Jiminy Cricket.

(That goes for the appearance of wisdom too I guess.)

Policy. The stance of the government at the time it was introduced was that wisdom should be valued over youth, the regulatory body that controls the tech ensures it. @Dmyt

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THis also leads to sex differences. On average women's centre of mass is lower, possibly leading to slower flight if they can't streamline as men may.

To echo Mary, a creature with wings on its ankles is going to strain credulity flying whilst oriented horizontally. Find the centre of mass of the creature and stick the wings somewhere near it - above if you want more upright flight, below if you want them to fly head-down (which would also look weird).

Cont.: Maybe your creatures land in a similar way - like the Black Widow (Marvel's version, not the spider). See NY post.

It's very much an aesthetic choice. Personally, I like bumblebees - their flight is sort of at an angle with their body at about 20/30 degrees off the horizontal (for the big, solitary ones in the UK anyhow). This is how they land too, rear feet first, then the other legs set down. Strangely satisfying to watch.

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Rambo Was an Elf @gaazkam

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For something odd sounding to the western ear, try Mandarin or Cantonese perhaps, maybe an African language like Yoruba - that's got lots of rhythmic pulsing and open vowels. Yoruba to English Translator. If not that, then there's plenty of languages to take inspiration from. The Bantu group of languages has clicks and glottal sounds too.

As far as technobabble goes, that was covered by Adams above. If you're looking for something new - then for inspiration look to JK Rowling's use of "Latin" (it was sort of Latin-ish) in the harry potter series. Other languages can be a wonderful inspiration for stuff.

For pre-existing art of something like this see Ann McCaffrey's Pern series - Between, or Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide Infinite improbability drive. @Dmyt

They then collapse (through magic) the wavefunction, this realizes the actuality (that part of the probability wavefunction that's known) at their destination. There they are at the destination. See wavefunction collapse - Wikipedia for a technical explanation involving stats and technical language.

A mage is a collection of particles. Each particle has a probability wavefunction. They are massive things, truly enormous - detailing the mathematical probability of a particle being in a certain place at any given time - the further from the centre of the field, the less probable. The wizards mentally fixate on the part of the wavefunction that intersects with their intended destination.

Idea: social signaling, seduction, flirtation: Secret language of Fans, then there's the erotic dance of the seven veils (burlesque YouTube vid) - There's always just as clothing - who needs bikinis on the beach with so many tails. @Dmyt

@Dmyt

As to the tipping point in the story, the coup, needs much thought putting into the detail of the society's structure and the circumstances surrounding the whole thing. A sufficiently rich, wise and seemingly loyal moviestar/businessman could become adviser to the dictator, in their inner circle - worth pondering.

The Socratic method to get people to think in a particular direction without actually stating dangerous ideas - films written with subtle, very subtle messages that the dictator and co missed. Tough job to accomplish, would take a lot of research to accomplish given the individual differences in capacities of the audience.

Arnold could have been President if the law had allowed for foreign-born folks to do it. In the UK, Nigel Farage's party and efforts around Brexit would seem to be a source of angles for a story - worth looking into (That being said, he's not currently in political power as a result). Totalitarianism is a bit of a trick one - messaging from alternative viewpoints would be tightly controlled, which sets up quite a lot of issues to deal with.

Good question - the first thought that leaps to mind is related to California. Take Hercules, the Terminator, Kindergarten Cop. In a media age, image would seem to count for a lot - as well as charisma, intelligence/smarts and the ability to think on your feet.

Toph hit the mark. Nothing to add, except maybe "time". The more people you have (minimum of 1) the quicker it can be done. @Dmyt

For reference, see: factsanddetails.com/china.

China on its own has sufficient of everything to do this (except Uranium of which it has some, but renewables would seem to be able to replace that). It might not be able to grow technologically as quick as it is in the real world today without imports, but grow it would.

@Dmyt Collecting antimatter from the event horizon seems farfetched, but would be very a useful commodity. A communication hub might work - if Ansible transmissions are routed through a ring of stations/satellites there. Research station for high-energy physics (need not involve a complete ring around the black hole, just lots of probes and stuff) - maybe weapons development purposes...?

Oh, I thought they were all missing - do you mean like nannies/au pairs/wet nurses brought from abroad? Sure, good as the real thing (by approximation). @Dmyt

Shipping is really slow (estimated 19 to 25 days Uruguay to Florida), way too long for fresh milk. A country with a contiguous border might work, by train or truck (with built-in cooling), then there's distribution that needs to be done quick - you could make it work I guess. Still leaves you with antibodies to non-local bugs which may not help with deaths-by-disease.

It's rare but more common than it used to be (I believe), but tends to highlight adverse consequences - statistics point at: increased infectious morbidity, increased likelihood of allergies, asthma and eczema - there's also things like some decrease in cognitive development and increase in associated obesity, but that may be confounded by socio-economic factors. Sure, many perhaps most will survive, but it's sub-optimal to use formula instead of breastmilk. @Toph

@Dmyt Re: formula with antibodies - this is going to need to be immediately responsive to the bugs that the baby encounters in the environment if it's to be any good. Normally the mother would produce these - but you'll need an extensive high-tech medical infrastructure to support the alternative.

Well, they're not going to be able to breastfeed either, so passing on antibodies in milk is out, possible with knock-on effects there (sensitive topic to certain people).

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@RobertLongson Would you care to give this one a kick on main meta?

All quiet, just you and I. Wanna snuggle Smokey?

Not in a public forum! @CodyGray Thanks for eliminating the problem as it were (I really just needed encouragement ;)

Personal favour: Can we pile on this one on medical as it's been realy irritating me by hanging around.

@metasmoke Well over a year to be spotted.

One question per post. Way too broad at present. They're also all O/B questions, off-topic.

This question is similar to: Extremely compact nuclear reactor?. If you believe it’s different, please edit the question, make it clear how it’s different and/or how the answers on that question are not helpful for your problem. Otherwise, you might have asked "How might a nuclear head be used to power steam generator sufficiently small for a gyrocopter with XX range in mind, and Y payload?"

For your perrusal: Extremely compact nuclear reactor?. In fact, the first answer there seems to answer the main concern I see in this question regarding the "size of a head" issue. Otherwise, it's just asking if it can be adapted to power an autogyro - which we lack details in teh question to answer. Voting to close as duplicate.

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Seems like they think they're the only ones, they're convinced of it, and they've "proven it" as far as they're concerned - but they certainly may well be mistaken in those beliefs.

You want them to have proven it? How would they go about testing their null hypotheses? Can they really have searched everywhere in the universe, including preposterous places like inside black holes and the surfaces of neutron stars? How about non-corporeal life which is neutrino-based (or something even more unlikely to interact with matter)?

Nice construct. All goes back to how you write it, what outcome you want - it could well work as an idea - just not as a question here.

But the 10th would remember memories generated in the 9th though, yes?

We also have a Writing site if you didn't know. Can be usefull.

Sure, it's magic you can do anything you like. But to call it "black box" is to say "we can't tell how it works, just that it does" - which might be the best way to approach writing it in my view. @IMP9024

Cont.: - In order to construct a scientific explanation that works we'd need to know the science of your magic - which sounds silly, but I'm sure you get my meaning. There's a rule here somewhere in the posts on the meta site that discourages technobabble. If you want a non-technobabble explanation, then we need to know much more about how your magic works. @IMP9024

Possibly a failure of imagination on my part, but I can't see how this could be anything other than opinion-based. The relationship between matter and energy was established over centuries by people 1) observing 2) hypothesizing 3) testing those hypotheses. Is there a reason that your character knows so much? Who are they talking to, and what's their level of understanding?