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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Is there any practical reason to keep a primitive civilization on an artificial habitat
A planet with an early civilization (Middle age like) is doomed to be destroyed by an unstoppable event. So an advanced civilization decides to do a planetary evacuation to save the species and their ...
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Human precursors design powered armor for invertebratre Cephalopod slaves that have lungs too, up-right or octopus-form?
https://ibb.co/Fqmb4tH. I couldn't use the upload option as its saying server issue. That is the picture of my cephalopod.
I'm trying to come up with an idea for power armor for my octopus species to ...
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Electric Arc Discharge Plasma and other forms of Plasma tech as a weapon
I'm making a weapon for my character which looks like a sword or is used as such but is segmented to give it whip like flexibility (restricted movement for safety) when needed. Each segment has metal ...
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Performance Comparison of Some Common Sci-Fi Propulsion Systems
Want to share some performance comparison I've done recently.
How does a torch ship compare in interplanetary travel to a reactionless drive? How does a reactionless drive compare to a boost drive?
...
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Why are my combat spacecraft crewed?
In my universe, humans are pretty good with AI and have some experience in space combat, as nations fought for resources.
Regarding the world, humanity remains in the solar system and is in space ...
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A potential way to use "space mines" to guard a moon or small planet
Space mines have a glaring problem which is the fact that space is really big, But I have devised a space mine which could be used to defend a moon or small planet.
My space mine would be Casaba-...
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What would an alien spaceship need to have to be undetectable to us with our current technology
This alien spacecraft would be orbiting around earth at 300-400 km, it has a similar size to the ISS, and it has to be undetectable with our current technology. I assume that it would prevent emitting ...
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Any tips for finding other practical uses of tech in your world [closed]
In sci fi, writers tend to make a new technology to solve a problem, for example artificial gravity for spacecraft via gravitons. But seldom do they use the full application of gravity generation (...
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Using Diamagnetic repulsion to help negate the affects of weightlessness
I had an idea of a chamber that an astronaut would use when they would sleep that would allow their body to experience a gravity-like force to negate the negative effects of weightlessness, (Bone or ...
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Phantom Field Creation (Negative Kinetic Energy Scalar Field) [closed]
I'd like to create a scenario a few decades to a century in the future where an experiment (attempting to create a wormhole to Luna on Earth via quantum foam mining) gone wrong causes a phantom scalar ...
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Could black holes be used as a particle accelerator
I was originally was thinking of using the Jets emitted by black holes to create antimatter, however those might not fit the setting I want, due to the fact they are don't seem to occur commonly in ...
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Would it make sense for an Interstellar government to use the half life of common radioactive elements as a measure of time? and to make calendars? [closed]
For example, can we use the half life of Polonium or Uranium to measure time and produce something similar to a calendar?
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How much force would be required to destroy the Earth
say someone punched the ground (Earth) with infinite strength, how much force would they require to destroy/ vaporise the earth?
Or an easier question how much force would someone need to induce $3.2 \...
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How can an increase in demonic summoning lead to significant time lags in service and response time?
Hell is the bottomless realm that devils occupy, which exists alongside the material world of humans. This realm is further broken up into infinite mini-realms, each with their own type of devils, as ...
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Would the "Rods from God" satellite actually create an explosion?
The "rods from God" satellite. Its a satellite that contains these long darts, presumably made of a very heavy material like tungsten, that are dropped into the atmosphere. By the time they ...
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My eusocial species has biological radio and limited verbal speech. Is this plausible?
The mechanics of biological radios are already detailed in response to this question, but I had a more specific use of it that I was planning to use.
My story has a eusocial species that can ...
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Are Mass Effect "style" guns possible?
In Sci Fi, the majority of weapons come in the form of either some kind of energy beam/bolt, or as testosterone-dripping slug-throwers. In Mass Effect and the Aldreaverse utilize weapons that fire ...
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Under what circumstances would a species with 2 sexes evolve into a species with 1 sex?
I'm building a world for a novel and would like to have a single-sex, sapient species. The world is based on the general physics and scientific nature of our world but where more than one sapient ...
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What location options are available for a large-scale underground mining city
In the late 18th century, a strange project was proposed by a Dutch engineer regarding a certain English expedition. The British Empire held a vast amount of territories at this time and had much to ...
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Using coilguns or VASIMR as thrusters in a game
i'm in the early stages of designing a scifi game and want to use as little handwavium as possible (without ruining the fun). The first part of the game takes place in the asteroid belt and includes ...
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How would an adult artificial human behave after they exit the biofabricator?
If a company or organization that uses a bioprinter or an advanced artificial womb that can grow full organisms using synthetic genomes and cells in a short time created a new species of replicants ...
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How would the laws of physics need to be adjusted if there really were a preferred frame of reference for FTL?
I am considering how to implement faster-than-light (FTL) travel in a sci-fi setting without the attendant problems with causality. One of the ways I've been thinking about for this is establishing a ...
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Safe Alcubierre drive
I want my world to have an Alcubierre drive for slower-than-light-travel. One third the speed of light will do. Since there is no FTL we don't have to worry about causality paradoxes. However the ...
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How would time logically be measured on a massive starship in perpetual flight?
So, say I'm writing this story that takes place on a giant starship travelling from galaxy to galaxy (delivering goods or something like that). This ship was created and inhabited by one race ...
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How would the world view superhumans that are more human or weaker? [closed]
When I say being more human. I'm not talking about a character being more relatable to an audience. Like Superman working in a 9 to 5 job. I'm more so talking about a superhuman character being more ...
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FTL gates and drives used simultaneously without redundancy?
This world has 3 forms of faster-than-light travel:
Warpdrives don't require destination coordinates. They can be activated and deactivated at any time to move continuously through space. But they ...
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Advantages of reverse jointed legs in bipedal mechs?
I've been thinking of creating a setting similar to that of BattleTech, but set some time around when the industrial revolution is in full swing. This setting would also include bipedal mechs of ...
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What trains would survive a post-apocolypse [closed]
My world is in the distant future. While there were nukes, they were not used entirely, and there were many bioweapons like the t virus. The world has a few major governments still standing, but are ...
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Energy sheathed bullets: What's the point?
In many sci-fi worlds, though mostly Star Wars, the main weapon of choice is some form of "laser" weapon that fires bolts that are way below the speed of light. In said universes, some ...
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What kind of side-effects might stimulating the pain-sensitive nerves have?
In a sci-fi story I'm working on, a group of aliens utilizes a implanted device that induces incredible pain solely by stimulating the nervous system; specifically, the nerves that tell you you're in ...
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Would increasing the stability of nuclei have other side effects than just fission not happening?
I'm writing a short story where humanity lives in a section of the universe that's causing the nuclei to be unstable.
To explain what I mean, we here have hydrogen, deuterium and tritium where ...
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What are the most important aspects of an environment that a drone would need to report for survivability?
Setting: You have an armada of intergalactic unmanned drones, whos sole purpose is to survey planets (or portions of planets) and report information about its survivability, and usefulness in ...
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Would the ability to eat and digest food help to fuel the stigma against sentient androids? [closed]
If androids were able to eat they would beat humans in one more jealous way because along with immortality and a tougher and stronger but at the same time having a soft body they could also eat as ...
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Stages of Artificial intelligence's mental development to full personhood
First post here so please go easy on me. My knowledge of software and programming is limited.
Question:
What kind of progression/stages would we see if an AI started as a highly advanced computer ...
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What would be the uses of a technology that could make things "not-exist" for a short period of time
On Earth, half a century in the future, a scientist discovers a way to create a shell around mass to make it functionally not-exist temporarily.
The shell is fairly hard to make, powered by a medium-...
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Powering a fixed-wing aircraft in the upper Venusian atmosphere
I am writing a short story about a fighter pilot on Venus, I was advised on my other post to break up the post into multiple others.
What are viable methods to power a fixed-wing aircraft in the upper ...
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Why would a supermassive sarlacc-like creature let captured prey wander around inside itself?
On a fictional planet far away from our own, there is a part plant, part animal creature of truly massive proportions embedded in the sand of a desert-like portion of the planet, kinda like a cross ...
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Countering gravitational bead instability
I started thinking about Alderson disks. They are usually portrayed with large uninhabitable sections on either side of the habitable zone.
Why not just build the habitable zone, and save materials? (...
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How could an intergalactic spacefaring civilization kidnap a member of another intergalactic spacefaring civilization without causing war? [closed]
In my story, there is an alien civilization whom the people of the Sol system refer to as the Chrondosians. Most Chrondosian technological advancement can be attributed to direct contact with one of a ...
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Sea Monster Hunting Crew Roster
I'm coming up with a crew of modern-day divers who hunt sea monsters such as the megalodon, and so far, I figure that the crew will require at least the following personnel:
Captain (commands the ...
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After we drain the Sun and migrate, why would humanity find the Solar System important?
Long ago, our ancestors worked out how to travel faster than light: by sending craft directly into the Sun, employing fusion, quantum entanglement, and a healthy dose of handwavium/science ...
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What perk only benefits users who spent more than a decade in cryonic sleep? [closed]
People are put into a suspended animated state using a cryonic sleep chamber, their brains neither are in deep sleep nor flatline.
Since subjects do not feel anything throughout the entire process, I ...
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Can two moons, moving at different velocities, periodically overtake each other and share an atmosphere?
Idea being, can two moons orbiting a large planet move at v_1 and v_1 + delta, but the distance between the two moons is small enough that when their positions along an axis periodically overlap they ...
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Tracking a high-speed vessel in Sol
I am trying to establish whether humanity could detect and track a fast-moving alien ship arriving in the Solar System and whether we would get some sort of "advance" warning that it is ...
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Does Catalyzing Quantum Tunneling Break the Universe?
Say that someone develops a technology that enables you to catalyze/accelerate quantum tunneling within the device, with the purpose of making the kind of quantum tunneling that enables hydrogen ...
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Reactionless Drive WITHOUT Breaking the Universe?
Space is hard, and making a spaceship engine powerful enough to do interesting things requires an absolutely bonkers amount of energy. I know that lots of authors (including me) think of trying to ...
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What would be US Military procedure for investigating a portal to another world? [closed]
Here's the scenario I'm working with: a portal opens up within 30 minutes' drive of one of the better equipped military installations in the continental United States. It is stable, shows no signs of ...
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Can one half of a planet be desolate, while the other half is lush vegetation?
Is it possible for half a planet to be cold, dark and lifeless while the other is a lush jungle? Can a planet be tidally locked to a sun where the jungle surface is always facing the light, and the ...
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What strategy could nanites adopt to protect someone's brain from damage while repairing the heart?
The main character of the story was created by nanites/(micro technology). Because of this trillions of nanites are in her body making her memory more efficient, reasoning skills sharper, and healing ...
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In a cyberpunk world where corporate upper class citizens can work virtually through implants, why would they build corporate mega-skyscrapers?
In my story, the upper class have augmented reality chips in their brains. What would be the point of physically going to work? Why would a corporation have incredible cyberpunk-style mega-skyscrapers ...
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