Gileadian Military

"We only wanted to make the world better. Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse for some."

- Commander Fred Waterford

The Republic of Gilead is a theocratic totalitarian state that controls much of the former United States and serves as the main antagonist Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, and the recent television adaptation. The Republic was founded at some point in the early 21st century, during a period of turmoil related to declining birth rates, climate change, and environmental degradation. Gilead’s predecessor organization, a fundamentalist Christian terrorist group known as the Sons of Jacob launched a series of terrorist attacks which killed the US President, the majority of Congress, and the entire Supreme Court, throwing the country into chaos. During this period, the Sons of Jacob infiltrated the remains of the US government, suspending the constitution and gradually instituted societal changes in line with their extremist religious agenda. This eventually culminated in the reduction of women (and blacks in the novel) to second-class citizens, and making homosexuality, abortion, adultery, criticizing the regime, and practice of any religion other than their specific interpretation of Christianity punishable by death or being sent to the concentration camps known as “The Colonies”. Due to the declining birth rates, the Gilead government forced fertile women to act as “Handmaids”, essentially placing them into sexual slavery to bear children for the “Commanders of the Faithful”, the ruling class of Gilead.

The exact area controlled by Gilead is unknown, but it is known that old US military survives in Alaska and Hawaii, as well as in Illinois, where tank battles between US and Gilead military occur in the ruins of Chicago. The US military and anti-Gilead militias also are known to oppose the regime in multiple regions, including the Appalachian Mountains, Florida, and California. The military of Gilead is made up lower ranking soldiers known as “Guardians” and higher-ranking officers of the “Angel” social caste, and are armed with weapons seized from the former US, such as M4 carbines and M60 machine guns. It is implied that the Gilead military is much weaker than the pre-war US military, with US forces having either destroyed much of their equipment (possibly including nuclear weapons, explaining the widespread radioactive contamination), or transported it to Alaska, Hawaii, or Canada during their retreat.