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I've been working and tossing ideas around for a story. It's supposed to be a space epic that has you transporting something to the unknown universe to a small colony of researchers. If anyone has any lore ideas (not plot since I already have that down), that would be greatly appreciated.

What kind of lore? Strange space creatures? Advanced civilizations that you are at war with? Names of planets?

1. just general stuff like the universe, the civilizations, the pirates, and the planets

sorry, auto correct.

Wait, there's pirates? Then I suggest pirates.

Huh?

Yes, space pirates. And space herpes. No wait, NOT space herpes. Space pirates like in the movie Ice Pirates.

Planets with microorganisms can always be fun. And there could be defensive planets that just attack anyone who comes near without any negotiations. Maybe the ship could run out of fuel and more fuel has to be found/discovered.

Interesting. But I'm curious toward the microrganims. What do you suggest they do. 

You could have a regularly scheduled stop for some reason and land on the planet with the microorganisms. Then they could attempt to defend themselves, and the reader may not be able to figure out what's going on for some time. They could physically attack the body, they could mentally cause strange thoughts, they could attack portions of the ship, causing repairs and delays...

Space herpes? :P Better than the senient herpies in Bevan's stories...

sentient herpes? Hmmmmmm. ideas. Oh I know, I could have a sentient space parasite (not like an sti). Possibly hidden in plain sight.

A lot of what I do for coming up with lore is drawing inspiration from the world around me and other fictional universes that I read about. I think interesting lore is created from a solid and believable (even if it's not necessarily realistic) fictional universe. Try to think a lot about the lives and societies of the people/beings, main characters or otherwise, in your universe on a day-to-day basis: how they afford a living; what do they do in their average day; what resources they need and where they come from; what methods of transport they use from planet to planet; what are their attitudes like towards aliens or other races; how strong their military is relative to their neighbours and how well they could defend themselves from a potential attack; what the history of their people is and how their ancestors colonised the planet; what they eat, drink, wear, buy for pleasure, etc.; what some common hobbies are; what the structure of the society is like in terms of authority, both on a larger scale governmental level and a smaller scale workplace level.

Yes, that's a lot of questions, but you need to know your universe well to be able to come up with convincing lore, stories, myths and legends that fit well with how everything else works.

For example, one planet I came up with was based on Saudi Arabia in real life. It was an idea for a planet in a relatively poor area, but through having a large amount of a valuable natural resource, it suddenly became rich very quickly. That in itself could hardly be called a rich and detailed place full of lore, but it's a good start to build on and come up with the kind of characters and events that such a place would produce.

Believable though not realistic... I think that should be the goal of every fantasy (and, indeed, fiction in general) writer.