At the beginning of the 21. Century a third world war ravaged our country. Nations massacred each other. Complete continents were extinguished. The few surviving nations knew man would never survive a fourth war, and agreed that our own erratic kind posed a risk factor. So they created a new department of justice: the Grammaton cleric, whose sole purpose was the reconnaissance and extinction of human cruelties' true source: their ability for emotion.
They call it a disease.
Its symptoms are anger, fury, hatred and war.
The disease inside the human heart is emotion.
Thanks to scientists and scholars man had been cured and had accepted the healing process. All due to the great equalizer - Prozium. At long last man is at peace with himself. Mankind is one. War doesn't exist any longer, hatred is just a memory. We are our own conscience.
And this conscience motivates us to destroy those things that tempt us to feel again. They label them EC-10 for Emotional Content. Books, paintings, movies and music, even animals, are forbidden. Libraries and galleries burnt for weeks all over the country. Colors faded into a homogeneous grey - in clothing, in architecture and even in people's faces. Due to Prozium, love ceased to exist. As did jealousy and heartache. Grammaton selects your partner based on scientifically proven statistics. At the age of eighteen you get married. If your marriage is successful, which it usually is - as there are no unpredictable factors such as infidelity, discontent and distrust - your first child is assigned to you two years later. Children are created by artificial insemination in vitro, to ensure ideal genetic distribution. And to suppress passion and desire. Grammaton perfected Darwin's theory. At the age of four children receive their first dose of Prozium.
Yeah, we survived.
They call it Equilibrium.
I call it mind control.