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I'm currently working on a story based around a large dystopian society. I spent a long time thinking up some harsh but realistic rules, and after hours of nothing, I figured I would come to you all for help. So, if you were an intelligent but sinister dictator, what laws would you put in place?

Haven't you read some dystopian stuff you can get inspired by? Just start with the standard ones.

Yeah 'dystopian' is kind of a generic term, but if you know what it means in the first place I'm sure you've been exposed to enough fiction to have some basic ideas, and for anyone here to give you more specific help we'd probably need to know a little more background and what exact flavor of dystopia you're going for.

Oh, and whatever the case, my advice is to not overdo it. IMO It's really easy to cross the line from grimdark ultra-shitty dystopian nightmare to the point where it stops being remotely believable and just loops around to some kind of over the top parody.

Nobody can wear the color red; it is an insult to those who have shed blood for the country.

In fact, nobody is allowed to wear any colors.

Blue symbolizes wisdom, which only the planners have.

Yellow represents wealth, materialism, and greed.

Orage also represents gold.

White suggests moral superiority.

Black suggests clandestine activities.

People are only allowed to wear grey, which becomes a symbol of their monotony.

Go read up on North Korea and model it a bit on that. It's pretty much the best example of a functional dystopia still based in reality.

Anyone who is accused of not being sufficiently enthusiastic about the policies of Great Leader is arrested under suspicion of sedition. Of course, the charges may be dropped if they have enough money for bribesfines, and if they're willing to give up the names of a few more possible seditionists, but henceforth the benevolent Great Leader will always be watching to guard them from the temptation to begin behaving suspiciously again.

Eh...too cliche.

But nobody knows it's a cliche because all outside media has been banned.

But, anyone outside the universe of the story knows that it's cliche.

Just keep talking little fox, you'll be the first against the wall.

Eh, we foxes only have a life span of five years in the wild, anyway. I'll probably be on my death bed by the time your ideology prevails...if it does.

Oh I got it!

Mandatory estrogen injections for males.
Mandatory race mixing. (Your mate must at least be of another race or consist of two different races)
Mandatory gay marriage. (Reproduction is done in tubes)

And the dictator should secretly be a straight white guy doing it all for the lulz.

You're just copying off that '2035' game that used to be here!

No, I put a twist at the end with the straight white dude. Lol.

Did you ever read "save the pearls?" It's a dystopian teen story about a young white girl (aka a "pearl") named Eden who lives in a world where dark skinned people (aka "coals") have all the money and power.  They force her to wear dark makeup to cover her skin,  later, she falls in love with a coal guy whose DNA has been fused with jungle animals.

according to the author, she had no idea people would think here was anything racist about it.  She just wanted to write about global warming,

Like others said, "Dystopian" is too vague. Dystopian societies are dystopian because they're undesirable, so what makes this society undesirable? What's wrong with it?

I'd say everything from 1948 (the book), or just look at North Korea, they're quite similar...

1984.

...Oops.

It's okay, Israel is socialist.

Really? I know they require most citizens of the age 18 to participate in the military. Anyway, do you live in or have family in Israel? Just curious. You might have mentioned it before, but I've missed that, if you did.

The society in 1984 was far more powerful and far reaching than North Korea could ever be, to compare the two is an insult to the Party.

You are to report to room 101 for rehabilitation.

In all seriousness, what is the world situation for your dystopia?

I mean is this sort of a post apocalyptic situation where living in this society isn't fun, but since the rest of the world has been nuked into oblivion it's better than the alternative?

If so, then it probably doesn't even need to be excessively brutal since exile is practically a death sentence. Rationing stuff like food and water would seen as a necessity. Maybe a "one child" rule is in place so resources don't get overused. Basically it would be beat into everyone's head that everything is done so that society can continue to survive. It's not fun, but if you don't like it, then you can go risk getting raped, murdered and eaten by cannibal bikers out in the wasteland.

If this is just a fascist state and there are actually better places out there (within distance of escaping to) then it probably is restricting everything for paranoia of losing control of the people and in this case there are a lot executions for what is considered treasonous behavior. Claiming other places are at war with them, keeping people generally ignorant, etc.

What he said.

A lot depends on the actual reason everything is so shitty and what exactly the controlling party is trying to accomplish or defend against with their oppression. Like most other things in a story, once you figure out a character's motivations the rest kind of writes itself.

It's as Endmaster said, a fascist state where any attempt of escape is punishable by death. The dictator (who nobody's actually seen) controls things from the background. The citizens are forced to wear collars, which reveal their location and kills them if they're suspected of treason or any other severe crime(s). You play as a 13 year old girl, who's family is executed simply because they did not pay their taxes. She manages to escape, but is constantly found because of the collar. She manages to take it off later in the story.
Basically, I'm trying to give the reader a sense of hopelessness...like there's no escape and no chance of overthrowing the oppressors. 

That's the basic plot, can't really say anything else without revealing spoilers.

Hmm okay yeah that does seem to fall slightly into the 'over the top' category I mentioned.

It sounds like you've already got the laws you need then, just instant death for everything, pretty simple.

Wouldn't they just be able to zap/kill her through the collar then and end the story or are you planning on explaining that away in the story? (As in not leaving a plot-hole like that in the story.)

Maybe its a case like in 1984, where it's not enough to just kill somebody sometimes. They want to kill your "spirit" as well (Then they kill you for real)

The collar thing reminds me of this scifi movie I watched where they kept the prisoners in line that way.

Two random prisoners had linked collars so nobody tried to escape, because if someone strayed off from the prison grounds or died, both collar would go off.

Of course if you figured out who you were linked to, it made escape a bit easier since you could work together, which is what happens in the movie.

Yeah, it's explained later in the story. I may go with what Drak said and read 1984 before I begin writing. Funny thing is, even though they share no similarities, I came up with this idea whilst reading Eternal.

Anyway, thanks for the advice! 

Agree entirely with Rommulus, read 1984, it's the defining novel on the dystopian fiction genre as a whole.

I got to thinking though, why does a dystopia always have to be so cartoonishly evil and dedicated to human misery?

What about a society where everyone was physically healthy, everyone had a productive job, everyone volunteered at charities a certain number of hours a month and donated a certain amount of their paycheck to local museums and schools and libraries, everyone was painstakingly polite to everyone they met on the street and never drank, smoked, or partook of violent or negative media....and what if this was all completely mandatory?

Isn't that what they sort of did in the Demolition Man movie?

I've never seen Demolition Man, sorry!

..would that be punishable by death in a dystopian society?

Basically in the beginning of the movie LA is a warzone and due to Sly wrecking too much shit in his efforts to stop super criminals, he gets sentenced to cryo-stasis (along with Wesley who was the super criminal he was fighting at the time)

Several years in the future, LA becomes a "Utopia" because the overseer pretty much made politeness, clean living and such mandatory. Naturally there are a group of people that are rebelling against this because hey, you can't take away people's right to be assholes.

Anyway, Wesley gets thawed out to be the overseer's personal assassin for the rebels and meanwhile Sly gets thawed out because Wesley goes completely rogue and ultimately gets out of control.

Huh, actually that sounds vaguely familiar. I might have seen it when I was a kid.

Anyway, I'm definitely going to go find somewhere to stream it now, sounds like an interesting plot. Stallone is always fun, like some kind of low rent Schwarzenegger.

Logan's Run was sort of that Dytopia/Utopia thing too.

I mean it seemed like other than dying at age 30, everyone was living like a hedonist and everyone was satisfied with their work. The computer took care of most things.

Even when you went to the Carrousel at 30, you actually were ignorant that you were going to die, you thought you were just going to get "reborn" (Ha ha, jokes on you!)

Wasn't unless you were snooping around that you got into a whole mess of trouble.

Because that's a really boring setting, lol.

Unless it was a crazy religious theocracy with zealots working to keep people from becoming 'heathens'?

Boring for you, maybe. To me it'd be a lot more sinister than the typical dystopia cliches that are usually pretty upfront and obvious about what they are. In this case the society would resemble a utopia at first glance, until you looked deeper and realized people with disabilities are being quietly euthanized right and left, citizens have zero rights and all kinds of horrible shit is going on in the name of 'reeducation', but of course we don't talk of such negative things.

It'd be a hell of a lot harder to fight against too when the government could just trot out the men in the white coats and all the 'but we just want what's best for you!' rhetoric in a semi-believable way. And most regular citizens are never going to reach the point where they're desperate enough to have nothing left to lose, which is typically the only thing that ever gets people rebelling in earnest in situations like that. The protagonist wouldn't just have to worry about government lackeys, but the nice family down the hall turning him in 'for his own good' because they're worried he might be about to do something that gets him hurt or otherwise disrupts their perfect lives.  

See, I dunno, I've watched enough scifi shows, and movies where I feel the false overly nice "utopia" is a bit of a cliche too.

I don't mind either one though.

Well, that's a point. We're all trained to never accept things at face value anymore, just like how the nice guy's always the killer and the monster's always just misunderstood.

I guess if you really want to be original, write about a utopia that's just a utopia.

wait no that's basically Star Trek, damn

I do remember reading a short story that was about a utopia. It mostly surrounded a girl who was in that tween demographic and how she was approaching an age where she would truly learn why their society was so great. It was like a ritual that everyone had to go through.

When the day comes they take her to like this dungeon where they keep this hideously deformed and idiotic person basically living in its own filth and making awful noises. Naturally this disturbed the girl and she didn't want to look at it anymore and asked why wasn't it just put out of its misery.

Her parents said this "thing" served a vital role in keeping the utopia alive. Basically without this thing, what would they have to compare their wonderful society to? You can't have a utopia without something really awful to compare it to, and this thing served that purpose and as a lesson to all citizens.

I think I know the one you're talking about but can't remember the title. One of Ursula K. LeQuin's I believe.
 

It's called something like "the ones who walk away from omelas"

Star Trek's a Utopia? What? When did this happen?

I thought it was just a show about how a perfect society would get so bored that their top admirals are idiots and they send massive(likely super expensive) ships into space to just find something to entertain them?

It's a post scarcity society. People join Starfleet and go into space because that's something they want to do. The ships aren't really 'expensive' because they can just replicate the materials like they do for everything else.

If a person can do literally anything they want to do, pursue any career or art or adventure without worrying about a lack of resources or money, and they still manage to be bored somehow than I'm sorry but they're just a waste of breath.

Though I suppose it's probable that like 90% of humanity just lives on welfare, sitting around and smoking space weed when they're not having imaginary sex in the holosuite. Maybe the ones the shows are about are the few that are motivated enough to do something with their lives.

They have Holo-decks, OR if you prefer a Cracked Link. :)

That's kind of why I enjoyed Deep Space 9 the most. They actually showed a bit more of a darker side of the Federation every now and then. And how not everyone necessarily enjoyed living in it.

Sounds a lot like "The Giver"

You should totally watch Soylent Green. That was great.

"They didn't change the recipe like they said they were going to!"