Better for Everyone

Author's Note

This work shows the world of Hulu's Handmaid's Tale through the lens of a 1980's era Tom Clancy-esque technothriller. The original Handmaid's Tale book was a fascinating look at a mirror-image world where America had turned into a theocracy, but it never really got into the mechanics of running a country or fighting a revolution. Margaret Atwood focused on how women would be treated in this dystopian future. If you are looking for more of the same, Better for Everyone isn't it. Instead, this book explains what is going on away from Offred's little corner of the world. It's fan fiction, but it's also a nod to the kind of books that Tom Clancy and Harold Coyle wrote back in the late 80's. It's a glimpse into the rest of the world and things aren't looking too good. If you haven't read or watched The Handmaid's Tale and you just want your fix of the kind of techno thriller that stopped existing with the Soviet Union, then here's the lowdown: The Handmaid's Tale is set in a world where birthrates have fallen to record lows. This crisis paves the way in the US for a theocratic regime called the "Sons of Jacob" where society is re-aligned with old-testament biblical principles. Catholics, Muslims and Jews are murdered. Women aren't allowed to go to school or read. Some women, deemed enemies of the state, are forced into a sort of sexual slavery to provide children for high-ranking couples who can't reproduce.

Better for Everyone takes clues from the Hulu show and mashes them together into a universe where the world economy has collapsed, a Big Mac costs $1,800 in paper dollars, Dutch pilots fly in Gilead's Air Force, Mormon soldiers in Utah are America's last best hope, and an internet pornographer might just have the key to bringing down Gilead once and for all. I tried to capture the essence of the Hulu show, but I also wanted to capture that feeling of epic conflict I got when reading Red Storm Rising in middle school study hall. Whenever I encountered a question about how the government would respond - whether democratic or theocratic - I looked to the past. Rationing in Better For Everyone is based on what the US did during World War II with some modern-day twists added in. When wondering how Gilead's military would work with only two ranks (Commander and Guardian), I looked at the original template for the Chinese People's Liberation Army from 1946-1948 which had no formalized rank structure. Chicago is a mix of Stalingrad and Aleppo. Hawaii is Casablanca for wealthy Gay men. Utah and the southwestern states have a veneer of normalcy that is only held together by deep Mormon roots. Gilead's inner workings really aren't that much different than the Taliban, so I must give credit to Amed Rashid for his amazing book about the inner workings of the organization.

Any mistakes I've made in grammar, geography or military technology are purely my own.

This is a work of speculative fan fiction. As always, the show is cannon.

Get your parachutes on. We're coming in hot.