List of science fiction themes
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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.
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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
- 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)
- Sociology and sociobiology
- Space Opera
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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.
- Artificial intelligence
- 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
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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
- Paradise engineering
- Resizing (size-changing, miniaturization, magnification, shrinking, and enlargement)
- Shapeshifting
- Teleportation
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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
- 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
- Underground city
- Walking City
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Political structures
- Alien Contact
- Anarchism
- Anarcho-capitalism (see: Anarcho-capitalist literature and Libertarian science fiction)
- Assassination
- Astrosociology
- return to feudalism
- hive-like eusocial societies
- future caste systems
- Capitalism
- Dystopias and utopias
- Environmentalism
- Economics
- Eugenics
- Fascism
- Galactic empires
- Interstellar federation of planets
- Legal personality
- Libertarianism
- Limited-franchise republic
- Militarism
- Mind reading and mind control
- National security state
- Nepotism
- Pacifism
- Plutocracy
- Proportional representation
- Racism
- Revolution
- Slavery
- Socialism
- Theocracy
- Totalitarianism vs. Libertarianism (see: Libertarian science fiction)
- Treason
- World government
- Zero population growth
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Possible futures
- Alien invasions
- Apocalypses or world wide disasters
- Post-apocalyptic life: new societies that develop after the event
- Posthumanism
- Race of the Future
- Ultimate fate of the Universe & Kardashev scale
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Technologies
- Artificial gravity
- Artificial intelligence
- Astronomical engineering
- Self-replicating machines
- Singularity
- Star lifting & Stellar engineering
- Megascale engineering & Planetary engineering
- Technology
- Alien technology being found and used by humans.
- Far advanced technology for the time.
- Virtual reality and simulated reality
- Weapons in science fiction
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Travel
- Colonization of other planets, moons, asteroids, etc.
- Moving planets
- Space exploration
- Interstellar travel
- Faster-than-light travel and communications
- Much slower than light
- Very nearly light speed
- Bussard ramjets
- Ursula LeGuin's NAFAL ships, and the Twin paradox
- Space stations
- Interstellar travel
- Teleportation
- Time travel
- 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: can someone go back in time and kill his parents before they beget the killer?
- Time loop
- Travel to the Earth's center
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See also
- Fictional technology
- List of science fiction topics
- Science fiction genre
- Protoscience
- Internet meme
- DeviantART
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