Questions tagged [science-fiction]
For questions that allow 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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Would a laser resistant (heavily heat resistant?) armour for space ships have unfortunate consequences and would it still have to deal with heat?
Basically, I want to decisively put an end to any idea that lasers could be used in my space combat in any large degree. One of the solutions I've thought of is a world having advanced armour (either ...
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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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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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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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The Frozen Star - Can U-238 reactors be used as a energy source for 10,000 years?
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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How can technologically-advanced civilisation achieve healthy tanning?
I am looking for the ways to allow humans with technology that allowed them to colonise the entire galaxy (150 thousand light years wide) to avoid the negative side-effects of tanning (premature ...
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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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Could life exist on a planet orbiting a T class brown dwarf?
Note: Please try not to overcomplicate it for me. I might sound mature, but I'm actually a minor and as much as I like complex wording, I want it to be understandable.
Hey! Basically, I'm drafting up ...
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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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A laser-propelled starship loses its decelerating beam; what options do they have to slow down?
New to the site, and like many others here, I've been bouncing around a few ideas for a hard sci-fi short story with some friends, centered around an interstellar voyage to colonize a habitable world. ...
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Could a biological organism have organs that perceive entropy?
A biology textbook I once read described humans and other organisms as "moving zones of low entropy", referring to the fact that our bodies display a high level of organization and ...
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White-hot tungsten moon emitting heat and light to make my world habitable
Never mind how the tungsten sphere formed. That's part of my pet projects, and I will deal with the question of how a nearly pure sphere of tungsten the diameter of the moon formed in space later.
So, ...
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How to scan the entire cerebral cortex of a human and upload memories as digital media
In this sci-fi world Im building,
Humanity has developed a process to download a person's personality and memories by converting electrical signals produced by Neural firings into binary code and ...
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Help with artificial gravity (yet again) in sci-fi world
I am creating a sci-fi world for tabletop RPG and I have trouble with one thing and that is artificial gravity. What I need is to come up with some ideas for in-world reasonable explanation for the ...
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How to design a geckskin grappling hook to attatch to surfaces like a rocks and builidngs?
For a while now, I've been very into grappling guns and the ability to swing around buildings, etc. Specifically been very interested in the odm gear present in the show "Attack on Titan". ...
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Artificial Light Sources in a Dyson Sphere/Shell
I'm working on a story universe that takes place mostly/entirely within a multi-layered Dyson sphere. The story is not hard sci-fi, but I am trying to ensure the physics or sci-fi elements "feel&...
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Helium-Neon impossible compound
What would need to happen in order to make a compound with neon and helium? We know it's impossible, but super hypothetically if we could do magic and fuse them together, how would that look like? ...
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Need counters for a near perfect Anti Thermal and Kinetic armor system in a near future setting
So I have an armor that is virtually impervious to small arms fire, and am looking for inspiration and suggestions on an unconventional way to defeat said armor.
The armor is called Anti Thermal And ...
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How could my solar-powered fairies exist in outer space?
There have been instances of flashes in space that were attributed to sprites and fairies. Now, I know these phenomena can be explained by natural means such as blue/purple lightning. But the concept ...
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