Lottery (Hive England)

## Description

The program to access and imprint eighteen-year-olds every year.

## History

Since Joint Hive Treaty was signed, all hives must have some form of a lottery but the form is not specified. If a person is to be traded to a different Hive, their abilities must be advertised using a standard criteria.

## Overview

All eighteen-year-olds that live in the Hive are required to go through lottery to discover what career or work they will be assigned. There are multiple steps to determine the type of work and the level. In a few cases someone may be assigned work that is very much needed by the hive but they may not be entirely suited for it, usually those that are in that category are rewarded with being level 1 and showered in luxuries to help compensate.

The exception is the eighteen-year-olds that live at the Sea Farm. It is optional for them to go through lottery but certain jobs such as Sea Captain, Admiral, Head of Security, teachers, etc do require that they be chosen for those roles by lottery and imprinted with the needed knowledge. But less then half of the eighteen-year-olds choice to go through lottery, for the ones that do not they have to pick up odd extra work or unskilled work to be able to afford their housing and food. After *Hurricane changes are made for the Sea Farm candidates. They can now go through lottery up to the Imprint step and before being imprinted, they are given the opportunity to reject their assignments. Lucas believes that very few of the candidates will reject their imprint and that this option will increase the number of eighteen-years-olds going through lottery.*

### Schedule

The majority of 18 year old's go through lottery immediately after Carnival. But because of various circumstances some may not be able to, sickness or injuries, a traumatic experience or a death in their family would all impact the results so those teens would be sent back to teen level or remain in medical until their circumstances improve. At that time they would go through a smaller run Lottery held immediately after the next holiday.

Those that go through the smaller lotteries tend to be secretive about it as some people feel that they are less effective. There is an especial stigma on those that go through the lottery directly after Halloween.

The lottery tests take place at the teen level community centers, but every candidate is sent to a center far from their own zone, to prevent the involvement of any of their friends or relatives in the process. As they travel there with their bags, the younger teens watch them fearfully, imagining what it will be like when it's their turn. The testing lasts from three to five days. In between, the candidates are told not to talk to each other. This is a necessary precaution because some of the tests use hypnotics, which can have unwanted side effects.

### Assessment Phase

The tests start with a medical exam, if Amber's experience was typical, and then follow an individual sequence dictated by the candidates' individual results. Candidates are not told the reasons for specific tests, nor the outcome.

#### Testing

Lottery candidates initially have several key multipurpose tests on the first day which gather generally useful information, but also include sections designed to spot candidates for the important non-optimization positions. They will have a few generic tests between these if the necessary staff or facilities aren’t available, but they won’t start on an individualized Lottery path until they’ve done the key tests.

If a candidate ultimately qualified for more then one of the non-optimization positions, the collated information would be sent to the appropriate member of the Council of Gaia for a decision. If later testing results show that the person wasn't qualified for that position after all, they would automatically go through the stream for the other position.

### Optimization Phase

The exact nature of optimization is not clearly explained, but it seems to mean that the results of the candidate's tests and interests are balanced to find the best possible match of utility to the hive, and personal satisfaction. Incredible as it may seem, all the hive residents, except a small percentage of exceptions, are given work they love.

Some of the exceptions are:

**True Telepaths**: Once a True telepath is identified, all further assessment is stopped and optimization is never begun. The Hive will do anything at all to keep their true telepaths happy and working. Telepaths can and have crumbled on the stress of their work so great effort is put into their well being.

**Borderline Telepaths**: There is a range of positions that borderline telepaths are needed for so that the majority of them are assigned work that they enjoy and are given level 1 status and luxuries to help compensate.

Others that are exceptionally talented in an area that is important to the Hive's well being and hard to fill, may be assigned work that they aren't emotionally suited for, such as Alvin in Borderline. To compensate they are always assigned to Level 1 so they have the prestige and luxuries of the elite of the hive.

### Imprint Phase

Immediately after finishing their assessment the candidates are imprinted with everything they need to know for their future careers, a process that only seems to take an hour or two. Depending on their results and level, they can receive what is the equivalent of a high school and college plus post-graduate education as well as years and years of relevant experience (so that an eighteen-year old like Atticus can immediately start to work as a surgeon, for instance.) Too much information could however lead to imprint overload and a mental breakdown, as happens to Elden in *Telepath.*

## See also

* Hive England
* Telepathy
* Joint Hive Treaty
* Sea Farm (Hive England)

## References

### Citations

1. ↑ https://janetedwards.com/fun-extras/hive-future-questions/ Janet Edwards says: July 29, 2022 at 12:06 pm
2. ↑ Edwards, Janet. Telepath (Hive Mind Book 1) (p. 2). Wallam-Crane Press. Kindle Edition.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Author's Q&A January 20, 2023 at 4:37 pm
4. ↑ Edwards, Janet. Borderline (Hive Mind Book 4) . Wallam-Crane Press. Kindle Edition.
5. ↑ Edwards, Janet. Telepath (Hive Mind Book 1) (p. 330). Wallam-Crane Press. Kindle Edition.

### Bibliography

* Edwards, Janet. *Perilous (Hive Mind 0.5)* (2017). Wallam-Crane Press. Kindle Edition.
* Edwards, Janet. *Telepath (Hive Mind 1)* (2016). Wallam-Crane Press. Kindle Edition
* Edwards, Janet. *Hurricane (Hive Mind 3)* (2018). Wallam-Crane Press. Kindle Edition
* Edwards, Janet. *Borderline (Hive Mind 4)* (2019). Wallam-Crane Press. Kindle Edition