Can you envision a future where a corporation holds a monopoly over virtually all real time graphics rendering technologies? Perhaps said technologies have become so integrated into human society that their implementations have become a facet of reality? What then, would the proprietary and open-source approach to the development of said technologies hold over this reality?
Are we living in this/these realities? Does this even make any sense at all? =|
If you imagined a desaturated world for us all to live in, in the near future, how interesting can you make it?
I've recently been doing a lot of research into what we all know is about to happen to the world (read: complete sarcasm) and it has driven me towards a state of perpetual cynicism. Cynicism is not so fun!
Please distract me from this burden and perhaps give us a glimpse of your inner psyches' and scare us into an age of reason with your ideal dystopian futures!
People no longer communicate face-to-face, don't know who their neighbours are and walk on by whilst a stranger is mugged in the street. Meanwhile vasts swarths of the population have 'forgotten' about their hard won rights and personal liberties and expect their governments to accurately predict and prevent any crimes the media would sensationalise, almost entertainment like. To deal with this expectation government agencies become hell bent on hoovering up all data and meta-data into massive projects, and are aped by consumer companies who want to be able to spam inboxes with emails people will actually open.
Through the use of aggressive propaganda campaigns and media suppression, the government maintain the countries illusions of success and economic growth, when in fact resources are desperately low and the government must rely upon illegal wars in the middle east to sustain the countries dependence on fossil fuels. London remains the only healthy area of Britain as in the north and west people starve in the streets. The Scottish rise up with the North English to form the Northern Resistance Movement, fighting a guerrilla war in the North as the northern cities become more and more militarized to quell the NRM. In Wales infrastructure has degraded so heavily that communication breaks down, dividing it into settlements in the North and South, the North being home to the Fyddin Gweriniaethol Cymreig (Welsh Republican Army), funded by resistance movements in the North and in Ireland, who like the NRM fight the guerrilla war against English insurgents. All this to maintain peace in the capitol, London being the only place in the country with constant electricity and running water. But the NRM are gaining ground, and the English grasp on Wales is slackening as the more and more patrols never return from the valleys. Civil war is on the horizon. I kinda borrowed somewhat from V for Vendetta, as you can probs tell. But it's an interesting concept. Hopefully this helped distract you somewhat.
When full scale war finally breaks it comes from an unexpected direction; the Cornish are the first to rise having secured an arms pipeline from Russia via fishing trawlers. An ambush on the M5 destroys a convoy of caravaners heading to the coast.
Humans develop warp technology, coinciding with a planned robot takeover. X years later, robots fully control earth and humans are grown in farms as renewable/expendable resources. All humans are implanted with control modules and placed in space exploration pods. Robots use humans to further explore space.