Chapter 2

In the wake of the Calamity, the earth needed repopulating. The vicious microbe had killed 95% of the people, the survivors being those with some sort of resistance to the infection. Many of the surviving women were too traumatized to be enthusiastic about having children at all. The others had grown up in a world which had plenty of people -- more than it should. So in Denmark, if people had children at all back then it was typically one or two, and some had three or four, but not many of them. That’s what the women were used to. It was a recipe for a slow population decline. In neighboring countries, the shortfall in population was made up from immigrant populations who reproduced at a higher rate, but Denmark had largely resisted that solution.

The ruling men of Denmark now had a vision of a rapid expansion of the Danish people, and with it the Danish culture. They didn’t trumpet this plan to the world, because it would be most effective if other nations did not follow a similar plan. They sold the plan in terms of wanting to restore bustling villages, towns, and cities. That was a prerequisite of the pre-Calamity high civilization, so why not get to it as soon as possible? The homes and land and factories stood largely empty, begging for new people to occupy them. There was plenty of food and plenty of space, and why not move quickly to create people to occupy them?

Some wondered what the hurry was -- why not take their time re-populating the world? The men had an answer, though they didn’t announce it publicly. If Germany let their population grow in a more leisurely, natural manner, there would be vacant villages and sparsely populated cities in Germany. The throngs of Danes could occupy them, dramatically out-reproducing the Germans, and making the world more Danish than it was before. On the other hand, if Poland or France chose a higher reproduction rate, they might be the ones to spread their culture and their genes into Germany instead. Worse, emigrants from such nations might move into Denmark, threatening the very survival of their culture.

Emigration to other lands was for the future. The job of the first decades was simply to restore Denmark’s population to its pre-Calamity level.

Much technology was destroyed in the Calamity. The rulers of Denmark made it a priority to restore genetic engineering. Many advances had been made that were not implemented in the normal times before the Calamity for ethical reasons. But now the ethics had changed, and it was time to use some of them, and modify people with CRISPR technology. Denmark carefully guarded their methods. They would have a big advantage over neighboring countries that could not develop the technology, or not develop a version that was as refined and effective.

Whatever any particular woman might want, women as a whole needed to produce as many babies as they could. Each woman had to do her part -- making babies as long as nature cooperated. A few were completely infertile or could only have one or two. But the others -- six babies, or eight, or twelve -- or more.