The plot follows Professor Nicholas Caritat, who is an allusion himself to Marquis de Condorcet, a French Enlightenment scholar.

In the military run country of Militaria, Professor Nicholas Caritat, a secluded Enlightenment scholar, is arrested because he has been giving hope to the Optimists, the nation's enemies.

Once in prison, he is rescued by Justin, a former student and current part of a guerrilla group called "the Hand," and given a mission: to find the best possible world.

Nicholas's mission begins in Calcula, a city in the forward thinking, Utilitarian country named Utilitaria.

The Ruler party follows John Stuart Mill’s idea of having society be ruled mainly by the most talented individuals.

[1] The Act party encourages democracy as it follows Jeremy Bentham’s ideas of having everyone’s opinions count equally in government.

After thirteen days and two letters to the man he had been staying with, Nicolas realizes that Utilitaria, with its lack of regard for human rights, is not the best possible world.

The intent of this suggested topic is to warn students against ethnocentrism and the idea of civilization and universal reason.

When Nicholas meets a group of students, he finds that free speech is a punishable offence for fear of offending someone.

Through their stories, he finds the problem behind the Communitarian way of life: extreme separation of the communities.

Like Marx’s ideology, the Proletarian class in Proletaria took over the government which caused the state to disintegrate and left complete communism.

Based on libertarian thinking, "society" no longer exists in the country; all that matters is the individual.

On his way, he is confronted by an owl who explains why each country failed to be the best it could be: they were all too focused on a single value.

As dusk approaches, the owl flies away, symbolizing, as German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel says, that "philosophy understands reality only after the event.