Living on a space-ship needs a different sort of society than living on a planet. All resources must be centrally distributed, all precautions must be enforced. All orders must be followed.
In some ways, the Ship-state looks like a perfect totalitarian dictatorship. But when enough people decide that the Helm isn’t acting in the interests of the Ship, be prepared for a tidy, efficient, and absolutely lethal revolution.
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Or if you don’t like that story, I’ve been watching the Little Mermaid a lot recently. What if we add a Terrestrial lover into that mix? That would be cute, huh?
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Update: I wrote this page two weeks ago and last night I dreamed I was an English teacher on-board one of these ship-states in the first generation. I pointed out Jupiter to my daughter, its night side lit with storms, and then talked with a co-worker about ethnic tension between us English-speakers and the Lithuanians and Pakistanis. “We can’t go on like this. None of us have aywhere to go. We either make friends in this generation, or get murdered in the next.”
So I guess that’s the plot, then?