The Farm

Formerly known as the middle class

Farm dwellers are industrious, hard-working and able to access a greater amount of information than ever before in history. They are the near-perfect consumer - trusting, righteous, covetous, and easily led.

Farm kids are streamed into schools at a very young age. There are a lot of different schools - Schools for the intellectually gifted, for the mechanically gifted, the artistic, the technical, the managerial, the athletic, and so on. Of these, some are what are known as “preferred”. There is no governing body which decides whether or not a school is preferred, it is a purely arbitrary and social decision. Nonetheless, it is an important distinction. A child must go to a preferred school if he or she is going to progress in society. That is to say, if the child will have a chance to eventually go up there.

There is no class prejudice about profession. It doesn’t really matter what kind of school you go to, or what kind of work you are training to do, as long as you train to do it in the right place. As the Corps learned in the late 20th century, particularly during the ugly times around the year 2000, it is a mistake to underestimate the importance of any profession. You need more people to run machines than you need people to own them, and you need everyone pulling in the same direction.

Once you get through secondary school, you must stream into a preferred college or university. Again, what you study is not as important as how well you do. At this point the pressure is really on to impress.

Most Corps hire on a number of criteria, many of which are specific to the field in which the candidate will be working. Other factors, such as telegenics, charisma, family or social connections, and demographic appeal are also considered, both in general and in the context of upcoming business trends.

Interviews are on-going. A candidate may be working up there for several years before a decision is made to connect them, or they may, through production or prestige or charisma, be connected very quickly. Once Connected, it is a fairly easy ride.

It is always possible to get Connected, but as life goes on it may become more and more difficult to come up with a method of doing so. There are certain advantages to getting Connected as early as possible, as it provides a good head start at amassing value and trading on it, ensuring that there is something left to live on at retirement.

The Farm is not a bad way to live. The life of the middle class has, on the surface at least, improved over the last 100 years. A startling quantity of consumer goods is now within easy reach. There is a lot of disposable income, because there is little point in hanging onto currency. Jobs are fairly easy to get and pay very well, but while investment options will provide some return in the short term, nothing currency based can provide enough stability to depend on for the long-term. Personal security has improved with the general acceptance of gated communities and preferred schools. It is possible to lead a comfortable, safe and happy life within this section of society, but there is no telling what will happen to an individual when they are too old to work. So the entire focus of life in the Farm is the struggle to become Connected. There is simply no sense of security in anything else. Despite the comfort and trappings of this life, over your daily existence hangs the constant need to attain, to acquire and not to fall behind. There is a lot of pressure.