Questions tagged [modern-age]
For questions based in contemporary Earth, current technology and social norms.
274
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Vampires are real. How to stop everybody from freaking out? [closed]
Good morning, ladies and gentleman, and congratulations on your promotions. You are now all official members of the Ministry of the Protection of Vampires. The creation of this new branch of the ...
- 1,373
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5
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Killing a mind controller [closed]
Bill has a special power: he can create any kind of sensory hallucination on anyone that gets near him (about 1 km range).
The hallucination can be as complex as he wants it to be, and it doesn't ...
- 522
15
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19
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Most effective method of creating fear? [closed]
Let's say a psychotic alien race come across the earth.
They are technologically advanced, having near total control over matter at a molecular level, perfect understanding of biology in all its ...
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4
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2
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How would a modern city defend against dragons which glow in X-ray and emit electromagnetic pulses?
Tens of thousands of dragons (as big as B2 bomber and top speed clocking at Mark 0.5) mysteriously appears above New York City. They are docile in nature, but these creatures pose a serious threat to ...
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3
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How to create traps that only kill someone if they try to help another and aren't obviously the work of a seriel killer?
All this discussion of discussion of life after death and rather the faithful should fear death : Why doesn't the verified existence of heaven change characters' attitude toward death? ...
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2
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Why won't police help? [closed]
I am writing a book where time travelers want to kill me because I foil their plan in the future. Luckily I find out before it's too late.
Obviously, the best plan to protect myself from future ...
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31
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17
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Could we still plunge modern civilization into another black death?
Many thought it was the poor hygiene and inadequate medicines that laid waste to the entire world -- particularly Europe -- as millions of lives were lost, although the death toll only subsided but it ...
- 46.4k
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What would it take for Jane Doe to craft a book from scratch?
Background
Say hi to Jane Doe. Jane is a writer and, after years of writing and rewriting, has finally achieved what she believes is her greatest, most personal piece of writing ever.
And she has a ...
user20952
0
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2
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196
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Utilizing government debt to manipulate the government
In a modern industrialized country, the government issues bonds to cover the majority of their debt. There is an individual, or group, that wishes to push policy to favor their morals. What percentage ...
- 2,417
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3
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Get the names in a modern/real world settings? [closed]
How do you invent the names of the chars in your story in a modern/real world? I find myself in trouble when I need modern names. Any suggestion?
EDIT: ok, sorry for the broadness of my question. The ...
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How would psychics employed by Customs or the Coast Guard use their abilities?
I have a question for those familiar with the dark arts. I am looking for answers from people with knowledge of clairvoyance and psychic abilities (no matter how they came upon this knowledge!) to ...
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If ancient creatures could access Modern Technology [closed]
Would it be OK if demigods, gods, human-like mythical creatures in ancient culture (like Greek, Roman, Norse, Egyptian, etc) were familiar and used modern technology such as guns, computers, mobile ...
- 11
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How do you keep magical creatures trapped in a closed village while allowing for expansion?
Magical people such as trolls, vampires, and nopperabou have had a complicated relationship with nonmagical folk. They were mostly sworn to secrecy, but not everybody followed that oath. Nonmagicals ...
20
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How could a smaller country successfully take control of a much larger country?
Imagine a scenario where a country around the size of New Zealand (in GDP, population, military strength and other areas) decides that it wants to take control of or at least destroy a much larger ...
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How would a pure fusion bomb change modern warfare
Currently most Nukes are actually thermonuclear fusion bombs ignited by a fission (uranium or plutoniom) bomb.
The fission bomb is like a lighting match that s needed to trigger the more powerful ...
- 4,126
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Fighting a dragon with modern military units Part II: Airborne First Encounter
So, we have our MEU vs. dragon scenario set up. Harriers launch and zoom overhead as the Marines on the ground hop off their LCACs onto the island and spread out in search of the beast, anti-materiel ...
- 11.3k
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Fighting a dragon with modern military units (or Smaug vs. a MEU)
First off -- this differs from our history questions on this topic in that we are dealing with modern assets here, not historical ones, and from this question in that our military units are out to ...
- 11.3k
7
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7
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545
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Fiction Accuracy: American Nightmare
I checked yesterday the movie The Purge: Election Year (American Nightmare in French, which does not make sense because the title is already in English but nevermind), and I found it to be a correct ...
- 1,006
45
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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 ...
- 5,775
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Which voltage and frequency would be selected if there were no legacy issues?
Which voltage and frequency would be selected if there were no legacy issues?
I can easily find how selection of electricity frequency and voltage was based on backward compatibility and quite ...
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Modern Body Armor for Medieval Style Weapons
Imagine an alternate history, where weapons types didn't advance past "medieval" type weapons. So like: swords, maces, flails, crossbows, bows, polearms, mauls, etc. I'm intentionally excluding "gun"/...
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How large could a modern state get? [closed]
In my world , instead of the world being discovered to be a finite planet during the age of discovery , humans discover that the world is infinite. Due to this , the age of discovery never ends , and ...
user15036
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Where could a person from the 14th century appear such that they would not notice modern technology for a week?
In this case, a person from a world similar to ours, at a time and technology roughly equivalent to our 14th century, but with magic. Through some odd spell, this person was teleported far away from ...
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How to cut corners while rebuilding after apocalypse?
Setting:
modern technology (read early XXIst century), modern humans.
new virgin planet which needs infrastructure.
millions of survivors, but still little by standards of global economy.
Aim: ...
- 10.1k
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729
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Golden/Silver Age Superhero Societal Acceptance Reality Check
Following the general trope with Silver/Golden Age Superheroes' relationship with society, law enforcement, and government we can get the following:
Superheroes may or may not work directly with law ...
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2
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806
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Mermaid means of transportation
Assuming we're talking about a world similar to ours, the only difference being the existence of mermaids. They are fish with an upper half visibly similar to a human's, who live in the sea, can ...
- 115
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With the unfortunate death of every human living less than 1000ft above sea level, who would be left? [closed]
Obviously the short answer is 'everyone living 1001+ feet above sea level', but I'm looking for something a bit more nuanced.
Imagine a rolling wave of death - a 'turning off' of the brain, no other ...
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Reducing human military capability
In Sorting and categorising the world's militaries, I asked about categorising modern human militaries with respect to destroying the Snakebot of Doom, and it was pointed out that this might not ...
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What role would a large battleship do in the modern world? [closed]
A fledgling sea-bound nation (with a good amount of money) has built a considerable size navy including several battleships with these specifications:
Dimensions:
Length: 1,500 feet
Beam: 120 feet
...
- 482
1
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3
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505
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Influence of very stealthy black helicopters on modern warfare
It is 1977 year of a slightly altered history of our world. The Soviet Union has invented, and USA have stolen blueprints (or opposite, USA invented, Soviet Union stole) of a very stealthy flying ...
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14
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How to keep wizards and other magicial creatures from taking over the government? [duplicate]
In most urban fantasy, powerful wizards and other magical creatures form their own societies with their own governments and politics (The Magical Congress of America, for example). They seem very ...
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Sorting and categorising the world's militaries
Given that in my question, Defeating the revised Snakebot of Doom, the nanite-AI intelligences that control the Snakebot of Doom will prioritise its attacks on the most militarily-capable nations, ...
- 55.8k
3
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474
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What is the minimum industrial infrastructure required to colonize Mars?
There's resources on Mars but the environment is completely inhospitable so sending colonists before the requisite infrastructure to support them is established is doomed to fail, at least that's what ...
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1
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How would the existence of the Yokai phenomenon change society? [closed]
By "yokai phenomenon" I mean the way anything, anyone or even concepts/ideas can become magical, animate, sentient and possibly predatory, as commonly depicted in Japanese mythology and modern fiction....
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What parts do I need for an airport, and how large does it need to be?
I'm trying to design an airport for a city, but have been having trouble with scale and layout. The city in question has heavy air traffic, equivalent to that of London, but when I look at airport ...
- 903
3
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5
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How to evacuate half a million people from a floating landmass in an hour?
I most definitely did not just watch Avengers: Age of Ultron. But because it happens to be relevant, and not inspiration for this post (oh, no, it's just a coincidence), I'll provide some backstory. ...
- 2,647
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10
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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 ...
- 4,686
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13
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15k
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Could humanity survive if all except a few males died in a plague?
Tomorrow, a sudden airborne plague comes around that kills nearly all human males - women are unaffected. The UN and different nations try their hardest but fail to find a cure. There are riots and ...
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3
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352
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Dragons and Aviation Bureaucracy, the spin-off: what about piloted, non-sentient beings?
A year ago or so, a series of questions has been posted about dragons and aviation bureaucracy, with the following 4 questions:
Dragons and aviation bureaucracy
Dragons and aviation bureaucracy, the ...
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5
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1k
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Fantastical acceptance
or;
Pass me my gryphon pants please.
His high school racial studies were kind of a pain, Billy thought. Spending the day as a unicorn may have made gym class easy, but it just made trying to write on ...
- 4,686
4
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9
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Can rebelling US state join the commonwealth?
Requirement: Suspend disbelief for sci-fi parody story
Story idea: Donald Trump wins US presidential elections. One US state rebels against it and leaves USA. People of that state also gain ...
- 45.2k
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How do the zombies win when they're so weak?
I'm writing an autobiography of my life in the post-Zed world. Now, I think the effects of the Zeds have been obvious – total obliteration of any worldwide infrastructure, severe depopulation, turning ...
anon
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2
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431
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Could a greedy company get rid of an open source project? [closed]
What if, for some reason an open source project disgusts a huge company to the level they would do anything to get rid of it. Could they terminate the project? How?
I just showed an open source ...
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Defeating the revised Snakebot of Doom
In Weapons for a civilisation-destroying giant robot I asked about what weapons might be placed on a sixty-billion-ton fusion-powered snakebot 9.27 km long and 1.19 km in diameter, armoured with 224 ...
- 55.8k
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6
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Defeating the Snakebot of Doom
In Weapons for a civilisation-destroying giant robot I asked about what weapons might be placed on a sixty-billion-ton fusion-powered snakebot 9.27 km long and 1.19 km in diameter, armoured with 224 ...
- 55.8k
3
votes
2
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221
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Detection and response to building a giant robot under the Antarctic ice-cap
In the question, Weapons for a civilisation-destroying giant robot, I asked about what weapons might be mounted on a giant snakebot over 1 km in diameter and over 9km long, equipped with six fusion ...
- 55.8k
6
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2
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Monolithic vehicles vs a convoy; So you want to go on a road trip
The scenario; suddenly a modern human world finds their nice, simple, understandable spherical world/solar system going poof overnight, and it being replaced by a mine-crafting plane world. Everyone ...
- 4,686
57
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12
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Would gorillas with human-level intelligence make effective soldiers?
Suppose I take a troop of gorillas and modify them to have human-level intelligence. How effective would they be in a war when compared to modern human soldiers, when comparably equipped?
Aside from ...
- 46.2k
3
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6
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755
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How do I incorporate magic into my world while avoiding a magic-dominated world? [closed]
My story is set in present day. Magical beings co-exist among humans, but I don't know how to achieve that without having said beings live in secret or hide their abilities.
I want magic to not be an ...
- 119
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1
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How to "launder" airplanes?
Deep within the Underworld, the Deathlord Einherjar rules over a desert known as the Boneyard. It is said that whenever a plane crashes on Earth with no survivors, it will be soon be found half buried ...
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