Ethan

Abstract

In a not too distant future, a technologically advanced country faces a serious problem of population replacement as her individualistic and highly educated citizens reject the idea of procreation. After several failed attempts at encouraging its citizens to procreate, the highly efficient government came up with a single magical solution of the Labour Supplementary Program (LSP) to literally grow the Nation’s population. All healthy citizens who do not have children are required to contribute their sperms and ovaries to the LSP. This program uses advanced scientific technology to artificially engineer the entire process of human growth. Humans are treated as mere labour, a product and nothing more. Babies can now be mass- produced within individual Artificial Gestation Units (AGUs) (refer Appendix) –man-made uterus-- and each child is able to grow at an exponential rate relative to a child by natural birth. In a twist of fate, Vogt, a career-driven scientist develops a father-son bond with one of his specimens and is faced with a dilemma of having to choose between saving his genetically defected “son” from extermination and fulfilling his duties as Head of the LSP.