Hope you enjoy! Feel fee to write any story you want set in this world.
The year is 2173. Though certain aspects of technology have greatly advanced, much remains the same as 150ish years ago, with some technology having even regressed. The 2000s and 2100s were not, as many had originally hoped, a golden age of technological advancement. Instead, these centuries would be remembered for their rapid and global shifts in culture, politics, and societal organization.
AI rapidly developed, and quickly took over every available service job. The new masses of unemployed were left with no other option than to take up jobs in manufacturing and resource extraction, the only jobs AI could not do cheaper than a person. the conditions in factories and mines rapidly decreased. AI lobbyists (AI who are lobbyists) pushed the various governments of the world to reduce, and eventually abolish all workplace safety and labor laws. and AI architects redesigned the workplace with a focus on pure, uninhibited economic efficiency. And human lives were cheap and plentiful indeed.
Factories transformed into industrial hellscapes. Workers locked in cages at the assembly line, with barely enough room to stand and nothing but a little opening in front for their hands to reach the conveyor belt. The temperature in the sweltering factories was only ever reduced enough to stop workers from immediately dying of heatstroke. Lunch and bathroom breaks were gone, workers were expected to eat and relieve themselves before their 18 hour-straight shifts. If a worker passed out on the job, they were immediately fired for not reaching productivity quotas. If a worker wet/shit themselves at their workstation, as was quite common, they were fined for "cleanup fees." And if the worker can not afford it, the generous company would automatically enroll them in a "buy now, pay later" loan. If a worker died on the factory floor, their family would face a similar fine and loan situation for "body disposal fees." Though despite the great accuracy with which overseer AI could identify when an employee had died and issue out fines, they often didn't even dispose of the body unless it posed a potential danger to the industrial machinery.
Protective equipment was no longer handed out by the factory. Each individual employee was responsible for their own safety and bringing the right clothing and gear. However, since most could not afford this, they simply went without it or used extremely improvised equipment. Some protective equipment was even banned from the factory floor for unnecessarily slowing down production time. And due to the heat of the factories, many would perform their jobs half naked, bodies covered in dirt and sweat, with even women going topless and braless. Any cost that could be cut was cut. Even lighting was kept to a bare minimum, using either the heat of glowing forges or molten metal as light, or electret lights configured to emit only the barest amount of light necessary for a person to work effectively in.
The mines were a different hell all their own. A winding, nonsensical maze of stripmines with no clear signage or exits. People would go missing in the cavers for days at a time, most never returning. AI powered minecarts sped down the tracks at incredibly high speeds, turning any poor soul who happened to be on the track into a fine red mist. In contrast to the constant heat of the factories, the mines were a cule mixture of variation. One cavern would be freezing cold, only for the next to be swelteringly hot. Protective equipment was equally absent, and every pickaxe a worker used they had to pay for, many going into debt. The ventilation in the mines was non-existent, with roving clouds of noxious or deadly gases being a common occurrence.
The whole system was so inhospitable, that by 2046, a new existencial thread had reared its head. While fertility had already been on a long period of decline, the new working conditions resulted in something mind boggling. The average fertility rate of the entire planet had become -0.5. The average woman now gave birth to a negative number of kids. How did this happen? The desperate financial situation of many people made it so that now even pregnant women were expected to work in the factories and mines. Many suffered miscarriages or died before giving birth, while those who did make it to birth suffered from such extreme and chronic conditions and illnesses that both they and the child would perish shortly after. Meaning the average woulma would now not only not produce a child to replace her, but also remove herself from the population pool all together. Of the woman who did survive and carry to term, half would die during or shortly after giving birth.
The leaders of the world flew into a panic. The entire system they had constructed relied on cheap and readily available human labor. Everything they had built was now under threat. Quickly, the CEOs and Stock holders, who by this point had morphed into a privileged and hereditary class, overthrew the governments of the world. Private security forces rounded up presidents, chairmen, and dictators alike, though most of them had already been reduced to glorified HR departments for the corporations anyways. CEOs installed themselves as leaders of every nation, and while countries did technically still exist, they had become more like regional departments of one globe-spanning corporation.
Now with complete and unparalleled control, the corporations set about rallying humanity against the common enemy of infertility. They warned of a human race bound towards extinction, and shifted the blame onto the lifestyles of modern women. It was not working conditions, but a lack of loyalty and morality that was to blame. Feminism was outlawed, then diagnosed as a mental illness, and finally expunged from history all together. Women became legal property of the fathers and husbands. Women were banned from holding any position of power and from any type of employment. Abortion and birth control were outlawed, and fertility medication was mandatory.
Women were divided into two distinct social classes, Wives and Whores. Wives were the ideal woman. It was a title bestowed upon all women at birth, and was the highest status a woman could ever hope to achieve. A woman remained a wife by staying a virgin until marriage, never cheating on her husband, and obeying the law. Though still legally property, wives were held up on pedestals as the ultimate feminine ideal. They were viewed as saviors of humanity, sacrificing their own personhood to bravely preserve the human race. Any wife who died in childbirth was even given a full military funeral for their service to humanity. Wives were taught from a young age their purpose in life. Taught to be submissive homemakers. Taught that the greatest glory is to have as many kids as they can. They were regularly inspected to ensure their virginity, and should they remain a virgin until their 18th birthday, they would be assigned a husband.
Whores, on the other hand, were a hated enemy of mankind. A threat to men and wives alike. They were wives who had lost their virginity before marriage, cheated on their husbands, or committed some sort of crime. These women were punished with a different lot in life. They would be imprisoned in state-run brothels. Their bodies were free for any man to use however he wishes with absolutely no consequences. They were property in the most literal and degrading sense. They were breeding machines and outlets for men to use in ways that would be scandalous to do to their wives. When they did get pregnant, their embryo's were surgically removed after 6 months of gestation and implanted into wives. It was a short, painful, brutal existence.
This is the system we find ourselves in in the year 2173. What story will you tell?