Yes, yes I know we’re already kind of there, but I mean without the current infighting and clash between finance vampires and industrial vampires and other gridlock factors. porky-scared-flipped porky-scared

Fascism burns itself out fast with the constant need to purge and loot until nothing is left, so I know even 20 years of unmitigated fascism is a stretch. Still, what do you think a “they get absolutely everything they want, fire all US government employees and replace them at the low echelon with Billy Bob, the middle echelon with James Holden Bloodfeast III, and their favorite Youtubers at the top echelon” complete and total MAGA victory might look like? flashbang

Try to hold it together and stretch your sense of disbelief that the hogs get the feed they’ve been squealing for, from mere reappropriated resources (the way nazis murdered and looted and redistributed to their favorite failfamilies) or even something surreal like the incel supporters actually getting government issued slaves while destroying all other safety nets entirely, if you dare. After all, Dr. Professor Lobster Esquire PhD MD says that’s the price of civilization, bucko. up-yours-woke-moralists

Let’s be generous and assume no outright nuclear war, just so there’s something to actually visualize other than a more actually historically accurate version of the Fallouterino treats. soypoint-1 nuke soypoint-2

  • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
    cake
    OP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    Techno favelas like in the beginning of the novel Tulpa Uprising by Ulysses Tuggy

    side-eye-1 side-eye-2

    I admit that some of my early worldbuilding started with a reading of Ready Player One (chud relative gifted it to me) and saying “this is fucked. How else can this go besides some narcissistic asshole winning the bideo bame and becoming the new my-hero ?”

    And Ready Player Two was even worse and the ending of that book was so horrifying that it basically was the basis of a lot of my villain class’s motivations and goals.

    spoiler

    The sequel, Tulpa War, has a very brief easter egg name-drop indirectly referring to the bazinga creep and his ego-insert protagonist during the opening battle scene as a nerd with Main Character Syndrome that ran forward and immediately got torn apart by economy-tier drone swarms because he refused to fight alongside comrades like a proper soldier of the people.

    shinji-froggy-chair pathetic

      • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
        cake
        OP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        Appreciated! If you got to the end of Book 2 or Book 3, I’d love some private message feedback. I enjoy knowing how people respond to book 2’s near-epilogue plot twist.

        What I haven’t read is ready player 1 or 2. I saw the movie, it was bad but I’ve heard the book is somehow even worse.

        The Ready Player One/Twoerino books are even sex pestier and go off on rambling tangents about how much smarter and better than everyone else the supreme gentleman is that is really into a specific period of 1970s-1980s pop culture (minute the political us-foreign-policy or feeemale specific parts of that time which are conspicuously absent)

        • buckykat [none/use name]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          2 months ago

          I finished Tulpa book 1 but haven’t gotten to 2 or 3 yet.

          I think I saw a picture somewhere of somebody holding a fairly thick section of pages from one of the ready player books captioned this part is literally just a list of pop culture references

          • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
            cake
            OP
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            I finished Tulpa book 1 but haven’t gotten to 2 or 3 yet.

            sicko-wistful Understandable. I am especially proud of books 2 and 3. I sometimes wonder if I should have started with Book 2.

            I think I saw a picture somewhere of somebody holding a fairly thick section of pages from one of the ready player books captioned this part is literally just a list of pop culture references

            That isn’t wrong. And the pop culture slop references are the least offensive part of those books.

    • The_sleepy_woke_dialectic [he/him]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      2 months ago

      I haven’t read RP1 but I have read several the zanth novels and it sounds suspiciously similar in concept. There’s a game you have to play and only if you’re sigma grindset enough do you get to earn your place as a rich citizen.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
        cake
        OP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        2 months ago

        Very similar shit, though RP1 also requires a bunch of bazinga trivia quizzing. It’s not enough to play bideo bame, you also have to guess what quirky old people trivia that the setting’s my-hero left behind to find the le treasure.