In the future authoritarian society of the “One State” (1), 1,000 years after it subjugates the world, D-503, the novel’s narrator and protagonist, discusses “the Integral” (1). This is an interstellar rocket that is nearing completion, of which D-503 is the chief builder. The purpose of the Integral is to integrate other planets and civilizations into the “mathematically faultless happiness” (1) of the One State. Before using coercive means, this integration will be attempted by attaching to the rocket poems and treatises on the perfection of the One State, which the state encourages its citizens to write. To this end, D-503 begins writing a journal to record the beauty and joy of life within the One State.

D-503 is going for a state-mandated walk with a woman, O-90, who is registered as one of his sexual partners, and who is “ten centimeters shorter than the required Maternal Norm” (2), meaning that she is not permitted to have children. As they walk through the street with the other citizens, or “Numbers”, an unknown woman, I-330, starts talking to him. She mentions his “ape-like” (3) hands and how he looks divinely inspired.