Here's the lost first part. I assume the retirement age is 45-50 since Jallaford was about to retire at 49 and Grant has managed to hold every public office and outlast younger admins. While in our world people are recognized as pioneers at later ages 40+, while Cloudbank's elite are barely 30. You'd think Jallaford would have some friends/associates who'd notice his physical absence which brings into question what retirement is. Do you live a cushy secluded life, die shortly after, or what?
These are interesting guesses. I think you can be more expansive with perspective in comparing Cloudbank and our society, though. Plenty of people who are barely 30 have become influential public figures, more especially the face of those intellectual, technological, and social frontiers, Mark Zuckerberg was 29 only last year, Edward Snowden, age 31, Parisa Tabriz, age 30, even Malala Yousafzai, a 17-year-old girl standing up for girls’ education against Muslim extremist threat. Social activists, entrepreneurs, researchers, artists, writers making start-ups, projects, TED talks, series, and opening channels to the public letting flow social, technological, educational development abound. Seniority does not automatically grant a spotlight, experience can, sure, but so does innovation, and bravery which you may have regardless of old age, sometimes because you’re young. Frankly, a pretty face doesn’t hurt. In fact, Snowden, for example, was certainly not the first whistleblower of the NSA’s unconstitutional data collection. William Binney, much older, preceded him yet he didn’t reach the publicity Snowden did.Speaking of age and retirement, your further question:
Anonymous: Addendum: The more I think about it, the more I am troubled by the definition of retirement. Since Olmarq ‘retired’, Jallaford ‘retired’ and nobody minded they dropped off the face of the city. It seems like “going to the Country” meant retirement, taking a trip away from Cloudbank or death and the former two seemed pretty common in high society from the bios. Maybe Cloudbank is like “The Giver” where once your usefulness to society ends, you die. I may have missed reading something in the game.
Yeah, the Camerata weren’t completely neat or consistent with their cover-ups for each dispatch, and yes, the retirement story may suggest something distinct about Cloudbank’s retirees. As with all research though, there’s a kind of hydra head effect with questions. Did Henter even have friends? Wasn’t his job as a forecaster already kind of isolating? Is the report missing information because his possible friends were hushed some other way? Olmarq’s case is more supportive of the strangeness of retirement in Cloudbank. Notorious to the public, he was only “useful” insofar as his characteristic aggression in sport spurred new safety regulations. His usefulness to the Camerata was this very aggression, that was uploaded into the Transistor and used to change Cloudbank at the Camerata’s will.OVC is open to all. Thanks for reading and for questions. Have a lovely evening,-Admin()P.S.
