The Rules: Science Fiction

[penthius]

You're a fool to break the rules, even if you don't understand why they're there. Especially if you don't understand why they're there. "Don't step into an elevator shaft" is a pretty straightforward rule, and we can figure out why that's a rule, and if we have climbing gear and rope, well, that's not such a disaster to break that rule. It's the rules that seem to make no sense that sometimes have the most severe consequences for those not expecting them. And sometimes, it's the rules that seem to make sense and then you realize that they existed for an entirely different reason than you thought, those are the rules you really have to watch out for. Oh, it's not like there's some great big nanny-alien who reaches down and swats your hand when you break one of these rules that are suddenly there. Nope. The rules are for our own protection, they told us on their one and only public announcement, and we were of course free to follow them or not as we liked. They did insist that we put bracelets on our children to keep them from crossing certain limits. That didn’t go over very well, and soon the bracelet rule vanished and instead people under a certain height and weight simply were unable to go past the borders without a high-pitched, annoying sound (worse by far than any of those mall alarms designed to drive off teenagers) ringing inside their head and getting steadily louder the closer they got (though without damaging them). Kids sometimes dared each other to see how far into the loud zone they could go, but they tended to crumple and pass out at a certain point, before the real danger struck, and then we would all hope that the other kids would come and get an adult.


Inspiration: "No One Knows" - Queens of the Stone Age
Story potential: High.
Notes: I like this mix of free will and alien control. And of course, the reason there are these rules is because the aliens did something else to Earth--maybe turned it into a giant alien preserve/melting pot? Regardless, they introduced a lot of other hazards. Could also play this with a fantasy spin, of course.