I had an idea for a Sci-Fi story a long time ago...

...but I never got around to actually coming up with a plot, or a name for my character. I knew what kind of genre type I wanted, and roughly the amount of characters I wanted, but that was it.

Right. It was going to be a Sci-Fi/mystery--or, to be more precise, a space opera/mystery (yes, thanks to a friend for helpfully clearing up the differences between Hard SF and Space Opera...now I just have to hope I understood him correctly and hope I haven't made a fool of myself by messing it up).
Anyway. The character was going to be a cross between Sherlock Holmes from the Sherlock Holmes movie with Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr, and Han Solo from Star Wars. In other words, a rather intelligent rogue who can be a gentleman sometimes, but usually isn't.
His sidekick was going to be a Lando Calrissian/Sallah knock-off.Okay, so I had that information set out. But that was it.

The idea came to me in a strange way. I was outside after watching Sherlock Holmes. I saw this oil stain on the concrete near my garage. I pretended that it was some sort of poison, but, since I didn't know much about any kind of poisons, I made up a random name for it that I have now forgotten.
Then I thought, "Hey, it would be cool to write a mystery..." The very next thought I had was, "It would be even cooler if it was sci-fi, so I could just make up the poisons and what-not and not have to worry about being precise!"
That's how my mind works, unfortunately. I'm too lazy to do research on stuff like that. Area 51, the FBI, lost cities...those are my areas of research-expertise.

Soooo...yeah. I forgot about this idea for a while, but then it popped up again. Unfortunately, I still haven't come up with a plot yet. XP  And I can't. I kind of suck at writing Sci-Fi...or, rather, I kinda suck at coming up with ideas for it.

Well, I had best go now. More on the subject of my failed story ideas later.