/lit/ - Literature★

Just transplanting aspects of historical societies and events to completely different setting is lazy and non-sensical. In a future setting it usually seems as if a LARP involving the whole society got out of hand.

Still, I don't see why future societies should just be the continuation of our own times, but any radical change should have an interesting and well thought of reason.

And in some cases, bringing modern sensibilities just doesn't make sense. For example, generation ships could develope very weird cultures, especially if social engineering was used to increase the odds of mission success. There is the typical "everyone degenerates into savagery except the the scientist priest class" thing, but they could alternatively maintain a technologically advanced society while developing beliefs and values needed to cope with the harsh environment. Maybe the feeling of entitlement to the planet of their destination developes into a religious idea of a promised land. Maybe the ship has enough resources to continue scientific research, and trying to develope FTL drives turns into a zealous headbutting agains the light barrier and the scientist cope with it by developing a religion over the millenia. Maybe an aristocracy rises from the on-board eugenics program. which leads to development of chivalric ideals about noblesse oblige. At the destination the society could be very different from the one that send the ship.

>>13116

>Just transplanting aspects of historical societies and events to completely different setting is lazy and non-sensical. In a future setting it usually seems as if a LARP involving the whole society got out of hand.

Agreed. That's a problem I have with my story, at least with one society. It's supposed to be a kind of feudal society, where cyborgs have become a form of landlords. They offered protection to unmodified people in return for them working on the land, and in time, that just became how society worked. Then they adopted the narrative of the grand Holy Roman Empire, not unlike how the fascists in Italy tried to resemble Rome. Like I said, that's just one society. The primary one in the story has a state that was less voluntarily founded, and closer resembles a mix between modern democracies and empires like Rome.

Also, interesting ideas you have for cultures in generation ships. Nicely shows the principle that ideas have a history, too.

>>13122

>Then they adopted the narrative of the grand Holy Roman Empire

That does sound awfully like a huge LARP. Even fascist and their ilk did their own thing when it came to organizing the society. Himmler's unrealized SS state might have been something like that, but we will never know how realities of government would have gurbed the knight play-pretend.

If you really want feodalism in a futuristic society, you'd really have to be imaginative about the justification for the manoralism you described. If you manage to come up with a reason why quick movement of people, information and goods, automation and realities of future warfare don't immediatly put stop to decentralization needed for feodalism, you have ingredients to construct an odd culture significantly more interesting robo-HRE.

>>13110 (OP)

why would you create a dystopia where everything happens as world owning people wants it to be if we are seeing some very strong, sometimes successfull signs of resistence to it?

unless of course you have already written a plausible progression toward "progress", as you call it.

>>13127

Thanks for the perspective. Sounds solid to me. I already thought this would be a problem.

>>13129

Did you mean to link to this >>13122 post?

I shouldn't post when my brain refuses to work. Good God.

>>13127

>If you really want feodalism in a futuristic society, you'd really have to be imaginative about the justification for the manoralism you described. If you manage to come up with a reason why quick movement of people, information and goods, automation and realities of future warfare don't immediatly put stop to decentralization needed for feodalism, you have ingredients to construct an odd culture significantly more interesting robo-HRE.

Thinking about it, I have a kind of justification, namely that society broke down, people were already organized in (mostly) self-sustaining communes and had a low level of education in general, and they were competing with mutants for resources. It was a fresh start for society, at least in Europe. In the US, the infrastructure was still available and people were less badly messed up, so they could jump much quicker to centralization.

Of course, that still leaves me with the quirk that cyborgs are more available than commercial airlines. I'm thinking of explaining that with some phenomenon that restricts things like airtravel and wireless networks, but I have no idea what would make sense from a technical standpoint and want to make this handwave at least somewhat plausible.

At least I'm not worried about cyborgs being marginalized by other technologies from a military standpoint. In decentralized societies, combat is more personal, or at least starts out this way. The only real competition I see would be unmanned robots or exoskeletons, and at least the former would be shit without wireless.

Thanks for making me think about this. Seriously, thanks anon!

>>13129

Now I think I get you. I know why people would, to further that resistance. Show people where they're headed so they hit the brakes earlier. Although to some authors, a degenerate globalist government isn't a dystopia at all and is where we're inexorably headed. Take Charles Stross, the ugly bastard.

>>13132

>>13132

yeah, that was sort of my point.

based on the increase of baneposting in the last 6 years, in the future everyone will constantly quote the plane scene

>>13146

i had heard that /bane/ dwindled a bit since its birth.

>>13165

>the novel implies that Rhodesia turned into Zimbabwe because of them.

So a bunch of Brits being asshurt that their colony decided to not be ruined so they ruin the colony.

Writing some nonfiction?