So, I had this really weird dream last night (come to think of it, we also had late-night sausage & cheese sandwiches! THE CORRELATION IS PRESENT!), where the Earth was starting to run really low on habitable space. A technology had been developed so that people could choose to live underwater if they wanted, and to do so you’d go have a procedure done where you had the DNA of a dugong added to your own.
In the dream, a really good friend of mine had it done, and she wanted me to come down and see what it was like – you walked into the ocean fully-clothed and were collected in this big metal holding bay thing, then everyone went down this run into the first level of the colony. The dugong DNA seemed to ensure you could breathe.
Apparently the social structure down there was somewhat different – the 1st level (uppermost to the water surface) was where social activity took place. The 2nd level seemed to be less for talking and more for moving around, and then you were allocated a locker on the 3rd level where you were allowed to keep your personal items. However, lockers were periodically discarded (possibly on a month-by-month basis), so individuals didn’t build up large amounts of personal stuff.
Everyone seemed to stay fully clothed underwater, but I guess you wouldn’t need to do laundry because the constant rinsing action of the water keeps your clothes reasonably clean.
As far as I could tell the benefits of living underwater were that you didn’t have to pay for accommodation in the very pricey and space-limited above-ground world. There didn’t seem to be any limitation on the ability of the sea-people to come above-water to work, shop, and meet their friends, although there wasn’t much point in buying stuff from above-ground because computers and most foods aren’t submersible.
To exit the underwater colony there seemed to be plenty of options, but to enter there was only one main channel – via the steel caged runs accessible from the beach. There didn’t appear to be any kind of ID control at work, so it wasn’t a mass system of controlling a seagoing underclass: the dugong folk seemed free to come & go as they pleased.
To be honest, like any dream, I didn’t have a proper chance to explore the pros & cons of which option worked out better. I don’t think it was some great subconscious philosophical mountain, I suspect it was just a weird dream brought on by cheese.
And, yes, I know I haven’t written anything here since July, and the piece which punctures the silence is this nonsense, but then, that’s what this blog’s all about…
Carry on.
