Anti-Natal League

"I don’t even want to think about what might have happened if Corporal Rempte hadn’t been here. One moment that man was shouting about 'fake babies' and locking the doors, the next, Vincent was between us and him, moving faster than I could breathe. Those kids owe their lives to one of their own... Even if the result was a little traumatizing."

— Lora Benshahn, Teacher at Mercy House 47, Ganymede

Origins of the Anti-Natal League

The Anti-Natal League (ANL) is less an organization in the traditional sense and more a decentralized movement born of conspiracy theories, paranoia, and selective outrage. Unlike other Criminal groups with defined hierarchies, chains of command, and recruitment pipelines, the ANL exists primarily as a set of shared beliefs and talking points circulating in forums, encrypted channels, and social spaces dedicated to “population truth.” Wealthy backers quietly fund its most dangerous adherents, and individual cells sometimes emerge to act in concert, but the movement thrives on its nebulous nature—making it difficult to dismantle completely.

At the heart of the ANL’s ideology lies suspicion over the Pan-Solar Consortium’s 500-year-long baby boom, which has led to a population of over four quadrillion humans and an additional three quadrillion citizens among Uplifted species, alien refugees, AIs, and bioroids. While the PSC has never issued policies explicitly encouraging higher birth rates, and official explanations attribute the growth to post-scarcity economics and improved living standards, ANL rhetoric insists the phenomenon must be the result of hidden manipulation.

Ideology and Motivations

The ANL’s worldview is a patchwork of mutually contradictory but equally fervent theories. Adherents often believe the baby boom is an orchestrated effort by shadowy forces—sometimes “the government,” sometimes alien powers, sometimes Redspace entities, sometimes an unnamed cabal of elites. The imagined purpose varies wildly: preparation for a galaxy-spanning war, stockpiling human bodies as “life force” batteries for immortality projects, or replacing humanity with genetically altered “false humans.”

More specific conspiracy threads drive the most radical cells:

• Chemical Manipulation – Fertility drugs hidden in medicines, vaccines, or municipal water supplies, leading to enclaves rejecting all public utilities.
• Genetic Tampering – Belief that humanity’s genome has been altered without consent, prompting vows of lifelong celibacy to halt the spread of “corrupted” lines.
• Fabricated Orphans – The idea that Mercy Houses are stocked with cloned or implanted infants, with parents brainwashed into believing the child is biologically theirs.
• Parasitic Interference – Claims that Redspace intelligences are breeding humans for unknown, likely apocalyptic ends.

While many adherents never progress beyond heated debates and symbolic protests, the more extreme interpretations often lead to violent action.

Methods and Activities

The ANL’s tactics range from the covert to the catastrophic. Their most publicized operations include mass-casualty attacks, high-profile hostage situations, and “awareness campaigns” carried out through spectacular violence. A smaller but no less dangerous subset of ANL operatives favors subtler population-suppression efforts—poisoning public water reserves with abortifacients or sterilizing agents, spreading STIs deliberately to curb sexual activity, or sabotaging fertility clinics.

Notably, the ANL thrives on stochastic terrorism: lone actors or small cells radicalized by online propaganda and acting independently. The decentralization makes it nearly impossible for security services to predict attacks. The scattered nature of their actions also means that arrests and raids rarely affect the broader movement, which simply co-opts the captured or dead as martyrs for recruitment.

Law Enforcement and Public Response

While most citizens consider the ANL’s claims fringe and outlandish, the movement’s capacity for violence keeps it on the radar of every major planetary and orbital security apparatus. The Astro-Landing Force, planetary defense forces, and special operations units such as the Venutian Derketos have all been deployed against ANL threats.

The most intense protective measures focus on Mercy Houses, which have become a recurring target for ANL fanatics—both as alleged “evidence” of population fraud and as high-profile symbols of the PSC’s social programs. Such incidents highlight the danger posed by the ANL’s blend of conspiracy and opportunistic violence—and the necessity of rapid, overwhelming responses.