"Pinnacle Men and the Draka are natural enemies! Like Pinnacle Men and Nazis! Or Pinnacle Men and Super Catholics! Or Pinnacle Men and Illuminists! Or Pinnacle Men and other Pinnacle Men! Damn Pinnacle Men! They ruined NUSA!"
"What Madness Is This?" Volume III: The Pinnacle Future
- Thread starter Napoleon53
- Start date
And then the Photino Birds (Xeelee Sequence) or Anti-Spirals (Gurren Lagann) show up. Those are probably the strongest dystopian regimes ever.
(Yes, the Photino Birds from the Xeelee Sequence might be the strongest dystopian regime, or is that the Anti-Spirals?)
But those aren't dystopian regimes, since they aren't governments or societies.
They are whole species who have collectively agreed on goals that require or imply the extinction of most other life in the universe. Since they do what they do out of their own initiative as an species, it's not like they are languishing in a society that coerces, forces, manipulates or brainwashes them into doing those things.
The Photino Birds afaik aren't even aware they are destroying baryonic life in the universe, probably not even aware of baryonic life's existence iirc. Going by what I remember, they are just sort of "terraforming" it so they can survive more comfortably on it, which is hardly a dystopian or evil motivation alone on itself; it’s just alien.
A better example of dystopia in the Xeelee Sequence are the Qax Occupation of Earth, the ICOG and many post-ICOG civilizations, if not most of post-ICOG mankind if viewed from modern values.
So suppose the NUSA ended up conquering the world--it would still not reach the Anti-Spirals level of "species collectively agreeing on goals that required the extinction of everyone else"? Likewise, the presence of humans in the Tau Empire means that humans of the Imperium have not "collectively agreed on goals that lead to the extinction of everyone else"? In other words, dissent is the main difference between a dystopian society/regime and a dystopian species?
I'm guessing Anti-Spiral possessed Nia does not count as "languishing because something forces/brainwashes her into doing those things"? I feel like that should count, or is only one person not enough?
A dystopia is defined as a society undesiderable on itself.
It's also defined as an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically (not necessarily, though) one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.
Those are the definitions I find on Wikipedia and Google, but all other definitions I find on the Internet and physical dictionaries are more or less the same as this.
I'm digressing. My point is that calling a villainous (for lack of a better word) species of beings "dystopia" is odd. They are an species, not a state, world, society, government or whatever else. And they are not suffering themselves or living in conditions that for them are undesiderable. It's out of place.
It's like saying that ants live "under a horrible dystopian regime" because they live in hives with caste systems devoid of individuality. Or saying that mosquitoes are "cursed to vampirism" because they need to suck blood from innocent living humans to survive. It's using words in a way that is contrived.
Still in occupation under NHRE, but waiting to blow up by Illuminists, nationalists, Orthodoxs, Muslims, and others.
Oh, man. I would like to see Serbia and Kosovo smoothly coexist as one state due to their shared trauma, as well as be all America-hating like the stereotypical Serb. Probably as a smaller version of OTL's Austro-Hungarian Empire where religious domination of certain areas is important to all elites and they were crazy enough to fight Russia due to religious-nationalist reasons.
But not a "theocracy" as we commonly think of it, since two religions would be dominant.