List of science fiction themes

The following is a list of science fiction themes.

Common themes and tropes

Cosmology

• Creation of the Universe
• Ecology
• The future
• Omega Point
• Quantum suicide and immortality
• Parallel worlds or universes.
• Ultimate fate of the Universe

Economics

• "Age of Greater Scarcity", often in connection with ecological or post-apocalyptic themes. In such dystopias, people are poorer and have fewer resources to draw on.
• Post-"Age of Scarcity" (arguments over how to distribute resources are irrelevant since anyone can have anything they reasonably want). Examples include:

History

• Alternate history
• Historical cycles: history repeating itself (either on long or short scales)
• Scientific prediction of the future (e.g. psychohistory)
• Secret history

Language

• Alien languages (e.g. Klingon)
• All humans speaking one language
• Current human languages evolving/splitting
• The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis being strongly true (e.g. Babel 17 by Samuel R. Delany or The Languages of Pao by Jack Vance)
• Universal Translators (e.g. Babel fish)

Military

• Military - strategy, weapons, ranks, technologies.
• Ray guns
• Space warfare
• Alien invasion

Sociology

• Sociology and sociobiology
• Religious ideas in science fiction
• Sex (including gender roles, polygamy, sexuality and procreation)
• Homosexuality in science fiction
• Gender in science fiction
• Sex in science fiction
• Reproduction and pregnancy in science fiction
• Nudity in science fiction
• Astrosociology
• return to feudalism
• hive-like eusocial societies
• caste systems
• Zero population growth
• Symbionts & Co-evolution
• Solipsism - a belief that the universe is entirely the creation of one's own mind
• Astrobiology
• First contact

Types of beings

• Alternate intelligences
• Artificial intelligence
• Hive minds
• Infomorphs - memories, characters and consciences of persons being uploaded to a computer or storage media
• Noosphere - the "sphere of human thought"
• Androids and Gynoids
• Cyborgs
• Robots and humanoid robots
• Sexbots
• Clones
• Extraterrestrial life (see Extraterrestrial life in culture)
• Mutants
• Shapeshifters
• Superhumans
• Uplifted animals - using technology to "raise" non-human animals to human evolutionary levels
• Characters archetypes
• The Absent-minded professor
• Redshirt
• The Scientist
• The Mad Scientist

Body and mind alterations

• Bio-implants
• Body modification, including genetic modification
• Bionics
• Cybernetics
• Intelligence amplification
• Invisibility
• Life extension, Biological immortality, Universal immortalism and immortality
• Artificial organs
• Cloning
• Cryonics
• The Organ Bank Problem
• Mind control
• Mind uploading
• Neural implants to directly interface with machinery
• Molecular manufacturing & Nanotechnology
• Psi powers and psychic phenomenon
• Clairvoyance
• Telepathy
• Telekinesis
• Paradise engineering
• Resizing
• Shapeshifting
• Telepathy
• Teleportation

Possible futures

• Alien invasions
• Apocalypses or world wide disasters
• Post-apocalyptic life - new societies that develop after the event
• Posthumanism
• Ultimate fate of the Universe & Kardashev scale

Political structures

• Alien Contact
• Anarcho-capitalism (see: Anarcho-capitalist literature and Libertarian science fiction)
• Assassination
• Dystopias and utopias
• Environmentalism
• Eugenics
• Galactic empires
• Interstellar federation of planets
• Libertarianism'''

• Mind reading and mind control
• National security state
• Totalitarianism vs. Libertarianism (see: Libertarian science fiction)
• World government

Habitats

• Alien Reality Television, usually the protagonist discovers his life has been one big reality television show for aliens.
• Alien Zoo, a zoo where humans are kept as exhibits.
• Arcologies - enormous habitats (hyperstructures) of extremely high human population density
• Domed city
• Endemic
• Exploring alien habitats.
• Floating City
• Seasteading & Ocean colonization
• Pirate utopia
• Space colonization
• Terraforming
• List of largest known stars & List of most luminous stars
• Underground city
• Walking City

Travel

• Colonization of other planets, moons, asteroids, etc.
• Terraforming

• Interstellar travel
• Faster-than-light travel and communications
• Hyperspace
• Warp drives
• Wormholes
• Ansibles
• Much slower than Light
• Generation ship
• Sleeper ship
• Very nearly light speed
• Bussard ramjets
• Ursula LeGuin's NAFAL ships, and the Twin paradox
• Space stations

• Alternate histories: time travel can be used as a plot device to explore parallel universes. While alternate history has its own category (see above), it often occurs in time travel stories as well.
• Anachronism
• The Grandfather paradox -- e.g. Can someone go back in time and kill his parents before they beget the killer?

Technologies

• Artificial gravity
• Artificial intelligence
• von Neumann machines
• Singularity
• Star lifting & Stellar engineering
• Megascale engineering & Planetary engineering
• Technology
• Far advanced technology for the time.
• Alien technology being found and used by humans. Most of the time for selfish purposes, or is being used incorrectly (not how it's supposed to work)

• Virtual reality and simulated reality
• Weapons

See also

• Fictional technology
• List of science fiction topics
• Science fiction genre
• Protoscience