A despot has come to power. The population is listless, submissive and scared. But beneath every violation of civil autonomy, there are real human beings; behind every act of resistance, there is an individual willing to risk everything. And these people aren't heroic or remarkable – they're just like us. Through the lives of bureaucrats, soldiers, ornithologists and tour guides,  No Particular Order  charts the fate of a single society, asking at every step of the way: is it empathy, or power, that endures?