Today's topic is neither really a trope nor an archetype, but it anyway seems important to me in this context. It's about the meaningfulness of SciFi. I think there are two types of Science Fiction stories.

Some use Science and imagined Science to augment a story. Think of it as an adventure with some added sugar in the form of - let's say - starships or electronic implants. Most of these stories are projections of human stories into a futuristic environment and make the author observe how they evolve in that environment. Most of the time, the environment is separated by the story tropes. You'll find conventional heroes' journeys in space as well.

The other type seeks meaning for the reader and uses science as some sort of catalyst. Think of a robot/AI that is described as a thinking and sentient being. Thoughts arrive for them just like for us humans. Now the backstory tells us that some of these thoughts are instructions from the interface. The robot can't distinguish. Now what if it's the same for us humans? What if some of our thoughts are instructions from above? So the Robot is an analogy that makes a huge meaning of life type problem more tangible.

Astonishingly, I think that these two types don't mix up very often. There are rarely stories that do both. Probably because either of them needs so much attention.