How Dystopian Are We Going?

[Blue]

I'm just worried about their actually being a theme to this whole thing. I mean, you wanna do future, that's great. But if we put it into the Very Not catagory, what exact motivations are our characters going to have? There's no real antagonist for us to rally against, other than whatever we write up. There's no real reason for us to write together, because there's no common enemy. And even in the Brink, the enemy is hardly an engaging foe. The corporations trying to take over the world hardly insurmountable foes. It'll be tough, but nothing like the struggle to preserve our very way of life that comes up in Decline.

I like having freedoms in my writing as much as anyone else, but if we don't have something big like The Net hanging over our heads, and yes it SHOULD be an almost all-encompassing entity, then what's the point? Are we just gonna write about this idyllic future, where dreams come true? If The Net isn't the crux of our stories, then what should be? Myself, I'd prefer not to write about the every day life of a man 60 years down the road.

As for why The Net should be so big, I mean look at the characters that have already been mentioned. We have a fighter who is losing patronage, a prostitute losing her job, and an evangelist trying to pull people back to reality. Already, three people have stated that The Net is going to be a crucial plot point for them. So, it only makes sense to make that enemy into something epic. There's no real gratification in defeating a weak foe.