A world where the rich control the water supply

You still have to deal with water reclamation where water can be distilled out of urine or condensed out of the air bootleg style. The theory work for refridgeration was already done by 1760, by Ben Franklin of all people, and by the 1820s the first prototypes were made although they weren't in production until the 1860s.

There's a story in there with the ruling class trying to legislate water condensers out of existence and the whole thing falling apart prohibition style.

The biggest problem I can see is that water is simply too essential. You need too much of it to survive and it's too easy to reclaim. A hydrocracy would run too thin a margin between killing it's subjects and loosing control.

I don't want to get things over-complicated here, but the people mostly fear the God-Emperor Haikal because they believe he has power over water and weather. And also the soldier caster class will arrest people who try to steal water and corrupt farmers who by the way, use more water than the limit and fight off robbers.

Only works for a pre-industrial tech level. Once literacy an rationalism take hold people start asking questions and testing limits.

Rationalism is a separate thing from tech level. Rationalism is connected to the romance of technology, so it makes sense in settings where technological progress is happening. In this setting, superstition should be the governing philosophy as they exist in technological stasis.

And yes, the clergy promotes about Haikal being God-Emperor of the Planet. And here is a fun fact, the Cataclysm was about massive climate change and destructive tectonic shift that caused most of the lush planet into a desert planet and caused most of the water to be locked up in ice stockpiles.

Rationalism is a side effect of scientific progress. When you can actually explain why the sun rises people start wondering what the king actually does.

Are you proposing a natural cause of the water being moved? (I mean beyond man made global warming.) If something natural about the way the world works simply causes the water to end up in the ice caps, there's your hand wave.

This also reduces the concern over waste management. Some private entrepreneurs may make some money scrounging for water at waste reclamation facilities, but it will represent a small fraction of the societal demand for water if water just naturally wafts back up to the caps.

And maybe there can be a few oppressive laws against water reclamation just to hammer in how dystopian your setting is.

You should still expect some clouds to occur overtop farmland. But they won't be rainclouds.

I think you have it backwards. Progress is caused by rationalism. Rationalism is not caused by progress. Technological or otherwise. More or less.

There is some feedback here, as the appearance of new technology creates romanticism of that technology which in turn creates more progress.

Belisaurius, you're assuming rationalism has any place in the culture of this world.

Historically, rationalism (and ideas of egalitarianism and liberty) were heavily reliant on the existence of a middle-class. Poor people tend not to have a lot of free time to wonder why the sun rises or where water comes from. They expend most of their effort trying to get enough food to live another day. Meanwhile, rich people don't want to rock the boat too much by asking tricky questions, and risk losing all their wealth and priviledge. It was the middle class, who still had to work and desired an easier life, but were wealthy enough to afford some free time, who were most involved in the advancement of science, technology and knowledge.

But this is a world of the haves and have-nots. You're either one of the wealthy Hydrolords, a priviledged servant of said Hydrolords, or a downtrodden peasant. If we're comparing this world to history, I'd imagine the Clergy would be the knowledge-keepers, being a large community of literate people with a lot of free time on their hands. But the Clergy would jealously guard its knowledge to protect their power-base. They wouldn't let just any old serf wander in and take a gander at their tomes (not that it would matter, the serfs are probably all illterate anyway).

Furthermore - everyone ITT seems to be thinking about this world as if it's supposed to exist in perpetuity, and criticizing it for not being "sustainable". But from what Huthman has said, I get the feeling that the downfall of the hydrocracy is the entire plot of his story. This is a world set up to fall, just like Immortan Joe's regime. Frankly, I think a much more productive approach would be to discuss what that fall would actually look like, and whether there will be anyone left alive by the end.

edited 6th Jun '16 2:10:04 PM by Tungsten74