A Perfect Society

Revja was the kind of woman that flew under almost everyone's radar. She got good grades but never really felt the need to excel in academia. She knew she was smart, and she doesn't feel the need to prove it. Since Revja is now twenty-five she is now in her final year of society preparations at Rigby. Rigby University and Quarry is a federally funded live-in academy where all members of society learn the rules and roles of the social order. Revja was just tall enough to survive sorting, yet not quite tall enough to draw attention from the sea of people in the halls and corridors of Rigby. Coasting was the game here. “I just need to graduate” a mantra uddered through the halls as the semester wrapped up. Revja started making her way to the dining hall, her hair militantly pulled back, her uniform pressed, she was someone who never got in trouble but she also knew to never push her luck. Laser-focused she settled in her seat, the final days of classes feeling heavier than usual. While the other students frantically prepared for The Summit Exam. she couldn’t be bothered. She knew I was gonna pass, she always does. It’s what fate she would serve if she didn’t get the score she wanted.

The Summit Exam was the gatekeeper, the exam that each year further divides the very nation it claims to unify. If you did not pass you were taken into a dark room and executed. “If you can not meet the standards of a society, like a vermin, you will be extinguished” hung proudly over the room it takes place. I assume it's dignified, we were always kept in the dark when it came to adult matters. We were to focus on studies and training. We never knew the new names or the serial numbers of our friends as they cleared Summit. Or if you would ever see them again when you got outside. No one even knows who doesn’t survive. You get funneled into separate rooms as the results populate. One group finalizes their belonging and prepares for integration into society. Failure was not an option if you ever dreamed of the outside. Failure meant you died. Twenty-five years of dedicated studies and military service, no matter how decorated or studied. You could be a doctor, general, Ph.D., it doesn’t matter, you must pass the Summit or it's like you never existed. There is nothing that could save you once you enter that room.

After the Great Nuclear Clearout, a highly precise government attack a little over 200 years ago in the year 2048. Government Organizations in what is now Northern America, Northern Korea, New Germany, and Supreme China came together to “rectify” the earth. As global tension grew and economic resources began to deplete these super-elite leaders decided to come together and move forward with exterminations of entire countries, cultures, and populations, the earth ripped apart, falling to its knees, left to rebuild into what is now The Four Nations. The binder of the four nations, a detailed constitution, created original destroyers of the earth. ”The Supreme Nations Treaty” was supposed to be a vision of a utopia. Ultimate law, it’s a global idea and the government’s promise to raise and nurture only the most productive and promising individuals. A strategy meant to distill human potential. No longer a world filled with greed, or superiority. A solution to man’s indifference, inability to act, and helplessness, what would become a promise of salvation with little weight.

Under this document, we were righted as global civilians. At birth, you are to be turned into government officials where you are raised under the care of wet nurses, doctors, teachers, and trainers. No matter what nations you hail from, your time or location of birth, birth couple’s income, while there may be occasional transfers, once you are placed, there’s no leaving. In my time at Rigby, there've been two transfers. A woman who had a complete breakdown during aerophysics class and a boy who at six years old stole cookies from an Elder Professor. He was immediately removed and no one has seen or heard from either of them. At Rigby, you will not see your family or know who they are, your family is your peers. You have no possessions other than the ones issued to you. We are all in Unity. Every baby under government custody is given a serial number tattoo on the upper left side of the chest along with their blood type. Thankfully we are not microchipped, but if you have been selected for scientific testing, then who knows what will happen to you, no one from your birth class will see you again.

However, if by the time you’ve been in government custody for five years and you are deemed healthy, able body, cognitively functional, and without unrepairable deformity, you move on to CLASSES an intensely vigorous training program. As a global citizen you are required to fluently speak, read and write English, Korean, German, and Mandarin, serve a minimum of 7 years in the armed forces, and uphold the “The Supreme Nations Treaty''. From a tender age being spoon-fed stories of clean, streamlined cities, large skyscrapers made with the best engineers each nation had to offer. We learned that hospitals were small but efficient because cancers and most diseases have been eradicated. We're told that the remaining people from the clearout had to work and salvage the land. Punishment is masked as rebuilding. The communities worst affected lead to famines, wars, and shortly with political incentives finish the job and would later go off to eradicate themselves. It was a sad and cruel ending for many people.

Those who survived their attacks or lived in unattacked areas were gathered and sorted. Primarily sorting separated ideal citizens and entrusted them with their own company of secondary laborers. Doctors, lawyers, politicians that aligned with the cleansing, to anyone with a valuable degree that could help with achieving “The Vision” of our leaders. Quickly scientists were put to work developing and creating vaccines, human optimization, neurogenesis studies. Architects, Environment scientists, and Engineers remapped and built the entire city with the new vision. Entire towns, ghettos, and tent cities flattened and uprooted for new infrastructure. Within the following years, illnesses began to drop off. Illness once thought incurable are now eradicated, then cancers, once thought impossible to cure are quickly dealt with, a few hours. There’s no welfare, joblessness, homeless. You are property of the Earth, consumable by the very beast that raises you.