After a cataclysmic war sometime in the past, the survivors and their heirs have rebuilt themselves into what appears on the surface to be an idyllic, emotion-free utopia, designed to control the violent impulses which nearly destroyed them…no one exhibits individuality, everyone is equal and serves the collective good, and romantic couples, sex, and love itself no longer exist – procreation is now an in-office procedure selectively performed by purely artificial means. But there is trouble in paradise: suicides are happening at an alarming rate, and increasingly, citizens are being diagnosed with the “incurable” sickness of emotionality.