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1500 questions
45
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11 answers
How would armour (and combat) change if the fighter didn't need to actually wear it?
Through an arcane ritual, a warlock-knight forms a bond with their squire: thereafter, the squire wears the armour, and the warlock gets the benefit of it. So any force (be that hand, weapon or environment) incident on the space above the warlock's…
Stephen
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What is my malfunctioning AI harvesting from humans?
The scenario described below is for a role-playing game. The setting is Earth-like but with a healthy dose of sci-fi. Even though the setting is sci-fi I would prefer answers be largely based in real science (no un-obtainium based…
Urith
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What does it actually mean to have two time dimensions?
The trivial answer is that it just means "you have two dimensions with inverted sign in your spacetime metric". But the perceptual result of that kind of choice doesn't actually look qualitatively different from our universe.
Consider the 4D case;…
Logan R. Kearsley
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Storming Area 51
As you've probably heard, there's been a recent tongue-in-cheek event on Facebook to storm Area 51 on September 20th. Over 222,000 people have "confirmed" that they are going, with more than 251,000 saying they're "interested".
Imagine that this was…
SealBoi
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19 answers
How to get cool night-vision without lame drawbacks?
In this scenario, I would like to focus specifically on humanoids (read: human shaped blinking eyes, protected by eye-lashes and evolved in a waterless environment and fitting human eyesockets, from the outside at least) with the desired effect of…
verity
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16 answers
How could elves survive without any fat cell in their body?
Have you ever seen a fat Elf?
I haven't, and I think there's an unexpected reason.
You see, Elves aren't really the best workers or at least working the land and cultivating food is not something they do. There isn't such thing as Bob the elf…
user56803
45
votes
11 answers
How long will it take to discover they live on a moon and not on a planet?
In my alternate reality, Earth is not a planet. It is a moon and orbits a gas giant (however it has all of Earth's characteristics, it is also full of humans and life as we know it). This is the only moon the gas giant has.
This alternate Earth is…
Carlos Zamora
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9 answers
Hard Sci-fi energy shields
I'm making a fairly hard Sci-Fi story, and I was wondering what the most scientifically plausible 'energy shield' (for ships and stations) would be. My world tries to remain true to basic physics, but I'm not researching every law and limit to get…
Oliver Long
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7 answers
What software is available for map creation?
I'm looking for recommendations for software to build my world, physically. I want to be able to create maps of the entire world and then drill down to individual areas and define the towns and cities, before going into those towns and cities to…
Styphon
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8 answers
Can coins be made out of concrete or cement?
Would it be possible to make coins from concrete with designs like the metal ones?
Alexandre S.
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11 answers
How to avoid the language barrier when there is no time to learn the other language?
In my medieval world, population A and population B have not had any contacts for thousands of years. But pressing events will make them look for each other.
However when they meet... how are they going to understand each other?
I assume that:…
Dreamk33
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16 answers
A pill to make you think faster: Side effects?
OK, so scientists have found a great new substance: That substance makes you think ten times as fast! The advantages are obvious. However, as every medicine, this pill will have side effects.
There are obvious side effects like that a…
celtschk
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9 answers
How could I scientifically explain ice breath?
I'm sure there have been questions on here about fire-breathing dragons, and I recently saw a question about a lightning-breathing dragon, but back in fifth grade I wrote a 150-page story about a dragon with ice breath, and now I'm starting to…
DaaaahWhoosh
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5 answers
What are the safety margins for destroying a planet from space?
My empire's flagship, the Persecutor class UJBHE1 Abhorrent, rides into the home system of my greatest enemy, Baron Obsequious, levels its Death Ray2 at his beloved home, and pulls the trigger.3 Baron Obsequious' prized emerald explodes in a shower…
JBH
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22 answers
Advantage of luminescent eggs?
For example, a quote from one of the Witcher 3: Blood and Wine's side quests says
The eggs themselves are a sight to behold, luminescent.
The man (hologram) is referring to giant centipede eggs.
For any other world, is there a good reason why eggs…
DeepDeadpool
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