Notes to myself about the design of an utopia Sci-Fi story

To illustrate my ideas about designing a better make-work economy, I wish to write a Sci-Fi story. There have been several stories which illustrate perfect (in their authors’ opinion) utopias, starting from the original book by Thomas More (circa 1516) through books such as The New Atlantis (1627) by Francis Bacon, Altneuland (1902) by Theodor Herzl, and Atlas Shrugged (1957) by Ayn Rand.

There are several ways to depict an utopia in Sci-Fi literature:

  1. The protagonist tours the utopia. Some of the natives escort him and show him things and lecture at him and teach him the ideology.
  2. The protagonist believes that the utopia is an enemy. He enters the utopia with warlike intentions. Most of the story describes the conflict, during which he learns more and more about the enemy. The story resolves when he learns the virtues of the utopia and becomes a convert.
  3. The protagonist fights the utopia as before, but is defeated. Through an account of the war, we learn about the utopia’s modus operandi.
  4. The protagonist is a confused youth, who has discovered that something is horribly wrong with the world. The plot is driven by his conflict against the Establishment. The conflict is eventually resolved when he learns the true nature of the utopia and of his parents or mentors.
  5. The protagonist has some mental illness, which prevents him from coping with the utopia. He is locked up in an institution, and knows nothing about the world. He escapes the institution and tries to survive in the world. He fails and is returned to the institution.
  6. The protagonist is a revolutionary, who has caused a major change in the country’s regime to occur. He shares with the story’s readers a vision of the utopia toward which he is leading his country.

One way, which I do not remember reading in the Sci-Fi literature is as follows.

The country reached the utopia through process of evolution, making mistakes and learning from them. The story’s plot consists of the tale of such a mistake, and how the utopia coped with it and evolved further.

Apr. 30, 2018 update: I did write a booklet of short stories illustrating my utopia’s design. It is available in Hebrew as סיפורי עושר מדרגה שלישית.

Author: Omer Zak

I am deaf since birth. I played with big computers which eat punched cards and spew out printouts since age 12. Ever since they became available, I work and play with desktop size computers which eat keyboard keypresses and spew out display pixels. Among other things, I developed software which helped the deaf in Israel use the telephone network, by means of home computers equipped with modems. Several years later, I developed Hebrew localizations for some cellular phones, which helped the deaf in Israel utilize the cellular phone networks. I am interested in entrepreneurship, Science Fiction and making the world more accessible to people with disabilities.