The following is a list of articles about recurring themes in

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...

Overarching themes

First contact First contact may refer to: *First contact (astronomy), the moment in astronomical transit when the apparent positions of the two bodies first touch *First contact (anthropology), the first meeting of two cultures previously unaware of one another ...

with aliens *

Artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machine A machine is a physical system using Power (physics), power to apply Force, forces and control Motion, moveme ...

** Machine rule/

Cybernetic revolt An AI takeover is a hypothetical scenario in which an artificial intelligence (AI) becomes the dominant form of intelligence on Earth, as computer programs or robots effectively take the control of the planet away from the human species. Possible ...

/ AI takeover * Extraterrestrials in fiction *End of humanity:

Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; ast ...

*The

future The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currentl ...

: Apocalypses or worldwide disasters and new societies that develop after the event *

History History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

** Alternate history **Scientific

prediction A prediction (Latin ''præ-'', "before," and ''dicere'', "to say"), or forecast, is a statement about a future event or data. They are often, but not always, based upon experience or knowledge. There is no universal agreement about the exac ...

of the future (e.g. psychohistory) *Human fears: List of science fiction horror films *

Language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

** Alien languages (e.g.

Klingon The Klingons ( ; Klingon language, Klingon: ''tlhIngan'' ) are a fictional species in the science fiction franchise ''Star Trek''. Developed by screenwriter Gene L. Coon in 1967 for the Star Trek: The Original Series, original ''Star Trek'' ('' ...

Hutt Hutt can refer to: Places New Zealand * Hutt River (New Zealand), name after William Hutt (politician). ** Hutt Valley, an area inland from Wellington ** Hutt County, a former county in the Hutt Valley ** Lower Hutt ('Hutt City'), a territorial a ...

ese) **The

Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis The hypothesis of linguistic relativity, also known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis , the Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, is a principle suggesting that the structure of a language affects its speakers' worldview or cognition, and thus people' ...

(e.g. '' Babel 17'', '' The Languages of Pao'') ** Universal translators (e.g. Babel fish) * Military/conflicts ** Interstellar war **

Weapons in science fiction Strange and exotic weapons are a recurring feature in science fiction. In some cases, weapons first introduced in science fiction have been made a reality; other science-fiction weapons remain purely fictional, and are often beyond the realms o ...

* Parallel worlds or

multiverse The multiverse is a hypothetical group of multiple universes. Together, these universes comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, information, and the physical laws and constants that describe them. The di ...

* * Philosophies and philosophical ideas *

Political ideas An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied prim ...

* Religious ideas * Sex and sexuality ** LGBT themes **

Gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures us ...

** Reproduction and pregnancy * Simulated reality and

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...

Social science fiction Social science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction, usually (but not necessarily) soft science fiction, concerned less with technology/space opera and more with speculation about society. In other words, it "absorbs and discusses anthropolo ...

Technological singularity The technological singularity—or simply the singularity—is a hypothetical future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization. According to the m ...

* Themes of fantasy fiction

Beings and entities

s **

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

s and

Gynoid A gynoid, or fembot, is a feminine humanoid robot. Gynoids appear widely in science fiction film and art. As more realistic humanoid robot design becomes technologically possible, they are also emerging in real-life robot design. Name A gyno ...

Artificial life Artificial life (often abbreviated ALife or A-Life) is a field of study wherein researchers examine systems related to natural life, its processes, and its evolution, through the use of simulations with computer models, robotics, and biochemist ...

** Biological robot **

Cyborg A cyborg ()—a portmanteau of ''cybernetic'' and ''organism''—is a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts. The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.

s ** Robots and humanoid robots **

Replicant A replicant is a fictional bioengineered humanoid featured in the 1982 film ''Blade Runner'' and the 2017 sequel ''Blade Runner 2049'' which is physically indistinguishable from an adult human and often possesses superhuman strength and intellig ...

s **

Simulated consciousness Artificial consciousness (AC), also known as machine consciousness (MC) or synthetic consciousness (; ), is a field related to artificial intelligence and cognitive robotics. The aim of the theory of artificial consciousness is to "Define that ...

*Characters **The Absent-minded professor **The

Golem A golem ( ; he, , gōlem) is an animated, anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore, which is entirely created from inanimate matter (usually clay or mud). The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th-centur ...

**The

Mad Scientist The mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is perceived as " mad, bad and dangerous to know" or " insane" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly a ...

Redshirt Redshirt, Red Shirt, or Redshirts may refer to: Entertainment * ''Red Shirts'' (film), a 1952 film about Anita Garibaldi by Franco Rossi * Redshirt (stock character), originally derived from ''Star Trek'', a stock character who dies soon after b ...

** Space Pirate **

Super Soldier The supersoldier (or super soldier) is a fictional concept soldier, often capable of operating beyond normal human limits or abilities either through genetic modification or cybernetic augmentation. Overview Supersoldiers are common in military ...

Clone Clone or Clones or Cloning or Cloned or The Clone may refer to: Places * Clones, County Fermanagh * Clones, County Monaghan, a town in Ireland Biology * Clone (B-cell), a lymphocyte clone, the massive presence of which may indicate a pathologi ...

s *

Dinosaurs Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

* Extraterrestrial life ** Hypothetical types of biochemistry **

Alien invasion The alien invasion or space invasion is a common feature in science fiction stories and film, in which extraterrestrial lifeforms invade the Earth either to exterminate and supplant human life, enslave it under an intense state, harvest people ...

Astrobiology Astrobiology, and the related field of exobiology, is an interdisciplinary scientific field that studies the origins, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. Astrobiology is the multidisciplinary field that investi ...

** God-like aliens ***Principles of non-interference (e.g.

Prime Directive In the fictional universe of ''Star Trek'', the Prime Directive (also known as "Starfleet General Order 1", "General Order 1", and the "non-interference directive") is a guiding principle of Starfleet that prohibits its members from interfering ...

) *** Message from space *Living planets (both sentient and non-sentient) *

Hive minds ''Hive Minds'' is a British television quiz show that aired on BBC Four from 14 July 2015 to 1 December 2016. It was hosted by Fiona Bruce. Background ''Hive Minds'' was developed by Saltbeef TV - a production firm responsible for CBBC's ''Frid ...

* Infomorphs—memories, characters, and consciences of persons being uploaded to a computer or storage media * Mutants * Shapeshifters *

Superhuman The term superhuman refers to humans or human-like beings with enhanced qualities and abilities that exceed those naturally found in humans. These qualities may be acquired through natural ability, self-actualization or technological aids. Th ...

s * Superorganisms *

Symbiont Symbiosis (from Greek , , "living together", from , , "together", and , bíōsis, "living") is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two different biological organisms, be it mutualistic, commensalistic, or paras ...

s * UFOs * Uplifting—using technology to "raise" non-human animals to human evolutionary levels ** Ancient astronauts ** Progressor

Body and mind alterations

* Biohacking/ Amateur biotechnicians * Artificial organs * Additional or improved senses ** X-ray vision *

Cloning Cloning is the process of producing individual organisms with identical or virtually identical DNA, either by natural or artificial means. In nature, some organisms produce clones through asexual reproduction. In the field of biotechnology, c ...

* Exocortex *

Genetic engineering Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic manipulation, is the modification and manipulation of an organism's genes using technology. It is a set of technologies used to change the genetic makeup of cells, including ...

** Super race * Intelligence amplification *

Invisibility Invisibility is the state of an object that cannot be seen. An object in this state is said to be ''invisible'' (literally, "not visible"). The phenomenon is studied by physics and perceptual psychology. Since objects can be seen by light in ...

Life extension Life extension is the concept of extending the human lifespan, either modestly through improvements in medicine or dramatically by increasing the maximum lifespan beyond its generally-settled limit of 125 years. Several researchers in the area ...

Biological immortality Biological immortality (sometimes referred to as bio-indefinite mortality) is a state in which the rate of mortality from senescence is stable or decreasing, thus decoupling it from chronological age. Various unicellular and multicellular species ...

, Universal immortalism and

immortality Immortality is the concept of eternal life. Some modern species may possess biological immortality. Some scientists, futurists, and philosophers have theorized about the immortality of the human body, with some suggesting that human immort ...

Cryonics Cryonics (from el, κρύος ''kryos'' meaning 'cold') is the low-temperature freezing (usually at ) and storage of human remains, with the speculative hope that resurrection may be possible in the future. Cryonics is regarded with skepticis ...

Digital immortality Digital immortality (or "virtual immortality") is the hypothetical concept of storing (or transferring) a person's personality in digital substrate, i.e., a computer, robot or cyberspace (mind uploading). The result might look like an avatar behav ...

Mind uploading Mind uploading is a speculative process of whole brain emulation in which a brain scan is used to completely emulate the mental state of the individual in a digital computer. The computer would then run a simulation of the brain's information p ...

Organ transplantation Organ transplantation is a medical procedure in which an organ (anatomy), organ is removed from one body and placed in the body of a recipient, to replace a damaged or missing organ. The donor and recipient may be at the same location, or organ ...

** Organlegging *

Prosthetics In medicine, a prosthesis (plural: prostheses; from grc, πρόσθεσις, prósthesis, addition, application, attachment), or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through trau ...

Memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered ...

Memory erasure Memory erasure is the selective artificial removal of memories or associations from the mind. Memory erasure has been shown to be possible in some experimental conditions; some of the techniques currently being investigated are: drug-induced amne ...

/editing ** Memory sharing *** Group mind **

Mind control Brainwashing (also known as mind control, menticide, coercive persuasion, thought control, thought reform, and forced re-education) is the concept that the human mind can be altered or controlled by certain psychological techniques. Brainwashi ...

** Mind swap **

** Neural implants to directly interface with machinery * Psi powers and psychic phenomena **

Clairvoyance Clairvoyance (; ) is the magical ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant () ("one who sees cl ...

Precognition Precognition (from the Latin 'before', and 'acquiring knowledge') is the purported psychic phenomenon of seeing, or otherwise becoming directly aware of, events in the future. There is no accepted scientific evidence that precognition is a ...

Pyrokinesis Pyrokinesis is the purported psychic ability allowing a person to create and control fire with the mind. As with other parapsychological phenomena, there is no conclusive evidence in support of the actual existence of pyrokinesis. Many alleged c ...

** Retrocognition **

Telepathy Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic ...

Telekinesis Psychokinesis (from grc, ψυχή, , soul and grc, κίνησις, , movement, label=ㅤ), or telekinesis (from grc, τηλε, , far off and grc, κίνησις, , movement, label=ㅤ), is a hypothetical psychic ability allowing a person ...

* Parasitism *

Psychedelia Psychedelia refers to the psychedelic subculture of the 1960s and the psychedelic experience. This includes psychedelic art, psychedelic music and style of dress during that era. This was primarily generated by people who used psychedelic dr ...

* Resizing (size-changing, miniaturization, magnification, shrinking, and enlargement) *

Shapeshifting In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shape-shifting is the ability to physically transform oneself through an inherently superhuman ability, divine intervention, demonic manipulation, sorcery, spells or having inherited the ...

Superhuman strength Superhuman strength is a superpower commonly invoked in fiction and other literary works such as mythology. A fictionalized representation of the phenomenon of hysterical strength, it is the power to exert force and lift weights beyond what is ...

Teleportation Teleportation is the hypothetical transfer of matter or energy from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them. It is a common subject in science fiction literature and in other popular culture. Teleportation is oft ...

Transhumanism Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement which advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition. Transhuma ...

and

Posthumanism Posthumanism or post-humanism (meaning "after humanism" or "beyond humanism") is an idea in continental philosophy and critical theory responding to the presence of anthropocentrism in 21st century thought. It encompasses a wide variety of bran ...

Habitats

* Artificial worlds * Alien Zoo—a zoo where humans are kept as exhibits *

Arcologies Arcology, a portmanteau of "architecture" and "ecology",. is a field of creating architectural design principles for very densely populated and ecologically low-impact human habitats. The term was coined in 1969 by architect Paolo Soleri, who b ...

—enormous habitats (hyperstructures) of extremely high human population density *

Cyberspace Cyberspace is a concept describing a widespread interconnected digital technology. "The expression dates back from the first decade of the diffusion of the internet. It refers to the online world as a world 'apart', as distinct from everyday re ...

—the new, virtual territory of societal interaction * Domed city *

Floating city ''Floating City'' () is a 2012 Chinese-Hong Kong drama film directed by Yim Ho. Premise The story of a self-made man in a rapidly changing Hong Kong at the end of British Colonial rule. Reception ''Exclaim!'' writer Robert Bell said "...the sub ...

* Future of the Earth **

Climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

—science fiction dealing with effects of anthropogenic

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

and

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in a broader sense also includes ...

at the end of the

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togeth ...

era *

Megacity A megacity is a very large city, typically with a population of more than 10 million people. Precise definitions vary: the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs in its 2018 "World Urbanization Prospects" report counted urb ...

* Seasteading and ocean colonization **

Pirate utopia Pirate utopias were defined by anarchist writer Peter Lamborn Wilson, who coined the term in his 1995 book ''Pirate Utopias: Moorish Corsairs & European Renegadoes'' as secret islands once used for supply purposes by pirates. Wilson's concept i ...

Reality Television Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...

Space colonization Space colonization (also called space settlement or extraterrestrial colonization) is the use of outer space or celestial bodies other than Earth for permanent habitation or as extraterrestrial territory. The inhabitation and territor ...

** Colonization of the Moon ** Pantropy ** Other planets *** Desert planet ****

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmos ...

** Terraformed planets * Space stations and habitats *

Underground city An underground city is a series of linked subterranean spaces that may provide a defensive refuge; a place for living, working or shopping; a transit system; mausolea; wine or storage cellars; cisterns or drainage channels; or several of th ...

Political themes

* Adhocracy *

Anarcho-capitalism Anarcho-capitalism (or, colloquially, ancap) is an anti-statist, libertarian, and anti-political philosophy and economic theory that seeks to abolish centralized states in favor of stateless societies with systems of private property en ...

Capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...

** Evil corporation ** Megacorporation **

Neo-feudalism Neo-feudalism or new feudalism is the contemporary rebirth of policies of governance, economy, and public life, reminiscent of those which were present in many feudalism, feudal societies. Such aspects include, but are not limited to: Unequal righ ...

* Cognitive liberty *

Dystopia A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...

s and

utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book '' Utopia'', describing a fictional island socie ...

s **

Environmental pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the ...

Overpopulation Overpopulation or overabundance is a phenomenon in which a species' population becomes larger than the carrying capacity of its environment. This may be caused by increased birth rates, lowered mortality rates, reduced predation or large scale m ...

** Technological utopianism **

Totalitarianism Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and reg ...

* Galactic empires *

Government by algorithm Government by algorithm (also known as algorithmic regulation, regulation by algorithms, algorithmic governance, algocratic governance, algorithmic legal order or algocracy) is an alternative form of government or social ordering, where the usa ...

Legal personality Legal capacity is a quality denoting either the legal aptitude of a person to have rights and liabilities (in this sense also called transaction capacity), or altogether the personhood itself in regard to an entity other than a natural pers ...

* Libertarianism * Mass surveillance * Mind reading and

mind control Brainwashing (also known as mind control, menticide, coercive persuasion, thought control, thought reform, and forced re-education) is the concept that the human mind can be altered or controlled by certain psychological techniques. Brainwashi ...

National security state National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military attack ...

Post-scarcity economy Post-scarcity is a theoretical economic situation in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor needed, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely. Post-scarcity does not mean that scarc ...

Socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

Nanosocialism Nanosocialism refers generally to a set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the research, development and use of nanotechnology. Politics Nanosocialism is a stance th ...

Technoethics The ethics of technology is a sub-field of ethics addressing the ethical questions specific to the Technology Age, the transitional shift in society wherein personal computers and subsequent devices provide for the quick and easy transfer of info ...

Bioethics Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, med ...

* Technophobia * Techno-progressivism *

Terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

Bio-terrorism Bioterrorism is terrorism involving the intentional release or dissemination of biological agents. These agents are bacteria, viruses, insects, fungi, and/or toxins, and may be in a naturally occurring or a human-modified form, in much the same ...

Eco-terrorism Eco-terrorism is an act of violence which is committed in support of environmental causes, against people or property. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines eco-terrorism as "...the use or threatened use of violence ...

* Totalitarianism vs. Libertarianism

Technologies

* Artificial gravity *

Asteroid mining Asteroid mining is the hypothetical exploitation of materials from asteroids and other minor planets, including near-Earth objects. Notable asteroid mining challenges include the high cost of spaceflight, unreliable identification of asteroi ...

* Astronomical engineering * Brain–computer interface * Cloaking device *

Emerging technologies Emerging technologies are technologies whose development, practical applications, or both are still largely unrealized. These technologies are generally new but also include older technologies finding new applications. Emerging technologies a ...

* Robots * Self-replicating machines * Simulated reality *

Star lifting Star lifting is any of several hypothetical processes by which a sufficiently advanced civilization (specifically, one of Kardashev-II or higher) could remove a substantial portion of a star's matter which can then be re-purposed, while possibl ...

and stellar engineering * Stasis device * Total conversion as energy source *

Mecha In science fiction, or mechs are giant robots or machines controlled by people, typically depicted as humanoid walking vehicles. The term was first used in Japanese (language), Japanese after shortening the English loanword or , but the mean ...

* Megascale engineering and planetary engineering **

Megastructure A megastructure is a very large artificial object, although the limits of precisely how large vary considerably. Some apply the term to any especially large or tall building. Some sources define a megastructure as an enormous self-supporting a ...

s ** Dyson sphere *

Molecular manufacturing A molecular assembler, as defined by K. Eric Drexler, is a "proposed device able to guide chemical reactions by positioning reactive molecules with atomic precision". A molecular assembler is a kind of molecular machine. Some biological molec ...

and

Nanotechnology Nanotechnology, also shortened to nanotech, is the use of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale for industrial purposes. The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal o ...

** Molecular assembler *Alien technology *

Virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...

, mixed reality,

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory Modality (human–computer interaction), modalities, including visual, Hearing, auditory, hap ...

Infosphere Infosphere (''information'' + -''sphere''), analogous to a biosphere, is a metaphysical realm of information, data, knowledge, and communication, populated by informational entities called ''inforgs'' (or, ''informational organisms''). Though on ...

** Metaverse *

Travel

* Accidental travel *

Colonization Colonization, or colonisation, constitutes large-scale population movements wherein migrants maintain strong links with their, or their ancestors', former country – by such links, gain advantage over other inhabitants of the territory. When ...

of other planets, moons,

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the Solar System#Inner solar system, inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic o ...

s, etc. ** Embryo space colonization ** Generation ship ** Interstellar ark **

Uploaded astronaut Mind uploading is a speculative process of whole brain emulation in which a brain scan is used to completely emulate the mental state of the individual in a digital computer. The computer would then run a simulation of the brain's information p ...

Terraforming Terraforming or terraformation ("Earth-shaping") is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying the atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology of a planet, moon, or other body to be similar to the environment of Earth to mak ...

Space exploration Space exploration is the use of astronomy and space technology to explore outer space. While the exploration of space is carried out mainly by astronomers with telescopes, its physical exploration though is conducted both by uncrewed rob ...

** Interstellar travel/

Starship A starship, starcraft, or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for interstellar travel, traveling between planetary systems. The term is mostly found in science fiction. Reference to a "star-ship" appears as early as 188 ...

s *** Faster-than-light travel and communications **** Hyperspace **** Slipstream **** Warp drives ****

Wormhole A wormhole ( Einstein-Rosen bridge) is a hypothetical structure connecting disparate points in spacetime, and is based on a special solution of the Einstein field equations. A wormhole can be visualized as a tunnel with two ends at separate p ...

s ****

Ansible An ansible is a category of fictional devices or technology capable of near-instantaneous or faster-than-light communication. It can send and receive messages to and from a corresponding device over any distance or obstacle whatsoever with no de ...

s ***Close to light speed **** Bussard ramjets **** Ursula K. Le Guin's NAFAL ships, and the Twin paradox ***Much slower than light **** Generation ship **** Sleeper ship **

Space stations A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a human crew in orbit for an extended period of time, and is therefore a type of space habitat. It lacks major propulsion or landing systems. An orbital station or an orbital space station ...

Teletransporter Teleportation is the hypothetical transfer of matter or energy from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them. It is a common subject in science fiction literature and in other popular culture. Teleportation is oft ...

Time travel Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a ...

** Alternate history: 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. ** Alternate future **

Time loop The time loop or temporal loop is a plot device in fiction whereby characters re-experience a span of time which is repeated, sometimes more than once, with some hope of breaking out of the cycle of repetition. The term "time loop" is sometimes u ...

Travel to the Earth's center Travelling to the Earth's center is a popular theme in science fiction. Some subterranean fiction involves traveling to the Earth's center and finding either a Hollow Earth or Earth's molten core. Planetary scientist David J. Stevenson sugg ...

** Hollow Earth

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Science Fiction Themes Science fiction themes

Overarching themes

Beings and entities

Body and mind alterations

Habitats

Political themes

Technologies

Travel

See also

References