Social Question
Which role would you elect in this post-apocolypse fantasy?
After some Bruce Willis move happens, you are left wandering the countryside, out of food and virtually out of hope. Unless you get help you will certainly die.
You come upon a stronghold, a city. You ring the bell and the gatekeeper says that admission is only possible if you can do a job they need doing. You reel off your resume but nothing clicks. The gatekeeper explains what positions are available. Most of them are related to the punishment of those who break the laws of the settlement. They try and execute a handful of people each week for stealing food, or trying to break in to the city, or other serious crimes that threaten the precarious society. Most of the jobs available are related to this function.
They are:
Judge: you will be required to sentence exactly half the people who appear before you to death. You will hear ten cases a week. The gatekeeper assures you that you will know that people are really guilty by the evidence you see.
Hangman: You pull the lever. That’s all you do. Ten minutes, 5 times a week.
Hangman’s Assistant: You build gallows, set up equipment for each condemned person, put the noose around the sentenced criminal’s neck, and bury the bodies. This is a full time occupation.
Question 1: which of the above do you choose? Or will you wander off to die somewhere?
Just as you are about to deliver your choice, the gatekeeper receives news of two new openings.
There is to be another gate opened. You could be the gatekeeper. Mostly, you will be turning people away to certain death. Sometimes (as now) there are openings for people to come in. If you do this job, you spend 24 hours a day at the gate, napping when things are slow.
Also, there is an opening for cook. Nine apprentices are already at work learning the job, and you could be the tenth. Only one of the ten will be given a place, and the other nine turned out to certain death.
Question 2: You now have five jobs to choose from: Judge, hangman, hangman’s assistant, gatekeeper and cook apprentice. Which do you choose?