project anderzof

OVERVIEW

A Ardenian is highly educated, proud, honorable, and neurotic – or, at least, that’s what they say.

A Ardenian is a person of dissent, a person of focus, and of ideals. A person who can play stunning classical music one day and take the derivative of a function the next.

Or, at least, that’s what they say.

In reality, the average Ardenian is hopelessly frustrated by traffic on IP95, or by delayed trains. He goes to work every day at his twelve-storey office, grabs coffee with his friends on lunch, then proceeds to crunch more spreadsheets. He goes home to a family that is often tired and overworked, where he then crashes on his ergo-couch and falls asleep to the sound of opera played by a automated house management system.

On average, the Ardenian is paid more than his compatriots. He works less, enjoys a greater quality of life – in theory.

Water and food is a twist and a tap away. Hydroponics bays arch into the sky, communal gardens gum neighborhoods, and massive auto-farms and manual-farms fill the verdant valleys of Varan. Even the Urban Poor and Homeless, if they ask for it, can recieve plentiful food courtesy of Government surplus programs.

The poor do exist – yes, but they can live. Even with a slightly reduced quality of life. All they have to do is ask, and a block of Government Cheese and charity food will show up at their door. More poor people are obese than rich people, because, ironically, the rich and the middle class have the freetime to actually exercise.

But life as a Ardenian is not perfect.

Amid all the technical achievements, the obsolescence of disease, the bacteriophage treatments and tailored genemods and life-extension, the youth suicide rate ticks up and up. The National Health Agency has declared a crisis of “National Aimlessness”, polling agencies note increases in depression and other mental morbidities, and there is a increasing youth crime issue in many urban parts of the country.

But life as a Ardenian is better than the alternative.