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1500 questions
33
votes
18 answers
Can a world where everyone has a time machine be consistent?
In a universe everyone has a time machine and can travel both in the past and in the future.
At some point, no one knows when, an eternal war to control the time started.
The concept of history has lost meaning. There is no safe place, in any age…
Stefano Balzarotti
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33
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19 answers
What would be a legit sounding medical term for Spontaneous Human Combustion?
I am writing a sci fi novel, which is set 100 years into the future (2120). In it, one of my characters is a scientist and investigates a case of SHC where a victim was seen with flames coming from their abdomen/gut, before passing. He writes a…
Lars Knowles
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33
votes
10 answers
How many pillows would you need to survive a fall from a church tower?
The praised Dutch book "Koning van Katoren" features an 18 year old who wants to become king of his country of Katoren, which had been under the regency of half a dozen evil ministers for his whole life. The ministers gave him a series of impossible…
KeizerHarm
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33
votes
24 answers
What would make the internet go away?
Assume that we're in roughly our currently timeline in present day, plus or minus 5 years (for increase or decrease in technology that would/could make a specific method plausible): what event or series of events could lead to the internet…
John Doe
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33
votes
7 answers
How could Nomadic scholars effectively memorize libraries worth of information
In my fantasy world there exists a nomadic people known as the Ròda. The Ròda believe in the collection of knowledge, lore, and more importantly spells. They practice their beliefs by travelling in small groups with each commonly having a large…
Celestial Dragon Emperor
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33
votes
6 answers
At what point in European history could a government build a printing press given a basic description?
Say a time traveler ends up back in time and has earned the good graces of one of the nations' kings by sharing some of his future knowledge. Knowing that the printing press was an important milestone towards increased education and science he…
dsollen
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33
votes
3 answers
What are the effects of a planet staying long-term inside of a nebula?
Let's say for some odd reason, a planet (while in orbit of something) travels at all times inside of a nebula. What all would happen to the planet? Could it sustain life (if sunlight was substituted), or would the nebula cause some other nasty side…
The Man
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33
votes
16 answers
How to tell that you are a giant?
In my novel, my main character has come from earth to a fantasy world. She has been reborn on an island of giants (10-meter tall humanoids) where everything is scaled up to match what they would look like to a normal size person.
My question is what…
Sparrowonfire
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33
votes
9 answers
Antler Helmet: Can it work?
Lord Woodesy wants to have a glorious antlered helm! But he has heard that having antlers, horns, or other projections on a helmet can be severely detrimental in conflict since they can be grabbed or violently twist the head if struck. But Lord…
Cosmic Orrery
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33
votes
7 answers
Explaining "Half-Breeds" in a world with multiple races
In a hypothetical world where multiple humanoid races develop independently of each other (such as a world that contains Elves, Dwarves, and Humans for instance) what are the conditions for half-breeds to be possible?
In our world;
Dogs can…
Inbar Rose
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33
votes
23 answers
Practical reasons to have both a large police force and bounty hunting network?
The Hegemony is a global government governing Earth and her colonies. As a global government the Hegemony has a rather large police force (the Hegemony has merged the military and police within the bureaucracy) numbering in the hundreds of millions.…
Celestial Dragon Emperor
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33
votes
10 answers
Is there a clever one-letter code to describe worlds?
I am a Traveller (game) referee. I've generated lots of worlds before, using a basic system that describes a world in eight fundamental pieces of data. For the record, those data are:
Starport class, from "none" to first-rate, primarily and…
rje
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33
votes
5 answers
How to detect that the universe got mirrored?
This might be more fit in physicsSE, but since I don't even know if my premise is physically sound, I'll post it here.
One day, something caused the universe to get mirrored, meaning a left-right swap, relative to any arbitrary view point. Let's…
Fabian Röling
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33
votes
11 answers
What's an astronomical event which happened about 10,000 years ago, which humans could have noticed?
Bob is older than he looks.
Specifically, even though Bob looks like he's in his twenties or thirties (it's hard to tell), he was actually born in Europe about ten thousand years ago, long before the first word was ever written down.
By coincidence…
Tanner Swett
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33
votes
26 answers
What is the most reasonable way for non-binary computers to have become standard?
Let us assume planet Earth, with a history similar to ours. Except, the result of the computer revolution is not a computer system based on binary (i.e. 0 and 1), but some other system. This system could be digital, with more than two digits, or…
kingledion
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