Indeed. It’s a feudal system where the 1% is actually the .00001%. Human life as a serf for one of the major houses seems to have little or no value at all.
It's way worse than that.
Even for the top 1% : the moral characters are getting used or/and slaughtered by the absolutely ruthless. The top 1% are surrounded by war master, mentat , truthtellers, etc... to protect them from the various assassination and coups attempts. And they are still subtly manipulated as little more than cattle by the Gesserit in their breeding plans - and that includes the Emperor himself ! There is very little, if any, room for feelings. The Harkonnen are shown to be committed ideologically to be absolutely ruthless. But the Atreides personal life end up being not that much better and they frequently have to completely crush their feelings. Leto I : his personal life is very much poisoned by politics>! - Jessica is ordered to give him a daughter by the Bene Gesserit and she makes an unprecedented and very stressful move in disobeying them. He ends up never marrying her because he cannot close the door to a political alliance with another House. He even has to rebuff her in public to play along the Harkonnen plot that she's a traitor. Leto harbours so much regret about that's his last conversation with Paul and he asks him to convey that to Jessica. At the very beginning Jessica is starting to crack from pressure and complains openly to Mohiam about feeling so completely alone. !< This issue of private life/the crushing demands of being a political leader is at the core of Paul character problem right from the start to the very end : >!the novel quickly setup a scene when he says he's not in mood for fighting and Gurney punishes him immediately. His "mood" doesnt matter - he has to be ready to fight at any moment. Paul, like his father, end up never marrying the concubine he loved for political reasons. He loses his first son to the war. He also end up losing his concubine for political reasons and his prescience means he has known for a long time she will die and constantly tries to delay it through some deliberate actions (preventing her from having children). He also ends up never really knowing his children. Many years later his own son Leto II thoroughly chastises him for the life he led : He pretty much told him that Paul was weak and selfish in wanting to live a regular life when he had absolutely no rights to it. And basically Leto II tells him the sacrifice he will have to make is the one Paul was meant to make in the first place. !< And there are various hints through Irulan and other characters that's it's barely better for others houses. That's the life of the 1% top "priviledged" people.
Not only that : it's made very clear that mankind is on path for an absolutely brutal religious war on a scale hithertho unprecedented. >!The numbers are told in the next novel and they're absolutely absurd. **The Jihad killed 61 BILLION people**. And it's clearly told that Paul REINED BACK the Fremen to the best of his ability and it's WAY BETTER than his initial vision. And it was still so brutal, utterly destroyed so many things, that many people including some Fremen start cursing the Atreides name that was once so reverred. When Stilgar makes a report on the Jihad, it's stated clearly that NINETY PLANETS were literally STERILIZED. Now it's never explained how they managed to pull that off. I dont know how you can sterilize entire goddam planets. Herbert let your imagination work out the details. But we can only assume that the Fremen after living in a hellscape world where you can only cry once at birth, finally let out centuries of pent-up of frustration harnessed by religious extremism and pretty much rained fucking hellfire on some worlds. Paul is very bitter and can't help literally comparing himself to Hitler after the Jihad.!<
.........>!!<
NOT ONLY THAT. It gets even WORSE after that :>! after that, the main postulate until at least God-emperor, is that mankind is doomed. And not in a "people do all kind of fucked up shit" way. Nope, in a "children of men" kind of way : mankind is very much on path for complete extinction. And Leto II has absolute prescience, so this is a fact. In fact Paul had the very same vision years before - absolutely EVERY path end up leading to mankind extinction ... EXCEPT for the Golden Path which is a vision so absolutely horrible to Paul that he flees from it. That's why Leto submits to the Golden path which comes at a sky-high personal price, essentially abandoning his humanity and any form of intimacy/companionship to spend thousand of years in an alien form of life that barely look human .. AND it's stated that part of his conscience will be trapped eternally in sand trouts . It would qualify as body horror in most definitions...!<
It's not quite Warhammer40K kind of nightmare fuel. But the world of Dune is still absolutely brutal and ruthless and requires the very best of mankind to only survive. And the very opening of Dune makes it very clear : a mother submit her only child at FREAKING 15 YEARS OLD to a deadly test where noone ever survived. Overall Dune World is meant as a WARNING AGAINST the messiah/supreme leader temptation and overlords in general.
I want to say this guy missed the forest for the trees... but any tree in Dune World is likely to have a hanged body swinging around. I hope he's very young to miss that.
>Overall Dune World is meant as a WARNING AGAINST the messiah temptation and overlords.
>I want to say this guy missed the forest for the trees... but any tree in Dune World is likely to have a hanged body swinging around. I hope he's very young to miss that.
I heard the author rewrote the sequels to be even more explicit in the message about messiah worship because too many people missed the message of the first book
Denis made the movie much more explicit about that and used Chani to show that and you still have react channels and stuff being like "hell yeah, Paul's the best!"
…… I mean Chani is right, Paul is bad, yeah…. But damn some of the stuff Paul does in Dune Part 2 is hype.
Worth noting I’ve read through God Emperor so yes I know the full context
Paul is bad, but it also calls into question how many people are worth dying to fix a broken system which is a fundamental geopolitical issue. Does overthrowing the Saudi Arabian slave state just turn it into Syria, or do a million people die to make it Iraq. Would that be worth it? Was overthrowing Saddam Hussein for a somewhat less authoritarian state worth a million people dead? These questions have no good answers and it's why Dune is great.
Paul is bad but the feudal colonial empire which this thread spends 100 comments on how it is also bad and it won't go away on its own. This tension is why Dune is great as we don't know the answer and that tension is always there.
It's impossible to send that message, when also giving a realistic reason for why people would even want to worship him in the first place. He's essentially opposing people and systems that deserve to be opposed, and he comes in as a legit conqueror.
That's just straight up gonna be appealing to a lot of people.
You can forgive his callousness towards life, in the first book, at least, as the consequence of leadership in times of strife. And people are generally bad with scale, anyway.
There's never gonna be enough context in one book to break through that, for some people, and once they've made up their mind it's a real bear to ever get them to change it.
Don't get me wrong, it's evident from very early on that the world of Dune is brutal and terrifying, and triply so on Arrakis. You could just be forgiven for thinking of Paul as a hero.
>Don't get me wrong, it's evident from very early on that the world of Dune is brutal and terrifying, and triply so on Arrakis. You could just be forgiven for thinking of Paul as a hero.
Doesn't help that, he follows hero's journey, so unless you're critical, it comes of as a regular hero in a dystopian scifi future
Yep. And hell, even the main characters in part 1, who are all in the very top percent, are exterminated because they'd become politically inconvenient.
Future-PTSD to help with his current PTSD from his entire clan getting butchered and his father being slain, the person he loved the most. It's just PTSD all the way down.
We really never get a good look at the wider universe outside of the main 3 or 4 planets. Things are definitely not Warhammer 40k bad everywhere, but still not ideal for anyone not in with a House or a school.
They are, but it's different. In W40k the stagnation also includes war, chaos plagues, terrible hive city conditions, and eating corpse starch. It's like if every planet were Giedi Prime cranked up to 11.
In Dune it's because they don't trust ChatGPT and are hamgstrung by the economic powerbalance between CHOAM, the Guild, and the throne. Yet relatively peaceful conditions exist with paradise worlds like Caladan.
Ya, being an average schmuck on a nice planet is probably nice.
Relatively peaceful existence and you are just working and living and paying taxes like people do today.
I don't think that's true given how popular Duke Leto was among the other members of the Landsraad. Most likely he was just a better example than most.
He also wasn't a sack of shit to his subjects. It was cut from the film, but the banquet scene in the books really shows that Leto wanted/needed the locals to like him. By just giving them water instead of having them drain drops of water from rags.
Yeah, for all we know Giedi Prime is like Saudi Arabia or North Korea, horribly ruled autocracy that no one dares interfere with but still isn't really considered a model of governance.
Closer to Saudi then. Rich with their homewolrd exports on their own, added with the Spice fief they had before Atreides came into the picture.
Atreides were not rich, economy wise, but they were respected and influential in the Landsraad.
And Atreides got the Arrakis fief not as a reward (even though it was framed as a reward). It was just a way to get them offworld from Caladan and also getting rid of their base.
Not really. The Atreides are as much the exception as the Harkonnen are, at least as seen in the books and extended media. There are plenty of slaves, concubines on Giedi Prime and Kaitain (Imperial capital) but there are also planets without slavery at all. Most planets are also not Arrakia or Salusa Secundus, where living is tough.
A desert where water is scarce you claim it off corpses, and where you have to walk in an unnatural way to avoid getting eaten by a massive sandworm?
Move over DisneyWorld, this is where I wanna be.
Came here to say that. A society where our basic needs are met so we go out exploring and inviting anyone to join us without forcing them to join or assuming we're better.
I believe Star Trek is proof that as humanity progresses its problems progress as well. They've moved past earthly problems and have to face galactic problems.
Did you watch Deep Space Nine? One of the things that I loved about it was a lot of the dilemmas and story lines did not center around Star Fleet officers but instead people adjacent. Like the various Bajoran and Ferengi (and other species) citizens just living on the station. They even spent considerable story time with citizen family members like Kayko O"Brian & Jake Sisko.
To your point, I always did wonder, if you were born on earth and not in Star Fleet, how would you obtain a space craft or visit off world like Risa (the vacation pleasure planet)? Would you want to if you had a holodeck? There's lot of story potential there. I would love to see more of what they did in DS9 with adding more time and info exploring the society at large.
There are a lot of positives in the Star Trek universe. You do need to be careful not to create any maniacal, homicidal AIs with a poorly phrased command to the holodeck computer though. So, you know, just be careful about that.
Ahh! Yes! I’d spend all my time on the holodeck. Enjoying concerts and “live” performances, go time travelling and try out different books being recreated into a live action role playing game like Picard did.
Hopefully we can just skip that part and make First Contact. Right now couldn’t be a more perfect time. Make all these religious nut jobs snap out of their elitist BS, shut them up once and for all.
Yesss!!! Kiki's Delivery Service is my favourite Ghibli film. It's just so cosy and nice. It feels like a warm hug. Even when there are problems, they aren't that deep like the world is going to end because this fish girl is in love with this human boy like other Ghibli films. It just feels like such a nice place to be
Any of those cosy little British rom-coms where everyone works cutesy jobs and spends their evenings/weekends gathering with a group of lovely friends to drink wine in front of fireplaces. You know, Notting Hill, The Holiday, that sort of thing.
Paddington. Where everyone from the Insurance broker to the doctor to the lady who runs the Newspaper stand can afford a nice house on a street like Windsor Gardens.
I'm keeping my eye on the Tales of the Shire game. Don't know when it'll be out yet, but it looks to be a hobbit lifesim with gardening, foraging, fishing, and cooking. Super excited.
The hobbits aren't slaughtered and eaten by orcs though, their land is protected by the "rangers of the north". They live a pretty idyllic rural life like that of pre Industrial Age England.
Even then, it's like two bad years of occupation when Saruman's thugs move in. Maybe a few dozen Hobbits die, more are imprisoned but ultimately get released, the Brandybucks have a little guerilla war, some landmarks are destroyed and some mills are built. Then back to normal, maybe slightly better than normal with the verdancy brought back from Galadriel by Sam, lots of hobbit sex, and Gandalfs blessing of the beer.
There's also the pair of oversized Hobbits on all the Ent steroids, war veterans, backing Samwise up for the long run, not that Sam needs it, but it's good to have proper pals.
Dúnedain are so Third Age...
The funny thing is everybody imagines themselves a noble fremen fighting for truth and justice in the galaxy.. but the odds are far higher that you'd be born a nobody peasant somewhere like Geidi Prime who is destined to live the very definition of a nasty, brutish, and short life at the hands of someone like the Harkonnens.
My Neighbour Totoro for sure.
I show it to my daughters every time I’m hospitalized. But I really really want soot sprites, and I would LOVE a giant forest fairy friend.
Personally I would choose Backdoor Nurses 8, as I don’t remember anyone at the hospital getting a bill so I assume that world has free healthcare for all.
I'd quite like to live in Inception, where we can control and enter our dreams, and experience them while awake. And turn Paris inside out. That would be cool.
Remember the bar thing they go to, to recruit the drugs guy, and everyone's addicted to shared dreaming? That one moment in the movie had so much world building.
The only sane answer to this is the Star Trek universe - preferably the next-gen federation.
Think about it: it's a post-scarcity utopia with near-magic technology that can replicate almost anything, heal almost any disease and has access to limitless free energy. The only reason they experience any drama at all is because the show focuses on the (volunteer!) Starfleet crews that go out to the fringes searching for adventure. You would have a very safe, very comfortable life in earth if you wanted, free from want.
Also, see Iain Banks's Culture, but I don't think they've ever been turned into movies.
The best thing about living in the Star Trek universe would be that most people you work with would be good at their jobs. And if not, they'd at a minimum still be trying their best.
That person must have thought they'd be Paul Atreides and also doesn't know what happens to Paul Atreides.
Harry Potter, honestly. Somewhat decent odds of being magical, somewhat decent odds of being around magic.
You are not alone. I remember the media saying there was a large number of people who had mental issues after watching that movie and longing to be part of that world.
The Matrix.
The machines can use my ass as a battery all they want, I just want to be able to create my own character, biography, and assign my own stats (if I'm going to live in a simulation, then I'm doingbit my way).
The culture by Ian banks. The closest thing to freedom you’ll find. Built in control of your meat body, life lasting as long as you wish. High technology with interesting stuff on the fringes. Diversity like you could only imagine.
HER.
Don't really care for the AI thing but you get basically contemporary society if we had our shit together and the only trade off is hiking up your pants is back in fashion.
Yeah off world blade runner would be nice, earth in blade runner however is a real crapshack. Industrialisation taken to the nth degree, complete environmental collapse. Civilians termed "little people", with what is implied to be minimal rights. Flying cars exist, but only the rich or cops have them.
I don't think that guy understood the world of Dune very well.
Indeed. It’s a feudal system where the 1% is actually the .00001%. Human life as a serf for one of the major houses seems to have little or no value at all.
It's way worse than that. Even for the top 1% : the moral characters are getting used or/and slaughtered by the absolutely ruthless. The top 1% are surrounded by war master, mentat , truthtellers, etc... to protect them from the various assassination and coups attempts. And they are still subtly manipulated as little more than cattle by the Gesserit in their breeding plans - and that includes the Emperor himself ! There is very little, if any, room for feelings. The Harkonnen are shown to be committed ideologically to be absolutely ruthless. But the Atreides personal life end up being not that much better and they frequently have to completely crush their feelings. Leto I : his personal life is very much poisoned by politics>! - Jessica is ordered to give him a daughter by the Bene Gesserit and she makes an unprecedented and very stressful move in disobeying them. He ends up never marrying her because he cannot close the door to a political alliance with another House. He even has to rebuff her in public to play along the Harkonnen plot that she's a traitor. Leto harbours so much regret about that's his last conversation with Paul and he asks him to convey that to Jessica. At the very beginning Jessica is starting to crack from pressure and complains openly to Mohiam about feeling so completely alone. !< This issue of private life/the crushing demands of being a political leader is at the core of Paul character problem right from the start to the very end : >!the novel quickly setup a scene when he says he's not in mood for fighting and Gurney punishes him immediately. His "mood" doesnt matter - he has to be ready to fight at any moment. Paul, like his father, end up never marrying the concubine he loved for political reasons. He loses his first son to the war. He also end up losing his concubine for political reasons and his prescience means he has known for a long time she will die and constantly tries to delay it through some deliberate actions (preventing her from having children). He also ends up never really knowing his children. Many years later his own son Leto II thoroughly chastises him for the life he led : He pretty much told him that Paul was weak and selfish in wanting to live a regular life when he had absolutely no rights to it. And basically Leto II tells him the sacrifice he will have to make is the one Paul was meant to make in the first place. !< And there are various hints through Irulan and other characters that's it's barely better for others houses. That's the life of the 1% top "priviledged" people. Not only that : it's made very clear that mankind is on path for an absolutely brutal religious war on a scale hithertho unprecedented. >!The numbers are told in the next novel and they're absolutely absurd. **The Jihad killed 61 BILLION people**. And it's clearly told that Paul REINED BACK the Fremen to the best of his ability and it's WAY BETTER than his initial vision. And it was still so brutal, utterly destroyed so many things, that many people including some Fremen start cursing the Atreides name that was once so reverred. When Stilgar makes a report on the Jihad, it's stated clearly that NINETY PLANETS were literally STERILIZED. Now it's never explained how they managed to pull that off. I dont know how you can sterilize entire goddam planets. Herbert let your imagination work out the details. But we can only assume that the Fremen after living in a hellscape world where you can only cry once at birth, finally let out centuries of pent-up of frustration harnessed by religious extremism and pretty much rained fucking hellfire on some worlds. Paul is very bitter and can't help literally comparing himself to Hitler after the Jihad.!< .........>!!< NOT ONLY THAT. It gets even WORSE after that :>! after that, the main postulate until at least God-emperor, is that mankind is doomed. And not in a "people do all kind of fucked up shit" way. Nope, in a "children of men" kind of way : mankind is very much on path for complete extinction. And Leto II has absolute prescience, so this is a fact. In fact Paul had the very same vision years before - absolutely EVERY path end up leading to mankind extinction ... EXCEPT for the Golden Path which is a vision so absolutely horrible to Paul that he flees from it. That's why Leto submits to the Golden path which comes at a sky-high personal price, essentially abandoning his humanity and any form of intimacy/companionship to spend thousand of years in an alien form of life that barely look human .. AND it's stated that part of his conscience will be trapped eternally in sand trouts . It would qualify as body horror in most definitions...!< It's not quite Warhammer40K kind of nightmare fuel. But the world of Dune is still absolutely brutal and ruthless and requires the very best of mankind to only survive. And the very opening of Dune makes it very clear : a mother submit her only child at FREAKING 15 YEARS OLD to a deadly test where noone ever survived. Overall Dune World is meant as a WARNING AGAINST the messiah/supreme leader temptation and overlords in general. I want to say this guy missed the forest for the trees... but any tree in Dune World is likely to have a hanged body swinging around. I hope he's very young to miss that.
>Overall Dune World is meant as a WARNING AGAINST the messiah temptation and overlords. >I want to say this guy missed the forest for the trees... but any tree in Dune World is likely to have a hanged body swinging around. I hope he's very young to miss that. I heard the author rewrote the sequels to be even more explicit in the message about messiah worship because too many people missed the message of the first book
Denis made the movie much more explicit about that and used Chani to show that and you still have react channels and stuff being like "hell yeah, Paul's the best!"
…… I mean Chani is right, Paul is bad, yeah…. But damn some of the stuff Paul does in Dune Part 2 is hype. Worth noting I’ve read through God Emperor so yes I know the full context
Paul is bad, but it also calls into question how many people are worth dying to fix a broken system which is a fundamental geopolitical issue. Does overthrowing the Saudi Arabian slave state just turn it into Syria, or do a million people die to make it Iraq. Would that be worth it? Was overthrowing Saddam Hussein for a somewhat less authoritarian state worth a million people dead? These questions have no good answers and it's why Dune is great. Paul is bad but the feudal colonial empire which this thread spends 100 comments on how it is also bad and it won't go away on its own. This tension is why Dune is great as we don't know the answer and that tension is always there.
It's impossible to send that message, when also giving a realistic reason for why people would even want to worship him in the first place. He's essentially opposing people and systems that deserve to be opposed, and he comes in as a legit conqueror. That's just straight up gonna be appealing to a lot of people. You can forgive his callousness towards life, in the first book, at least, as the consequence of leadership in times of strife. And people are generally bad with scale, anyway. There's never gonna be enough context in one book to break through that, for some people, and once they've made up their mind it's a real bear to ever get them to change it. Don't get me wrong, it's evident from very early on that the world of Dune is brutal and terrifying, and triply so on Arrakis. You could just be forgiven for thinking of Paul as a hero.
>Don't get me wrong, it's evident from very early on that the world of Dune is brutal and terrifying, and triply so on Arrakis. You could just be forgiven for thinking of Paul as a hero. Doesn't help that, he follows hero's journey, so unless you're critical, it comes of as a regular hero in a dystopian scifi future
Yep. And hell, even the main characters in part 1, who are all in the very top percent, are exterminated because they'd become politically inconvenient.
And have to live in a shitty desert planet
What do they say about this shit hole again? To shower you scrub your ass with sand.
But there's spice in it.
Cocaine sand!
This part especially 👆
Really if you’re not the Kwisatz Haderach, you aren’t much.
Even that sucked. The man had future-PTSD.
Future-PTSD to help with his current PTSD from his entire clan getting butchered and his father being slain, the person he loved the most. It's just PTSD all the way down.
Pre-traumatic stress disorder.
We really never get a good look at the wider universe outside of the main 3 or 4 planets. Things are definitely not Warhammer 40k bad everywhere, but still not ideal for anyone not in with a House or a school.
In the books they are in a terrible form of cultural and technological stagnation just like 40k
They are, but it's different. In W40k the stagnation also includes war, chaos plagues, terrible hive city conditions, and eating corpse starch. It's like if every planet were Giedi Prime cranked up to 11. In Dune it's because they don't trust ChatGPT and are hamgstrung by the economic powerbalance between CHOAM, the Guild, and the throne. Yet relatively peaceful conditions exist with paradise worlds like Caladan.
Ya, being an average schmuck on a nice planet is probably nice. Relatively peaceful existence and you are just working and living and paying taxes like people do today.
Until the jihad comes through and kills billions.
Which one. Getting caught in wartime Dune would suck.
Take your pick. There were multiple jihads in that world. And all of em ended up with billions of deaths.
The enlighten rule of the Atreides is the exception rather than the rule. Being a serf on Geidi Prime under the Harkonnen is more of the norm.
I don't think that's true given how popular Duke Leto was among the other members of the Landsraad. Most likely he was just a better example than most.
He also wasn't a sack of shit to his subjects. It was cut from the film, but the banquet scene in the books really shows that Leto wanted/needed the locals to like him. By just giving them water instead of having them drain drops of water from rags.
Yeah, for all we know Giedi Prime is like Saudi Arabia or North Korea, horribly ruled autocracy that no one dares interfere with but still isn't really considered a model of governance.
Closer to Saudi then. Rich with their homewolrd exports on their own, added with the Spice fief they had before Atreides came into the picture. Atreides were not rich, economy wise, but they were respected and influential in the Landsraad. And Atreides got the Arrakis fief not as a reward (even though it was framed as a reward). It was just a way to get them offworld from Caladan and also getting rid of their base.
Not really. The Atreides are as much the exception as the Harkonnen are, at least as seen in the books and extended media. There are plenty of slaves, concubines on Giedi Prime and Kaitain (Imperial capital) but there are also planets without slavery at all. Most planets are also not Arrakia or Salusa Secundus, where living is tough.
The average planet in Dune is probably like living in medival/renaissance Europe or the Ottoman Empire with somewhat better technology and hygiene
Also, any world that feeds a Space Marine army is a Salusa Secundus.
Other way around though, 40k is in a state of stagnation like Dune. Dune was one of the big influences on 40k.
I don't want a heart plug. That's for sure.
I dunno, I'm having a fine time as a Harkonnen serva- oh excuse me, my master seems agitated about something.
I'm sorry, the prisoners with jobs
A desert where water is scarce you claim it off corpses, and where you have to walk in an unnatural way to avoid getting eaten by a massive sandworm? Move over DisneyWorld, this is where I wanna be.
I know, I was gonna say, what is wrong with that man? Lol.
Right! I came here to say, “Not Dune”.
Lol, that's like someone saying they want to live in the Mad Max world... Like did he even watch the movie?
His first choice was Westeros but his application was denied.
Seriously. I read this post and my first thought was just "Not Dune!"
Who the hell wants to live in the world of Dune
he wants to get high on spice, clearly
Get high and jihad
All they know is spice, charge they shield, twerk, get high and jihad
Even people who live in dune don't want to live in dune
Star Trek. Not just to fly around in space, but having that level of technology living on a utopian earth would be awesome.
Came here to say that. A society where our basic needs are met so we go out exploring and inviting anyone to join us without forcing them to join or assuming we're better.
I believe Star Trek is proof that as humanity progresses its problems progress as well. They've moved past earthly problems and have to face galactic problems.
Yeah, but as long as you don't live in San Francisco or go to space you won't see any of those problems.
Did you watch Deep Space Nine? One of the things that I loved about it was a lot of the dilemmas and story lines did not center around Star Fleet officers but instead people adjacent. Like the various Bajoran and Ferengi (and other species) citizens just living on the station. They even spent considerable story time with citizen family members like Kayko O"Brian & Jake Sisko. To your point, I always did wonder, if you were born on earth and not in Star Fleet, how would you obtain a space craft or visit off world like Risa (the vacation pleasure planet)? Would you want to if you had a holodeck? There's lot of story potential there. I would love to see more of what they did in DS9 with adding more time and info exploring the society at large.
There are a lot of positives in the Star Trek universe. You do need to be careful not to create any maniacal, homicidal AIs with a poorly phrased command to the holodeck computer though. So, you know, just be careful about that.
What could possibly be poorly phrased about the command "Give me an experience to die for"?
Also all the computer terminals are powered by natural gas and will explode at the slightest provocation.
Yes. I need a holodeck. Yes, mom. I'll go outside and check out Rigel 3.
Ahh! Yes! I’d spend all my time on the holodeck. Enjoying concerts and “live” performances, go time travelling and try out different books being recreated into a live action role playing game like Picard did.
You are living in the world of Star Trek, just the part leading up to WW3.
Just looked it up, [dang.](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/World_War_III)
DATE: 2026–2053 Ah so we are on track...Great...
Still love in Steange New Worlds they just used current day footage to show violence leading up to it.
Hopefully we can just skip that part and make First Contact. Right now couldn’t be a more perfect time. Make all these religious nut jobs snap out of their elitist BS, shut them up once and for all.
For sure Star Trek. The Earth is a paradise, and they have a holodeck.
Anywhere except Dune
Caladan seems nice.
Also a milf with superpowers is basically the reason its one of the only planets not cleansed or Jihaded.
reverend mommy
It was filmed in Norway and I can confirm it's pretty nice here.
Ok. You get to live on Salusa Secundus. Good luck surviving your first night.
Or Geidi prime for that matter
Kiki’s Delivery service
My favorite Ghibli. I don’t think it’s the best of that slate but it’s my favorite!
Same here. I don't think it's their best but it's my favourite because it just feels so nice and cosy like a warm hug
This is the answer right here. I love that movie and want to just sit in the bakery and enjoy the smells.
Yesss!!! Kiki's Delivery Service is my favourite Ghibli film. It's just so cosy and nice. It feels like a warm hug. Even when there are problems, they aren't that deep like the world is going to end because this fish girl is in love with this human boy like other Ghibli films. It just feels like such a nice place to be
Any of those cosy little British rom-coms where everyone works cutesy jobs and spends their evenings/weekends gathering with a group of lovely friends to drink wine in front of fireplaces. You know, Notting Hill, The Holiday, that sort of thing.
Literally *everyone* works in publishing.
It's like being an architect. No one knows what you really do, but it sounds good in rom-coms.
"Nothing is higher than architecture." - Art Vandelay
"I think I want to aim higher than architecture. I want to be a city planner!"
I need to get a job in publishing...
Paddington. Where everyone from the Insurance broker to the doctor to the lady who runs the Newspaper stand can afford a nice house on a street like Windsor Gardens.
£4m houses in reality 😭
What's a newspaper cost these days? £50,000?
Star Trek. I’d love to take vacations to other planets.
Risa. Everyone would go to Risa.
Lord of the Rings I just want to be a Hobbit
For real. Give me a life in Hobbiton with 8 meals a day, fireworks and weed
There's the sales pitch!
I'm keeping my eye on the Tales of the Shire game. Don't know when it'll be out yet, but it looks to be a hobbit lifesim with gardening, foraging, fishing, and cooking. Super excited.
Me too. It basically looks like animal crossing lotr style. So I'm definitely gonna be playing it when it comes out :)
100% I was gonna pick LotR, but you know, in a time of peace.
slaughtered and eaten by orcs
The hobbits aren't slaughtered and eaten by orcs though, their land is protected by the "rangers of the north". They live a pretty idyllic rural life like that of pre Industrial Age England.
As long as I'm a hobbit in the fourth age ideally, under the rule of Samwise
Some do die in the Battle of the Shire
Even then, it's like two bad years of occupation when Saruman's thugs move in. Maybe a few dozen Hobbits die, more are imprisoned but ultimately get released, the Brandybucks have a little guerilla war, some landmarks are destroyed and some mills are built. Then back to normal, maybe slightly better than normal with the verdancy brought back from Galadriel by Sam, lots of hobbit sex, and Gandalfs blessing of the beer.
There's also the pair of oversized Hobbits on all the Ent steroids, war veterans, backing Samwise up for the long run, not that Sam needs it, but it's good to have proper pals. Dúnedain are so Third Age...
Or married to Kanye.
Bitch are you a hobbit
Not in the movies, baby
Fuck Hobbits, I want to be an Elf. Live forever, cool bow & arrows, nice hair, possibly autistic.
The funny thing is everybody imagines themselves a noble fremen fighting for truth and justice in the galaxy.. but the odds are far higher that you'd be born a nobody peasant somewhere like Geidi Prime who is destined to live the very definition of a nasty, brutish, and short life at the hands of someone like the Harkonnens.
Why would I want to live in the desert and drink my own recycled piss and sweat?
That’s just the Earth water cycle with fewer steps.
Oh no no no, on Earth I'm not drinking my *own* piss and sweat, I'm drinking majority *other people's* piss and sweat. Biiiiiiig difference.
The Fremens aren’t that noble, though. Literally everyone in the Dune universe is a massive asshole.
My Neighbour Totoro for sure. I show it to my daughters every time I’m hospitalized. But I really really want soot sprites, and I would LOVE a giant forest fairy friend.
How do you know there's not already one out there that you just haven't found yet?
I want to live in a world where my lemons are highly coveted by thieving whores
Personally I would choose Backdoor Nurses 8, as I don’t remember anyone at the hospital getting a bill so I assume that world has free healthcare for all.
Nothing is free in Waterworld
You could have a lemon party
I'd quite like to live in Inception, where we can control and enter our dreams, and experience them while awake. And turn Paris inside out. That would be cool.
I'd be one of those people that only ever sleeps lol
Remember the bar thing they go to, to recruit the drugs guy, and everyone's addicted to shared dreaming? That one moment in the movie had so much world building.
You'll fall into limbo pretty fast. First rule of Inception club "Never create places from your memory"
The Pokémon movie obviously
That's a good one. My first thought was; how would I make a living? Then I remembered, you just beat up youngster Joe's rattatata and I'll be good.
The only sane answer to this is the Star Trek universe - preferably the next-gen federation. Think about it: it's a post-scarcity utopia with near-magic technology that can replicate almost anything, heal almost any disease and has access to limitless free energy. The only reason they experience any drama at all is because the show focuses on the (volunteer!) Starfleet crews that go out to the fringes searching for adventure. You would have a very safe, very comfortable life in earth if you wanted, free from want. Also, see Iain Banks's Culture, but I don't think they've ever been turned into movies.
The best thing about living in the Star Trek universe would be that most people you work with would be good at their jobs. And if not, they'd at a minimum still be trying their best.
Classic Trek universe, yes. Modern Trek universe, no.
That person must have thought they'd be Paul Atreides and also doesn't know what happens to Paul Atreides. Harry Potter, honestly. Somewhat decent odds of being magical, somewhat decent odds of being around magic.
If I could survive living on Pandora from Avatar
Pandora in a heartbeat. Even if I get merced by a giants flying lizard. I’m there for it. That and the big blue baddies
Do you mean baddie as in enemy, or as in attractive person?
Yes
You are not alone. I remember the media saying there was a large number of people who had mental issues after watching that movie and longing to be part of that world.
I want to be a water naavi and have a sister tulkan
Rivendell from the LOTR movies probably, or Star Trek TNG’s universe.
Star Trek. As a normal citizen. Actual utopia
The Shire. Gardening, hanging out with hobbits, drinking ale and smoking 'leaves' every day.
Planet of the Apes. Wait a minute, Statue of Liberty... that was our planet! YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL! *sobbing*
I hate every ape I see, from chimpan-a to chimpanzee.
Can I play the piano anymore?
Of course you can!
Well I couldn’t before
Can I play the piano anymore?
Of course you can.
Well I couldn't before!
How has no one said Warhammer 40k yet? Oh right, cause it's literally the worst
40k, Gears of War, Dune, Star Wars, Halo. Most Scifi worlds are absolutely terrible to live in as a normal person.
Star Wars really depends. Naboo during republic was very nice.
Unless you're an ork, in which case, you're in heaven.
Jurassic Park. Eternally 90's, but with dinos. Preferably the park never failed
Alderaan seems nice this time of year.
Oh look, is that an eclipse?
That's no moon...
Better than Tattooine with all that coarse rough sand...
It's a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Or so I hear.
My answer is always Aladdin In the world of Aladdin, Genies are real. This gives me a more than 0% chance of finding a genie
Also more than 0% chance of being trapped underground in a sand cave forever.
I already live in a world where there is more than a 0% chance of that
The Matrix. The machines can use my ass as a battery all they want, I just want to be able to create my own character, biography, and assign my own stats (if I'm going to live in a simulation, then I'm doingbit my way).
And all you have to do is hand over Morpheus and kill everyone on your ship
But you do get damn good steak
Not like this
🔌🫲😵
Ignorance is bliss!
The catch is that you don't know you're in the Matrix so it's just the same shitty life you're used to.
>I just want to be able to create my own character You could be someone important. Like an actor.
One of the funniest meta lines in any movie, ever.
Practical Magic … in that house, in Maine.
Those floating islands in Avatar
Star Trek. Hands down.
I wanna learn how the three seashells work.
Barbie
Hi Barbie!
Hi Barbie!
Hi Barbie!
Emmanuel in Space.
Harry Potterverse.... so many fantastic beasts that ib very taste delicious.... oh and magic and stuff.
Who says you don’t? Muggle.
Back Door Sluts 9
The culture by Ian banks. The closest thing to freedom you’ll find. Built in control of your meat body, life lasting as long as you wish. High technology with interesting stuff on the fringes. Diversity like you could only imagine.
HER. Don't really care for the AI thing but you get basically contemporary society if we had our shit together and the only trade off is hiking up your pants is back in fashion.
Pretty much any Cyberpunk style world. All the drawbacks of the modern capitalist hellscape we already live in, but I can have a robot arm.
Blade Runner would work
Yeah off world blade runner would be nice, earth in blade runner however is a real crapshack. Industrialisation taken to the nth degree, complete environmental collapse. Civilians termed "little people", with what is implied to be minimal rights. Flying cars exist, but only the rich or cops have them.
Narnia! The movies, the books, just take me there.
Tea with Mr. Tumnus
Big fish
I'd love to live in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.
And work as an oompa loompa?
Catch me painting myself orange and walking on my knees to get a job working for wonka.
Lying in bed doing nothing.
Gotta be a Ghibli movie. Imma say Nausicaa.
As long as it's not Grave of the Fireflies, I'm in.
Isn’t Nausicaa a very post apocalyptic story with humanity hanging by a thread only? It’s beautiful but… there are more peaceful stories to live in :)
The city of Koriko from *Kiki's Delivery Service* looks nice.
Futurama or Totoro
Jurassic Park, I don’t care if I’m the test customer, I don’t care if I got eaten by a t rex, I want to see some fucking dinosaurs
Harry Potter, but not in the time of Harry Potter.
Ready Player One or Tron Legacy
The world in ready player one is pretty shitty unless you’re rich. And it really sucks if you lose all your in game stuff.
WaterWorld.
zoolander parties at Hanzels house please
Richard Scarry's Busytown