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1500 questions
35
votes
7 answers
Anatomically Correct Succubus
The succubi are popularly represented as women with horns and bat-like wings. They feed on the vital energy in myths, but could a humanoid creature resembling a woman evolve and feed only on human sperm? If so, what kind of animal and environment…
Seraph Myrmidon
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23 answers
Logical reason why dystopian government controls what people wear?
It’s the year 2018, and you live in the good ol’ North American landmass. The fascist landmass. By this year, the dystopian N.A.F party controls all of the landmass and secret police prowl the streets armed with automatic rifles. Protest the rules…
DT Cooper
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35
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29 answers
Why do the aliens buy Earth whiskey instead of just downloading the copy and creating it themselves?
This takes place far in the future. The emperor of the star empire has a lot of things to deal with, that stress him out. The treaty with Xcarus is down the toilet, the High General has just purged a great number of high ranking officers for…
DT Cooper
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35
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6 answers
What's the smallest patch of land a single person could be food-sufficient on indefinitely, in a temperate climate?
One person lives alone with access to a small patch of useful land. They have to grow all their own food and survive indefinitely.
This small patch of fertile soil is the only useful land. No grazing, everything around them is basically rocks.
They…
spraff
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16 answers
Why might a society perceive erasing from history as worse than death?
So, long, long ago, on a planet in the Milky Way, dwells the Qualian civilization. The time is around Earth’s 16th century, in the Tasadian Empire. Emperor Zora II has just been betrayed and nearly assassinated by the famous High General Duluk.…
Daluk
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35
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4 answers
How large could a planetary diamond be?
Back in the days when men were real men, women were real women, and small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centaury, an obscenely rich woman decided she wanted to have the biggest diamond of…
celtschk
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35
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12 answers
Weaponry made from extreme light-weight steel: swords and daggers
Imagine there was a material that was mostly identical to steel in almost every way, but instead of a density of $7.85–7.87 g/cm^3$ it would be a tenth of that. That is about 4 times lighter than aluminium is.
The idea is that all other properties…
ArtificialSoul
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22 answers
My magic system "pays the price" by drawing its energy from the future: should that affect luck, heat, or life?
I'm developing a magic system that has as its weakness or limitation the fact that the energy used in the magic is drawn from the future. I'd like the system to experience a form of "resistance" such that the more influential the magic (lighting a…
JBH
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17 answers
Could plants spread their seed to other planets?
Assume a plant was engineered to cope with a wide range of different environments, and to have seeds that were capable of traveling through and surviving both the depths of space and re-entry into atmosphere. Given this assumption then you can see…
Tim B
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35
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17 answers
How can a secret, murderous cult remain secret?
(Almost) each work of fiction requires Villains. Sometimes the more dastardly, the better. And what is more dastardly than an evil, murderous, secret cult that practices human sacrifices?
And again I caught myself on thinking about the details, the…
gaazkam
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35
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7 answers
What makes a dragon's scale so tough?
Many fantasy stories involve some variation of a dragon, and while there's a lot of variation in whether or not they fly, if they can breathe fire, how magical they are, etc., the strength of dragon scale is almost universal. Often, it is the…
Jetscooters
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35
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7 answers
How to create an annual celestial event for a world
Yesterday while Green, Andy and I were recording new episodes for the podcast we stumbled upon a bit of a problem that we need someone with physics/astronomy knowledge to help out with.
We want to create an annual astronomical event for the sake of…
James
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35
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7 answers
Can a radioactive moon affect life on a planet?
This question is meant as a reality check on this answer to The land grows evil and corrupted ... but why?
Radioactive moon in a nearly geosynchronous orbit. It slowly kills or alters all life exposed to it, but it doesn't hang perfectly still in…
Mołot
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34
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9 answers
How would prolonged use of augmented-reality combat gear affect soldiers?
Consider a future soldier with access to the technological augmentation indicated below, and for whom it is reasonable to believe he would spend (while deployed) at least 18 hours a day attached to the augmentation.
Vision, by way of a wholly…
JBH
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34
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12 answers
Is it possible for a substance to be thermally inert?
Heat is energy. Temperature is an indication of the level of heat in a substance. But the normal way to measure temperature is to observe how the substance interacts with its surroundings - most commonly, by giving off heat to a cooler body, or…
rosuav
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