There’s an immense amount of power in the relationships that have been set, and its power that is really centralised. It’s like a pyramid, a zigurrat, the Director in the penthouse suite, Bladerunner-style.  All of the power is drawn upwards - this energy is drawn upwards.  The Director gets a physical kick out of it – he’s 140 years old, and he gets literally a life-force buzz out of shocking people, so there’s some return signal that energises him, gives him more power.  The reset button is a way of ensuring the hierarchy is maintained. The reset button induces amnesia, they forget about power structures and whatever power they had, which is now back in the hands of the Director.  

Somebody somehow is immune to the amnesia, they recall elements of the surveillance and can see it happening to others.  They can see the effects on other people, it’s anaesthetising as well as amnesiac, but this one immune person wants to question it, and that forces them into action, lets them overcome their fear and seek to help others.  Eventually this leads to other people becoming aware too.  There could be an element of whistle-blowing going on – one of the scrutinisers starts to question why we have to report the lack of engagement up the chain, there might be something else going on there that doesn’t fit in with the rules of engagement.  You’re writing these reports and they’re going nowhere, they’re disappearing into thin air, or are being used to monitor your performance as a scrutiniser, which is hideous.  And close to our actual jobs. You could write a uni policy document on rules of engagement that had all this stuff in it, and it would be fine, no one would think it was bad.

So as a last reflection, I framed this as a dystopia but it’s actually kind of wishful thinking, I wish someone would just push the button so that I can just forget and get back on with it.