A fragment

[Faust]

By now the personality reassignment pill was old news, a common practice prescribed by even the most old fashioned and mistrusting of medical professionals. Narcotics dealers stood on dank street corners doling out idealised personas, counterfeit identities crudely carved together, all with superhero morality and tireless vigour but devoid of depth or substance.

Progress does not slow, not now or ever, the great wheel churns out new products without a second thought of the consequences. Collateral damage chalked up to beta testing hiccups.

Scientists were working on a breakthrough; harnessing the essence of an existential crisis and trapping it in physical form.

These were given bank accounts to fill and licences to use, papers and jobs. All expected to work or starve, to justify their own existence or be swept away by the unstoppable hustle and bustle of every day life.

[Faust]

The beatnik ministers, otherwise commonly known by the hateful slur of 'politicians'.

Dissatisfied with society and it's failures to provide the live's they wished to lead these outcasts would be ostracised and pushed to the top of the sacrificial political pyramid out of everyones way, so that the populace could go about their day to day without having the misfortune of encountering one.

Here they would live out their lives in meaningless excess and endless infighting, occasionally looting those below them in impotent acts of futile rebellion, never fully able to articulate their contempt for their situations, despite it being clear upon their faces.

At the end of their term, or when their drama grew too tiring or dull for the public, these sacral kings would be immolated or otherwise cast off from the top of the pyramid, white house or parliament (whatever name fashion dictates) and new wretches would take their place under the eye of the the publics scrutiny, as it was and always shall it be.

[Placid Dingo]

Cool ideas. How can you see them being used?

[Faust]

Cool ideas. How can you see them being used?

The first one for a story where personalities and character traits become status items that can be bought and sold in pill form, where criminals are turned into superheros as a punishment.

The narrative for that is a story about a con man, one of the few people in the story who isn't using these modifications. He swindles the life savings from a woman who falls in love with him through a web of lies that he is a secret agent trying to save the world from an evil corporation. Only after he has gotten away with the loot does he discover that she was in a loveless abusive relationship, and that her husband has murdered her when he discovers their money gone.

Cut forward a few years and this con man has convinced himself of lies he told the woman, that he is the idealised fantasy he described. The company who create the personality altering pills cannot understand where he has come from and think that someone within the company created his persona which they need to cover up.

[Cuddlefish]

These are very interesting, Faust. I'd like to see more, especially more from the first post. Very cool idea.