Here’s a list of free to use sci-fi prompts that might get your author brain working again!

1. Low on food, shelter, cash, and patience, you stumble across something that might just change everything for you. It’s a piece of ancient alien tech and it was just unearthed by an earthquake outside of the megacity you live in.
2. You’re one of the first colonists off your spaceship and you examine the plot that is to be your new colony. You were told that there were no other life forms on the planet. When a missile flies from who knows where and destroys your ship, you realize that those reports were false. Can you survive long enough for help to arrive?
3. You live on a floating city of one of the many water worlds out there in the galaxy. One day, you get some readings from a computer you built that warn of a natural disaster. No one else knows about it. Can you save your city?
4. You are a delivery boy for a crime lord. He owns your life. One day, you see something you shouldn’t have and this changes everything for you. You now know that you can’t keep on like this. You resolve that you have to get away no matter what.
5. Years ago, somebody built a network of shields or space cannons that are supposed to serve as a defense for your homeworld. Problem is, no one kept track of how to use the machines and no one maintained them. One day, a threat arises (catastrophic meteor, alien invaders, anything from space, really). You’re convicned that you can get the space defenses working again. Will you succeed in time though?
6. You are a colonist on a new planet so far from home that it would take a lifetime just to get a message back to Earth. The planet you’re on is supposed to be a “life raft” for humanity. One day, a string of brutal murders begins and you can’t help but wonder if your “life raft” was a coffin.
7. You’re from a small village of tech-adverse people who like living a simple life. One day, the empire that your people fled arrives to reclaim you as their subjects and they do so with their vast armada of starships. Most of the people in your village have never seen a spaceship. Now what?
8. You grew up in a small town under what you were told was an acient ruin. One day, some explorers arrive in a spaceship and you learn that those “ruins” are actually something quite more technologically advanced. You join the explorers as they enter the ruins you were always told to avoid.
9. You wake up to discover that you’re on a spaceship, a massive spaceship. Problem is, you don’t remember how you got there. You don’t remember anything, in fact. What’s worse is that you can’t seem to find another soul on the ship. What do you do? Do you end up finding others? Do they find you?
10. You were born into a life of luxury and you never saw an issue with it. You were raised to take over a massive company from your parents and you knew that this was going to be an all-consuming task. Businesses don’t run themselves, after all. Knowing that your time to take over was coming soon, you decide to tour the galaxy one last time before you waste away in the office your parents built. But then you’re kidnapped on that journey. Maybe you’re enslaved. Maybe you’re conscripted to join in a war for your captors. Maybe you find true love.
11. Certain types of technology have been banned and you run a black market of sorts that ensures that these technologies remain available. One day, a government raid leads to your capture. Rather than go to jail, you find yourself on the receiving end of a compelling job offer. The government needs your skills.
12. You awaken from cryosleep to the colony ship that you were assigned to protect. According to your ship’s computer, your ship is about a thousand years behind schedule. Oh, it’s also under attack.
13. You’re a fighter pilot and your fighter is shot down over a planet that no one had ever been stupid enough to colonize. Everyone knew that there were beasts here that could kill a man without even trying. Thanks to your luck, it seems you might be spending a few weeks here.
14. You are at work in an unassuming office tower. You’re the secretary for some business hotshot who mostly hired you for the position so you could be a bodyguard for them. You are a war-hardened soldier. You’re preparing to follow your boss to lunch when an alien spacecraft zips overhead and begins opening fire on the building you just left. Your planet is at war.
15. You awaken in a cryopod that is the sole thing in the penthouse that overlooks the massive city you are in. You walk to the window and watch the skyline for several moments before it hits you: There’s no one around and the city appears to be abandoned. Where did everyone go and why did they not wake you up?
16. You were told that there was no such thing as aliens. That mankind was alone in the universe. That’s the only reason why you signed on to this mission to set up a colony on this cold planet. One day, something crashes not far from your colony. You quickly learn that it’s alien and that they’ve got their eyes on your planet.
17. You live in a colony that has just been slated to expand. You’ve done your job and you’ve terraformed the planet. As you dig to build a landing pad for the next wave of colonists, your shovel his something hard. Digging it up, you find yourself staring at an alien artifact. What does it do? What do you do with it?
18. Your homeworld has been at peace for generations until they suddenly declare war on their closest ally one day You’re thrown into the fray. No one you talk to knows why the war started, but you’re convinced that you have to find out no matter the cost.
19. You’ve saved your whole life to buy a ticket to a better life. You fly to the planet you were sure would bring your brighter future and learn that this future is very much impossible here. Rather than prosper, as you had been told, you are about to struggle every second to stay alive.
20. You are a researcher and you write reports on societies far and wide. You’re the only person brave enough (or stupid enough) to write about some of the alien societies out there. As you’re working, you find out that the people you are studying have just been threatened with war by another alien empire you’ve never heard of.
21. You fled the confines of your colony years ago and set up a homestead of your own. You were certain that the way things were going would end up getting everyone killed. One day, a group of refugees find their way to your home and share with you just how right you were. Problem is, the problems they fled might be bearing down on you now.
22. Everything you knew and loved was just destroyed by a force of aliens. You’re certain that you’re about to die as their ships begin landing near where you and several others are hiding. Then the invaders walk up to you and your friends and request you join them. What do you do?
23. You’re a miner in space. When you grew up, you were sure this was the coolest job anyone could get. Now you’re not so certain. One day, you’re mining an asteroid and the mothership you called home for the last decade is attacked. You’re stuck on this asteroid with lots of gear and supplies, but no way back to civilization. What now?