A dropship loomed over the city blocks of Gantun, waiting for the message to descend and land, the heat of the sun beaming down on the city. Huge megastructures stuck out like mountains of mud in a flower field of housing blocks.
“Citizen Transport 32, you are clear to land on block five eight”

The drop ship saw its destination, and began to lower itself near a housing block, 4 vertical engines lessened their thrusting power as it got closer to the ground, as it touched down, the landing gear exalted cold air from above the hydraulics. Inside the residence, the familiar sound of an alarm clock sounded itself to the occupant in the room….
“TIME TO SERVE YOUR COUNCIL! TIME TO SERVE YOUR COUNCIL!”

A rather tired Citizen laid shirtless, arm hanging off a standard issue bed, his dark clay fingers curled on the stainless floor, his voice groaning in annoyance as loud as the alarm. He rolled over from his side and laid on his back, his eyelids met halfway as his mouth hung open. A voice called out to him from the other room,
“Jeric! Breakfast is ready!”

Jeric, otherwise known as Sidko. Got up from his bed, and slouched himself to his wardrobe, throwing his shirt over his back, and in his terms, properly getting dressed,
“Coming!” he shouted. Sidko turned to look in his full body mirror, he placed his hands on his hips, forced a smile, and spoke bluntly,
“I am ready to serve the Council….from the comfort of my bed, under my blanket”
Suddenly his GCID went off. He looked down, his face screeched, the message read:
“SoCred score dropped by 10 points for: Mocking Council Ethics during work hours. Please attend this weekend’s sermon to recollect lost points”
The Citizen sighed, he was going to have to cancel Virt plans to make up for lost points. But his morning evened out when he entered the kitchen for a wonderful surprise from his Fa..

Sidko stared at the bowl in front of him, a bowl of what appeared to be meat, it did not matter from which animal it came from, he looked up at his fa,
“Is this real?” he asked quickly, his Fa snickered and put a posture of victory across him,
“Nope - imitation!”
Sidko smiled and began eating to his heart’s content, his thoughts nearly ran amuck from excitedment,
When I’m a full-fledged officer, I’ll be able to afford real meat. I remember in class, learning that a long time ago when the Council first formed, some Citizens needed meat to survive, during the “Great Conversion”, the Council decided collectively that meat variety was too much, imitation meat was made, and real meat was taken out of the stores shortly after. Imitation meat is a universal food anyone can eat! The Council does its best to keep its Citizens aligned, I can’t wait to start my servitude, officially.

“I’m proud of you, Jeric. The last week of testing is here, then you’ll be in the Protectorate full time!”
“I won’t let you down - next meal is on me!” 

Sidko left his humble block as his Fa waved at him. The Citizen only had 1 week of training left, if he passed, he kept his class, and would get his own place, if he failed. He would be docked a class, and moved to a basic job: goods / warehouse / factory related jobs. As Sidko waited in line, a Protectorate deck officer was waiving people in, Sidko passed him by, attempting to snatch a bit of that professional aura that surrounded the Protectorate for good luck.

Sidko looked out the window as the dropship departed, he could see rows of Class C housing units stretching for miles to the border of Class E and beyond, in just a few minutes, they reached the Galactic Protectorate section of the city, the trainees were taken to a separate building entirely, they would be staying in the barracks for a week.

Inside the barracks

Sidko had the top bunk, his friends bunked with him in the many rows of other trainees, a smaller fellow, by the name of Zzarr spoke up as they were getting situated, 
“I can’t wait to train today, it's the physical exam, right?” she asked, Oreon, a First Gen Citizen, yawned,
“Yea, shouldn’t be too much of a problem”
Sidko was a bit nervous,
“I haven’t been doing anything physical since the last one” he said,
“Not even in the virt?” Oreon asked,
“Wh- oh yea, I did huh” he said,
“I doubt anyone outside virts does much physical activity anyway, we’re all going to pass, just like the last bunch, it's rare for Citizens to fail”

Training grounds

Sidko’s face hit the pebble infested gravel, the pain sent shockwaves through him, he panted as he forced himself up to keep going, in the distance, 2 overseers were positioned in the middle of the field as trainees ran around in circles, jumping obstacles, balancing themselves over pits of guck,
“Great work, recruit Sidko! You’re nearly there!” an officer shouted. A drone floated next to the officer, questioning his methods,
“Officer Brak, that one is least deserving, why the encouragement?”
Officer Brak adjusted his posture,
“I don’t know what you mean, as far as I can remember, training protocol has always been this way. Recruits need the encouragement to do better, beating them down makes things worse”
In another part of the Protectorate, an Elf stretched her arms in front of 2 monitors, responding:
“Has it really been that long since I’ve been to the training grounds?”

Officer Brak cleared his throat before answer,
“Frankly, Sey, I thought you passed away a while ago”
“That was rhetorical!”

Aradi ‘s first task into overseeing the qualification of new Protectorates was essentially a mountain of homework, going over newly updated documents. She wasn’t a slow reader by any means, but she wanted to be careful in not overlooking anything. The Elf was confined to a cubicle, a standard work environment, 2 bright screens illuminated her face in the darkness. She was quite annoyed by the sudden reassignment she had, but even more so as she saw the performance levels of the New Generation Citizens, she was quite vocal about it as well, and her credit score was so high, she wouldn’t lose an inch of sleep over it.
“All while operating a drone to make sure these new idiot trainees don’t make me look bad is the cherry on top I never asked for, extending the training was a good thing to do given these records”
Officer Brak chimed in,
“I’ve never seen a transfer like this before, the work must be intense, are you sure you don’t need a breather?” he asked, Aradi’s eyes were dreading the very action of being open,
“Officer Brak, I need CPR at this point, but the job won’t finish itself, there’s a whole library worth of things to sift through, and you forget. Your citizenship is rather young still, I might not be available for some time”
“You don’t have to learn everything at once”
“It’s nothing to scoff at, the Council is well intent on rightfully creating the perfect Citizen, you are the first iteration of this Citizen, and have been for far too long. You are built to serve and ensure the Council’s survival. Though we are equal in status and opportunities, it will be your kind that puts the Council in the space of infinity, and you’re just the first wave. I suspect in another few thousand years, a new iteration will be deployed, and they’ll use all the data produced by you and your fellow citizens to train the next wave. It’s important that we only take those who deserve to be a part of this adventure, and forget those who don’t. The full conversion process as you know, will be natural, it’ll likely take hundreds of thousands of years. But we may be able to speed that up if we’re careful in selecting the best candidates to move forward. Every Citizen serves the same functions anyway. But the goals set by the Council are for the betterment of societies across the known universe…Whether they know it or not”

Officer Brak uttered in his mind,
Great, her favorite food is word salads

Aradi felt her eyelid twitch for some reason, she thought to herself as she looked at the trainees through the lens of the drone, watching the poor performances of the trainees,
How annoyed I am to be here, it must not be going well if they shifted me without even giving notice. However, that just means my unwavering dedication has been noticed, they came to me in their time of need…to be recognized in such a way…I will ensure the Council’s future be strong in return, I will give my own blood for it. 

A month later

Sidko’s legs dragged behind his will to complete the final physical test, it seemed that he was not the only one. Many of the trainees had not only struggled, but some failed and were excised to lower classes. Officer Brak gave an enthusiastic expression as Sidko was the last one to cross the finishing line.
“Great job, Sidko! You did it!” 

Sidko’s face appeared to be melting off of his skull, his body ached, bones felt grinded to dust. He spoke as if he had been outside the city in the desert for days,
“Wa…..water…pleaaase”

The 2 officers, one in drone format, stood before the trainees who passed this portion, technically they were now considered Protectorate, but would stay on base during work hours to get accommodated to the workstations, areas of reprieve, and heightened Council appreciation practices. 

“It’s been a long journey for you recruits” Officer Brak stated, he continued, his smile as pure as his service to the Council,
“..and after weeks of physical testing, I can confidently say you all pass. But now we’ll be heading to phase 2, which will be the exam portion” 

Though one could not see it, Aradi shivered in utter disgust,
Unbeknown to them, we were pushing for the generated citizens to pass…these results are…unwanted..only 4 of the 25 generations passed, and it’s not like we can exclusively just train the 4 without violating serious ethics codes, this failure won’t go unnoticed…I’ll have to recommend them to S.F.O. training to try and minimize the damage..