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1500 questions
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9 answers
How are there so many species on the space station 'A long way from anywhere V'?
Here on the Space Station 'A long way from anywhere V' (not to be confused with any other space stations) a wide variety of species pass through on their way to the Krasnikov tube terminal. Even the starship 'Exciting Undertaking' stops here from…
Joe Bloggs
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What would the problems with / consequences of a torus shaped planet be?
Take a torus planet:
It has the structure of a normal planet (ours):
The diagram is not to scale. Assume similar proportions of Crust:Mantle:Cores as the Earth. Is has a similar volume (close to 1.1 x 1012 km3).
It is simply there, as of now. It's…
Tim
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Should immortal women have periods?
Mod Note: Some people may be squeamish about this subject, please keep all responses clinical rather than vulgar.
So, in my world, I try to play the "immortality" trope with twists that make it suitable for my imagination.
So, to understand the…
Z..
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25 answers
Why would a language be undubbable by universal (machine) translator?
A hypothetical speculative fiction setting uses the universal translator/babelfish/translator microbes/whathaveyou as a convenient plot device. However, certain languages are simply untranslatable by this method.
What property would make such…
Anonymous
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21 answers
Why would the Federation ban escape pods that come with manual override?
The year is 2216 C.E., humanity develops an economic solution to travel to the Alpha Centauri A, our closest star system, in a matter of decades. Despite mankind's technological prowess our species is still divided by selfish gain and corruption;…
user6760
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35
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8 answers
Is a small indoor city realistic?
I'm taking about a gigantic building that serves all the needs of small city, about a thousand inhabitants. People must be able to work, sleep, eat, play, and go to school all with out leaving the building.
Is such a thing possible with our…
Bryan McClure
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35
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8 answers
Can a human being live with a continuous stream of blood instead of pulses?
For any reason, a human heart is replaced with a pump that instead of pulses provides a continuous stream of blood. It varies the pressure, as a heart does, as needed.
Ignore such technical issues as energy, immune system rejecting strange body,…
Westside Tony
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Is a world with no technological improvement possible?
A society grows with time, but does the technology needs to grow with them?
Is it possible for a planet to have a very large population and much society but no more improvement in the ways of the society? Like all scientists are on vacation, for…
Fulli
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9 answers
Could we reach the earth's core using today's nuclear arsenal?
The setting is basically earth. Our planet is unfortunately on a collision course with a large asteroid. However, humans have discovered and decoded a message from an ancient, advanced alien race (our parents). These aliens have left behind…
Ovi
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19 answers
Which fast STL drive could not be weaponized or results in perpetual motion?
I'm looking for a slower-than-light (STL) drive for fast inter-system travel. It should make trips from one planet of a system to another (e.g. Earth, Mars, Jupiter) with sublight speed possible in a few days.
In many science fiction works we…
Hothie
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Why are low gravity humans depicted as TALL?
I totally get why humans who have colonised a low gravity environment (Mars or an asteroid, for instance) are skinny. Muscles doing less work, square cube law, force output of a muscle proportional to its cross-sectional area, etc, etc.
But I don't…
DrBob
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14 answers
Humans can now fly. What happens to the transportation industry?
Let's pretend for a moment that right now, everybody on earth was given the ability of flight. What impact would this have on the modern-day transportation industry?
Physical restrictions on the ability of flight:
Maximum altitude is based on…
Munesawagi
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How critical is it for life that a planet remains within the habitable zone at all times?
Important note: The orbits in the diagram are elliptical. They have low eccentricity so they appear to be off centre circles but they really are ellipses with the star at a focus.
The habitable zone around a star is the range of distances at…
smithkm
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Precision Destruction by a Cosmic Being (Or how to destroy StackExchange from space)
We have a lot of weird questions come up in chat and fun comments about how we destroy worlds over a lunch break. Here is one that though I might share. You are a power that can affect cosmic bodies and phenomena. You have been offended mightily by…
Mourdos
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35
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14 answers
Do we fall into an "artificial intelligence" trope or is it reality?
In regards to questions on artificial-intelligence, it seems like there is always usually an immediate opinion that the goals an AI is tasked with is going to end up with the opposite effects than what the programmers want. Or that a "powerful" AI…
DoubleDouble
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