Here's a sketchy setting for a post-apoc cyberpunk horror story I was thinking.

[Eumesmopo]

I have this basic setting for a story I have been thinking on the last week. I want to hear what you all honestly think of it and I forgive for any cringe in advance, here we go:

The year is 2451 and the homo sapiens is no longer the dominant species on Earth. Human civilization as it was known in the 21st century no longer exists and most of humanity no longer even remembers the history of it's own species and it's own world. Great metropolises like Tokyo, London and New York lie in empty ruins and forgotten ruins. For most of the men and women of the future, is as if it's age of glory in the past never existed.

An hybrid race of intelligent monstrous insectoids brutally subjugates mankind. Humans are bred en masse to be eaten as meat by the monster ruling class. The healthier specimens of humans are also used as slave workers. The strongest humans are given cybernetic enhancements and trained to serve as enforcers for the monsters, internal killswitches guarantee their loyalty.

The monsters are vastly larger and stronger than humans. They are also much more intelligent both due to their brain being more biologically sophisticated as to to being the ruling class the have access to much higher education.

Those monsters largely do not interact directly with it's human subalterns, human society is very much self managed through it's cattle/workers/enforcers class system with the monsters only giving minimal input.

When monsters do enter into human populated ghettos it is most of the time with the intent of grabbing some morsels to eat or simply to torture humans for their amusement.

Monsters largely do not work, the entire industrial and agricultural sectors that supply monster society is sustained by human slave labor. When monsters do work they only take the highest and most abstract roles that require advanced intellect and no manual labor such as scientific research.

Mother-Queens: Giant human wombs with a few other organs connected chaotically including intestines, breathing lungs and beating hearts. Genetically engineered abomination and an image of horror. Spawns dozens of human babies per day. Is constantly releasing feces and urine.

Humans are fed almost exclusively with a mixture of several species of fungi and vegetables that were genetically modified to grant all the necessary nutrients for human survival and also to be inexpensive to grow. Workers and Enforcers are also allowed to eat some of the lowest quality cuts of human meat.

Humans aren't given names, just serial designations marks. Most never are taught simple skills such as reading or basic math. They also do not possess families or kinship.

The humans that are raised as cattle for consumption are held on giant complexes filled with thousands of overcrowded cages where they spent their whole lives. Those complexes are constantly bustling with the activity of all the ready specimens being slaughtered and butchered (or simply transported away to be eaten still alive and raw) and also the arrival of new batches of human children.

Humans that are raised for working enjoy relatively better conditions of living, they live on large ghettos of a very a highly verticalized and primitive architecture surround by the sprawling industrial areas where they work. They even are taught how to read and receive proper education into fields such as mathematics, physics and chemistry if such knowledges are necessary to perform the functions which they were assigned to at birth.

Once workers reach adulthood they have steel necklaces welded around their necks to symbolize their state of lifelong slavery and also to allow the eventual placement of chains should these become necessary for punishment or discipline.

Enforcers enjoy the best quality of life of the three servant classes. They receive cybernetic augmentations that allow them to transcend the physical limitations of the human body in several ways, becoming faster, stronger and smarter than any other below them. They also receive advanced education in order to understand military concepts of tactics and strategy, to operate advanced military vehicles and robots and also to be able to understand and apply the laws that the monsters created for the governance of human society.

The enforcer class acts as both the police force and managers for the monsters upon the human society, turning directives into orders and guaranteeing the obedience and compliance of workers and cattle alike. They also serve as the main component of the military force when one monster nation goes into war against another one.

Due to their more advanced capabilities, enforcers represent the one of the greatest human threat to monster rule were they to revolt against their masters. To guarantee their subservience, enforcers are implanted in conjunction with their cyber augments with killswitches which can cause instant death to them should they be turned on via a specific radio signal.

There is also a 4th class of humans, although those are only partial humans since they were significantly genetically reengineered by the monsters in order to be more intelligent and much more obedient than normal humans, they are also only made inside laboratories and are designed to be sterile to prevent them from ever multiplying in case they are captured by enemy factions.

This class of genetically modified humans serves as a mix of pets and personal servants for the monsters and are the only humans allowed to live inside the upper districts that are reserved for the monsters.

Some GM humans also serve as a class of "ideologues" whose job is to create cultural pieces (including TV shows, Radio broadcasts and newspapers) meant to aways remind humanity of it's inferiority and it's "duty" to serve the monster class. Due to their higher natural intelligence and improved education the GM humans are efficient at tapping into the unconscious mind of the TV viewers in order to transmit their messages.

All the mass bred human classes are taught to worship the monster upper classes as gods and accept their servitude to the monsters as an honor, they are also taught to hate humanity and to consider themselves as lower beings.

Within the communal apartments and barracks where the workers and enforcers live, there are televisions which broadcast infinite variations of propaganda that justifies the oppression and exploitation of humanity.

The propaganda machine of the monster upper classes is constantly inducing humans to hate "seditious ideology" which includes ideas such as that humans have rights, that monsters aren't gods and that humans should stop serving the monster upper class and fight for their own liberty. Independent human communities are also constantly demonized and portrayed as evil and depraved.

Despite all the oppression monsters inflict upon mankind inside their control zones. Independent human cities and settlements exist away from the monster nation knowledge and reach. Most of the world in 2451 is wildlands and forests which are the kingdoms of an incredibly dangerous mutated fauna which impedes even the expansion of the monster nations. There is plenty of space for capable free human settlements to occupy and plenty of natural diversity for those same settlements to draw their subsistence from.

Many of those free settlements and cities actively fight a guerrilla war against the monster nations, with the ultimate goal being the liberation of all humanity.

 

[Dr Fallout]

ONE FLAW, only one flaw in this otherwise excellent setting.

NO FUCKING INSECTS!!! FUCK NO!!!

Otherwise, I love the kind of bleakness of Humans becoming almost extinct.

 

[Eumesmopo]

ONE FLAW, only one flaw in this otherwise excellent setting.

NO FUCKING INSECTS!!! FUCK NO!!!

I was thinking of them as very abominable and scary creatures. Like a really giant and misshapen mixture of cockroaches with centipedes with a skin/flesh like (rather than chitinous) surface. Think necromorphs with the human shape gone.

 

[Dr Fallout]

ONE FLAW, only one flaw in this otherwise excellent setting.

NO FUCKING INSECTS!!! FUCK NO!!!

I was thinking of them as very abominable and scary creatures. Like a really giant and misshapen mixture of cockroaches with centipedes with a skin/flesh like (rather than chitinous) surface. Think necromorphs with the human shape gone.

Cool! Still aliens...

 

[Hassknecht]

O God the grimdark...
Alright, lemme say a few things about this:
First, never breed sentient/self-aware/intelligent cattle. Any species dumb enough to do that should have never become the dominant species in the first place. We all love the "human cattle" trope, but it's to Horror what unrestricted FTL and reactionless drives are to Science Fiction: A massive, massive opportunity for plotholes that will kill your setting for everyone spending a second thinking about it, unless you're very, very careful with it.
Making extreme sadism a defining feature of an entire species? Nope.
That whole caste/class system just reeks of bad video game/tabletop tropes. It can work, but not as bluntly as this.
Frankly, the whole setting is a blunt mess of hamfisted grimdarkness.

 

[Eumesmopo]

First, never breed sentient/self-aware/intelligent cattle. Any species dumb enough to do that should have never become the dominant species in the first place. We all love the "human cattle" trope, but it's to Horror what unrestricted FTL and reactionless drives are to Science Fiction: A massive, massive opportunity for plotholes that will kill your setting for everyone spending a second thinking about it, unless you're very, very careful with it.

That the monsters treat people as cattle is because to them humans are just about as dangerous as cows or pigs are to humans, if not less. Not only they are a much bigger and stronger species but also smarter and the cattle spend life to death inside tiny crowded cages where they can't properly move and thus their muscles atrophy before they can even develop basic motor skills and they learn nothing in their whole lifes but to adore their oppressors. Their potential to rebel is zero. The only ones that could actually pose a threat are the independent settlements and the enforcers, but hence the enforcers are brainwashed and have killswitches.

As to the malevolent species, well a horror story needs it's monsters. And I'm not aiming to make sadism a defining characteristic for them much more than it is for our own species. Remember that humans are often uncaring for other animals and sometimes even to their breathen, even to themselves (which is part of the reason the class system exists; in order to create a structure where the oppression of the monsters over men is realized almost exclusively through the actions of humans themselves as they stick to their roles within the class system).

I'm not exactly setting out to make the story as dark as possible, but I'm thinking of it as a horror story and as a reflection of how a system of extreme oppression can either perpetuate itself or collapse.

 

[Crni Vuk]

I hope you don't get this the wrong way, when I criticise your ideas. I actually like Sci-Fi-Horror themes a lot, beeing a huge Alien(s) fan, with Xenomorphs. Another great movie in my opinion is also Event Horizon. With saying this, there really are not THAT many great Sci-Fi-Horror movies out there. At least those that play in outer space that is. Seems like it is not much of a focus as how it was during the 70s and 80s. Now it's really more about action and exploration. But I guess that's because of a certain way how we feel and think about space right now. The Science part has simply become a lot more popular, and economic issues like polution a lot more real, and probably more terryfing compared to Marisans or Body Snatchers.

The reason why I like Alien and Event Horizon are mainly 2 things. The first, is about a creature and not so much an alien civilisation. So fighting Xenomorphs is really more or less like fighting, a force, it's really monster-movie. Just in space. What ads to it is a form of body-horror since the Xenomorph is a parasite and highly intelligent life form. Event Horizon is bascially your hounted house, but in space. And well done I might add to it. They use Science Fiction as a vessel. Alien is truckers in space with a space monsters. It works so well, because of the incredibly well done acting and crew interaction. It feels natural and believable for example. So it hits you on a psychological level.

Most movies that are about some evil space faring race dominating humanity ... simply don't work in my opinion. But that might be just me. You know, I am not an astro physicist, or a biologist or what ever. But, I heard about the Fermi paradox, Kardashev Scale, Carl Sagan talking about the vast distances and size of space, astronomers/physicists like Steven Hawking and Neil DeGrasse Tyson talking about it and the like.

There is a very simple question to all of this, and pretty much no one can give a satisfying answer.

Let us imagine for a moment that there exists a race out there, with the knowledge and technology to travel between the stars, maybe galaxies even. With a timeframe that doesn't take thousands of years. Like wormholes, bending space/time or what ever fancy stuff we can imagine. Such a race would most probably have an understanding of the universe and a level of technology that goes beyond anything we can even grasp.

So the question is. Why would they bother?

What could be interesting enough for them to come to our planet. Nothing on this planet is exceptional, from what we know so far. The Universe, is full of everything that you can find on earth. So it can't be for the resources. Labor? Why? A civilisation that is so far advanced that it can travel thousands of lightyears in an instant sure has better ways to let someone do the dirty work instead of using humans. Like robots. They must have artificial AI far more capable than us. A food source? Fun in torture? Again. Why? Why travel all this distance just to eat humans? There must be easier more convenient ways to satisfy that pleasure. I am not saying that it's totally impossible to imagine it. It just doesn't really sound very likely in my opinion.

Maybe I am thinking way to hard about this. No clue. But I never liked this idea and concept of evil space civilisations. It's simply to hard to swallow for me without asking to many questions. What makes more sense are monsters of some kind, or some space-animal. But that's just me, I personally find something like the Blob - basically a space-virus of some kind, a much more horryfing concept. Or on paper the idea they followd in Prometheus, discovering some kind of artifact or unexplanable force/technology with horrofying effects.

I prefer stories that concentrate on small crews, limited regions, with technologies and situations that are more grounded in reality - not about realism! More something that simply seems plausible. Like let us say we are in the not-so-distant future, 200-300 years from now, where Humans have pretty much explored the whole solar system, kinda Odysse 2001 or even a bit more advanced. Space travel between regions like earth, mars, saturn etc. is taking only a couple of weeks instead of years. This is actually absolutely possible given our current leven of technology! Now you could have either some group digging up something on Mars, or the more remote regions of our solar system. Or one of the moons orbiting Jupiter. Maybe something about some foreign object entering our solar system, like a strange asteroid. And a group of scientists finds something totally unexpected.

 

[Eumesmopo]

I hope you don't get this the wrong way, when I criticise your ideas.

No worries, by all means. All criticism is welcome.

Most movies that are about some evil space faring race dominating humanity ... simply don't work in my opinion. But that might be just me. You know, I am not an astro physicist, or a biologist or what ever. But, I heard about the Fermi paradox, Kardashev Scale, Carl Sagan talking about the vast distances and size of space, astronomers/physicists like Steven Hawking and Neil DeGrasse Tyson talking about it and the like.

There is a very simple question to all of this, and pretty much no one can give a satisfying answer.

Let us imagine for a moment that there exists a race out there, with the knowledge and technology to travel between the stars, maybe galaxies even. With a timeframe that doesn't take thousands of years. Like wormholes, bending space/time or what ever fancy stuff we can imagine. Such a race would most probably have an understanding of the universe and a level of technology that goes beyond anything we can even grasp.

So the question is. Why would they bother?

What could be interesting enough for them to come to our planet. Nothing on this planet is exceptional, from what we know so far. The Universe, is full of everything that you can find on earth. So it can't be for the resources. Labor? Why? A civilisation that is so far advanced that it can travel thousands of lightyears in an instant sure has better ways to let someone do the dirty work instead of using humans. Like robots. They must have artificial AI far more capable than us. A food source? Fun in torture? Again. Why? Why travel all this distance just to eat humans? There must be easier more convenient ways to satisfy that pleasure. I am not saying that it's totally impossible to imagine it. It just doesn't really sound very likely in my opinion.

Maybe I am thinking way to hard about this. No clue. But I never liked this idea and concept of evil space civilisations. It's simply to hard to swallow for me without asking to many questions. What makes more sense are monsters of some kind, or some space-animal. But that's just me, I personally find something like the Blob - basically a space-virus of some kind, a much more horryfing concept. Or on paper the idea they followd in Prometheus, discovering some kind of artifact or unexplanable force/technology with horrofying effects.

I prefer stories that concentrate on small crews, limited regions, with technologies and situations that are more grounded in reality - not about realism! More something that simply seems plausible. Like let us say we are in the not-so-distant future, 200-300 years from now, where Humans have pretty much explored the whole solar system, kinda Odysse 2001 or even a bit more advanced. Space travel between regions like earth, mars, saturn etc. is taking only a couple of weeks instead of years. This is actually absolutely possible given our current leven of technology! Now you could have either some group digging up something on Mars, or the more remote regions of our solar system. Or one of the moons orbiting Jupiter. Maybe something about some foreign object entering our solar system, like a strange asteroid. And a group of scientists finds something totally unexpected.

I actually absolutelly share your concerns about aliens in sci-fi, they can make suspension of disbelief very difficult when they are done wrong and make no sense (which in my opinion they are in the majority of cases). Unlike you guys are assuming these monsters I'm talking about are not aliens at all though! Like I said, they are hybrids, misshapen horrors that are the result of genetic manipulation and merging of the DNA of several earthling species including that of humans and several insects. There are no aliens on this setting. xD

I also get that this "sketch" is lacking... well, actual characters and real situations, but this isn't a story yet, it's just a rough write down of the setting where one would take place. The intent is that once the story took shape all those infomations about the world would be conveyed through the perspective and experiences of characters with their own depth and arcs.