forum Would anyone like to help me make a utopia?

Started January 30, 2020 by @saor_illust school

tune

Let me know when you have time again to work on this! I still think it's a really fun and interesting idea! ^^

Thank~

Technically I have time, but I just can't be as active as I was last year. At least once a day, though.

That's fair. For sure, no pressure or anything XD

Haha thanks for being so understanding :D

So what do we still have to figure out?

Here's the list we originally had:

A name for the utopia?
Culture?
People?
Languages?
Religion?
Geography?
Wildlife?
Music, ect.?
Politics
Government and the system

We covered the basics of language, religion, and geography so far. Any of those other categories jump out at you?

Ooo what about music?

Sure! I love music ahaha XD I guess within this category we can figure out the most common instruments, the sound of the music, common themes in the songs, what singers often sounds like, what their version of "pop" music is, and how important music is to the culture overall. Since we're designing a utopia, I feel like all the arts would be pretty respected and valued, do you think?

Yeah, makes sense!

(Sorry, I feel like I'm making you do all the work. Sorry again)

(It's okay! I have a lot of ideas, but I feel like you get to say yes or no to any of those ideas because this was your idea originally. Like, you're the film director and I'm the concept artist or something XD)
When it comes to the sound of the music and the most common instruments, we could continue with the India theme, or we could mix it up and draw inspiration from a different culture entirely. Some geographical "styles" I particularly like are Finnish (traditional music, not their death metal lol), Russian, traditional Tibetan singing, Celtic/Irish…..what about you?

(Okay aha)

Considering that this utopia is a floating island, perhaps some kind of "airy" music would work? I don't know if that makes sense, but it makes sense to me so-

Hmm….maybe they use instruments like flutes/horns/pipes/etc. most often because those are the "wind" instruments? And then some drums and/or strings for extra flavor? Plus singing, of course. And for the sound of their music, maybe it kinda mimics airy sounds like the wind, birdsong, storms, stuff like that….it that kinda close to what you meant?

Yeah!

Cool! Is that it for music, then, or are there any other details we should figure out?

oh- what about how the society is ruled? like is it by a single ruler, two, or multiple? or is it a democracy, ruled by the people/representatives?

Ah that's a good question…..How about a system where, there's a royal family, but also a congress or something, like how England does it kinda? I feel like that might be a good system for a utopia, since the people have a king or queen to look up to and feel loyal towards, while also getting to speak their minds through congress and a vote system. What do you think?

Hmm, yeah! THat sounds really good!

Okay so the project that i did with a friend, we had a whole unit on utopias
so we learned that
utopias always devolve into dystopias
so i was thinking
what should be the thing that makes the utopia devolve into a dystopia at some point?

Well let's see…..what is it about this particular utopia that makes it so great? Because eventually, I think every utopia's downfall is that it tries too hard to enforce/cling to a certain vision of perfection and ends up either collapsing or turning into a tyrannical, controlling society in which everyone is varying levels of fake and miserable. I'm thinking if we know what makes this utopia a utopia, we can bring that something to an extreme and turn it into a bad quality over time.
Off the top of my head, I'd guess that this particular culture's fatal flaw might be its isolation, or rather, its decision to isolate itself from the world. There are many examples in fiction of how this can go wrong, so I think it could be a solid path for our utopia to take, but maybe we want something more unique? idk, do you have any ideas?

Yeah, maybe the idea that they can live in perfect harmony forever, given their 'perfect' ruling system.
Of course, that won't always work, but you know…

Yeah lol, nothing's arder to avoid than internal conflict within a governing body, it seems XD What if, over time, the royal family and the people of the congress started to get different ideas of what was "perfect harmony", and their ideas didn't mesh very well? Maybe some big change happened in their area (climate change, new neighbors, idk), and they had different thoughts on what should be done about it?
(I have to go to work, back later!)

Haha yeah, and that sounds good! So I just got an idea. So you know how they say that it only takes one bad… uh apple to ruin the whole batch or whatever the saying was? What if it was only one person who just decided, idk 'war is great!! it's so nice to see people dying everywhere!!!' or something and their ideas started to affect how people who knew them acted and spoke and thought? like, they don't necessarily need to support them but like, having them be there could be the spark for rumours and all sorts of things to start developing in the utopia

If that person is charismatic or powerful or both, then I think that's absolutely possible. The question is, who are they warring with? Themselves? Some other nearby group on Earth's surface? And even if there is someone saying it's a great idea, war doesn't start for no reason. Was there a major disagreement, or did they maybe run out of some vital resource that someone else refused to give them, thus forcing them to go to war? Or maybe they decided they were better than everyone else and decided to do the old 'invade and conquer' routine?
I do like the way you said it, like the one guy's nasty mentality started to seep into the culture slowly like a virus or something, until it was widespread before people even realized xD

Thanks! Maybe- this person doesn't like how the world is ruled because they like killing people or something? And so they tried to come to power or something?

I mean that sure makes for a nice dramatic story. I'm going to assume this person, whoever they are, is absolutely crazy, like serial-killer-crazy, but knows how to hide it so people aren't afraid of them until it's too late. They live in a peaceful, well-run utopia though, so they're going to have to be really clever and determined if they want to tear it down.
What if they started spreading bad rumors about other countries/cultures until people started hating anyone who wasn't a local? That could start a war pretty quick, potentially, especially if their neighbors started hating them back for it.

Ooo yes!

Okay cool! So what kind of nasty rumors could this person be spreading about other countries? Something that would make them seem completely loathsome and irredeemable, I feel like, but also something that couldn't be too easily proven or disproven.

Hmm
maybe…
'the other countries are in kahoots to overthrow ours ?'

idk

So like a conspiracy theory sorta deal? I think that could work! People seem to latch onto those stories pretty easily, and once you're a certain level of paranoid, it's really hard to shake.
I think a lie like that would spread especially well if most ordinary civilians have almost zero contact with the other cultures. (Which would make sense if they live on a floating island.) They're emotionally and physically distanced from outsiders, so it would be easier for them to believe nasty rumors about them.
As for the higher-ups that might have more daily interactions with foreigners, the villain guy would have to try harder/take a different tack with them, seems like.

Oooo yeah !

I like where you're goin' !

Great! Also I think we should figure out a name for this villain fellow before we go any further, it's getting kinda confusing just to call them the "bad guy" or whatever xD Any thoughts?

lol
uh
i got:

sam
andrew (Our Supreme Lord and Overseer)
escher
thomas
brendan
alex

(and i may or may not've just stolen these names from my classmates aha)