Description
It's the year 2071, the effects of climate change and the subsequent rise in ocean levels has been greater than anyone had imagined 50 years ago. Economies have collapsed and coastal nations have succumbed to the encroachment of the oceans. The Union of India too has disintegrated into 20 or so independent nations that can't quite see eye to eye with one another. One of these polities is called the Union of Northern States (Or UNS) and it's a little different from the other fledgling nations. Welcome to the world's only Social Darwinianist state. The founders of this nation believed that overpopulation, the welfare state and propagation of unhealthy genes lead to this catastrophic deluge. They opined that not only were there too many people living on planet earth but most of their DNA was garbage as well. Over the past 2000 years of agro-industrial civilization, the evolutionary pressures that would normally eliminate weak genes had been counterbalanced by technological and social 'progress'. Thus, the state reserves the right to control the reproduction of its citizens. This is done by ensuring that all the women are artificially inseminated by the semen of the fittest, most healthy males. The result of all of this is a population consisting of good looking, healthy bastards that the rest of the men are forced to raise as their own. But Major General Navjot Singh Mann won't raise a bastard. Every decision of his life has been oriented towards this crude and sincere goal. He's too intelligent, too vain and too heavily invested in himself to let that happen. At the same time he's a true believer in Social Darwinianism, an article of faith that stands in stark contrast to the instincts at his very core. A confrontation ensues within him, one that pits duty against instinct, coherence against dissonance, decency against savagery. A confrontation that contorts his very being and that of thousands of others.
Happy Birthday and other Hubris
