Help with my Walled City

There's a city in my setting about the size of a large country that's surrounded by massive walls on all sides. Outside the walls the landscape consists mostly of a humongous junkyard, and is populated by gargantuan killer robots, cyborg axe murderers and all sorts of other nasties.

The immediate area around the city's walls is policed by Cyborg Super Soldiers sent by a government organization whose existence isn't really a secret, but the extent of their influence (they basically rule the entire city) is.

Now, the question I'd like answered is this: Is there any need to keep what's outside the walls a secret from the city's populace?

Also, if there's a limit for threads one can create for one's stuff then please let me know. I've been mostly asking about different topics regarding the same story, so I could unify it all if me making so many threads (well, three so far) is a problem.

edited 28th Mar '17 6:01:49 AM by ilili

It only really depends on what kind of story you want to tell. You decide.

The question boils down to whether or not you want people coming in and out of the city. If you want the city to have closed borders then you might want people not to realize the mountains of scrap metal sitting in their back yard.

However, seeing as the city is an island of civilization in a sea of murder, the rulers of the city will have massive authority and power so long as the walls are necessary to keep the killers out.

No, I think. Even if it were kept a secret, the wall/boundary is probably not enough to keep them from figuring it out.

But the thing here is - and I suspect you're aware of this - it doesn't have to be a binary. There's a whole range of space between "there's totes nothing out there, honest" and "there are monsters and you can see them yourself". What's outside that's really keeping people in?

Which raises the question of if the wall is meant to keep nasties out or inhabitants in.

(I don't think there's a limit? So long as the topics are obviously worth a separate thread.)

Allow me to rephrase: What would be good reasons for/against keeping it secret?

People aren't allowed outside the same way people aren't allowed to go into a disaster area: It's too dangerous. The organisation in charge of the walls do have massive authority, but they operate in secret so they can avoid being antagonized as an "evil" regime.

It's not just the wall, there's what amounts to a semi-Police State inside the city that would make sure nothing gets outside if I go the secrecy-route. As far as the government is concerned there's really nothing but certain death for unpowered people beyond the walls, and even aforementioned cyborgs frequently die there.

According to what I've got now they're telling the people that it's dangerous outside, they just don't tell them exactly what's out there. I'm looking for how/why that would work or how/why it wouldn't.

The whole thing became directly relevant for the story when the protagonist, a cyborg girl working for the organisation in charge of the whole wall business, gets asked about what exactly she's doing at her job on a date. I instictively went with the whole "post-apocalyptic wasteland behind walls = secret" thing, but that just might be because "Masquerade = lazy writing"...

edited 31st Mar '17 7:56:34 AM by ilili

You're authority is going to need a public face. Doesn't have to be a very strong public face but you need something to tell people the rules.

More to the point, scrap metal is somewhat valuable so if people know about the massive junkyard they're going to raid the massive junkyard.

I don't reccommend keeping people in the dark about the outside. People are naturally curious and the harder it is to figure something out the more tantalizing it is to chase after.

From the perspective of a regular citizen the city is a democratic government, with politicians and everything. The true government is a secret to everyone but the biggest of fishes.

Would they also raid the massive junkyard if it was not only illegal, but also extremely difficult and extremely dangerous? I have no idea how a regular human (meaning everybody that's not an agent on duty) would even manage to get past the wall, and if they did they had almost no chance of returning alive.

The wall is there to keep the people in so that they won't get their asses killed , aswell as keeping the nasties out.

The more I think about it, the less good reasons I find for keeping the whole thing secret. I suppose people wouldn't have too much trouble with the fact that their city is surrounded by giant killer robots and other untold horrors, as long as the walls hold strong, wouldn't you agree?

edited 4th Apr '17 5:43:31 AM by ilili

i imagine a lot of people, their whole world being inside those walls, might not even think to ask whats outside.

the more of a fuss people make about the walls, more questions are asked.

i remember a game called dark cloud 2, and the story opens with a walled off city that is the only remnant of civilization left. and no one but the mayor seems to know. it just seems like the hush-hush resulted in no one even thinking the situation had changed until someone overheard something they shouldnt and it became important to ask: ''whats happened to the outside world?"

I think you're right. If their whole life takes place inside the walls and they aren't really being oppressed or anything, most people probably wouldn't spent too much thought on the outside, right?

Given the setting, the answer is blatantly obvious. If the wall is there for protection of the citizens, you want those citizens to be fully aware of what they are being protected from.

The opposite scenarios would be that the government said that there were nasty things beyond the wall when outside the wall is actually harmless because the wall is meant for control rather than protection. Or that the government hides the dangers of the outside world and have no wall whatsoever because they want people to go outside for some reason.

Of course, you could split the difference and have the wall to protect some people, but hide the dangers because some people are expected to go outside.

The point is, people typically lie or conceal truth for a reason, and they especially do not lie if telling the truth benefits them. So you need to find out what that reason for lying is and remove any reason for telling the truth. So far, it appears that you have done the opposite.

A good example is Attack On Titan, where people live in a walled country to protect them from man-eating giants on the outside. That danger is common knowledge to the populace, especially since a part of the military does go outside the walls occasionally. But apart from that, the government does keep a load of secrets from the populace, one of them being that there are other countries outside the walls on other continents.

edited 11th Apr '17 7:40:29 AM by shiro_okami

Acting secretive about something that's justified (defensive wall is being used for defense) only makes it look like the government is hiding something.

It's possible that people raised in that society may go through most of their life without wondering about the outside world, but that won't be everyone. Someone is going to be curious, and it seems weird to want to silence them when the answer is "no, there actually is nothing sketchy about this wall, it really is there to protect you."

If there really are ludicrously dangerous creatures right outside the wall that would instantly kill any normal person, then the best reason I can think to keep it secret is to prevent panic (it'd be pretty disturbing to find out that you're in a tiny island of safety in a dangerous world, and it wouldn't take much to start to worry that the walls could fail any day).

edited 1st Jun '17 2:24:54 PM by Jokubas

Wow, gotta say I didn't expect another reply. Thanks a lot, and I suppose I should drive this thing along already.

I kindly ask you to refrain from calling things a bunch of people haven't fully pinned down yet as "blatantly obvious". There are a bunch of grey areas between "wall 'cause danger = fully informed citizens" and "wall 'cause control = civilians kept in the dark". I also don't think that keeping the wall secret will automatically mean that people will go outside, especially given how nigh-impossible getting past the wall is for civilians. The government also needs the walls to protect itself, not just the populace (of which they, y'know, are kinda part of).

I'm aware people lie for reason. Finding that reason, or a good reason not to, pretty much was my first question. I was asking because I'm not sure which way to go yet, 'cause I feel the story could work either way.

Attack On Titan has been an inspiration, which is why I'd prefer to do things a bit differently. I also don't plan to portray the government as negatively as they do, and more as people who act on what they think is the right thing to do.

I suppose you're right. All in all, not much reason to go down the secret route unless I'd wanna make a statement about sheep-mentality, which I do not care for.

Would it really cause a panic, though? The walls have been more or less performing their function for hundreds of years. If everyone knew that, I doubt the majority would seriously fear them failing. As long as life is reasonably comfortable, I'm not sure most people would mind living in an oasis surrounded by hostility.

edited 5th Jun '17 10:11:59 AM by ilili

I think you might have accidentally described Australia there. As long as there's an adequate response protocol to the threat, people will get used to it.

That said, the comical approach to this setting would be taking Drop Bears to a whole new level of straight-faced lying. (You don't find out they're fake until your 21st birthday, and you're expected to keep the secret going for minors afterwards.)

The serious approach would be an actual Death World outside the walls, with a full 'last outpost' mentality within. And then combine that with that twist from TheVillage.