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I'm not sure about dystopian stories, but I think the big appeal with post-apocalyptic and disaster stories is the fantasy of being able to start society over from scratch. To get a fresh start at a scale where the individual has a stronger influence on whatever group they're part of.
I think as real life society becomes more complicated, oppressive and individuals lose their sense of agency, those kinds of stories become more popular.
Yeah, the modern world is incredibly complex. Human brains did not evolve to be able to communicate with the number of people we deal with everyday, so the post-apocalyptic stories, with just afew hundred survivors is much more manageable
Smaller monkeyspheres
I case of the dystopian stories like CP2077 or Shadowrun, the "coziness" comes from that the companies and the state dont care about the individual at all, in a way that they dont even try to control you directly anymore and that can be kind of freeing. If no one cares anymore if you squat in some abandoned building you are free to live your life there as you want.
I can imagine that even this feels freeing compared to nowadays where you are, as long as you dont fit in, you get actively and very directly antagonised by systems and people.
And i find it also terribly sad that i feel that way.
I agree with all this and also I think company tends to be more limited in these types of works because you can't really trust most people so people keep smaller more intimate/well-bound groups.
Part of it is that the reader gets to enjoy a hundred yard view of the situation. You're not personally dirty and cold and hungry and unsure whether the next person you meet will decide to make you into food or to dress straight kill you for your resources or enslave you.
You don't have to deal with any of the terror of actually being in that situation, and instead you get to comfortably relax and wonder what life would be like without so many of the systems that we have adapted to being a constant presence in our lives.
A lot of fiction tends to make more simplistic politics when being written than current modern politics. Even small countries have politics that involve several different groups that may come together for different reasons.
Because reality is even worse.
