i was gonna make a 'progress journel' but saw that i didnt have much progress... innovation, utopia the 1-summary: doing things that matters what are the main points: - making education better - making humans better - biological dangers like climate change let's make it either a city in the sky or in the ocean or underground -- so how do you, or what's the best way? to decide where the city should be?
The core of any story premised on a utopian society/city/state/whatever is finding the ugly pit at the center of the seemingly succulent peach. A true utopia makes for a bad story because there would be no conflict, so utopias never really are what they seem. So, where should the city be? I say answer the question about what the ugly is going to be first, then let that guide you.
i dont agree with that premise tho 1. why do you have that assumption & impression that it makes a 'bad' story? i dont have that feeling 2. why also do you feel that things need to be 'ugly' & 'bad'? i dont understand why you have that bias
And I repeat... It's not a "bias". My answer is not political in nature. I am speaking to the structure of a story. A story that contains no conflict (as that word is understood within the structure of a narrative) is not a story.
Well, a story doesn't exactly need conflict. Though stories that lack conflict are generally received as being pretty dull to people who read them, since they'll read as a mere procession of things happening since there's not going to be an overarching point of interest that is driving the story. In a way, a Utopian world being totally devoid of conflict or strife could present its own kind of conflict for the character(s). The most common forms of story conflict are External and Internal conflicts. External coming from an outside source of some kind, like two lovers who want to elope but their families hate each other. Internal conflict comes from within a character, like a man who wants to marry a woman to appease his family's wishes but is secretly not in love with her or is gay or something. A Utopian world without a seedy or dark side wouldn't really have much external conflict, but there could be internal conflict from the characters. Maybe the main character hates Utopia because of how boring he perceives it? Angles like that can work.
That pretty much covers all the possible places a city could be located, so you can cross that conundrum off the list.
Truthfully I find no matter how hard you write a Utopia, it always becomes a Dystopia with limited freedoms and individual liberties, where everyone is mindless slaves or to scared to live. Edit: I think there is a saying "One person's Heaven is another Person's Hell"
Yes and no. I'm not sure if it would disqualify a society, but imagine a "true" utopia with nothing rotten at the core encountering an outside force that threatens it. The Man-Kzin Wars started that way, IIRC. Not quite utopia, but a human society that had gotten beyond war with only a select few allowed to even study military history suddenly encounters a race of sapient, spacefaring tigers with territoriality issues. All of a sudden, you have to devolve, and in a hurry.
If it's threatened by an outside force its no longer a utopia. Wrey is right utopias are boring if they remain utopian since a utopia by definition has no conflict. If someone writes a beautiful 40k word manuscript in which life is perfect in every way, and everyone gets along perfectly and things are basically perfect - they don't have a story
This is actually the premiss to easily my favorite Golden Age of Science Fiction novel, The City and the Stars. Alvin does live in a complete and utter utopia. No one even dies anymore. They live for a thousand years in the tranquil bliss of Diaspar and when those thousand years are up they download into a kind of data bank, to be revived at some future point to live another thousand blissful, boring-ass years, again and again and again. That's the rot at the center of Diaspar. Perfection and Stagnation are two sides of the same coin. The Utopia is not a Utopia. Not really. It's dead inside.
Iain M. Banks examines the idea of a utopia in the Culture novels quite well, without resorting to the tired old "It's actually evil." route. The way he handled it was to set most of the actual meat of the novels on the fringes of the utopian society, among misfits who didn't agree with the Culture's philosophy (super-AI's do the important stuff, humans enjoy a kind of collective retirement where all their needs are cared for) or who felt ill at ease with a life of leisure with no greater purpose, or among species / planets who were hostile to the Culture, or who were being bought around to its way of thinking by covert means. That struck me as a good way to handle it. There was never any doubt that living in the post-scarcity, endless-leisure society of the Culture would be heaven by most of our standards and there are no "....but it's all powered by DEAD PUPPIES!" reveals. But then the books ask, how does a utopia preserve its values in the face of outside aggression, some of which will be for purely philosophical reasons much like the objections raised in this thread? How underhanded and manipulative can it get in trying to spread its values while not slipping back into being the thing it's trying to lift people out of? Has it really solved any problems inherent to human / intelligent-being nature, or has it just sidestepped them with super-technology?
Thanks, I was trying to join in without beating my Iain Banks drum (again), but the Culture is a perfect example of a Utopia and the problems at the edges.
Here, I thought of this song, which I felt will help inspire you with your Utopia!!! and of coarse the sequel
like a rotting pit, perhapsos? "I good, you bad," not a story make. In fact, even if the antagonist/protagonist completely switch the precious black/white & good/evil, you could have a great story but it would be dead inside. (yin/yang) is a sphere not a circle.
I want to make sure you are not taking our input as discouragement, we are merely pointing out the uphill battle you will have in writing your story; I hope you write it and I call dibs on being your Beta Reader, because I want to see how you pull it off. I am genuinely interested, however as a Warning I will point out any flaw in a Utopia and how it's actually a Dystopia. Though it's been pretty much stated. Stagnation, reduced freedoms and liberties, no purpose.
Consider two utopias existing side by side but constantly fighting a battle to show which one is best. A war of ideas. It could be an allegorical tale reflecting the battle in the 20th century between capitalism and communism. The 'Community' eventually collapses as its people end up wanting to move next door, and 'Capital' believing it has 'won' the beauty contest, throws the biggest party ever to celebrate, only it goes on too long, and too many people get too drunk, and do bad things....society breaks down. Law and order collapses. People do what they want. They end up destroying their utopia. You could call it: 'Commodoria and Capitalia' Actually, forget it, I'll keep the idea for myself
Correct me if I’m wrong, but a true utopia simply cannot have fringes, or inhabitants with internal conflicts, because that disqualifies it from being utopian. Although the entire utopia might be isolated from the world at large, within it, there would be no fringes. How can society be perfectly at peace if it has a group of marginalised, insurgent outcasts living around the corner? Similarly, it’s not really a utopia if the inhabitants are walking wrecks, burdened with depression or dilemmas. Both cases are ultimately the utopias that are actually dystopias, or at least “incomplete” utopias. I couldn’t help but feel that such a writer is a hypocrite, and his story is contrived, trying to sell something obviously flawed as perfect. Writing this on an shattered iPhone. What irony!
This is been said I'm just concurring that if a society has fringes then it's not a Utopia. In fact, the fringes prove a darker side to said Utopia! So the machines are slaves too lazy humans. To be honest if there's no purpose then why keep going, sounds pretty awful to me. I might join one of those hostile groups in that case. Utopia has enemies it's not a Utopia or won't be one for long. And bring brought around to its ways sounds horrifying to me. Who are they to impose their culture on others! If they have to the underhanded and manipulative then they've already slipped and proven to be a dystopia, again forcing their beliefs on others.
First I get what you're saying, but if an MC hates the Utopia then it isn't a Utopia, or the MC has mental issues. Which case it's not a Utopia And personally, Utopias sound damn boring to me.
Well yeah, the MC has 'mental issues' because he thinks Utopia isn't exciting because you can't die or there's no danger or there's no risk of failure, etc. There's an oxymoron saying people like to quip that goes, "Perfect is inherently impossible because perfection itself is a flaw" and the saying is a load of bullpoopyshitass. Perfection is perfection, whether or not you perceive that as a good or bad thing. If someone is super perfect and you don't like them because of it, they're still perfect. Perfection itself can't be a flaw outside of abstract interpretation. Same with a Utopia. Utopia is Utopia even if someone thinks it's boring because all the risk of something like sky diving is gone. It may not be Utopia to them, but it's still a Utopia.
Wait what?? How are Utopia is exciting? Are we talk about God or Jesus here? Cuz nobody's perfect that's part of being human. Even machines can't be perfect with super AI. It would want to kill humans and justify it as helping them But it has flaws, if it has descent. And by the very action I bringing this individual around to their way it's proving to be a dystopian.
That's subjective, but the objective part of an Utopia is that it'd be the removal of all 'bad things' like death, disease, aging, famine, hate, etc. You could subjectively find such a world to lack depth or meaning but it'd be objectively the perfect society as long as it wasn't somehow infringing on basic human rights in order to 'keep peace'. Er, not exactly (but also, sure, it could apply to God and other deities). Just characters/things/the concept of perfect in general. Perfection can only be a subjective and perceived flaw. It only has someone who perceives Utopia to be flawed and boring. Utopia itself is still objectively Utopia.
