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Answer 1

In accordance with http://meta.worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/1728/sandbox-overflow, many answers containing now-graduated questions have been deleted. This is designed to be a repository for all those questions that have graduated. It is a community wiki answer, so add in your question here, at the end of the list once it is posted on the main site!

1. Believable magical transmutation of elements
2. How could a human learn to talk to "apes" (like from Planet of the Apes)?
3. Could a Species Use Tools (and Build a Civilization) Without Thumbs?
4. Underground life on Mars
5. What methods of transportation would develop in a Stone Age society in a forest world?
6. The social implications of Life as currency
7. Developing Factions - Secret Societies
8. How can a world with constantly-moving nomads form?
9. How do you layer history?
10. Does an expansionist, monotheistic religion require a central prophetic figure?
11. How to explain the co-existence of peace and violence in religion
12. Plausible explanation for lack of reflection in a mirror
13. Cohabitation with large creatures
14. Keeping people illiterate
15. How to effectively deliver a flu virus that destroys the brains ability to absorb serotonin?
16. In a post-apocalyptic world, would plastic be more useful than metal as currency?
17. Planetary defense
18. How fuel-efficient are airships?
19. How can I create a poison that kills a person after a specific amount of time, and is treatable by an antidote?
20. In a post-apocalyptic world, would plastic be more useful than metal as currency?
21. Hiding own space program
22. Opening the Windows, In Space
23. How to make plasma manipulation powers, on equal power with phases of matter, without material generation powers?
24. Buying Jupiter for the price of a space station
25. Suspended animation vs. regular animation aboard a spaceship
26. The end of torture? (Due to Omnipotence or International Legislation...)
27. How would an earth-like planet with a habitable moon work and how to get there?
28. How to get a Female Archbishop of Canterbury of the 1950s Anglican Church?
29. A planet with changing gravity?
30. Witnessing the death of a star that would go supernova
31. Moving people from a dying planet onto the moons of a gas giant
32. Preparation for Lycanthropic Transformation
33. Single Resource Cities - Economy
34. Mathematical Magic - Solving the Traveling Wizard Problem
35. https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/7092 (Deleted)
36. How do I create a popular and fictional team-sport?
37. The Magical British Government: At War
38. How would an earth-like planet with a habitable moon work and how to get there?
39. Death to humans by deadly monsters
40. Size of a medieval/fantasy trading port
41. https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/15008
42. Time no longer passes except near intelligent creatures, how does the world continue?
43. What would the climate be like on an earth-like planet with only one convection cell per hemisphere?
44. Aircraft and Rockets on a Magical Super-Earth
45. The Simplest Energy Beings
46. Cheapest way to fake the Mars landing
47. Religion After the Discovery of a Multiverse
48. OK, I cannot fake the Mars landing. Can I fake Martians?
49. Earth approached by ugly aliens
50. Message in the clouds - how do people react?
51. Trading valuable resources
52. How can I successfully prove magical link?
53. Creating a realistic world map - Mineralogy
54. How would paleolithic combat work in a world where you have instant, and permanent mastery when you hold any tool?
55. How can I convince skeptical rationalists that afterlife is for real and needs to be striven for?
56. How would a human livestock facility run by aliens operate?
57. How long can Joe go without liquid water?
58. Industry and Threat in 1850s
59. Concealing my earth-changing invention
60. Paranoid car for paranoid person
61. My earth changing invention: How can I hire the people I need?
62. Best way to reveal your group of magic users
63. Social effect of pill which defers need to sleep
64. If I reveal my Earth changing invention suddenly will the Energy, Material or Food sectors last longest?
65. What happened when my scientist drilled a hole through Europa's "crust"?
66. Are there any real-world ingested poisons with these characteristics?
67. Magical internet - unique addressing system
68. Can a super-governmental military body like this work?
69. What would be the major weather patterns on this map?
70. Calculating Time Dilation Effects on Relativistic Accelerations
71. Would ablation be an effective way to redirect objects in space?
72. What is the best way to classify Intelligence in a world full of various Intellects?
73. Help me evolve a "Boar Troll"
74. What would be the most important consequence of decreasing sexual dimorphism in humans?
75. Dealing With Dragonslayers
76. Building an Ethics Framework for use of Uploaded Personalities
77. Can time travel make us rich through trading, and is this a problem?
78. Reasons to pack weapons on interstellar mission?
79. Symbolics of Cargo Cult after 1000 years
80. How to realistically create a bow that's also two one-handed swords?
81. How would a command structure and strategy for a galactic war be organized?
82. Using only molecules found in humans: How close can I come to creating a wolf?
83. How can asymmetrically powerful states be balanced? (AKA why don't legendary heroes rule the world)
84. What would be the most plausible way to arrive at a functional and sustainable theocracy that preserves certain democratic institutions with limits?
85. Would these changes to humanity due to genetic memory help technology develop more quickly or slowly than our world?
86. How could cats evolve toxic claws?
87. How could an army defend itself against mass robo-snake attacks?
88. What's the best way for a Democratic Government to make people “disappear” without being noticed?
89. How could chocolate bunnies evolve?
90. What giant insects would fill the role of our domesticated cattle?
91. Has the government done enough to re-integrate formerly demonically possessed people back into society?
92. Humanity’s first effort at moving a planet

Answer 2

I'm going to follow this suggestion and ask my question here first, to see if you find it on topic, or not too broad.

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How would my magic system affect the economy, commerce and security of my fictional country?

First of all, I will describe my magic system:

It's a Sense based magic, with two components: the energy source - an unobtainium material called Spark - and a sensory trigger. The trigger depends on the effect you want to cause, and has to stimulate a sense in a special way to "activate" the magic.

Every sense is divided in 3 Ranks. The ability to use these is not "hereditary" or "fixed", though gene pool helps. Is more like a trained art, like having a good ear for music, or learning to wine taste. So almost anyone can improve their rank, given enough effort. The difference between ranks is not arbitrary, there is a hard limit, something that "clicks" when you surpass it.

1. The most basic Rank is very extended among the population, almost everyone has Rank 1 in several senses. Those can use the "Spark" as is, without a trigger, to just enhance the sense, and have a very poor energy efficiency, needing plenty of sensory activation and Spark just to get very minimal effects, almost all internal.
2. Second Rank senses are not as extended, I don't have a specific % of people having it, but it would be like the ratio of people we have in our world that know how to play an instrument or sing, versus those that have no talent (as I am). A second rank Sense has a pretty good energy efficiency. While a Rank 1 could keep an effect a few minutes, given the same amount of energy and sense stimuli a Rank 2 could keep at it for an hour or two. With this rank, one can start to do pretty amazing things, like healing wounds, listening to other's thoughts or hurling flames to others.
3. Rank 3 is rarely seen. It's the elite. That being said, those that attain Rank 3, rarely do so in a single sense. Using this Rank literally consumes the source of the stimuli. You don't lick something, you eat it. You smell something and it disappears into you. Your tact disintegrates what you touch, absorbing it into you. You have (kinda) laser eyes, absorbing whatever you see. This costs a lot of Spark, but it gives a lot of punch for so little buck. The things that these people can do is very extreme. Not only they have the advantage of being able to absorb things, some even at a distance, but the effects they can manage are exponentially higher.

Some examples: Someone with Rank 1 licking, touching or sniffing a tiny pebble of charcoal might increase her body temperature, keeping herself warm. Someone with Rank 2 might generate and control enough heat to keep herself warm for the whole night, or throw 3 or 4 tongues of heat. A Rank 3, consuming the charcoal, will have heat to use for hours, and (for example) melt the reinforced door of a bank, no issue.

Now that the magic system is explained, here comes my problem with it. As the vast majority have Rank 1 in most senses, it would not be uncommon to have specialized stores that dealt with their needs. I'm thinking of some little strips of different materials, scented, colored, textured... Regular people could go and buy themselves some charcoal stripes (to keep with the heat example) and keep themselves warm while on the exterior, kinda like magic hot pockets, or you could sell flowery scented ones for disease treatments, or emotional comfort (like magic aromatherapy).

The thing is, something so innocent as this can be very harmful if someone of Rank 3 just goes and buys some charcoal sticks and burns the Town Hall. In the other hand, is not hard to make some charcoal yourself.

This is not in our modern world, but in my fictional one. The society I'm working with is kinda Victorian / Steampunk-esque. Also, the country is at the verge of war, due to the lack of Spark. They use it not only for their magic but to power almost every machine, and they have dwindling resources. So it's pretty militarized already, people is losing their temper, desperate. Some parts of the cities are being shut down of the energy source (the poorest ones), and the country is already building up tension.

My doubts are: a) Would this kind of "sense shops" be viable? Are they too much of a security risk? b) Would you keep them open in this pre-war scenario? Put a special tax on the most dangerous materials maybe?

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Well, it's too long... But it was kinda needed to give context to the question. Thank you for reading it, and I await confirmation (or not) that the question is good to go. Thanks!

Answer 3

Society of a Multi-lifespan empire

So, within my setting, there are many different types of roughly humanoid people which are of various sizes, of various types, all created by a pantheon of gods, all united under one emperor, as equals.

One thing however, is that they all have varying lifespans, a dog person may be able to live to about 12 years old on average, while a turtle person can live upwards of a hundred years, with humans also being able to live a remarkable 80 years, then there could be those who are only able to live up to about 5 years, like the frog people.

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So, that above is sort of the question that I want to go for, but I am very certain that such a question is too broad, so how do you think I should go around trimming such a question?

I am imagining that I can split it up into multiple questions, like what I have done previously, however, I am not sure how I should go and split this question this time

The question I want to ask is, how would working experience be valued or quantified? Suppose that you have a frog person boasting of 2 years of work experience, that would not be very impressive to humans and other longer living races, but this is a frog person that has worked for easily 40% of his life on a profession

Another thing might be about education and the adulthood, a human child today would study for 6 to 12 years from the age of 6, but that would be longer than many other race's lifespan. How would they then determine a syllabus or laws concerning underaged people, would it be so specific as to concern only any one race at a time? If that is the case, would all laws be different for each race because of this?

Suppose also that a kingdom wanted to mandate mandatory military training, how long should each person train for? They all live different lives, and it would be seen as tyrannical to be training for war for the entirety of your relatively short lifespan.

That then leads to a question about combat effectiveness. A human militia may drill for about 6 months, and then become reasonably proficient at marching around and holding a spear or poleaxe or pike in front of them, but that would be very long for shorter living races.

These are the kinds of questions I am trying to ask, and would wish to refine them here first

Answer 4

Will humans modify their own DNA?

In the future, I suppose our technological advancements will be so advanced that we will be able to fully understand our DNA. Thus would it be feasible if we would be able to create a custom human-like DNA and create offspring of our own desire?

This would mean humans can be born without any disease or defects. Mothers could also make their children look the way the wanted to. However, it may be possible for scientists to modify the genetic code so much that humans with flying wings attached to their back or human-animal hybrids similar to what you'd see in video games could be constructed.

Based on our current technological progression, how soon would a future like this happen? Will it ever go to the extreme for humans becoming characters from cartoons?

I would also presume that such technology would be very expensive and initially only the wealthy would be able to do this on their own children.

Sandbox Note

I'm not entirely sure if this question is enough to be put onto the main Worldbuilding site. My last question I posted here was a complete disaster so I do not wish to make the same mistakes again.

Answer 5

What unique challenges would interstellar missionaries face?

In my story, a planet has been discovered orbiting Alpha Centauri B. By a strange coincidence - actually, despite incredible odds against - the planet is Earth-like and habitable. Furthermore, radio transmissions have been detected from the planet, and they seem to be the production of an intelligent species. They don't appear to have been intentionally broadcast, though.

For years, governments bicker about what to do. Private space enterprises are blocked from attempting a voyage, and after five years, Earth has not even sent anything like an attempt to start a conversation. That's bureaucracy for you.

A minor religion that is based off of a space opera-like story1 decided just after the discovery to send a ship with missionaries there. For five years they worked, and managed to build a ship that can get people to the planet in about ten years.

The ship leaves Earth, unbeknownst to anyone else. Earth never gets around to making contact after some alien scares pop up in the populace, and any related projects stall. The ship, however, continues on to its target.

Upon landing, what unique challenges will the missionaries face? By "unique", I rule out any challenges that any explorers would face or any missionaries would face. I'm talking about challenges that spring up when you stick missionaries on a planet around another star with absolutely no government backing or prior knowledge of the inhabitants of the planet, or much of the planet itself.

planetsspacereligion

I actually posted this as https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/20514/what-unique-challenges-would-interstellar-missionaries-face, but I deleted it because I felt it was a little boring, and it just seemed to simple.

Answer 6

How would power generation be affected by gravity?

ie: all other things being equal, because the definition of Watt depends on gravity does all the formulas related to power generation depends on gravity? (pressure in boilers does, so turbines generates much less power in low gravity, and so on...)

Edit: How is it related to worldbuilding? Simple. If power generation is unaffected by gravity, but the amount of work required decrease, let's mine all the low-gravity asteroids first to get more bang out of our buck.

Answer 7

Superheroes and the law: a series of questions around the impact of humans with superhuman powers on the different kinds of laws, and vice versa

This would be a series of questions, similar to other series that would otherwise grow too big, like the one on magical destruction (split in 4 parts). Each question would focus on a different major part of law (which ones I still need to figure out, but the first one would be penal code, the second one would be immigration and travel, so stuff involving passports and visas).

Suppose a regular human gains superhuman powers through whatever method. These powers would basically make him similar to Superman: no real limits, noone can stop him, but he's benevolent for the most part, meaning he won't choose to do traditionally evil acts (like negatively impacting innocent people) unless he's misguided in some way.

The questions I'm thinking to ask: Would a superhero affect what laws are created on local, national and international level? And to what extent would a superhero feel obliged to follow the law, considering he tries to be benevolent?

Answer 8

I have a question, but I have no idea if it's off-topic or not. Here it is:

What foods would/do people eat during a journey through a desert?

Basically, I'm writing a story that features a group of people traveling through a desert (walking, with a small caravan of camels), and I want to know what food my characters will eat during this journey.

I don't know if that's too "realistic" and thus off-topic for the site.

Answer 9

When are detailed calculations required in worldbuilding?

[I'm unsure of the best tags. Suggestions?][Worldbuilding-Process]

It occurred to me a little while ago that although we delight in performing to-the-last-decimal-point calculations on worldbuilding, the vast majority of the time all we really require (from a story point of view) is a single digit and an order of magnitude. I very rarely have to pull out the exact orbital velocity of a spoon orbiting a pulsar for the purposes of building a narrative, but instead can go for the very generic 'fast'.

Therefore when I'm building my worlds I often skip many of the detailed parts of calculations, rounding throughout the process and throwing out a reasonable looking estimate for the speed of my spoon. I only then move down to an accurate result if something (or someone) in my particular story needs to say the exact speed of the spoon.

For various genres (fantasy/hard sci-fi/alternate histories) and media (written, acted, video games, art) the requirements for hard numbers instead of rough ones change, so:

At what point should Worldbuilders from various genres/media move to accuracy over spitballing the numbers?

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I really want to ask this question to gauge where various different media need higher quality worldbuilding, but I feel that as it's an incredibly opinion based factor in the worldbuilding process that it will be nigh on impossible to get any reasonable answers out. Help!?

Answer 10

Why would more than 2 eyes be favored on a mammal?

In the wondeful, wacky world of invertebrate evolution, multiple 'eyes' are a common feature, though this rarely happens in vertebrate evolution. Sure there are examples of when vertebrate evolution has chosen to give its animals three eyes, but it has never chosen to give it 4 or more.

What evolutionary reasons would a species have for evolving more than 2 eyes?

Answer 11

How big the balloon of this gondola should be in veneran atmosphere 50km from the surface?

science-based science-fiction airships

[Sandbox note: I still have to reconsider what tags should I use? Or should I use hard-science tag instead of science-based tag?]

Assume in a world with some HAVOC-like concept is realized for venus colonization. With near-future technology (near, very near, like in the next decade), we build a fleet of colony airships capable of sustaining at least 30 people on approximately 50 km from the hellish surface of Venus, where air temperature and density were somewhat similar to earth atmosphere, like this quote from Wikipedia:

Despite the harsh conditions on the surface, the atmospheric pressure and temperature at about 50 km to 65 km above the surface of the planet is nearly the same as that of the Earth, making its upper atmosphere the most Earth-like area in the Solar System, even more so than the surface of Mars.

Question

Assuming that the airship has a gondola with about 147,000 cubic meters in volume and weighs around 41,160 tons (assuming similar density to commercial airliners, or around 0,28 tons per cubic meters), and is cruising on 50-65km of altitude, how big the balloon should be to sustain the gondola?

Also, it would be nice to have an equation that I and/or others could use to solve this kind of problem in the future, assuming the density and volume of the gondola is known.

Considerations

Some consideration to make, is that what would be the filling gas of the balloon. Therefore I could think of some options:

• Breathable air (71% nitrogen - 21% oxygen) is a lifter gas in veneran atmosphere, the density is around 1.225 kg per meter cubic. Could probably be mined from veneran atmosphere, so is replaceable.
• Helium, probably could result in smaller balloon size, but would probably be very expensive to import, unless it could be mined from atmosphere (it couldn't, right?)
• Or any mixture that could be mined from veneran atmosphere, would be a bonus point.

Answer 12

As suggested I'm posting this here in order to try and get it on topic. I don't want an answer from the physics Stack Exchange site because the intent of the question is much more to do with how to explain the concept than how to solve the math. Question follows:

I'm trying to develop a story where a vast and sinister Alien Intelligence is bent on testing humanity's primitive knowledge of physics via the Q & A answer sites on their world wide communication system to make sure that they are not a threat to him (not entirely dissimilar to what Emperor Ming does in the Flash Gordon movie):

The Emperor Ming: Every thousand years, I test each life system in the Universe. I visit it with mysteries, earthquakes, unpredicted eclipses, strange craters in the wilderness... If these are taken as natural, I judge that system ignorant and harmless - I spare it. But if the Hand of Ming is recognized in these events, I judge that system dangerous to us.

What question should the AI ask the humans in order to test them and what matching answer would fully demonstrate that FTL travel violates causality? Something like this perhaps?

If I have a spaceship that can instantaneously and infallibly travel to any point within a few hundred light years show me how I can travel back in time and prevent myself from being conceived?

Obviously in order to adapt something like this to a story the answer needs to be without complicated maths (especially as I can't follow it).

The background that prompted this idea is that I've occasionally seen the phrase/assumption 'FTL travel violates causality' (or variations thereon) used by sci fi fans and authors such as Charless Stross but I have never seen a good explanation of why.

For seconds: faster than light travel would appear to be a necessary precondition to writing wide-screen space opera. But if you permit violations of special relativity, you're also implicitly permitting global causality violation — time travel. (Go read a physics textbook if you're not sure why.) Permitting violations in the first place suggests that there'll be more than one way of doing FTL travel (just as there's more than one way of doing heavier than air flight — compare a helicopter to a jet airliner and a bee). And then you've got to ask, what are the implications of time travel?

The best explanations I have seen usually involve two frames of reference moving in opposite directions at the speed of light where one observer sees an event (e.g. shooting a giant space weapon at a harmless planet) before the other observer has started the event and is thus assumed to be able to (near) instantaneously travel to the other frame of reference (thus effectively back in time) and prevent the event.

The trouble with those explanations is that surely, once an observer in one frame of reference tries to become an actor in the other frame of reference, the frames of reference must somehow merge or expand and therefore the initial conditions are no longer valid thus invalidating the violation of causality?

Answer 13

What would be the religious or moral values of a subterranean species?

I have a humanoid species psychologically similar to humans that lives in underground caverns and tunnels.

• List item They have contact with surface dwelling groups, but the majority of the species still lives in their underground communities. This species was not originally subterranean dwelling but have been for the at least the past ten thousand years.
• All of the species is descended from the original 900 or so who went underground to survive a planet wide disaster. They were the last of their species - there are no similar people surface side.
• My time frame for technology is rough but is the year 1600 at most.
• Community size varies from smaller communities to large cities inside mountains. However such large cities are few in number. Most of the species lives in middle sized village or town environments.
• Various underground settlements have regular contact with each other, although travel time obviously plays a large role in communications. Smaller communities are more isolated than the few big cities.
• The species eye sight and color perception is notably worse than humans, but their sense of smell is notably better (if this changes anything).

What effects would their underground lifestyle likely have on their religious or moral values? This question was originally asking about the effect on their culture in general, but I decided to narrow it down.

(Does this work all right?)

Answer 14

How would a future British Islam respond to rule by alien mages?

Setting

• London 50-70 years in the future.
• Technological regression to mid twentieth century (might be good to add an actual year or at least a decade, tech advanced pretty rapidly in the 20th century)
• Regression was forced by aliens disguised as humans
• The aliens can use magic (tiny description of what can be done and what they do with it wouldn't hurt)
• It has been about 40 years since the technological regression occurred.
• Many humans do not believe that they are aliens nor that they have magic
• The alien rulers are probably no worse than most human rulers throughout history. (there is a large range of good to bad human rulers, best to clarify or give a human ruler as a comparison)
• Most people accept the situation.

I am more familiar with western religions but wanted to include a Muslim character. The character is female, mid-20's, lower middle-class, unmarried member of the Resistance with a mostly South Asian ancestry. She wears a headscarf but not a veil and works outside the home.

(to answer the question we need to know how devout she is...guessing from your description I would guess not super devout...or at least she does not adhere to strict sharia rules)

Her beliefs are not shared by all British Muslims of her time, (what beliefs?) but she is meant to arise from a significant current of opinion. (re-word this, not sure what it means)

1. Would she be willing to believe in magic and aliens or would she think it is a bunch of humans cooking up a technological fraud to keep themselves in power?

2. What would she take from the Koran about the possibility of magic and/or aliens?

They clearly are not either demons or angels, but morally mixed creatures like us. If she does accept their genuineness, does she see their rule as something that needs to be opposed on the grounds that magic is evil, or rule by non-humans is evil, or would her resistance be purely political?

It is relevant to state that the regime permits religions to be practised so long as they stay in line. Decades ago risings against the aliens in Muslim countries were savagely put down, but Islam is not seriously persecuted in Britain at the time of the story.

What words would she use to describe her own beliefs as a member of the resistance? Jihad seems an obvious one, but are there other concepts from Muslim thought that she would apply to this situation? What suras, ayahs and hadiths would she quote?

The aliens generally exhibit mild disdain for all Earthly religions and political theories, although a few express a rather condescending interest. Would she think it obligatory to make the probably futile effort to convert any she meets?

Remove the below, it makes this way too broad, though you could ask a separate question about the more general Muslim response

~Remove~ Moving away from this one character, what other types of Muslim response would there be? What religious justifications might those Muslims who choose to collaborate with the aliens put forward? Or those who resist, but not in cooperation with the officially pluralistic general resistance movement in Britain? ~/Remove~

Sandbox note: This question has been placed on hold as too broad on the main site. James has suggested I place it here to seek suggestions on how it can be edited to be more suitable. Maybe it could be split into several questions?

Sandbox note 2 (15th July 2015): Unfortunately I have not had the chance to look at the suggested edits for this question over the last few days, and it looks as if I won't have more than momentary access to the internet for the next few days either. I have thus exceeded the five days for which a question remains on hold and the question will be closed. Nonetheless I would like to resubmit a new version of this question at some point in the future, taking into account the suggestions made, for which many thanks.

Answer 15

What and how would we go about salvaging an alien craft in the immediate days after a crash?

In present-day Portland, Oregon, USA, a large 'saucer' of 350m radius and a thickness of 30m has crashed into the west hills leaving debris, but remaining largely intact. It's understood that no aliens have survived, and the human count is very low. Forest fires have been contained. Now what?

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Here's my problem: it's way too broad.

Could I add specifications to the Alien's civilization, the types of things known and unknown to be available on the craft, etc.? My more important focus is the procedure scenarios immediately undertaken locally, nationally, and internationally.

If I list that there's a warp drive, an infinite-energy source, etc. on-board, which gives rise to jurisdictional fighting between countries, agencies, etc. would adding these specifications help make this an acceptable question? Any ideas?

Answer 16

Visibility after speed of light

light faster-than-light relativity

Assuming that I can move much faster than the speed of light, would I still be able to see at that speed?

Following inferences led me to think that I can't see at that speed.

• If I accelerate towards c, time starts to slow down. Movements slow down. Light spectrum shifts. Colors change.
• When I'm at c, time stops. There is no movement. The only things that are moving are light and I. We have the same speed. My vision perception starts to change at this speed.
• Now, I'm moving faster than the speed of light. So much faster that the light itself slows down and eventually stops. And since there's no light (photon) movement, I shouldn't be able to see. The only thing that is moving is me, and if I want to see, I need to be keep moving so that my eyes can collect/detect/pick up the light (photons) that are frozen in time/space.

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[Sandbox note: I've asked this question initially in physics.stackexchange.com (Beyond the speed of light) and later in scifi.stackexchange.com (Visibility after speed of light) and got turned down both times. Apparently, this question was not fit for either one. So you can imagine my frustration. I was suggested that I should try my luck in here, and this is me trying. If this also fails, well, whatever.]

Answer 17

How big can an impact crater be without having the planet (normally) destroyed by the impact?

space physics

I have a planet where my fantasy world is build upon. You may assume it is about the same size as earth and although it has some quirky fauna and flora, In general it is a planet much like earth. In size, tilt, spin, ....

I had an idea to add a region to this planet, filled with exotic and alien life. The general idea is this: A meteor crashed down on the planet, a long time ago. This created a huge impact crater with mountains on the sides. The impact was on a corner of a large piece of land, in the bottom of a continent. So the sea is nearby.

The mountains would not be high, so perhaps more hills, but they'd keep the sea at bay. Inside of the impact crater I would have a large, lush jungle. Filled with alien and exotic life (fuelled by whatever I decide was in the comet/ meteor). There would be small civilisation around the crater, more inland. The canopy of the lush jungle would be seen as a sea of trees.

My question is, how large can this crater be, for the impact to not have destroyed the planet? My preferred size would be a circular impact crater with a diameter of a few hundred kilometres. (200-400).

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Sandbox Questions

Do I give too much context? Should I get to the point sooner?

Any other critique?

Should I add this piece of context:

The impact would have happened around the time that the planet was being colonised and the dominant species (humans and neo-humans) would have had access to pretty advanced technology. Due to circumstances however they would not have been able to destroy it, but perhaps slow it down?

Answer 18

What happens when I poke holes in the language barrier?

magic

I've got a world with magic. Quite a lot of it, actually. One of the spells is telepathy (okay, there are a bunch of telepathy-related spells, but that's out of the scope of this question). Telepathy isn't just silent talking; it's sharing images, emotions, and meanings rather than conveying that through other means. Because of that, anyone who can telepathically send can be perfectly understood by anyone who can receive, no matter how vast the cultural gap.

Telepathy works a lot like telephone calls. You "ring" someone, and they know the "phone number" of the person who's calling. If they choose to pick up, you can communicate with them. There's one big difference between the modern phone system and telepathy; you can't do conference calls (though, if you don't mind expending a lot of energy, each person can connect individually to each other person and send the messages through each link at the same time)

How would this affect interaction between different countries, or different people of different languages? For example, diplomacy could be conducted through thought rather than risking mistranslations -- how would this affect international relations?

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I need to know what tags to use. Aside from that, please ask for clarifications if I haven't stated anything, because my magic system is already made and I'd like to avoid changing it if possible.

Answer 19

Mammalian descendants that could control what chemical content the mammary glands excrete: Is it beneficial?

Background

Following this question, now the world had grown another billion years after 7 billion years ago (so, err, roughly 6 billion years ago). Assuming that life on that planet is somewhat having uncanny resemblances with earthen life, that it have similar tetrapods with features could be described as equivalent to earthen tetrapods, I extrapolate that eventually mammalian-equivalent of the planet would evolve more complex creatures than it is on earth. And so the formation of this so called second-generation mammal, a chemosyntesia (alternative name is pending).

Question

Pretty much the same as in the title, is the ability to modify chemical contents that mammary glands secrete beneficial to the creature?

Considerations:

• The question seeks the answer that revolves around what could possibly be beneficial for the new species compared to normal mammalian so that it could compete better (or at the very least it is not being overcompeted).

• "Beneficial" as is said refer to benefits in evolutional pressure, assuming earth-like life. It could be translated in reverse too, that is "is it not a hindrance or disadvantage for the creature?"

[Sandbox note: I had it clarified enough, in my opinion. If I were mistaken, or perhaps it is not clear enough, please do comment.]

Definition

• Mammalian is an endothermic compared to a reptile with four chambered heart, covered with furs, having mammary glands on the body. Along with mammalian brain (and neocortex in some species).
• Chemosyntesia is a second generation mammalian (different from mammalian as in between reptile to mammalian, only now mammalian is in the position of the reptile) that has the ability to produce wide range of chemicals on their heavily modified mammary glands, by having the ability to control hormonal system on the body through conscious effort with extra brain mass on neocortex, just call it supracortex region for now.

Answer 20

To what extent would kill-switching a Western nations smartphones destabilise the government?

Suppose that the Galaxy Note 7 incident was just a trial run....

Suppose that the government of the nation that creates the vast majority of the smartphones in the world inserts a kill-switch into the hardware and that on April 1st 2017, all of the smartphones in a particular Western superpower explodes - all at once.

Would this destabilise the government and financial institutions enough to cause a political meltdown and force a re-election?

technology politics sabotage

Answer 21

"How dangerous is someone who can control the friction coefficient of air, in a limited volume?"

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Given someone who can alter the friction coefficient of any volumes of air in her sight and then maintain those changes indefinitely, so long as the total volume is no larger than 10m^3...

If both groups are prepared for the other, how large a military force could such a person defeat?

Answer 22

Necessary psychological steps to achieve true Anarcho-Capitalism (question deleted on main site)

My description of anarcho-capitalism is a market driven means of resource exchange, without any interference from a state, actually there is no government or state, world bodies of trade. Goods and services innovation is driven through the quality and pure market forces.

• Banking is peer to peer, using a decentralized currency like bitcoin. No fractional banking or credit creation as now, so a leaner/bank could not lend you credit unless they had them.
• No taxes at all, so product and service policy is defined by you.
• All current services supposedly funded by taxes are paid for on the quality and on a voluntary system, like old Chinese medicine practices; poor were free, the rich paid on how well the service worked.
• Laws are based purely on common law, victim based laws and are judged by a group of peers - no lawyers and judges.
• This is not a historical but based on an open internet and no restrictions on ideas exchange, except good technology to remove bots and PR.
• Education teaches civics, self-authority and self-responsibility.
• Removing the need for a state, government, shadow government or any slave masters.
• End of all psyop warfare upon the population.

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What mass psychological steps are needed and how did this happen? What caused a mass awakening in realisation that we no longer need a State or Government?

Notes: For example we have had several whistleblowers expose mass surveillance, we have had the rise of the police and military state, the CIA torture reports. Yet I believe the masses are kept under a psychological trance for a better word. Taking current world events as a start point, what removed this trance?

Answer 23

This world is a modern urban world where Fae are hidden, but living among humans. Most Fae live in caverns underneath the city. Their light (magic) serves as energy for plant growth and illumination of the cavern rooms. The more Fae in a room the lighter it is.

They are waiting to return to their otherworld where they age so slowly they are almost immortal. The more time they spend with humans, the faster they age.

My main character is a woman abandoned by the Fae into the human world as a child. I want her to be found and re-enter the Fae world, but how has she managed to retain her light? This is a magical world so there could be a spell or something, but I would like a natural element to be the thing that helps her retain her light. Copper? What are old fashioned light bulb filaments made from? Some sort of flint?

Answer 24

Non-Eukarotic Macroscopic Life

All multi-cellular life as we know it is composed or eukarotic cells -- cells with a nucleus. Some single-celled organisms are eukarotic, some are prokaryotic (cells without a nucleus, such as bacteria.)

Would non-microscopic life that was NOT made of eukarotic cells be possible? Is there another way that macroscopic life forms could theoretically come to be?

I'd like to post this as a [hard-science] tagged question, but I worry that it may fall too far into "idea generation" territory. Is this question acceptable? How could it be improved?

Answer 25

All web search engines stop working, forever 'cause magic... How would people react?

What if all the web search engines, like Google, Yahoo!, Bing, etc. stop working, but everything else is normal?, Google Drive works, Google Maps work, etc.

And making new web search engines is prevented by more magic...

How would this affect the internet habits of people on a personal level?

Like, you can only go to other websites via bookmarks or links people tell you about.

Would this massively increase the effects of, or create a lot of, echo chambers?

Answer 26

with $2million what kind of survival kit would you bring to a prehistoric earth like medieval world with dragons, dinosaurs and uneducated populace?

what items would you bring with you to another world with the budget of 2million dollars.

You were given the information that they are not technologically advance and they have magic. On top of it you deducted upon questioning that it is a medieval-like age as well!

You are asked to save the other world. Save their world/race/kingdom/.

assuming you accept the offer

you ask to be given money so that you can prepare for the trip after 3 months of preparation. You were also given a bag that has time space magic that can store things the size of 50x50sq meters. It preserves everything inside in their perfect state just as you put them there.

you won't be able to return back to earth for another 50 years assuming you will live for that long.

Problems that possibly you might face are. -Demon king problems (Cause humanity manage to annoy its neighbors and their neighbors united against them, the leader of the coalition was thus named the Demon king.)

-Race survival. Humans are on the verge of extinction, you need to save them as a fellow human being!

-LOTResque kind of struggle between good and evil(Some immortal thought that it is time for his revenge or simply wants to burn the world to the ground)

-Poverty(Economic Crisis, some sick super powerful merchant guild want to rule the world through power of money)

-Health(Bacterial/Viral Problems. Do i need to say hygiene?)

-Rebellion(Some bastard thought he should be the emperor/king. The princess/prince says otherwise by summoning you)

-Bloodline issues(You need to marry the last of the royalty to thicken the royal blood more)

-Possibly alot more as you point out what kind of issue one might face here

So what would you bring? What possible issues that you would be facing apart from the stated above? What kind of preparation could you do in 3 months before your inevitable travel to another world?

Issue: Too Broad..

Can you help me to tighten it up? You can also answer the question if you want

Answer 27

How to have had 3 Hispanic Presidents of America by 2006...

What changes to the cultural history of America would be required so that the country would have had at least 3 different Hispanic Presidents, that are unrelated and not arranged in a sequence?

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Would it be correct to say that the only POD (Point of Divergence) that I would need for my Alternate History is drastically lower Anti-Mexican Sentiment in America? So, then Mexicans could get better educations on average, and have almost, if not the exact same, chance of being President as a 'white' person, after being weighted for population of each demographic?

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Also, I've got a question for research required for this question on History.SE: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/23451/was-the-texas-revolution-and-texas-annexation-the-root-causes-of-modern-hispanop

Should I post a sub-question on Politics.SE? If so, what should I ask?

Answer 28

Tags: Fantasy, Magic, Reality-Check

My system attempts to accomplish the following:

• Magic does not break the fundamental, widely known laws of reality
• Magic can be fairly easily understood by the layman
• Magic isn’t an enormously powerful end-all-solution to everything
• Magic is still clearly useful and has utility
• Magic wouldn't, abiding by logic, be fairly singular in purpose
• Magic’s ultimate purpose is extracting energy from one system, and applying it to another system in a specific manner

I also follow the tropes that magic is cast by magic users (let’s go ahead and call them ‘mages’), and these mages can train to increase their command of magic (like any tradesman or craftsman).

To that end, here is the workings of the system I envisioned:

• All magic must extract energy from a system.
• Mages can extract energy that they touch, in a limited fashion.
• Heat is the typical energy extracted due to its ease.
• A mage’s own body temperature is the baseline, and they cannot lower the temperature of an object to lower than their own body temperature.
• To make extracting energy easier, mages typically make a pair of Foci.
  • Foci are typically slightly larger than an orange or apple, and are made from wood and stone. Beyond this in form they vary wildly.
  • Foci take weeks or months to create
  • Foci can only be used by the mage who created them
  • Foci are linked. If the link is destroyed, they are useless.
  • Foci are effectively invincible against the energy source they were created for (heat foci, for example, can withstand thousands of degrees Kelvin)
  • Only one link can bind one Focus.
  • Foci’s links are unidirectional.
  • Foci are created with one power source in mind, heat Foci being the most common.
  • The first focus in a pair can absorb and transfer surrounding energy, and do so at about 40%-60% efficiency, the wasted energy bled off in another form (sound, light, etc), and the energy is transferred out the second foci.
  • The speed of the transfer is limited by the speed of light, but otherwise the distance doesn’t matter.
• Absorbed energy takes energy to hold; energy is bled off slowly (as heat, light, etc)
• A mage absorbing too much energy can render him unstable (and thus he will detonate, incinerate, or some other catastrophic death)
• Casting magic is taking the absorbed energy and turning it into another form via a learned spell
• Releasing the energy in a progressively more organized form requires progressively more wasted energy (thus magic cannot fight entropy)
• Mages typically learn a few dozen spells over their lifetimes. Spells include everything from elemental (lightning, fireball, etc), to transformative (shapeshifting). Raw displays of energy releasing are always considerably easier than the harder.
• Spells are fairly specific
• Learning a spell takes weeks or months of study and practice. Mastery years.
• Every time a mage casts a spell they must expend some energy of their own, that their body would otherwise make use of.
  • Blood sugar is an easy source of this energy, but fat deposits are ineffective. Other sources are in between.
  • Excessive casting will kill the user, and younger, healthier mages can tax their bodies further
  • The ratio of body energy to absorbed energy varies from mage to mage
  • More experienced mages have to use less proportionate energy
  • Novice mages might see this ratio as low as 1:15, normal mages closer to 1:75, and the greater mages might climb to 1:300.

...Given these things, a few conclusions I came to:

• Maintaining guarded bonfires for their Foci would be paramount. One foci would be left in the fire, and they would trust the landowner (king, servant, whatever it might be) to keep the fire going.
• Mages’ faith in the security of their bonfire Foci would directly affect how far away from the safe haven they were willing to travel
• Because of the waste of energy, the only industry they would play into would be those where it’s easy to create energy at one location, but difficult to generate at another, and so the mage could be employed to be basically an energy gateway
• High blood sugar would be very important to the mages, and anyway to trick this system (insulin shots?) would be valuable to a mage.
• Potentially Foci could be used as a unidirectional fast-as-light messaging system similar to the telegraph, by allowing an energy source and depriving the energy source and having the mage on the other end trying to continuously pull energy, and to record when he could/couldn’t. Morse code, and all that.

...All of this taken into account, three questions to form a bigger picture reality-check:

• Are there any flaws in the system?
• Any obvious exploits in the system that would make magic fairly singular in purpose?
• Ignoring culture shock/adjustments (such as “magic is real!” and “it’s clearly demoncraft!” and “scientists were wrong all along!” etc), how would such magic affect Medieval Europe, and modern Western society, specifically in trade/industry, world affairs, and military engagement?

Answer 29

Space mega-shield needs an Achilles Heel

science-fictionweapons

Sandbox note:

I’m starting this Q to help newbe Xxy after this earlier question and his sentiment “i[sic] still want to hear ideas of destroying something with my wrong vision of the black hole.”

I point out that he must describe the properties of his “security zone”, explaining the kind of effects he had in mind, since it is nothing like a black hole. Based on various comments trying to clear up his misconceptions of a BH, I will take a stab at it.

This is an initial draft and I expect Xxy to further edit to add his illustrations, important story details, and change whatever from my initial stab at things.

General: we still need sandbox feedback to prevent the Q from being “too broad” and know that it will be well-received when posted.

Question Text

An advanced race has mastered knowledge of gravity and spacetime, and to protect itself from the hostile younger races moving out into the galaxy, has created a kind of gated community.

They have a number of megastructures up to planet sized, clustered within about a lightyear diameter. Around this neighborhood they have a powerful gravity-based shield. The space inside this shielded area is tortured to the extreme, with space becoming large in one dimension and smaller in another, then switching direction, on a fractal complexity down to sub-atomic scale.

Normal matter cannot exist in this churning spacetime, as it is ripped down to elementary particles. Beam weapons can’t be aimed because the photons will take random chaotic paths and not maintain a beam.

The individual structures within this space have counter-shields around them to produce a safe zone around each structure. So, the churning space exists between the safe zones and up to the outer border.

The inhabitants get around by using wormholes. These connect the safe-zones of the various structures and controlled entry gates that lead to places far far away from this enclave.

Hyperspace jumps can’t work inside the churned space, so it’s impossible to “jump” into a safe zone that’s inside the enclave.

The border of the enclave appears to be a sharp border. Ships that attempt to cross it don’t feel a wall but are shredded as they pass the boundary location.

Story information

This race remember anything, and so it can use any information ever heard, they know the concept of war but they don't care about it for them war is just a "game". The way they try out things in the universe to learn about it, is sometimes brutal in the eyes of humanity, they sometimes destroy planets or do experiments with other lifeforms.

So they need to get stopped, but this life form formed a shield based on gravity, it is invisible but already scouted from humans.

Inside this shield there are 3 Planets of the race, each planet has a safe-zone around it.

Everything entering the shield will get destroyed, everything will be ripped down in small particles.

The particles will fly like dust in the center of the shield.

This species has one big problem: they are arrogant, they know they are way more advanced than other species so they build this shield so no other race disturbs them.

They think other species are too dumb to overcome this shield so they don't even care what we do to stop them.

The advanced species also don't have weapons because they don't have war; rather, they just avoid other species.

Humans can use some forms of ftl travel and they colonize a lot of planets, also there are different groups of humans. They can use a lot of strong weapons known in the sci-fi universe, but the problem is the most just get destroyed by the shield.

(Please ask if you need more information, I don't really know which information is important.)

but it can’t be too perfect!

This fortification needs some limitations and an Achilles Heel in order to make for an interesting plot. How will the enemies (who don’t have this space-churn technology or the advanced science to develop anything like it) be able to successfully attack the habitats inside the enclave?

Just sneaking through the protected entrances and letting the metaphorical “castle walls and moat” be essentially perfect is too dull for a plot. We want to design the fortification system so it can be exploited somehow, providing fodder for the plot.

Yet it is poor writing to just say that race B invented their own new gizmo that lets them pass; the ideas of how it works need to be a unified part of the overall description of the technology.

Answer 30

Weapon design: a conceivable superheated sword capable of cut through things.

science-based weapons reality-check

[Sandbox note: I am not completely sure of my english, and there might be wrongly used terminologies, given that english is not my native tongue. Grammatical fixes would be highly appreciated.]

1. Background Information

I am designing a sword with a blade that could cut through things (either with one atom width ribbon or superheated or both), that is able to deliver powerful swing by having its center of mass on the blade, yet easy to turn by shifting its center of mass to handle-ward side. So this is my current design:

1.1 The Design

The idea behind this design is a sword that is capable on both delivering powerful swing, yet easily manouverable (preferrably through dynamic system, or moving parts within). Not to mention that the sword should be powerful enough to cut through most solid things.

1. The weapon is about 1.5 meters in length (1.2 meters in blade and 0.3 meters in handle). The mass could be anywhere from 5 kg to 7 kg.

2. The blade is an empty hard shell of strong yet light material (perhaps diamondoid, graphene, or even carbon-nanotube reinforced steel), whose the cutting edge were multiple "curtain-held"s. The "curtain-held"s would erect curtains of some kind of monomolecular wire along the path of the edge (yes, you could see that this is partly inspired by this answer). The monomolecular wire would be either graphene as the answer linked suggest, or TMDC ribbons.

   • The original idea is that the curtains could be superheated to aid in cutting power, but perhaps it might not be required.

3. The inner side of the blade "shell" would be a rail system extending from near the tip of the blade to near the end of the handle, of which a number of heavy counter masses (pendulums?) would be moved (shifted) to change the whole sword's center of mass. The counter masses would have to be in significant fraction of the whole sword's mass (perhaps anywhere around half of the sword's mass). The mechanism would then able to smoothly and/or quickly shift the sword's center of mass in battle according to need.

4. Along the interior of the blade up to the handle, were a network of heavy (heavy in term of: each unit has high density) gyroscope systems, that are able to switch from this two configuration: "free moving" and "locking". Free moving, would then enabling the system to move freely along multiple axes. Locking would then producing gyroscopic hindrance on one or multiple axes at once, but allowing limited plane of no hindrance movement.

   • Originally the idea is to allow this weapon to build momentum by continuously swinging it in one axis to build momentum.
   • With this system, it is expected that when the stabilizer were activated and locked, the sword could be held straight with the tip at right angle from a flat ground, the sword would stand still (or perhaps rotating with rotation axis at right angle from the ground). When placed with the inclination deviation of around less than 30 degrees from normal, the weapon would rotate sideways along the normal axis. [Sandbox Note: I am not sure if gyroscopic system could behave as such, perhaps my interpretation is flawed. Is this interpretation of internal gyroscopic balance possible?]

5. The blades sharp side could also produce strong magnetism that repel metals when in proximity, so that when facing another ordinary sword, the sword wouldn't just being sliced while the ordinary blade being thrown, threatening the user with flown sword blades.

6. The handle is filled with computer control units, magnetic actuators to move the counter masses around the rails and an energy source.

If summarized, current solutions provide these features:

• Dynamic mass counterbalance system inside the sword that could be used to shift center of mass of the sword, and is generally heavy, compromising at least half of the weapons whole mass.
• Center of gravity moved to near the tip of blade for swinging and slashing, center of gravity moved to near the handle for easy and quick turning.
• The sword is hollow, inner parts would be for counter masses and machinery.
• Has sufficient battery power and strong capacitor to heat the cutting strand if heating is necessary. Otherwise it could be safely ignored, or the battery must be able to supply the system with enough energy to move the counter masses and power its integrated control circuits.
• Whole sword mass would not be a problem, but should weight around 5-7kg.

1.2 Modus of Operation

Basically to operate it, when it is swung, the center of mass would be changed to be near the tip of the blade to increase the hitting mass, while to rotate the blade the center of mass would be moved near the handle. All of those features were manually controlled through constant direct brain computer interface between the user and computronium on the handle, which means only beings more powerful than a human with compatible communication protocol able to control it.

The weapon would be strong on impact (because its center of mass is on the tip of the blade) but would be super easy to turn (the center of mass could be redirected into near the handle for turning). The drawback would be sudden feeling of the blade being pulled apart as the center of mass would have inertia imbued in it, causing the sword to feel dragged blade ward when the center of mass being shifted to near handle, and to be pulled handle ward when the blade's center of mass moved near the tip of the blade.

Given its complexity and gyroscopic effect it has, it would be nigh impossible to be operated by a normal man. If normal human tried to wield that weapon, only to find that the weapon would not behave exactly the way one would expect a sword would move, because of odd sensation of moving center of mass, and gyroscopic resistance when turning, not to mention that the weapon is incredibly heavy, almost like lifting a barbell.

2. Question

From those description, here is a list of questions that I am interested to know, with descending order of importance:

1. Is this arrangements conceivable?
2. Is it possible for gyroscopic effect to behave like the way it is on description?
3. If 2 is not possible, or even not conceivable, is it possible to have "the ability to give powerful swing while easily manouverable" without those gyroscopic system?

[Sandbox Note: For number 3, should I rephrase it as: "If 2 is not possible or even not conceivable, is the design without those gyroscopic system able to behave efficiently as the design goal?]

3. Considerations

Some consideration to make, with decreasing order of importance:

• Given near future technology so no portable and highly efficient nuclear reactor as its power source would be allowed, but molecular nanoconstruct is possible. You get the picture.
• Capable of delivering heavy blow while still maneuverable.
• Capable of cutting nearly any material with superheated strand of 2d materials one atom wide.
• Has adjustable gyroscopic balance system (perhaps not clearly described yet, or even could be ignored if gyroscopic balancing is impossible).

Assumption made to the intended user:

• The intended user, though humanoid in body shape, is NOT human.
• Is basically superhuman in intelligence and agility, so assume perfect kinesthetic sense and strength of about thrice to four times as powerful as human.
• Is able to think fast enough to adjust the system's configuration on the fly.