Questions tagged [survival]
For questions about the viability of life in certain conditions. For example, it could be used in questions asking about the possibility of life on a planet or other astronomical body.
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Limitations of the interactions of fact and opinion thoughtforms in the Aethernet
The Setting
Long story short, we cracked the code of the universe and then reprogrammed it to give ourselves admin privileges. But then, we realized that having top-level access is boring. There is ...
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The universe is in a long, slow decline to darkness (the stars are going out) - What can we do about it?
The universe is in a long, slow decline to darkness
Sorry folks but it's true, read the article! Here's a much edited-down version:
The universe is cooling down, its stars pumping out about half ...
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What's the smallest patch of land a single person could be food-sufficient on indefinitely, in a temperate climate?
One person lives alone with access to a small patch of useful land. They have to grow all their own food and survive indefinitely.
This small patch of fertile soil is the only useful land. No grazing,...
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How would vampires avoid contracting diseases?
In my fantasy world vampires exist, and most of the intelligent races can be turned into one. I try to make everything in this word kind of explainable by science, at least possible in our Earth.
I'...
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Would a diet of fish and potatoes be able to support a person in this situation?
I have been thinking of a setting that involves a person getting stranded in a temperate forest that has not been previously inhabited. He eventually meets other people but until then he has to ...
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What dog breeds survive the apocalypse for generations?
There was an apocalypse. Humans left cities in swathes, leaving their canine companions behind in the ruined cities. My question is, which types of dogs survive?
Criteria
-The dogs are going to be ...
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How would Vegan Vampires survive?
There is a planet called Vegavampira, and on this planet the only really intelligent animals are Vegan Vampires, but there is one problem, because they are Vegan, they will not kill, nor will they ...
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Useable life span of different types of plastic and polymer [closed]
OK folks - here's one for you petrochemical types:
World is set 200 years post an apocalypse that wipes the global population back to about 280 million (the population of the world circa 1000AD).
...
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How long can a human survive inside a dark box?
I am toying with an idea which requires a human to be stuck in a dark box for the rest of their life.
They receive regular exercise of the arms and legs, air, food and water and their bodily ...
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How to destroy a galactic level civilization and still leave behind primitive survivors?
Basically, the problem is I want to leave behind isolated pockets of survivors. Also, I want these survivors to be a primitive culture - current real world level - compared to the original ...
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What modern things that are cheap can be good to sell in a fantasy medieval world at high price [closed]
I have my protagonist go to a fantasy world that is locked in their medieval era like late 1300 early 1400. My protagonist need money to travel, so what kind of modern invention, a material that is ...
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Laminar Flow Fountain Shelter?
Say you were stranded on an island with no shelter whatsoever, but for some odd reason you had all the supplies and water necessary to construct a laminar flow water dome as a shelter.
Keep in mind -- ...
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How far in the past could unprepared humans survive?
A small late medieval county, consisting of a very small town, a small castle, and a couple of surrounding small villages suddenly and inexplicably gets transported into the past. It's not a spherical ...
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How would Elves survive underground without prior experience? [duplicate]
Background:
An Elven nation that once thrived for thousands of years as a predominantly agricultural race was forced underground because of unexplainable occurrences of extreme weather conditions (...
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Where would water come from in an underground colony?
A large solar flare event ignites the atmosphere of Earth, but luckily, humans have been preparing for an event like this for some time. We have a fairly large shelter around 2.2 kilometers ...
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Could moose/elk survive in the Amazon forest?
In my story, there is a civilization living in the Amazon rainforest. They need some time of mount that is adapted to the forest. I don't think horses can survive by themselves in there, so I was ...
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What thickness of atmosphere and strength of magnetosphere would I need for a planet to have a deadly daytime and a hospitable nighttime?
What thickness of atmosphere, and strength of magnetosphere, would I need for a planet to have a deadly daytime and a hospitable nighttime?
I'm wanting a planet in which humans can survive on as long ...
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How would a society isolated by monster attacks get food?
So I've got a medieval fantasy world where humanity has been forced to live exclusively in fortified towns and city states because of attacks by monsters. These monsters are not kaiju level in size so ...
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The great battery swap [closed]
An alien contra-organization wants to spur the development of Earth to help humans in the near-future in presence of a prime-directive like law. They cannot establish actual contact, so they do the ...
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Creating the perfect post-apocalyptic suburban town, part I: water source
I'm writing a story set in the immediate (and eventually distant) aftermath of the human race globally being given access to a runic magic system in the modern day. This... eventually goes very, very ...
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Is it possible for humanity to completely annihilate itself?
Is it possible for humanity to completely annihilate itself? By that I mean there cannot be one survivor left and the annihilation must be caused by humanity itself with current technology (no crazy ...
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Could a primitive sapient civilization survive on a planet being pulled along by a shkadov thruster?
From my understanding shkadov thrusters, they use huge mirrors built on the scale of a dyson sphere, to reflect all the radiation of a star in one direction, accelerating the star as an enormous star-...
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What would happen to a human dragged quickly from the surface to the mesopelagic zone?
My mermaids have returned, and now they're dragging semi-conscious people about 700-ish meters underwater. Is it realistic for the person to still be alive at this point? (Y'know, for about ten ...
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How many people need to be born every 8 years to sustain population?
So I'm doing some worldbuilding for a small, isolated village on the coast. The winters are harsh, but making sure everybody has enough food generally isn't an issue because they have good trade with ...
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Hermit living down a well. How deep can he safely go?
A holy man lives down a cylindrical well that is 2 metres in diameter. There is no water in the bottom and all the walls are of solid impermeable rock. He is protected from rain by a roof on supports.
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How would humans survive being on a rock formation in the middle of the ocean? [closed]
You're just walking down the street not expecting anything when you suddenly black out and wake up on a small rock formation seemingly in the middle of the ocean. Looking around you see four other ...
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Where should you go if gravity pulled sideways?
If the entire Earth's gravity immediately shifted so it was pulling from East to West, what should people do? Keep in mind that this is not reversed, but merely tilted sideways, and maybe at an angle ...
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Alien invasion to probe us, why? [closed]
In popular culture on my Earth-like planet, alien-abduction stories, anal probing and conspiracy-theories are well-known but largely considered by mainstream culture to be delusions or fanciful ideas ...
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If aliens would be like us, how can we survive [closed]
We Humans are the most intelligent species of this planet, we have total control over all other species of this planet, we can use them however we want like (Food,clothes,experiments). We are the most ...
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What's the oldest plausible frozen specimen for a Jurassic Park style story-line?
We've found all sorts of interesting stuff in arctic ice & permafrost around the world.
Bacteria & the like far older than the more media friendly mammoth specimens have been found, living ...
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How long can humans survive in increased gravity?
One premise of my current planet-in-progress is that certain locations in the universe are inherently tied to my PIP. For example, all the people and things that have vanished in the Bermuda Triangle ...
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How to transport 10,000 terrestrial trolls across ocean fast?
Trolls are about 30 meters tall on average and can weigh anything between 100 to 200 short tons at sea level. They can only be found to inhabit an island somewhere in the Pacific ocean and are in ...
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How to make society ravaged by random killing, prosper and remain happy?
Set in near future.
Human population is at most a hundred thousand.
Everyone lives in mountainous regions to escape deadly miasma.
The air is infected by nanites which can cause cardiac arrest in ...
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Fortifications capable of withstanding atmosphere-clearing blast
On the Atomic Rockets site, there is a series of handy tables, the first of which is aptly named "The Boom Table", providing examples for a wide range of energy releases (in both Joules and TNT ...
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How long could humans survive on my planet?
I have created a planet which is a clone of Earth. Except I messed up where wasps, cobras and scorpions were concerned and they have turned out to be the size of elephants (everything in proportion).
...
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Earth becomes a rogue planet - how long can Iceland hold out?
Inspired by this question and my comment on one of the answers.
If the earth were flung out of the solar system, it would rapidly become far too cold for any unprotected life to survive on the ...
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Is it possible to perform surgery on your own spine? [closed]
My character has to perform surgery on herself and by herself.
She has all the surgery tools and a screen to watch what she is doing.
She is in a clean stable environment and there is no risk of ...
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How to survive in the Triassic period
Some pioneering humans get stranded on a planet which has exactly the same conditions as the earth in the Triassic period. They decide to stay and build a society/colony from scratch with the ...
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Is there a way for a creature from earth to survive the vacuum of space for ten minutes?
I was wondering if there was a way for a creature to survive the vacuum of space for ten minutes with only a tank of oxygen and a mask to breathe the oxygen with. The creature comes from an Earth-like ...
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Is survival possible after having gravity reversed on the entire human race?
In the near future, an alien race finds Earth, learns how it and everything on it works, and begins to tamper with it. Somehow they figure out a way to flip the pull of Earth's gravity on only humans ...
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Would humanity survive an empty Earth suddenly populated with young children?
Scenario:
An Earth that is identical to our own (for the sake of being specific let's say the environment is the same as it was in 1 BCE)
The planet is uninhabited by humans (and no there aren't ...
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Would a person from the past be able to survive for a week in New York?
A person from the 15th century Europe, by way of an Assiti Shard, gets thrown forward in time to 21st century New York City. They are aware they're going someplace weird, because the shard manifests ...
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Backpack contents for a modern person stranded in the stone-age [closed]
A time-travel experiment sends a volunteer back to the stone age.
The Stone Age begins with the first production of stone implements and
ends with the first use of bronze. Since the chronological ...
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Possible biological adaptations to make current humans more suited to surviving on Earth-like primitive planets? [closed]
Premise
My alternate version of the human race has progressed just to the brink of the ability to explore and possibly colonize other earth like exo-planets. the story follows an expedition crew has ...
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Is running away from 'the humans' a good way to go in terms of survival or just delaying the inevitable of being found? [closed]
In this context related in terms of my last question.
I've seen this lots of times in fiction and TV shows where sub-species, such as Marvel's Mutants and Inhumans or anything considered 'super' or ...
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Chores and tasks suitable to younger children [closed]
This is a follow up to an earlier question about a post apocalyptic ‘civilization’ created only from those under sixteen, and not many of them. Thus, anyone who can work is needed. What tasks might be ...
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Zombie infection is worse than imagined: how can humanity survive? [closed]
This plague takes some of the worst from every zombie movie you might have seen and puts it together. It's airborne and can survive for a week in the air, and it is transmitted to humans through all ...
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Any device to move a black hole [closed]
Our universe is quite boring area with lot of emptiness. Seems to be a huge misinvestment if the space had a price for the creator (or the causer?). There is almost no way escaping this universe with ...
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Is a horse a suitable familiar for this wandering wizard? [closed]
Most wizards stay in their City of Wonders. Everything they need is there. However once in a while an adventurous soul decides they would like to explore the outside world.
On the outside everything ...
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Surviving stitches on the temple
My character has had to have a small ant-sized disk inserted into her temple. The disk is a tracker. It was installed in a clean setting with modern technology. The stitches are made with dissolvable ...