Transcript
A guide gestures to a shining futuristic city as an immigrant looks on in awe.
Guide: Welcome to the free society of Lantera, where all are provided with food, water, shelter, and medical care.
Immigrant: That sounds amazing.
Guide: Also, happiness is banned on pain of death.
Immigrant: What?! Why?
Guide: A century ago, we were so happy that we let our guard slip, leading to the horrific Happiness Wars. To keep it from happening again, we eliminated all happiness from society.
Immigrant: But hasn’t a plucky upstart taught you the value of happiness?
Guide: All of our plucky upstarts died in the Happiness Wars!
Immigrant: Okay, I can work with this.
P.S. Our bills are paid by our wonderful patrons. Could you chip in?
I see a new happiness war coming …
Good one again, Bunny and Chris!
If such a war does occur, the consequences would be horrible.
“Here you have your answer, are you happy now?”
Don’t answer! It’s a trap!
Ahaha! I absolutely love this one. So good!
I wonder if love is banned as a subset of happiness, too? That might require TWO young upstarts to solve!
Reminds me of Santa’s Little Helper scenario from Plague Inc. Although there the anti-fun seemed more like a coalition of governments working together than a single city state. Still, might give a picture of what life is like in Lantera.
There are no holidays, and people work all the time (there are still weekends, but sometimes people are forced to work then). Birthday parties are illegal, as is laughing and winking. And obviously no sports, circuses or amusement parks. Food is probably designed with maximum blandness in mind.
And by looking at the guide, people certainly wear grey clothing. There doesn’t seem to be any compulsory hair length, though
Perhaps this immigrant is a bio-technician, who will release the happiness bringing Neurax Worm on Lantera.