In the year 2017, the United States has fragmented into
post-apocalyptic wastelands with a few civilized areas. An ongoing economic crisis has led to the
recycling of aging 20th-century mechanical and technological equipment. Society has become both increasingly bureaucratic and hypersexualized, with actual human sexual encounters requiring contracts drawn up by lawyers prior to sexual activity. At the same time, robotic technology has produced female
androids (more properly,
Gynoids) as substitutes for wives.