Considered harmful: questions where the asker expects us to figure out a scientific explanation or alternative for their handwavium

Question

• Latest offender: Need counters for a near perfect Anti Thermal and Kinetic armor system in a near future setting
• Another example: Could alien organisms evolve to utilize Thermoelectric cooling(the Peltier effect) to cool themselves down?
• And another: How could my solar-powered fairies exist in outer space?
• One more: Amount of fuel needed for a long-running fusion reactor
• Final for the road: What would a zombie's brain look like?

All of these questions are of the form:

hey look at this thing well outside the realms of known science that I dreamed up, how can I justify it by known science?

and the only correct answer is:

you've already required your audience to suspend their disbelief with your handwavium, why do you need science to justify it?

Yet I consistently see questions along these lines being posted here, and even making it into HNQ at times. However it appears that a consensus has already been reached about such questions over two years ago:

Closure seems appropriate. At their core, they seem too broad - we don't really want completely open ended questions there and "what will replace X" is pretty much that.

Now, I will agree that the type of questions I'm talking about here aren't strictly the same as those on that linked Meta question, but they ultimately suffer the same problem: namely that there are a potentially infinite number of answers.

However I have another concern with this type of question: by answering them, we give aspiring writers the impression that justifying handwavium is something they need to be doing. But that's incorrect; the kind of details that these questions are asking for are wholly irrelevant to building the actual world of their story, which is ultimately done through the beings that are the lens through which their story is told within a world.

As such, I posit that by entertaining such questions here we are doing writers a massive disservice, and consequently that we should be doing a far more zealous job of closing them as "too broad" as soon as they're posted.

Answer 1

I think I get where you're coming from, because that's pretty much what I said in a comment on this one: Possible mechanism for telescoping barrels. I mean, if your world needs telescoping barrels, just give it telescoping barrels and never explain how they work.

But careful what you wish for.

If we tell people that in order to answer this kind of question, they must justify why their story needs it, then they'll be writing us 5000 word questions explaining their entire story concept and why they need this (and then people would VTC for "lack of focus"). I think I'd rather they just ask their question, be as focused as possible, and we just assume they need it for some reason we would actually prefer not to wade through.

(I thought the space fairies was actually a reasonable one. The author had some clearly wrong ideas about physics in space so we probably did a service there. On one hand, they don't need to explain the detailed biology of space fairies. On the other hand, tiny wings flapping in the void did need, at least, some handwavium, and the author didn't even know they needed that.)

edit -- another good example just popped up here: Can a creature have an endoskeleton of chitin and silica?

As Starfish Prime mentioned in his answer "you're presumably not writing a story about biochemistry, so I'd just gloss over the issue." This is good advice, but he also still answered the question. We don't really know what the asker is creating. Perhaps Mr. Spock has just beamed down to an alien planet and would like to deliver a comprehensive and believable science statement about local lifeforms. The author would like to at least know it's plausible. Seems fair enough, really. Closing the question because we personally think he doesn't need the answer is a bit...silly.

Answer 2

Here is a list of the Meta questions I've asked on this subject:

• Advice to Querents asking "is X plausible or realistic?"
• Why asking for the details isn't always a good idea
• Advice concerning questions asking HOW to implement a technological procedure or device
• Are "how would X explain Y?" questions on-topic?
• What is "narrative necessity" and how does it apply to worldbuilding?
• How best to deal with "what are you expecting?" questions
• Best Practice for Helping OP's with Science-Based Fantasy Requests

And those are just mine. As you can see, I've been asking about this issue since 2017. In all that time, I've been led to realize a simple fact:

Nothing will stop people from asking this type of question.

In a perfect world nobody would post a question on this Stack before memorizing the Tour, memorizing at least the On-Topic and Don't-Ask Help Center pages, and watching the question-answer process for at least a year. The truth? Almost nobody reads the tour and nobody reads the Help Center until they've had their hands slapped a dozen times. And while a few folks spectate for a while, most swoop in and drop their question, then wonder why it gets down votes or closed.

It doesn't help that we're in the midst of an "as realistic as possible" fad

I've never seen an episode of The Expanse. I've watched a few YouTube clips, and the show's cool... but while it might not have single-handedly done us a disservice, it contributed to the current fad of all worldbuilding efforts being as "realistic as possible."

Bah-humbug!

My family and I ran a micro-publisher for about ten years. Some of the lessons we learned, based on reviewing nearly 100,000 (yup, one-hundred-thousand) manuscripts over that decade, were these:

1. A good story will be forgiven almost any lack of detail. A bad story won't be saved by any amount of detail. @Sphennings is dead-on correct about this. In our case, the most common offenders were invective and over-the-top-detailed-violence. Trust me, a bad story won't be saved by any amount of swearing or gore, no matter how much you think your antagonist "can't be understood" without it. The goal, as any practiced author will tell you, is to have a good story with the right amount of detail so that your readers write to you begging for more. Hence my linked question above, "Why asking for the details isn't always a good idea."

2. Every detail you include in your story that doesn't contribute to the plot or help improve the audience's experience of the journey is a distraction, often with "we hated the book" consequences. Don't believe me? Get an unmodified and unabridged copy of Moby Dick and try to read it. Chapter after chapter after chapter of mind-numbing detail about whaling ship operations and logistics that have little or nothing to do with the story. The only reason anyone reads it today is because they were forced to in their Middle School English class. Why did Melville include it? Because in his day, almost no one understood anything about sea-faring ships. That simply isn't true about space ships (or most of science) today. Hence my linked question above, "What is 'narrative necessity' and how does it apply to worldbuilding?"

3. As you increase your attention to detail, you're decreasing your attention to your story, always with negative results. There's a balance between worldbuilding and storybuilding. Tolkien spent a lot less time "building his world" than you might think. Oh, he had a mountain of notes and ideas that were glued together into The Silmarillion, which is hard to read for non-Tolkien enthusiasts because it is, at best, a lengthy compilation of short stories and poetry. (I'd bet that you, dear reader, don't know three people who have read it cover-to-cover, even though most people who own two or more copies of The Lord of the Rings also have a copy of The Silmarillion. I do. I've never cracked the cover.) But he only built as much of his world as was necessary for his story. Worldbuilding is fun, but without a purpose, it's just a loose collection of ideas. And when you lose focus on the purpose for doing it, what you get has little value. Hence my linked question above, "How best to deal with 'what are you expecting?' questions."

To make a long story short, too much realism is just as bad as too little. Pick up a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and ask yourself, just how much of that story reflected "Real Life?" Answer: A lot less than you think. Lee's story was based on her 10-year-old memories of her family, her town, and an event that took place in her town. It was also based on research. And finally it was crafted into a book that made a point. I know enough about the history of the time period to know the book was laughably simplistic. I also know enough about story telling to know it was a masterpiece in that it drew her audience into debate and discussion about social issues.

Had she tried to bring "realsim" into the story any more than she did, it would have ruined the book.

It's true that new authors seeking "realism" are misguided

The kind of details that these questions are asking for are wholly irrelevant to building the actual world of their story.

New authors haven't yet realized how to balance "realism" with "purpose." But to claim that such details are "wholly irrelevant" is claiming to read the OP's mind. If the scientific detail around the fantastic idea is a central plot device in the story, then it makes a lot of sense to come here and ask for help trying to define it. If it's not a central plot point, then you're absolutely correct that the effort is a waste of everyone's time.

But does that make the question type inherently wrong?

No, it doesn't. The only question that matters from the perspective of we, the potential respondents, is, does the question meet the rules of Stack Exchange and this Stack's expectations?

• If yes, then it's perfectly reasonable to answer even if you, an individual respondent, doesn't like the question type.

• If no, close the question and explain to the OP what needs to be done to meet the rules and expectations.

Conclusion

To quote from the Good Book (and not making a moral judgement about any OP), "the poor you will always have with you." Interpreted for this application:

• Inexperienced authors will always be inspired by something and seek our help to rationalize their ideas.

That's not a bad thing... so long as we're willing to patiently help them understand how to proverbially drive at the posted speed limit.

Answer 3

and the only correct answer is:

you've already required your audience to suspend their disbelief with your handwavium, why do you need science to justify it?

I disagree that this is a correct answer. I would say it's a complete non-answer, which essentially boils down to "don't do worldbuilding." In my opinion this is a pretty random thing to say to someone who just posted a question on a site about worldbuilding.

There is definitely a place for the argument that sometimes a story can be made convincing by leaving out some of the worldbuilding details - I'm just pretty sure the worldbuilding stack exchange isn't that place.

And much as there is a place in the world for that argument, there is also surely a place for a counterargument: sometimes it's useful to build the world in much more detail than is ever revealed in the story. Not every author does this, and certainly not every author has to, but as a good example, check out Greg Egan's site, where he gives wonderfully detailed explanations of the physics of his worlds, complete with diagrams, graphs and equations, in far more detail than we ever see in the novels. Do we really want to tell people that that kind of work isn't worth doing, if they want to do it?

And most certainly, the "suspension of disbelief is better than worldbuilding" argument can't possibly make sense as a reason to close a question. If a question can be closed as off-topic because it's about worldbuilding, then what is this site for at all?

Answer 4

A compelling enough story can cover pretty much any "failure" of worldbuilding. I've never seen worldbuilding salvage a poorly written story.

We should continue to discourage how do I explain/justify X questions. There are two major reasons for this:

1. Such questions are too broad and open ended for this site.
2. Explaining everything in your world is unnecessary and can negatively impact your stories.

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Site policy is very clear that brainstorming and idea generation are not permitted on this site. From early discussions in our site's infancy onwards the consensus has always been that such questions were not to be asked here.

For a while we even had a custom close reason just for idea generation. The conversation around removing it was entirely around how it was unnecessary when we could already close such questions using build in close reasons.

As written, the idea-generation close reason doesn't cover anything not already covered by existing close reasons, specifically too broad and primarily opinion-based (too subjective). I think we should get rid of this close reason.

Since it's removal we have continued closing questions asking us brainstorm or generate ideas.

The reason Stack Exchange have upvotes on answers is to identify the correct answer. If there are many valid answers then this whole system breaks down. When asking how to handwave something literally any handwave will be an equally valid answer. This is why from the beginning such questions have not been permitted on this site.

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We, hopefully, all agree that wizards, Jedi, hobbits, elves, witchers, space marines, mecha, blind swordsmen, pokemon, and any other fantastical element of our favorite stories, do not exist. There is no amount of explanation that will change this. When we engage with these worlds we already do so knowing full well that they are fake. Even a small child knows that these stories are unreal. Yet we keep coming back to them again and again. We're so drawn to them that we want to expand on them, or try our hand at creating worlds to tell stories of our own.

Telling a fantastic story that is grounded in reality is a red herring. All you need to do is tell us that an impossible thing exists and readers will buy into it. The challenge has never been explaining the impossible things. In fact explaining it draws attention to its impossibility and opens up the explanation to scrutiny. The more explanation there is, the greater the area in which some fault can be discovered.

The only time explaining the details is necessary is when understanding events of the story hinges on knowledge of the details. The rest of the time it's a barrier to engaging with the story. When we see the extensive lorebooks for popular franchises we tend to forget that the compelling stories came first. Only when people are already captivated by the story will they care about the lore. The only people who are in a position to poke holes in your worldbuilding are already won over by your writing. They are poking holes because that's another way to engage with the story you've created.

When we look at successful fantasy, and scifi authors you'll note that they're economical with their explanations. For all his detailed languages and histories, Tolkien never tells us how a creature of shadow and flame can exist, we just know that terror goes before them. In The Expanse spaceships follow the rules of Newtonian physics, we even get a few engine specs, but they never explain how the Epstein drive is able to far outperform any real world equivalent. They don't even attempt to explain how the Protomolecule is able to completely break our understanding of physics. What we can see from both these examples is a focus not on explaining things, but on setting the readers expectations.

Answer 5

Too broad isn't the best closure reason.

Prior note : By closure reason, I mean the official choice (lacking focus, need details...) and its subsequent explanatory comment. It's because I expect people to choose one official reason -usually the most concerning one- then give explanations that is consistent with this choice.

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As a starter, let's dig a doubt with an interesting contradiction I found when looking back at your post.

They [the questions] ultimately suffer the same problem: namely that there are a potentially infinite number of answers.

Yet you say a few lines before :

And the only correct answer is:

You've already required your audience to suspend their disbelief with your handwavium, why do you need science to justify it?

The truth is that broadness is not what distinguishes those questions from the others. More often than not (and as you more or less tell it), the most acceptable answer is "we can't explain it". Closing for being too-broad is therefore a wrong interpretation of the rules, even less in the case of their strict interpretation. Actually, the common trait of these questions is that they attempt to reconcile elements which cannot be put together, generally wild creations and real-world. It's like you cannot blend mustard and chocolate together, in a way.

However and indeed, those questions often lack some forethought, notably to fight back the instinct that more realistic is always better. Strong ties to real-world is only one of the viable intention among many. It looks safer to work with it, but often times having the courage to go mad can give much better results!

So... Presuming the question is showing mismatching intentions and in overall lack good worldbuilding, there are four paths you can take which work much better within the rules. They are also more likely to be applicable than other solutions :

Some better alternatives

Downvoting the question

It's very simple: Someone offered something impossible and it seems they thought too quickly about what they want. They would also probably made a failed attempt at good worldbuilding in general. Thus, as stated by the downvote description :

This question does not show any research effort. It is unclear or not useful.

It can therefore be freely downvoted. Still, note that the point at which you will actually downvote is very personal; Some will have very strict criteria, others will almost never hit that arrow pointing down.

Answering the question, telling this is impossible

This is also known as a frame-challenge. I actually did this for the space fairy question. The intended goal is to remind in a friendly manner that they're likely trying to perform the impossible, and that this might hurt them in the long term.

To remind an old post, frame-challenge as answers should take on at least partially the question or the intent behind it, you mustn't just throw away the idea like some trash in a can. Offer alternatives, give inspiration for something new. If you can't give such thing, It's better told in comments to make it less official and more convivial. Ah and remember : it's perfectly alright for a question to have no answer if no answer can be found : The absence of viable answers is an answer of some sort.

Closing the question for being opinion-based

This one will surely stir reactions : Why would it be opinion-based? Let's first define some common grounds for when opinion-based closure should happen :

• When people are deliberately asking for opinions, or when they just want to engage a discussion (source.
• A common reason is when there is no way to scale answers appropriately. In other words, that there are no objectively better answers than others¹.

With that in hand, let's look at the question : If it is impossible to answer (can't match real-world and hand-waved elements), it means that the premises prevent it. You'd therefore need to change the world and question premises to not reach absurd conclusions. But the issue is : Which one to remove?!

This very question's answer is heavily subject to the querent's personal choice as they should know best what they wish to do. In other words, the question is dependent on one's opinion, and is thus opinion-based by both lack of better answers and (more or less deliberate) asking for opinions.

Personally, I only do this when there are critical components at play. For instance, "How can I realistically kill my immortal character?" is a logical contradiction in and of itself : If "kill" and "immortal" are using the common definition, we'd have to remove one of the premise to start answering. Alas, we can't tell whether it's best the character is killed or be unkillable. Any answer's quality will be therefore inherent to what the readers/querent actually want to conserve than more objective conditions.

Closing the question for lacking details

When facing impossibilities, it happens sometimes that the querent just didn't explain enough what they want exactly. If someone asks how to explain vampires can only be killed by wooden stakes, it could be that they do not want to know how they cannot be killed by other means (guns, rocket launchers...), but how they are especially vulnerable to wood. The first is barely answerable in regard to known sciences, but the latter makes more sense and is more likely to display better worldbuilding intents. Sometimes, some clarification is all you need for a change of perspective and make the question more answerable.

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^{1 : There must be a post stating it explicitly somewhere, but I can't find it back. In any case this is a recurrent comment you can find on closed for being opinion-based questions.}