The Two Travelers Episode 2: The Pacifists' War

Two lovers awaken one thousand years into the future amid what remains of the world they once knew.

As they seek out each other, and other remnants of their old lives, they discover strange and often hostile kingdoms spawned from the last breath of what had once been the United States of America.

Laura’s thousand-year sleep ends with an awakening in a land of pure pacifism.

There are no athletics, all forms of aggression are outlawed, and any activity that expresses anything remotely like violence, including film, games, and art, is banned. The sole exception is a form of robot whipping boys used to fight off aggression who battle robot to robot and are useless against human beings.

The citizens are therefore utterly helpless against a group of psychotic raiders whose raping and pillaging coincide with Laura’s arrival. She, a trained soldier, predictably clashes with the invaders but, contrary to the teachings of the society she finds herself in, does not regress her into a monster. This knowledge contradicts the core beliefs of the society, resonates with many of the people, makes nervous the aristocrats who dominate and abuse the lower classes, and has the potential to unravel everything.

(Rewritten, edited and expanded from 2012 original)