Not so long ago an interesting idea floated across my screen in the form of this image:

These were focused on romance tropes, but it got me thinking about other genres and some that might have interesting tropes reverse. Of course my mind went to sci-fi first, so here I’ve compiled a little list of the best ones I could come up with. I think I might write out a few of these for fun:

• Resetting the polarity to normal.
• Alien invasion where the aliens are the ones that are technologically outmatched.
• Slower than light travel is hard.
• The hivemind gets more dangerous when the queen goes down.
• A dystopian world where everyone is fighting to make things worse.
• A spaceship built in secret that really, really sucks.
• Exosuits that are actually living beings, hiding a vulnerable machine core.
• Way too much of a rare material.
• The star ship’s handsome Captain is notoriously bad with women.
• Reach in with your feelings.

If you’ve got any more, send em’ along! I’d love to brainstorm some of these for fantasy too.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley