thread: 2005-05-06 : Brainstorming from the Core
On 2005-05-10, Emily Care wrote:
The setting is Brazil.
Just post current day. Enough so that the tremendous rift between rich & poor has been exacerbated by technological innovations: the ultra-rich flit from decadent penthouse to their lavish mountaintop retreats in armored helicopters/aircars.
The ultra-poor live in sprawling tent cities in the shadow of the skyrises of the rich, or in the very basements of the buildings themselves. They sell drugs, their bodies and more: their dna, their organs, or their humanity. Some get gene therapy to become servants of the rich and are transformed into half-cat/half-human sexual slaves, water-breathing, finned pearl-divers, many forms strange and beautiful....
These changelings are valued by their owners but mercilessly exploited and brutally punished or killed if they step out of line. They are hated by the common normals, but sometimes are appealed to by the resistance, the land reform movement that organizes mass demonstrations of the people to take over buildings, estates or, even, cities and towns. The rebels need all the help they can get to fight the paramilitary police controlled by the landed aristocracy.
The civilization is on the brink of civil war. Unrest walks the cities of Sao Paulo and Rio Dejienero. You are a changeling, trying to make your way in the world. Perhaps living with a loving master, perhaps trying to escape a hellish existence you didn't choose. Perhaps escaped and trying to fit in with a world that sees you as less than human and yet you are something more...
Okay. That's the thematic part. What is it to be human, shades of Blade Runner fer sure. (and sorry, Matt, I'm laser-sharking like mad. But surely I if anyone can get away with that a little! ; )
Now a technical core. I'll give it some thought, but Eric, anyone, some suggestions?
