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London Zoo: [Sink] What Established Fictional Universe Do You Want to Live In?

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      CommentAuthoroldhat
    • CommentTimeJun 5th 2012
     (10703.1)
    What it says on the tin. This is a question I've ended up asking quite a few people in conversations and the answers --and the reasoning behind them -- have always been different and interesting.

    So! Any fictional universe in books, video games, movies, television, comics...whatever. Which one would you most want to live in and why?
    • CommentAuthorArgos
    • CommentTimeJun 5th 2012 edited
     (10703.2)
    Oooh, it depends on my mood. Sometimes I want to be in some kind of faerie land a la Gaiman's Books of Magic (but the actual Faerie land Tim visits, not Tim's London), but usually I'd like to live in a more cyberpunk world like Shadowrun. I like SR because it's futuristic and cyberpunk and whatnot, but it still has the magic element, and it does a good job of meshing it well with the tech world. Similarly, the world in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, just because it was such a pretty future tech world. But that one is more of a visual thing for me. I think SR has a stronger grasp on me since I've been playing a campaign for a year now, so there's a part of me that actually mentally feels submersed in that world, and I feel like I know it better.

    The Mass Effect world fancies me in the same ways. It's futuristic and full of really neat, but also visually beautiful, tech (and you get to explore the whole galaxy!), but with the whole bionics thing going on it still has that feeling of having something magical about it, without being an actual magical world in the faeries sense. And I really fell in love with all the different alien races and planets you get to visit in the game. Like SR, the Mass Effect world calls to me because I spent so much time playing the games that part of me feels like i actually know the world, it feels familiar. Also, as much as I romanticize the dystopian aspects of cyberpunk, when it comes down to it, I don't think I'd actually like to live in it (what with the fighting for survival and whatnot. It's like how I LOVE the transmet world but wouldn't want to live there.), so if I had to choose between SR and ME, I'd have to go with ME just because it's easier to have a decent standard of living without having to work for a corrupt corporation.

    Bottom line: I really like futuristic cyberpunk & SciFi worlds, and I really like magical faerie worlds, but if I can get a world that can somehow mesh the two aspects in a way that feels natural and unforced, then that's the world I'd want to be in. The Shadowrun and Mass Effect world's both do that well, with the main difference being that one is run by actual politicians & ambassadors and whatnot (ME), while the other is (unofficially) run by profit seeking mega-corporations (SR).
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      CommentAuthorCat Vincent
    • CommentTimeJun 5th 2012 edited
     (10703.3)
    Hellblazer, Full Strength. But that's just me...
    • CommentAuthorSteve Toase
    • CommentTimeJun 5th 2012 edited
     (10703.4)
    American Gods. I like the idea that belief is a currency. Sometimes I think this underpins a lot of my personal belief. There is an unsettling feel to Gaiman's world that I find un-nerving but also fascinating.
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      CommentAuthoroldhat
    • CommentTimeJun 5th 2012
     (10703.5)
    If you can guys, maybe explain the appeal of why you would want to live in such a world?
    •  
      CommentAuthorAlastair
    • CommentTimeJun 5th 2012
     (10703.6)
    star trek, so little real hatred. and spaceships. and robots.


    and tea. earl grey. HOT
  7.  (10703.7)
    Iain M Banks' Culture.

    Because it's a kind of post-scarcity communist space utopia, with sentient machines and ships and awesome environments and technology. The inhabitants are free to do what the hell they like, with inbuilt drug glands, total freedom and pretty much eternal life. The conflicts and moral ambiguities come from the tinkering round the edges with other civilizations and societies - they have the kind of opposite of the Prime Directive, and actively intervene in societies they believe are cruel/inhumane or where they just feel like shaking things up. Kind of really appeals to me.
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      CommentAuthorcurb
    • CommentTimeJun 5th 2012
     (10703.8)
    Iain M Banks' Culture universe sounds fun to me, provided I can be a citizen of The Culture, that is. Near immortality, as much or as little responsibility as you choose, gender swapping and free love, and the universe as your playground? Yes please.
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      CommentAuthorcurb
    • CommentTimeJun 5th 2012 edited
     (10703.9)
    ETA: As a second choice: The Futurama universe. It just looks like plain old good fun, and despite all the horrible ways to die, has always seemed like a pretty benign place.
  10.  (10703.10)
    yeah - you'd want to be a citizen, I guess...
  11.  (10703.11)
    Dr. Who World.

    But only if I get to be a companion. Although, I'd probably be the annoying companion, that nobody likes, and gets killed after a few episodes. But still...

    Star Trek, Next Generation world.

    One word. HOLODECK!
    • CommentAuthorRenThing
    • CommentTimeJun 5th 2012
     (10703.12)
    Star Wars universe for me, though Star Trek wouldn't be so bad.
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      CommentAuthornigredo
    • CommentTimeJun 5th 2012
     (10703.13)
    Iain M. Banks' Culture for me too, among a few others like Transmet, Neuromancer and Steve Aylett's Beerlight. Farmer's Riverworld, too. Dunno why.
  14.  (10703.14)
    I love the Star Trek universe, but distrust teleporters, so would have to be that eccentric lady who always needs to be picked up and dropped off by shuttlecraft (also scary, though less uncannily so). Besides, I would never really believe that my friends were the same people who left via teleporter when they came back, which is terrible.

    So Mass Effect universe it is for me to get space travel, sexy aliens, advanced medicine, and a massive universe to explore, all while going down to the surface of new planets as we are intended - in the husk of a fragile shuttlecraft burning through the ionosphere, after having been knocked unconscious and carried onto the craft by my friends before the flight, just like B.A. Baracus. I feel confident my friends would agree that's a fine universe to live in, and we'd find ourselves a nice busy space station and... live essentially the same way we do now, but this time, In Space!
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      CommentAuthorbrittanica
    • CommentTimeJun 5th 2012 edited
     (10703.15)
    I am sort of a post-apocalypse fetishist, so the Fallout universe has always seemed cool. A whole world of strong people, taking care of themselves, in small rural groups... only w/ badass technology and plasma rifles.
    I'd probably also say Firefly, for similar reasons.

    And I really want to say Transmet and Batman, even though it would be shitty and oppressive for anyone who's just a normal everyday joe. I just want to live in world where Spider Jerusalem or Batman exists.
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      CommentAuthorFrowardd
    • CommentTimeJun 5th 2012
     (10703.16)
    Two-Step London. An inexorably cheerful and colorful London, with Asian and European cultures smooshed together, and flying is a matter of throwing yourself at the ground and thinking really really hard. And the unusual dangers are pretty much the same (madcap cock-bandit shenanigans, random zen gunfights), aside from giant robots flirting on the beach (but I hate the beach anyway).
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      CommentAuthorFinagle
    • CommentTimeJun 5th 2012 edited
     (10703.17)
    For the sake of answering, I have to assume I get to be one of the cool people. If I had to choose from Rawl's original position, and not know what place on society I were to have, the answer would be totally different.

    Cool person:
    Lankhmar or Sanctuary from Thieves World
    Just because they are places you can have a REALLY good time if you happen to be rich or a badass.


    Possible peon:
    Larry Niven's Known Universe, circa Ringworld era
    Nobody was really badly off, and the galaxy was still a long way from exploding.
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      CommentAuthorFoamhead
    • CommentTimeJun 5th 2012 edited
     (10703.18)
    "Any universe but this one" was my first thought.

    Just finished the Dune series so, all melange-like, I'm kinda saturated with that right now. Mentat abilities, being brought back as a ghola, folding space, prescience, riding a sandworm...the list is almost endless.

    Although the Other Memory of my 15 year old self is flatly denying it has anything to do with Francesca Annis in a stillsuit.

    (ETA: On the flipside, I could always end-up bumping into this)


  19.  (10703.19)
    Honestly? The universe of Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom"

    Pretty much any other universe where I can be backed up and everything is mostly nice. Would not like to live in the universe of Richard K. Morgan's "Altered Carbon" - you can be erased and their is freaking strife everywhere in the universe.

    I don't want to be immortal, but I don't want to die a stupid death and be dead forever. Back me up, Scotty.
    • CommentAuthordnewling
    • CommentTimeJun 5th 2012
     (10703.20)
    I could live in the Harry Potter universe - don't need any explanation for that, do I? Perhaps I could run that sweet shop in Hogsmeade!

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