ITT: Original Story Ideas

[Meunster]

A guy's all-consuming obsession with steampunk stuff comes in handy after the apocalypse as in his spare time he has actually already built working mechanical clockwork or steam-driven versions of many normally electrical devices

where he is immediately shot by bandits, then the bandits end up blowing themselves up cause haters just can't understand steampunk.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

A guy goes back in time to kill Hitler. He succeeds, but the Nazi movement and the Holocaust happen anyway, jist with a different leader. The protagonist goes back and kills that guy, with similarly underwhelming results. Eventually the protagonist comes to understand that the events of World War 2 were the result of powerful societal forces rather than just a single charismatic leader. Armed with this knowledge he goes back and succeasfully prevents the Holocaust by sabotaging Germany's infrastructure, ensuring that they are swiftly defeated once the war does start.

EDIT:
Perhaps Poland acquires a reputation for being invincible

EDIT:
Also, perhaps defusing WWII has negative societal and technological consequences. Being loudly paranoidly antisemitic doesn't become inappropriate and tech invented for and by the army doesn't get invented yet.
And/Or perhaps there's a different World War 2 in the 1950's with the US, western Europe, and Japan vs. Russia and China due to the A-bomb not having been developed yet to keep the cold war cold

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

A very formulaic wacky sitcom set on a space station orbiting a black hole. Nothing of importance ever happens, but (being set in the far future) many of the jokes don't make any sense. Several characters speak no english, yet still get laugh track when they make a punchline in their strange alien languages. At the end of the last episode, another group of (not previously introduced) aliens invade with no warning and brutally murder every main character while the credits roll.

[hooplala]

Richard Dawkins dies and goes to heaven. Being greatly incensed by this, he storms off to give God a piece of his mind. He finds a frantically working, chainsmoking Almighty working nonstop at the machinery of the universe. At first being much too busy to speak to Dawkins, he winds up shouting in frustration at God's back about how he could possibly allow for war and death and disease while God is trying to keep everything spinning the way its supposed to, until God finally snaps and shuts the whole mess down for a minute, turns on Dawkins like a child who has asked why he cant have a sweet just one too many times. He then gives Dawkins a detailed rant about how much work it takes to govern a universe that's every bit as infinite as he is, alternate universes and quantum notwithstanding,  how much of his omnipotence goes towards observing corners of space that no human will ever reach in their lifetime, and how none of this got into the major religious texts because all of us stupid monkeys wouldn't even sit down to read a book that didnt center exclusively on us and how great we are, let alone define our actions based on it. He would end by saying that religion was just some shit he threw at us to keep us from killing each other (again, like a child being given a toy to keep it quiet for five minutes), but even that didn't work because is some cases  it just gave us a reason to do so.

THIS NEEDS TO BE WRITTEN

[Chelagoras The Boulder]

Richard Dawkins dies and goes to heaven. Being greatly incensed by this, he storms off to give God a piece of his mind. He finds a frantically working, chainsmoking Almighty working nonstop at the machinery of the universe. At first being much too busy to speak to Dawkins, he winds up shouting in frustration at God's back about how he could possibly allow for war and death and disease while God is trying to keep everything spinning the way its supposed to, until God finally snaps and shuts the whole mess down for a minute, turns on Dawkins like a child who has asked why he cant have a sweet just one too many times. He then gives Dawkins a detailed rant about how much work it takes to govern a universe that's every bit as infinite as he is, alternate universes and quantum notwithstanding,  how much of his omnipotence goes towards observing corners of space that no human will ever reach in their lifetime, and how none of this got into the major religious texts because all of us stupid monkeys wouldn't even sit down to read a book that didnt center exclusively on us and how great we are, let alone define our actions based on it. He would end by saying that religion was just some shit he threw at us to keep us from killing each other (again, like a child being given a toy to keep it quiet for five minutes), but even that didn't work because is some cases  it just gave us a reason to do so.

THIS NEEDS TO BE WRITTEN

Thanks, Y'know I had been thinking about taking ideas like this and bundling it witht some other short story ideas ive had and putting them on smashwords or somesuch.

[Chelagoras The Boulder]

A nuclear holocaust/subsequent zombie holocaust causes a number of people who happened to be in a Home Depot at the time to bunker down and take refuge in the store, the fortification of which proceeds quickly, since hey, theyve got all the tools/building materials. This quickly devolves into a sort of Home Depot Tribalism, where the eight corporate values of the company now define their way of life. Similar big box stores have survived in this way and the story follows our Home Depot Tribe as they carve out an empire with their allies The Costconites, and defeat their shared enemy, the Walmartarians.

[Meunster]

A nuclear holocaust/subsequent zombie holocaust causes a number of people who happened to be in a Home Depot at the time to bunker down and take refuge in the store, the fortification of which proceeds quickly, since hey, theyve got all the tools/building materials. This quickly devolves into a sort of Home Depot Tribalism, where the eight corporate values of the company now define their way of life. Similar big box stores have survived in this way and the story follows our Home Depot Tribe as they carve out an empire with their allies The Costconites, and defeat their shared enemy, the Walmartarians.

Watch out for mom and popistan.

[Chelagoras The Boulder]

smaller family shops will be forced to pay tribute to the mighty Warehouse Empire! For only we can save them from the filthy Rollbacks.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

During the Zombie apocalypse, it becomes apparent that zombies are very sensitive to salt: their cell membranes don't work properly, and so salt has much the same effect upon them as it does on slugs. Coastal cities (and land-locked salt lakes) become centers of extreme wealth as salt-water becomes far more valuable -- after all, during a zombie invasion of your gated city, it helps to be able to call in helicopters to dump salt water on the invading forces (a service they charge heftily for). People also develop a set of cultural practices around taking long daily baths in epsom salts, because those who have been infected but have not yet turned will be killed by such baths -- meaning that taking a salt-water bath publicly indicates that you are not infected, so communal salt-water baths take on some of the significance of handshakes and toasts and become part of the normal beginning of a business relationship.

[axod]

A band of Black Maji infiltrate Waste Management during the zombi eschaton.  Cleaning up the undead is in high demand, so the Maji operate without scrutiny.  Using their necromantic powers, zombi carcasses are mixed in huge silos to ferment over time.  On every twelfth moon, the zombi sludge is fractionally titrated and applied cutaneously to the sorcerers, allowing them to draw on the memory and experience of every life that once animated the now putrid flesh.  Because this trans-substantiation required the harvested bodies to have been killed twice, this was the first time in history that the Necromancers had access to such a supply.  There were some unintended consequences to this.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

In the dystopian near-future The latest craze in reality TV is for entertainment companies to provoke revolutions in third-world countries and film the resulting battles as well as the drama among the leadership of both sides, whom they have ingratiated themselves with. (And drama amid the refugees, and amid POWs)


Another idea:

In A halloween special combining the violence and goriness or horror movies with that schmaltziness of christmas specials, A family is somehow brought closer together as a result of a series of events involving several "halloween miracles" in which people at the center of the matters keeping them apart are decapitated in freak accidents, slain by serial murderers or accidentally buried alive.

EDIT:
Another Idea:
All religions are expressions of the same universal truth and all gods are aspects of the same god. Unfortunately that god turns out to be Nyarlathotep, which explains alot about organized religion.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

During the Zombie apocalypse, it becomes apparent that zombies are very sensitive to salt: their cell membranes don't work properly, and so salt has much the same effect upon them as it does on slugs. Coastal cities (and land-locked salt lakes) become centers of extreme wealth as salt-water becomes far more valuable -- after all, during a zombie invasion of your gated city, it helps to be able to call in helicopters to dump salt water on the invading forces (a service they charge heftily for). People also develop a set of cultural practices around taking long daily baths in epsom salts, because those who have been infected but have not yet turned will be killed by such baths -- meaning that taking a salt-water bath publicly indicates that you are not infected, so communal salt-water baths take on some of the significance of handshakes and toasts and become part of the normal beginning of a business relationship.

That's clever. It even fits in with existing mythology (not necessarily of zombies specifically, but of spookables and creepy creatures in general who are often described as being warded off by salt).

Also, perhaps Sealand experiences an immigration crisis.

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

During the Zombie apocalypse, it becomes apparent that zombies are very sensitive to salt: their cell membranes don't work properly, and so salt has much the same effect upon them as it does on slugs. Coastal cities (and land-locked salt lakes) become centers of extreme wealth as salt-water becomes far more valuable -- after all, during a zombie invasion of your gated city, it helps to be able to call in helicopters to dump salt water on the invading forces (a service they charge heftily for). People also develop a set of cultural practices around taking long daily baths in epsom salts, because those who have been infected but have not yet turned will be killed by such baths -- meaning that taking a salt-water bath publicly indicates that you are not infected, so communal salt-water baths take on some of the significance of handshakes and toasts and become part of the normal beginning of a business relationship.

That's clever. It even fits in with existing mythology (not necessarily of zombies specifically, but of spookables and creepy creatures in general who are often described as being warded off by salt).

Also, perhaps Sealand experiences an immigration crisis.

In the original Haitian context, a zombi will return to its grave permanently if it has its mouth filled with salt or sees the ocean. However, in several traditions, salt melts the skin of vampires or other revenants.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

During the Zombie apocalypse, it becomes apparent that zombies are very sensitive to salt: their cell membranes don't work properly, and so salt has much the same effect upon them as it does on slugs. Coastal cities (and land-locked salt lakes) become centers of extreme wealth as salt-water becomes far more valuable -- after all, during a zombie invasion of your gated city, it helps to be able to call in helicopters to dump salt water on the invading forces (a service they charge heftily for). People also develop a set of cultural practices around taking long daily baths in epsom salts, because those who have been infected but have not yet turned will be killed by such baths -- meaning that taking a salt-water bath publicly indicates that you are not infected, so communal salt-water baths take on some of the significance of handshakes and toasts and become part of the normal beginning of a business relationship.

That's clever. It even fits in with existing mythology (not necessarily of zombies specifically, but of spookables and creepy creatures in general who are often described as being warded off by salt).

Also, perhaps Sealand experiences an immigration crisis.

In the original Haitian context, a zombi will return to its grave permanently if it has its mouth filled with salt or sees the ocean. However, in several traditions, salt melts the skin of vampires or other revenants.

That's pretty cool. I didn't know that.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

A heavy metal band, trying to push the envelope of shocking and dangerous, steals documents from the Pentagon and publishes detailed directions for uranium enrichment and nuclear bomb construction in the form of songs. The song titles are Hermeticism themed. The track describing classified details of uranium enrichment is entitled "The Philosopher's Stone", the track describing classified datails of fission-fusion-fission bombs is entitled "Trismajestus" and a track describing how they stole this information is entitled "God of Thieves"

EDIT:
Another Idea:
A lot of Christmas specials feature -arents who don't believe in Santa Clause despite the fact that he's manifestly brought toys to their house each year. This Xmas special explains how such a situation can come to be. To wit, all the world's parents are bad alcoholics and the toys Santa brings are always the same as the store-bought toys that the parents buy each year but invariably break after getting blackout drunk at Christmas Eve parties. When they see the tpys Christmas morning, they assume that they are the toys that they bought for their kids and that they simply must have set them out while blacked out