On the surface, the Empire of Light is a paradise with almost no poverty and peace within their borders if not outside of it. Internally, they have a rising rent crisis, over-taxation, homelessness and rogue sociopaths who have rebelled against all social norms and banded together as demon worshipping cults. There's internal divisions and a power struggle between the Imperial Family and the Governing Councils and I just revealed that while torture was illegal on paper, it was utilized during the last days of the Empire to obtain crucial information-and it was a form of torture that left the victim dead from literally ripping out their souls to look through their memories. The interrogator justifies it by pointing out they managed to save lives by preventing terrorist attacks. How grey can my society be before they stop looking like a utopia? The enemy they're fighting is intent on completely exterminating humanity so extreme measures are needed or that's how they justify it. (Edit: I just realized this sounds eerily like post-War on Terror America. That was not my intention.)
I'd say they're not even remotely close to a utopia as is. No grayness about it. Any one of those things would obviate utopia status, let alone the whole lot of them. They can call it whatever they like (like North Korea might do) but nobody will for it. I guess the question comes down to who's doing the perceiving and who's doing the opining.
Hey, at least the sociopaths aren't the ruling class (or politicians)! Sounds pretty decent to me! Although from the way it's described it sounds like they probably are.
Yes, with several billion patriots still desperately clinging to the idea because the alternative is worse. What they're facing is an existential threat so ruling class and ordinary citizen alike have slowly drifted from their principles because "we have to do what's necessary to defend our way of life." (I swear I didn't intend for this to be a mirror of post-9/11 America, but maybe I was subconsciously influenced.)
That's a very long time. You're talking 10ish generations. The present day citizens' grandfathers' grandfathers wouldn't have even been around to see what the utopia was. Or known anyone who was. Fairy Tale territory at that point. I'd say your utopia is beyond cooked at 200 years.
I should add the average lifespan is now over one-hundred years and disease is essentially wiped out.
You're still tapping into a memory that nobody experienced, which makes it not a memory at all. It's okay for your society to still have some ideals and societal sects that want to tap into the milieu of the past, but clinging to an idea of a "utopia" is really stretching it.
So they're pretending to still be good people as they do bad things, transforming that way of life as they try to preserve it.
I'm not even sure I want it to be a utopia, just close enough that they still think it is even as more and more cracks form.
These 2 statements are pretty hard to reconcile. Unless by 'on the outside' you mean the official story (once again). I suppose many of the people could believe it's a utopia if they aren't privy to what's going on (ie, if the news doesn't tell them but paints a pretty picture). There are definitely people who believe what the government tells them to believe, and those who look beneath the surface to find the truth. The ones who want to believe will believe even as their own rent and that of people they know is going out of control. Especially if the government gives them a story to explain it.
Let's say you have a planet of one-billion people. Ten percent are poor, ninety percent have a decent standard of living. People notice, but assume "someone" will do something about it.
Are you saying that this: "a rising rent crisis, over-taxation, homelessness" only applies to 10% of the population? If so that actually sounds like a pretty good society! There aren't many countries that could boast that. In fact I just checked, and there's only a small handful of countries with less then 10% living below the poverty line. Hold on, I just noticed you said a PLANET of one billion people, and only 10% are living in poverty! That's far better! I thought we were still talking just about the country. That I think does qualify as a utopia.
Doesn't sound like a "morally grey" Empire to me at all. More like a decent one that's suffering from a lot of issues lately. That doesn't make it morally grey.
I think your problem is how you're explaining it or boiling heavy topics down to a simple, "well because it just is," summary. From what I understand; your society is a utopia, or at least it's supposed to seem perfect. You want your government to be morally grey, as in their decisions contradict previously held moral standards. Or they justify wrong actions for "right" reasons. In my opinion: you might need to cut out the rising rent crisis, over-taxation, and homelessness. All of those things would be public issues that would cause extreme unrest and to include them would completely destroy any attempt to paint the society as a utopia regardless. However, I think the rebels forming "demon worshipping cults" is an idea we can work with. Perhaps you should steer away from typical religious nuts worshipping rip-off demons based on existing religions. Maybe lean towards extraterrestrial life; they're trying to contact or summon being of higher intelligence for their own reasons. Your best bet might be to clean up the society's public image. Keep a majority of their citizens dumbed down and blind to what is unfolding within their government. National crisis would eliminate the façade of a utopia.
I think it would be possible to have an outwardly looking clean and nice society, and a dark and gritty underbelly of dirty dealings within the elites running it. Think if 1984 was a cheery society, and the names of Ministries within it were not ironically named, like the Ministry of Love where they send dissidents for 're-education' under the guise of torturing them back into submission. Ok, I guess it would still be kinda ironic, but it would fit better in a Happy societal presented in a Utopian way. So, you should be able to play it off in a similar way, where the surface looks nice, but the core is rotten and kinda evil.
I guess it's more like a fundamentally good society being pushed to the brink by a relentless, amoral enemy.
How a people perceive the system can depend greatly on the level of propaganda, misinformation and political spin. If news channels constantly play down the supposed faults of the rulers and claim the alternative would be far worse, enough people will buy into it to keep the system going. It could be riddled with poverty, crime, suffering, preventable deaths, and corruption at the highest levels with the rich using public money to line their own pockets. The people can be made to support it so long as poor foreigners are blamed for everything. What's important is that the people have someone else to blame and to hate.
