Writing project invitation to combat social isolation

[Timewaitsfornone]

I imagine we are all going a little stir crazy with the social distancing. To combat that, I had the idea to start a group project that anyone could contribute to. Not sure how to go about setting it up (Lit vets feel free to chime in with any initial suggestions) but the basic concept I had in mind was an exercise in world-building something entirely new by general consensus.

My thought was we propose a basic building block of fictional world-building, reply with suggestions within a finite time period, and then ultimately vote on the suggested options for an "official" answer.

So, for instance, the first consideration would probably be "What kind of world will we be building?"
Possible suggestions could be post-apocalyptic, near future, present-day Bolivia, 16th century Scotland, a colony on Jupiter, etc.

If, for example, the "winner" was a colony on Jupiter, a follow-up topic might then be "What form of government is in place on our colony?"

Once we have the "bones" of our story world in place, we can then each begin adding the "flesh" by telling our own individual stories of people in our jointly created world.

What do you folks think?



My stories can be seen at https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=2688687&page=submissions

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Interesting. Excellent idea.

I’d personally go for high orbit, maybe an L5 colony.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think it's interesting, too. I like the idea of a relatively near-future space colony. Perhaps on the moon, or something like the International Space Station on a grander scale, where ships from various sources dock together to form a colony. Putting it on Jupiter would require putting it in the more distant future, and the world building will be more difficult.

 

[handysr]

The government of a random country hates another one, so they manufacture a highly contagious disease, but it gets out of control and spreads across the world. Within weeks there are millions of infections, and with the mortality rate of 90% everyone is rightly worried.

A random group of people have bought into a survivalist's compound that was built in a series of abandoned underground missile silos, and with the pandemic spreading, the residents race to it. To ensure nobody is infected, they are herded randomly as they arrive in groups of two to five at a time to quarantine in one small room for two weeks before they are allowed to live in the "apartment" they bought.

Cut off from the outside world, they have to make a new "society" that not only works within each silo, but with the neighboring ones as well.

What's going to happen with these people that may or may not know each other? What about the couple that bought a two-person unit, but their partner died? Will they search for a new companion? Or what will someone do to score a free bunker bed?

 

[GuessImJamie]

Perverts Island

A rigidly anti-sexual world government appears on the scene. Driven by some people's jealousy and others self-loathing and others xenophobia (sex is something "those people do all of the time - they are disgusting.")

Finding the perverts is easy, erotic story websites are hacked and teams show up at the registered user's addresses and take the perverts into custody. After group trials patterned after group arraignments at protests everyone is sentenced to exile.

Perverts island is divided into areas BDSM by the flag tied to that tree, non-con where ever we tell you and you'll learn to love it, insest in tents by the beach, anal on the back bay, loving wives near the smoldering volcano. Most of the perverts are rounded up and transported when...

Covid - 20 (it's 5% worse than Covid -19, doncha know) strikes, the world government preoccupied policing so-called moral issues is not prepared. The population is decimated... Except...

As economist Steve Landsburg showed in 'More sex is safer sex,' a certain level of promiscuity serves as a check on STDs. Since the world government banned sex without proper government paperwork and established a bare minimum quota all public health funding was diverted to other projects.

Human life off the island was wiped out.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I think it's interesting, too. I like the idea of a relatively near-future space colony. Perhaps on the moon, or something like the International Space Station on a grander scale, where ships from various sources dock together to form a colony. Putting it on Jupiter would require putting it in the more distant future, and the world building will be more difficult.

Good point.

Another thought. Part of the problem with many new society concepts is that you’re probably going to have the societal rules and structure imposed on its members. OK, post-apocalyptic survivors or colonists dropped on a virgin planet and left to fend for themselves might have a blank slate, but consider that building a space station, for instance, is hellaciously expensive, so much so that only a government or megacorp could afford it. That means that the owners will almost certainly impose a system, which everybody will have to live with unless and until there’s a successful revolution. This isn’t entirely fiction-related. Ancient Greek and Phoenician colonies were founded with a set legal system. So were the colonies in the USA; that system lasted 250 years or so.

Moreover, most such planned societies depend on some sort of crew or staff. The owners of a massive ‘billionaires’ club’ yacht are the bosses until the master at arms and his troops decide to toss the fat old rich guys overboard and keep the goodies and supermodel mistresses for themselves. The millionaires owning suites in the current repurposed ICBM silos we read about are dependent on a permanent (and probably armed) staff to let them in when they arrive. Colonists waking from deep sleep on Larry Niven’s planet Mt Lookitthat found the crew of the starship taking them there had decided that a hereditary nobility/peasant setup was on the cards (A Gift From Earth).

Not shooting the idea down. Random thoughts.

 

[SimonDoom]

Good point.

Another thought. Part of the problem with many new society concepts is that you’re probably going to have the societal rules and structure imposed on its members. OK, post-apocalyptic survivors or colonists dropped on a virgin planet and left to fend for themselves might have a blank slate, but consider that building a space station, for instance, is hellaciously expensive, so much so that only a government or megacorp could afford it. That means that the owners will almost certainly impose a system, which everybody will have to live with unless and until there’s a successful revolution. This isn’t entirely fiction-related. Ancient Greek and Phoenician colonies were founded with a set legal system. So were the colonies in the USA; that system lasted 250 years or so.

Moreover, most such planned societies depend on some sort of crew or staff. The owners of a massive ‘billionaires’ club’ yacht are the bosses until the master at arms and his troops decide to toss the fat old rich guys overboard and keep the goodies and supermodel mistresses for themselves. The millionaires owning suites in the current repurposed ICBM silos we read about are dependent on a permanent (and probably armed) staff to let them in when they arrive. Colonists waking from deep sleep on Larry Niven’s planet Mt Lookitthat found the crew of the starship taking them there had decided that a hereditary nobility/peasant setup was on the cards (A Gift From Earth).

Not shooting the idea down. Random thoughts.

One way around the problem would be to set it in a colony that, by design, is anarchistic, imposing very few rules and regulations on what people do. People join by connecting their spaceship with the others via some sort of protocol, but what happens after that is pretty much up to individuals.

Eventually they form into factions. If the story is to be sex-based, perhaps one faction is the hedonists and the other the prudes, with various interesting twists and turns (all erotic) following.

Kind of like Burning Man in space.

OK, well, except that there aren't too many prudes at Burning Man.

 

[Timewaitsfornone]

One way around the problem would be to set it in a colony that, by design, is anarchistic, imposing very few rules and regulations on what people do. People join by connecting their spaceship with the others via some sort of protocol, but what happens after that is pretty much up to individuals.

Eventually they form into factions. If the story is to be sex-based, perhaps one faction is the hedonists and the other the prudes, with various interesting twists and turns (all erotic) following.

Kind of like Burning Man in space.

OK, well, except that there aren't too many prudes at Burning Man.

Regarding something more anarchistic, I give you the island of Nassau during the golden age of piracy. Normal, law-abiding folk lived in the interior in farming communities and plantations while the town of Nassau itself was ruled by, and at the mercy of, pirates. Could a similar dynamic be applied to our space colony concept?

BTW, I too like the idea of "hedo's" and prudes in some kind of uneasy balance. It provides plenty of potential story fodder.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

The island of Newfoundland was for a long time governed by - no kidding - the captain of the first fishing ship to get there in the spring.

 

[eroticstoryspinner]

I like the idea of a lunar colony. Depending on how much porn you want, this is LIT after all, you can play a lot with the rebellion aspect as the Outer Space Treaty claims the moon is owned by Earth. A lot of the UN member nations are sexually repressive and that would create tension for the presumably horny settlers.

I do also like the idea of sexual exiles either on or off earth.