The homeless in dystopia...

Okay I have a setting idea that I want to refine a bit. If that was brought up before I apologize.

The basic idea is an urban metropolis where the people are separated into three cases based on whether or not they have a house or other residential property. The lowest caste would therefore be the homeless. Who would then be forced into a dilapidated underground city ruins and ostracized by society (that still live on the surface at least)

This is inspired by the homelessness epidemic in the US among other nations. As well as the 30's (and 20's, but the former is more apt for this specific case).

I make this thread to brainstorm the finer details. Namely how would this be enforced, the poverty cycles, the reputational aspects, and how could the two higher castes make it difficult to get buy a home and thus status (beyond the usual real estate BS)

Other relevant factors are organized crime rings, corruption and elements of Xianxia and dungeon core stories. I'll try to elaborate if asked about those for the sake of context.

On the Xianxia note, I also want to ask any Chinese lit experts on how a "beggar sect" would operate in these circumstances if possible.

I was considering a more elaborate response, but everything I was thinking of was stolen from the Street Cultivation series by Sarah Lin. It's not the same, but poverty and cycles of poverty enforced by power in a cultivation based modern world are a big point of the series.

How about this?

The Elite-Class are the ones who got a house per family.

The middle-class basically lives in a giant anthill (a town without roads, since the whole thing is just one huge apartment complex where the concept of "home" is just the ability to lock your own door and force people wandering to take a different way to their destination.)

And the Homeless living beneath this giant anthill-apartment, rummaging through the huge severs where there is PLENTY of room but no rooms, and the stench is good awful. But hey, they got more open space than the middle-class does and most that gets thrown down by them is still usable to some extent.

And the homeless have no way up from the "Basement" since new additions to it gets thrown down there together with the garbage by the law-enforcement in the Anthill whenever anyone can't pay their due to the Elite.

To get out from "The Basement", then you better learn to become a gecko and climb the walls to the chutes dropping people in.

Maybe?

Edited by Trainbarrel on Apr 26th 2024 at 5:01:57 PM

I kinda had some ideas in play, including having the middle class be elites in their own respect (in reference to the widening class gap/alleged erosion if the middle class) so the apartment thing is not really feasible.

The general idea of a beggar sect is both that it relies on public support (hence the begging) while also trading in information and shadier services. But your world seems so utterly hostile to them that it seems hard to do. Also, depending on how cultivation works, it may be a solid path to detachment and such usually required.

It's also a matter of... well it has a strong might-makes-right component. After all, how do you apprehend a person more powerful than god? Lots of this focuses on the idea that the powerful do as they will. Some stories see this as injustice. others only when its done to the MC.

If they did, then you'd simply get a slum town, not a homeless encampment. Homeless people can also be thought of as gatherers, who can live off the excess of city living. People throw away lots of stuff that's still fine. If they're physically segregated, that becomes impossible to do. Same for charity (like begging). It's difficult to see how this group would not just very quickly die from being in a lightless place with no real food and shelter.

Edited by devak on Apr 27th 2024 at 9:34:06 PM

Also, keeping in mind that the homeless-class in such an environment can't be in a larger number than the middle-class, since such places have not enough resources to sustain a larger population, making them scavengers who dies off either by accidents, diseases or sheer undernourishment if there are not enough resources to go around. Accidents in particular if there is no light and they end up falling down as chasm by accident when what little source of light they do have goes out at the worst moment.

Not to mention having wounds getting infected from cutting themselves by accident on broken glass and the like in the trash piles.

You may have to build the city like a cake, with the middle-class as the cake and the homeless layer being the tray the cake is sitting on.

Oh, and the Elite-class being the thin layer of whipped cream on the outside of the cake, with the pretty and sweet decorations on it.

Edited by Trainbarrel on Apr 27th 2024 at 9:51:07 PM

I'm also not entirely sure what model of Xianxia you are going to follow here. Based on the series i've read, the elite would be effectively demigods capable of wiping out the entire underclass with a sweep of their hand (or should i say, sleeve?). So, why would they be around? What purpose does the underclass serve?

So, thinking about this a bit more, it depends what your goal is for the story/setting. What will work for a 'protagonist rises above disadvantage/poverty/mistreatment' may not work for a revolution story.

As for how the homeless are kept homeless, obvious means are that rental is not allowed, nor is subdivision, or, if you want to go all the way, sale is not allowed either, only inheritance. But the problem is, why don't they just leave and build homes somewhere else? Especially if the upper castes don't like them and don't need/want anything from them, they can just go off and build their own city/village/home? Now, maybe social pressure or skill limits could be limiting? Especially if the upper castes believe that the homeless are either cursed, or damned for some action and so have to be kept within the ruins?

In a Xainxia world, it's often extremely dangerous, so if the land suitable for constructing houses is limited (say, areas inside the city walls) and society has adapted to the notion of that, then you can imagine having single story houses is a massive mark of wealth and power, because otherwise you'd build up and have many more people living there.

But then you have problems of how does the city eat? And where do your homeless actually live? If you want to go full ridiculous, the city walls can be massive and the homeless live within them (which doesn't count as a home, as they obviously don't own the walls).

Beggar sects aren't something I've heard of, but this will depend on your magic/cultivation system. One obvious potential route is that they're far weaker than other sects (lacking the resources to produce truly strong cultivators) but due to having to work on the weaker end have finer control over their power, or have specialized in things which other sects haven't. E.g. hiding in a crowd, rather than invisibility, or being able to slip a hand into a purse, rather than a chest.

Dungeons and dungeon cores might also an additional alternative for housing, if the first few layers are cleared out regularly, then the homeless could live there. It also might offer an explanation for how the city feeds itself, by hunting outside the walls for the strong and powerful and hunting/farming/gathering within the dungeon?

But I think the key question is what type of story are you trying to tell and what themes are you looking to get at?

Edited by ECD on Apr 27th 2024 at 9:28:35 AM

the goal here is mostly for world-building purposes and an attempt at commentary on the side for now but the dystopic city state is one of the major settings of my story. But it is in service to themes of change, as such it would entail an eventual toppling of the system (involving a reckoning a la the Great Depression to WW 2 period).

from what I recall so far:

• I'm leaving the demogrpahics vauge, but am leaning towards a pyramid setup, that means the lower class does out number the other two classes
• Despite this the usual "Rally the masses" thing won't work at the moment because xianxia elements aside, there are other fantastic elements that make one man armies possible enough for the higher two classes to maintain the monopoly on violence. That is to say there are enough people capable of soloing armies in the upper classes to make open rebellion tantamount to a mass deathwish.
• The homeless technically do have housing and shelter, but it is dilapidated to the point of nigh uselessness. However it is also free because the value of the underground city is nil on paper
• I think the running idea was that "first-class" citizenship is tied to property on the surface, if you can own a home, then you are not of the lwoer class, but the catch is that it is not a easy feat and grows more difficult by the day as per my attempt at commentary on the housing market.
• there relevant factions are:
  • a "Rouges guild," an origination of adventurers that are trying to save as many people as possible form the underground. Ranging from robin-hood style larceny to more legal means. Beucase of this, they have ranks in the middle classes and symphasisers willing to help out of gratitude
  • "The Syndicate" a group of organized crime mobs and therefor the Evil Counterpart of the above. Many of the leadership and high ranking members are in the upper-classes as valued members.
  • A more official guild that represents the interests of the city in general, though in practice most of them defect to those of the upper and middle classes, there are some that are willing to cooperate with the rouges be out out of similar aims of pragmatism against the common foe of the Syndicate.
  • With what I now know about the Beggar sect idea I'm planning on having one be involved as a secret faction and neutral party, thought developing that is a can to kicked down the road for now.
• I am planning on having at least one of the mob bosses be a cultivator as well as the arch-enemey of someone who is not one himself but ended up roped into that sphere for different reasons. (and consequently does have cultivators as friends)
• isekai and general fantasy elements will be present and factor into the equation a bit. With Dugneons (low quality but still dangerous) magic and monsters abound. This only serves to make things more lopsided as the better adventures that aren't in the Rouges would otherwise be in the higher tiers anyway and they would have enought to quell any dissent from within and overpower the more brazen of travellers.

Obvious if this was a fully baked idea, then the thread wouldn't exist. Right now the focus is more establishing and accentuating the more dystopic side of the city if possible

In that case, I think the key question is, is the homelessness a result of cultural structures, or practical limitations? It sounds like social/cultural structures, in which case I'm a bit confused about how the Rogues function? Like, what do the homeless actually need? Food? Water? If they're the majority of the population, I don't see how the Rogues could provide that if it's not already present? I guess I don't know what it means to 'save someone from the underground' if they're removed, won't they be put back in instantly as they still don't have a home?

To take it back to worldbuilding, what do the homeless provide to the city? Usually peasantry provides tax revenue (in cash, or in food) and people (in corvee labor, or as soldiers). But if they're underground, farming is going to be a problem, they don't seem to have any obvious way to make money and in this world, is there any value in their work?

If not, and they're viewed as worthless and there are people with the capacity as individuals to wipe them out...I hate to ask, but why haven't they all been killed? As a matter of theme, if the upper castes don't benefit from the status/limits placed on the homeless in some way, then I think there may be a bit of a disconnect. Now, you can do some stuff with 'they benefit from them as an example of what happens if you step out of line/don't maintain your position' but when it's the majority of the population, that's a bit tricky.

You could make this as dystopian as you like—cultivators practicing human sacrifice need a lot of bodies, maintaining a large population base has effects on the flow of Qi. People attract dungeons/spirit beasts, so they're using the homeless as bait to attract creatures they can hunt/dungeons they can exploit?

But assuming this structure has been in place for some time, why is the ruined city still ruined? If there's a large mass of people down there, they will build/repair structures. Even in the absence of building materials, they'll salvage from the ruins to construct better buildings.

Now, in a Xianxia world, those structures, though ruined, could be unworkable by non-cultivators? Then you've got a fairly clear goal for the Rogues, they either help rework areas, or bring in more mundane building materials? But I think I may be pushing against the dystopian nature of the setting. So historic ruins from a more powerful past which no one can do anything with, which can't be torn down, or really fixed has some thematic resonance as the homeless frequently aren't allowed to modify their environment, here made manifest fact?

labor seemed like the obvious value. The main thing is that the city has enough infrastructure underground to enable comfortable lives on the surface. I'm not sure how much of that is influenced by Metropolis.

as for why the ruins remained ruins. Part of its for social control and part of it is because there are Genius Loci in the city that would make renovations difficult, and many of them wound up too vital to the city to be physically removed, with many of them being the infrastructure that powered the comfortable lives.

I prolly will play up the human sacrifice angle though as one character backstory already involved a Cannibal Clan and that also entailed mass murder with a "purpose"

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Apr 27th 2024 at 11:44:26 AM