Newest Questions
39,307 questions
11
votes
5
answers
1k
views
Feasibility of an industrial society where a 'modern' tax system is less regarded/effective than 'tax farming'?
In my setting there was a expansionary city-state that has industrialized and extracts wealth from its holdings by 'outsourcing' tax collection to various tax farmers. Basically, every single ...
- 2,979
2
votes
2
answers
230
views
Would it be considered cruel and unusual punishment to subject a demon to holy writings? [closed]
If someone, say, happened to be living in a household with a demon (for the sake of this question, he has not done anything actually evil, he’s just annoying), would it be wrong to use holy things ...
- 37
25
votes
20
answers
4k
views
A replacement for alcohol in bars
We're a lot of years in the future. The exact amount doesn't matter, though in my head it between 3000 and 4000 years. All we need to know is that we're far into the future. Society has collapsed at ...
- 42.1k
0
votes
1
answer
195
views
How would humanity deal with ambitious aliens? [closed]
The human empire extends over a large portions of the galaxy. Aliens are given relative freedom, but can’t rise in authority beyond planetary governor neither can they join the priesthood. So without ...
- 20.5k
4
votes
4
answers
354
views
What would be the implications of a moon orbiting a terrestrial planet to have the oceans change locations for centuries at a time?
I have a strategy game with procedural biome placement, and one of the biomes that can appear is a low altitude desert. These deserts turn out to be just regions of land where the ocean was pulled ...
- 51
5
votes
8
answers
735
views
How could (a group of) humans "forget" their language and start a new? [closed]
In my setting, modern humans have colonized a habitable planet, with no ways of communicating with the Earth. After a few centuries, 3 main civilizational centres arise, 2 of them located in areas ...
- 538
6
votes
2
answers
322
views
Will Earth-Mars have liquid water on its surface at all?
Related to this question: The best place on uninhabited Earth for a spaceport?
There is an alternate solar system with a copy of Earth (mass wise) in place of our system's Mars, with the same orbit. ...
- 11k
1
vote
1
answer
251
views
How large could a sea slug-like kaiju be, and what changes might its biology require?
I’m trying to create a creature called the harbor king which is very biologically similar to the sea swallow and nudibranches like it, yet is quite sizable. This is mostly borne of me really liking ...
- 65
2
votes
7
answers
437
views
Can 'arithmancy' ever be adopted at a institutional and societal level in a atheistic nation? [closed]
Wider story background: Magic does not exist. Gods do not exist. Psychic powers do not exist. Superstitious behaviours (ie, totemism, animalism, various folk-myths etc) however, did exist, once upon a ...
- 2,979
6
votes
2
answers
2k
views
I may have made an error in the stability of my extremely close orbit
Alright, here's my issue. I have a planet, roughly twice Earth's mass, that is extremely dense. It's about 6000 KG/M^3, so in theory it should be able to orbit inside the star before breaking- my ...
- 63
1
vote
2
answers
186
views
Would a concrete coating to a dry-stacked cantilever retaining wall make any difference to its function?
To cut a long story short, we have a city that is on a 'lower' level to the surrounding terrain. The land is very wet, humid, and boggy. We have a retaining wall perhaps 10 metres high and 6 metres ...
- 2,979
1
vote
2
answers
217
views
Could life on my planet use hydrocarbons and tholins as the base of the food chain instead of plants?
On Earth the basis of nearly all multicellular life in the biosphere is photosynthesis where light is captured and converted into chemical energy. Said energy is then used by other organisms.
However ...
- 141
11
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Dzhanibekov effect and structural integrity of a spaceship
The Dzhanibekov effect shows the instability of rotation about an asymmetric object’s intermediate principal axis. An example can be seen in this video.
I was thinking of embedding it in my ...
- 311k
6
votes
4
answers
1k
views
Hostile to life post-apocalyptic binary system, with potential for life
Situation: A black hole's gravity "decays" to just lower than the speed of light, causing the whole thing to explode and put mass in nearby systems.
One of these systems, consisting of a ...
- 63
3
votes
3
answers
253
views
Teleport spell boom [closed]
So there is this teleportation spell. You cast it and disappear from one place and mostly immediately appear in a different place. Now what would the secondary environmental effects of such ...
- 253