Questions tagged [society]
For questions dealing with how sentient beings interact with each other in a community.
2,161
questions
2
votes
5answers
154 views
Government and news media response to a seemingly impossible notification
Modern day Earth... the offices of state and national leaders, and mainstream news media outlets in an unspecified western democratic nation each receive an ornate, very official-looking and ...
2
votes
4answers
174 views
Does attractiveness naturally change every few years in medieval settings? [closed]
120 years ago being skinny was seen as unhealthy ugly and diseased, a sickening gross look to be skinny, women were actively shamed for that.
50 years ago dark skin was gross. then people started ...
1
vote
4answers
151 views
Virus to rewrite the human brain
There are things that people do which makes them feel an extreme sense of guilt, often ending in suicide or the least self mutilation as a mechanism to ''punish oneself'', there are also people who ...
3
votes
3answers
163 views
How can I encourage my population into debt slavery without hurting my economy?
The government of Amestris is controlled by powerful organizations known as guilds. These institutions are made up of special interest groups that bring together influential people, such as merchants, ...
3
votes
5answers
100 views
Enforcement of “federal” type laws in a factionalised society
So it's a futuristic cyberpunky society but it has broken down into factions, and there is ongoing fighting between the factions, armed conflict, making and breaking alliances, etc.
However, there are ...
7
votes
4answers
860 views
When building worlds and cultures, what clothing should civilizations use for more realism?
Could someone with textile knowledge share the wisdom and tell me what type of fiber for clothing different cultures should use or are best suited to use based on their climate and needs?
I know jute, ...
1
vote
3answers
157 views
Appstore application to assassinate anyone [closed]
Being the pessimistic person I am who always looks at the dark side of life, mostly because in this world only a small percentage of humans enjoy the luck and luxury of living in the light side of ...
17
votes
7answers
6k views
How to defend a kingdom without killing anyone
What resources, schemes, and strategies does a medieval king need to protect their power without killing or torturing?
8
votes
5answers
4k views
Garlic as staple food for colonies?
Roleplaying in a survival game, building my own world and now I'm colonizing a new land.
For the sake of realism and immersion I want to find the most effective and efficient staple foods out there. I ...
6
votes
6answers
216 views
How to convince a lot of people to join a cage anarchist country?
The experiment requires 250 million people and a lifetime dedication; once in there's no way out. It consists on enclosing people in 5 artificial countries, each country with fixed rules. Each person ...
-2
votes
2answers
138 views
How to convince a lot of people to enter voluntarily modelled social/country order(capitalism, communism, tribes, etc), for testing those orders? [closed]
The experiment requires 250 million people and a lifetime dedication; once in there's no way out.
It consists on enclosing people in 5 artificial countries, each country with fixed rules. Each person ...
2
votes
4answers
245 views
What Role Would Adventurers Have In A Modified Medieval Society?
In my world (Alendyias), just about everyone has Classes (explained here) but some people are different: they're adventurers, people who basically defy Tiers. My question is simple; What Role Will ...
2
votes
4answers
179 views
Neural wireless link: Buy your personal hive mind for only 399!
Tired of having to sleep? Tired of having to die? Tired of having to age? Tired of being weak? Tired of being short? Tired of being male or female? Tired of being human? Tired of being made of flesh?
...
2
votes
3answers
172 views
How can immortal kingdoms retain their power base over the course of millennia?
The world is divided up into seven continents, each ruled by a family or clan of immortals. Altogether, these immortals number 10,000. They cannot be killed by any means, having the ability to ...
1
vote
4answers
167 views
Life and Conscription in States After a Divided USA
I'm trying to devise a situation where the United States is Split into multiple smaller states. I'll cover other factors of my scenario in other posts, but I'll stick to life in states and military ...
5
votes
5answers
145 views
Could Traditions Such as Human Sacrifice or Gladiatorial Combat Survive in a Modernizing World?
My science-fantasy series is set in a rapidly industrializing galaxy where a group called the Ishgas are dominating militarily, culturally, scientifically, and economically (overall, it's a similar ...
3
votes
3answers
273 views
Is there a culture where traditionally women fish? [closed]
I guess as far as the social aspects of worldbuilding are concerned, pretty much anything goes but I'd still like to incorporate elements that aren't far-fetched in terms of real-world applicability.
...
3
votes
4answers
273 views
Would civilization collapse if ten percent of humans were transformed?
If ten percent of humans were changed to various humanoid species, some more monstrous than others, and if ten percent of those changed, so one in a hundred, were to completely lose their minds in the ...
15
votes
13answers
2k views
How would transportation evolve in a world where everyone can teleport?
I've already talked about this world in How would criminals be punished in a world where everyone can teleport?
Everyone in this world from the age of 5 can teleport to anywhere they have been before ...
28
votes
21answers
8k views
How would criminals be punished in a world where everyone can teleport?
Everyone in this world from the age of 5 can teleport to anywhere they have been before even if they forgot how to go there. This started about 4,000 B.C.E where a bright green star landed on earth ...
5
votes
3answers
186 views
How Could Animals Revolt Against Humans? [closed]
So, in a story, I am writing (Which takes place on Earth, three or four centuries from now) animals revolt against humans as a collective force. I would assume that it is mainly the wild animals ...
4
votes
0answers
112 views
Multispecies meritocracy: Is it possible? [closed]
On Damarian there are many intelligent species, including many species of half-human half animal. The animals include zebra, camel, donkey, octopus, eel, crab and spider.
Now, according to this ...
30
votes
16answers
7k views
Why would a matriarchal society practice polygyny?
In an alternative world, matriarchal society is dominated in every way that women always are number 1 position, such as empress, queen, chief, etc. Men can only become the number 2: vice president, ...
1
vote
0answers
106 views
An intelligent species needs same-sex intercourse. Society Effects? [closed]
For one of my Damarian species, the Avari (Felinoid obligate carnivores), they need same-sex intercourse of both kinds to increase chances of conceiving.
For females, they can increase their ovulation ...
4
votes
4answers
360 views
Can encouragement of same sex relationships be used as a form of population control?
In the setting, the available living area is relatively sparse and valuable, but the industrial revolution is booming, and the associated rapid population growth posing real overpopulation and ...
0
votes
12answers
642 views
How to Make Sapients Non-Homophobic from the Start?
For my World, Damarian (Link to its introduction here), I want to ensure that all of the species (except possibly the Aeritheans) are accepting of the entire queer community, through the influencing ...
7
votes
5answers
1k views
How can I have the name of the first tribe on a newly discovered continent established as the entire continents name, even after kingdoms are formed?
I have a group of humans who discovered a continent that has no civilisations yet. They settled at a small region and they name their tribe and their lands after one of their Gods. They believed he ...
2
votes
2answers
88 views
Space colony based upon faith? [closed]
In the game Alpha Centauri, one of the potential leaders you can play is based on faith. This vaguely means they're focused on recruiting into the flock. But how exactly would s space colony based on ...
4
votes
6answers
193 views
What could prevent the leadership of a vast conspiracy from defecting, individually or in groups, other than fear or greed?
From the answers on my previous post, What reasons would motivate even low level personnel of vast secret organizations to keep the secret going, other than fear?, it seems that low level personnel ...
6
votes
7answers
706 views
In a city full of superheroes, what items would still be worth stealing? [closed]
Supposing around 1% of the world population has some kind of superpower, about 70-80 million people on earth, and only 1% of those have taken to superherodom, what items would be worth the risk of ...
4
votes
2answers
197 views
What would be the societal effects of a human subspecies that can live for 200-500 years, and look young until death? [closed]
The basic conceit is this: the human subspecies in question has some magical abilities, and thanks to them every single member of their society has extreme ability to stay young and healthy until ...
4
votes
2answers
163 views
Is this space empire plausible? What flaws are most obvious? How can it be improved? [closed]
Humanity has access to a stargate of unknown origin. Each gate leads to a solar system from which other gates can be accessed, creating a kind of highway spanning some 300 systems. The travel time in ...
1
vote
3answers
160 views
Why would a non-Christian religion suddenly gain a large following among Americans? [closed]
Eighty years into the future, an already existing non-Christian religion has gained a widespread following among Americans. Millions of people have converted to the religion in question.
From what I ...
1
vote
2answers
109 views
What kind of building structures could a group of eleven people make whilst stranded on a tropical island?
I'm just curious to know what kind of structures a group of people would make on a tropical rainforest island.
Context
After an incident in the beginning the story these eleven young people (young ...
6
votes
4answers
660 views
How to justify new diverse cultures from the same ancestors [closed]
I'm struggling a bit in my worldbuilding on justifying the creation of different cultures on my land, when all originated from the same ancestors.
So on my continent I have a group of humans that ...
32
votes
14answers
6k views
What reasons would motivate even low level personnel of vast secret organizations to keep the secret going, other than fear?
It’s common nowadays for many different types of fictional, and non-fictional, works to speculate on the possible existence, operation, and further expansion, of hidden organizations such as ‘deep ...
3
votes
1answer
139 views
Racial slurs for multi-species nations: Specifically, modern age countries [closed]
This is a new question for Damarian's species: Link is here if anyone would like a description.
Story time
So, the setting is on Damarian, some years after a world-shaking event called the "...
10
votes
5answers
2k views
Natural and affordable way to dye hair in medieval period?
In a fantasy setting, largely based on the European medieval period, red hair is perceived as the sign of the devil.
This is much like how red haired woman were prosecuted for being a witch in history....
8
votes
4answers
206 views
Ratio of humans to vampires for societal balance
Vampires are no exception to the phenomenon of evolution. In my world various species or races or breeds of these creatures can be observed. They can interbred as much as neanderthals can breed with ...
14
votes
8answers
5k views
Is stone age humanism possible?
Is it possible for a group of stone age humans to survive and thrive with a humanist mentality, believing not in supernatural entities and magical thinking, but simple scientific observation and the ...
14
votes
20answers
6k views
Why would humans want “mindless” human clones and even be legal?
In a far future humanity has advanced in the fields of A.I./robotics and genetics. Every household has an A.I. and robots/androids serving them, but strangely the humans prefer mindless clones to ...
0
votes
0answers
77 views
World with Demons, Merfolk, Angels, and Humans living together
I am writing a prospective scenario for a satirical horror-comedy and science-fantasy Web-series for adolescents (or teenagers if you want) and adults where humans cohabit with demons, merfolk, and ...
1
vote
2answers
352 views
Bringing the Bikini Into Medieval Times [closed]
Okay, so this question is a follow-up to Just How Dangerous Would a Plopup Be? and covers the simple fact that the bikini didn't exist in the medieval period.
However, the Plopup have managed to come ...
8
votes
5answers
215 views
What would be a suitable amusement park for four-legged sentient beings?
This is something my sister and I have argued about a lot and we can't figure it out ourselves. So help me out here.
In a world where both four-legged (dragons and griffins) and two-legged (humans and ...
4
votes
5answers
390 views
What is the best-case-scenario for farming in the post-apocalypse?
Following the "Generic apocalypse-causing event" most of Earth's population is wiped out in a matter of days. The several hundred survivors of Metropolis City salvage canned food from ...
-1
votes
1answer
94 views
How would a low-tech city look like? [closed]
I would like to imagine a city/society built only on Low-tech technologies. Those are the critters of this world:
Cheap options, preferably things that can be found locally.
Easy to build by people
...
1
vote
1answer
116 views
How would a Low Fantasy Iron Age setting be effected if Inbreeding and Divination were directly connected? [closed]
I'm trying to make a world with a very low fantasy setting in it. The world itself is currently at levels or similar to that of the Classical Civilizations during the later parts of the Iron Age i.e. ...
3
votes
3answers
355 views
Preventing a Runaway Societal Effect
I am designing a medieval fantasy world, specifically one mirroring an RPG realistically (don't laugh, I'm actually doing a good job at that) and I need to make sure I have my population proportions ...
0
votes
4answers
193 views
Would the crew of a generation spaceship obey population control for a century? [closed]
I'll try to keep this concise and focused on the question at hand.
A generation spaceship leaves Earth around the year 2060 on a journey to Alpha Centauri A. Thanks to fusion power and other new tech ...
4
votes
4answers
642 views
Is my town realistic?
So, my setting is a small border town on the edge of the [x] empire- beyond the town is the Eastern Reaches and is mostly unexplored. The border has been explored up to around 60 miles by the feudal ...
