Questions tagged [science-fiction]
Allows for fanciful, creative or imaginative solutions based on or rationalized by Real World science, but not necessary limited by Real World science. Entirely magical solutions must use the magic tag instead. This tag should not be used with the science-based, hard-science, or internal-consistency tags. This tag should never be the only tag on a question, because this tag frames how a question should be answered, not the topic.
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Can the mass of a rocky Super Giant be artificially reduced?
THE PREMISE:
Let's imagine a solar system with at least two rocky planets.
One is Earth sized "A" (or smaller) and the second is a Super Giant "B".
Both are in the habitable zone ...
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Could a supernova powered starship work/survive?
As in, it forces the star to undergo rapid nova/supernova by contracting the star. It then redirects the force of the nova/supernova out the back end, via ricocheting the force around the ship till it ...
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How would a "universal language field" work? [duplicate]
Looking to work with the topic of interspecies translation, covering a very wide variety of alien types and biologies, with a "universal translator"—but rather than a universal translation ...
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Visibility in a ringworld atmosphere?
So I am proposing a ring-world of approximately 1600 km diameter. The ring spins for earth like gravity. The ring itself would be several kilometers thick with Earth like variations in elevation (i....
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What is the Distance needed for gravitational lensing for offensive lasers?
Space Navies A and B are on sufficiently distant orbits around a black hole. They are on similar orbits to each other, and neither side is risking going around the gravity well (for reasons). Lt. ...
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What to do so the sun (light source) appears to be following a daily cycle on a McKendree cylinder?
In my setting, a McKendree cylinder (a rotating habitat so large it holds its own atmosphere) is orbiting the sun, with the top of the cylinder pointing at the sun.
How do we make the sun appear to ...
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Frozen Stars - Can my planet's inhabitants use U-238 reactors for 10,000 years, till their star thaws out?
I was watching this Minecraft Animation video based on a scientific concept about what would happen if we froze the Sun - What happens if we Freeze The Sun- Portrayed by Minecraft.
In this video, ...
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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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Would a ferro fluid cloud work as a "force" field for space combat?
Bit of a weird question, but lemme explain. I want to make shields that block lasers but don't block projectiles, As lasers in my world are very powerful.
I heard that military grade lasers can be ...
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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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Could fire use chemicals other than oxygen as fuel?
Could "fire" exist on a planet that has no oxygen in its atmosphere? If it was using some other chemical as fuel, how would that effect its physical properties, color/appearance, temperature,...
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Is it possible to date this object?
I am writting a science fiction novel. In my novel, some scientists find an important object in an Earth-like planet: a bunch of spherical synthetic quartzites.
These quartizes are approximately 200 ...
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dyson shell world, how do you create artificial gravity so people can stand on the inside of the shell?
one of the ideas I had is to make the Dyson shell a series of bands(made from impossible material with extreme tensile strength) and then spin these bands at different speeds, with the "land ...
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I have an unlimited supply of antimatter -- how do I actually make my spaceship go?
I'm making a book series set in the medium and far future of humanity, at various stages. Some elements are based in harder science than others. Throughout the timeline, Dyson swarms serve as the VIP ...
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What is an appropriate navy size for a previously single political authority fighting a recently seceded nation [closed]
In my game, one nation, the Solar Imperium, previously had uncontested control over the Solar System and the Proxima and Alpha A and B systems, and thus the entire human race. (I will refer to those ...
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Problems with modern fictional mind reading [closed]
The thing is, thoughts and the mind are, from what I believe, only connected, not the same, so why does mind reading in movies and comics and stuff make thoughts the only things known from mind ...
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How would a multipurpose railgun work
In my game, spaceships need to have weapons with more than one purpose, due to the cost of hauling extra weight across interplanetary/interstellar space. My railgun needs to be able to fire plasma ...
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What collateral damage would a mach 23 bullet cause?
In my sci-fi story there is a man-portable railgun. The gun fires a 4mm-wide tungsten bullet with a muzzle velocity of Mach 23.
The inventors of this weapon could have made the projectile faster but ...
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Tanks, weapons, equipments and armor for super soldiers
I am writing a fiction draft about a main character who happens to be transported into another world as the leader of his main faction in an RTS game he used to play. The background of his RTS faction ...
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Knocking Out Zombies
So basically we have zombies. And they are not just normal zombies... they are walking human corpses reanimated by slime molds growing around their bones! The zombies are moved around like puppets by ...
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Could it be possible to have a planet made of chunks of floating rock?
I've had an idea for several unique planets in my sci-fi fantasy world, perhaps the most unique is the capital of the alliance between several interstellar governments. The planet is made of thousands ...
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Xenomorph-like creature but with a Base instead of Acid as blood
I'm looking to build a horror type sci-fi game based on the Alien franchise. My question comes in trying to differentiate my alien from the Xenomorphs. I want hurting it with a melee weapon to be ...
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Could bioengineered nanobots be used to grow/develop organs and tissue inside the human body?
Like the title states, could a bioengineered organ meant to produce specially designed nanobots, be placed into a human body, and once properly activated is capable of developing multiple organs ...
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Goblins are Vulnerable to Fire and Light -- What Weapons Should we Use?
I’m doing a project about secret agents in the same vein as MIB but it’s set in the year 2050 and instead of aliens they deal with monsters similar to goblins.
The goblins evolve, growing from ...
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How can I give my character purple hair without hair dye?
Basically, I have a character that I'm working on in a futuristic-fantasy type of planet. She's supposed to have purple hair that she was born with.
What is a magical explanation for this phenomenon?
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Weaponizing the return-energy channel of a one-way portal
In my world, portals are magical devices that, when activated by some command, create a connection to a linked portal device. Portals allow objects to pass from the source (the portal device that was ...
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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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What could a technologically lesser civilization sell to a more technologically advanced one?
In a Lil sci-fi universe I'm currently writing
Humanity has reached the stars, quickly establishing an impromptu interstellar colonial empire made up of hundreds of star systems, puttering along the ...
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What is good Armament and Protection for a Quadruped Mecha? [closed]
I have been looking for real robot models for a long time to create a realistic mecha for my story.
I decided to model Peace Walker from Metal Gear and a quadruped robot with wheels that I found on ...
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Primogeniture/marriage/clans/etc in a hermaphroditic species
Hermaproditism (simultaneous and sequential) and cyclical sex-swapping would seem to eliminate patrilineal and matrilineal concepts of inheritance and allegiance, but I really want one of my alien ...
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I'm a mad scientist and want to give my Frankenstein's Monster steel plating on the outside of his limbs. What considerations should I think about?
I don't want those annoying villagers to hurt my new friend, and so I will give him some metal plates on top of the skin on his limbs and torso. I can only think of using a metal that won't oxidize ...
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Would a fighter pilot with an invincible space ship be able to conquer the galaxy?
Setting
Not so long ago, in a galaxy not too far away, there were two civilizations at war. Both were at war because the leaders of both wanted more and more power. Both were advanced and mined the ...
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Could a terrestrial planet have a stable orbit of rings? [duplicate]
Planet Phileas, similar in size to Earth. Fourth star in a binary star system with a p-type orbit.
Changes may be necessary and I'm open to constructive criticism. This question includes two parts. ...
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Clothing for my Alien Species
I have designed an alien species with a non-humanoid build, and I would like some help with figuring-out what plausible clothing for it would look like.
My objectives for what I would like this ...
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Making magic into a science in a science fantasy setting? [duplicate]
Lately I've been thinking a lot about science fantasy settings, specifically the inclusion of magic within it. It feels most fitting for, in a society where technology is highly advanced and magic is ...
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Are we able to generate fusion by firing macroscopic particles really fast?
Big gun in space (let's not care about how the gun will work yet)
Pew pew,
If we fire fusion fuel,
Would we be able to cause a fusion reaction upon the particle's impact?
What speed would that take?
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Is is possible for a humanoid to have a quasi-realistic explanation for having a limited form of super strength and agility? [closed]
In terms of strength I am thinking of launching people over five feet with a single blow or just by throwing them
In terms of agility I am picturing the average action hero
Baring the explanations ...
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Why might advanced digital computers be unusable on my planets?
A large ring gate appears on Earth that leads to other planetary bodies that vary between being able to sustain human life and just barely allowing humans to exist on the planet for a while.
Another ...
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Is it plausible for a being to possess a singular halo-shaped 'horn', while other members of the species possess two 'regular horns'?
I am currently working a humanoid roughly deer-like species in a sci-fi roleplay setting, and one of the developments I have had with such species has me stuck trying to explain it in a way that makes ...
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Can a human skeleton be made of cartilage?
I'm working on this new story in which many people have developed "special qualities" or gifts - call it extreme DNA mutations, if you will. There's this character who has several rows of teeth (maybe ...
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What could be the justification for having isolated domes all over a planet with people living inside them and not knowing about the real world?
To elaborate a bit further: let's say there's a planet in which some higher power installed several giant "domes" where people live. Each of these domes, which are the size of a small city, ...
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Can my synthetic human grow?
I'm an advanced AI in far futuristic sci-fi setting.
To give you the size of how advanced we are, I'll just drop here a short list of our accomplishments:
We have discovered cold fission-reactors ...
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How to build a gas giant?
In this universe, gravity wells are needed to enter and exit FTL, many cheap spacecraft are not armored enough to go near a star so gas giants are the next best option.
One particular solar system has ...
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How large of a magma chamber do I need to geothermally power a small city?
I have a fictional civilization that lives on a continent (or world) with a perpetually cold, wintry climate. The continent does have a large number of volcanoes of varying sizes and levels of ...
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How do you produce fast grown working clones?
In story after sci-fi story you have images of clones stepping out of some sort of gooey bathtub or cloudy coffin type device. Be they a single doppelganger or whole clone armies.
MY SETTING
I am ...
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If someone was suddenly subjected to a vacuum would they sh*t themselves?
If someone has the magical ability to make a vacuum(no or minimal matter/atmospheric pressure) on earth around someone would that person in the vacuum then sh*t their pants? If so would it have to be ...
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universe with infinite energy
In our universe infinite energy is not possible, at least given the known laws of physics.
But in another universe what would allow for energy to be in the same amount as space?
But how large is ...
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How to make my hyperfast-immersion language-learners still be fooled by code-words & cyphers
In a story I'm writing, I have a group of beings who can learn any language by just listening to voice-recordings* of someone speaking that language over-and-over again** (almost like a highly ...
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What configuration should the worlds of a long lasting galactic empire take in the galaxy?
I have come across many galaxy maps showing the dominion/borders of one empire or another in different works of fiction. The first that comes to mind is WH40k for which the galaxy map of the different ...
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How does having super strength/speed but similar mass to a regular person change close combat fighting?
How does having super strength/speed but similar mass to a regular person change close combat fighting?
This world is a cultivation world. That's a world where people can cultivate abilities by using ...
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