Comment by Vakus Drake on Could you breed livestock with structurally colored...
@Pelinore Realized hard science was asking a bit much and swapped it. The big advantage I was imagining to this having over just natural dyes is you would be able to do more colors and get iridescence...
View ArticleComment by Vakus Drake on What species would make good flying livestock?
@GaultDrakkor Nearly half a million years of domestication has really done a number on the magpies. While they're not human-level intelligence they are far more patient and disciplined than a human,...
View ArticleComment by Vakus Drake on What species would make good flying livestock?
Is there any reason wood pigeons aren't strictly better than rock doves as livestock? If you start out with the wild version either way, then it seems like an enlarged cecum that allows more plant...
View ArticleComment by Vakus Drake on What species would make good flying livestock?
I definitely didn't expect that you could pull something like this off in RL, very interesting video +1
View ArticleComment by Vakus Drake on What species would make good flying livestock?
I don't know that using these magpies is much different from using drones, which already get used to scare birds including geese: m.youtube.com/watch?v=2msRG__iL58 Birds have already evolved to produce...
View ArticleComment by Vakus Drake on What species would make good flying livestock?
I guess this comes down to how quickly you can select livestock to be able to digest new food sources. Though remembering that cecal valves can evolve really quickly in lizards...
View ArticleComment by Vakus Drake on A skunk that makes you sleep
You're greatly overstating the risk of fentanyl dust. People think it is insanely fast acting and easily absorbed because of how common it is for cops to think they might have been exposed and then...
View ArticleComment by Vakus Drake on Is Tasting and Smelling Bad A Viable Way of Not...
"so any combination of Chemicals and Spices that are not able to render a lethal effect on the Bear are going to have limited use." Are you saying that a bear won't be put off by any unpleasant smell...
View ArticleComment by Vakus Drake on Is Tasting and Smelling Bad A Viable Way of Not...
@sphennings Realized people are going to interpret DND to potentially include literally any conceivable predator instead of just the most common DND monsters most people would have to worry about in a...
View ArticleWhat good are psychics who control the strong or weak forces? [closed]
So I have a modern setting with psions. Their powers fall into groups that control different well defined things, with many controlling fundamental forces. The psions' powers automatically attempt to...
View ArticleEffects of a warp field based super-speed power
While something like a warp drive is a staple of ftl technology in sci-fi, I wonder how this sort of spatial warping would operate on a smaller scale on earth. The idea has occurred to me to have a...
View ArticleReligion After the Discovery of a Multiverse
It has occurred to me that were to get substantial evidence we lived in a infinitely large and old multiverse, the effects on religions would be massive. A incredibly large number of religions are...
View ArticleWhat would the effects be on a earth-like planet if the magnetic field was...
The hypothetical world is for all intents and purposes earth or very close to it. So what would the effects be if the magnetic field were either stronger from the start of the planet, or if the...
View ArticleHow could indestructible materials be used in power generation?
Background:In this scenario assume technology is initially equal to our own, but a method is discovered to render material indestructible. The affected material is treated as requiring infinite or...
View ArticlePortals to Parallel Earths: Economic Effects
Portals to Parallel EarthsIn this setting events diverge when massive breakthroughs in physics are made. The breakthroughs effectively prove the many worlds interpretation, but more drastically they...
View ArticleHow would people with perfect memory design their language
A race of people was created through magic, their mind was greatly altered, among the abilities that were granted was a memory that perfectly records all sensory information forever. As well as the...
View ArticleHow big could dinosaurs get with super strength and durability?
On this parallel earth all vertebrates received the ability to efficiently produce super strong materials from readily available minerals/nutrients in the mid Triassic.The specifics of these composite...
View ArticleHow to create fictional earth ecosystems with lots of megafauna which can...
Ecosystems like the african savanna have lots of megafauna which to some extent compete with each other for the same prey/vegetation, but still coexist just fine.So how do I construct similarly diverse...
View ArticleAnswer by Vakus Drake for How plausible is this form of government; where you...
Ok so I would like to make this answer to point out that in such a system the rich would always be to effectively buy votes at the base rate instead of at the exponential rate.You brought up that if...
View ArticleAnswer by Vakus Drake for Extending the lives of indeterminately-growing...
There's essentially two components to what the magic needs to accomplish here:Biological changes to make the animal immune to disease and cancer and allow growth beyond what the species evolved for...
View ArticleWhat Bronze Age Jobs Couldn't be Replaced by Extremely Well Trained Animals?
In this setting magpies and mammoths have been domesticated for hundreds of millennia, allowing them to become far more diligent and trainable than dogs by a wide margin.The mammoths come in full sized...
View ArticleJust How Omnipresent Would Cheap Cross Laminated Spider Silk Be?
In this timeline's equivalent of medieval level development, spider silk is dirt cheap, and cross-laminated sheets of spider silk are quite affordable.Portia jumping spiders were domesticated hundreds...
View ArticleHow much would this alien parasite increase crop yields?
It is a bizarre prokaryotic flowering plant parasite which has graphene reinforced cell walls and is so distinct from all other organisms to warrant placement in its own domain of life (indeed it only...
View ArticleHow Big Can An Ancient Bird Powered Glider Get?
What are the practical limitations of a glider made of bronze age materials and pulled by well trained birds?Due to psychics able to control animals, and a cultural fixation with domestication, nearly...
View ArticleDragolitics, or how political structures work when rulership is determined...
So I was watching this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gsAbout just how much of politics is just about maintaining power. Which made me begin to wonder, how would governments work if the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Plausibility of an Ecosystem Based on Giant Diatoms?
In this wildly divergent Earth timeline, a group of diatoms evolved to be up to a few inches across (rather than 2mm or less). With this group presumably developing some similar traits to organisms...
View ArticleWhat Would Be The Consequences of An Asteroid Literally Falling Onto An Ice...
On this alternate Last Glacial Maximum Earth powerful psychics bring an asteroid into near earth orbit and deorbit it using entirely laser ablation. Bringing it carefully down onto the Laurentide Ice...
View ArticleWhat Would be The Least Bad Countries to Seek Refuge As a Powerful Superhuman?
Someone believes they are the only person with highly strategically useful powers. However, they can't make the best use of them without revealing themselves, so what countries would be the safest...
View ArticleEffective Design for Light-Powered Aircraft Engines? [closed]
How would aircraft engines be designed which use magic orbs able to output insane amounts of light for power?In this industrial era setting, ordinary engines exist and are the cheapest option for many...
View ArticleHow Tall Can Flightless Birds Plausibly Get?
These flightless birds are under strong selective pressure to be able to feed on high up conifer needles, and avoid predation from T-Rex sized predatory flightless birds. The forests the birds are...
View ArticleFeasibility of Tiny Nuclear Engines
In this setting nuclear material is incredibly cheap, while all hydrocarbons need to be synthesized from scratch. Additionally people have shadow magic which allows them to both easily shield against...
View ArticleCould You Use Artificial Volcanoes To Create Buildings?
For the purposes of this question the builders are incredibly wealthy, have access to cheap nukes to use for excavation, and everyone in this world is immune to radiation.The technology is decades...
View ArticleHow Effectively Could You Use Magical Darkness As A Compact Heatsink?
In this setting materials science is decades ahead, so answers should be limited by technology that isn't too speculative and don't presume anything supernatural beyond what I describe in this...
View ArticleWhat sort of nuclear-based transportation would be best suited to cheaply...
In this scenario people are in a constant war on an infinite flat world with the geography of Antarctica's interior (but with no liquid water or hydrocarbons). Notably this world has an abundance of...
View ArticleCan You Make A Tiny Nuclear Reactor By Employing Supercritical Conditions For...
The idea is that you would have pieces of plutonium or U233 close enough that if left to their own devices they should go supercritical in a fraction of a second. However, in between the pieces you...
View ArticleHow much better would metallic hydrogen be than conventional explosives?
How much more effective (if at all) would metallic hydrogen explosives be against armored targets?In this setting metallic hydrogen can be cheaply manufactured and contained in a metastable state...
View Article