Narrative Ideas

General Theme Ideas

Focus on technological developments in near-future societies, typically examining the social effects of a ubiquitous data sphere of computerized information, genetic engineering, modification of the human body, and the continued impact of perpetual technological change.

Depiction of a realistic near-future rather than space opera – style deep futures. The focus will be on the social effects of Earth-bound technology rather than space travel like in many science fiction narratives.

The characters will be more involved with society, and act to defend an existing social order or create a better society.

A focus on the alienating effect of new technology.

A more realistic depiction of computers, such as replacing virtual reality with a sort of super voice/audio/video/holographic Internet-based network.

Technology is pervasive, and technological advances have led to many social changes.

The Net is everywhere, and people who may not be able to eat tomorrow nevertheless have cheap handhelds.

Very technologically literate, and grounded in the science of today (using the wisdom that the 'Net is to the 90s what rocketry was to the 50s). It is also very humanist, even sentimental.

Explore themes related to world of accelerating technological innovation and ever-increasing complexity in ways relevant to our everyday lives without losing the "sense of wonder" that characterizes science fiction at its best.


Character Ideas

Maybe a journalist or computer literate character that maybe posts an annual Article on a Blog.

A firm believer in the truth and delivering the truth to his readers in the most direct and blunt manner possible.

Hates and struggles against authority figures who oppress others.

Bitter toward the uninvolved public who give the authority its power.

Struggles to convince the public to listen to The Truth, but is disgusted by those who blindly accept what he reports.

Believes that the key to preventing global government surveillance from turning into global suppression is to always insist on basic liberties and to keep government and law-enforcement agencies under constant scrutiny.


General Life

Most people live in houses built before 2000; roads, pavements, and gardens had changed little as well as furniture. New houses that are built are assembled from light prefabricated units, easily replaced or re-arranged if a change in architectural design is needed.

Food is essentially the same. Thou as well as traditional food you can try artificial meat or alcohol-free wine thou not as popular as the real thing, and are often purchased by the lower classes.

After a plague in 2014, which culled 7-10% of the male population in every European country, the way people lived became forever changed. With intruders now seen as a source of disease as well as crime, the middle classes seized on the new menace of plague as a pretext for protecting their estates against the underclass. Many people now live on enclosed estates with restricted access. Membership of your home estate give you access rights to estates. However, the underclass, including anyone convicted of a serious offence, are obliged to live in the so-called `free' or `unrestricted' zones, where crime and poverty were rife, and public services are minimal.

Schools and shops began to be resisted so that excursions outside the estate are rarely necessary. Within protected estates, crime rates among adults fell almost to zero. Some estates went as far as banning cars, which had to be kept in a multi-storey park inside the main gate. Parents could once more allow their small children to roam freely around the villages or estates. Throughout the world, society was now sharply polarized: either you lived on an estate, or you were condemned to the free zone. After the plague, the distinction between the developed countries and the third world became less significant.

Cheap Internet access has transformed economic life. Just as even the poorest families found ways of viewing television at the end of the 20th century, so unemployed people in the free zone manage somehow to connect to the Internet.
In this way, bright children could escape from apparently hopeless backgrounds by educating themselves and offering information services.

Companies quickly saw the potential of exploiting the intelligent poor in Russia, India and Africa. Tricky programming tasks were posted in open competitions: if a clever 12-year-old girl in Nigeria managed to outperform the opposition, she could earn a small remittance, insignificant to the company, but very significant to her.

Companies can now get their work done almost for nothing, evading any minimum wage legislation in their own economic areas. Subcontracting among the labour pool became common: an Indian boy might act as an intermediary between the company and the competing programmers, testing each program and choosing the best. The company would then pay the Indian boy, who would take his cut before paying the Nigerian girl who had written the actual code.

With increasing robotization of factories, the industrial working class shrank to under 5% of the workforce, a level comparable with the agricultural sector. By 2020, almost all work belonged to the sector of information and social services, and could be performed through a videophone link.

In 2030, human skills and creativity still dominated many professions, and there were still influential people who claimed that they always would.
Ownership of land and physical resources still matter, but even more significant is the ownership of intellectual property, including intellectual property that had been generated by intelligent computers rather than people.

People are still concerned with how they present themselves, both in physical space and in cyberspace. The fraction of the income that people spend on personal presentation has increased steadily throughout the century. As it became easier to satisfy material needs, people began to focus more on what and who they are in relation to others.

People have got used to the idea that everything they do can now be known by anybody who is interested in finding out. When you are going on a date with someone, you can check out their previous relationships, and so on.

Fears about society becoming similar to Orwell’s 1984, with Big Brother watching you all the time have long since diminished. The general mentality has become allot like staying in a nudist colony: when everybody is naked, the embarrassment quickly wears off. All the little secrets that people thought were so important quickly faded as peoples standards adapt and they became more tolerant. As long as you’re not doing anything really bad or break the law, you don’t have to worry about.

The key to preventing global surveillance from turning into global suppression is to always insist on basic liberties and to keep government and law-enforcement agencies under constant scrutiny. It has become crucial that people make sure that the system is transparent in both directions, so that people can watch who’s watching them. As a result, protests and campaigns are rife.

Drugs have become progressively more accepted.