Sci-Fi Writing and World Building Forum

Sci-Fi writers, this forum is for you. Free ideas and advice for your stories from sci-fi fans and science professionals. Find out how to bring in real science for your story.

Threads

Can you watch a gamma-ray burst from the side?

  • Strato Incendus
  • · Replies 2 ·
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2

Energy cost of artificial gravity in a non-accelerating frame

  • essenmein
  • · Replies 17 ·
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17

Can I discuss designing an artificial universe like Conway's Game of Life?

  • aepryus
  • · Replies 16 ·
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16

Writing: Input Wanted Portable single-person weapons for year 2670 sci-fi setting

  • Melbourne Guy
  • · Replies 8 ·
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8

What is the Theoretical Energy Density of Inflation?

  • chasrob
  • · Replies 7 ·
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7

Why a 4D discus loses stability and lift

  • Hornbein
  • · Replies 9 ·
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9

The real 2020 as a 1980s science fiction story?

  • The Bill
  • · Replies 3 ·
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3

What happens to air circulation in a powerless, zero-gravity spaceship?

  • Melbourne Guy
  • · Replies 43 ·
2
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43

Did any novels predict the effects of COVID-19?

  • member 656954
  • · Replies 15 ·
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15

Can Sci-Fi Writers Use Real Science to Enhance Their Stories?

  • happyhacker
  • · Replies 3 ·
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3

Clocks On a Hyperdimensional Planet

  • Hornbein
  • · Replies 3 ·
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3

Motorized Watercraft on a Hyperdimensional Planet

  • Hornbein
  • · Replies 7 ·
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7

Equator of a Planet with Four Spatial Dimensions is a 4D Torus

  • Hornbein
  • · Replies 9 ·
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9

Interplanetary Portals vs Gravity

  • Malapine
  • · Replies 4 ·
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4

How do you measure time on a tide locked planet?

  • AotrsCommander
  • · Replies 87 ·
3
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87

A problem with interstellar travel

  • Wrath_of_sloths
  • · Replies 26 ·
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26

How could you see an image without photons? (imaging systems)

  • Maximum7
  • · Replies 9 ·
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9

Books on prose craft for fiction revision

  • Eclair_de_XII
  • · Replies 48 ·
2
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48

Can comets create a microclimate crater on Mars 30km deep with 0.7bars?

  • darkdave3000
  • · Replies 47 ·
2
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47

Protagonist wants to meet his exact clone

  • chasrob
  • · Replies 41 ·
2
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41

The interior design of the central trunk of a ring spaceship

  • Strato Incendus
  • · Replies 30 ·
2
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30

Can a pencil vanish from a box through random quantum fluctuations?

  • chasrob
  • · Replies 16 ·
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16

Force Field Experiments: Realistic Physics Questions

  • Flannel
  • · Replies 8 ·
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8

At what speed can a person jump in zero g?

  • DaveC426913
  • · Replies 20 ·
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20

Wall thickness of ring habitats for radiation shielding

  • Strato Incendus
  • · Replies 4 ·
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4

Finding safe atmospheric entry speed in a space game

  • DynV
  • · Replies 9 ·
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9
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20

Why do we need FTL if traveling at the speed of light is instantaneous?

  • keeper blue
  • · Replies 19 ·
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19

Sapient Life Indigenous to a Planet Orbiting a Red Dwarf

  • Lren Zvsm
  • · Replies 13 ·
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13

Ideas for novel I'm writing I would love some insight on a concept

  • KelticKemist1987
  • · Replies 5 ·
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5

Structure of the Galaxy: 6 Questions Confirmed

  • AotrsCommander
  • · Replies 31 ·
2
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31

Number of Decks on a Rotating Habitat

  • Strato Incendus
  • · Replies 9 ·
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9

Writing: Input Wanted Black holes as weapons - easy way to calculate the evaporation blast

  • Melbourne Guy
  • · Replies 10 ·
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10

Writing: Input Wanted Mission near Exodus fusion reactor to kill male crew members

  • Strato Incendus
  • · Replies 22 ·
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22

Docking spaceships to ring habitats

  • Strato Incendus
  • · Replies 18 ·
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18

Realistic energy shields for military SF spacecraft and mecha

  • GTOM
  • · Replies 5 ·
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5

If you are moving in a ship at FTL, could a pilot react at FTL?

  • Maximum7
  • · Replies 11 ·
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11

Could Localised Variations in Physics Occur?

  • Write Stuff
  • · Replies 11 ·
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11

Let's build a quantum radio receiver

  • MisterIX
  • · Replies 6 ·
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6

Designing a standard model of physics for D&D with exotic particles

  • DracoMorpheus
  • · Replies 6 ·
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6

Scott Manley's Video: Pulsed Rocket Drives

  • anorlunda
  • · Replies 4 ·
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4

Wood as a precious resource on spaceships

  • Strato Incendus
  • · Replies 17 ·
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17

Fixing Kethrain's stellar flux problem with a 248-day year

  • AotrsCommander
  • · Replies 9 ·
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9

A mind excercise inside videogames

  • Number_21
  • · Replies 1 ·
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1

Conditions inside a protoplanetary disc

  • Galexy
  • · Replies 4 ·
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4

Aftermath of a collision with an ice giant

  • AllanR
  • · Replies 4 ·
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4

Writing: Input Wanted Generation ship Exodus dumbbell versus cylindrical design

  • Strato Incendus
  • · Replies 52 ·
2
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52

Writing: Input Wanted Captain's choices on colony ships

  • Strato Incendus
  • · Replies 4 ·
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4

Hiding an orbital colony 'behind' a planet from a flare star

  • Melbourne Guy
  • · Replies 17 ·
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17

Writing: Input Wanted Does this sound like a rip off of Halo?

  • MaxDemonNoir
  • · Replies 1 ·
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1

Energy source that slowly changes the habitability of a solar system

  • Mshenko
  • · Replies 49 ·
2
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49

Writing: Input Wanted Are Clone Ships a Better Alternative for Space Colonization?

  • Algr
  • · Replies 30 ·
2
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30

Writing: Input Wanted Generation ship with rotating rings: spacing and central axis design

  • Strato Incendus
  • · Replies 96 ·
4
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96

Writing: Input Wanted Different Cosmic Disasters for Different Plot Points

  • Strato Incendus
  • · Replies 7 ·
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7

Fictional war fought entirely through disinformation in 2094

  • anorlunda
  • · Replies 9 ·
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9

Tool for calculating distances between stars in 3D space

  • Melbourne Guy
  • · Replies 10 ·
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10

Writing: Input Wanted Calculating earthbirth days on a planet with 300-day years

  • sheepcountme
  • · Replies 10 ·
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10

Is it Appropriate to Include More Than One Prose-Dialogue Pair in Each Block?

  • Eclair_de_XII
  • · Replies 11 ·
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11

Writing: Input Wanted USS Enterprise Hit by Ancient Interstellar Probe - Investigation Report

  • dansmith170
  • · Replies 3 ·
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3

Is Kindle X-ray Worth the Extra Work for Authors and Readers?

  • Melbourne Guy
  • · Replies 22 ·
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22

Seed ship that builds itself from stellar matter at its destination

  • dansmith170
  • · Replies 21 ·
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21

Good gas to trace lasers in a vacuum

  • Melbourne Guy
  • · Replies 16 ·
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16

Previously suppressed knowledge to control the masses

  • jake jot
  • · Replies 4 ·
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4

Atmospheric pressure inside a protoplanetary disc

  • Galexy
  • · Replies 6 ·
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6

Creating a sci-fi device that changes light speed for comedy time travel

  • Trying2Learn
  • · Replies 6 ·
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6

Writing: Input Wanted Best material for heat exchanger on a space ship

  • Melbourne Guy
  • · Replies 8 ·
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8

Scientific-sounding gobbledygook found by trolling PF posts

  • Melbourne Guy
  • · Replies 2 ·
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2

Walking around the ring on a spinning space station

  • AllanR
  • · Replies 19 ·
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19
  • Poll Poll

Writing: Input Wanted Cliffhanger vs soft ending for a space opera series

  • Melbourne Guy
  • · Replies 19 ·
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19

What would you do if you thought you'd found a portal?

  • AS-FOR
  • · Replies 27 ·
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27

Maximum safe mass of an asteroid in geostationary orbit

  • caladin
  • · Replies 17 ·
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17

Photon and Neutrino detector and photon trawl device

  • ginov2000
  • · Replies 6 ·
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6

Description of a nuclear EMP event

  • GTOM
  • · Replies 3 ·
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3

Equipment for elite warriors in underground civil war

  • GTOM
  • · Replies 15 ·
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15

What atoms or molecules can bind oxygen like iron does in blood?

  • newjerseyrunner
  • · Replies 11 ·
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11

Parallel universes and spatial recurrence in infinite space-time

  • diezir
  • · Replies 12 ·
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12

Centaur Mass for Jupiter's 4th Lagrange Point

  • AllanR
  • · Replies 2 ·
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2

Effects of a rapidly developing, unknown nearby civilization

  • newjerseyrunner
  • · Replies 18 ·
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18

How would Dr. Frankenstein solve the tissue rejection problem?

  • Lren Zvsm
  • · Replies 22 ·
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22
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2

How to get away with killing your great grandfather with time travel

  • MikeandSuch
  • · Replies 16 ·
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16

Collaborative sci-fi story: one sentence per post

  • Greg Bernhardt
  • · Replies 44 ·
2
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44

Supermassive black hole in the Large Magellanic Cloud?

  • Deleted member 690984
  • · Replies 3 ·
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3

Can any object cause fluctuations in a magnetic field?

  • Deleted member 690984
  • · Replies 10 ·
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10

Orbiting, Relativity and Mind-effects

  • some bloke
  • · Replies 13 ·
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13

Sci-fi writer in need of futuristic Quantum Physics ideas

  • Orenshved
  • · Replies 9 ·
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9
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2

Experiments to do in deep space at 40% of c

  • AllanR
  • · Replies 26 ·
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26

Can habitable planets orbit rotating black holes near the poles?

  • Adb82
  • · Replies 49 ·
2
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49

Levels of Civilization Based on Deuterium

  • hyperiontorus
  • · Replies 5 ·
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5

Looking for physics advisor to review time travel explanations for novel

  • KBarnes
  • · Replies 1 ·
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1

Writing: Input Wanted How to model Eccentricity, Obliquity and Recession in Excel

  • DnA 9413
  • · Replies 2 ·
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2

Will tissue engineering make humanoid fabrication possible?

  • Lren Zvsm
  • · Replies 6 ·
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6

Writing: Input Wanted What is the concept of 'residual self image' in The Matrix?

  • Cobul
  • · Replies 49 ·
2
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49

Can I Write a Book About the Physics of Batman without Getting Sued?

  • jake jot
  • · Replies 9 ·
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9

Energy plant draining the sun's core in sci-fi

  • Mshenko
  • · Replies 16 ·
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16

Writing: Input Wanted How to keep from being overrun with liches

  • cybernetichero
  • · Replies 7 ·
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7

Trying to make a rigorous imaginary world

  • Swastik Majumder
  • · Replies 3 ·
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3

Turning oxygen into fluorine in our atmosphere

  • Epsilon Eridani
  • · Replies 5 ·
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5

Gravity, heat, flooding, and centrifugal force on a tidal-locked planet

  • Mark Everglade
  • · Replies 5 ·
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5