Intergalactic Game/Reality Show: Good or Bad?

[ThisAdamGuy]

One day, everyone wakes up and realizes the world has been irreversibly changed and we have no choice but to adapt to it or die. Little do we know (or maybe we do) that this is because Earth and all of its inhabitants have been chosen as the latest contestants on some kind of intergalactic game show or reality show, and everything we're about to go through is for the entertainment of some unknown alien race 150 morbillion light years away.

Good setup, bad setup, or good setup that's been used too much and you're tired of seeing it?

 

[CharlesEBrown]

The concept seems a bit too broad - perhaps just a single small town (though that would probably wind up being similar to the old Twilight Zone episode "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" or maybe "Under the Dome," depending on how it plays out) instead of the whole world?

 

[Tempokai]

I'd say it's overused with ORV being the biggest example I could think of. Sure, it's not entirely about exactly what you're talking about, but every "some incomprehensible force changing society overnight" is already explored well enough and still fresh in the collective subconscious. It only can work if everything else tying to the setting works properly, which is hard to do.

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

The concept seems a bit too broad - perhaps just a single small town (though that would probably wind up being similar to the old Twilight Zone episode "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" or maybe "Under the Dome," depending on how it plays out) instead of the whole world?

I'm thinking, everyone was turned into some slightly off-brand (and legally distinct) fantasy/scifi race, giant crystals appear everywhere that are each "owned" by one of those races, when you die you get reincarnated at your race's closest crystal, and if enough of your race can swarm another race's crystal, it gets converted into your crystal and all your opponents get turned into your race and join your side. First race to take control of all the crystals wins, the show is over, we all have to deal with being aliens from now on, everyone starts paying attention to ThisAdamGuy because he finally wrote a story in a genre that webfiction readers care about, and ThisAdamGuy feels appreciated and stops crying himself to sleep every night.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Again, sounds like a cool idea, but I would hesitate to have it affect the entire world. Partly because, when the game is over, the survivors would have to deal with no longer being part of the society they were plucked from (and the world would have to deal with THEM as well). I could see the aliens taking new contestants including Earth in the show's broadcast - and most people believing it was fake, at least until the winners come home...

 

[AnonUnlimited]

Intergalactic is only good as a song.

 

[SternenklarenRitter]

no choice but to adapt to it or die.

Death games are way overused. They also have hit market saturation but none of them ever went mainstream.

when you die you get reincarnated at your race's closest crystal

Well if there's no permadeath then go for it.

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

Death games are way overused. They also have hit market saturation but none of them ever went mainstream.

Well if there's no permadeath then go for it.

I've always liked the idea of battle royales and gladiator arenas being treated like extreme sports, but the problem has always been figuring out how to get the characters (including the contestants) to treat it that way instead of a horrific crime against humanity like The Hunger Games.

 

[Forgotten_Fox]

I mean, it's a good setup, but you'll be living on the shadow of some of the biggest stories in the genre. It's hard to compete with DCC