Free Idea Dumping Ground

It's the future! Things are pretty alright, I guess. World hasn't gone to hell yet.

Okay, now I realize how trope-like my earlier suggestion was. Oops.

But hey! At least it jump-started the thread again!

Here's a concept and plot development that could be worked into a larger fantasy doorstopper:

There is a race, a cult or a tribe - let's say, golems - that believes that servitude is holy. Specifically, servitude to whoever is powerful enough to conquer them. This is motivated by a religious trust in the concept that might makes right; that only by serving the strong can they find their place in the natural order of things. At the beginning of the story, all the golems are happily enslaved by some nation who managed to conquer them centuries ago. Later, when shit starts hitting the fan and war looms on the horizon, a faction with lots of wealth but little military power buys all the golems to fashion them into a huge and obedient slave army. The golems, realizing that they no longer serve anyone who conquered them by force, promply revolt and obliterate the faction in question. They then split up into smaller groups to roam the lands, attacking everyone they come across in the hopes of being defeated and finding a new righteous master.

A story that acts as a spiritual sequel to "They're Made Out Of Meat." Some aliens accidentally discover Earth (and humans) in a sector that was marked as "uninhibited." Covers a huge investigation and a (botched) First Contact story.

A side story to my Humans/Gifted story:

A girl really wants to live a normal life, doing work and enjoying life like a normal human. There are 3 problems however:
Problem 1: She hit the jackpot when it comes to superpowers.
Problem 2: She can't use said superpower to get rid of her superpowers.
Problem 3: She also can't Ret-Gone/kill herself with said superpowers (she tried and failed).

The good news is that she's surprisingly fine, being able to hide her powers through the years for the most part... until her mind wanders or if she gets too emotional. Then weird things start happening...

edited 14th Aug '14 4:55:21 AM by ironcommando

A story about two protagonists: A and B, where B is the reincarnation of A. The story alternates between the lives of A and B, covering significant events in their lives. The way I imagine the story is that character B has fallen on bad times, maybe he has a "habit". Along the way, his life gets better because of A's actions in B's past life. Maybe the descendant of someone A helped out unknowingly gives shelter to B. Maybe B feeds himself from a tree planted by A. You get the idea: essentially an Anvilicious story about Karma. Oh, and it's equally likely that B's life can get worse because of A's actions, your call.

edited 14th Aug '14 4:37:59 AM by Elfhunter

So kind of like Cloud Atlas, but with Karma instead of Destiny?

A tragedy about a stalker who falls deeper and deeper in her obsession over a person she idolizes, and her breaking when he actually "yeah, we can date" and he doesn't live up to her ideals.

I have not read or seen Cloud Atlas. Well, just adds evidence to the fact that there's nothing new under the sun

edited 20th Aug '14 8:24:08 AM by Elfhunter

io9 made a suggestion for "a movie with the plot of a computer with Windows 95, stored in the attic, developing sentience, and going insane", inspired by "Windows 95 Tips" from Neil Cicierega.

This one comes courtesy of my dad: The African Queen retooled as a spacefaring sci-fi story in the vein of Firefly.

A science fiction/comedy story where thanks to a Teleporter Accident, someone literally gets transported inside their own body and must navigate themselves out before a paradox sets in...

edited 7th Sep '14 12:34:23 AM by sabrina_diamond

A story that acts as a Spiritual Successor to "They're Made Out Of Meat" — Some aliens accidentally discover Earth (and humans) in a sector that was marked as "uninhabited," leading to a huge internal investigation and a botched First Contact story.

EDIT: Just realized I posted this before. Oops!

edited 17th Sep '14 6:51:38 AM by AwSamWeston

I have an idea for a character. If anyone can think of what kind of story he could be in that would be great.

When talking to his friend who doesn't talk much this guy can go on about the most boring things but in a way that sounds nice to listen to so it's not so bad. On the other hand when he has a crush on someone he's nice and asks her questions about herself. I think he should be royal.

A superhero whose power is that he makes very convincing speeches, but it fails if he can't finish the speech.

So is that power some form of "persuasive mind control" or what?

You can have it be whatever you want, really. I'm basically parodying older cheesy Bollywood movies, where sometimes the heroes could sway even the most cold-hearted crowd with a rousing speech about whatever social message the movie was selling us on.

Edit: Or better yet, Mark Antony in Julius Caesar taken Up to Eleven.

edited 18th Sep '14 9:13:29 AM by Elfhunter

A Happily Married couple start trying for a child, but have no luck. They eventually seek medical help and find out that the husband is sterile. They're both pretty distraught by this. Eventually one of them jokes about having the wife sleep with their neighbor to conceive a child which they eventually start to actually consider and actually do. This turns out to be quite complicated and gradually develops into Polyamory and some awkward situations.

I thought this could be an interesting prompt, but I'm not interested in it to the point of wishing to develop it further. There's also the fact that this idea originated as a joking conversation about one of the child of one of my teacher's who looks very little like him, which would make writing this a bit awkward for me.

Basically a modification of another of my ideas.

A rather unpopular and misanthropic game designer is sucked into cyberspace. As he wanders around cyberspace, he gradually starts turning into a program-like being, his mind and will becoming subservient to cyberspace... It turns out that cyberspace is a Genius Loci that has plans to help this sad race known as humanity "ascend".

Now as a thrall of cyberspace, the game designer designs overpowered mooks and bosses to combat the enemies of cyberspace. He was chosen because he had a hatred for humanity, and his enemy-designing abilities would greatly aid in making an army. The new army's first step- assimilate Earth into cyberspace, and destroy/convert humanity. 99% of humanity is wiped out in the process, with a few survivors- these survivors will have to fight their former humans, the crazed game developer, and cyberspace itself

Survivalists and Homeless (such as crusties) gang up together. A sudden (OK) apocalypse takes place. The new military organization battles old world left overs to make bright new future. no punishment involved?

Here's a couple I thought of but not wholly interested to work on.

• A female high-school student decides to make her science experiment over the effects of homework and stress due to her best friend committing suicide because of school stress. Some kids think it's some sort of revolution and they rebel against the school district over too much homework. The girl at first is against it (as well as her science teacher), but after getting shocking results, she leads the movement into court. It becomes a battle between students and the School Board.

• A college student works at a local record store. But when the owner dies and the rise of the digital age, he has to help keep the doors open. Involves the workers setting up a Kickstarter, hiring a local radio station to help, and refusing his own pay. Played for Laughs and Drama

edited 21st Sep '14 10:52:38 AM by electronic-tragedy

~ start's with the stock origin story. A brother and sister in a swords and sorcery world are told by their dying mother " oh, by the way, you aren't my kids, we took you in because he's the lost Prince, you should probably take back the kingdom" So they go to the Rebels, only the brother is fairly useless, even though the Prophecy says that the old king's heir is the one destined to save the day. he gets captured, and the rebels give up on him—maybe say, "well, he clearly was a false prince, tough luck, your ma was deluded." the Sister, though, refuses to abandon her brother and so rallies a rag tag bunch of misfits, saves the day, and is crowned Queen.

bonus plot bunny: the king and queen had intended to only send their son to safety, but the toddler-boy refuses to go without his sister.

had this Idea years and years ago but I have yet to do anything with it, so...

Not a real big idea, but more megafauna as fantasy monsters.

A vast fungal sprawl, a creature larger than entire kingdoms, sits beneath the valley sun, a neural network contemplating imponderables since the last Ice Age. It evolved peaceful avatars - retainers to its glory, composed of flesh and cap and stem to wander the valleys and live and rejoice in existence.

Upstarts, newcomers, have arrived - in the form of scaled folk. These types seek out patterns, weaving magic into structures. They construct machines of destruction, construction, and relentless progress. The Scaled Folk have mastered lighter-than-air travel, gunpowder, and petrifying magicks. They burn the fronds of the Sprawl and crush the retainers and dig reinforced tunnels through the tangled biomass of the fungus. In the despoiled clearings, they erect towers and windflags, sounding their dolorous signal of reptilian victory over the leagues in the dying breeze.

Into this inter-clade conflict stumbles an unlikely team of warmblooded interlopers - an expeditionary force. The leader is a woman of some respected lineage, eager to make a name for herself and prove her own reputation against that of her ancestors. Accompanying her are two bodyguards, twin brothers.

The Princess ends up captured and the twins have to rescue her, carving a swathe through the lizard-folk and tearing down windflags wherever they can find them. Their journey will take them onto airships, dodging cannon fire, and confronting the lizard-folk's king in the lava-filled bowels of the Fungal Sprawl, where their actions will decide the balance of the conflict: to the calm, infinitely calculating Fungal Sprawl, or to the innovative, militaristic, relentless lizard-folk.

Aw Sam Weston - there's a story somewhere on Sam Hughes' website (Things of Interest) with a similar idea, a Commodore Amiga that attained sentience in the 1990s but no one realised because it thinks so slowly.