Need some good toipcs for a short story. Nothing too "Normal", I like to write science fiction and fantasy best, but am having writer's block!

How about earth in the year 2513 ( or something along those lines) where Human beings are practically nothing much but a bunch of programmable machines, they no longer think for themselves. Instead a certain mastermind group made up of about 9 people controls the world, telling people what to think, eat, do, etc etc. The main character can be one of these "machines" who accidently loses track of what he supposed to be doing and discovers a lost civilization where people still act like humans. He starts to learn how to be a human being from this civilization and realizes whats wrong with the old one, tries to fix it, and decides to rebel against the mastermind group.

Do a story about a civilization who conquered the "known" world using some incredibly destructive magic. Then when a discrepency in the next heir to throne causes a massive split in the country's military support they destroy eachother. Then when an undiscovered viking race invades the country stands no chance and falls.

The remenants of the race band together and vow to never use their destructive magics again. After a few hundred years a new evil decides to eliminate the known world. When the viking kingdom falls they retreat to the now-peacful race for healing. After major consultation and prophecying they need to rediscover their destructive magic they swore never to use again.

They send a young farm-hand unskilled in battle along with a few of his friends and a few viking warriors to find a society of magi of their race who retained the knowledge.

The perilous journey is a race against time so they can relearn the magic and convince the magi to return to save their kin. Along the way they face the perilous new evil in numerous epic battles across a magic world with faeries, giants, gnolls, goblins, elves, dwarves, dragons, and even more magical creatures than imaginable.

This was a concept that I thought up a few days ago and was immediately enticed with. Any thoughts on it please comment.

Time Travel is always interesting. Pick a time or historical person you find interesting and go from there.