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1500 questions
50
votes
5 answers
Anatomically correct sharknado shark
Raining animals is a rare meteorological phenomenon in which flightless animals fall from the sky. Such occurrences have been reported in many countries throughout history. One hypothesis is that tornadic waterspouts sometimes pick up creatures…
The Square-Cube Law
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50
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20 answers
Why would people still use pump-action guns in the future?
9 out of 10 action heroes agree: Repeating a pump-action shotgun looks and feels just plain awesome.
But besides the rule of cool, why would we still use pump-action guns in a future scenario 100-200 years from now? Semi-automatic and even…
Philipp
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50
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2 answers
How tall can a humanoid creature be without alerting the rest of the planet with earthquakes?
Planet is earth sized. Fantasy medieval setting that takes place on Continent A, which is on the other side of the planet from Continent B - about as far as South America is from Asia. Continent B has a very very tall giant lumbering around on it,…
Pink Sweetener
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15 answers
Why is there only one wizard's guild?
The characteristics of a wizard:
Spellcasting is very complicated and difficult - a high intelligence is critical to make a success of it.
They spend many years studying to master the basics of their craft, often followed by more years as an…
Benubird
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50
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27 answers
Why would a god tolerate an impostor in his church?
I have a noble god in my world that is answering prayers, guiding his believers and bestowing divine powers onto selected priests.
Now his church is fragmented into several factions on ideological and political grounds to the extent of sporadic…
AGrzes
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50
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11 answers
Could medieval people produce automatic firearms if they had access to the schematics?
Assume you traveled back in time to the middle ages, and you brought with you the schematics of a fully automatic firearm. Could a group of experienced smiths and jewelers reproduce it? What would the major issues be?
There are some guns which were…
vsz
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12 answers
How would you know your floating island was losing altitude?
The question: What realistic environmental signs would telegraph to the occupants of a floating landmass that their home was slowly losing altitude?
The planet: I'm working on a story that takes place on a gas planet, but with breathable air (I'm…
Shanenopolis
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14 answers
Why is ground warfare smaller scaled than space warfare?
The universe is populated by a decent number of different spacefaring civilisations and races, the largest spanning over hundreds of systems. They have formed relations with each other: Diplomacy, trade, and of course war.
Most nations can field…
Sinthorion
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17 answers
Biological CPUs - why would the developed world fear them?
There is a bottleneck towards Strong AI in my universe. For whatever reason, no one has ever figured out an AI that is sufficiently autonomous to be left alone without intervention, and no one has figured out how to execute an uploaded copy of a…
Zhehao Chen
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49
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11 answers
Would a 4-dimensional being be able to see inside other people?
I have a tribe that is completely isolated from the outside world and there is a shaman that can see in 4 dimensions. He can identify disease before it manifests and is hailed as a god.
This 4th dimension would be purely spatial, he is not able to…
vrwim
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34 answers
Why isn't a magical obligate parasite living in a wizard library exterminated?
This is related to my last question here.
The library here is not necessarily the magical sentient library mentioned in the previous question, but can be any wizard library. This library can be in any form e.g. a secluded tower in a wood, or a huge…
Vylix
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49
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19 answers
(How) can I provide reliable water sources in a world of flying islands?
I have humans who live in a world filled with floating islands. These islands span all heights in the planet: from the core to the upper atmosphere. The problem I have is that most of these islands are too small to have an internal water cycle. Is…
Miguel Bartelsman
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49
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12 answers
Is the whip sword feasible?
There are many weapons that appear in fantasy that are unrealistic for use in combat, from Cloud's sword in Final Fantasy to Daedric weaponry in Skyrim. One of these (less-than-realistic, in this case,) weapons is the whip sword, a simple sword…
TrEs-2b
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5 answers
Are nuclear weapons useful in space?
On Earth, nuclear weapons can wreak enormous damage to a country and for that reason, large-scale wars between nuclear powers don’t happen. But what would happen if humanity progressed just enough to the point where countries expanded into space?…
taylor swift
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9 answers
Could an organism have evolved to kill its prey by shouting at it?
I've recently been replaying Skyrim (for about the fifth time now), and I've stumbled across something I thought would make for an interesting question.
The Greybeards are a group of extremely powerful, isolated mages who live on top of a remote…
fi12
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