As you probably know, I’m writing a book this month, MoebiusWar. It’s like Star Wars, but with different magic and science. The galaxy is being invaded by a powerful totalitarian empire, and the remaining free worlds have banded together into an interplanetary Resistance.
The people of this galaxy have an interesting feature. In the first book, I wanted a believable reason why it was teenagers flying around saving the galaxy, not seasoned professional adults. So I decided they are not humans, but yumans, a species like humans except they stop maturing at around fifteen and stay like that for the rest of their lives. So not only is Tarran an evil fascist empire, it’s a teenage evil fascist empire.
I wanted all the good guys to justifiably be on the same side, which meant I have to make the invading empire clearly and obviously bad. So I took inspiration from totalitarian and authoritarian nations of real life, particularly Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, sprinkling in some colonialism as well.
It began with a superiority complex. The Tarran people believe their culture is the True Culture, their religion the True Religion, and their people the Chosen People. Thus, when they decided to go out and invade the galaxy, they didn’t see it as an invasion, but as a way to spread the Truth and LightTM that their culture has achieved.
Because of this mentality, they are very blind to the social prejudices that are very obvious to anyone looking in, notably race and religion. While officially everyone of all races is treated equally under the law, in practice anyone without midnight black skin is treated as a second-class citizen. As for religion, everyone is institutionally required to practice Ar’eus, with all other sects and religions either extremely frowned upon or outright banned with harsh persecution.
The Emperor of Tarran, who is known as the Spellcaster, has a magic staff that lets him control the emotions of anyone who hears it stamp on the ground. This includes live broadcasts but not recordings, because that would break the plot. Spellcaster uses this power to give everyone in the empire intense happiness when they serve him, and depression whenever they doubt or question. It’s an aggrandized magical version of a cult of personality, when a confidence-dripping, chest-thumping narcissist steps up into a position of power and says “join with me against those inferior people who don’t belong with us,” and large numbers of people lose their minds and follow them.
And finally, the icing on the dystopian cake, informing on your neighbors. Near the beginning of the story, Spellcaster issues an edict that anyone showing signs of depression be turned in to the police for questioning, the rationale being that under Spellcaster’s spell, only those who harbor traitorous thoughts are susceptible to depression. Ain’t that the stuff of nightmares.
That is our dystopian totalitarian teenage fascist empire. The story so far has been a blast to write, with lots of interesting characters interacting with each other and dealing with the war in their own unique ways. If you want to read MoebiusWar, a link will be posted in an announcement blog post when it is done next month. You can read the first book, MoebiusQuest, here for free. Have a good November!
No comments:
Post a Comment