It’s been way too long since I’ve posted anything here on DeepGenre, so pardon me if I indulge in something frivolous. I’ve always had a secret desire to live in one of those sci-fi domes you see in hopelessly dated ’60s and ’70s films. Logan’s Run. Sleeper. THX-1138. The Island. Yeah, I want to live there.
Why?
- No insects. I hate insects. Haaaaaate them. If we could create an entirely indoor civilization where I’d never have to see an insect again, I’d sign up in a heartbeat.
- Simple fashion choices. I’ve never enjoyed clothes shopping. I’d much rather somebody deliver me a shiny new single-sex uniform every week. That way, I never have to worry about being out of fashion. I can just choose the vibrant pastel color I feel like wearing for the week, and away I go. (And of course, at the end of the day, I can just drop the thing in the big tube in my room for dry cleaning.)
- Meals in pill form. I’m not saying I’d always want to eat meals in pill form. But every once in a while, it would be nice to indulge in a nice hot apple pie without having to actually, you know, indulge in a nice hot apple pie.
- All other meals cafeteria-style. The meals you don’t pop into your mouth in pill form are all eaten in big, open cafeterias where you can hang out with all your friends, just like college.
- Large flat-screen TVs everywhere. Never again will you have to strain your eyes to see the picture on a tiny screen. Half of the walls around you will convert instantly into flat-screen TVs. (So half of the programming will be government-mandated propaganda. But is that really so different from what we have today?)
- Universal health care. Have a cough or an ache? Go to the dome doctor, who’s always available and always sits down with you on a nice, comfy couch to discuss your problems. And don’t worry, because the government is taking care of you, you won’t need to pay for it or file insurance claims.
- Cool androids. Don’t you want to walk around in a city with a bunch of metal humanoids talking in clipped monotones with phony British accents? Best of all, they obey commands, answer your questions, and fetch things for you.
- Everyone is bald. For once, I naturally fit in.
- Music piped everywhere. In a domed city, you’ve got speakers tucked into every nook and cranny broadcasting Wendy Carlos music 24 hours a day. No DRM system in sight, because there’s no private ownership.
- Floating cars. I can’t wait to ride on one of those two-person floating mini-cars you always see in the old SF movies. They’ve got a navigational computer onboard that ensures you never get lost, and they run on some form of cheap, inexhaustible energy.
- Videophones. No more fumbling around with cell phones and complaining about poor reception. There are videophones around every corner, which are always perfectly in focus. (As a bonus feature, you don’t need to remember anyone’s phone number. Just tell the videophone who you want to talk to, and it’ll connect you.)
- Sexual naivety. No matter what kind of dome city you live in, there’s always a buxom beauty who has lived her life in woeful ignorance of human sexuality and needs to be taught about passion by some renegade hero. (And did I mention how easy those unitards are to get in and out of?)
- Easy-to-remember names. Who wants to be called David Louis Edelman when you could be called Echo 416? No confusion, no ambiguity, no worrying about whether to hyphenate last names when the kids come along.
- Easy-to-clean surfaces. Everything in the dome city is either made of chrome or white plastic, and both of these surfaces are very easy to clean. You’ll never have a permanent stain again.
- Hacking made simple. If you ever need to fool the authorities, it’s very easy. Just remove any nearby wall panel and you’ll find a million brightly colored wires you can use to hack in to the city’s computer systems. If you manage to get access to one of their terminals, it’s even easier, since security is always based on a single, unencrypted password and all of the commands are written in plain English (e.g. “SHUT DOWN SECTOR 12″).
- Your government cares about you. Wouldn’t that be a welcome change? Sure, your dome city government is frequently controlling and manipulative and periodically drags your friends off kicking and screaming who knows where for horrible medical procedures never to return. But isn’t that still better than living in New Orleans?
- Cushy punishments. If the authorities catch you doing something you shouldn’t, there’s no hard labor involved. The government just drags you off to some secret chamber, dopes you up, and wipes your memory. Big deal!
- No more sunburns. Since we all live indoors and none of us sees the sun anymore, there’s no possibility of sunburn. Or suntan, for that matter, which puts us indoor geeks on equal footing with everyone else for the first time.
- Light bulbs never burn out. Which is a good thing, considering that there’s no natural light to be found anywhere.
- No more politicians. This might be worth the price of living in an SF dome city alone. You’d have an all-powerful government headed by a charismatic but dim figurehead that operates under a set of hazily defined rules, insists you not question its judgment, and takes care of insurrection by dragging people off to some remote facility nobody’s allowed to see for vague and undocumented punishment. Imagine that.