----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Dfox22@aol.com>
To: <orlean@planetjurai.com>
Cc: <ffml@anifics.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 5:30 PM
Subject: [FFML] Re: [Query] "Sailor Moon is Everyone's Mother!": Crystal
Tokyo dys...

I tihnk the reason why there aren't many fics set in a dystopian

Crystal

Tokyo, while there are plenty where Crystal Tokyo would be dystopian,

if

it came to exist, is fairly simple.

For the later type of fic, only one character need be made evil,

Sailor

Pluto.  Since she's somewhat of a cipher, that's easy enough to do
without seeming silly.  On the other hand, to do a fic set in a
dystopian Crystal Tokyo requires an evil Sailor Moon, and probably

most

of the other Senshi.  That is, in my opinion, very hard to do without
becoming ludicrous, given the characters' canon personalities.

I disagree.  Sailor Moon need not be evil in order to create a

dystopian

society.  All she needs is the belief that she is protecting the people

from

themselves.  A common mistake among benevolent rulers who devolve into
tyrants.  The senshi have fought beside her in countless battles and

treat

her as their queen.  She can easily sway them to her point of view.

Has

anyone ever considered the possibility that the Great Freeze was

actually

the result of a nuclear war (nuclear winter)?  All the references I

recall

about the Great Freeze were rather vague.

Another tact would be to let Crystal Tokyo be setup as a near utopia, but

have it degrade over >time.  This gets around some of the characterization
problems by giving the characters as much >time as needed to change.

After all, a

person can change a great deal over the course of a >normal lifetime and

from

what I�?Tve seen of the series the Sailor Scouts would live much longer
than a
normal human.

Another advantage to this approach that it would fit in well with the

continuity of the series.  If you >just hypothesize that everyone who

we�?Tve seen

travel back in time comes from near the beginning >then it�?Ts still a

really nice

place to live.  However if one were to look at Crystal Tokyo a thousand
years
later it might not be anywhere nearly so nice.

Or that�?Ts my 2 cents anyway,

Orlean

A good example of this would be the mid-80's Squadron Supreme miniseries.
The JLA analogues take over the world (after ruining it themselves... long
story)
and proceed to make life better all over by instituting several changes:

the

banning
and destruction of all guns and weapons of mass destruction; creating new
non-lethal weaponry for law enforcement officials to use (such as a gun

that,

IIRC,
shoots a porous gel-like substance); belts that project forcefields; and
ultimately,
a machine to 'fix' the minds of criminals so that they can't commit

crimes.

The
series took place over a year (book-time and real time), and in the end,

made

the point that no matter how good the intentions of the people in charge,

they

will eventually step down and allow some one else to take over.  And the

new

rulers may not have the best of intentions...

Good series.  Of corse there were plenty of incidents along the way where
the process broke down.  For instance right near the begining when the Green
Arrow equivalent got jilted by his lover, he secretly used the device made
to alter criminal minds to make her change her mind.  And even though he
quickly began regreting it, the device was designed to be irreversable.

Also when the teams resident genius found he was dying of cancer and
couldn't find a cure, he came up with a story to make one of the modified
supervillians help him travel to the future and steal the cure for cancer
that existed there.  Of corse on analyzing it he discovered that it only
worked for them because their DNA was different from modern people.

What's more later when a mind modified super criminal found herself in a
situation where two commands were at odds with each other, the stress left
her catatonic.

Basicly from almost the begining the series was about how even the best
people with the best motives can unintentionally do terrible things while
trying to make them better.

"I can't take his money. I can't print my own money.
I have to work to -get- money. Why don't I just lie
down and DIE?"
Homer Simpson


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