Step 1: Make a society that vaguely resembles the American High School System Step 2: Make a love triangle with the main character and two hunky bois Step 3: Profit Alternatively Step 1: Stalinist Russia Alternatively Alternatively Step 1: Pay attention to modern news Step 2: Weep, for you are already in a dystopia
Alternatively: 1: Rip off a historical civil war or some other historic rivalry between states 2: greatly simplify the sides into their most basic characteristics and make one comically evil 3: Replace the leaders with young adults no matter how old the equvient leaders were in real life.
Depends if you're a shareholder at Bion Multinational(TM). *"Bion Multinational(TM): We literally own the rights to your soul!"* On that note, did you know that Google literally owns our souls?
Hot take: Most dystopia's suck because they're simplistic representations of whatever the author doesn't like. This makes them inherently unbelievable and boring.
I mostly agree with this. When you look at dystopia done right, like 1984 or Brave New World, anyone reading can tell the authors have put a lot of effort into defining the rules of the society, and more importantly, the various ways the society both oppresses and constrains the choices of its people while preventing any organized dissent/rebellion. However, most people don't put in the amount of effort necessary to truly flesh out their settings, and instead just use whatever flanderized pastiche of a real-life dictatorship their reader base can easily understand.
@Adam Zahavi Regardless of the inspiration/reasons for creating such societies, Orwell and Huxley still put way more thought into how their societies worked and operated than the average dystopian YA author.
@@pablocores7877 I completely agree with this. Orwell's is of course based on his own experiences with fascism and communism, while stripping away the trappings of political ideology surrounding both and leaving only the totalitarian desire to oppress their citizenry as much as possible. Huxley has less hands-on experience with the society he created, more basing it on what he saw as the logical progression of the society he lived in, but still manages to pretty accurately showcase how totalitarianism can be achieved not just by the iron fist, but by the velvet glove as well (if you will).
A unfair “democratic” system that I’d like to see more of is one where all adults do get to vote, however the amount of votes you get is decided by how much taxes you pay. Those in power can easily justify this system by claiming that it is only fair that those who pay more taxes have a greater say in how the government spends those taxes. I know Belgium used a system like this around 1900 so it has historical precedent.
Holy shit, that's sum good stuff right there. Tsar Nicholas II altered voting laws to make it so that the votes of the peasant and working class weren't equally worth as much as bourgeois votes. I'm paraphrasing but roughly 100,000 peasant votes equalled 1000 rich people votes.
Census suffrage, that's the word for that. "Also known as "censitary suffrage", the opposite of equal suffrage, meaning that the votes cast by those eligible to vote are not equal, but are weighed differently according to the person's rank in the census (e.g., people with higher education have more votes than those with lower education, or a stockholder in a company with more shares has more votes than someone with fewer shares). Suffrage may therefore be limited, but can still be universal."
Only if it's by nominal amount. The working class should pay more than the rich when you add the whole total, and then those taxes should be used to give even more power and money to the rich. You need to adjust accordingly to the rich's only motivation, which is to hoard as much wealth as possible.
It was actually very common back then, and in many of the first democracies (French Republic) there was also a distinction between active and passive citizens. Active citizens were the ones who paid over a certain amount in taxes, and thus the only ones that had the vote. Though the lower classes really disliked the system as they had done most of the fighting in the revolution. So the system brought a ton of unrest and was a part of the reason that the first French Republic was so unstable.
the french Monarchy between 1815 and 1848 had a similar system and i think britain did too,for much of the 19th century workers also had to have some sort of passport so that anywhere they'd go their bosses could know what the workers were up to it was the form of control used by the wealthy
I'd love to read a dystopian story from the perspective of the rebels where they actually _are_ the bad guys and the authority they're fighting against actually has a point and isn't just "evil".
I’m currently on a project based around a civil war which gets some of the elements that are talked about in the video, the beauty is that it’s written in first person but from each sides perspective and some neutral grounds so in a sense the readers from all walks of life can relate to one another but go away with their own perspective that they can pick out from or challenge their own beliefs from what they’ve read themselves
@@mollof7893 the empire is a metaphor for nazi germany, even in the original trilogy, its no coincidence that George Lucas used shots that are almost exact recreations of scenes in nazi propaganda when showing the empire's army. Also they blew up a planet. filled with people. innocent civilians.
By God, add in-world political jokes to a scenario. Political jokes always exist when the people are dissatisfied with their government, even in totalitarian regimes. It's a creative way to convey information without blatant narrator saying things.
Even during the most oppressive parts of the Stalin era, there existed a lot of tolerated political humor that mocked some parts of the state. Making fun of local coruption and incompetence could be ok or even a tool for the leadership in Moscow.
I think you just described Season 3 of Avatar the Last Airbender. - the main villains are a nationalist empire - the citizens of the Fire Nation are subjected to propaganda which is objectively false (the Air Nomad Genocide is referred to as a defeat of the nonexistent Air Nation Army) - many citizens of the Fire Nation are abused by their leaders, with the village from the Painted Lady being a prime example. The local factory is destroying the ecosystem and people are sick and starving as a result, but when the heroes destroy the factory and help the town, they are received with hostility at first for being outsiders - one of the first scenes in the third season looks like Triumph of the Will
Just expanding on this, most of that came from the characteristics Imperial Japan, especially during the early Showa era (Hirohito's reign). - The ultranationalism is self-explanatory, Japan *did* ally with Hitler's Germany & Fascist Italy after all. The Fire Nation's colonialism is a direct comparison to the imperialistic policies of the Meiji, Taisho & Showa governments, and the subsequent takeover of the Earth Kingdom is similar to Japan's invasion of Manchuria. Even the scene in the school where the class payed respects to the Fire Lord is reminiscent of how Japanese school children pray to the Emperor even to this day. - The propaganda again, is easy to compare, but the rewriting of the Air Nomad genocide might be a reference to how under the actually fascist policies of current PM Shinzo Abe (not exaggerating, he's a member of a fascist organisation called "Nippon Kaigi" that claims Japan did nothing wrong in World War II), events like the Rape of Nanking are referred to as "The Nanking Incident". - Japanese culture, especially under Tojo's military rule is very hierarchical, militaristic & isolationist (think of it as a holdover from the days of the Sengoku Jidai). Those at the top often command great & unquestioned power, and those at the bottom just have to take it. Japan rapidly industrialised at the beginning of the Meiji Era at the butt-end of the 19th century, and this trend only continued into the 2nd world war. And yes, people died & were overworked, especially as worker's rights were considered "bowing to the communists". As for Team Avatar being treated as outsiders, that's due to the Japanese concepts of "Nihonjin": Native Japanese & "Gaijin": Foreigners (yes, that's where Gaijin Goombah gets his name). A lot of Gaijin experience racial discrimination over in Japan even to this day, I even experienced some myself when I went there. - Not much to say of the TotW statement. It's just true.
I honestly believe one of the main things holding the dystopian genre back is the fact that a post-apocalyptic setting is considered to come with the territory. Dystopian writers would do well to consider just setting their stories in some type of AU Earth, such as Strangereal from Ace Combat. That way they have more leeway with the geopolitical situation.
I think a good example of dictatorial government to be based on, your dystopian / dictatorial country is the military dictatorships of Latin America, as we have experience with this of various types of dictatorship and how they have gained political justification and popular support. And I don't see much of the kind of dictatorship we've had in the media, and most dictatorships I've seen in fiction are inspired by Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia.
What makes, in your perspective, the dictatorships in LA different from nazi Germany? (I'm from LA, so I already can imagine what you mean, but I would like to know your perspective regardless)
@@riley8385 As a German with not much knowledge about Latin American military dictatorships, I would be interested in this too. What is/was it like in those? How did it influence people's everyday lives?
@@riley8385 Well I mean that the military dictatorship even having similar elements they are different in their formation. The military dictatorship in LA served to secure American interests during the cold war in the region, even though persecution was more to ensure the stability of the regime, and to pursue ideological opponents to secure the interests of external powers. It was not so much a different dictatorship from the Nazi that it aimed to make Germany a hegemonic superpower in the world, but to serve the interests of the United States. I hope I have answered your questions.
@@MrDesmorto Yes, and yeah, that's what I was thinking as well. Specifically here in Argentina, I remember the ads they transmitted saying basically how lucky we were for having the chance of buying our products from the USA instead of from the local industry. It was pretty fucking ham-fisted tbh.
@@johannageisel5390 Well I can talk a little about the experience in Brazil's military dictatorship that lasted from the 60s to 80s. Well the military dictators controlled the presidency by choosing a "president" every 4 years from the generals indirectly and without participation, besides choosing the governors of the states. In addition to the federal government practicing censorship in newspapers that spoke badly of the regime exchanging materials for cake recipes (and that happened.) And they had organs that analyzed scripts, music, movies, etc., so that they did not speak ill of the government. In addition to having government officials who tortured those who thought it was dangerous to the regime and having military personnel who went to universities to ensure that students did not learn so-called "problematic" subjects. Besides all the media programs, they spoke well of the government, without much criticism that it did not have approval of the government itself. And in the colleges the students had pro-government subjects, as the regime saved them of a communist dictatorship. In addition to a paranoid population like Macartism, it was common for people to denounce their relatives, coworker , etc., to the government in exchange for reward such as promotions at work or money, etc. That is why even in the country the people who lived have a nostalgia for him. And during this period the country had a great economic growth, which was very unsustainable, that during the 80s because of the effects of the 1973 oil crisis. In addition to the loss of international support that the dictatorship suffered. That was just a short summary of the story, I hope I answered your questions. This period is quite complex and interesting to study.
interesting idea at 5:55. what if a society's government was set up as a representative democracy, codified individual rights that were historically rare, allowed freedom of travel (freedom to leave) for its citizens, and didn't ACTUALLY have any more corruption than normal? But because of some catastrophe prior to the story, the standard of living has dropped precipitously for the common people, and the populace has time to stew as the society rebuilds. This has many effects, but one of them is that the common people are frustrated and highly distrustful. Events that would have been perceived as just bad news prior to the catastrophe, or a catalyst for substantive legislation, become evidence of an irredeemable system to the frustrated populace. This leads to infighting, indictments of the ruling class, rashes of random violence, etc. And the people continue to elect increasingly cynical representatives to office because they align with their experience. The result is kind of an overly confused way forward, a worsening of circumstances, and maybe eventually an unintentional self destruction. Maybe this would be too much for a YA novel, but it might be interesting to explore a dystopia of desperation, whether real or perceived. The compounding deteriorating effects of intense distrust. Causing impatience, cognitive blind spots, rationalized cruelty, spite. Making the people work against themselves, no evil government actually involved. Where the system is actually well-meaning, just imperfect like every other system, and is essentially scapegoated.
You just described the Brazil of today. I mean, our country is still fucked up with a fucked up representative, but it doesn't change the fact that you described a dystopia with the exception of the government.
It could be sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. As time goes on, and the well-meaning government tries to solve the problem, the upset and bitter populace actually elect the officials they THINK they've been dealing with, corrupt and greedy people take power and the situation can't actually get any better by a systemic problem.
I think the problem with YA dystopia is that it focuses too much of its emphasis on the characters and their backstories rather than on the actual dystopia which arguably waters the message down (whatever it may be). It seems that many YA authors in dystopia have no political message or social issue they want to discuss but rather have a dystopian setting for the sake of a plot device or something to make their books stand out from the typical YA. Much like sci fi and fantasy, dystopian is also easy to fuck up when you don’t plan accordingly. Also, the purpose of the dystopian- why should we care if we have a totalitarian government? A theocracy? Etc. George Orwell, Margaret Atwood, Anthony Burgess etc etc. make it so that readers *care* and are aware should such a system of government ever step into power. It’s not even about the world building, it’s also the purpose of the world building.
It’s also because there so obsessed with trying to rip off the hunger games, 1984 and other successful dystopian novels without having any understanding as to why they got so popular and why their dystopian societies world building and message work so well. That and awful, poorly written self insert characters also brings them down
I came up with an idea for a dystopia that is a union of semi-independent provinces, where the teenage protagonist joins what she thinks is a rebellion and overthrows her local governor. It's revealed the group she joined actually works for the central government and she's just helped to bring her home under their control.
Step 1: Incentivize growth at all cost. Step 2: stigmatize opposition to step 1. People who oppose growth at all costs are communists/traitors/lazy/jealous/looters. Step 3: In conjunction with step 2 provide a scapegoat to blame the negative consequences of step 1. Preferably a marginalized group that people are already suspicious of. Step 4: Convince the people that the scapegoat and the people who oppose growth at all costs are one in the same. Step 5: Eliminate whatever protections exists to protect the scapegoat/opposition so that they are bound but not protected by the law. That way they may be killed with impunity. Step 6: Repeat steps 3-6 Step 7: Profit.
neoliberals: "poor people deserve to starve because they don't work hard enough" fascists: "the weak deserve to die because they don't contribute enough"
Tamantha seems a lot like the US But that’s probably just me overthinking it. We live in a democracy! There’s certainly no dystopia elements to our society /s
Bullshit, US would never bomb a hospital for several hours straight even when the doctors in the hospital called the base and told them they are bombing a hospital.
@@nebeskisrb7765 But "unaffiliated parties" & "lone wolf attackers" who just so happen to all support the policies of the fringe of the Republican party would do it in a heartbeat if they found out the hospital allowed for abortions, and it's almost certain that at least *someone* among the ruling elite would benefit off these attacks financially or politically.
@@nebeskisrb7765 And I'm sure it did. But so did what I mentioned. In fact, that's a very harsh reality women seeking abortions in America have to deal with, especially in the deep south & the Bible Belt.
Dystopia as a genera has problems. For one thing, it tends to fall into the trap of making obviously unsupportable systems. I think you could definitely do a society run by megacorporations, or where the government arranges everyone's marriages, but this needs to be tempered with the fact that someone somewhere doesn't think it can be changed. The many benefits of state-arranged marriages would be touted to the public by the megacorporate overlords and the public would have to at least kinda believe it was the best realistically-achievable system in the immediate term. I.E. Dystopias are not unstable dictatorships but stable societies which manage to produce aggressively suboptimal outcomes for their people, do things that are morally repugnant by any reasonable standard, and STILL manage to convince people that alternatives are not viable, or are even more aggressively suboptimal.
Here's something that I came up, a while ago : So the setting is, of course, quite far in the future (end of the 21rst/beginning of the 22nd Century), set after a disastrous events (WW3, it was not nuclear, but still very devastating for the world, both for the economy and the social order of many countries). The story is set, this time, in Europe, which is ruled by the nation of Eurotopia, and we follow Henry Goodman. Henry is a (heh) good person, not a teen (he's actually a salaryman), and rather enjoy his life in Eurotopia (like many others). One day, he's in the site of a terrorist attack, and is captured by said terrorist, there they expose him to the "truth" : Eurotopia is a dictatorship, they have an extensive surveillance system, reeducate dissenters, yada yada... So Henry is skeptical, but decide to stay a bit with them. Here he discovers that the rebels are actually supported, funded, and trained by the 2 only stables government on Earth : the Pan-Asian Cooperation (it's just China and a few more East-Asia country) and the United Commonwealth of America (It's the US + Canada and Mexico). Both of those governments fund the rebel to try and steal various technologies that only Eurotopia has access to and that permit it to remain stable without using extremely exploitatives means (draconian resources restrication, Not!Slavery in other country to feed their economy, ...). During his stay with the Rebel, Henry discover a bit of the truth of the world : - As stated above, the UCA and PAC use extremely oppressive and exploitative measures to continue to exist, and Eurotopia doesn't want to give them tech because they don't trust them with it. - Most of the world has turned into 3rd World dictatorship that only exist to fuel the above nations economy. - Eurotopia engage in less than savory experiments, and is the only nation that has access to "Miracle tech" that could help save the world, but doesn't want to share it. Instead Eurotopia has engaged in various campaigns of military expansion such as in Oceania, the Middle East, Russia, and North/South Africa. - Eurotopia democratic institution is completely rigged in favor of the leading party, and many actual politicians seen on TV are actually dead. - The Rebels are just terrorist, and no different from ISIS or Al-Qaeda in terms of tactics and methodology. So over the course of this part Henry become more skeptical and mistrustful of both Eurotopia and the Rebel, but despite this he keeps being a fundamentally good person (which earned him the ire of quite a few people that see him as naive). He keep helping others, and try to find solution to certain problem that would satisfy everyone, and make the least suffering possible. As time passes the Rebels finally manage to somehow get access to the Location of the place of the Group that is supposed to run everything which is an old server storage facility. Turns out that this was an ambush, most of the Rebel are either dead, or forced to flee, and Henry, alongside a few other is captured. There he is separated from his comrade and is lead to this "Group" that control Eurotopia. Turns out that it's an AI, called the great Mother. Then flashback of her creation : She was created by the now defunct European Federation (or Union), there she was "mentored" to basically recognize that some humans are bad and some are good (with her answering that she knows and that she isn't some kind of shitty AI like skynet). She was also created to basically help solve various problems for the EF (or EU), but over time she was given more and more authority, at some point she was realizing that many problems came from corruption and things like that. And she made a coup and then took over the Nation, all the while keeping the facade of democracy. Here she would also explain why she doesn't give the Miracle techs : Because they could be turned into weapons of mass destruction that would make Nukes seems like fireworks in comparison (example Nanomachines,...), and the only reason she even use them is due to necessity, as she doesn't even fully trust herself with them. This also where we discover that she quickly discovered another problem : Homo Sapiens is not adapted to civilization, many psychological and societal problems are caused by the fact that Homo Sapiens has evolved to be Hunter-Gatherer nomads, and not to live sedentarily in Apartments with cars and the Internet. As such she created Homo Stellaris, a new race of Humans that were adapted to this life in civilization. Turns out that Henry is one of them, and that he was sent in an Orphanage to see if his basic psychology would hold in such a world, and that many other Homo Stellaris were also sent into various parts of the world to test this. The results were unanimously successful. After telling Henry this, she have him meet with other Homo Stellaris, that have been grown and educated in underground Bunker and Isolated communities. Said community is presented as a true Utopia, where everyone is kind and helpful to each other, where conflicts are not resolved through violence but through conversation, where the Family has as much importance as the species, and where they think first of the species first and not themselves, while also maintaining a spirit of competition that doesn't devolve in hatred. We also see that there are still some problems, but in general they are not too prevalent. During his stay here, he makes friends and forget for a while the rest of the world, due to the joy of finally meeting people that think and act a bit like him. Still, after some time he begin to ask what happened to his other friend and the world in general, to which the AI cryptically say to not worry about it. After a few months there is an announcement that they can finally go out of their bunker. There we see a scenery filled with nature, and empty cities just waiting for someone to live in it. Henry is increasingly panicked when he recognized that it's the city that he lived before. Then the AI explain to him that during the time he was in the Bunker, it launched a rapid campaign of extermination against Homo Sapiens, and then spent the remaining time repairing the damage caused by both Humanity and the war. The Outro would be Henry recounting the story of Homo Sapiens to a group of Children, while another mother tell her child to eat his vegetables or else the mean Sapiens will come and eat him.
That AI called Mother that grew her own humans to make sure they're moral, and then wiped out the earth as a hard reset... sounds like the Netflix movie "I Am Mother." But neat ideas, it's pretty good.
Another good way to explain why regular people are ok with dystopia they are living in is the fear of change or instability. Propaganda is just one of many reasons and not really that common IRL. Usually, people going along with the dystopian government because they are afraid of bad times that come after demolishing the current system, maybe they saw power vacuum before, maybe there were horrible times before the dystopian system took place. Or maybe they fear civil war that goes along with rebelling against the system. Or maybe their life depends on this system so they are ok with anything evil as long as it does not affect them directly.
I don't like dystopias because they tend to portray everyone negatively and while I can be cynical the idea that everyone is horrific breaks my suspension of disbelief.
I read this teen dystopian novel that was alright until the end where the perpetual war was stopped by the protagonist talking to the AI governments and telling the two AIs to stop the proxy war because crushing poverty is bad and teenage angst
I feel like we tend to think that way not because the modern world is actually getting dystopian, but because most dystopias basically are just the modern world with all its issues extrapolated to the extreme. Of course it'll all seem at least somewhat familiar.
This is officially the best Dystopian writing advice ive seen on CZcams (and ive been trawling the site for tips on this for ages and most of it is cliche as f***). Cudos to you sir. :)
Man I want to write a dystopia where, after some big huge war, humans almost going extinct, the works, and as a result the new society that forms from the survivors is EXTREMELY anti-conflict, to the point where literally any conflict, no matter how minor, even some people having a stupid verbal argument, bothers them, and they’re obsessed with everyone getting along and being nice all of the time, and are willing to go to extremes to reinforce this, like maybe drugging people or something, but like, how am I going to do that without it being stupid? How do I get it to work?
Like if someone had written a book about the Amity from Divergent. Damn, that series could've been a lot more interesting as a reflection of society if it had been centered around any faction other than the gun-toting adrenaline junkies.
Maybe if there is a new political doctrine, it could be a normal medical treatment to drug people to be nice. For example: ,,100 years ago, people were allowed to argue with each other. In these sort of society, humans are made to fight, because they live in a constant conflict between their own wishes and the wishes of other people. This made the great war even possible in the first place. So we need to erase the conflict by drugging people. Only that way we can make people peaceful, because we make a war impossible if we drug people even when they have just a verbal argument. Better be safe than allow people to argue. So we, the government, want you, our brave medical employees, to follow our rules to help keeping humanity peaceful." That way, the doctors don't are evil in this story, because they only do their job. That makes it a bit more scary, because your protagonist doesn't see his enemies, because the government is evil. Add some fake science about human behavior and how humans begin to fight (in a society without conflict it is very easy to fake facts about how humans start fighting in a normal environment). So basically, make it a real and plausible political ideology and make the doctors believe in fake science, and it becomes plausible as a whole. But do not simplify your scenario, because the concept sounds goofy at first. Instead you can say ,,people don't act rational, why should political ideologies be rational?". People are really stupid, and so your basic concept does not have to be plausible if you explain it properly. Explain your concept as much as possible, and your concept becomes plausible enough to be taken serious by the audience. Sorry for my bad english, hope my thoughts are understandable.
One thing I like is the "bread and circus" kind of dystopia. Think "Brave New World" or that kind of stuff. Looks like a utopia on the outside, or at least seems like not a shithole, but actually is a shithole since A) the people have no emotional maturity since they have no hardships to deal with or B) they have no freedom to be anything other than perfectly content with their life. Add some ubiquitous drugs there too since that's cool and stuff.
I am thinking about writing a dystopian story, the thing i imagine the plot to be is on a fictional planet, who used to be a colony of another one, was taken over by an organization that wanted independence and turned it into a dictatorship, im still thinking on how the main characte finds out about the resistance movement though (which isnt actually worldwide, it is based only inside the province where the story happens)
i think an important aspect of dystopia isn't just to create a horrific possibility but to comment on what is already happening, but take it to an extreme, like satire. like 1984 wasn't just about stalinist russia, it was also very much about britain, too, at the time eric sinclair wrote it. he actually worked at the bbc and that influenced his story as well.
Although touched upon, you could have mentioned the other powerhouse dystopias: We (the Soviet novel about an equal and privateless society), Brave New World (from Aldous Huxley, famous for the drug that makes you happy) and Fahrenheit 451 (controlling information through education and the limiting of access to most, as well as an irrational fear created against books).
Say what you will about how good or bad the YA dystopia novels were--and a lot of them were very bad--their ultimate message was empowering: that if you have enough courage and determination, you can change the world. It is a wonderful message to give to young people.
Plenty make the argument its some form of brainwashing... I don't think so, and neither do my friends since we all find it fucking annoying. And tedious.
Hm, must have missed the dystopian wave following in the wake of the Hunger Games. Then again, I tend to mostly focus on the classics and didn't really care for Hunger Games so I guess my view on Dystopias is untarnished. As for the video itself, yea I think you hit the nail on the head here. If I were to ever write a Dystopia it would most likely focus on runaway capitalism and the misuse of copyright and patents. Another thing that might be important is the idea of "How did we get to this point". Basically fleshing things out to explain how things got this bad.
Jon didn't know he lived in a dystopian society. He didn't know because those in power removed all books, all videos, all news articles, anything and everything that defined 'dystopia'. The word, the idea simply did not exist. As far as Jon knew, his life and those suffering around him, was normal. He broke off a chunk of moldy bread and dipped into the broth of leaf soup, took a bite and savored the earthy taste of mold mixed with the bitterness of the soup. "Good day," he thought. He spat out a leathery leaf, tore another chunk of bread. "Today is a good day."
If you ever want to know how propaganda operates in regards to U.S. media, just look up Noam Chomsky and Manufacturing Consent. There's a 6 min video of his interview with a British journalist, and a longer one as well, definitely recommend
Reminds me of Unwanteds where there was no actual external enemy, but the dystopian elements were kinda dropped in favour of the more fantasy adventure, and only really pop up in the first book.
I wanted (and still do) to write a dystopian novel but I'd call it a Dystopian Comedy or a "Silly Dystopia". Kind of how I view Witch&Wizard by James Patterson. The whole point is "Oh yeah this would never happen. If it did, people would do stupid things." If I wanted to write a much more seirous dystopia I'd put more thought into it and make it be more about Alternative Facts.
Why does every dystopia have to be in USA? Let’s be real, if there was a nuclear war America would be the first to go. How about Europe? Asia? Even Africa?
George Orwell is one of my favorite authors and he fought hard that animal farm is not a representation of communism. You can’t reference things without respecting the authors, like your channel actually though.
The whole point of a dystopia is that you WOULD want to live there. On the surface, you would see free housing, free healthcare, free food, clean streets, low crime.... But once you live there and start seeing how the system works, it becomes a moral conundrum: Licenses to have children, Government surveilence cameras INSIDE your home, Tracking chips in your car, Spy software on your computer, Social credit score affecting your ability to get a promotion... Your life will be great so long as you mind your place and toe the party line. Question authority, rock the boat, express unpopular opinions, and the powers that be (Both govt and Corp) start clamping down. The Trope of SciFi is that you have to 'Suspend your disbelief'... Wrong. What makes for a good narrative is when the audience can see the world you've created and believe that your world is not only entirely possible, but actually desirable.
6:30 this has happened in a part of my country, public education is controled by regions, one region got separatist in to power by convenient political alliances at the time, they modified the education system and feed the childs lies about history and to buy in the a separatist ideology supported by fake history, now we have a problem where in that region a little less than half the population is separatist, and a little more than half the population is anti-separatist, the separatist always got in to power in elections there because, the anti-separatist may vote the right or the left, and the right or the left do not ally, but the separatist vote separatist parties, and they do ally
I have this vague idea for a dystopian/apocolyptic world surrounding the ideas of self-interest and internationalism. You would have these different factions scheming and fighting to protect their own famililies, communities and/or citizens at the expense of others, as resources rapidly dwindle in an already resource scarce land. To be more specific, the story would take place 200 years into the future in Ireland, a former hotbed of ethnic strife, and one of the few places in Europe free from overt nuclear destruction. Still, 80% of Ireland's food and energy are imported, so already you have mass evacuation, rioting and famine when infrastructure breaks down. Then come refugees from Britain and the continent, overwhelming the native Irish population. Skirmishes in the North result in the overrun of the armed forces also and the subversion of Irish politics by what's left of the Royal Armed Forces, obstensibly a UN peace-keeping force. Only through frequent imports from the few remaining agricultural centres in the Southern-Hemisphere and outside Earth might anyone survive the winter. The lesson to be learned is that no one group ought to take precedent over another, even if that means *your* own discomfort, and that if maybe we learned to cooperate a little more instead of compete, the Irish and European peoples may have survived.
I don't understand one thing. If Tamantha is so war-torn, then wouldn't a successful revolution simply cause it to be conquered and divided by its many enemies?
That’s a problem most of these dystopian stories rarely seem to remember - just because your current shitty life/government got overthrown, doesn’t mean your work is done - in fact your less than halfway there. Just because this current system was abolished doesn’t mean your smart enough to figure an alternative, better system to replace it with (either that or end up in anarchy) so most likely you’ll end up with something just as bad or even worse.That’s like the whole premise of animal farm, a classic dystopian fiction.
i came into this video ready to prep a potential novel, full of motivation and inspiration. then everything you said resonated because i live in israel. now i'm the this is fine dog meme as everything around me is on fire.
"They still hold elections and such but they use political maneuvering to make sure that they maintain control." Wouldn't that be every bourgeois liberal republic ever?
My problem with most dystopias is stagnation. I think it was inspired by 1984 where the whole idea is that the system can`t be changed for better or worse. But that is a rare case IRL, almost all dystopian regimes are ultimately fated to collapse by their nature. That's a really good point to address as the heroes could fight the system for the surviving of society and not because they simply don`t like the system. These types of characters often are just projections of modern IRL people with a set of beliefs that couldn`t be present in a dystopian world. But rebelling after seeing society going in the downfall due to ideology, elites or anything that the author wants to critic is way more believable. Also, this is the way to be sure your dystopia couldn`t be considered utopia even by fanboys of things you`re criticizing as it going to lead to catastrophe in the end.
A large amount of the impact of the stagnant tolitarianism such as in 1984 had arguably been lost compared to the past( specifically pre 90s). Given when it was written totalitarian regimes had been seen to collapse after a fast burn (Nazi Germany) but they also had Stalinist Russia still big on the world stage, a world of likeminded regimes maintaining themselves by keeping war limited to an effective no man's land/away from their core regions may not seem so unrealistic.
An aspect of dystopian novels or villains in dystopia that I see lacking is the fact that the society is normal to all of the characharacters....it's the readers who object to the society. I think it would be more interesting for the protagonist to first come to the realization that their leader or organization is evil as part of their character arc....after all, they don't know any different. That would make things more interesting. The writer needs to show that the villain is evil absent the dystopia, because they too are a product of that environment. It feels like the villain is evil just because the writer says so or because they pick on the protagonist... that's not enough for me. I want a villain who is plain bad on their own merit and not just doing their job as the leader of the corrupt government or organization. And they need to be IN more than a couple of chapters and their influence felt in the plot of the story, otherwise why are you running, Protagonist?
I'm living in Mexico and an interesting facet of 'separation of church and state' here means that members of the clergy can't run for political offices
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all"
Step 1: Make a society that vaguely resembles the American High School System
Step 2: Make a love triangle with the main character and two hunky bois
Step 3: Profit
Alternatively
Step 1: Stalinist Russia
Alternatively Alternatively
Step 1: Pay attention to modern news
Step 2: Weep, for you are already in a dystopia
Did you take these from Terrible Writing Advice?
Alternatively:
1: Rip off a historical civil war or some other historic rivalry between states
2: greatly simplify the sides into their most basic characteristics and make one comically evil
3: Replace the leaders with young adults no matter how old the equvient leaders were in real life.
Hong Kong. Is that you?
Step 2: don't do any research about Stalinist Russia.
No story is a story without a love triangle.
>Let's make a dystopia
>Proceeds to describe the United States
>Profit?
Depends if you're a shareholder at Bion Multinational(TM).
*"Bion Multinational(TM): We literally own the rights to your soul!"*
On that note, did you know that Google literally owns our souls?
I had this realization as well halfway through the video, haha.
Thanks, I doesn't need to write this anymore :)
America is literally a dystopian civilization. But that's what you get when you have your country founded by merchants and slave owners
anamarvelo what the fuck are you on about?
Hot take: Most dystopia's suck because they're simplistic representations of whatever the author doesn't like. This makes them inherently unbelievable and boring.
I mostly agree with this. When you look at dystopia done right, like 1984 or Brave New World, anyone reading can tell the authors have put a lot of effort into defining the rules of the society, and more importantly, the various ways the society both oppresses and constrains the choices of its people while preventing any organized dissent/rebellion. However, most people don't put in the amount of effort necessary to truly flesh out their settings, and instead just use whatever flanderized pastiche of a real-life dictatorship their reader base can easily understand.
Adam Zahavi But they had developed world building and were more realistic because they were based on real societies.
@Adam Zahavi Regardless of the inspiration/reasons for creating such societies, Orwell and Huxley still put way more thought into how their societies worked and operated than the average dystopian YA author.
@@pablocores7877 I completely agree with this. Orwell's is of course based on his own experiences with fascism and communism, while stripping away the trappings of political ideology surrounding both and leaving only the totalitarian desire to oppress their citizenry as much as possible. Huxley has less hands-on experience with the society he created, more basing it on what he saw as the logical progression of the society he lived in, but still manages to pretty accurately showcase how totalitarianism can be achieved not just by the iron fist, but by the velvet glove as well (if you will).
@Adam Zahavi I did see that but I still wanted to rebut the points you had made in that comment.
I really like this channel. It feels like im at a friend's house talking about writing and worldbuilding
Parasocial relationships are hell of a thing
I wish I knew what being at a friends house felt like
@@reecev2087 “11 months ago” O O O H B O Y
@@reecev2087 ☹️
A unfair “democratic” system that I’d like to see more of is one where all adults do get to vote, however the amount of votes you get is decided by how much taxes you pay. Those in power can easily justify this system by claiming that it is only fair that those who pay more taxes have a greater say in how the government spends those taxes.
I know Belgium used a system like this around 1900 so it has historical precedent.
Holy shit, that's sum good stuff right there. Tsar Nicholas II altered voting laws to make it so that the votes of the peasant and working class weren't equally worth as much as bourgeois votes. I'm paraphrasing but roughly 100,000 peasant votes equalled 1000 rich people votes.
Census suffrage, that's the word for that.
"Also known as "censitary suffrage", the opposite of equal suffrage, meaning that the votes cast by those eligible to vote are not equal, but are weighed differently according to the person's rank in the census (e.g., people with higher education have more votes than those with lower education, or a stockholder in a company with more shares has more votes than someone with fewer shares). Suffrage may therefore be limited, but can still be universal."
Only if it's by nominal amount.
The working class should pay more than the rich when you add the whole total, and then those taxes should be used to give even more power and money to the rich.
You need to adjust accordingly to the rich's only motivation, which is to hoard as much wealth as possible.
It was actually very common back then, and in many of the first democracies (French Republic) there was also a distinction between active and passive citizens. Active citizens were the ones who paid over a certain amount in taxes, and thus the only ones that had the vote. Though the lower classes really disliked the system as they had done most of the fighting in the revolution. So the system brought a ton of unrest and was a part of the reason that the first French Republic was so unstable.
the french Monarchy between 1815 and 1848 had a similar system and i think britain did too,for much of the 19th century workers also had to have some sort of passport so that anywhere they'd go their bosses could know what the workers were up to it was the form of control used by the wealthy
I'd love to read a dystopian story from the perspective of the rebels where they actually _are_ the bad guys and the authority they're fighting against actually has a point and isn't just "evil".
Isn’t that kinda Star Wars?
I’m currently on a project based around a civil war which gets some of the elements that are talked about in the video, the beauty is that it’s written in first person but from each sides perspective and some neutral grounds so in a sense the readers from all walks of life can relate to one another but go away with their own perspective that they can pick out from or challenge their own beliefs from what they’ve read themselves
@@mollof7893 the empire is a metaphor for nazi germany, even in the original trilogy, its no coincidence that George Lucas used shots that are almost exact recreations of scenes in nazi propaganda when showing the empire's army. Also they blew up a planet. filled with people. innocent civilians.
This whole 'the empire were the good guys' thing has gone so far that people leave out the Death Star.
-Successful propaganda?-
@@mollof7893 it usually is.
By God, add in-world political jokes to a scenario. Political jokes always exist when the people are dissatisfied with their government, even in totalitarian regimes. It's a creative way to convey information without blatant narrator saying things.
There's no truth in the News and no news in the Truth.
Even during the most oppressive parts of the Stalin era, there existed a lot of tolerated political humor that mocked some parts of the state. Making fun of local coruption and incompetence could be ok or even a tool for the leadership in Moscow.
Like in Mr. Robot, "E-Corp" being called "Evil-Corp"
I think you just described Season 3 of Avatar the Last Airbender.
- the main villains are a nationalist empire
- the citizens of the Fire Nation are subjected to propaganda which is objectively false (the Air Nomad Genocide is referred to as a defeat of the nonexistent Air Nation Army)
- many citizens of the Fire Nation are abused by their leaders, with the village from the Painted Lady being a prime example. The local factory is destroying the ecosystem and people are sick and starving as a result, but when the heroes destroy the factory and help the town, they are received with hostility at first for being outsiders
- one of the first scenes in the third season looks like Triumph of the Will
Just expanding on this, most of that came from the characteristics Imperial Japan, especially during the early Showa era (Hirohito's reign).
- The ultranationalism is self-explanatory, Japan *did* ally with Hitler's Germany & Fascist Italy after all. The Fire Nation's colonialism is a direct comparison to the imperialistic policies of the Meiji, Taisho & Showa governments, and the subsequent takeover of the Earth Kingdom is similar to Japan's invasion of Manchuria. Even the scene in the school where the class payed respects to the Fire Lord is reminiscent of how Japanese school children pray to the Emperor even to this day.
- The propaganda again, is easy to compare, but the rewriting of the Air Nomad genocide might be a reference to how under the actually fascist policies of current PM Shinzo Abe (not exaggerating, he's a member of a fascist organisation called "Nippon Kaigi" that claims Japan did nothing wrong in World War II), events like the Rape of Nanking are referred to as "The Nanking Incident".
- Japanese culture, especially under Tojo's military rule is very hierarchical, militaristic & isolationist (think of it as a holdover from the days of the Sengoku Jidai). Those at the top often command great & unquestioned power, and those at the bottom just have to take it. Japan rapidly industrialised at the beginning of the Meiji Era at the butt-end of the 19th century, and this trend only continued into the 2nd world war. And yes, people died & were overworked, especially as worker's rights were considered "bowing to the communists". As for Team Avatar being treated as outsiders, that's due to the Japanese concepts of "Nihonjin": Native Japanese & "Gaijin": Foreigners (yes, that's where Gaijin Goombah gets his name). A lot of Gaijin experience racial discrimination over in Japan even to this day, I even experienced some myself when I went there.
- Not much to say of the TotW statement. It's just true.
I honestly believe one of the main things holding the dystopian genre back is the fact that a post-apocalyptic setting is considered to come with the territory.
Dystopian writers would do well to consider just setting their stories in some type of AU Earth, such as Strangereal from Ace Combat. That way they have more leeway with the geopolitical situation.
I think a good example of dictatorial government to be based on, your dystopian / dictatorial country is the military dictatorships of Latin America, as we have experience with this of various types of dictatorship and how they have gained political justification and popular support.
And I don't see much of the kind of dictatorship we've had in the media, and most dictatorships I've seen in fiction are inspired by Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia.
What makes, in your perspective, the dictatorships in LA different from nazi Germany? (I'm from LA, so I already can imagine what you mean, but I would like to know your perspective regardless)
@@riley8385 As a German with not much knowledge about Latin American military dictatorships, I would be interested in this too.
What is/was it like in those? How did it influence people's everyday lives?
@@riley8385
Well I mean that the military dictatorship even having similar elements they are different in their formation.
The military dictatorship in LA served to secure American interests during the cold war in the region, even though persecution was more to ensure the stability of the regime, and to pursue ideological opponents to secure the interests of external powers.
It was not so much a different dictatorship from the Nazi that it aimed to make Germany a hegemonic superpower in the world, but to serve the interests of the United States.
I hope I have answered your questions.
@@MrDesmorto Yes, and yeah, that's what I was thinking as well.
Specifically here in Argentina, I remember the ads they transmitted saying basically how lucky we were for having the chance of buying our products from the USA instead of from the local industry.
It was pretty fucking ham-fisted tbh.
@@johannageisel5390 Well I can talk a little about the experience in Brazil's military dictatorship that lasted from the 60s to 80s.
Well the military dictators controlled the presidency by choosing a "president" every 4 years from the generals indirectly and without participation, besides choosing the governors of the states.
In addition to the federal government practicing censorship in newspapers that spoke badly of the regime exchanging materials for cake recipes (and that happened.)
And they had organs that analyzed scripts, music, movies, etc., so that they did not speak ill of the government.
In addition to having government officials who tortured those who thought it was dangerous to the regime and having military personnel who went to universities to ensure that students did not learn so-called "problematic" subjects.
Besides all the media programs, they spoke well of the government, without much criticism that it did not have approval of the government itself.
And in the colleges the students had pro-government subjects, as the regime saved them of a communist dictatorship.
In addition to a paranoid population like Macartism, it was common for people to denounce their relatives, coworker , etc., to the government in exchange for reward such as promotions at work or money, etc.
That is why even in the country the people who lived have a nostalgia for him.
And during this period the country had a great economic growth, which was very unsustainable, that during the 80s because of the effects of the 1973 oil crisis.
In addition to the loss of international support that the dictatorship suffered.
That was just a short summary of the story, I hope I answered your questions.
This period is quite complex and interesting to study.
interesting idea at 5:55.
what if a society's government was set up as a representative democracy, codified individual rights that were historically rare, allowed freedom of travel (freedom to leave) for its citizens, and didn't ACTUALLY have any more corruption than normal? But because of some catastrophe prior to the story, the standard of living has dropped precipitously for the common people, and the populace has time to stew as the society rebuilds.
This has many effects, but one of them is that the common people are frustrated and highly distrustful. Events that would have been perceived as just bad news prior to the catastrophe, or a catalyst for substantive legislation, become evidence of an irredeemable system to the frustrated populace. This leads to infighting, indictments of the ruling class, rashes of random violence, etc. And the people continue to elect increasingly cynical representatives to office because they align with their experience. The result is kind of an overly confused way forward, a worsening of circumstances, and maybe eventually an unintentional self destruction.
Maybe this would be too much for a YA novel, but it might be interesting to explore a dystopia of desperation, whether real or perceived. The compounding deteriorating effects of intense distrust. Causing impatience, cognitive blind spots, rationalized cruelty, spite. Making the people work against themselves, no evil government actually involved. Where the system is actually well-meaning, just imperfect like every other system, and is essentially scapegoated.
That sounds both realistic and fair and balanced!
Like the Communist and Fascist Parties gaining influence in the US during the Great Depression?
You just described the Brazil of today.
I mean, our country is still fucked up with a fucked up representative, but it doesn't change the fact that you described a dystopia with the exception of the government.
It could be sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. As time goes on, and the well-meaning government tries to solve the problem, the upset and bitter populace actually elect the officials they THINK they've been dealing with, corrupt and greedy people take power and the situation can't actually get any better by a systemic problem.
Very interesting premise
I think the problem with YA dystopia is that it focuses too much of its emphasis on the characters and their backstories rather than on the actual dystopia which arguably waters the message down (whatever it may be). It seems that many YA authors in dystopia have no political message or social issue they want to discuss but rather have a dystopian setting for the sake of a plot device or something to make their books stand out from the typical YA. Much like sci fi and fantasy, dystopian is also easy to fuck up when you don’t plan accordingly.
Also, the purpose of the dystopian- why should we care if we have a totalitarian government? A theocracy? Etc. George Orwell, Margaret Atwood, Anthony Burgess etc etc. make it so that readers *care* and are aware should such a system of government ever step into power. It’s not even about the world building, it’s also the purpose of the world building.
It’s also because there so obsessed with trying to rip off the hunger games, 1984 and other successful dystopian novels without having any understanding as to why they got so popular and why their dystopian societies world building and message work so well. That and awful, poorly written self insert characters also brings them down
I came up with an idea for a dystopia that is a union of semi-independent provinces, where the teenage protagonist joins what she thinks is a rebellion and overthrows her local governor. It's revealed the group she joined actually works for the central government and she's just helped to bring her home under their control.
So essentially anyone who followed Lawrence of Arabia?
@@greg_mca If Lawrence had actually supported the stupid decisions his government made.
Step 1: incentivize growth at all costs
Step 2: ???
Step 3: profit
Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations (1776)
Step 1: Incentivize growth at all cost.
Step 2: stigmatize opposition to step 1. People who oppose growth at all costs are communists/traitors/lazy/jealous/looters.
Step 3: In conjunction with step 2 provide a scapegoat to blame the negative consequences of step 1. Preferably a marginalized group that people are already suspicious of.
Step 4: Convince the people that the scapegoat and the people who oppose growth at all costs are one in the same.
Step 5: Eliminate whatever protections exists to protect the scapegoat/opposition so that they are bound but not protected by the law. That way they may be killed with impunity.
Step 6: Repeat steps 3-6
Step 7: Profit.
neoliberals: "poor people deserve to starve because they don't work hard enough"
fascists: "the weak deserve to die because they don't contribute enough"
@@blixer8384 this just sound like today in USA 🙃
Hmmm... I think I'll just think up a bunch of things I don't like about our world, and amp them up to 11.
oh! and maybe make a board game based on your story!
Crap, I think I just came up with a slightly worse version of our own society.
With mean teachers!!!!
Mm, my book filled with my cry porn and hate fantasies will make much money, yes, yes...
So basically Cyberpunk
Things I want from a dystopia
-romans
-the Romans but futuristic
-spicier romans
yeah I just want a roman dystopia
Roman dystopia with benito mussolini?
spicy Romans 😂😂😂
@@frenchguy8375 Benijulius Mussolinisar
Falco? I know it's more detective fiction, but it is about a republican dealing with corruption in the roman empire so you might want to give it a go.
cyberpunk 2077 but with pasta
In terms of details, all you need to know for The Unwanteds is that kids who draw are sent to be thrown into a lake of boiling oil pre-highschool.
Tamantha seems a lot like the US
But that’s probably just me overthinking it. We live in a democracy! There’s certainly no dystopia elements to our society /s
@@clovergreen9959 And is now used to preserve the power of the ruling class. Good job?
Bullshit, US would never bomb a hospital for several hours straight even when the doctors in the hospital called the base and told them they are bombing a hospital.
@@nebeskisrb7765 But "unaffiliated parties" & "lone wolf attackers" who just so happen to all support the policies of the fringe of the Republican party would do it in a heartbeat if they found out the hospital allowed for abortions, and it's almost certain that at least *someone* among the ruling elite would benefit off these attacks financially or politically.
@@Hawkatana The hospital bombing I mentioned above actually happened. In Afghanistan, during Obama's tenure.
@@nebeskisrb7765 And I'm sure it did. But so did what I mentioned. In fact, that's a very harsh reality women seeking abortions in America have to deal with, especially in the deep south & the Bible Belt.
Dystopia as a genera has problems.
For one thing, it tends to fall into the trap of making obviously unsupportable systems. I think you could definitely do a society run by megacorporations, or where the government arranges everyone's marriages, but this needs to be tempered with the fact that someone somewhere doesn't think it can be changed. The many benefits of state-arranged marriages would be touted to the public by the megacorporate overlords and the public would have to at least kinda believe it was the best realistically-achievable system in the immediate term. I.E. Dystopias are not unstable dictatorships but stable societies which manage to produce aggressively suboptimal outcomes for their people, do things that are morally repugnant by any reasonable standard, and STILL manage to convince people that alternatives are not viable, or are even more aggressively suboptimal.
That describes the dystopian world I am making.
So Just Normal Society?
Around the 9 minutes mark, yes.
Sounds like we may live in one.
@@reveranttangent1771 no literally all of it is about the US
“A dystopia is world where we are convinced we live in a Utopia”
-me
Here's something that I came up, a while ago :
So the setting is, of course, quite far in the future (end of the 21rst/beginning of the 22nd Century), set after a disastrous events (WW3, it was not nuclear, but still very devastating for the world, both for the economy and the social order of many countries). The story is set, this time, in Europe, which is ruled by the nation of Eurotopia, and we follow Henry Goodman. Henry is a (heh) good person, not a teen (he's actually a salaryman), and rather enjoy his life in Eurotopia (like many others). One day, he's in the site of a terrorist attack, and is captured by said terrorist, there they expose him to the "truth" : Eurotopia is a dictatorship, they have an extensive surveillance system, reeducate dissenters, yada yada...
So Henry is skeptical, but decide to stay a bit with them. Here he discovers that the rebels are actually supported, funded, and trained by the 2 only stables government on Earth : the Pan-Asian Cooperation (it's just China and a few more East-Asia country) and the United Commonwealth of America (It's the US + Canada and Mexico). Both of those governments fund the rebel to try and steal various technologies that only Eurotopia has access to and that permit it to remain stable without using extremely exploitatives means (draconian resources restrication, Not!Slavery in other country to feed their economy, ...).
During his stay with the Rebel, Henry discover a bit of the truth of the world :
- As stated above, the UCA and PAC use extremely oppressive and exploitative measures to continue to exist, and Eurotopia doesn't want to give them tech because they don't trust them with it.
- Most of the world has turned into 3rd World dictatorship that only exist to fuel the above nations economy.
- Eurotopia engage in less than savory experiments, and is the only nation that has access to "Miracle tech" that could help save the world, but doesn't want to share it. Instead Eurotopia has engaged in various campaigns of military expansion such as in Oceania, the Middle East, Russia, and North/South Africa.
- Eurotopia democratic institution is completely rigged in favor of the leading party, and many actual politicians seen on TV are actually dead.
- The Rebels are just terrorist, and no different from ISIS or Al-Qaeda in terms of tactics and methodology.
So over the course of this part Henry become more skeptical and mistrustful of both Eurotopia and the Rebel, but despite this he keeps being a fundamentally good person (which earned him the ire of quite a few people that see him as naive). He keep helping others, and try to find solution to certain problem that would satisfy everyone, and make the least suffering possible.
As time passes the Rebels finally manage to somehow get access to the Location of the place of the Group that is supposed to run everything which is an old server storage facility. Turns out that this was an ambush, most of the Rebel are either dead, or forced to flee, and Henry, alongside a few other is captured. There he is separated from his comrade and is lead to this "Group" that control Eurotopia. Turns out that it's an AI, called the great Mother.
Then flashback of her creation : She was created by the now defunct European Federation (or Union), there she was "mentored" to basically recognize that some humans are bad and some are good (with her answering that she knows and that she isn't some kind of shitty AI like skynet). She was also created to basically help solve various problems for the EF (or EU), but over time she was given more and more authority, at some point she was realizing that many problems came from corruption and things like that. And she made a coup and then took over the Nation, all the while keeping the facade of democracy.
Here she would also explain why she doesn't give the Miracle techs : Because they could be turned into weapons of mass destruction that would make Nukes seems like fireworks in comparison (example Nanomachines,...), and the only reason she even use them is due to necessity, as she doesn't even fully trust herself with them.
This also where we discover that she quickly discovered another problem : Homo Sapiens is not adapted to civilization, many psychological and societal problems are caused by the fact that Homo Sapiens has evolved to be Hunter-Gatherer nomads, and not to live sedentarily in Apartments with cars and the Internet. As such she created Homo Stellaris, a new race of Humans that were adapted to this life in civilization.
Turns out that Henry is one of them, and that he was sent in an Orphanage to see if his basic psychology would hold in such a world, and that many other Homo Stellaris were also sent into various parts of the world to test this. The results were unanimously successful. After telling Henry this, she have him meet with other Homo Stellaris, that have been grown and educated in underground Bunker and Isolated communities.
Said community is presented as a true Utopia, where everyone is kind and helpful to each other, where conflicts are not resolved through violence but through conversation, where the Family has as much importance as the species, and where they think first of the species first and not themselves, while also maintaining a spirit of competition that doesn't devolve in hatred. We also see that there are still some problems, but in general they are not too prevalent.
During his stay here, he makes friends and forget for a while the rest of the world, due to the joy of finally meeting people that think and act a bit like him. Still, after some time he begin to ask what happened to his other friend and the world in general, to which the AI cryptically say to not worry about it.
After a few months there is an announcement that they can finally go out of their bunker. There we see a scenery filled with nature, and empty cities just waiting for someone to live in it. Henry is increasingly panicked when he recognized that it's the city that he lived before. Then the AI explain to him that during the time he was in the Bunker, it launched a rapid campaign of extermination against Homo Sapiens, and then spent the remaining time repairing the damage caused by both Humanity and the war.
The Outro would be Henry recounting the story of Homo Sapiens to a group of Children, while another mother tell her child to eat his vegetables or else the mean Sapiens will come and eat him.
This is AWESOME!
@@Rakaziel Well, thanks for the reaction !
@@hajjules Heh, writting take time, and I have other project which I'm currently working on.
This sounds really good. It'll be cool to read the full story
That AI called Mother that grew her own humans to make sure they're moral, and then wiped out the earth as a hard reset... sounds like the Netflix movie "I Am Mother."
But neat ideas, it's pretty good.
"What's the worse society you can imagine"
One where Amy Schumer is considered funny
Another good way to explain why regular people are ok with dystopia they are living in is the fear of change or instability. Propaganda is just one of many reasons and not really that common IRL. Usually, people going along with the dystopian government because they are afraid of bad times that come after demolishing the current system, maybe they saw power vacuum before, maybe there were horrible times before the dystopian system took place. Or maybe they fear civil war that goes along with rebelling against the system. Or maybe their life depends on this system so they are ok with anything evil as long as it does not affect them directly.
I don't like dystopias because they tend to portray everyone negatively and while I can be cynical the idea that everyone is horrific breaks my suspension of disbelief.
I read this teen dystopian novel that was alright until the end where the perpetual war was stopped by the protagonist talking to the AI governments and telling the two AIs to stop the proxy war because crushing poverty is bad and teenage angst
*Best Quote from this video:* It's about managing opposition not stopping it...
I love this videos.
Making a dystopian world?
We already live in one kek
Step 1: go to California
Step 2: make an AR15
Step 3: call the ATF
Step 4: boogaloo
Case in point: Operation Northwood
We live in a society.
I think a north korean would agree
I feel like we tend to think that way not because the modern world is actually getting dystopian, but because most dystopias basically are just the modern world with all its issues extrapolated to the extreme. Of course it'll all seem at least somewhat familiar.
This is officially the best Dystopian writing advice ive seen on CZcams (and ive been trawling the site for tips on this for ages and most of it is cliche as f***). Cudos to you sir. :)
“They’re all terrible in the own unique way”
-James tullo
*This aged like fine wine.*
Hey Jim you jew
Get the gun out
And off the bus
Dic tat ors hip
Man I want to write a dystopia where, after some big huge war, humans almost going extinct, the works, and as a result the new society that forms from the survivors is EXTREMELY anti-conflict, to the point where literally any conflict, no matter how minor, even some people having a stupid verbal argument, bothers them, and they’re obsessed with everyone getting along and being nice all of the time, and are willing to go to extremes to reinforce this, like maybe drugging people or something, but like, how am I going to do that without it being stupid? How do I get it to work?
This is kind of Divergent...shit goes sideways so they start genetically engineering people to only be honest, smart,selfless and brave
@@OppositeofHATE7 except it sounds better than divergent tbh
Sounds like Amity
They literally used drugs to make people happier
Like if someone had written a book about the Amity from Divergent.
Damn, that series could've been a lot more interesting as a reflection of society if it had been centered around any faction other than the gun-toting adrenaline junkies.
Maybe if there is a new political doctrine, it could be a normal medical treatment to drug people to be nice. For example: ,,100 years ago, people were allowed to argue with each other. In these sort of society, humans are made to fight, because they live in a constant conflict between their own wishes and the wishes of other people. This made the great war even possible in the first place. So we need to erase the conflict by drugging people. Only that way we can make people peaceful, because we make a war impossible if we drug people even when they have just a verbal argument. Better be safe than allow people to argue. So we, the government, want you, our brave medical employees, to follow our rules to help keeping humanity peaceful." That way, the doctors don't are evil in this story, because they only do their job. That makes it a bit more scary, because your protagonist doesn't see his enemies, because the government is evil. Add some fake science about human behavior and how humans begin to fight (in a society without conflict it is very easy to fake facts about how humans start fighting in a normal environment). So basically, make it a real and plausible political ideology and make the doctors believe in fake science, and it becomes plausible as a whole. But do not simplify your scenario, because the concept sounds goofy at first. Instead you can say ,,people don't act rational, why should political ideologies be rational?". People are really stupid, and so your basic concept does not have to be plausible if you explain it properly. Explain your concept as much as possible, and your concept becomes plausible enough to be taken serious by the audience. Sorry for my bad english, hope my thoughts are understandable.
this is literally the ONLY video i found on futuristic world building, thank you so much!!
I keep seeing dystopias were the government is too powerful I want to see one where the government is to weak
Dude... James is living on the other side of the Matrix
True words have been spoken.
Dystopia: "An imaginary place where everything is as bad as it can be."
I know its young adult but I really love The Hunger Games.
You want to write a story set in a dystopian society?
Just write a book that takes place in the US.
Great video, I really appreciate the depth you go into on these types of societies
"Having them say a pledge to the nation every morning would be really authoritarian..."
*[stares directly into the camera]*
One thing I like is the "bread and circus" kind of dystopia. Think "Brave New World" or that kind of stuff. Looks like a utopia on the outside, or at least seems like not a shithole, but actually is a shithole since A) the people have no emotional maturity since they have no hardships to deal with or B) they have no freedom to be anything other than perfectly content with their life. Add some ubiquitous drugs there too since that's cool and stuff.
Half of it reminded me of Psycho-Pass.
I've never seen one of your videos so early before. Still has that new car smell.
I am thinking about writing a dystopian story, the thing i imagine the plot to be is on a fictional planet, who used to be a colony of another one, was taken over by an organization that wanted independence and turned it into a dictatorship, im still thinking on how the main characte finds out about the resistance movement though (which isnt actually worldwide, it is based only inside the province where the story happens)
And the resistance is barely even united aswell
"Excuse to have a teenaged girl rebel against society." Just make her a punk and call it a day, don't even bother making a dystopia.
i think an important aspect of dystopia isn't just to create a horrific possibility but to comment on what is already happening, but take it to an extreme, like satire. like 1984 wasn't just about stalinist russia, it was also very much about britain, too, at the time eric sinclair wrote it. he actually worked at the bbc and that influenced his story as well.
This vid actually helps A LOT! considering im a big fan of dystopias (no , not the messy teen ones) and want to write one this is rlly helpful
That last idea was oddly specific-
Step one: Describe America
Step two: Call it a different name
Step three: Profit!
Although touched upon, you could have mentioned the other powerhouse dystopias: We (the Soviet novel about an equal and privateless society), Brave New World (from Aldous Huxley, famous for the drug that makes you happy) and Fahrenheit 451 (controlling information through education and the limiting of access to most, as well as an irrational fear created against books).
Say what you will about how good or bad the YA dystopia novels were--and a lot of them were very bad--their ultimate message was empowering: that if you have enough courage and determination, you can change the world. It is a wonderful message to give to young people.
It’s a meaningful but would be more so if it was written better lol.
This was extremely helpful...thank you!
This is gold, i didnt realize what you did until midway lol. I was a casual viewer before, you’ve earned a subscriber buddy :)
A fine addition to my collection
this made me giggle james is the best
Woa, it was actually very interesting and well explained. Never reallt watched videos on writing but this one was great. Gg man
The classic dystopian novels are the best.
The flashbacks to school are actually in constant danger of taking over my sci-fi story… 😁
Wow. What a way to describe the States. Very accurate but still. Wow
That's honestly just any country under neo-liberalism.
Also known as late stage capitalism.
@@riley8385 Fair - partly. The pledge of allegiance is a very (f-ing scary dystopian) US-american tradition
Plenty make the argument its some form of brainwashing... I don't think so, and neither do my friends since we all find it fucking annoying. And tedious.
Jay Nie
No it isn’t. What the hell is wrong with taking a pledge? We’ve been doing it since like 1912.
He unintentionally described the US around the time of 9/11
this is so helpful thank you
Half-Life 2 is an extraordinarily underrated dystopia. The sheer hopelessness of humanity's plight is absolute nightmare fuel.
An example of a good dystopian world is rapture, from Bioshock
Would love longer in depth videos, on anything
I found Bay City of the Protectorate(Alterd Carbon) a very well take on a dystopia..!
The Dune saga universe is one of the greatest dystopias.
Hm, must have missed the dystopian wave following in the wake of the Hunger Games. Then again, I tend to mostly focus on the classics and didn't really care for Hunger Games so I guess my view on Dystopias is untarnished.
As for the video itself, yea I think you hit the nail on the head here. If I were to ever write a Dystopia it would most likely focus on runaway capitalism and the misuse of copyright and patents. Another thing that might be important is the idea of "How did we get to this point". Basically fleshing things out to explain how things got this bad.
So basically Disney if they took over the world?
@@bobbybill9383 Pretty much.
Reading red rising right now! Very good book. Highly recommend. Would love to see you do a review of it.
Jon didn't know he lived in a dystopian society. He didn't know because those in power removed all books, all videos, all news articles, anything and everything that defined 'dystopia'. The word, the idea simply did not exist. As far as Jon knew, his life and those suffering around him, was normal. He broke off a chunk of moldy bread and dipped into the broth of leaf soup, took a bite and savored the earthy taste of mold mixed with the bitterness of the soup. "Good day," he thought. He spat out a leathery leaf, tore another chunk of bread. "Today is a good day."
If you ever want to know how propaganda operates in regards to U.S. media, just look up Noam Chomsky and Manufacturing Consent. There's a 6 min video of his interview with a British journalist, and a longer one as well, definitely recommend
I want to make a dystopian story, but the MC is the "bad government", and the story follows the MC's development to change those system
This is great
Reminds me of Unwanteds where there was no actual external enemy, but the dystopian elements were kinda dropped in favour of the more fantasy adventure, and only really pop up in the first book.
the way he shaded the pledge of allegiance lmao.
I wanted (and still do) to write a dystopian novel but I'd call it a Dystopian Comedy or a "Silly Dystopia". Kind of how I view Witch&Wizard by James Patterson.
The whole point is "Oh yeah this would never happen. If it did, people would do stupid things." If I wanted to write a much more seirous dystopia I'd put more thought into it and make it be more about Alternative Facts.
Extreme Capitalist ideology would be absolute Anarchism. Corporate Dystopianism is Syndicalist National Corporatism.
Why does every dystopia have to be in USA? Let’s be real, if there was a nuclear war America would be the first to go. How about Europe? Asia? Even Africa?
Most authors are in the US and they dont know the rest of the world.
George Orwell is one of my favorite authors and he fought hard that animal farm is not a representation of communism. You can’t reference things without respecting the authors, like your channel actually though.
George Orwell is a based left-communist that just gets misinterpreted as a conservative guy. Even 1984 was a book about nazis.
So just make my fictional world like how the real world already is, got it
You want to a dystopia look no further than the world around you yes this dystopian nightmare is no longer fiction
6:32 Stares at United States
Thank you for saying this.
The whole point of a dystopia is that you WOULD want to live there. On the surface, you would see free housing, free healthcare, free food, clean streets, low crime.... But once you live there and start seeing how the system works, it becomes a moral conundrum: Licenses to have children, Government surveilence cameras INSIDE your home, Tracking chips in your car, Spy software on your computer, Social credit score affecting your ability to get a promotion... Your life will be great so long as you mind your place and toe the party line. Question authority, rock the boat, express unpopular opinions, and the powers that be (Both govt and Corp) start clamping down.
The Trope of SciFi is that you have to 'Suspend your disbelief'... Wrong. What makes for a good narrative is when the audience can see the world you've created and believe that your world is not only entirely possible, but actually desirable.
6:30 this has happened in a part of my country, public education is controled by regions, one region got separatist in to power by convenient political alliances at the time, they modified the education system and feed the childs lies about history and to buy in the a separatist ideology supported by fake history, now we have a problem where in that region a little less than half the population is separatist, and a little more than half the population is anti-separatist, the separatist always got in to power in elections there because, the anti-separatist may vote the right or the left, and the right or the left do not ally, but the separatist vote separatist parties, and they do ally
where is that located
Lizard Man: *takes notes*
I have this vague idea for a dystopian/apocolyptic world surrounding the ideas of self-interest and internationalism. You would have these different factions scheming and fighting to protect their own famililies, communities and/or citizens at the expense of others, as resources rapidly dwindle in an already resource scarce land.
To be more specific, the story would take place 200 years into the future in Ireland, a former hotbed of ethnic strife, and one of the few places in Europe free from overt nuclear destruction. Still, 80% of Ireland's food and energy are imported, so already you have mass evacuation, rioting and famine when infrastructure breaks down. Then come refugees from Britain and the continent, overwhelming the native Irish population. Skirmishes in the North result in the overrun of the armed forces also and the subversion of Irish politics by what's left of the Royal Armed Forces, obstensibly a UN peace-keeping force.
Only through frequent imports from the few remaining agricultural centres in the Southern-Hemisphere and outside Earth might anyone survive the winter.
The lesson to be learned is that no one group ought to take precedent over another, even if that means *your* own discomfort, and that if maybe we learned to cooperate a little more instead of compete, the Irish and European peoples may have survived.
I don't understand one thing. If Tamantha is so war-torn, then wouldn't a successful revolution simply cause it to be conquered and divided by its many enemies?
Not if the sucessful revolution is violent enough.
That’s a problem most of these dystopian stories rarely seem to remember - just because your current shitty life/government got overthrown, doesn’t mean your work is done - in fact your less than halfway there. Just because this current system was abolished doesn’t mean your smart enough to figure an alternative, better system to replace it with (either that or end up in anarchy) so most likely you’ll end up with something just as bad or even worse.That’s like the whole premise of animal farm, a classic dystopian fiction.
heeeeeeeeyyy!
by the way 6:33 is a big ouchie
When I was young, we still did the pledge of allegiance.
@@reveranttangent1771 Nobody:
Boomers on Facebook:
In the future realm of Dystopiopolis, onions are forbidden. Hmmm... I like this dystopia.
Do a video on fantasy schools.
It'll be a miracle if I don't start molesting my chin and waving my hands in the air when I finish binge-watching JT.
i came into this video ready to prep a potential novel, full of motivation and inspiration. then everything you said resonated because i live in israel. now i'm the this is fine dog meme as everything around me is on fire.
I like how you basically just described the us lmao
"They still hold elections and such but they use political maneuvering to make sure that they maintain control."
Wouldn't that be every bourgeois liberal republic ever?
Plato's ideal sosiety is very distopian
My problem with most dystopias is stagnation. I think it was inspired by 1984 where the whole idea is that the system can`t be changed for better or worse. But that is a rare case IRL, almost all dystopian regimes are ultimately fated to collapse by their nature. That's a really good point to address as the heroes could fight the system for the surviving of society and not because they simply don`t like the system. These types of characters often are just projections of modern IRL people with a set of beliefs that couldn`t be present in a dystopian world. But rebelling after seeing society going in the downfall due to ideology, elites or anything that the author wants to critic is way more believable. Also, this is the way to be sure your dystopia couldn`t be considered utopia even by fanboys of things you`re criticizing as it going to lead to catastrophe in the end.
A large amount of the impact of the stagnant tolitarianism such as in 1984 had arguably been lost compared to the past( specifically pre 90s). Given when it was written totalitarian regimes had been seen to collapse after a fast burn (Nazi Germany) but they also had Stalinist Russia still big on the world stage, a world of likeminded regimes maintaining themselves by keeping war limited to an effective no man's land/away from their core regions may not seem so unrealistic.
An aspect of dystopian novels or villains in dystopia that I see lacking is the fact that the society is normal to all of the characharacters....it's the readers who object to the society. I think it would be more interesting for the protagonist to first come to the realization that their leader or organization is evil as part of their character arc....after all, they don't know any different. That would make things more interesting. The writer needs to show that the villain is evil absent the dystopia, because they too are a product of that environment. It feels like the villain is evil just because the writer says so or because they pick on the protagonist... that's not enough for me. I want a villain who is plain bad on their own merit and not just doing their job as the leader of the corrupt government or organization. And they need to be IN more than a couple of chapters and their influence felt in the plot of the story, otherwise why are you running, Protagonist?
I'm living in Mexico and an interesting facet of 'separation of church and state' here means that members of the clergy can't run for political offices
Perfectly normal. Same way people who own share should not be allowed.
What's that meme? "You are not immune to propaganda"? And it has a picture of Garfield for some reason?
Yes, and it's true.
Ironically, the more you think it doesn't affect you, the more it actually does.
5:35 this aged well
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all"