r/AskScienceFiction

213K archived posts · Jul 2011 – Sep 2026

Ask Science Fiction

r/AskScienceFiction

**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](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Watsonian_vs._Doylist)

Created Jul 1, 2011

866KMembers (last snapshot)

213KArchived posts

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.

Star Trek
Daystrom Institute
Harry Potter
Harry potter books
Battlestar Galactica
Star Wars
Maw Installation
Warhammer 40,000 Lore
Fan theories
One shot podcast
Respect threads
Pratchett
Who would win (Go here for questions about who would win in a fight or competition between two or more characters)
What If Fiction (This is the best place for "general" questions)
Ask About Comic Books
Share your scifi ideas
coexisting fictional universes
The Artifice
Monster Deconstruction
Simple Tolkien Quotes
The Sci Fi Discord Channel

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

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

Shitty Ask Scifi

Other communities

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