#like yeah a lot of the new generation WANTED out and the inkantation pushed them

[bucketsquid]

one thing i commend side order for is helping to kinda. break down the "octarian domes are dystopian hellscape" interpretations i see everywhere

like yeah the propaganda is still there, but it always has been. that's how you install wariness of the dangerous outside world in your people and keep them close, and safe, after everything. but like.

we do see that there's room for individuality and that people are given basic humanoid rights down there. there's enough fondness for their leader that he's talked about as a cantankerous silly old guy and with respect. maybe acht shouldn't be playing music in the wrong physical locations and maybe they should pay attention in class, but...

it's not a hellscape.

(and it always makes me very uncomfortable when it's depicted that way, both for the political+historical stuff going on w the octarians, and because their leader does genuinely seem to care.)

it's just a very different world that, in the face of the modern day and the re-awakened desire to see the surface again, is often not enough anymore.

and even there, we learn that, yeah, some people are okay living there and genuinely prefer its stability to the changing, chaotic rest of the world.

and that's valid, too.