331
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Which legal procedures should be used to protect legitimacy of sortitition based deliberative democracy?
"sortition based deliberative democracy" - I'm not certain how exactly such a system should be called in English. I mean a political system in which instead of making a general election or referendum, ...
- 10.1k
19
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13
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8k
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How to keep apartheid alive?
For my story, I need South African apartheid to still be alive in the 1990's. Everything else is more or less the same. For example, the Eastern block still collapses in 1989.
What would be the ...
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3
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Which crucial ore (deficit or abundance) could plausibly dramatically change modern-like civilization?
I need a bit more flavour to my setting. If it's just Earth like - it's boring. If all technology (in spite of comparable tech level) is too alien then there is a risk that it is simply impractical to ...
- 10.1k
2
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6
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697
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Would an aircraft that uses assisted takeoff and water landing be realistic?
Assisted takeoff is one of several technologies that can possibly boost efficiency of aircraft, as said:
Listen to the changing sound of engines during flight and it’s obvious: an aircraft draws on ...
- 10.1k
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1
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307
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How do i sell the last love potion? [closed]
Let's say a guy (let's call him Rene) found an old chest in his new house. The chest contains only a strange bottle filled with 600 milliliters of a pink fluid that emanates an eerie light. The note ...
- 4,544
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What design for a Martian space colony would be the most realistic and efficient at the same time? [closed]
Using cutting-edge, but also modern day technology.
Where on Mars would the inhabitants live in?
In what type of housing would the inhabitants live in?
What commercial aspects would exist, and how?
...
6
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9
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4k
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Is an assault rifle that can in emergency also use pistol ammo realistic?
After seeing that recent pistol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_Five-seven) has bullet diameter quite similar to one used in modern assault rifle, I started to wonder whether it is possible (and ...
- 10.1k
2
votes
4
answers
610
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How would a short distance flechette gun look and function?
After getting very good answer concerning which kind of weapon would be reasonable on a planet with air density of 3 atmospheres
(What would be a reasonable caliber for an assault rifle and sniper ...
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0
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1
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372
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How much money would a soul cost? [closed]
Felryite is a pale gemstone that can trap souls. Souls can be used as a powerful energy source. They can be used to extend the lifespan of a person by 100 years, to create a sentient AI and an über-...
- 4,544
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5
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If only true love awakens magical power: How do i train mages in modern times? [closed]
A long time ago magic was common in humans. Our ancestors used that power to hunt mammoths using the most humble magic, Super strength.
The key to magic was the True love between two sentient beings ...
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0
votes
2
answers
218
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Psychological effects of HLD Syndrome on human males?
The next year 50 % of the male population unlocks the inner-eye by a blessing of the young god Migitow. The inner-eye is the gift of being the master of your own dreams.
Much more common in ...
- 4,544
2
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2
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251
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How to sell a real Spellbook and what price for it? [closed]
Brad discovers a book in his basement. The old book is written in ancient English and dates from 1800. Brad learned a fire spell and burnt his house to the ground; only he and the book survived.
Now,...
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1
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2
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How to remotely spread life?
Our planet is dying. Cliche, I know, but unfortunately true and we do not have superpowers or the technology to build generation ships to escape. We have maybe a hundred years left, and we have ...
- 3,194
0
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2
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216
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Where do you flee when the zomghost-quarantine fails? [closed]
This is a shift from the traditional "how to survive a zombie outbreak": zomghost-Edition!
Lets say this year several small objects land on earth spreading an interdimensional pathogen. People start ...
- 4,544
39
votes
17
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How to realistically create a bow that's also two one-handed swords?
In the anime RWBY most characters have crazy weapons with multiple forms, like a scythe, that’s also a gun, or a gauntlet, that’s also a gun or a sword, that’s also a scythe AND a gun!
But the ...
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5
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5
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Could self-driving light rail/subway/tram trains be much shorter (fewer cars) than systems where trains need drivers?
Tech level: more or less contemporary, no tech that would put you in awe.
I'm trying to make realistic, driverless, mass-transit system. The first idea was that "driverless" implies that in each ...
- 10.1k
1
vote
1
answer
175
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Feasibility of mothballing passenger jets and cannibalizing some of them
Situation:
A huge, well organized group of survivors (including pilots, technicians, etc).
A few dozens of passenger jets left that because of shortage of fuel soon would not serve as transport ...
- 10.1k
30
votes
8
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8k
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What is a city like after a hundred years or so of neglect?
I have a post-apocalyptic setting where the vast majority of humanity died off a few generations ago and the remnants were rounded up and placed on the island of Oahu, which has been made into a ...
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30
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8
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4k
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In modern world, what is the largest building that could be built overnight?
I've worked a couple of Habitat for Humanity mass builds where entire houses go from a poured foundation to complete in the course of a few days, and whole neighborhoods are built in a week. There's a ...
- 25.4k
3
votes
2
answers
340
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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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53
votes
14
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7k
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Fallout from aliens destabilizing economy by counterfeiting all global currencies?
Let's say a species of naive, yet well-intentioned aliens came across the Earth.
They generally like humans and decide to try to increase their happiness by supplying the thing which they have ...
- 9,722