A series I would love to see...
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.
Comments
And before I forget...
With a series like this, ya GOTTA have some Alestorm as a closing credit.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th4Czv1j3F8]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
I Was With You Until You Brought the Modern Day Trope to the
future.
There is no reason to make modern day slavery if you are exploring a post apocalyptic functional society.
I would see the slavery thing as something the Queen Anne's Revenge could fight while on tour.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
Clarification on that.
I figure it would be interesting to have as an antagonist and a decent social commentary about invisible slavery.
Of course, that's just an episode pitch, not the WHOLE series. But absolutely it would be great to have the crew fight against. However, I don't want every episode to be a triumph, and occasionally you need a bittersweet ending similar to the episode "Jaynestown" from Firefly.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
I like the concept of religion finally dying off
This is an interesting plot line and I look forward to reading it. Can you provide a link to one of your diaries from there, or is your username the same and I'll look one up. I'm interested in reading one.
The first part of your description reminds me of the book, One Second After which is about life in a small town in North Carolina after an EMP went off. Everything that depends on electricity, computers and other technology has been nullified by it.
EMP going off is a real threat according to some scientists and congress has been ignoring this, even though they have been warned about this.
I'm surprised that we haven't done it to the countries that we have invaded. It sure would make things easier for us to invade countries that couldn't fight back.
Would anyone be interested in a book essay series here? If so, pm me. I'd love to start one.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Needn't even be an actual attack
Another Carrington Event, or stronger, would do it to the whole world. Almost happened in 2012, but the flare just missed.
Edit: If you really want something to worry about, read (or re-read) Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon and consider how little has changed. Frank wanted an optimistic version of "The End of the World As We Know It" - and it's still pretty darn scary.
Other stories that have to do with "suddenly no more electricity, ever" include Stephen Boyett's Ariel (event never explained at all) and S.M. Stirling's Emberverse series (Alien Space Bats did it, no kidding). Interestingly, both assume that members of the Society for Creative Anachronism would be better able to cope than average people...but wouldn't necessarily be good people. (Ariel manages to avoid the "spiky-haired mutant cannibals" cliche that infests most modern post-apocalyptic fiction - the Emberverse doesn't.)
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
My username at TOP was identical.
(For those who understand the Battletech reference, yes, it is very obscure.)
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Well, similar, yes.
As far as religion dying off, I had the rather funny image of a right wing christian fundamentalist type SCREAMING about how marriage is only between a man an a woman, and the reaction not being a push back, but rather a resigned shrug and the comment. "Just ignore him, he's crazy. He's got religion."
A lot of the aesthetics of this series idea of course is modernized older stuff. Take a look at modern wooden sailing ships that are built now for the feeling I want.
Damn, now I'm tempted to flesh this out a bit more here. The response and feedback has been GREAT and I wanna do more with this.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
@snoopydawg
I suspect that TPTB may be counting on that to take Russia out, except that Russia may be able to counter this. The American infrastructure is, I begin to suspect, potentially being left vulnerable, in part, so as to retain the ability for TPTB to completely disable portions of the American population if ever deemed necessary. It would certainly do less infrastructure damage than bombing.
Speaking as One Who Knows Nothing, I really cannot see any other reason than the usual corporate/billionaire drain-and-neglect program, which I would (and did previously) consider to be by far the most probable reason - however due to various ongoing events, and the presence of such as Dick Cheney advising yet another administration, my personal speculations are shifting to include this as a possibility.
However, as with 9/11, in any such eventuality, Those Who Mattered/were currently useful would have to be pre-warned, as EMP would also presumably knock out the instrumentation on private aircraft...
Dunno, but a back-up plan/False Flag of that nature that wouldn't surprise me, considering the records and aims of those running the US government. Very little reprehensible behaviour from that lot could.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.