The year is 2046 and the world is on the brink of a demographic collapse, birth rates continue to fall worldwide whilst people keep living to be older and older. With all this culminating in a society that has way too many elderly people and not enough children born to replace older people once they retire. Thankfully, a new strategy has been put forward that has been implemented worldwide in order to increase birth rates, “Marriage Conscription”.

It’s a fairly simple scheme. Essentially 1 in 25 of all unmarried men and women aged 18-24 in the country are randomly ‘conscripted’ at the start of the year and forced to marry another random ‘conscript’. There’s no choice in partner and the entire selection process is truly random, not taking religion, ethnicity, class or even sexuality into account when picking ‘conscripts’. As long as a person is healthy and able to produce children then they have a chance to be picked.

It’s not all bad though, in fact there are some serious benefits to the programme. Conscripts all receive the following: a new house to raise a family in, the opportunity for a high quality college education, all debt in a conscript’s name is cleared and the conscripts will receive money from the government for each child birthed. There are some rules however, a couple cannot divorce for the first five years of their marriage, after that a divorce is a lengthy process that will result in all bonuses being forfeited and there is also an expectation that a child will be produced within 2 years of the marriage.

The policy has received mixed reviews from the public. Although it was initially seen as a great infringement on human rights, many saw it as a necessary evil to keep society stable. With others seeing conscription as a good thing that can greatly raise their quality of life.

Hey, so if you’re reading this far then I hope that you liked my prompt! I’m looking for partners who would like to build a story around two characters being put into this type of scenario.

As for how the story develops, how our characters react to it and what characters we play, that’s up to discussion! I’ve got a few ideas in mind but I would also love to hear from you!

Anyway, if you’re interested then feel free to shoot me a message and we can get to discussing the finer details of the plot!

I hope that this post piqued your interest, but regardless have a great day/night!