Questions tagged [technology]
For questions about the creation, use, and application of all types of technology.
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Best way to generate energy from a reactionless thruster?
The IVO Quantum Drive is scheduled to be launched into space on June 10th this year, for realsies.
I fully expect that it will not work, because it would violate conservation of energy.
But if it did ...
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Alternatives to electricity for energy distribution in a spaceship?
Basically, I want the aesthetics of "EPS conduits" without the soft-sci-fi handwaving of actual Star-Trekian EPS conduits. Is there some system for distributing large amounts of power around ...
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Non-electrical technology that pre-modern people would see as magic?
My world was colonized by spacefaring humans who lost the vast majority of their technology in an unknown catastrophe at least 12,000 years before the present. They have now redeveloped roughly up to ...
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Is a "20th century" spacefaring civilization plausible?
This civilization has computational technology roughly equivalent to Earth's in the late 20th century. We're talking post-moon landing, but pre-Internet (roughly 1969-1983). They may or may not have ...
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Types of available ores and metallurgy on a "newly" terraformed planet?
I am developing a story set on an exoplanet that was colonized by spacefaring humans but has long since lost all contact with the homeworld due to some unknown catastrophe at least 12,000 years before ...
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Is there a NON-CHEMICAL weapon that can target the central nervous and/or muscular system?
There is research on nerve agents and gases, but are there any man-portable weapons that may be able to harm the CNS without gas? Thanks.
AMENDED: Results in symptoms like shaking, tremors that are ...
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Is it possible to create a to create a homemade weapon using electromagnetic or microwave energy, sound or sonic beams? [closed]
Entire question: is it possible to create a homemade weapon using electromagnetic, microwave energy and/or sound or sonic beams that can permeate buildings and their structure without damaging the ...
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Would improvised motor vehicles be feasible a century after the fall of industrial civilization?
I'm working on a TTRPG system that takes place about a century after an apocalypse event. I've hit a point where a bit of world building is required, and so I'm going down the list of technologies (...
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What could make the technology to be conserved at the level of mid-late 21th century for centuries? [duplicate]
Here is my description of the world:
The world is roughly at the technological level of our mid-21th century, with some things more advanced than ours and some less. There is seemingly no visible or ...
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How advanced and/or important would aircraft be for a species capable naturally of decent to good flight? [closed]
I am wondering how a species capable naturally/supernaturally(with limits) of decent to good flight, i.e capable of flying for hours and possibly can hover, would treat aircraft like passenger jets ...
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Medical technology in a post-collapse exoplanet
I am developing a story set on a habitable, Earth-like exoplanet which was colonized by spacefaring humans, but has long since lost all contact with the homeworld due to some catastrophe approximately ...
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Alternatives to a sapling for a small game snare trap
I'm working on a story where the main character is going to reap the majority of his income from "inventing" things that a semi-medieval alternate world doesn't have yet. Cooking oil, soap, ...
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What items can a time traveler trade in medieval England to quickly acquire wealth? [duplicate]
I'm writing a story about a man from modern-day Liverpool, UK, who can travel 800 years in the past with a machine. He wants to become a nobleman in the past before going on adventures. He wants to ...
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Peak Copper Age Society
How far could the technology of a copper age society get; Could they work up to the level of late antiquity?
Context:
Im working on a si-fi/fantasy world were people have been transplanted onto a ...
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How or would these mechanical wings work?
I have a character with 2 pairs of mechanical engined wings and I have been wondering if they’d even work or what would be the best type of wings for this character. They’re a military fighter, ...
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Thermoelectric-powered electromagnets to render Mars habitable
The answers to my latest question on restarting Mars core have finally convinced me; I have abandoned the concept of doing so. However, whilst morosely browsing other questions on giving Mars a ...
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At what technological level can a mixed-gender military not be at a disadvantage to an all-male one?
In various fantasy settings, female combatants are quite common. There is a history of women in the military in real life but such women were generally rare and often hid their identity. Warfare was ...
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How far can you get with a pre-industrial production system?
Pre-industrial production system: means of production where the vast majority of goods are made by skilled craftsmen specialized in that field (I.E. Carpenters, blacksmiths, millers, weavers, and ...
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Max tech level for society of 200,000
Given a remote island colonised by modern day (2023) explorers, with a total population of about 200,000 but cut off from the outside world for political reasons, what level of technology could they ...
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Would foot weapons be viable in a street fight? [closed]
There are several weapons that are used to enhance a person's punches. These include brass knuckles, caestus, boxing tape, etc. These weapons are often used in disorganized conflict like bar brawls ...
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What would fungal technology look like? [closed]
In a setting I've created it's modern Earth just like you see around you every day except there's an area deep underground reminiscent of D&D's Underdark or Skyrim's Blackreach in that it's a ...
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How hard is it to ruin the Earth permanently?
Your average Invading Alien Species shows up and plans to invade Earth. They are Default Dumb Movie Aliens and don't have nanotech, AI, space habitats, diplomatic abilities, self-replicating factories,...
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Can we make a tokamak explode?
The Story
Same events as this question. Kit is ordered to let a task-force handle a possible sabotage of the stations fusion power plant. She ignores them and vents the core plasma out into space to ...
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How can I bring down a local space station network without destroying the station itself?
My characters are on a space station trying to bring in the bad guy. To do this, they need to bring down the local station network, so communications on the station itself are impossible. (External ...
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Can you build a sand igloo with a steam powered device?
I am thinking I can build an igloo of sand by heating it to a glass-like temperature where I could mould it into an igloo. It would then solidify when cooling off. Could steam do this if put under ...
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What would be the next logical step after crossbows?
In this world I'm making, I'm trying to avoid firearms (to keep things like melee weapons more balanced), but also be more industrial. I'm justifying it by the simple idea of 'we never discovered ...
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What is the best design for trans-atmospheric cargo ship?
Backdrop
This is set in a world after an empire-state that controlled the entire solar system fell. They have incredibly efficient catalyzed direct fusion drives, which powers the heavy mining and ...
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Justifying why nonhuman sapients would not develop civilisation [closed]
I am imagining a project where the development of more advanced brain-computer interfaces allow humans to communicate telepathically with animals, and so discover that numerous species on Earth are ...
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Necessities for a handheld electron beam weapon
So, since practically every science fiction writer under the sun has imagined some manner of handheld laser beam, I have been exploring alternatives for energy/particle weapons, one of which is an ...
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How fast can you radically change society without violence? (And when has it happened?)
The Backstory (Actually important)
From the current day to an unspecified number of decades in the future, a brutally efficient, totalitarian dystopia-state rises and runs basically all of humanity ...
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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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How to safely contain dinosaurs in the early 1900s?
A nation has found a large island containing dinosaurs! Primarily those of the late Cretaceous.
A nation willing to pour pretty much any amount of money into the project needs a way to safely contain ...
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How would a medieval village protect themselves from invisible monsters? [closed]
How would a village of medieval-like technology protect themselves from rhino sized invisible praying mantis-like monsters?
Context and details:
The praying mantis’s have a top speed of 40 mph and ...
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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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In a world where everyone has a tracking implant, how might those be subverted? [closed]
In a dystopian world where all citizens are tracked through a small device under their skin, how might one go about "outsmarting" the technology to move about unimpeded? My only thought is ...
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How can we cool a computer connected on top of or within a human brain?
Assume the ability to cybernetically implant a powerful enough computer to operate an AI inside the human skull, on top of or within the brain. Thin wires connect the computer to the various parts of ...
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How to store and release vast amounts of electricity for industrial processes?
What Is It For? (skip if desired)
It's been less than a decades since the Ilus system was cut off at its interstellar phase-gate, a few short years after the keidran were created and a disaster forced ...
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Maximum speed of 100% reflective light sails
So, it’s the 23rd century, and due to the cost of fuel these days, people are exploring new methods of interplanetary travel that does not require reaction mass. Light sails spring to mind.
Modern ...
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Possibility of building a landmass connecting Asia and America in the future
I am thinking of a scenario in which a climatic change and rising sea levels (whether true or not IRL) is threatening the Earth and I have learned that changes in sea levels might be caused by melting ...
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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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Where can a non-clarkean civilisation find an FTL Space-drive?
So, this is the deal. In this scenario, humans are unable to create an interstellar civilisation. They have tried colonising exoplanets the slow way, at about a quarter of the speed of light, but this ...
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What population would the Americas have if the natives were as advanced as Europeans?
If you check a list of the most densely populated nations, a lot of New World countries are near the bottom and almost no Western Hemisphere nation (excluding small islands) are near the top. The ...
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Could you use radio waves to hide communications in a tech advanced, future setting?
You're on a space station, and it uses all the hi-tech communications we're used to today - the best wifi/local networks, as well as something I call hypercom (hand waving), using hyperspace to send ...
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Is it possible for an airplane on the sky to play a sound so loud it could be heard 50km away?
I have a story where one side of a war takes advantage of psychological warfare, where a plane on an altitude of 60k ft or 15.2km has massive speakers to play horrifying, disturbing sounds recorded ...
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How are militaries supposed to communicate if they completely shut down wireless communication because the other side can intercept all of them?
This is a story where two militaries are intensely fighting on extremely mountainous terrain, but both of them has developed technologies that is capable of intercepting a great range of signals; from ...
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How would a holographic “touch-screen” work?
Throughout science-fiction, from Star Wars to sundry others, we see characters manipulate holographic images as if they were solid objects; shaping them, tapping them, manipulating them like some kind ...
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How much energy would a collapsing wormhole release?
In my fictional universe, after experimentation with quantum field manipulation, a way to open, expand and stabilize wormholes is developed, requiring an immense flux of energy (as manipulating ...
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How Can We Illuminate a Bishop Ring?
A Bishop ring is a space habitat, in my project about 100 km long and with huge walls 10 km high to keep the atmosphere in.
The ring rotates about once every 20 minutes to simulate 1 G, and is built ...
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How does my military communicate if satellite communications is impossible and sky wave is unreliable
On a planet that resembles Earth, long wave radio communications face some challenges. Satellite communications (SATCOM) is impossible as it is impossible for the inhabitants to send anything up into ...
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Would my particle cloud shield be effective in limiting the use of combined arms/maneuver warfare operations? [closed]
Since I have particle shields in my setting for my armored vehicles, my military forces have also decided to try and extend that technology to the larger battlefield. One of the issues plaguing my ...
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