110+ Sci-Fi Writing Prompts (+ Sci-Fi Story Idea Generator)

Sci-Fi Writing Prompts List

Let the science commence, with this list of over 110 remarkable sci-fi prompts and topics to write about:

1. You volunteer to take part in a study on human interaction. Little do you know that the study is part of an elaborate plan by a group of aliens to invade Earth.
2. It is the year 3000, and Earth has changed a lot. Describe some of these changes?
3. You and your friends are messing around in a broken, old warehouse until you find a purple, glowing egg. What do you do?
4. Your billionaire uncle gives you a hi-tech robot for your birthday. What do you do with the robot?
5. Your science teacher invents the time machine. You decide to use it secretly to change the past. What problems do you cause by changing the past?
6. Strange portals start appearing all over your neighbourhood. You step into one. Where does it take you?
7. Aliens have declared war on humans of Earth and only you can stop them. But how?
8. You return from holiday to find that a radioactive explosion at a nuclear plant has turned everyone into zombies in your town. What will you do?
9. As a lonely astronaut, you crash land on a distant planet. Describe the planet.
10. An alien crashed its ship in your garden. How will you help it?
11. Write a help guide for a new alien settling in on planet Earth. What does the alien need to know about Earth?
12. A lonely robot travels to another planet in search of a better life and some true friends. 
13. A young woman is just starting to move up the ranks in the military. She, along with the other soldiers need to stop a deadly virus from spreading. Her job keeps on getting more and more dangerous each day. 
14. A fearful teenager lives in a world full of people that think he is a ‘freak’. He doesn’t fit in and feels that he can’t have his own feelings. Until one day he discovers the truth that he is an alien. 
15. Write a sci-fi story about a very young alien who wakes up one morning in a different universe and finds he cannot remember his life. All the alien remembers is the night of the accident, when his best friend was killed. 
16. Two young children, a brother and a sister are trapped inside a broken spaceship. During the crash, both their parents passed away. Can both the children survive on their own?
17. A young alien boy named Nana is sent on a journey by an alien race to the past in order to learn the history of the world. Unfortunately, he gets sent along with his brother and step sister who have very different plans about what they will do on Earth. 
18. A small village is under attack by giant aliens. Eventually, all the civilians want to leave that village. However, the mayor does not want them to leave. He manages to contact the leader of the alien creatures. The mayor then makes a deal with them to invade any other city on Earth, but not this village. 
19. Write a sci-fi story about a young boy who is being chased by an evil space monster who wants to eat his father. 
20. There is a planet in the galaxy similar to Earth. It has a human-like feel to it, and on the surface, you could call it Earth 2.0. Humans used to be the dominant life form on this planet, but something has changed in recent years.
21. Write a sci-fi story about two people with supernatural abilities fighting against the evil forces that want to take over the world. The main character is a young boy who happens to be psychic. While the secondary character is a girl, who has super-strength, speed, and healing powers. The story opens in another world called Earth, where there is the “World of the Living Dead”, a land ruled by a group of “Night People” who are all dead. 
22. A group of people are trapped inside a broken spaceship. Originally the group of people believe that this was an accident. But soon they find out that someone on board caused this ‘accident’ on purpose – But why? This is a mystery sci-fi story.
23. A young man graduates first in his class with a degree in computer engineering. He goes on to invent the very first artificial intelligence (AI) in existence. He must use this AI to save humanity from impending doom.
24. During a digging expedition, a scientist discovers a series of artefacts that seem to be ancient technology that might be part of a secret world. Putting all the pieces of the broken artefact together creates a portal device to another dimension. 
25. An alien device is uncovered deep in the Sahara desert with an Ouroboros (snake) symbol. It has the power to control the weather on Earth. It turns out that thousands of years ago aliens had the power to control Earth. Soon this deadly weapon ends up in the wrong hands.
26. A group of intergalactic rebels, led by a beautiful alien princess, go on a daring mission to restore peace to the galaxy.
27. A scientist works for a government agency that develops a technology that enables humans to telepathically communicate with each other. Soon humans using the technology receive communications from aliens. 
28. A doctor is sent out into the wilderness to help the population of a small town that has been affected by a deadly disease. Soon he gets caught in a war between the human survivors and the ‘others’.
29. Write a sci-fi story about a scientist and his young daughter who are taken on a journey to the planet S.A.L.L.E. Their mission is to find answers about the planet’s life forms. Soon they are separated from one another. When they meet again, the father discovers something odd about his daughter.
30. Stuck in the same old loop every single day, David needs to make an important choice fast. Continue a safe, repetitive life or move to a planet where humans rarely survive.
31. A robot with a soul and its human best friend go on a criminal rampage. Soon they are being chased by the authorities and even other people and robots that they have upset. Will they escape?
32. Humankind is divided into two groups: one a technologically advanced civilization, and the other an old fashioned, non-techno group. The technologically advanced civilization is going to wipe out the human race in the next two decades.
33. A friendly housekeeper robot goes rogue and joins the war against mankind. The robot’s human family want him to come back home.
34. Write a sci-fi story about a group of soldiers whose sole job is to travel through time and space to stop a dark force that threatens the future of the universe.
35. This is a sci-fi story about a young, un-engineered robot named Enceladus (named after one of Saturn’s moons). Enceladus has been programmed to find a healthy water source on Earth. After pollution and contamination have destroyed Earth.
36. One single mind has the power to save Earth. An unlikely human far superior to others can stop a whole alien invasion from happening.
37. Society has come to the point where humans and artificial intelligence are indistinguishable. A young woman named Samantha wakes up in a hospital bed after an injury that will change her life forever. At her hospital bed, Samantha meets a man who is also waking up: a robot named Bob. She doesn’t know it yet, but Bob is an advanced AI.
38. The daughter of a scientist who passed away has the ability to see, hear and manipulate objects around her. As she grows, her powers become stronger. Soon she hears every radio signal coming from the city around her. And she sees all the people in pain and danger. Too much to handle she loses control.
39. A group of kids are on the run from the authorities. They have all been in contact with another life-form on a distant planet. In order to protect this life-form, the kids will do anything to keep their secrets away from the government. 
40. The world ends, and the future just begins for two groups of people. These last survivors on Earth must find a way to survive with the new dangers they encounter.
41. In the future, mankind has invented a weapon that will make war impossible. But soon this ‘weapon’ becomes the cause of war on Earth. People must fight to save their lives, their homes, their lives.
42. After a mysterious accident, David’s entire life becomes a never-ending nightmare. As his memories return, he tries to escape this nightmare and reclaim his true identity. 
43. Two siblings, Sam and Mia must survive the epidemic of Crime in Detroit. Their parents are divorced. Their father is a police officer who has been left by the wayside due to his car being stolen. Their mother is trying to get back to Detroit to save her children.
44. A small village has been turned into a hive of evil creatures. As scientists run secret experiments. Will the inhabitants of this small town survive the transformations? 
45. The human race has evolved into five different groups, each with its own beliefs on how to survive on Earth. The two biggest groups are Draken and Lumia. The Draken group believe that weak humans must die in order to survive. And the Lumia group believe that humans should become one with the Earth, living naturally to survive.
46. A man in the future has been licensed to death. He spends every day trying to escape death. Every morning he wakes up and says, ”This is the last day of my life.
47. This is a sci-fi story about a space pirate named Czar who has been chosen by the space council to try and save his home planet from an evil tyrant known as the Emperor. In one scene, he has to infiltrate the ship of the Emperor while disguised as a prisoner.
48. The civilians of a small town think that Jake is possessed by a demon. But in actual fact, an alien is telepathically controlling this young boy against humankind.
49. Write a story about a young doctor with a futuristic cure to prevent disease and a young woman who can transform into anything she wants. The story starts off in the past, where we meet a young girl who is struggling with her body image. 
50. Describe a parallel universe, which is exactly like Earth but there is one major difference. What is this difference?
51. A fortune teller has a vision of a boy falling down a well. She must find this boy and save him. The twist is that her vision does not show that the boy is actually pushed by a robot.
52. A futuristic technology called the Machine makes the people of the planet dependent on it. The Machine is the only reason why humans are still alive in the future. Suddenly the Machine stops working, and people start dying. Eventually, people start learning that they don’t need to be dependent on the Machine to live – They can live independently. 
53. Describe a world that is not human. A world of destruction, and heartache. What kind of creatures inhabit this world? Was the world always in this state? Does this world have a leader?
54. Write a sci-fi fairy tale about a girl who has the power to turn ordinary objects into objects of great beauty. She uses this power to gain control of a futuristic kingdom, and of course to live happily ever after.
55. A group of people live together like a family. The group is the only family that has all lived together for such a long time since families are banned in the future. The main character is an engineer, he is the brother of a medical doctor. After a huge party, the main character realises that no one on the whole planet is like them.
56. This sci-fi story starts off in the present day, where the main character discovers something shocking on his smartphone. Eventually, we see the machines and their dominance of the future.
57. Write a sci-fi story that is broken into three parts. The first part shows the future of mankind, the second is set in the past. And the final part is set in the present time. The overall theme of the story is about how machines are manipulating humans and their daily lives.
58. This is a sci-fi story about a space travel expedition to a new planet called Earth. What secrets and discoveries will the main character make?
59. A scientist gets trapped in a strange, hostile dimension on Earth. The only way out it to use his alien blaster to kill anything that comes in his way.
60. A local biotech company is running some trials for their new gene therapy service. This is the first time they are running trials on humans. Two people have been selected to genetically enhance their genes to get rid of any deformities. At first, the gene therapy looks to be a success, but then…
61. A secret alien race called the K9s has been hiding from the human world. The K9s are different from human K-9 dogs. They look like human dogs but are ruthless and highly dangerous. Eventually, the K9s alien race starts hunting down humans one by one.
62. The main character was in a lifeboat. He gets knocked out by an accident while he’s onboard, and wakes up in the middle of a sea battle. The sea battle is between humans and water-born aliens.
63. A lonely engineer creates an AI robot. Due to some events, the AI robot becomes very angry and obsessed with destruction. The engineer must stop this robot from hurting any more people.
64. Write a sci-fi story about a family of beings who have appeared on Earth in the past. They are called the Inhumans and are a race of aliens that have the ability to shape their own reality. They eventually become the leaders of this new world, also known as Earth. This family is part of a royal bloodline. There are three different branches of the Inhumans family.
65. A boy gets caught up in a fight between two alien races. With the help of his uncle (an agent) and his guardian (a space pirate), he tries to track down the invaders, and end this fight.
66. Write a story about a young woman from the future who travels into the past to take a stand against a monster.
67. In an intergalactic space station, there lives a group of mercenaries called the Zurriors. When the station goes into a power outage, the Mercenaries start attacking each other, and have the misfortune to end up in a rather hostile environment. The action is very chaotic, and they will use the elements to their advantage.
68. Write a sci-fi story about an android called Astro, that looks like a human with mechanical parts. Astro is a social robot created as part of a project on human communication. It is programmed to help people who need help with communication skills.
69. To fulfil his childhood dream of creating a human-like robot, one scientist find himself trapped inside a robot’s body. Son the robot starts taking over the human body and destroying it.
70. This is a sci-fi story about a man’s desperate quest to survive in a hostile and dark post-apocalyptic world. It’s told from a first-person perspective and the only characters we really see are a father and his young son. 
71. Write a story based on the first man in space (Yuri Gagarin).
72. A group of scientists want to prove that the afterlife does exist. Through experimentation and unethical practices, they discover the shocking truth.
73. This is a sci-fi story about what happens when a robot breaks free from her programming and runs amok. A camera is placed inside a robots head. From the perspective of the robot, we see everything that causes the robot to change. 
74. This is a sci-fi story about a family living in the 21st century, in a near-future universe in which we have been genetically engineered. In this future, humans don’t need food, nor do humans need jobs. In fact, the only thing human-kind needs is more humans. The main character is a young lady who is a clone of her mother.
75. This is a sci-fi story about a man that has lived on the moon with his family for decades. After having their house attacked, the man and his family must leave.
76. The main characters are two teenage boys. The first is an orphaned child who was taken from his parents by the Red Star Empire, the military dictatorship that took over the Earth in the 23rd century. He was sent to the planet of Zonama Sekot, a planet of warring factions of different species. It was there that he met the other boy, a teenager named Lask. The two of them became friends.
77. A city is infected with an alien virus. The only way to escape the city’s deadly undead hordes is to get a ride into the countryside on a zombie-killing train.
78. Write a sci-fi story about one of the world’s greatest scientists, who decides to stay in the dark about how his inventions will save mankind, even from aliens.
79. An ambitious engineer is attempting to build the ultimate weapon to destroy an enemy called the Rave. The Rave is a species of mutated ravens. See our Species Name generator for more unique species names.
80. This is a sci-fi story about a band of space pirates who come back together to stop a deadly, world-threatening virus.
81. A young man awakes from an accident and thinks he has developed telepathy. In actual fact, a race of small creatures has invaded his brain, and have been living there for over 20 years. These creatures have their own memories and emotions which they project inside the young man’s mind.
82. This is a sci-fi story about a race of sentient insects who are all genetically engineered. These insects eventually take over Earth, making humans their slaves in farms.
83. A group of people leave planet Earth, to start their own civilisation on a new planet. They finally find a new planet where they can set their own rules. On the surface, this planet looks uninhabitable – Not suitable for humans. But then a secret switch shows the true beauty of this planet.
84. A computer hacker is tired of all the emotions that he feels. He is in too much pain, so comes up with a plan to turn himself into a cyborg. With this plan, he can carry on living his life without sadness, depression or anger.
85. For centuries humans have found no life on Mars. One scientist wants to prove everyone wrong. He wants to prove that Martians or aliens do exist. So he concocts a plan to create his own life in a laboratory, and then send this ‘life’ to Mars in a ship. He can then boast that aliens do exist.
86. Two children are born after a nuclear war on Earth. They are raised in a world ravaged by the effects of nuclear technology. This is a coming of age, sci-fi story about living in a post-nuclear world.
87. A group of friends are captured by aliens and put into hibernation. Years later a little alien girl wakes them up and helps them escape from an uninhabitable planet. 
88. Write a sci-fi story about an astronaut who wakes up to find himself and his crew trapped in an alien world. 
89. A small space exploration group travel to Mars for a mission to study the Red Planet. However, when they arrive, they find the place to be deserted. While exploring, they end up getting into a situation that is completely unique and exciting. The team are captured by aliens, who have given them one of their spaceship suits and have the humans inside. The astronauts have to survive and figure out how to get out of this situation.
90. A young girl gets lost at sea and wakes up on a deserted planet. But she’s not the only one who wakes up on a deserted planet. She’s one of only a few survivors of a race of alien warriors who used to live there. The only way that she can return home is if she joins up with a team of scientists who are building a super-weapon that can protect people from the aliens and give them the power to fight back
91. Write a story about a group of robots that get sent back to Earth from their universe and have to live with their descendants in a car factory.
92. This is a sci-fi story about a team of highly skilled astronauts who were sent to the Moon on a mission to become a new kind of human. The mission was a failure because they were attacked by aliens on the Moon. They were never seen again and the aliens are now trying to steal the technology of the Earth’s space program.
93. The main character’s spaceship is destroyed on a planet, so he needs to look for a new one. But just then a giant alien arrives, making his task much more difficult.
94. On planet Kgnis, a warlord gets sucked in a conspiracy that humans are going to take over his planet. He fights backs but ultimately is unable to survive the war. 
95. In a matter of minutes, a robot can change the world at its will. The main character is a mysterious figure named H.A.R.D.A.M. He is an extremely powerful and intelligent humanoid robot that can change the world as it will.
96. An artificial intelligence program in the healthcare industry needs to learn how to do its job to the best of its abilities. But instead of developing a brain with the characteristics of a human being, it starts off by growing a brain with the characteristics of artificial intelligence. It uses its new brain to develop the basic building blocks of a new program.
97. A group of human colonists set off on an exploration mission to the planet Earth. The planet is called Earth, and it is populated by other species who call it “Earth”. The main characters are an engineer and an astronaut. The engineer is called J-1, the astronaut is named J-2. They find a place called Earth to settle, but in the early stages of their missions, J-2 is infected with some kind of virus.
98. Write a sci-fi story about a small-scale space station that suddenly becomes the grounds of a giant space battle with a thousand-year-old god.
99. A young girl gets extremely ill, and her father wants to save her. The only way to save his sick daughter is by asking the aliens for help.
100. A young boy discovers a mysterious device that can connect him to the minds of his deceased ancestors. This gives him a “remote viewing” experience of how his family passed away. He then uses this device to help solve the mystery of his sister’s death.
101. The youngest of five brothers is keeping a secret. When he turns 18, he wants to go on a trip to a faraway planet to become a space pirate.
102. This is a sci-fi story about a group of people who want to make the universe safer, and that means taking down a huge, powerful alien menace that’s on an existential mission to wipe out humanity.
103. Write a story about a space exploration team that go out of their way to find extraterrestrial life on a distant planet. However, they discover that there is no life on the plane.
104. A man who finds himself alone, as he attempts to build a civilization on a planet called Earth after the destruction of its previous inhabitants. He eventually finds out that there are some survivors living separately on two planes of the Earth. One plane is called the ‘Grassy’ world and the other is called the ‘Barren’, which is a mountainous region.
105. In the distant future, a group of misfits tries to stop a rogue group from destroying Earth by using some mysterious objects from the past to their advantage.
106. Two strangers keep crossing paths as they try to find their families during an alien attack.
107. Write a sci-fi story about a father who’s trying to build a spaceship to save his daughter. While he’s not 100% certain he’ll succeed, he’s pretty sure his daughter has a chance to do better than he has.
108. This is a sci-fi story about a robot named K1R5 that is searching for its rightful creator. He travels to many places, and meets many people, but will it ever find its creator?
109. This is a sci-fi story about a spaceship pilot and his crew that must protect an alien child from a horrible fate when he is found by another strange, extraterrestrial creature.
110. It’s the last few days of mankind, and then the galaxy will be split in two by an artificial wormhole. 
111. A group of individuals discover a device that allows them to live in the future for a very short period of time, without going insane. What follows is a very interesting, and terrifying, journey into the future. 
112. Write a story about an alien race that is trapped on Earth and can’t escape. The aliens want to be seen as human and so they begin to adopt human forms. After a while, the aliens grow tired of pretending to be humans…

For more inspiration, check out our guide on the dieselpunk genre, along with examples and story ideas.

Can you think of any more interesting sci-fi writing prompts? Let us know in the comments below!