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1500 questions
37
votes
10 answers
How to keep Species "Pure-Bred"
I am thinking about having multiple races in my story but I also want them to have relationship (Love/Mating). For the moment lets go with generic types, Humans, Elfs, Dwarfs and Orcs. How could these species remain as they are without them mixing…
Mr.Burns
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37
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12 answers
How might a collective society (along the lines of ST's Borg) develop?
I'm referencing ST's Borg in this query but due to WB.SE customs regarding asking about known franchises, am generalising the query itself.
So, in Star Trek, the Borg are a collective society of humanoids, described as a "hive mind" in which all the…
Anders Gustafson
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37
votes
14 answers
How, if at all, can space battleships mitigate gun recoil?
I am making a game universe involving spaceships. While chewing through the implementation issues, I also keep making story and environment plans.
Big battleships have big guns. However such guns have a recoil and there's nothing a battleship can…
Tomáš Zato
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37
votes
16 answers
Can airborne floating/flying islands be scientifically possible?
I'm sure that this has been asked before, but I need floating islands for a fiction story I'm writing. It takes place 5000 years after a catastrophic event (on a vaguely earth-like planet populated with humans) that shrouded the surface of the…
Mr. Question
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37
votes
20 answers
How would people tell time if it was always day?
So, if I have a civilization that lives in a hollow planet, with a sun in the middle. How would they tell time? The sun always shines, and it is a Constant Spring/summertime weather. They have animals that live about as long as they do on earth,…
Xandar The Zenon
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37
votes
11 answers
Would we see cannons in a magic-using society?
In a society that has relatively plentiful magic, enough that spell casters would be a standard part of any size-able army, would cannons and artillery still develop?
For the purpose of this question lets say we are using a D&D/Pathfinder like…
Tim B
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37
votes
4 answers
What Factors Could Cause a World to See "Northern" Lights Much Closer to the Equator?
I'm currently designing a world where the inhabitants see the Aurora Borealis on an almost nightly basis almost all the way to the equator. The lights are so strong they rarely see the stars beyond.
I've been wondering what could cause this,…
Liath
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37
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14 answers
How can I ensure my cities don't all look the same?
I'm trying to create more opportunities for roleplay in a setting where most civilized cities are along the coastline of a "new world." Most cities are fortress cities on the frontier that serves to protect other colonies. Since most of my cities…
satyesu
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37
votes
6 answers
Anatomically Correct Gods
This question may seem like an impossible challenge. What I'm talking about here is a biological explanation for limited (or, for bonus marks, unlimited) form shifting, immortality (at least in age) and the ability to defy physics.
For example, in…
TrEs-2b
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37
votes
28 answers
What disease affects only the non-peasants?
Imagine a roughly medieval world with a feudal government.
I want a new disease to show up and spread rapidly which affects the nobility and leaders, but not the peasantry, setting up a situation for the feudal system to be overthrown.
The disease…
dsollen
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37
votes
12 answers
What characteristics does my deadly river need so people can't find the bodies of those who drown in it?
My story is set in a small Idaho town called Serpent's Yard, named after the cryptid they believe lives in the lake up in the mountains above the town. The town is built around a river, known as Serpent's Road, that flows out of this lake, which…
Cyrus Drake
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37
votes
14 answers
How can a ghostly being who can't be remembered for longer than 60 seconds secure access to electricity?
I have a character in my story (set in 1998) who has been magically altered in three major ways:
1: She cannot be remembered for longer than 60 seconds without continuous exposure to her by one of the five senses. By the time the 60 seconds of not…
Cyrus Drake
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37
votes
5 answers
How Would the Square-Cube Law change Medieval/Ancient Warfare Between Tiny Humanoids
My story has a battle between two tiny races of humanoids. Assume that both of these races have developed in relative isolation from one another so they have not had a lot of time to develop specialized weapons and tactics against each other's…
Nosajimiki
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37
votes
17 answers
How far could civilisation develop within one lifetime - starting from nothing?
This question here asked if it would be possible to reach the moon within a lifetime for a civilisation starting with "nothing". The answer to that question, quite clearly, is: no way.
But it made me think. Given a similar basic experimental setup,…
fgysin
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37
votes
19 answers
How long could a late WW2-era battleship last under sustained ship of the line cannon fire?
In an alternate world of magic, a battleship similar in design to the Bismarck is stopped in the middle of the ocean. It was built by a society of Earth humans who moved to this world. All other nation’s technology is approximately from the…
In the name of the story
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