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1500 questions
71
votes
22 answers
What single change would have given the best chance for the Allies to win the Battle of France in early WWII
The obvious WWII alternate history question is how could the Axis have won. Let's try something different this time.
The Battle of France was a big gamble for the Third Reich. They sent more or less their entire army in a rush attack in order to…
Eth
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70
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24 answers
In a world with very advanced computer science, how would people be taught sufficient programming skills?
In this world, a few hundred years have gone by since the invention of the first computer and the field of CS has been developed to the point were people are hardly aware hardware exists. Most people are raised in a environment were virtual reality…
user44285
70
votes
14 answers
How can I hide my island?
I'm a supervillain. I have no name, but you can rest assured my intentions are dubious and always result in general harm.
My biggest problem these days are these pesky superheroes keep finding my lairs and destroying them. Now I may be rich, but…
Anoplexian
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70
votes
18 answers
Ultimate Australian Canal
First of all, yes I'm Australian, and yes I am using a kangaroo to type this up.
If you take a look at Australia, it's a pretty sad place geographically. Very flat, very dry, mostly desert and for the majority of it, mostly poor, arid land that…
John Hon
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70
votes
19 answers
Where should a galactic capital be?
I'm creating a full-fledged galactic republic, in a galaxy not so very different from our own. It's designed to encompass the majority of the stellar systems in the galaxy, including some of the globular clusters orbiting outside the galactic plane.…
HDE 226868
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70
votes
14 answers
Help! Our merchants keep turning into villains!
To My Trusted Advisors;
It has now been six months since the founding of Puzzleville around the entrance to the magic-filled Labyrinth of Wonders. As expected, adventurers from around the world have braved the subterranean depths to extract the…
Frostfyre
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70
votes
21 answers
How do we tell if we're living in a virtual reality world?
Since I haven't found anything like this yet. I was reading a novel and it talked about how some people created a 'Artificial Virtual Reality World' where the denizens were Human Artificial intelligence. Which to put simply, they reproduced earth in…
Skye
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70
votes
10 answers
Are there any ways to allow some form of FTL travel without allowing time travel?
Faster than light travel is a really cool thing to have in sci-fi settings. It allows humans, in relatable time scales, to travel the galaxy and see a variety of worlds. It allows for conflicts spanning not just a solar system or perhaps a solar…
ckersch
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70
votes
25 answers
How to prevent superluminal traveling idiots from wrecking half of the universe?
Linked but not a duplicate of this question.
An example of the problem
During the last Star-Wars movie, I was dumbfounded by the sheer stupidity of admiral Holdo's move, during this particularly visual scene:
While most people I know don't seem to…
Nyakouai
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70
votes
35 answers
Eternal space battle around a planet. But why?
The Setting
A planet (large continents, mostly steppes, deserts and plains) is settled by nomadic tribes (think Mongols, Tuareg or Apache). The tribes lack written history, but the legends speak of a day when strange lights started appearing in the…
Autolykos
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70
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15 answers
What would be left of a civilization founded in dinosaur times?
65 million years ago, a mass extinction event (likely caused by the Chicxulub Meteor) wiped out the dinosaurs, and their remains were hidden from us for millions of years.
Humanity was not around at the time, and there were no major societies or…
Zibbobz
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69
votes
19 answers
How would an astronaut conclude he's on Earth, but 600 million years in the future?
Say we have a group of space travelers who have been frozen inside a sleeper ship for an enormous amount of time that left when Earth was recognizable. When they thaw out and reach their destination, they land on a planet which has only one…
user38070
69
votes
21 answers
Dealing With Dragonslayers
The setting is mid-medieval in technology, vaguely European. There exists no magic in the setting except what is explicitly defined in this question (which all relate to dragons).
Dragons are the traditional winged, scaled, fire-breathing beasts of…
Ranger
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69
votes
20 answers
Architecture of the perfect zombie apocalypse refuge
Your mission, whether or not you choose to accept it, is to design the perfect refuge from the zombie apocalypse.
Starting assumptions and constraints:
The zombies will be slow (walking) zombies (aka The Walking Dead zombies) and not
runners (aka…
Jim2B
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69
votes
11 answers
Let's weaponize jellyfish
Jellyfish are... weird. They're clear, slimy, and can sting after death. Sounds perfect for experimentation, so let's weaponize them!
Consider a hypothetical world where jellyfish are extremely common and you can get them cheaply anywhere, and…
Aify
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