For those who used to follow my writing on TOP, you know that occasionally I blog randomly about stuff that's on my mind which has absolutely nothing to do with politics.

Except when it does. In a roundabout way of course. Perhaps artistic ideas reflect our reality more than our political statements, for while we must couch our politics in the acceptable dialogues of the time, an artistic concept can transcend those minor quibbles of the political handcuffs. In a way, by deliberately lying, and telling a story that did not occur, the most real and truthful stories can be told.

So, without further ado, I present a concept that came to me while this song was playing:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BXiPzRCFJc]

"Nemo"

Elevator Pitch: Post-Industrial adventure/family drama story involving the citizens of a small Pacific Northwest Trading City.

LONG Version:

(Background)
The series is set approximately 500 years in the future, after the collapse of industrial civilization. There was no great plague, no great nuclear exchange. Industrial civilization just ran out of stuff to exploit. There have been great ecological upheavals, and the great empires and countries just fell apart without the means to continue their endless wars. There are still pockets of comfortable/well-off people, but their influence has shrunk to very small dimensions, without the ability to influence people long distance.

Technology has not moved forward at all. In fact most of the products of industrial society are seen as relics or otherwise valued. Technologists are in fact often reviled with the old "Mad scientist" smears. As are Christians, Muslims, and most other highly organized religions, which are thought of as "cultists" who were just as ineffective at combating the decline. (Doesn't help the image that there were several recent great holy wars which helped decimate several continents.)

While many countries claim the mantles of old empires (As petty kingdoms are often wont to do after a major decline in power) the vast majority of organization of societies is on the city-state level. Larger kingdoms/Republics/Whatevers exist but borders tend to shift fairly rapidly, and the local organization is the only constant that most people believe in or identify as.

(Series Outline)
The story follows a small trading company with a home port in the Pacific North West. The main characters and cast are not fully fleshed out yet, but I'm leaning towards adopting some of the firefly/han solo tropes, but adjusted for post-industrial society. The main ship that the series will follow (Because there will be other parts to this group than JUST the ship, because I'm creating a whole world here, and not just the explorers...) is "The Queen Anne's Revenge" as a deliberate dig at authority.

Ideally, the series would follow the classic episodic format where the ship sails from port to port, making deals and interacting. In this way, we get to see the various cultures that have grown in the isolation, and as well make interesting social commentary on various things that are relevant. The advantage of making it a trading company as opposed to solely a ship based show is that we are not tied to any one character, and in fact can have land based episodes as well as home port episodes.

Music in the series will of course be 100% non-amplified/electric, with lots of fun versions of popular songs which have been passed down and still are sung around various establishments. (I'm still hoping that we can get a Pipe Organ on the Queen Anne's Revenge)

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAzUtU9ofk4]

Some various episode concepts include:

The crew dealing with the Walstrit Company which is trying to expand into a friendly city-state. The Company uses Slavery, which is explicitly against the home port constitution, but the Company claims that it is NOT slavery, and then goes into extreme detail to claim that every individual action that leads to the slavery is legal, therefore it is not slavery. The crew eventually manages to prevent the expansion but is unable to free the slaves who claim they must return to their bondage due to the laws of their people.

A rumor of a buried treasure in the desert leads a group to a abandoned military bunker. Inside they discover a stockpile of materiel which has the potential to make the company rich. Unfortunately they're not the only ones to hear about this find and must deal with a mercenary company which claims that their unit descends from the U.S. Army Division which buried it in the first place and therefore is theirs by rights.

A main character is openly in a multiple relationship and at a port has to deal with a christian cult trying to sabotage their business dealings using local religious marriage laws as a pretext. The cult claims they have the right to speak against evil, while the main character is just trying to sell a load of pickled onions.

There are of course plenty of opportunities for filler episodes, character development episodes, and episodes that just explore the breadth and depth of human cultural diversity. In a way, it's doing Star Trek, but in a way that allows you to keep in on Earth, make real cultural commentary, and still be fairly hopeful about a future which will still have problems, but is not the apocalypse we fear.