Questions tagged [modern-age]
For questions based in contemporary Earth, current technology and social norms.
274
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What would an Earth with no timezones be like?
If we abolished the system of time zones, and everywhere followed UTC (or another arbitrary timezone), what would the possible advantages or disadvantages of this system be? If you can think of any ...
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How can one "under-average Joe" fight monsters?
I'm trying to write a novel, which is supposed to be similar to the typical "gespenster krimi" genre.
But I don't like typical main protagonists of these novels - tall, strong, clever man ...
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1
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Dragons and aviation bureaucracy, part 4: Studying for the PPL
So, the big, wingy, smart, talking, fire-breathin', scaly fella from this question managed (somehow) to become a legal permanent resident of the USA (green card or citizenship). Now, he wishes to get ...
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How would rapid healing affect modern small scale combat tactics and weapons?
Lets say that we are in the modern world, which looks mostly the same as it does today. However, rapid healing has become available, in my world due to sudden influx magic but for this question you ...
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Best way to reveal your group of magic users
You are a member of a group of magic users in a modern-day Earth. Your group has some significant number of people, but is still a stark minority of the world's population (there are about 6 million ...
- 3,755
43
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A person from medieval times comes into our time. What would he notice first?
A medieval person (say from around 1000 AD, and from a rural village) walks through the forest, and through some unspecified mechanism suddenly turns out to be in our time. He is still far away from ...
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1
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Everything organic you see turns to ash; extent of damage
I'm thinking of a character who is cursed (magical in nature) so that everything organic that enters his vision is immediately turned to ash, with the exception of his own body (ie, he won't reduce ...
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What US states are most likely to rebel?
A Little Explanation
I have come across many books and trilogies based on the premise of a war torn United States. The latest of these is Burning Nation (link to Amazon page) in the Divided We Fall ...
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How would a magician trick scientists into believing he is using science?
Now let's say there is a magician. We'll say he like a DnD wizard or something, so he does stuff like create food out of thin air and turns people he doesn't like into lizards. He doesn't want to ...
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Dragons and aviation bureaucracy, part 3: Plopping a Dragon into Today's World (or Papers, please, big fella)
Given the context of my previous dragon questions -- slow, but fairly high-flying dragons (say FL250 or so for a service ceiling), capable of flying under Earth's conditions and growing up to RJ or ...
- 11.3k
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5
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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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42
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32
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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'.
...
- 1,190
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8
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How far away could Earth detect a projectile travelling at relativistic speeds?
Suppose our alien neighbors woke up on the wrong side of the bed and decided humans would be less annoying if their home planet was hit with a giant artillery shell travelling at half the speed of ...
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How would the constant presence of an affable, undemanding immortal affect a society?
There are lots of books that explore immortality outside the context of society. Either they live alone or in a heaven/palace of one sort or another, or they drift from place to place to avoid ...
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2
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2
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About how much food would a restaurant have on hand
I've got a scenario where a restaurant and its customers & staff are transported to another world. The question is: About how much food would they have on hand?
The restaurant in question has ...
- 353
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7
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Implications of a world where mercenaries are more capable than most militaries?
I have been working on an RPG (a video game) where one of the key plot "themes" is the prevalence of mercenaries, of very varied capabilities and fame/infamy/secrecy.
After lurking answers on here ...
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Dragons and aviation bureaucracy, the sequel: Dragons on Instruments!
Starting with the background provided in this question, how would a dragon outfit himself/herself (avionics, power systems, etal) for operating under the Instrument Flight Rules? How would the ...
- 11.3k
52
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7
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Dragons and aviation bureaucracy
Once you do the handwaving needed to explain a modern-day world with flight-capable dragons in it, how would said dragons interact with the bureaucracy surrounding flying in the modern world? What ...
- 11.3k
39
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7
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How long can an abandoned, semi-sheltered computer remain bootable?
Simply put, what's the expiration date of a computer? The reason I ask is for the sake of a society recovering from some sort of cataclysm and trying to reclaim lost technology. However, I could also ...
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202
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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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What are the enabling factors for melee combat in modern or future settings?
Swords are neat. Unfortunately, they aren't very practical with guns around. What sorts of technologies, social circumstances, environmental factors or magics would allow for people who train to fight ...
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What would be the main societal changes if we invented a free and unlimited energy source tomorrow on earth? [closed]
In this setting, a scientist invents a method for free and unlimited energy that is accessible to each and every one (open source, easy to manufacture...). This happens on nowadays earth.
What would ...
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Regulating the usage of magic in the modern era
If magic were to manifest in the modern (present) age, how would first world governments attempt to classify and regulate its usage? To be more specific (and an example), if the USA created a ...
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