/r/AskScienceFiction

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It's like Ask Science, but all questions and answers are written with answers gleaned from the universe itself. Use in-universe knowledge, rules, and common sense to answer the questions. Or as fanlore.org calls it Watsonian, not a Doylist point of view

It's like Ask Science, but all questions and answers are written with answers gleaned from the universe itself. Use in-universe knowledge, rules, and common sense to answer the questions. Or as fanlore.org calls it Watsonian, not a Doylist point of view (Further reading on Watsonian vs. Doylist perspective can be found here, here, and in the dictionary definitions of the two terms.)

Take the fictional rules of the universe to their logical conclusion, ad absurdum.

We also now have an offical sub-reddit Discord server: Check it out!


Rules

  • Official rules post
  • FAQ
  • New FAQ
  • Submit a FAQ entry
  • [Tag] your posts with the setting you wish to discuss.
  • Answer the questions from a Watsonian perspective only-- no Doylist answers.
  • We discourage but do not forbid roleplaying. However, if you choose to roleplay, please remember that you must answer as if you had all the information available to a member of the audience. You already know Bruce Wayne is Batman, you already know Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker, you already know Sauron is evil.
  • Any fiction is allowed not just science fiction. Avoid questions about real-world pseudoscience (i.e. chemtrails, homeopathy, etc.), however.
  • General questions are discouraged; without a firm set of in-universe rules, most of them boil down to "whatever the writer chooses" in terms of answers. r/whatiffiction, a sister subreddit, has rules more accommodating to these sort of questions.
  • No real life questions. AskScience and AskHistorians exist for that.
  • Any sort of competition questions belong in whowouldwin.
  • Sources are welcomed and encouraged.
  • Search for your question, it may have been asked and answered before. (This doesn't, of course, mean there isn't room for further discussion.)
  • Wheaton's Law (Don't be a jerk).
  • Upvote good content; downvote incorrect information. Report anything that discusses metadata or involves personal attacks.
  • Elaborate upon your answers. Low-effort posts (e.g. "Speed Force" with no further explanation when asked a question about the Flash) do not constitute satisfactory answers.

Spoiler Policies

  • The title of your post should not contain spoilers for six months from the date of release. If only the body of your post contains spoilers, you may instead make the title "[Canon] Spoilers: Canon" and not use the link flair. Replace "Canon" with the work or body of fiction in question.
  • Comment spoilers should be formatted on a separate line as >![Thing to be spoiled.]
  • Our Spoiler policy must be observed for six months following the date of release.
  • Spoilers from works older than six months may optionally be concealed using our flair system, however this is CSS-based and will work only in browsers.

This subreddit is for discussion of fiction using information about the universe and not meta information about the work.

For non-serious answers for real world science problems try:

And just for fun, don't forget to check out our friends at

/r/AskScienceFiction

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6

[Trailer Park Boys] Why don't they serve far more jail time for the gunfights?

Ianal...

But I can't imagine any court would give a slap on the wrist to convicted felons firing illegal and sometimes automatic weapons at each other; one could make a very strong argument for that being attempted murder (even if we know thats not entirely accurate).

3 Comments
2024/10/31
04:09 UTC

2

[Batman The Long Halloween] Calendar Man

In Batman: The Long Halloween Part 2 (2021) animated movie, in the middle of the movie Batman visits Calendar-man in Arkham Asylum for the second time. Calendar specifically says the line “Let me go, and the killings will stop.” In regard to the Holiday Killer situation. What did Calendar mean by this? How could he have stopped it. He isn’t Holiday and I don’t think he has any connection to who the killer actually was. Is this just a loose thread that is never touched upon again?

3 Comments
2024/10/31
01:21 UTC

15

[Independence Day]how long do the Harvesters spend on a planet before moving on? Like when they sent the Roswell scouts in 1947 was Earth their next target or did they destroy like 10 worlds in the interim?

3 Comments
2024/10/31
00:44 UTC

50

[Puss in Boots] Is Death Latino or does he emulate whatever accent the person he’s reaping has like Brad Pitt’s Death?

21 Comments
2024/10/30
22:18 UTC

0

[Supernatural]Questions about Monsters

Questions about Monsters

1.Can they be possessed? 2. Can Monsters become witches or can Natural witches like Rowena become monsters and still also be a witch at the same time ? 3.How far superior in stats are most monsters to most humans or to combat trained humans like service members or hunters? 4. Can Monsters cross breed ? Like could a shifter have a baby with a werewolf? Can they make hybrid monsters? 5. Could one monster turn another monster? Like could a vampire feed a shifter it's blood and malr a shifter vampire? 6. There are several monsters like shifters and skin walkers that don't seem to actually feed or hunt humans for anything and just have powers, why are they hunted or even considered evil exactly? 7. Where do monsters generally stack up against demons and Angels? 8. How much harder to kill would a more combat trained monster be ,?like a werewolf that happened to be a marine or a shifter with a black belt or an MMA fighter? 9. How many monsters are out there living seemingly normal lives with families and surban houses/apartments who've found ways to live around their "appetites"? 10. What happens when they die in purgatory? 11. Do even child monsters go to purgatory? 12. How much more powerful are Alphas and what extra powers do they get compared to the rest of the species? 13. How do Alphas stack up to Angels and demons? 14. Why were so many of the Alphas in the US ? 15.What monsters don't come from Eve? Like the wendigo is some cannibal that gets transformed through capabilism or something

3 Comments
2024/10/30
22:15 UTC

0

[Dune] Do members of Islam descendant religions pray towards Mecca? If so, how?

I’ve only watched the two movies, but I’m aware that at least the Fremen faith and I believe a few other religions are descendant of Islam. Do these faiths still hold Mecca as an important thing, and if they do, how do they pray towards it if they don’t know where it is?

8 Comments
2024/10/30
21:54 UTC

111

[Dragon Ball Super] In super, it's stated that Goku and beerus fight makes shockwaves that can destroy the universe. How does the dragonball universe even stay existing when there's like a ton of people from that point on that are even stronger by exponential amounts?

26 Comments
2024/10/30
21:11 UTC

1

[Star Wars] What is the most prestigious program at the Imperial Academy?

Assume at one day prior to battle of Yavin. Is it TIE pilot? AT-AT driver? Is it some type of stormtrooper? Is it Imperial Navy command track? What do most cadets want to be? Please exclude Emperor's royal guard.

4 Comments
2024/10/30
21:10 UTC

0

[general] how would a spider make or use a pedal powered vehicle, like a bicycle?

My friend trolls me with ai images. And when I asked him to make one of a “sad clown spider on a unicycle” we concluded that such an image requires more imagination than we or it has. So I’m asking Reddit: what does a spiders bicycle look like?

6 Comments
2024/10/30
21:06 UTC

23

[Predator 2] - What would've happened next if Keyes' plan worked?

So if Special Agent Keyes' task force had successfully captured the City Hunter and his equipment, what would've the other 7-8 Predators chilling on their spaceship done? Thrown up their hands and called it a lost cause because that's what happens on your first hunt, or gone in like a SWAT team to recover all that tech?

8 Comments
2024/10/30
17:58 UTC

12

[Marvel] - Can a symbiote permanently change a host’s physical appearance if allowed?

I know it can regenerate and some can camouflage, but say a host’s head is destroyed, could a symbiote regenerate a different face or no?

5 Comments
2024/10/30
17:14 UTC

17

[Fortune Cookie Lore] How are these cookies able to tell the future?

As we all know, Chinese restaurants regularly provide magical fortune cookies that can tell you the future. They also give you your lucky numbers.

How is this happening? Are Chinese restaurants all being run by wizards? Are they performing sacred rituals in the back room to bless the cookies with these cosmic powers? Is there a corporation that is able to mass produce them? Are there Chinese mystics on assembly lines casting spells on each batch that’s produced?

What’s the deal with these cookies?

18 Comments
2024/10/30
16:58 UTC

4

[Star Wars] [Death Battle] Can Beskar Armor Actually Help Boba Fett or Any Beskar Mandalorian Survive Huge Explosion Such As The Yautja's Self Destruct Device?

This is old but still after rewatching Boba Fett vs Predator, Wiz and Broomsticks said that Boba Fett with his Beskar Armor can survive a explosion as powerful as the self destruct one I forgot how powerful It is but it's definitely powerful enough to create a small mushrooms cloud, however I'm having a hard time believing this, Boba's arm was cut off and most of his body isn't cover in Beskar his leather armor parts is probably heat resistant but wouldn't be able to withstand a explosion as powerful as the self destruct one, not to mention the impact despite how durable and Strong Boba Fett is by himself his still human, so I'm asking now can Boba Fett actually took the explosion point blan?

19 Comments
2024/10/30
16:43 UTC

0

[ghostbusters] [mario] what classes do the various ghost characters of the mario world fall under on a case by case basis?

I'm guessing that the boos and other such weird blobby ghosts are either class 3's or 5's while the portrait ghosts and other such more distinctive ghosts are class fours while king boo is a class 7.

1 Comment
2024/10/30
14:59 UTC

55

[Dune book series] Do Fremen have religious diet restrictions?

Given that the Fremen's religion is a hybrid of Zen Buddhism and Sunni Islam (Islam forbids the consumption of certain foods like pork and alcoholic drinks and animals must be slaughtered and reared in a certain way) , do they maintain the same dietary restrictions as their ancestors on Earth thousands of years ago or have they relaxed it to survive on Arrakis?

Like for example, is it religiously acceptable for a Fremen to eat pork?

37 Comments
2024/10/30
13:59 UTC

6

[Better Luck Tomorrow] Why did Han Lue's group decide to assault Steve? What was it about Steve that filled them with so much anger they lack caution and restraint as they were beating him, unintentionally killing him?

I'm confused why Han Lue and his buddies decided to bushwhack Steve in an ambush as they were meeting him for the job when you consider all the prior jobs they did for not just Steve but other clients throughout the movie (in addition to direct theft for themselves)? It seems all they really cared about was making cash rather than engaging in criminal acts for the thrill of it and they tended to be careful enough a lot of the times to avoid doing something so blatantly risky stupid. Even the gung ho Daric Loo showed enough sense not to do something as recklessly idiotic as ambush a well known community member who's filthy rich (on top of being their employer for several jobs prior).

Moreso the way they were not simply beating Steve up but were practically torturing him with real genuine wrathful hate confuses me. What did they despise about Steve so much that it reached to the point they couldn't put common sense self-control when they were punishing him? Its even more confusing considering they never showed this level of scorn for him earlier in the movie when they were doing various jobs for him and its only this specific new job that they were went so much out about their negative opinion towards Steve. Why did they only act this way for the being given the task of robbing Steve's home and stealing his parent's property? Why didn't they just take take the cash he was offering and commit the crime?

1 Comment
2024/10/30
06:56 UTC

117

[I have no mouth and I must scream] what is the full extent of AM’s power ?

That guy seems omnipotent , he can control people’s mind so they their own corpse , make people live forever , exist anywhere at anytime , is there any limit to his power or what he can do ?

30 Comments
2024/10/30
05:48 UTC

4

[DC Universes] Can anyone explain the conflicting multiverses?

In the Arrowverse, we learned definitively that there are parallel worlds. At first they mentioned 52, then they mentioned it was actually infinite Earths.

Among the Earths, we saw Earth-66, with an older Dick Grayson who liked to say "Holy," and we saw Earth-89 with Alexander Knox who was rooting on a bat-like vigilante. We also saw a black-haired Flash who totally resembled the DCEU one meet his Arrowverse counterpart. All of these multiverses were destroyed, many rebuilt (like the ones that Stargirl and the Titans existed in).

The Flash from this Arrowverse also decided to time-travel in order to save his mother from dying, creating an almost exact universe that he was familiar with with the exception of his mother being dead, and the natural events that would have unfolded after that. Nothing before that time travel point was altered.

But later we see the DCEU Flash, with an upgraded costume making it seem as though he had already met his Arrowverse counterpart. Only this Flash knows nothing about multiverses, so it's apparent this isn't the exact Flash that the Arrowverse Flash met, he's a similar one. I get that.

However, when this Flash time travels to do almost the exact same thing as the Arrowverse Flash and save his mother, he creates a mixup of timelines. As Bruce Wayne, in this new timeline mixup, explains with a bowl of spaghetti, time traveling actually doesn't create a new divergent timeline, it mixes them up. Thus we get a Batman who resembles the Batman from Earth-89 fighting villains who are from the DCEU.

At first it would seem that the DCEU are and Arrowverse aren't only separate earths, but completely different realities in where the rules of time travel are different. But at the same time the Arrowverse Flash met a version of the DCEU Flash, which would suggest the DCEU Flash is from one of the alternate universes. The DCEU Flash also saw visions of Batman from Earth-66, clearly one of the Arrowverse Earth's. That's the part I can't reconcile.

6 Comments
2024/10/30
04:49 UTC

6

[Irredeemable] Would the Plutonian have spared Mr. and Mrs. Hartigan if they'd lived to see him go berserk?

2 Comments
2024/10/30
01:14 UTC

66

[star war] why does nobody use orbital bombardment ?

Like in kashyyyk cis could have easily won if they had just nuke' em from space

39 Comments
2024/10/29
22:52 UTC

24

[Dbz]How long would it take mr satan to complete the serpent's path?

12 Comments
2024/10/29
21:26 UTC

1

[Assassin's Creed] What is actually happening in the white void when you kill a major target?

When you kill a major target we see our Assassin and their dying foe exchange a leasurely conversation in a white void. This is despite the fact that (a) they are often killed in a public place or in front of guards, (b) our Assassin may have killed them with a long-range weapon, and (c) there's no way our assassin injures every single enemy just severely enough that they can talk for 30 seconds and then die.

Does this exchange just take place in the assassin's mind as a fantasy, based on what they learned about the target from other sources? Is it the "canonical" death scene, i.e. Altair managed to kill every target in a quiet place where he could interrogate them at his leisure, but the Animus counts any kill as sufficient for synchronization? Or is there some latent supernatural ability in the Assassin bloodline which allows them to, for example, gain information after coming into contact with the blood of someone who has used a Piece of Eden?

3 Comments
2024/10/29
16:28 UTC

100

[The Matrix] Why don't agents always take over people who are trying to escape but still in their pods?

I have been watching Animatrix and I noticed that agents sometimes posses people trying to leave and sometimes don't and it seems really inconsistent.

28 Comments
2024/10/29
19:11 UTC

9

[Ninjago] What were the ninja thinking?

I just returned from rewatching Rise of the Snakes, but do you know something that has always bugged me? When Lloyd first revealed himself, the ninja, upon finding out that he was Garmadon's son, instead of taking this seriously, they just left him hanging from a pole in the middle of the village. I always found it weird that they never thought to handle the situation more appropriately. Instead of doing this,

"Oh look, here's the son of our mortal enemy, and our sensei just so happens to be the brother of our mortal enemy, which would make him this kid's uncle. Why don't we apprehend him and bring him to our sensei so that he can deal with him."

They decided to do this,

"Let's just hang on that pole and leave him there. And then not bother to tell our sensei about this encounter. That'll play out nicely!!!!!!"

And you know what's even more head-scratching? When Lloyd is first introduced, and the other ninja get confused, Cole confirms that it's his son and says this, "He must've escaped from his school for bad boys again." Basically, this was implying that he's met Lloyd before at some point in the past and knows who he is, and yet, instead of deciding to handle the situation properly (either taking him back to Darkely's or bringing him to Wu), he goes along with the others idea to just humiliate this boy. Cole, you're supposed to be the leader, take charge, and handle the situation properly!!!!!!!

As a matter of fact, did they even bother to tell Wu about their encounter with Lloyd? Seems pretty stupid to not mention to their sensei that they just met his nephew, especially if they know whose son he is.

Can anyone please make sense of this?

3 Comments
2024/10/29
17:33 UTC

111

[Assassin's Creed] When you kill a major target and talk with them in a white void, what's going on?

Re-posting because something triggered the automod

When you kill a major target we see our Assassin and their dying foe exchange a leasurely conversation in a white void. This is despite the fact that (a) they are often killed in a public place or in front of guards, (b) our Assassin may have killed them with a long-range weapon, and (c) there's no way our assassin injures every single enemy just severely enough that they can talk for 30 seconds and then die.

Does this exchange just take place in the assassin's mind as a fantasy, based on what they learned about the target from other sources? Is it the "historical" death scene, i.e. Altair managed to kill every target in a quiet place where he could interrogate them at his leisure, but the Animus counts any kill as sufficient for synchronization? Or is there some latent supernatural ability in the Assassin bloodline which allows them to, for example, gain information after coming into contact with the blood of someone who has used a Piece of Eden?

24 Comments
2024/10/29
16:37 UTC

187

[John Carpentet's The Thing] is the earth still doomed due to the alien's physiology? And why wasn't the whole research crew immediately infected?

What I mean to say is, that since any individual cell of the alien is it's own creature, as seen from the blood experiment, it should be virtually impossible to scour it from the planet. Any living being sheds cells all the time, antarctica may be cold but isn't a sterile environment so the research base should, with enough time just be covered in a thin gross film of Thing flesh as it assimilates all the microbes on the surface.

There is even the idea that everyone should prepare and eat their own food from sealed cans so that the Thing couldn't mix its matter onto it.

So aside from not having a movie, the Thing should have won at the very beginning by acting like a normal dog that just licks the faces of all the guys there, the saliva/fluid would contact the skin and they are all turned.

So even if Childs and Macready are both human and freeze to death, come the spring thaw and the investigation as to what happened, any errant cells that went into hibernation could pop alive, get growing on the extremophiles that exist in the environment and eventually reconstitute or at least get picked up by the people that come to check.

55 Comments
2024/10/29
16:33 UTC

9

[Assassin’s Creed] how the hell have the two factions in this world been able to not only span all of human history but keep themselves secrecy at the same time!

This would be near impossible with how far they would have to be spread! Not to mention how far they would have to keep their activities on the down low to the entire world!

14 Comments
2024/10/29
14:42 UTC

56

[SpaceBalls] Was there a reason they needed to get the air from planet Druidia? Wouldn't it have been a lot less trouble to get it from some remote planet?

13 Comments
2024/10/29
14:11 UTC

97

[Power rangers] Why are there still people living in Angel Grove?

In this city, there are constant attacks from monsters, and giant battles that cause massive explosions. Every time this happens there would casualties ranging from hearing loss, and outright death, with lots of property damage imbetween. How are there still people living there? Why has the government not evacuated people?

40 Comments
2024/10/29
13:57 UTC

24

[Star Trek] Why are having instincts illogical? (Vulcans to T’Lyn)

In Lower Decks the other Vulcans tell T’Lyn that her “instincts” are an illogical outburst.

But; aren’t Vulcans able to recognize that “gut instincts” are essentially inspired suspicions that come from evolutionary warning signals that kept your ancestry alive?

Is it illogical to not go into a cave because it might contain predators?

Is it illogical to double check on something?(that cant possibly be true on a star ship with machines that have failsafes)

19 Comments
2024/10/29
13:11 UTC

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