The atmosphere is full of dreams that evolve at varying rates. Like Quest for Fire, the 1977 classic Empire of the Ants is based on an H.G. Wells story from the early 20th century. There are no gay characters in Empire of the Ants, just camp queen Joan Collins as the shady real estate scammer, among a cast of corrupt and disfunctional heterosexuals. In a totally corrupted and trashed America, destroying itself through unchecked greed, nuclear wastes are dumped indiscriminately. In "Dreamland Shores" even the water pipes are fake, non functioning props carefully planted among signs that declare the future locations of club houses, golf courses, and condos that nobody ever intends to build. The potential buyers are equally shams, a collection of divorced and penniless losers just along for the free ride, or to pick up on the opposite sex. There isn’t a happily married or honestly employed member in the bunch—most of them are disgruntled employees who’ve been so abused and exploited by their evil bosses, that as they flee the giant radioactive ant colony--that at some point they realized is herding them like cattle—the ants begin to seem only like the latest representatives of an unchecked and mercenary economy. Once they get to town they discover a population enslaved by the queen ant’s pheromones, who has them working the sugar refinery at full pitch, even importing sugar from abroad. By the time they face the giant ant queen themselves, their resistance takes on the quality of a long overdue labor strike.