SF Plot Devices: A List

Well, here's just about all the separate SF plot devices I could think of, at least in a short period.

Step 2: find out if google knows more than I do.

Update: I found this list, which breaks things up into larger categories than I really cared to. The other list is more of a comedic exercise, a list of pitfalls to be avoided. I was more going for things that show up in almost every SF work I've ever read or seen. But there were a few things I missed....

Time Travel
- wormholes (it's always wormholes, if it's explained at all)
- or not. i forgot hibernation. that's only one-way though.
FTL
- wormholes
- relativistic time dilation (not really faster than light, but at least you arrive in months instead of millenia)
- hyperspace
Aliens
- from microbes to gods and everything in between
- ah, yes, and UFOs.
AI and Robots
- like aliens, only we make them, or become them, or both
Biological Mastery
- life extension (or immortality, if the author's brave enough)
- new species, new ecosystems
- evolutionary divergence of the human species
Space Colonization
- from solar to galactic
Human Extinction
- .... and the posthuman world
Parallel Universes
- other dimensions, other beings
- quantum many-worlds, with many histories
- cosmic landscapes, with different physics

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