Science Fiction Story Starters: Science Fiction Story Ideas

•After exploring the far reaches of the universe, humans discover very few earth-like planets. Scientists try to create new breeds of humans that can survive in inhospitable planets

•Omicron Unlimited offers prospective parents an invaluable service: by genetically altering their embryos, the company can insure that their children will be intelligent, attractive, and healthy. Twenty years later, the genetically-altered children are ready to have children of their own. However, there is a problem: Omicron Unlimited owns their DNA. They have to purchase the right to reproduce.

•Variation: Omicron Unlimited engineers the children with self-destructing genes. They will die on their twenty-first birthdays, unless they pay for special medication. And, of course, the pills are very, very expensive…

•A medical research company gives an extra boost of intelligence to monkeys, so they can work as servants to humans. Unfortunately, the new line of apes might be a little bit too smart…

•A group of male scientists works secretly to genetically engineer a line of very beautiful but very unintelligent human females – When their plan is discovered and made public, they receive both support and condemnation.

•The government, struggling to attract employees for low-level jobs, genetically engineers a new breed of human that are unable to feel boredom.

•After years of protests by animal rights activists, a meat packing plant genetically engineers a new breed of pigs that slaughter themselves.

•Genetic experiments with parrots lead to a dramatic increase in their intelligence. The parrots escape the lab and reproduce, becoming as common as sparrows. Eventually, suburbanites cannot leave the house without having insults and criticisms hurled at them from the trees.

Cloning

•In the future, celebrities have to jealously guard their DNA, lest they be cloned without their permission

•Variation – Celebrities sell their DNA, so that childless couples could have babies cloned from the stars.

•Scientists develop a way for humans to be nearly immortal. Older people have their minds loaded into younger clones of themselves. A husband and wife decide to sue after a technical glitch puts them in each other’s bodies

•Variation – A dying woman is cloned and, when her clone finally turns twenty-one, her mind is loaded into the clone’s brain. Due to a computer glitch, the clone’s mind is not erased. Both minds are trapped together in the same body.

•A man clones himself and his parents so he can relive his childhood

•Frustrated with the way the government is run, a man clones himself enough times that his vote controls every election.

•The government hires an assassin to kill a scientist who is working on dangerous experiments in genetic engineering. When the assassin arrives at the scientist’s lab, he discovers that the scientist has cloned himself dozens and dozens of times.

•Afraid of being assassinated by terrorists, the President has himself cloned half a dozen times. He feels much safer at first, but then the clones decide that they want all the political power to themselves.

Mutation

•Variation – Exposure to toxic waste leaves a musician with four extra arms. He gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “one man band.”

•A strange mutation in human DNA leads to a new fatal disease: boredom. The instant humans grow tired of life, they die.

•Before he can purchase medical insurance, a man is forced to undergo a detailed examination. The doctors discover that the man’s blood contains inactive DNA in microscopic “seeds.” The DNA for thousands of extinct animals is pulsing through his veins.

Evolution

•Humans are gradually replaced by highly-evolved squirrels

•Earth sends a sleeper ship to a distant world. Sadly, the ship’s computer malfunctions, only reviving the tubes containing the passenger’s pets. Thousands of years later, the earth develops a faster-than-light spacecraft, sending new colonists into space. They discover that the new world is controlled by the decedents of the passengers’ pets, which have evolved into intelligent bipeds.

•Variation – A sleeper ship heads off into space for a journey that will last eons. When the ship finally arrives at the new world, the passengers are awakened, and shocked to discover that 1. The ship left earth with a cargo hold full of cockroaches and 2. The cockroaches have evolved intelligence.

•Variation – A newlywed couple buys what they think is their dream house. However, they soon discover that 1. Their house is infested with cockroaches, 2. Their house is located atop a toxic waste dump, and 3. The cockroaches are evolving.

•A teenager refuses to invite any of his friends over to his house, and he won’t even tell them where he lives. After arguing about it all summer, one of his friends finds out why: his parents are cavemen.

•In the Middle Ages, humans split off into two subspecies, one with wings, one without. The winged humans can attack bomb the castles of their enemies from the sky, far out of reach of the non-winged humans’ weapons.

•Scientists construct the most powerful computer ever build to study human evolution. The computer runs a simulation of the human life on earth, allowing them to see how humans will evolve in the future. What they discover is so horrifying they decide that humanity must be exterminated for its own good.

•An alien comes to earth with technology that, he claims, can dramatically increase the speed of human evolution. However, the technology creates a new kind of “generation gap,” psychically gifted children who think of their parents as backward cavemen.

Science Fiction Story Ideas

Space Exploration – Faster than light

When a message in a bottle just won’t do – FTL Communication

•Earthlings on different planets have no way to send FTL messages to communicate with each other. An explorer discovers a planet populated by beings that can traverse the universe in the blink of an eye: angels. If only they could be forced to work as messengers…

•In the future, telepaths provide the only way to send faster than light messages across the vastness of space. Anyone with the gift is forced to work for the Government Office of Interplanetary Communication, but one young girl rebels…

•The population of earth spreads out to a wide variety of different planets. Unfortunately, they have no way of communicating with each other at faster than the speed of light, and it takes years to send messages between planets. Until one day, when a research company develops a time machine. To send a message to another planet “instantly,” they just send it back in time before it was ever written.

•An alien scientist builds a device that can transmit signals faster than the speed of light. To test the prototype, he plugs it into his satellite dish and rebroadcasts the signal into deep space. Moments later, earth gets its first glimpse of alien television.

•The population of earth spreads out to a wide variety of different planets. A scientist invents a new device that sends messages faster than the speed of light. The scientist discovers that he can send messages to colonists on other planets, or to someone else… God.

•An amateur scientist, working in his garage on a FTL communication device, accidentally contacts an alien world. The aliens are friendly and offer him the secrets of their technology, but first he would have to give them directions to earth. His wife, an avid science fiction fan, is suspicious and wonders what motivation the aliens would have to simply give technology away. The question of whether or not the aliens should be given a star map to earth leads to debate, to fights, and eventually to violence.

•Scientists discover a form of energy that can travel faster than light, making FTL communication possible for the first time. Unfortunately, the energy is extremely dangerous, and deadly to humans.

•A corporation on earth invents faster than light communication, and sets up the only receiving station for messages. A young reporter discovers that the corporation is censoring the news from the space colonies.

•The population of earth spreads out to a wide variety of different planets, with no way of communicating with each other at faster than the speed of light. The government decides to make use of a group of Holy Men who can use astral projection to travel to other worlds instantly. One of the Holy Men visits another planet to deliver a message, but he falls in love with a beautiful colonist. How can he build a relationship with someone when he’s not even on the same planet?

•A doctor in a distant hospital discovers a way to send messages to distant planets. Patients with terminal illnesses are given messages to memorize, in the hopes that they will be able to visit distant worlds on their way to the afterlife.

•While experimenting with a new FTL radio, a scientist begins receiving messages from alien soldiers fighting in what sounds an awful lot like earth’s Civil War…

•After working for days without sleep, a scientist finally completes his new FTL radio. He collapses in the corner of his lab, exhausted. While he slumbers, the first person to communicate with an alien world is his mischievous, eight-year-old son.

•A scientist working at a radio telescope receives a strange message. It is a clear signal, but an equipment malfunction prevents him from determining which direction the signal originated from. The coded message, when translated, turns out to be schematics for a faster-than-light communications device. The scientist and his coworkers construct the device and then, not knowing which direction the original message came from, contemplate sending a signal into every part of the sky. However, one coworker has an interesting objection: they are virtually guaranteed to reach multiple planets with their message. What are the odds that at least one of them will be hostile? Is it worth taking the chance, or is it better to remain silent and unnoticed?

In Space, No One Can Give You a Speeding Ticket – Hyperspace / Warp drive

•A scientist discovers hyperspace, a new kind of space where ordinary laws of physics are changed. In hyperspace, spaceships can travel faster than light. But the astronauts start to see strange beings outside their windows, and what looks suspiciously like souls in torment. Is hyperspace… hell?

•Variation – Astronauts experimenting with newly-discovered hyperspace technology find that they can reach not just other planets, but also the afterlife. They can visit their dead friends and relatives. What happens when the astronauts try to bring someone back?

•Due to an oddity of physics, every trip through hyperspace causes the astronauts to lose IQ points.

•In hyperspace, the ships can travel faster than the speed of light. However, traveling outside of normal spacetime has its risks. People age and grow younger, transform into strange creatures, or vanish, to reappear anywhere in the universe.

•Colonists traveling through hyperspace end up in a parallel universe, where they face alternate versions of themselves.

•The janitor at a scientific research company steals a prototype hyperdrive and installs it in his pickup truck.

•A multi-planet corporation sponsors a faster-than-light race across the stars. After one man’s father dies in the race, he vows to come back next year and destroy the race forever… with a black hole.

•The government tests a spacecraft equipped with a prototype warp drive, a device capable of bending time and space. Unfortunately, using the device creates space/time anomalies on the earth below: areas where time travels faster or slower than normal, areas where time travels in reverse, temporary portals to the other side of the universe, and even greater dangers.

Taking a Shortcut – Wormholes

•Astronauts discover wormholes in space. The wormholes are powered by ancient alien machinery, and they allow earthlings to travel FTL for the first time. The wormholes are used by astronauts, space tourists, colonists to other worlds, millions of people. And then the aliens from the Space Travel Agency come to collect the bill.

•Unable to develop their own FTL technology, earthlings must pay to use wormholes. The wormholes are owned by a lizard-like alien species that use earth’s money and resources to fund aggressive wars.

•Human astronauts discover wormholes in space; use them to travel to distant planets. Unfortunately, the wormholes are literal worm holes. They are created by immense worms that eat holes in the space-time continuum.

•A man reveals to his friends that he has a wormhole in his bedroom closet, but he’s afraid to see where it goes.

•An alien planet, after running out of space for landfills, decides to use dispose of its garbage in a wormhole. Unfortunately, the other end of the wormhole is on earth.

•Spelunkers discover a wormhole in a cave under Gary, Indiana. In order for the government to use it for space travel, they must destroy the city.

•The government keeps an ancient sect of monks isolated from the modern world. Any time they need a wormhole to send a ship into space, they come to the monks and ask them to pray, and their god answers.

•A young girl is born with the ability to open up holes in the space-time continuum. When a retired NASA astronaut discovers the girl’s hidden talent, he vows to kidnap the girl and use her abilities to get back into space once more.

•In an attempt to travel to distant worlds, government scientists open up a wormhole. Unfortunately, before they can send a space probe through, something comes in from the other side: an alien immigrant. Soon, the planet is overrun with space aliens, some looking for work, some looking for a handout, and others just looking for a good time.

Living in Space

Building a Better World – Artificial Planets

•The world’s richest man builds his own artificial planet and moves the headquarters of his company there. When his planet’s gravitational pull begins affecting the earth’s tides, the President of the United States is pressured to take action.

•Astronauts doing geological surveys discover that the earth’s moon is hollow, and they search for a way inside.

•Worried about alien invasion, the Earth’s governments collaborate on an ambitious project: the construction of an artificial Decoy Earth.

•A private corporation makes a settlement on a tiny planet. They drill for ore, and use the ore to make steel panels that they use to expand the size of the planet. They turn the planet inside-out, changing it from a natural world to an artificial world.

•Humans settle on a planet and build a civilization. Thousands of years later, the planet begins to leave its orbit and travel to another solar system. Humans discover that the planet is artificial, and the most dangerous weapon in the universe.

•Astronauts exploring distant space encounter an artificial planet. It is entirely made of glass, like one colossal marble. As amazing as this is, it doesn’t even compare to the creatures that made it.

•Colonists looking for a new, earth-like planet stumble upon an artificial world, and it looks suspiciously like a colossal computer

•After earth is unable to find a nearby earth-like planet for new colonies, the Space Exploration Corporation decides to build one of their own. They build the planet with a world-wide security system to watch all of the colonists twenty-four hours a day.

•The Space Exploration Corporation invites humans to come to its new, artificial planet where everything is free. After a few years, the colonists start to notice people vanishing, which the SEC blames on alien abductions. But one colonist discovers that the planet is hollow, and the missing colonists have fallen through trap doors and landed inside.

•Astronauts encounter an artificial, alien planet. The artificial planet captures spaceships and strips them for parts, adding the parts to itself and growing larger.

•The universe’s most powerful weapon is an artificial planet that can be flown into new solar systems. The planet has no weapons, but it doesn’t need any. The planet’s added gravitational pull causes earthquakes, hurricanes, tidal waves, and other natural disasters on the attacked worlds.

•Astronauts discover a bizarre alien world. The planet appears to be made of black plastic. One hemisphere is covered in a colossal number eight.

•A global corporation constructs an artificial planet that is like earth, but without any natural disasters, pollution, or other common earth problems. The governments of earth are soon faced with a difficult problem: how to keep earth from becoming a planet-sized ghost town.

The Hills Are Alive – Living Planets

•Astronauts traveling to a new planet keep vanishing. A group of scientists travels out to investigate, and discovers the cause: the planet has been eating them.

•Variation – Earth colonizes a new planet, but the government keeps a dark secret: the planet is alive, and they must sacrifice a few special humans to keep it from devouring all of them.

•A living planet realizes that it is in the path of an oncoming asteroid. It must find a way to save the people living on its surface or risk eternal loneliness.

•After years of having humans land on it and erect buildings and digging holes, Gaznaxx the Living Planet decides to put an end to his torment. He decides to cut off the supply of humans at the source: earth.

•Humans declare war on an alien world, but the aliens are unafraid. The aliens pray to their god, the planet itself.

•Variation – Humans discover a distant, alien world. When some of the aliens vanish, they seem unconcerned. They explain to the humans that the planet is alive and needs to eat them for food. The humans decide that they will take the aliens to a new world, where they won’t be eaten, but the aliens refuse to leave and abandon their “god.”

What Astronauts Listen to on Their Radios – Space Stations

•The story of earth’s first space station to be recognized as an independent nation

•A man becomes trapped on earth’s first space station, and decides to use the station’s broadcasting equipment to become the most famous DJ in the world.

•In order to create artificial gravity for a space station, a scientist creates a miniature black hole to be kept at its center. Of course, the new technology is not without its dangers…

•As the space tourism industry grows, more and more hotels are built in orbit around the earth. Aliens decide that taking entire space stations is easier than abducting humans one at a time.

•An asteroid strikes an orbiting hotel, knocking it into space. The space tourists are distraught to discover that no one is coming to rescue them.

•Pirates construct a space station and drag it into orbit around the planet mars. The space station grabs incoming ships of new colonists and strips the ships for parts and sells the colonists into slavery.

•Aliens from an overpopulated planet buy the right to build space stations in orbit around the earth. The space stations are the size of cities, and filled with alien colonists. As the aliens build, it looks like the planet may soon be sealed away behind a solid layer of space stations, and humans will be unable to leave the planet.

•When the space tourism industry becomes big business, entrepreneurs construct an orbiting stadium for the world’s first zero gravity sport: rocket ball.

•Earth’s most dangerous criminals are trapped in an orbiting prison. That is, until they find a way to escape…

•Orbiting the earth is a gigantic, floating city called Eden II. Millions of people live, work, and play there every day. One morning, a man discovers that he’s alone in the city. Everyone has simply disappeared. He gets on the radio and tries to contact earth, but there is no response…

•Secretly, earth has run out of space for landfills. A corporate executive decides to create the world’s first orbiting garbage dump.

More than Just Space Pirates – Crime in Space

•When a tourist on an intergalactic voyage is murdered, the killer has all of space to hide the body. The ship’s detective must go to great lengths to find the evidence.

•A group of space pirates makes a great living capturing spaceships and selling the colonists into slavery on a distant, alien world. But when the pirate captain discovers the aliens have kidnapped his wife and daughter, he realizes he must rescue the very criminals he helped to imprison.

•Intergalactic smugglers are constantly harassed by the Alliance Police but, somehow, contraband keeps getting through. After a new emperor comes to power, the smugglers face a new challenge: telepathic boarder guards.

•When Earth’s political figures travel between worlds, they do so in a convoy of ships. The politicians travel in a small, inconspicuous craft. The biggest craft is actually the home of Jack Royal, Galactic Decoy.

•A man heads back to his planet after a long vacation, only to discover that his home world simply isn’t there. The planet has been stolen.

•An insurance company’s investigators search for the answer to a strange mystery: a team of space pirates is attacking merchant ships, but they leave their valuable cargo alone. Apparently, they are only interested in the ship’s office supplies.

•A gang of intergalactic pirates tracks down a ship full of diamonds. When the ship flies into an asteroid field, the pirates must make a difficult choice: follow, and risk being destroyed by asteroids, or abandon the hunt, and not have enough money for fuel to get back home.

•An explorer discovers a new, earth-like planet and attempts to claim it for himself. Unfortunately, the planet is occupied. The explorer decides to hide all the evidence of the native aliens’ technology and language, and to convince the Alliance Authorities that the aliens are mere animals.

There’s no place like home – Colonization of Other Planets

•The planet is the only other earth-like planet in the universe, and the inhabitants on earth need it desperately, as earth is about to be destroyed by an asteroid. However, one of the astronauts is a suspected murderer, and wants to keep the location of the planet a secret so he can’t be arrested.

•They have to figure out if the alien life on the planet is intelligent before they can start colonization. Unfortunately, they have problems trying to communicate with the aliens – the aliens only communicate by telepathy

•Variation – The aliens only communicate via odor

•The aliens worship the humans as gods, and bring them sacrifices

•The astronauts spend months trying to communicate with the aliens, to no avail. Eventually, they discover that the aliens are actually animatronic puppets, and the entire planet is an alien amusement park.

•At seemingly random moments, the aliens burst into choreographed song and dance numbers. Amazingly, they never do the same one twice.

•The Stone Age aliens need humanity’s help to fight enemy tribes

•The aliens are religious, the astronauts convert, bring the religion back to earth

•The planet was cleared of intelligent life by war and disease. However, they are not alone: the entire world is haunted.

•The government wants to start a colony on a new planet. In order to save space on the ship and fuel, scientists genetically engineer a line of six-inch-high people. But some of the tiny people want to stay on earth, and escape the lab…