Defy Dystopia: Keep Going to the Pub

Otherwise, the sound of ‘cheers’ ringing in our ears could soon be a distant memory.

In my ‘World of The Powers’ dystopian series of books (there are two books at the moment, but I’m working on the third), the youth-led government does not want its subjects to socialise.

Socialising gives people a chance to meet and plan and discuss and unite and ask questions.

An unpopular government doesn’t want such things, even a socialist government like The Powers. They want people to be anti-social. To stay in their homes, out of trouble, away from temptation. So they develop The Platform, a machine that entertains, informs, directs and controls every aspect of people's lives. A machine that must be kept switched on in every home in the land 24/7

The leaders of The Powers want the general populace - the proles, the mids, the NPCs (whatever you call them) - to stop socialising because the CEOs and MDs and Chairmen and Presidents who have ascended to their positions of power know they have done so by not socialising, by shunning what it means to be human.

They don’t know how to talk casually about life or to go out and have a laugh with mates. They only know the serious world of lining their pockets. They have wilfully sacrificed the kind of life the rest of us know for the positions of power they now hold. And they want to hold on to those positions for as long as possible, and they see the best way of doing that is keeping people away from other people and addicted to their screens.

One of their targets in my UK-based novel Dead Headz, is the good old British pub, scene of much socialising, jollity, scheming, planning and quizzing over the years. The way The Powers see it is that the fewer pubs that are left, the more limited the opportunities are for people to want to leave their homes and get embroiled in such potentially revolutionary behaviour

At the start of Dead Headz, a pub quiz is raided at the King’s Head public house by The Powers’ secret police. The landlady of the hostelry and the quiz master are the first to be neutralised, the rest of the staff and patrons are left to fight for their lives.

One, the hero of the story, Kent Sanderson, is knocked unconscious and wakes in police custody. His crime? Socialising. Attending a quiz night. Attempting to engage his brain instead of staying home and letting The Platform control and track his every thought and move.

The people behind The Platform in Dead Headz were the nerds at school. Awful at sports, terrible at making friends, awkward in class, only coming to life when they had a screen in front of them. One of the characters in Dead Headz contends that the development of The Platform is the result of these gangly geeks taking their revenge on those who made their school years a misery. She contends the nerds always intended to seek their revenge for having their heads thrust down toilets at break time. You ruined my life at school, they're thinking, I’ll ruin your life out of it by inventing technology that will obliterate your ability to make a living, support your family. I’ll be filthy rich, you’ll be filthy and poor.

To show defiance in the face of the censorship and crackdowns from The Powers, Kent Sanderson continues attending pub quizzes, although they are all forced to be underground events. He continues to use his brain, and continues to limit his exposure to The Platform. It’s small-time defiance, but it’s defiance nonetheless. And he pays a price for it.

But Sanderson shows that going to the pub isn’t about downing pints and getting drunk. It’s about wanting to be human and to be with other humans, and doing the things those in positions of power do not understand because of their deep-seated inability to comprehend what it means to be human.

Avoid dystopia. Save our pubs.