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Joined: 5/12/2011
Posts: 240
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I am writing something that takes place in the future for the first time. This is quite a switch from my historical writing. I am finding one big shift to be that rather than needing a complex understanding of what society was I need to imagine what I think society will be. You'd think this would be easy enough--just make it up, right?
But not so much. I feel that as with my fictional technology of the 26th century, my fictional social relations of the 26th century need to be rooted in a real sense of where we are now and where we seem to be headed 500 years down the line.
In my future so far, there's little gendered division of labor, though some of the old stereotypes remain in shadowy form. The world is unified in one government, but nationalist and ethnic separatists challenge that constantly (though not overly traumatically). Religion has evolved based on historical events, but it has evolved to a mostly woman-led thing that has Judeo-Christian roots (though fairly distant ones). Oh, and sexuality is far less predictable. People are largely oriented towards one of two main sexes but there's a lot more in-between than we have these days.
What about your future society? Do you base it at all on the present or do you entirely fabricate it whole-cloth? What's it like and why?
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Great topic, Lily. I think about this question a lot. For my first novel, I used a cataclysmic event to explain why the people in my future acted a certain way. In the book I'm on now, I'm trying hard to come up with a social, economic, religious, and moral framework for why people act as they do. This new book has a 6,000-world empire in it, and it's been interesting figuring out commerce, military, and even celebrities in that culture.
Your future sounds interesting; is Liaison the work you're talking about here?
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Joined: 5/12/2011
Posts: 240
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Yep! My first attempt at Sci-Fi.
6000 worlds! Wow!
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Joined: 3/12/2011
Posts: 376
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Couple things. First, a peeve, then what I've done, then a touch of advice.
The peeve - I would take care to differentiate between orientation, self-perception and gender / sex when writing Science Fiction. Orientation and self-perception can be anything you like, and society changes how and what it views as abberations from the norm. Gender and sex, despite a lot of politicizing lately, has scientific meaning having to do with whether the body produces sperm or eggs. I'm not sure about other genres, but a lot of Science Fiction readers will be aware of that.
The only time I've seen 'three genders' done correctly from a scientific standpoint (and with some really dark humor) was in Niven's Ringworld series, although the Gorgon series made a good play at it with the addition of hermaphrodites. Of course, you can *have* fully functioning hermaphrodites in a science fiction setting (My current WIP has them, for instance). Again, though, that word has a definition, specifically that the individual produces both eggs and sperm.
Also note that by the 26th century, barring something that sets genetic manipulation technolgy back a ways, gender/sex is likely to be *completely* detached from procreation, and you'll have quite a few genetic lines that have moved away from the entire concept of gender, since artificial gene selection and vats are safer and less inconvenient.
I suspect they'll *still* boink like weasels when the mood arises, but that's cause humans *do* that.
By the way - regarding orientation, my favorite story when my more 'macho' students start using 'gay' as an epithet describing 'non-macho' students used to be about the cultural norms of the Spartans, because they've all seen "300", and to use their words "Spartans go hard!" That's recently been superceded by the Sacred Brotherhood of Thebes (the only group to beat the Spartans at 3:1 odds in favor of the Spartans). At the very least, they stop using 'gay' when they mean 'effeminate'.
As for my future society in XLI, I actually have multiple societies, which were separated roughly 1000 years before the story's start by a devastating war, then kept apart for nearly 500 years by the lack of space travel. The technological disparities and cultural drift make for good story conflict. For one example, a particularly agrarian world went insular and pacifistic. On another world, a small starting population and some genetic manipulation caused procreation oddities, which meant promiscuity became a survival trait. *THAT* world slid even further backwards and developed several distinct cultures, varying from a patriarchy where 99% of the society were chattel to a matriarchy with politics based on an incredibly complex system of polygamous intermarriage.
Yeah, those two cultures didn't get along well.
Last but not least, when I was doing the world for XLI, I sketched out the history between now and then. Broad strokes, not details, but with enough understanding of those broad strokes that I could write what the culture of any particular world was at any particular point in time. You can also do that in reverse, where you say 'ok, *why* are women in charge of religion. Is it a feeling of disenfranchisement? At some point were men seen as ineffective or, worse, corrupt as clergy?
Essentially, for every major change you need to know why it happened and (roughly) when.
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Joined: 5/12/2011
Posts: 240
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By "oriented towards" I meant attracted to. I don't have any more distinctive third sex (in the medical sense) than we have today (and intersexed people are around in plentiful numbers now, just not a huge percentage of the population). I just mean that in 500 years, assumptions about heterosexuality are diminished. If hetero-sex is still more common, it isn't nearly as presumed as it is today. More people are willing to entertain the possibility of enjoying sex with someone of the same sex than are today. My reasoning is that less stigma attached to same-sex orientation will make for more willingness to admit to being something other than a Kinsey 1.
As for the woman-led religion, here's my thinking:
In my personal (real) religious tradition (Episcopal Christian), women priests are increasing in number to such an extent that in another generation or two, being a priest will have become "women's work" (like teaching or nursing). One theory feminist theologians have about this is that priesthood will lose status and pay for that reason (like teaching and nursing...ahem). But maybe not, depending on how other things evolve in terms of gender in our culture and in the church.
But in my fictional world, there was also a nearly devastating ecological crisis that happened in the late 21st century and between the growth of women church leaders and a growth in the "green" (for lack of a better term) movement, and earth-based neopagan revival religions (like Wicca), what evolved was a woman-led, Goddess-based religion with roots in Judeo-Christian traditions that were beginning to develop feminist theologies including Gaia-based theologies (which they are now).
So that's that. And since it's a short story, that's all I really need to know for the main conflicts between the main characters. But if I were to turn this into a big story of novel-length, I might go more into detail.
By the way, the story of this evolution of religion and sex/gender is not IN the short story. Only I know about it. My characters assume it and I expect my reader to just buy into it.
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Joined: 3/12/2011
Posts: 376
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If *you* know about it, it will usually show up in subtle ways, which makes it easier for readers to buy in. Also, when a reviewer says 'you need to give us a little more on this', all you have to do is find a place to insert it, not make it up from whole cloth and hope it fits in.
Honestly, while I'd like to see a society where orientation is seen as a personal choice without unrelated associations, I don't recall one existing in history, and there is a *lot* of old baggage that needs to be cleared out. Still, you've given yourself five centuries, you ought to be able to work something out. 
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Joined: 5/12/2011
Posts: 240
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A girl can dream. And just because it's not in history doesn't mean it won't be in the future.
Also, in actual history there are certainly cultures in which sexuality is almost completely different from what it is today. Not unoppressive perhaps, but completely different, all the same.
You know, a la those Spartans.
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Joined: 3/12/2011
Posts: 376
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Ayep, hence why I used them as my 'gay does not equal effeminate' speech.
Things change. It's the nature of the world. The trend, at least for the last little bit, has been toward more individual freedom. However, that trend has prompted reactionary backlash from entrenched groups who see it as a threat to power.
I suppose that's why I tend to write cautionary dystopian sci fi. Sometimes it's easier for me to illustrate how things could go wrong than to show how to make them right.
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Joined: 5/12/2011
Posts: 240
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Well, seeing as in my story, the entire planet earth has been blown to smithereens, the fact that it's okay to be a lesbian in the future doesn't brighten things all that much.
heh
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Joined: 3/12/2011
Posts: 376
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I dunno. The planet? More a place to put my stuff than 'home'. The *people* (and occasionally anthropomorphized stuff) is what makes 'home'. I for one wouldn't think of the Earth as 'home' without my friends.
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Joined: 5/12/2011
Posts: 240
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Yeah but there's only 500 people left too. All the friends are gone as well. And it's looking pretty bleak in the find-new-alien friends department. No friendly Vulcans to welcome them to the Federation.
: )
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Joined: 3/12/2011
Posts: 376
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Heh. 500 homo sapiens does not a viable population make.
Of course, that kind of dystopian thing makes alternate orientations seem small potatoes compared to survival, so...
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Joined: 5/12/2011
Posts: 240
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What I am dying to do--but it's way outside the scope of the story--is have the ship's doctor start a gamete/embryo bank in which he himself does the selection to match gametes of the survivors for maximum genetic diversity and make embryos to keep on ice in the event that they find a place to colonize. (Right now, they wouldn't waste their limited resources on bringing more people on the ship.)
Then...having some of the gamete pairs be egg-egg pairs. Because it's so totally doable--they could it right now if there was a market for it. It's not a far cry from parthenogenesis or cloning--but much better because you actually combine DNA and get new people. Anyway in 500 years, they would certainly be doing it--easily--and in such a circumstance as this, they would indeed want to maximize the genetic combinations available, right?
Like I said, totally outside the scope of the story. But a fun thought experiment.
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Joined: 3/12/2011
Posts: 376
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Part of the backstory in XLI is just that, only without the knowledge of the people it was happening to.
Very fun stuff, but I'm not sure how to work it into an active story, as opposed to a backstory.
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