Science Fiction Story Starters: Science Fiction Story Ideas

•After finding what they think is an empty world and building colonies, humans discover that the planet is occupied with intelligent life. The aliens on the planet are the size of ants and their cities have been being crushed by every human to walk the planet. The miniature aliens develop tiny aircraft and get ready for war against the enormous human invaders.

•Astronauts make earth’s first contact with intelligent alien life. Unfortunately, the aliens live on an asteroid headed straight for earth.

•Astronauts discover a distant world filled with humanlike aliens. The alien leader is a strange man in a white robe who lives at the top of a mountain. The astronauts soon begin to wonder: is this the god humanity rejected?

There’s no Place Like Home, but We Can Fix That – Terraforming

Changing a planet’s atmosphere, temperature, and environment to make it like the earth.

•The corporation in charge of terraforming a new world holds a contest, and the winner gets to design a continent.

•Humans spend billions terraforming a planet, then immediately start polluting it, filling it with garbage

•Humans get to work terraforming Mars. In response, the last surviving Martians decide to Marsaform earth.

•Variation – A man discovers that pollution is actually caused by aliens who are trying to transform the earth’s environment to be more like their home world.

•The engineers in charge of a terraforming project attempt to design a planet where war would be impossible.

•The story of a group of aliens struggling to adapt as earth’s scientists terraform their world.

•The head of a global corporation tries to convince NASA that the last step of terraforming, making a planet earth-like, is filling the new planet with earth-like stores.

•Before a new planet can be terraformed, the government must first hide any evidence that it contains intelligent life.

•Variation – On a new planet, a team of archeologists discovers evidence that the government covered up the existence of intelligent life. When they discover a handful of surviving aliens, they must spread the news to the other colonists before government assassins track them down.

Wars in Space – Humans attack an alien world, and…

•The planet itself is useless, but the alien inhabitants are made of Blasto, a valuable fuel source

•Humans discover they were predicted in the aliens’ bible as their apocalypse

•Earth soldiers discover that the planet they are to destroy is heaven, literally

•The aliens are going through the equivalent of earth’s Middle Ages. When the earth ships arrive, they attempt to defend themselves with trebuchets and ballistas.

•Earth forces are sent to attack an alien world, but never told why. Days after the planet is conquered, the soldiers discover the truth: the planet is actually a colossal egg. It must be destroyed before the beast inside hatches.

•The aliens have almost no technology, and they plan to stop the war with meditation and chanting.

•The aliens are made of glass and one good punch makes them shatter into a thousand pieces.

•The government of earth sends solders to invade a distant planet but, when the soldiers arrive, they find the planet disserted. Or so they think. Soon, the soldiers are attacked by a vicious enemy that none of them can see.

•The aliens, their planet, and everything on it are made of soft, foam rubber. Try as they might, the humans can do nothing to hurt them.

•The aliens resemble gigantic arachnids. Half of the invading ships are caught in colossal spider webs.

•The human soldiers discover that the planet they are to invade looks exactly like the one they left. Their commanders insist that it’s an alien world and not actually earth, but the soldiers aren’t so sure.

Science Fiction Story Ideas

Politics

•Robotic technology becomes cheap enough that, worldwide, everyone can quit their jobs. Robotic valets take over the mundane chores of life, like cooking, cleaning, even basic hygiene. Generations later, a change in the earth’s magnetic field renders all of humanity’s technology useless. People have to relearn how to do the most basic things for themselves.

•As robotic technology develops, more and more humans drop out of the workforce, having no need to work. The politicians watching these developments realize that, if people don’t have to spend most of their time and energy working, they will begin to question the need for a government. A government hoax creates millions of new jobs, jobs that only humans can fill.

•A powerful advertising company announces that it is building its own city. Fifty thousand people move in and are given free food and housing, as long as they watch commercials on television. However, the advertising quickly moves from television to the real world, and become more and more intrusive, gradually increasing to the level of psychological torture.

•Earth’s newest immigrants are a group of aliens called the Givers. The aliens live to serve, and anyone under their care is given food, shelter and clothing, all for free. Soon no one works, and everyone on earth is completely dependant on the Givers. The Givers begin to attach rules to their service: no staying out late, no drinking or smoking, no overeating, no reading, no criticizing the Givers… As the Givers become increasingly strict, earth becomes one giant prison.

•In a distant future, robots have taken over all manual labor. The only thing humans have left to do is create literature, music and art. Years later, to the horror of the world’s artistic community, a computer programmer develops an A.I. that can write poetry.

•Crime is finally eliminated through the simple procedure of broadcasting everyone’s lives on national television, 24 hours a day.

Galactic Empire

•A small, backwater planet is the only source of Grubbers, a delicious, shrimp-like animal. Grubbers become such a popular food that controlling the supply becomes the key to controlling the galactic economy.

•A gigantic breed of locusts comes to control the galaxy. Any planet attempting to rebel is attacked by a swarm and devoured.

•A homeless man on earth is abducted by aliens who inform him that he is the reincarnated emperor of the galaxy. The homeless man stares out the ship’s portholes as they leave earth and head for the Royal Throne World.

•Humanity finally encounters intelligent life in the universe, only to discover that the entire galaxy is controlled by The Ancient Church. Earth is told to convert to the alien religion or suffer the consequences.

•The rest of the Galactic Empire considers earth a dangerous planet, full of hostile and warlike creatures. The emperor assigns a team of space pirates to watch for astronauts leaving earth, to make sure they never discover the existence of the Empire.

•In the Galactic Empire, the emperors are elected democratically and serve for life. When the emperor has a heart attack, his assistants decide to conceal his death. They can run the universe as long as everyone is convinced the emperor is still alive.

Tyrannical or Worldwide Government

•A small group of college professors takes control of the earth after they discover how to control the one thing everyone needs: gravity. They appear on television and announce that “Gravity is now twenty dollars a day. Pay up, or float off into space!”

•When a new cult is able to summon UFOs, the earth’s governments are terrified into surrendering. However, a religious skeptic discovers that the UFOs are not what they seem.

•The earth is bathed in cosmic radiation, giving a small number of people psychic abilities. The gifted few band together to conquer the world. Decades later, a highschool janitor discovers that he is immune to telepathy, and the rebellion begins.

•The worldwide government legislates that any babies born will be removed from their parents and sent to a gigantic city called The Nursery. There, the children will be force-fed propaganda in the guise of education, and taught to love the government and be good, unquestioning taxpayers.

•A group of teenagers discovers that the government is using hypnosis to convince citizens that they are paying taxes willingly.

•In the near future, the government watches all its citizens with omnipresent security cameras. A handful of people working in a television studio discover that they can use their equipment to control the security cameras, making the government see whatever they want it to see.

•At birth, each human is assigned a robot called a Guardian. Each human is followed by a Guardian, twenty-four hours a day, for their entire lives. Guardians give advice, solve problems, and protect their humans from danger. Guardians constantly remind their humans that the government is good, kind, and necessary. Guardians also remind their humans of the rules, and the punishment for breaking them.

•Worldwide Entertainment Monitoring offers an unusual service: anyone with an account is watched 24/7. WEM tracks the music they listen to, the books they read, the movies they watch, the food they eat, and more. This information is used to give users recommendations on books, music, and movies that they will probably enjoy. Also, they can use the service to find users with similar tastes, who will make excellent friends or romantic partners. Unbeknownst to them, the government also keeps track of the data, using it to predict crimes. If you read the same books as a murderer, you are considered “suspicious”, and immediately arrested.

•In order to keep the population under control, the government gives away a drug called “Bliss.” As the name implies, the drug keeps everyone perfectly happy and content, virtually eliminating political unrest. It also lowers their lifespan, insuring that the planet never gets too crowded. When some people are reluctant to take the pills, the government simply dumps the drug into the water supply. A small group of rebels must search for uncontaminated water.

Science Fiction Story Ideas

Time Travel and Alternate Worlds

Time Travel

•After a head injury, a man has an unusual problem: every time he falls asleep, he wakes up ten years in the past.

•A child discovers a time machine and uses it to get revenge on her abusive stepfather.

•A hypnotist discovers that time is only in the mind, causality just a matter of perspective.

•A time traveler visits artists and musicians who died before their time, attempting to convince them to change their lives and avoid their tragic fates.

•A man falls in love with a popular actress, and uses a time machine to visit her in the past. He tries to engineer major events in her past to bring the two of them together in the future.

•An elderly scientist builds a time machine and accidentally ends up trapped sixty years in the past. He meets his teenage self, tells him what happened, and tries to convince him to not experiment with time travel.

•Judges in the future send criminals to the present as punishment.

•A Hollywood director attempts to use a time machine to change the films of the past.

•A religious man tries to prove to the world that Jesus actually existed. He travels two thousand years in the past where encounters another time traveler, a woman trying to prevent the crucifixion.

•Variation – A time traveler travels two thousand years in the past in an attempt to meet Jesus Christ. Villagers see him using futuristic gadgets and call him a miracle worker. Despite his protests, he draws a following, and soon he is the center of a competing religion.

•A wealthy, Southern businessman finances the development of a time machine. He travels back to the Civil War and gives the Confederacy modern weapons.

•A woman is visited by a salesman offering a bizarre assortment of amazing technology. The salesman is from the distant future and does not realize that he has passed through a rip in time and traveled to the past.

•An inventor builds a device that monitors the present for changes in the past due to time travelers.

•A young boy obsessed with comic books meets the man who writes his favorite, Time Travel Adventures. The old man tells the boy a secret: all of the stories are true.

•A time traveling hitman “erases” his victims by changing the past so that their parents never met.

•A history professor discovers the means to travel through time. He projects himself into the past, taking part in major historical events and trying to earn his own place in the history books.

•Terrorists build a device called a “time scoop.” It cannot be used to travel in time, only to bring things from the past to the present. They unleash a flood of pirates, Vikings, and dinosaurs on Washington, D.C.

•When a time traveler jumps ten days into the future, he finds that no one remembers him. His house, his car, and any evidence that he ever lived is gone.

•A scientist spends a decade in therapy, trying to overcome her troubled childhood. She develops a time machine and decides to visit the past. She kidnaps her infant self, vowing to be the loving mother that she never had.

•Members of a popular musician’s fan club discover that he is a time traveler. Every time he needs a new hit, he steals it from the past. The musician travels into the past and kills the song’s original author before the song was written. He returns to the present and claims the song as his own. The fans find the original copies of the songs hidden away in his attic, written by musicians they never got a chance to hear: Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison, John Lennon…

•After his grandfather dies, a man inherits a most unusual pocket watch. The watch has a button that allows the user to repeat the last hour, experiencing it again. Any time there is a major event in his life, the man repeats it hundreds of times to get it just right.

Alternate Dimensions

•A failed businessman discovers a portal to an alternate dimension. This new dimension is filled with stores and products, but all the people are missing. He makes trip after trip, emptying a shopping mall and selling the salvaged goods. After making a pile of cash, he discovers what happened to all the missing people.

•A farmer hears his young daughter scream and finds that she has fallen down an abandoned well. Soon he discovers that the well was built over a doorway to another world. He is too large to climb down to rescue her, and strange beings are approaching…

•When a family goes on a camping trip, their three young children wander off into the woods. The children encounter a UFO and are accidentally pulled into an alternate dimension. The children wander through portal after portal, searching for the way home.

•A comic book writer is visited by a real-life superhero from another dimension, who believes that the writer’s stories are based upon him. He angrily corrects the writer on the details he had “gotten wrong.”

•A new pet store offers bizarre animals from alternate dimensions.

•When the walls between parallel dimensions begin to break down, it becomes possible to simply walk from one world to the next.

•After breaking a window, a young boy is grounded and sent to his room. The boy decides to run away from home, but he ends up running a little farther than he had intended.

Alternate History / Anachronism / Steampunk

•During the Civil War, the South develops the jet pack

•Gun powder was never invented, and World War II is fought with catapults and crossbows

•While investigating the Roswell crash, a government agent is badly burned. He is taken back to Area 51, where the doctors realize he is in desperate need of skin grafts. Unfortunately, they do not have any skin available. That is, any human skin…

•In the nineteenth century, a man discovers a way to combine the telegraph and punch card data storage into a kind of proto-internet. The technology rapidly progresses, leading to the rise of Victorian era hackers.

•During the Civil War, a doctor and an engineer team up to create the world’s first cyborg, The Steam-Powered Man.

•The Fastest Gun in the West owes his success to his robotic arm.

•Variation – A failure of a gunfighter has been shot dozens of times. Each time he takes a bullet, he replaces part of his body with metal.

•The Dark Ages become even darker when the earth is covered by the shadow of a floating city and giant birds made of steel.

•A knight struggles to rescue his beloved maiden from a new type of wizard, an early mad scientist.

•Stuck on Earth with no place to live, the surviving Roswell aliens attempt to get themselves declared a part of the Jicarilla Apache nation, so that they can move onto the reservation.

•In 1901, President McKinley is shot. The first bullet is easily found and removed, but doctors are afraid that exploratory surgery to locate the second bullet might kill the president. Fortunately, they receive some assistance from an inventor with a strange machine…

•Christopher Columbus gets caught in a hurricane and ends up discovering Antarctica.

•In 19th century California, cowboys struggle with cattle thieves, stagecoach robbers, and the last of the dinosaurs.

•Prohibition Era gangsters have a secret weapon on their side: a bootleg liquor-powered android.

•In 1820, Russian explorers discover Antarctica. However, it is occupied. In order to claim the new continent for themselves, the Russian explorers decide to attack the Antarctic society with a top secret Russian weapon – the freeze ray.

•A time traveler visits the Middle Ages and returns home, accidentally leaving behind a loaded revolver.

•In 1945, the B-29 bomber Enola Gay heads for Japan. But before it reaches Hiroshima, the airplane encounters Japan’s latest weapon: a living dragon. Cloned from preserved eggs, the immense lizard guards the islands of Japan, burning anything in its path.

•In 1945, the B-29 bomber Enola Gay heads for Japan. The airplane is loaded with America’s newest weapon: the time bomb, a device that can send entire cities 50 years into the future.

•In 1945, the B-29 bomber Enola Gay heads for Japan. The airplane is loaded with America’s newest weapon: Steel Sam, a robot the size of the Chrysler building.

•Martin Luther gets caught in a thunderstorm. Fearing for his life, he dedicates his life to god. However, he dies of pneumonia soon after and never sparks the Protestant Reformation. Centuries later, the Catholic Church controls the world.

•At a jousting meet, a knight sneaks into his competitor’s tent. He discovers that his opponent’s armor does not contain a man, but a strange, steam-powered machine.

•A team of archeologists discovers that the pharaoh tombs in the pyramids are just a decoy, and that the pyramids were actually built to hide the real secret, far below the sands of Egypt…

•During the war in Vietnam, a dozen American POWs are visited by Vietnam’s greatest hypnotist. They are hypnotized and released, and return to America. Thirty years later, they must carry out their instructions…

•On November 22, 1963, a team of scientists and doctors struggles to save the president’s life. They find that they could keep his brain alive if they put it in another body. The Secret Service begins the search for the perfect “donor.”

•In 1963, John F. Kennedy is shot, but survives. At first, the country is told that the shooter simply missed his target. However, one man’s home video shows the truth: the bullets strike the President in the head, but simply bounce off.

•A medieval scientist is hired by the king to be his court wizard. After the scientist invents the jetpack, the castle’s knights hold the first airborne jousting tournament.

•A librarian discovers a strange book, A Complete History of the United States. All of the events are there, but the details are wrong. Confused, she turns to the last page of the book, which describes something called “the Omega Memory Editing Satellite.”