I have been thinking of an idea for a story and I would love some opinions or any ideas/suggestions. It is sci-fi with a bit of dystopian society thrown in for good measure. here is my idea- Name- Soul Reaper or soul hunter.. have not decided 100% on a name yet. Setting- It is 2050 and the world as we know it has changed significantly. The world is now ruled by a one world government known as G.A.I.A (Globally Allied Imperial Administration ) G.A.I.A claims to have a technology that can read ones soul. With this technology they say they can tell the basic nature of someone. Whether or not that person has it within them to kill. It can also tell what other mortal shells a persons soul has taken in the past. This technology had a rippling effect throughout the world as old religions died hard. It was chaos until the only two ideologies that remained were Buddhism and Atheism. People had all but abandoned the thought of a divine creator. G.A.I.A now uses the Soul reading technology mainly as a policing tool. Squads known as Reapers use the technology to hunt down souls deemed too dangerous. In this world the outlook of many is bleak. Many have given up hope of something better as they live on in poverty. The worlds resources have begun to wear thin and G.A.I.A has rationed all food. Rumors of a rebel group has begun to spread like wild fire. G.A.I.A now scrambles for a means to stop this rebellion. Story idea- The protagonist is named Laslo Skye a member of reaper squad Delta 10. During what was to be a routine job, his mark began speaking wildly of a secret project called Project Deity. He became curious and what he found shocked him. The soul reading technology was a fake technology made as a means of easier population control. It was but one part of a larger project known as Project Deity. Project Deity is a secret project designed to destroy the old view of god and establish a new one. A governmental deity which all would obey. He learns how G.A.I.A will try to establish a religion designed to take advantage of the new bleak global paradigm. He decides to fight against G.A.I.A and spread news of his new discovery. He backs up all the data he found onto a disk and decides to play it quiet for awhile as he plans a way to release it. But as it would turn out his higher ups decide to put him on the high priority soul list as they suspect he saw Project Deity. Laslo now has to fight his fellow brother in arms as he fights to release the truth. He finds that all media outlets are G.A.I.A controlled. After much work he discovers that the rumored rebel group is indeed real. He tells them of what he had found and he plans to release the info. It all comes crashing down however as he soon discovers that the leader of this rebel group is indeed a G.A.I.A agent. Laslo is then thrown in a detention center destined for termination. His proof of Project Deity, was lost. All that remained was the comforting thought that there may actually be a heaven. He meets face to face with a few top agents of G.A.I.A. As they question him on all he knows. Laslo tells him what he believes, and what he knows of project deity. Laslo is then brought to the execution chamber to be killed. As he dies a message appears across all Holographs. It is the crazy man from earlier who originally warned Laslo of project Deity. Laslo managed to free him right after he discovered the proof of Project Deity and gave him a copy. He then faked his termination report to say that he was indeed killed. The G.A.I.A agents all stand in shock as they watch a dead man bring them to their knees. The story ends with the beginning of a revolution and Laslo's wife and son receiving an urn of his ashes in the mail.
This sounds like an interesting spin on the "Minority Report" type story. Sounds like a good idea, I'd write it and maybe submit a sample in the reviewing area. I'd like to read it anyway!
A story concept means nothing. I can tell you now, it has been done before. What matters is how you write it, the characterization, the flow, the imagery, all of it. There's no point to asking what other people think of the concept! They'll either say,"Sounds great," or, "it sounds like a ripoff of..." If the idea stirs you, write it. Then ask people what they think of the final story. After they tell you what they don't like about it, revise it, usually several times, until you're happy with it or until you throw up your hands and say the hell with it. Please read this thread about What is Plot Creation and Development? (and yes, this is a template post, which should give you an idea of how often this comes up.) If the story idea excites YOU enough to put the work into making it good, write it!
The hardest part you will have in my opinion is giving a good reason why only Buddhist exist in 2050. In 40 years all the major religions are no longer followed? Hindus are very devout and naive in many ways. What happens in only 40 years to get them to give up on their gods? What happens in only 40 years to get Americans, Romanians, Italians, Mexicans etc from being Christian? You might want to consider 2150 or something. Look how long it took for Mithraism to disappear in Rome, after Christians made it illegal for them to worship Mithra.
well the reason why I chose to have atheism and buddhism be the only two major ideologies left is because in this world people believe that science has disproved the existence of a god or heaven like place. Everyone believes that once you die you just come back again as something else, like reincarnation. I mean imagine if all of a sudden science came out with a thing like the soul reader. All of the older religions that believe in a heaven would probably drop in popularity. Probably would not be completely wiped out but I believe other ideals that match more with the discovery would see a boost in popularity. Which is why the two main ideals like Buddhism and Atheism see a large boost in popularity in my story in such a short time. That is not too say all the other religions and theologies and philosophies disappear, but are no longer the norm. I suppose I could change it to 2150 if you believe that date to me more believable. But as I said the main reason for the change of popular religions/ideals is due to the scientific discovery made in my story. (which also turns to be a fake discovery at that.)
I would agree about changing the date. 40 years isn't nearly enough time for any social phenomenon on the scale of a massive religion like Islam, Christianity, or Hinduism to disappear. It would probably take more around the area of 200-300 years for them to completely disappear unless there was some other massive change other than this to drive it out. It took Christianity well over a millennia to remove the various pagan religious, and most of them survived in some form well past that, and lets not start on how long it took the Catholic Church to erase Gnosticism and Arianism (both of which also still exist in some form). You're story is an interesting twist I agree. I like the conspiracy idea. In the past religion has more than often been used as a means of controlling populations and it's a neat idea to twist that around to where destroying it is a means to control the population. I would recommend reading a little research on the phrase "God is Dead." You can probably find some serious stuff online but you're best bet is probably to just read some Friedrich Nietzsche. You can get all of his stuff in a collection for about 20-25 US dollars.
Why would people believe that pyramid-shaped boxes can magically prevent food from rotting? Why would people believe that wearing bracelets made of ferromagnetic material would increase their vitality and longevity? If the person pushing the idea is sufficiently charismatic, he can talk people into drinking poison Kool-Aid.
I would imagine some trouble getting it published; it's far too similar to "Minority Report". I'm not saying you intentionally copied it, nore am I saying that "Minority Report" is any better than what you'll write, but I still think it's too close. Saying it's 2040 could go one of two ways: Either it scares the crap out of people because it's so soon, or people refuse to buy that things could change so quickly. Stick with the religion thing; the book is fiction -- fiction is nice like that, you can make things up.
