Questions tagged [science-in-society]
For questions about the use and perception of science by the inhabitants of a fictional world. Contrast with [science-based] which is for explaining fictional things with real-world science. Whereas [science-based] builds worlds using science (ex. "How could a dragon realistically breathe fire?"), [science-in-society] asks how people treat and use science in-world (ex. "How would a society with a taboo on dissecting people develop medicine?").
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Is it feasible that cars would be made with a central driving position?
On the world of Ruquelis, I'm contemplating having cars (currently at circa 1920s levels of development and styling) having a central driving position, not because of some recent design decision, but ...
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Can a Iron Age society maintain primitive firearms with copious amounts of bog-iron, peat and wood?
I've written a geographically humid-wet-tropical-fenny-foresty ish setting.
Within it is a tribe of what are best described as iron-age inhabitants. They know how to create cast-iron axes, they can ...
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How believable is this disease model in my settings level of tech understanding?
Throughout history we humans have had multiple explanations for what causes different conditions or different infectious diseases. In the current era we understand infectious disease to be spread by ...
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Unintended Consequences of a Cryptocurrency Based off of Radioactive Decay
Tax season is almost over in the U.S., and it got me thinking. Out of curiosity, I had joined a local chapter of the Libertarian party in the past. Many of them loved cryptocurrency. And many, but not ...
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Could sound be used to levitate or destroy objects in combat
I am working on a near future world where mages are really just people with a very good understanding of math and science, which they use to achieve feats that seem impossible to most of the ...
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How do you tell if you're in a nebula?
Specifically, how does a civilization tell if their home planet - on which they have always resided - is orbiting a star that is inside a nebula? The way we know that we're not in a nebula is because ...
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Why aren’t there advanced computers in an advanced society?
In the universe in question, there’s another intelligent silicon-based species, with the typical member of the species being many times as intelligent as humans. With intimate knowledge of quantum ...
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Why does my futuristic society want transparent iPads and computer monitors?
Transparent iPads/computer monitors seem to be a staple of sci-fi (Star Wars, some of the new Marvel stuff, Red Notice etc). The screen is always functioning on the side of the Reader, and the ...
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If you had a fusion reactor the size of a suitcase, would it be possible to power a car with it via a steam turbine with 1950's level technology?
The specifics of the reactor are intentionally vague. It would be a form of lattice-confinement, produce very little radiation, and be scaled up or down very easily. I'm working on a Fallout-like ...
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Could these technologies be fabricated and utilised by this semi-industrialised society?
I have this society that has enjoyed some rather fantastical circumstances resulting in a unique path of technological advancement, and I need help figuring out what kind of technologies they would be ...
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Materials Revolution [closed]
It's 2012, and a big extraterrestrial space vehicle (Secretly created by an ET ultra-intelligent entity) explodes in Earth's orbit, and its pieces crash on the surface and into the oceans.
(The ...
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Non-electrical technology that pre-modern people would see as magic?
My world was colonized by spacefaring humans who lost the vast majority of their technology in an unknown catastrophe at least 12,000 years before the present. They have now redeveloped roughly up to ...
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Why would/wouldn't *humanoid* robots become popular, rather than any other robotic body-form?
Most robots that exist in the world today are factory robots. Not particularly humanoid, except the arm+hand concept. When you design a robot to replace the human task of pushing a vacuum cleaner ...
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What factors do you need for a self sustaining cube building [closed]
In my world, there is the working class, who live in a giant cube called three cubed, there are 27 districts and each are responsible for different things. Three cubed can not only provide for itself, ...
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Scooped up for military research: How realistic is it in this day and age?
Being 'scooped up' for military research - or being a creation of military research - has been a common trope of movies and TV for many years. However, in most western nations, if not most nations ...
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