List of science fiction themes  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Revision as of 21:07, 4 November 2012

A Trip to the Moon (1902) Georges Méliès

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is an 1884 science fiction novella by Edwin Abbott Abbott

Detail of Superbia (1577) by Bruegel, science fiction avant-la-lettre

Related e

Wikipedia Wiktionary Shop Featured: Rhombicuboctahedron by Leonardo da Vinci

Science fiction has a number of common concepts and themes that have been reused by numerous authors. Some have become cliches, and only truly novel treatments of them gain attention, whilst others have become "part of the furniture", ie they can be included in a story without much explanation, because readers are all already familiar with the core concept. The following is a list of recurring themes in science fiction.

Overarching themes

• Cosmology
• Creation of the Universe
• The future
• 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, Huttese)
  • All humans speaking one language (possibly Esperanto)
  • Current human languages evolving/splitting
  • The Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis being strongly true (e.g. Babel 17, The Languages of Pao)
  • Universal translators (e.g. Babel fish)
• Military science fiction: strategy, weapons, ranks, technologies
  • Ray guns
  • Space warfare
• Omega Point
• Parallel worlds or universes.
  • There is a space based civilization variant of this theme. This plot device allows writers to write soft science fiction while accounting for the lack of technological advancement and thus similarity to the present day.
• Quantum suicide and immortality
• Religious ideas in science fiction
• Sci fantasy
• Sci horror
• Sex and sexuality (including gender roles, polygamy, human sexuality and procreation)
  • LGBT themes
  • Gender
  • Reproduction and pregnancy
  • Nudity
• Sociology and sociobiology
• Space Opera

Beings

• Alternative intelligences
  • Beings of pure mentality
  • Hive minds
  • Infomorphs—memories, characters, and consciences of persons being uploaded to a computer or storage media
  • Noosphere—the "sphere of human thought"
  • Solipsism & Solipsism syndrome—the idea that one's own mind is all that exists.
    • Simulated consciousness (science fiction)
• Artificial intelligence
  • Androids and Gynoids
  • Cyborgs
  • Robots and humanoid robots: Robots in fiction
  • Replicants
  • Simulated consciousness (science fiction)
• Characters
  • The Absent-minded professor
  • The Detective
  • The Golem
  • The Ignorant Friend
  • Redshirt
  • The Robot Clone
  • The Robot Servant
  • The Scientist
    • The Mad Scientist
    • The Amoral Scientist
    • The Heroic Scientist
  • The Wedge
• Clones
• Dinosaurs
• Extraterrestrial life (see Extraterrestrial life in culture)
  • Alien invasion
  • Astrobiology
  • Benevolent aliens
  • God-like aliens
  • First contact
    • Principles of non-interference (e.g. Prime Directive)
    • Message from space
• Living planets (both sentinent and non-sentinent)
• Mutants
• Shapeshifters
• Superhumans
• Symbionts
• UFOs
• Uplifted animals—using technology to "raise" non-human animals to human evolutionary levels

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—a proposed problem in which the reduced death rate caused by organ transplants would lead to a shortage of organs available for transplant
• Mind interfacing
  • Memory removal/editing
  • Mind control
  • Mind swap
  • Mind uploading
  • Two or more minds coexisting in a body
    • Human and alien coexisting in a body (see Tales from the Planet Earth)
  • Neural implants to directly interface with machinery
• Molecular manufacturing & Nanotechnology (nanomilitary, nanomaterials, nanoecology, nanomedicine, nanocomputing, nanospace, nanoenergy)
• Psi powers and psychic phenomena
  • Clairvoyance
  • Telepathy
  • Telekinesis
• Paradise engineering
• Resizing (size-changing, miniaturization, magnification, shrinking, and enlargement)
• Shapeshifting
• Teleportation

Habitats

• 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
• Reality Television
  • An Earth-bound reality game where losing contestants are killed.
  • The protagonist discovers their life has been one big reality television show for aliens.
• Space colonization
  • Terraforming
  • List of largest known stars & List of most luminous stars
• Underground city
• Walking City

Political structures

Main article{{#if:|s}}: Political ideas in science fiction{{#if:

 |{{#if:|, | and }}[[{{{2}}}|{{{2}}}]]}}{{#if:
 |{{#if:|, |, and }}[[{{{3}}}|{{{3}}}]]}}{{#if:
 |{{#if:|, |, and }}[[{{{4}}}|{{{4}}}]]}}{{#if:
 |{{#if:|, |, and }}[[{{{5}}}|{{{5}}}]]}}{{#if:
 |{{#if:|, |, and }}[[{{{6}}}|{{{6}}}]]}}{{#if:
 |{{#if:|, |, and }}[[{{{7}}}|{{{7}}}]]}}{{#if:
 |{{#if:|, |, and }}[[{{{8}}}|{{{8}}}]]}}{{#if:
 |{{#if:|, |, and }}[[{{{9}}}|{{{9}}}]]}}{{#if: