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6 votes
Accepted

Creating a prison on the high-pressure ice of a deep oceanic planet

Pressure equilibrium vs material strength (frame challenge) You do not need a material that is able to withstand the full pressure of kilometers worth of water above an underwater base. All you need ...
Antares's user avatar
  • 2,202
2 votes

How can these humans cross the ocean(s) at the first possible chance?

Aspidochelones. I think Earth peoples simply used boats, so the only way to make my answer interesting is to propose something better than a boat. Earth has a number of traditional stories of ...
Mike Serfas's user avatar
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1 vote

How can these humans cross the ocean(s) at the first possible chance?

Easy. Either the ocean salinity is lower than the Earth's, or your aliens have better kidneys and they are capable of drinking seawater indefinitely (or, being aliens, they even might not have kidneys)...
Radovan Garabík's user avatar
1 vote

How can these humans cross the ocean(s) at the first possible chance?

For a more creative solution, try a floating island lifeform that the sentients use (either passively or actively). Imagine a tree that floats across the ocean, its root matter creating a wide raft-...
Brendan's user avatar
  • 11
1 vote

How can these humans cross the ocean(s) at the first possible chance?

The 'shortest' distance is a meaningless concept in a society without modern navigation aids. The Irish, Vikings, and many, many other groups of people have sailed over the horizon. Some survived, ...
Paul Smith's user avatar
1 vote

How can these humans cross the ocean(s) at the first possible chance?

In a similar vein as others . Maybe with some of your trees being half a kilometer (huge) then a tsunami and/or landslide deposited both enormous floating trees and fauna in a watery environment but ...
Frame125's user avatar
5 votes

How can these humans cross the ocean(s) at the first possible chance?

Rafts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kon-Tiki_expedition Back in 1947, five Norwegians and a Swede sailed a raft from South America to Polynesia in an attempt to prove a theory about how the islands ...
user111403's user avatar
2 votes

How can these humans cross the ocean(s) at the first possible chance?

Exodus in an Ark You could invent some reasons why a "Noah" type of guy had the idea to build a very large ship (or something like a better raft). With space for many people and food. ...
Antares's user avatar
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9 votes

How can these humans cross the ocean(s) at the first possible chance?

A confluence of factors Abundant trees with large tall trunks. The dugout canoe is likely the first type of boat to be "invented" by a civilization. Ease of oceanic subsistence. If fishing ...
Mathaddict's user avatar
  • 14.6k
25 votes

How can these humans cross the ocean(s) at the first possible chance?

Minor Frame Challenge separated by oceans of 4500 and 4600 kilometers at the narrowest points. You are measuring global distances on a square map. These crossing actually have a distance ratio of ...
Nosajimiki's user avatar
  • 101k
9 votes
Accepted

How can these humans cross the ocean(s) at the first possible chance?

Here is the same map with a more reasonable projection: (Mollweide equal-area projection of Darth Biomech's World, made with NASA's G.Projector.) Option 2 is about three quarters of the distance of ...
AlexP's user avatar
  • 94.3k
3 votes

How can these humans cross the ocean(s) at the first possible chance?

Assuming you're thinking about them specifically sailing then the northern route is the easier option. Equatorial waters are notoriously hard to sail around, they're called the doldrums and being ...
Ash's user avatar
  • 49.4k
7 votes

How can these humans cross the ocean(s) at the first possible chance?

If they are partially adapted to a semi aquatic lifestyle, it might be easier for them to spread across the ocean like the first Polynesian settlers did around 4000 years ago, basically island hopping ...
L.Dutch's user avatar
  • 296k
0 votes

Large Sapient Octopus: How could they survive in warm waters?

To survive in warm waters, large sapient octopuses would need to adapt by regulating their temperature, efficiently managing oxygen, adjusting their habitat, and modifying their behavior to avoid ...
Stas SEO's user avatar
0 votes

Help with ocean current details on my terrestrial planet

A few thoughts It is a little difficult to be (nearly) exact here, because there is not much known about water depths, salinity, stream speeds, geological structure (volcanism), polar ice regions, ...
Antares's user avatar
  • 2,202
0 votes

Large Sapient Octopus: How could they survive in warm waters?

Solution: Outpost Let's stick to the facts as close as possible: Octopusses live in colder water. They are born there, grow up and evolve there. Their evolutionary processes all take place in the ...
Antares's user avatar
  • 2,202
0 votes

Large Sapient Octopus: How could they survive in warm waters?

It is perfectly possible that some or all species of octopi are already intelligent beings and people. But they have grave disadvantages in developing civilization. So possibly if humans discover in ...
M. A. Golding's user avatar
12 votes

Large Sapient Octopus: How could they survive in warm waters?

Most octopi die after mating, making them effectively semelparous. However, the Larger Pacific Striped Octopus is known to be iteroparous, breeding several times throughout its life. The reason that ...
Monty Wild's user avatar
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