Deus ex Machina or "God in the Box"

Story featuring a miraculous solution to the story's conflict, which comes out of nowhere and renders the plot struggles irelevant. H G Wells warned against SF's love for the deus ex machina when he coined the famous dictum that "If anything is possible, then nothing is interesting." Science fiction, which specializes in making the impossible seem plausible, is always deeply intrigued by godlike powers in the handy pocket size. Artificial Intelligence, virtual realities and nanotechnology are three contemporary SF MacGuffins that are cheap portable sources of limitless miracle.

They omitted "Time Travel!", though, which by definition is an unending source of plot/setting/character/window-dressing change. Loathe it.

Unless you write a good story about how some clever b******* like me went back in time and nicked/bought HG Wells' Time Machine manuscript off him before publication, thereby eliminating the meme, and the wacky adventures of our time travelers who have eliminated their means of return...

The only good time travel story ever is Invader Zim's "Bad Bad Rubber Piggy", and I am GIR