Weapon Shop
What is the difference between a modern utopia and dystopia in fictional writing? Perhaps that is the very theme of A.E. Vogt's The Weapon Shop. What is ideal to one might be a terrifying and reversal of ideal for another. In The Weapon Shop, originally published during the early years of World War II, focuses on a small businessman (Fara) who faces what is to him, a dystopian reality in that despite his complete devotion to the Empress of the Solar System, he faces a number of personal and professional troubles. In fact, he is livid when a weapon's shop that sells advanced and fantastic technology, but uncontrolled by his "government" materializes. He fails in his efforts to have the shop removed from the town, continues his downward slide, and is even personally humiliated when his son helps the other townspeople scam him.
At his wit's end, with no one to turn to for help, he surprisingly receives aid from the operators of the weapon's shop themselves. Fara finds out that the size, power and grandeur of their technology far out surpasses anything his government (Empress) can offer. Most of the villages really follow the government blindly, without giving it much analysis, and the goal of the Weapon Shop is to protect the rights and freedom of the people, actually act as a silent yet grand guardian. The Weapon Shop shows Fara that it is indeed organizations run by the Empress that caused the theft of his money and business. Convinced, finally, Fara joins them in their resistance to the Empress.
Essentially, the dystopia is the world in which Fara actually lives -- but he sees it as utopia -- the idea, the way of being. In a sense, like Plato's Cave, ignorance is bliss and Fara is convinced that everything non-standard is evil and bad. What he finds is that the dystopia he originally fought against, the Weapon Shop, is actually more of the utopia, the protector of society, the ideal for freedom and the rights of the individual. The irony in the story is this juxtaposition between utopian realities and what a bit of information can provide -- know the truth, and it shall set you free?
