Questions tagged [society]
For questions dealing with how sentient beings interact with each other in a community.
1,786
questions
3
votes
7answers
310 views
Why there are messed up teens in a world where everyone can be designed to be perfect
I have a book where in the future a sterility disease spreads across the world making people unable to have children. Then, a company rises to power and using CRISPR are able to make babies again. ...
3
votes
6answers
143 views
Building transcontinental railway through many different countries
Let's have fantasy world with XVIII European century technology, also let's have technology of making really big trains and rails for them (big like 2.5 meters track gauge). What I want is railroad ...
4
votes
7answers
247 views
What advantages would broomsticks have over mage craft?
Enchanting is a form of study for witches that involves ascribing runes to a particular object in order to give it certain properties it would not have normally. Through this method, objects can be ...
10
votes
6answers
1k views
Places LEAST likely to be looted in an Apocalypse [closed]
In an pist appacolyptic earth quake zombie infection, what places that might be over looked in the first 3 week by looters and survivors?
Big places such as Walmarts and Costco's are bound to be ...
2
votes
3answers
181 views
What would be a reason for taking over the Washington Space Needle in a Post apocalyptic world battle [closed]
In the last battle of a story I am working on the last battle to be over the Space needle in Seattle Washington and I need a strategic reason why...
The Set up:
Two groups are fighting over the Space ...
2
votes
2answers
151 views
How would humans live in a world made primarily of glass?
Setup: Earth developed in an alternate universe with small oceans and little water. A little before animals first left the oceans and began to walk on land, when all of Earth's land was barren sand, ...
28
votes
11answers
6k views
Creating Fictional Slavic Place Names
I have a very simple question regarding a small problem I cannot find a single satisfying answer to. I am trying to create a country with a prominent Slavic culture. In my story, an alien world has ...
15
votes
6answers
3k views
Keeping people illiterate
Hear my Evil Overlord Plan:
Start personality cult and proclaim self as prophet of God or a divine being
Gather about 3000 followers of my religion (big enough to sustain population)
Develop ultra ...
3
votes
2answers
161 views
How many gangs (criminal and non-criminal) can fit in a fictional crime-ridden New York City?
So, I'm writing a fictional story about gangs and the city I'm using as the setting is loosely based on New York. More specifically, the size of New York City, and the population. I checked on Google ...
9
votes
10answers
4k views
How to kidnap a person, so the world wouldn't object or ask questions?
In my world there's a company that needs to kidnap a person or a number of persons (reasons are out of scope of this question) and must do this in the way that no one (and I mean: no one) would object,...
8
votes
20answers
2k views
How could mages regard fast magic as a form of evil? [closed]
There are 2 forms of magic in this world, the first of which is performed through a series of steps. A mage sits in the center of a drawn invocation circle, surrounded by the various ingredients ...
7
votes
10answers
533 views
What goals to give to a desirable optimizer AI?
Most of people knowing a bit about AI know the concept of paper-clipper, an AI that was meant to produce more paperclips and eventually turn the entire universe into paperclips at maximum efficiency, ...
2
votes
7answers
194 views
how can harvesting slaves be made more preferable than the use of slave markets?
Magic is performed through a series of steps. A mage sits in the center of a drawn invocation circle, surrounded by the various ingredients needed to perform the spell. The mage then utters the ...
5
votes
4answers
176 views
Would 5 years be long enough for a small society to start producing a surplus of food?
Would a community of around 300 people be able to start producing plentiful food in ~5 years post a civil war and plague?
They were an isolated quite wealthy community, in a sub-tropical area, mainly ...
7
votes
7answers
145 views
How would/could a communal society introduce currency?
So I've been working on the history of a particular fantasy world and one of its main societies. Specifically how it rebuilt after a civil war that destabilizes government and destroyed larger cities ...
2
votes
3answers
178 views
How to make a long lasting peace at the Medieval ages?
as known in the medieval ages wars and death were a normal thing and wars were frequent, in my world, there are two super nations with equal power, but I want to eventually unite them against a third ...
2
votes
0answers
317 views
How to make my matriarchal society more realistic [closed]
So I am playing with idea of fantasy matriarchal society. I want it to be realistic and coherent. This is what I have so far:
Aim
I wanted to avoid a simple patriarchal flip, where social structure ...
1
vote
2answers
88 views
How could I make Mercenaries function in a contemporary fantasy world?
My fantasy project of ''Diggoran'' ( pronounced as Die-Ah-Ran ) is set on the continent of Diggoran which is a large and fictional continent located on a fictional planet in its own universe with no ...
24
votes
14answers
8k views
A Society Built Around Theft?
Would it be possible for a stable society to be built around the concept of theft as a positive action, and thievery as a virtue, while still having theft be technically illegal, but having the ...
5
votes
7answers
200 views
Convince happy nomads to settle down
The population of my world is well fed and water can be plentifully scavenged from the plant life. We live in a wonderful tropical utopia that boasts a large nomadic population. The weather systems ...
7
votes
9answers
1k views
Immortal Passing Ritual [closed]
On a different planet, humanoid creatures called immortals have achieved immortality.
The society is built specifically for these immortals, so in general, the immortals enjoy and cherish their lives....
14
votes
4answers
5k views
How to build a self-sufficient town
Other questions have tried to address how big/small towns have to be in order to function, but I'm more interested in approaching it from a different angle: How big would a town have to be to support ...
-1
votes
2answers
106 views
How close to the modern day can Scientology be established to make it a mainstream faith? [closed]
Ron Hubbard founded a religion in the 1950s called scientology. This faith celebrates individualism and mastery over one's own mind and will, establishing that all human beings are ultimately divine. ...
2
votes
5answers
691 views
Interstellar war tactics with no FTL capabilities?
I have tried to conceive the most realistic hard sci-fi human/alien conflict scenario without invoking FTL magic. By realistic, I mean “War is the wrong answer but we do it anyway”. Im not trying to ...
Nosajimiki - Reinstate Monica
14.8k2 gold badges21 silver badges65 bronze badges
3
votes
2answers
440 views
What Should the Size of These Secret Superhuman Organizations Be?
Background: Around 600 years ago, the whole world was in conflict.
Outside of Ser, the world was a chaotic and dangerous place. Ser was the only neutral country in a world filled with violence and ...
1
vote
3answers
185 views
Introducing currency in a barter trade society
I am writing a book where I have a main character who comes to a young civilization. The young society only works through barter trade, and he wants to introduce a form of currency, such as money. ...
13
votes
14answers
3k views
how can I enforce the prohibition on love potions?
Amortentia is a powerful aphrodisiac that creates an intense feeling of love or obsession in the person who drinks it. There are different kinds of these love potions, each designed to have various ...
9
votes
3answers
2k views
Could a government control its people using frequencies?
Setting:
Earth, in the future, near 2060 or 2100
Technology: a bit more advanced than ours
Armies and police forces are already using systems for crowd control. Some devices can generate discomfort ...
124
votes
13answers
16k views
Everyone believes everything Joe says. How can he get around it?
Joe is an average bloke, who has a passive superpower that he's lived with all his life.
People believe everything he says. Implicitly, unquestioningly and absolutely. If he says that black is ...
3
votes
1answer
108 views
Climate in an hypothetical Planet [closed]
Let there be absolutely none, exactly 0 axial tilt. Let the earth's orbit around the sun be a perfect circle with 0 eccentricity and a surface to surface ( constant) radius equal to the harmonic mean ...
22
votes
15answers
3k views
Symbiotic benefits for large sentient bio-machine
I’m working on a setting, and have a state I want to achieve but need to come up with a compelling reason for why it is the way it is (even if no one but me ever knows the ‘why’.) I’m after a reasoned,...
1
vote
2answers
85 views
Could a dystopian society control non-perishable foods to prevent escape / mutiny?
Here are some sub questions:
Are there habitable earth environments where non- perishables (even raisins and honey) are hard to discover?
Are there agents that could be added to make foods more ...
31
votes
10answers
3k views
What kind of effect would a long lifespan have on humanity?
Suppose that, after puberty, human beings aged about 15 times more slowly than in our world. Some would still die young (by their standards) due to diseases, wars, accidents, etc., but it would be ...
7
votes
4answers
418 views
If I plan to have myself resuscitated in the future, how can I make sure someone actually remembers to do that?
So, let’s say that at some point in the hopefully distant future, the second law catches up to me, some random part of my body just craps out and stops working right, and I die.
Luckily, through the ...
9
votes
7answers
770 views
Designing society for happiness
I’m designing a utopia but there’s one problem remaining.
The setting is one of a highly advanced human society. We’ve eliminated disease and allowed the natural environment to replenish. ...
25
votes
10answers
9k views
How long would it take for people to notice a mass disappearance?
If 5 million people disappeared at the same time globally, assuming an even spread of random disappearances (not focused in any one location) how long would it be before people noticed there had been ...
18
votes
15answers
10k views
How would a young girl/boy (about 14) who never gets old survive in the 16th century? [closed]
In fantasy setting, in medieval time, there are a disease, curse... for simplicity in this scenario, let's call it "vampire".
The victim who is afflicted with this "vampirism" does not get older. So ...
4
votes
1answer
98 views
Would a society of totally colourblind fare better than a society of people without a sense of smell? [closed]
There's two isolated islands, each big enough to support a population of millions and with all the natural resources they need to advance to the industrial era. But there is one hereditary flaw in 100%...
2
votes
2answers
100 views
Building a society of “fungus people” where humans have developed a symbiotic relationship with a parasitic/fungal organism [closed]
In this universe, humans discovered a previously unknown fungus. Similar to the cordyceps fungus, this particular organism uses its spores to enter the body of its host, and grows within it. It will ...
47
votes
6answers
2k views
Creating convincingly alien viewpoints
Most aliens tend to be humans with bumpy foreheads and/or pointy ears. Even when they do have differences then usually it is an entire species being portrayed as a particular brand of human. For ...
4
votes
3answers
212 views
How would martial arts be different for a winged race?
TL;DR I have a race of half-dragons in my near-future scifi story. I know that having wings and a tail would affect my characters hand-to-hand fighting abilities, but I'm not sure how. Additionally, ...
11
votes
6answers
2k views
How can I convince the Internet public at large that I am from the future?
We all know that modern internet forum users, unlike your average social media frequenter, are skeptical and they often dismiss extraordinary claims as fabrications. We all also know that these ...
25
votes
16answers
6k views
How can an immortal member of the nobility be prevented from taking the throne?
Necromancy is a time-honored profession that goes back thousands of years. A necromancer is prized because of the gifts they can bestow to wealthy individuals, specifically the noble class. When ...
2
votes
0answers
127 views
Native American Society in a World Where Beringia Is Still High and Dry
Multiple times in Earth's geological history, a bridge connected Asia to North America, bringing in an influx of colonists. Without Beringia, North America would never have the iconic Triceratops or ...
17
votes
5answers
1k views
How does a polytheistic cult compare to multiple coexisting monothestic cults?
Many fantasy worlds (for instance Tamriel from The Elder Scrolls) and also ancient civilizations have or had polytheistic cults to the point where the same holy place would be shared among different, ...
1
vote
1answer
69 views
What should I call the troops in my world where the US military consolidated into a single, unified force? [closed]
So basically, for some backstory, rising sea levels and a viral pandemic known as the Black Plague both killed off billions of people in 2015. During that time, due to the collapse of every country ...
-8
votes
1answer
116 views
Why am I measured against points? [closed]
Why are we suddenly in a didgital 'social' heirachy..where my questions and answers are based on how I PLEASE u! Why do i want to stay in a world like this?
4
votes
3answers
1k views
Small sizing in the military
People recently discovered an amazing technological - medical procedure, that allows them to shrink a living creature proportionally by a factor of 18.
Lets call it small-sizing. It shrinks all organs ...
5
votes
5answers
1k views
How steep a road could a horse/horse-and-cart travel?
I'm in the early stages of designing a city, and would like some advice about to structure its roads realistically for transport.
The city is circular, with large roads entering the city at north/...
14
votes
7answers
3k views
Is it plausible for a certain area of a continent to be/remain/become uninhabited for a long period of time?
If is plausible, what are the most reasonable factors to bring to bear?
I have a large continent where a number of races/cultures are present in the present day, but I want the one in the south to ...
