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[Endless Mike]

I haven't tried this yet, but it occured to me yesterday and it sounds like fun.

Choose your favorite dystopian society and model a Dwarf fortress around it. Examples include those found in Brave New World, 1984, We, Fahrenheit 451, and a whole slough of others. Mixing and matching elements to create the perfect dysfunctional utopia is of course necessary.

For example, I plan on making an egalitarian paradise, where everyone has all labor enabled and no specialty, except one shadowy "Director" who lives in a huge tower overlooking the fortress. Anyone who gains too much skill in any particular category is "re-educated", because all are equal. Also, all the dwarves have only numbers, no names.

Another example that I think would be fun would be making a sort of forced happiness land, where anyone who falls below ecstatic is punished, and anyone who falls below happy is drowned. This would facilitated by the Director having a room full of switches, each which connects to a flooding device in each room.

Most dystopias are eerily clean places, preferably made with glass (unfortunately, white plastic at this time does not exist in DF). Art is encouraged, or at least propaganda is. Deviant artists will be dealt with harshly. Dystopias are urban places, commonly viewing nature as dirty and dangerous, so clear cutting operations are probably in order.

There are huge numbers of ideas to draw on from literature and movies. Plenty can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopia.

Well? Is this feasible? Does it sound like fun? Any other ideas?

[LeoLeonardoIII]

You'll need to feed your Director. I suggest four simple options:

1: Access tunnel with a food drop leading to a lower tunnel that connects with the basement of the Director's tower. Just make sure you dump a ton of food there every once in a while.

2: The Director has a small staff of farmers who never see the outside, and farm in the basement of the tower. They drop food in a stockpile in an airlock. When the stockpile is full, clear the airlock and let the Director in to fill his personal stockpile with whatever he likes. (You'll need to either Take From Stockpile or just remove the airlock stockpile until he fills up his personal one).

3: The Director has a basement full of animals. They breed. He slaughters them. Dump the hides, bones, and skulls off the side of the tower where they can be used by the lesser Dwarves.

4: Dwarves will catch vermin if they're hungry enough. Will you have enough vermin in your tower? Who knows.

[Kronusdark]

this needs to be a community fortress it sounds like it could spawn awesome stories

[Derakon]

A community fortress based on Paranoia could be interesting, if a bit cumbersome. Players are informed of what their dwarves have done, and then must justify their actions to the computer, or be fed to the carp. You'd need Dwarf Companion to deal with cloning, though.

[Reasonableman]

You could emulate Atlas Shrugged by building a normal fortress and slowly turning off labors for all the lower tier workers, then moving the richest, most legendary workers to a secret 'mini-fort' deep in the mountains.

Ann Rand kicks arse.

[Techhead]

A dwarf director who kills the unhappiest sounds like a funny sort of guy.

You could also have two air-lock stockpiles, and cycle them every time one of them runs low.
That way, there is no mindless hauling for Mr. Director, none at all!
Bonus points if you designate the lever room as his personal office.
Extra bonus points if he lives in the top floor of a glass spire.

[Kuli]

Speaking of Ayn Rand, I'm going to read Anthem to see how its dystopian society could be applied to DF.  Having dwarves named Democracy 1-5002 or Collective 3-3338 would be amusing.

For a truly dystopian fortress, though, we need the ability to throw dwarves in jail at will (I've always wanted that feature, really.)  I suppose we could improvise by locking troublemakers in their bedrooms or drafting them and ordering them to stand in a certain room before locking it.

[Doppel]

A community fortress based on Paranoia could be interesting, if a bit cumbersome. Players are informed of what their dwarves have done, and then must justify their actions to the computer, or be fed to the carp. You'd need Dwarf Companion to deal with cloning, though.

I was exactly thinking the same thing, you could make color coded doors and levers and such. Ofcourse dwarves should be able to kill dwarves (else its a little pointless).
Note though, i haven't actually ever played Paranoia before, just read about it a bit.

[Duke 2.0]

 And a military that has no contact with the civilians and don't care about anything anymore. Also, you need to have some mines with a resistance! Can't have an overbearing leader without a resistance in the slums! I propose a small cave made in an offshoot from some mineral vein.

[Impending Doom]

Well, to go with that time-honored DF tradition of building things really freakin' high, a Half-Life-esque fortress with a tall, slender 'Citadel' rising from the center of a cluster of smaller structures sounds about right. store all your food and drink in the tower, and dish it out to the citizens about once a season. Patrol the streets with soldiers leading tame Giant Cave Spiders. Keep male and female dwarves apart to stop them from 'multiplying'.

[Duke 2.0]

Keep male and female dwarves apart to stop them from 'multiplying'.

 Unless you have an anti-spore device, this will end in failure.

 Urist McDictator: How the hell did you have a kid? There are only females here!
 Kogan McMother: A male appeared on the edge of the map for a few seconds.
 

[Impending Doom]

Yess, but remember that unlike animals, dwarves only seem to 'get busy' with dwarves they are acquainted with and speak to frequently, don't they?

[Nohnoz]

Keep male and female dwarves apart to stop them from 'multiplying'.

 Unless you have an anti-spore device, this will end in failure.

 Urist McDictator: How the hell did you have a kid? There are only females here!
 Kogan McMother: A male appeared on the edge of the map for a few seconds.
 

Sexy Action At a Distance

[Kuli]

They have to be married to have children, right?  No marriages if males and females aren't able to interact socially.  I guess married migrants would have to be killed.

[Endless Mike]

Variation: The original 7 form a council, which lives separately from the population, fulfilling all the rolls of the director as stated above. This gives you some time to set up your infrastructure, and insures that none of your dwarves make friends or are even acquaintances with the ruling class. Of course, there's nothing stopping one of the ruling class from ousting the others once things are up and running....