This morning I awoke with the random flotsam and jetsam of the structure of a sci-fi-ish book that I believe has some real potential to go a number of ways, ask interesting questions of the reader and take off.
But I'm not a writer and won't have time to throw at it anytime in the next century. So,
I present the framework to you all to pounce on and do anything you wish with.
The premise:
The setting is a random planet (not earth) that is somewhat capable of sustaining some life, imperfectly, but not a lot of it. In the distant past, the 'Founders' crash-landed some lifeboat ship on the planet in a way that isn't reparable by the current science. The genetics of the population have been affected by radiation and inbreeding to the point where birth defects such as cleft lips are the norm and expected standard, and people without them (clam lips) are seen as outcasts or perhaps treated as breed stock. Society is starting to fall apart because of an increasing genetic deterioration.
The crash site is treated as something of a temple by the ruling class, containing holy relics such as the 'Last Meal,' which is a bit of an MRE that is known to hold the DNA of one of the founders. Unbeknownst to the ruling class, the DNA sample was affected by radiation from the ship's engine upon the crash, hence causing something of their misunderstanding of what comprises a normal DNA set.
The politics are very Game-of-Thrones-ish with various factions trying to figure out how to preserve society in their own way from the inevitable decay brought by background radioactivity (which they aren't aware of) and shortages.
Factions:
There are the purists who have lots of births of multiples by some fertilization technology but only allow the children seen as the most genetically fit to survive. Occasionally people rebel and children escape to join the naturalists.
There are the ruling class, who I'll call the Trilobals at the moment in reference to their cleft lip as the ideal as some sort of reflection on the Trinitarian nature of God, who control the official line on science and historical preservation, which has been infected by religion and politics. They want to preserve society in the form of the current order and are looking for restoration options. Perhaps they come across a crew log video that they bury that shows that the founders had regular lips and did not resemble them. The Trilobals have some kind of enabling technology that allows them to eat, breathe, and communicate without much difficulty.
Generally most people 'bless' their surviving children in some damaging manner, perhaps by taking them to the crash site and thus exposing them to the higher levels of radiation there. All they know is that the crash site is perpetually a bit warmer, by the 'presence of the Triune god.'
There are the naturalists who allow all births, live on the fringes in the wild, have lots of birth defects because all births are preserved, and are overall quite feral / tribal. They have some survival knowledge but little formal education and are generally left to fend for themselves.
Some quote ideas: 'Put on your plastiboots, for the ground you are walking to is holy ground.'
I didn't want it to be good guys vs. bad guys. I wanted it to be more complex with each faction having their rights and wrongs, good points and bad, (and maybe some new ones added in), have it as realistic a post-crash survival society could look like, and to have the book explore some hard questions about what choices would need to be made in such a scenario where escape isn't really much of an option, preservation might involve ugly choices and such. I would have it told from the multiple first-person perspective style of George R.R. Martin to best capture the angles.
Anyway, I haven't summed it up that well; tried to wrap some words around as much as I could.