Dystopian Edict: Difference between revisions

See also [[The Evils of Free Will]] for what most of these Dystopian Edicts ultimately boil down to. Common '''Dystopian Edicts''' include [[Happiness Is Mandatory]] and [[No Sex Allowed]].

 

 

* [[AKB0048]] with the Entertainment ban. Depending on the area, it is either grudgingly accepted (things like radio and TV and classic music) to being completely banned with the threat of siccing [[State Sec]] on the offender.

 

* The comic ''[[City Of Dust]]'', where every fiction (starting with religion) is outlawed.

* The "It is illegal to be unhappy!" variety seems pretty common. It also appears in a [[Mickey Mouse]] cartoon, where Mickey and [[Donald Duck]] have fallen through the Bermuda triangle into a fantasy kingdom. Everybody is smiling like crazy. At one point, the king orders his guards to arrest a gardener, seemingly at random. When Mickey protests that the man wasn't being unhappy, the king replies: "Well, now he is! I'm a great believer in preventing crimes."

* In ''[[Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire|Buck Godot Zap Gun for Hire]]:'' THERE ARE NO LAWS IN NEW HONG KONG. SO WATCH IT.

* No emotions! (The [[Doctor Who Magazine]] comic ''City of the Damned'' and the IDW ''[[Doctor Who]]'' story ''The Whispering Gallery'')

* No emotions at all! (''[[Equilibrium]]'')

* No children allowed! (The nation of [[Ruritania|Vulgaria]] in the movie version of ''[[Chitty Chitty Bang Bang]]'', unsurprisingly written by [[Roald Dahl]])

* One child only (''[[Fortress]]'')

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* [[Robert Silverberg]]'s ''[[wikipedia:To See the Invisible Man|To See The Invisible Man]]'', which was remade as a ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' episode. A future society requires everyone to be friendly and warm to each other at all times. Anyone convicted of being "cold" must spend an entire year with a mark on their forehead that warns everyone else not to acknowledge their existence in any way.

* [[Ray Bradbury]]'s short story ''[http://englischlehrer.de/texts/pedestrian.php The Pedestrian]''. A man goes out walking at night, which no one else does anymore—they're all watching TV. He's stopped by the police and hauled off to the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies.

* In the book ''Hard-Boiled Wonderland'', the one and only rule in The Town is "no shadows", as in they cut off your shadow before you're allowed in. Of course this also takes away your mind so they really don't need any other rules to maintain order.

* In the very first ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' book, the [[Evil Overlord]] and [[Big Bad]] ''outlaws fire''. In a quasi-medieval society, just as winter's about to set in. This stems from when he was horrifically burned by [[Hellfire|Wizard's Fire]] as a child, but that doesn't make it any less crazy. One wonders how they make bread and smith metal in his kingdom.

* No chocolate! (''[[Bootleg]]'' by Alex Shearer, which was also made into a TV series, a manga and an anime.)

* Everything not forbidden is compulsory! (The ant colony in ''[[The Once and Future King]]''.) It's an allegory to Communism.

* [[Ayn Rand]]'s ''[[Anthem]]'' is set in a collectivist society where the words "{{spoiler|I, me, my, mine}}," and "{{spoiler|ego}}" are forbidden. Speaking those words is a crime punishable by death.

* In ''The Declaration'', having a child while taking immortality medicine will result in that offspring will be declared a Surplus and would either have to be killed or taken away. However, if you opt out, you can only have one child while a Surplus can be spared and be declared a Legal if one or both parents happened to be deceased.

 

* Not a country, but an episode of ''[[The IT Crowd]]'' has the company CEO Denholm Reynolm declaring a war on stress, with anyone showing any signs of stress to be fired. Of course, the threat doesn't help things.

** He shows a similar attitude to a lack of teamwork, once firing an entire floor because they weren't working together as a team. And then ordering the security team sent to make sure they all left the building fired because he suspected ''they'' weren't working as a team.

* In the ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek]]'' episode "A Taste of Armageddon" two planets are at war with each other, but have set up a system where, instead, of actually dropping nuclear bombs on each other, they have computers calculate how many people ''would'' be killed if one of them dropped a bomb on another. Anyone the computers determine would have been killed by the hypothetical blast have 24 hours to report to a distintegration chamber and let themselves be killed. Apparently, in the 500 years the war had been going on for, no one had ever refused to let themselves be disintegrated until Captain Kirk came along. It's implied that this orderly and clean system of war is actually what has kept the conflict going for so long when the horrors (and physical cost) of a real war would have had both sides crying for peace centuries ago.

 

* No one must use contractions in their speech! (A typically demented aspect of the [[Big Finish Doctor Who]] audio ''Jubilee'' by professional madman Robert Shearman; he said he did this to create a situation where humans would sound like Daleks).

 

* Played to amusing effect in [[Batman: Arkham Asylum|Batman Arkam Asylum]]. Joker declares overloudspeaker that there is a new rule in place. Penalty for breaking this rule is death, no ifs ands or buts. The best thing about this rule? {{spoiler|Its a secret!}}

* In [[Tropico]] the relatively annoying DJ announcer states when you pass the anti-litter ordnance- "El presidente has passed a new anti-litter ordnance. Remember, violators will be shot on sight, so watch where you throw that bubble gum wrapper, kids."

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* The "everyone must be happy" variety shows up in ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' with 4U City. Anyone found being unhappy is either filled full of drugs until they ''are'' happy, or they get deported to another dimension via the "Judgement Chutes."

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

** More specifically the edict is that "There ''is no'' war"

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