13Planet Darkas had fallen on difficult and trying times. The Western continent had been torn by civil war for almost two years. The battle had remained internal since no support could be called from the Eastern continent, whose people were having large-scale problems of their own.
The Western government had been shaky ever since the first rebellion against the dictatorship, and now the country had split into two separate groups supporting different governments: anarchy and a republic.
The Anarchists were wary of any one single source of power, and refused to negotiate. The Republicans argued that there needed to be some sort of central unit, and deemed the anarchists terrorists. Thus, bitter fighting ensued, and the continent was cut in half.
Over the last year, the Republicans had been slowly gaining ground. Their organized military tactics and air raids and bombings were very effective against the not as organized Anarchists, who had no one political unit to govern their actions.
Near the end of the second year, many of the small pockets of Anarchists had surrendered and been swallowed up by the ever-growing Republic.
Finally, the largest anarchy group sent a message to the heads of the Republic movement, a committee of representatives from each province. They had not yet elected a ruler, or commander in chief, so the entire delegation read over the message.
It asked for a temporary truce; the Anarchists were hard-pressed for supplies of any kind, and they were living like nomads. They even fought amongst themselves sometimes for food, and had barely enough people willing to fight anymore.
The Republic poured over the contents of the communication carefully, and, representing the majority of the people, rejected the ultimatum. They sent a reply, calling for the Anarchists' unconditional surrender and ceasing of their terrorist attacks.
As soon as their had confirmed their intelligence that the Anarchists had received their message, they attacked offensively with their full force, destroying or laying siege to any and all strongholds of the Anarchy. It was only a matter of months before all the remaining Anarchist groups surrendered. There were still scattered supporters and terrorists here and there, but they disappeared in less than another years' time.
Putting rebuilding at the top of their priorities, provinces and large cities all over the Western continent painstakingly recreated their own small, individual governments. The representatives in the committee met almost every other week, checking up on one another and trying to fairly distribute the meager taxes trickling into the government.
Almost a year and a half later, after the economy had been built up and was fairly stable, though not thriving, elections for the continent's Commander in Chief were held.
Three men ran for office; Lawrence from the city Assemblage, Marcus from Monoscore, and Eri-Don from the province Unifront. It took a few weeks for all the votes to cast and counted, but Marcus won in the end. He immediately, upon coming into power, introduced his plan to be completed over a five-year period.
"We will do away with any propaganda or instigating material. To preclude any further insidious ideas of revolt or rebellion against our newly restored government, I would like to begin eradication of any...fictional literature," Marcus announced, over a broadband channel to receivers in all of the citizens' homes. "I encourage those who fancy expressing themselves in this way to convert their energy to their work, and support of our new- born Republic. We must rebuild our economy, our country, our future. I ask only that my people help me in this great task. Also, I shall bot be known as the Commander in Chief, but rather the...Proprietor, a commissioner and owner of the land, not a dictator."
Marcus was well respected, and made friends easily. He was very popular, and received very little opposition to his plan. Most of the people were struggling along too much to really even notice or care about the absence of fictional or creative literature. Soon, it was the imagination of the Darkan people that was targeted as the source.
Over the next couple of decades, all creative arts, music and song, stories and art, were slowly but surely erased from the Western Darkas society. The progressing Proprietors, each relieved of office when reaching the age of fifty years so reelections could be held, followed in Marcus's footsteps.
Though all this was happening, the original culture that had existed before the Anarchists' war and even the dictatorship had not vanished. In fact, the society of Western Darkas had a very strong sense of culture. Any public meetings of the government were conducted in ceremonial dress, and the Western language still contained various silent hand signals and greetings.
Many, many more years went by, and the slightly militaristic grip on the non-imagination policy got tighter. It was so much so that some of the general public got uneasy about it, but there were enough people that disliked it that it was kept as a policy. More and more often, it was the idea that imagination was the cause of problems, though not the entire population believed it.
Over more years, most government funding to its science department was put into research of the Darkan people's anatomy. Tons of research went into studying their minds, and how to better perfect them. The information gathered over time helped the reigning Proprietors keep pro-imagination citizens under their thumbs.
It wasn't much longer until the republic began turning into a more and more controlling government. The rights of freedom of opinion and others like it expressed by the people began to be carefully monitored. All the representatives of the government explained that it was for the best, and just to help better and unify their country. Most that didn't swallow that explanation kept their opinions to themselves, afraid of retribution. Many who spoke out against the government were discretely warned to keep quiet, or else. So intense was the control that any who supported free speech and imagination began to be called imaginatives, and those who were on the government's side were known as conservatives.
The one thing, the one discovery that fired the conservatives cause all the more was that a few scientists studying the electrical impulses in Darkan brain discovered a link between active imagination and rebellious natures. They studied it more and more; only a few years later, they found out that imagination was very separate from the other working areas of the mind, and it was possible to suppress it.
Ways to do this were explored over several generations, and more technology was invented that could interface a Darkan and a computer. If someone was revealed to be actively supporting the imaginative cause, they could be taken to a mind-cleansing station, and have most of their memory erased or altered as seen fit. Finally, there was another breakthrough. A team of scientists working on federal funding were able to engineer a specialized drug, a narcotic of sorts, that did not hinder a persons' thinking, but suppressed electrical pulses linked to imagination.
The current Proprietor at once had the drug synthesized and produced in all medical facilities throughout the Western continent. Parallel to that, he issued an order for all citizens to start using the narcotic, called Cesophine, every other day to begin quelling their creative energy.
Imaginatives tried to out and out refuse to take the drug, but all opposing the rule were taken into custody and forcibly injected with the prescribed drugs. After a few weeks' time, the citizens in each city and province against taking the Cesophine were conditioned enough that they thought it was the right thing. The entire population of the continent, after a little less than a year, took the narcotic and lost the imaginative function of their minds.
Not at all did it inhibit their thinking abilities or processes, but the people and government workers had no sparkle in their eyes.
This went on for several years. The effect was absolute; all imagination on the continent was suppressed unconditionally, and one of the few things the scientists researched and pursued were ways to totally rid themselves of it and "perfect" their society.