On Dogs and Dystopias

So this morning, because I Did Not Want to get out of bed, I was lying back plotting the pilot episode to my series that is clearly not Blakes 7 except for where it is. I was very organised about it. In my head I got a piece of paper, wrote 1-60 down the margins, divided it up into teaser and tag, three act structure, central turn around point, and wobbly block of 'inciting incident goes here'. I mentally arranged my small stack of writing books, which is probably about as productive as the way I usually use them, since by this point they're pretty much for moral support. And then I decided what the teaser should be. Start with something exciting. Start with a chase!

... and then I got entirely stuck, because I suddently realised that the status and indeed existence of dogs would be one of the major defining points of my futuristic multiplanet dystopia, and while I'd been thinking of them as all clean and technological, I couldn't imagine a proper chase without dogs barking.

... *facepalm*

But, really, thinking about it, when humans leave the planet, do they take dogs with them? If dogs, what about cats, or horses, or canaries? We have a perfect excuse to never work with animals again! We have weight limits, and limited life support! We could have a future where humans are the only life that humans ever worry about!
... and wouldn't that be hugely different.

So there's Dystopia 1, techno version, where they have lots of cameras and TV screens and computers everywhere and little robot arms to do fiddly jobs and humans are just on the verge of being surplus to requirements, but then they'd have nothing to do but rebel so there's somehow precisely as much work as people. A chase sequence would involve silence. Silent black clad security forces with gas masks on, and silent security cameras scattered around like your actual bugs are now, and perhaps silent flying drones that make a whirrrrr sound only when they're too close to dodge properly. If there's things with wheels they'd make gravel sounds on the crunchy ground, maybe on a raised road right behind the rebels as they crouch unseen. To get around all that they'd have to be very, very precise, slow and stealthy. The opening sequence would all be silence and heavy breathing.

But then there's Dystopia 2, the one with dogs, and I think this would be the genegineered version. They didn't bring alive dogs with them, they brought the pattern to make them. The same guard dogs are used at every guard station, cloned again. Animals are all designed for particular tasks, just like humans are. They don't have the robot arms unless absolutely necessary, because they have humans made in the exact same spirit, to do those tasks. And now the chase is *noisy*. Dogs barking, running, urgent. To get away from dogs they'd do the blood pumping sort of things, traditional hunter hunted stuff. Would there be cameras? Maybe, but there'd be more concentration on who is watching them. It wouldn't be cold AI directing them towards movement, it would be rooms full of humans who were used to having fairly boring days and using the cameras to look down people's tops. To get around them you'd have to be unexpected or plausible, by turns. Sloppy would still work, as long as you mixed it with a bit of inspiration. And there'd be a lot more value to making friends. The computer doesn't care if you bring biscuits, though it might note a pattern if you do the same thing every day. Alive things doing the same job are going to care if you're nice people.

And the skillset of the crew, and the shape of the eventual revolution, would depend very greatly on what they're opposing. If technology is king then Avon understands how everything really works. If technology just extends the senses of a whole lot of people then Avon understands rather less of it.

Both dystopias have heavily controlled humans who decide they don't like it. But in the first it's because they're being made to do useless work, the technology could leave them at total leisure but they're not allowed to use it that way. In the second it's because they don't have the technology, they are it. That's a fairly important distinction.

And it all comes down to how does this teaser chase sequence work.

Do they have dogs?

I think the dogs version is quite interesting.

And really, I can't imagine a proper dramatic chase without dogs.

NSFG

I went on the bus, I walked to the pub, I found the room was double booked, I talked to some complete strangers, I waited and talked to the usual guys and we got sat on the smoker balcony with the heat lamps with the really difficult buttons because the pub was full of football, and then we went inside cause I was shivering and football was over.

I walked into our usual room and there were pretty goth people in excellent clothes with good makeup and... they were not our group. Sad! Had some conversation. English students :-) Or graduates really. We talked about the Oresteia a bit.

Taxi home eventually arrived. I saw it down the street parked outside the wrong pub and wondered, and sure enough it was my taxi, drove down and picked up. Home quick and effecient.

Now I has tired.

Next meeting in two weeks, will have a theme, Red Dwarf. I will be back at college by then and will have to have a think about going.

Need more people. The two guys that always go are fine to talk to, but more people make more conversation.