ICU

ICU (short story: LINK)

Author's Note: Most of us in our generation never experienced the bi-polarity of the Cold War. The only world we have now is capitalist society that won over socialism. Communist culture is very foreign to us, and it is surrounded in a veil of mystery. Thinking about a civilisation that no longer exists is both horrifying and fascinating, and it certainly sparks our imagination. What was this communist civilisation that governed half of the world in the not-so-distant past?

This is a story set in ICU in a parallel universe where Japan was historically aligned with the Eastern block after defeat in 1945. The USSR is still existent; perhaps the Cold War is still going on, or perhaps the 'Free World' has been defeated. In this parallel chronology, ICU was founded right after the war on the ideals of the Soviet Occupation as a 'University of Tomorrow'. The system, of course, is not communism in its true sense, but a strong distopian authoritarianism camouflaged in revolutionary propaganda.

Thank you Yu I. for your advise. It is rather long, and I was able to restructure the paragraphs to make the flow of the story clear. Cheers!

Kan