Timeline

SELECTION

World Timeline: 2006–2078

Show present: 2078 (50 years from production date).

All character dates and world events align to this anchor.

CHARACTER BIRTH YEARS

Ages given are as of 2078 — the present day of the series.

Gordon Cook — Born September 26, 2008. Age 69.
Atka Quintero — Born December 12, 2012. Age 65.
Vincent de la Cruz — Born November 22, 2026. Age 51.
Timothy Whitaker — Born May 28, 2027. Age 50.
Jessup Beckett — Born November 17, 2032. Age 45.
Dina Kazemi — Born February 4, 2035. Age 43.
Adrian Wallace — Born 2039. Age 39.
Spencer Pace — Born July 15, 2043. Age 34.
Amanda Butcher — Born October 1, 2046. Age 31.
Alexander Dolan — Born January 26, 2053. Age 25.
Rain Coulter — Born July 20, 2054. Age 23.
Grayson Minx — Born 2031. Age 47.

PART ONE: THE RISE OF HORIZON (2006–2034)

2006

Jeff Brent creates Horizon’s first major product: facial recognition software SEE, developed from a college dorm room and sold to security firms worldwide. Horizon Enterprises is born.

2008

Gordon Cook is born in Denver, Colorado.

2011

Horizon develops SEEK, the fastest search engine in history, customizable by its own users.

2012

Atka Quintero is born in the Canadian Arctic to Seneca and Anyu Quintero, shamans of a diminishing Inuit community.

2016

Horizon launches LOOK, a smartphone recognition application that can identify and search anything a camera captures.
Fort McMurray fire spreads over 400 miles of Alberta, Canada — one of the most destructive wildfires in Canadian history.
India reports over 15 consecutive days above 125 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking all historic temperature records.
A Republican president is elected in the United States.

2018

Major storm system drenches the West Coast. Two Class 5 hurricanes strike the Eastern Seaboard.
US troops deployed to Syria to fight ISIS and remove Bashar Al-Assad.

2019

A vote to defund the EPA draws a sharp political divide. The Republican-led Congress and president push to redirect funds to the military. The measure ultimately fails, but sets a dangerous precedent.

2020

US offers major tax incentives to states that increase natural gas and oil production.
California voters pressure Governor Newsom to halt fracking along the Monterey Shale formation. A petition to break from the federal government gains momentum. Oregon and Washington signal readiness to follow.
Horizon pledges $2 billion in resources to help California become fully sustainable.
Republican president re-elected on a platform of energy independence.

2021

Pollution levels triple in Beijing. Delhi is declared the most polluted city in the world. The WHO warns of toxic airborne emissions across Mexico, Chile, Guatemala, and Peru.
England breaks from the EU.

2022

China sends warships into the East China Sea as Japan stages surveillance flyovers near the Diaoyu Islands. Japan responds in kind and requests US support.

2023

The US vows to defend Japan against Chinese military escalation.
Two of the hottest years on record, with severely limited precipitation, bring the worst drought fears to Western states in recorded history.
North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and New Mexico become the nation’s oil production leaders, rivaling Texas. Natural gas output creates the highest GDP in American history.

2025

A Japanese plane is shot down. China claims it was in a no-fly zone. The US responds by sending naval support and threatening sanctions.
Horizon partners with Tesla to mass-produce the home battery for consumer use. Multiple US states ban the Tesla battery.

2026

Vincent de la Cruz is born November 22 in Buena Park, California, to Diego and Isabel de la Cruz, undocumented immigrants who smuggled themselves into the US from El Salvador.

2027

California, Washington, and Oregon secede from the United States.
Naval skirmishes escalate in the East China Sea. US military presence fails to deter

either side. Political pressure prevents direct intervention.

Diego de la Cruz is killed in a New Year’s Day bus accident in Los Angeles. Isabel, left to raise infant Vincent alone, catches the attention of hotel guest Conrad Schaeffer, who will change their lives.
Atka Quintero’s father, Seneca, dies of liver failure on her 15th birthday. That night, Atka experiences her first vision.
Timothy Whitaker is born May 28.

2028

New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire vote to secede from the United States.
Isabel de la Cruz is awarded $3 million in a wrongful death settlement with the help of Conrad Schaeffer’s attorney. Conrad and Isabel begin a practical arrangement that will provide Vincent a life of privilege.
Atka Quintero, age 16, leaves her village against her mother’s wishes and travels to Fairbanks to find her older cousin Kirima and begin a new life.

2029

China defeats Japan in naval engagements. A coalition of US and British forces engages China to defend their ally. The world prepares for a new world war.
Florida struck by three massive hurricanes. One travels as far north as Massachusetts. New York City shuts down for 20 days in back-to-back blizzards — the coldest winter on the Eastern Seaboard on record.
Massive wildfires burn across California, Oregon, and Idaho simultaneously.

2030

The American Union is formally established from the seceded states. The AU opposes involvement in the Asian conflict.
The US pulls forces from Asia but supplies Japan, Vietnam, and South Korea with weapons, ships, and aircraft.
China ceases all exports to the US and Europe.
Gordon Cook graduates from Colorado Christian University with a degree in theology. He marries Molly that same year. Within months Molly begins an affair with the head pastor. Gordon leaves the church and the country.
Isabel de la Cruz and Conrad Schaeffer have turned her settlement into $12 million. Vincent, now 5, attends private school in Beverly Hills.

2031

Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Idaho join the American Union.
Italy, Sweden, and Spain break from the EU, following America’s example.
Grayson Minx is born. His father, a mechanic, teaches him to understand how things work from an early age.

2032

China implements a large-scale program of melting trash and plastics to create petroleum. Scientists and world leaders warn of catastrophic ecological consequences.
Jessup Beckett is born November 17 in Butte, Montana, to Jackson and Helen Beckett, traveling missionaries.
Atka Quintero, age 20, meets Dale Johnson, a pipeline worker who presents himself as a friend of her cousin. He rapes her. She kills him with a lamp. Charged with manslaughter, she is released after six months when her pregnancy becomes apparent.
Gordon Cook returns from his travels through South America and Asia with an Australian woman named Miranda. They marry. Son David is born the following year.

2033

Horizon releases FIND, a transparency application granting users full access to all information online. It becomes the most downloaded app in history within 72 hours.
All states in the AU vow to be carbon neutral by 2050.
China suspends independent ISPs and implements a state-run internet to block FIND.
Russia invades Latvia and Belarus, attempting to reconstruct the USSR in the vacuum of the fading EU.
Chinese citizens begin emigrating to America and Europe to flee their government.

2034

Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut join the American Union.
Gordon Cook, refusing to live under AU governance, packs up his family and moves to Anchorage, where he takes a teaching position at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
Drought in California dramatically increases the cost of water and living. Industries begin relocating out of state. Produce prices rise nationwide.
Atka gives birth to her son, Songaa, in Anchorage. She moves to the city in search of her cousin Kirima, whom she never finds. She takes work in a laundromat and begins the long task of raising her son alone.

PART TWO: ANCHORAGE RISES (2035–2055)

2035

Horizon opens manufacturing and research facilities in Anchorage, Alaska. The city begins its transformation.
Russia, after occupying Georgia, Lithuania, and Azerbaijan, moves into Poland and Hungary and provides military support to Syria and Iran.
The Eastern Seaboard oscillates between devastating hurricanes and paralyzing winters. Citizens, businesses, and industries are forced to choose: relocate, stay in the AU, or accept life in a failing US-governed state.
Dina Kazemi is born February 4 in Kabul, Afghanistan, to Abrim and Anush Kazemi.

2036

Trade disputes between the AU and US intensify as the AU refuses to support companies reliant on fossil fuels or genetically modified products.
Vincent de la Cruz, age 12, delivers a Valedictorian speech at his private school in Beverly Hills about the power of opportunity. Conrad Schaeffer gives him a Rolex.
Rachel Cook is born to Gordon and Miranda — named after Gordon’s mother.

2037

Massive earthquakes rock the Midwest. Scientists link them to hydraulic fracturing and the injection of water into underground formations.
California cuts agricultural production by 50% due to extreme heat and low water availability. Pressure on Midwest corn and wheat production intensifies. Scientists genetically fortify corn with vitamins and minerals to compensate for the collapse of produce diversity.
Dina Kazemi’s family emigrates from Kabul to Eugene, Oregon, sponsored by a colleague of Abrim’s from a Portland pharmaceutical company. Dina is two years old.

2038

World financial markets enter sustained turmoil as the United States continues to fracture.

2039

Armed mercenaries enter California from Arizona and Nevada to seize farms and redirect produce to US-governed territories.
Fighting erupts between armed civilian factions across both AU and US territories. Federal military is called in to intervene.
Adrian Wallace is born in Chicago, Illinois. His father is a mail carrier; his mother works warehouse nights to supplement the family income.

2040

Disease spreads through much of the US, likely linked to fracking-contaminated water with high alkalinity levels. Children have the highest mortality rate in over a century.
Oliver Pace and Juliana Shapiro, both engineers at Horizon’s Austin campus, begin their relationship over shared lunches in the commissary.

2041

Horizon begins moving its entire company and all subsidiaries to Anchorage.
All hydraulic fracturing is suspended across the US after the alkalinity crisis.
California’s mass emigration has hollowed out most of the state. Ghost towns stretch across whole counties. Only the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and coastal Orange County and San Diego retain functioning populations.

2042

China purchases the majority of oil reserves from a financially desperate Saudi Arabia.
The US military is ordered to engage American citizens in former US territories. Hundreds of soldiers lay down their arms and abandon their posts.
Juliana Shapiro tells Oliver Pace she is pregnant. Spencer Pace is born the following year.

2043

Verdant Towers are erected in Anchorage — two twelve-story glass structures offering vertical farming at scale using both natural and artificial light. Nearly 90% of the city’s produce will eventually be grown here.
Spencer Pace is born July 15 in Austin, Texas, to Oliver and Juliana. He is largely raised by nannies and the Horizon childcare facility while his parents work six-day weeks.

2044

Worldwide air travel is limited to the wealthy as fuel prices skyrocket.
Vincent de la Cruz graduates UCLA, having completed both his undergrad and law school with distinction. He marries Jennifer Bell shortly after. They settle in Culver City.

2045

Sea levels have risen over a meter in the last 20 years. Multiple coastal cities worldwide have been partially or fully abandoned.
Vincent Cruz begins his career as a civil attorney, fighting for underprivileged families and undocumented workers.

2046

A 15-year drought and extreme heat claim millions of lives in Africa and the Middle East. Wealthy families hoard food and water. Ninety-five percent of deaths are among the poor.
Amanda Butcher is born October 1 in Fayetteville, Arkansas, to Sherwood and Madeline Walker. Her father runs a chain of popular Southern diners.

2047

Horizon begins the process of making Anchorage carbon neutral.
Adrian Wallace’s family moves from Chicago to Richmond, California, to care for a sick aunt. The relocation strains the family financially and socially. His older brother Marcus begins running errands for a local gang to help with household expenses.

2048

Marcus Wallace is killed during a police chase in San Francisco. He is 17. The officer is not indicted. The Wallace family grieves in private.

2049

Battles between armed factions across the contiguous states force the AU and US to formally disband their shared military command. Individual states are left to govern themselves. The greatest nation in history ceases to exist as a unified entity. The dollar collapses.
Jessup Beckett graduates a year early from high school in Butte and moves to UC Berkeley, over his mother’s objections. His father gives his blessing. Checkpoints now exist between states.

2050

The Wallace family’s aunt dies, providing a modest insurance windfall. They relocate to Walnut Creek for better schools. Adrian, age 11, buries his grief and becomes a diligent, silent student.

2051

Horizon completes its offshore wind and tidal energy farm. Combined with solar glass installed on every building in the city, Anchorage becomes 100% carbon neutral.
Jessup Beckett meets Abigail Monroe at Berkeley. She is interviewing him for the campus newspaper after a water polo victory. He turns the tables. They begin an inseparable relationship.
Dina Kazemi, 16 years old, attends a party with her best friend Rebecca. She is sexually assaulted by three men in an attempt to protect Rebecca. The following Monday, Rebecca reacts with jealousy. Dina is labeled a slut. Her grades collapse. Her father, when she finally tells her mother, instructs her not to speak of it. A police report is filed. The community turns against the Kazemi family.
Gordon Cook retires early from the University of Alaska Anchorage, exhausted by years of conflict with his increasingly radical students and colleagues.

2052

Desperation transforms groups of displaced Americans into violent marauders throughout the former United States.
The US military formally withdraws from Anchorage. Horizon offers remaining personnel positions in security, policing, and engineering. Most accept.
Jessup enters medical school at UCSF. He and Abby live with her parents in San Francisco.
Dina Kazemi, 17, moves to Anchorage to escape Eugene, Oregon and the stigma attached to her name. She studies biology and begins training as a pharmacist. She loves the energy of the growing city.
Gordon Cook takes a position as an engineer with the Alaskan Public Works. His assignment: help design and construct a wall around Anchorage’s northern border to control flooding and immigration.
Spencer Pace, age 9, has already sold his first apps. His parents remain largely absent, consumed by work.

2053

All Horizon Industries have fully relocated to Anchorage. The city is now a self-sustaining technological marvel.
Grayson Minx personally visits Jessup Beckett at Abby’s parents’ home in San Francisco. He offers Jessup a position at Horizon with no obligation — just dinner and a conversation. Jessup declines the job but is moved by Grayson’s vision.

2054

Rain Coulter is born July 20 in Anchorage to Eric and Marie Coulter, idealistic young socialists who support Horizon but oppose the city’s emerging population control measures.

2055

Dina’s family in Eugene faces escalating threats and vandalism. Abrim loses his job. He moves the family back to Afghanistan — a country his children have never seen and barely know the language of. Dina stays in Anchorage. Her father refuses to speak to her. Only her mother keeps in contact.
Vincent Cruz is recruited from civil law into corporate litigation by a fraternity brother’s firm. He earns significantly more money. He and Jennifer move to Beverly Hills. His work, ostensibly protecting the poor, is in fact used by corporate giants to eliminate competition — a fact Vincent chooses not to examine too closely.

2056

Jessup Beckett graduates at the top of his UCSF class. Grayson Minx attends the ceremony and gives him a $25,000 check and a prototype of the LifeBand health monitor Horizon has been developing. At Abby’s encouragement, Jessup accepts Horizon’s offer. Later that year, Jessup and Abby marry in a small ceremony attended by her parents, his parents, and Grayson Minx.
Jessup begins working at Horizon’s Palo Alto headquarters, instrumental in the development of the LifeBand.

2057

Anchorage finishes its wall and closes itself off from the outside world. The wall stretches from the Knik Arm of the Cook Inlet in the west to the Chugach Mountains in the east — between 30 and 100 feet tall, up to 15 feet wide.
Air travel is suspended worldwide as oil reserves reach critical depletion.
Grayson takes Jessup to Anchorage for the first time. The city’s scale and ambition astonish him — the Verdant Towers, solar rooftops, autonomous vehicles, coastal wind farms, and the nearly completed wall. Jessup meets Jeff Brent, Horizon’s founder, who lives in a humble cabin outside the city center. Brent calls Jessup “the brain” and asks him to move north.
Abby refuses to leave her family in San Francisco. Jessup stays with her and oversees Palo Alto’s transition to Anchorage remotely, traveling constantly. Their relationship begins to fray under the weight of his absence.
Gordon Cook completes his work on the Anchorage wall construction. His role in the Alaskan Public Works ends.
The One Child Law is enacted in Anchorage. Voluntary sterilization incentives are introduced alongside strict enforcement of the single-child policy.

PART THREE: THE CITY-STATE ERA (2058–2063)

2058

Jessup Beckett develops pneumonia from overwork. He collapses and is hospitalized. Abby finally agrees to move. They arrive in Anchorage — the last of the Horizon families to make the journey before all travel is suspended.
Situation in the Middle East deteriorates rapidly. Resources are hoarded by the elite. Dina’s brother disappears. Armed bandits begin looting homes.

2059

Jessup and Abby’s first full year in Anchorage. The city’s advancement continues at an exponential pace. Jessup has more time for Abby and they fall in love with the environment. Outside the wall, a refugee camp begins to form.
Spencer Pace, 16, joins the Offline Movement — a youth trend of abandoning all digital devices and social media. He begins keeping detailed handwritten journals of his daily thoughts and observations.

2060

Spencer Pace has his first psychotic break during his junior year of high school. He tears his room apart searching for a missing journal he is convinced has been stolen. He attempts to remove his own eye with broken glass, believing a Horizon surveillance device has been implanted. He is prescribed Risperdal. His father reveals he has been having an affair with a Horizon colleague and announces he is moving to Anchorage. Spencer refuses to go. His mother, Juliana, is forced to leave Horizon to raise him alone.

2061

Adrian Wallace, 22, enlists in the army immediately after graduating high school. He serves in Syria and then in Eastern Europe defending countries against Russian expansion. He is eventually ordered to fire on American civilians in the conflict between AU and US factions in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He refuses. He is reassigned to Alaska as punishment.

2062

The military formally leaves Anchorage. Adrian Wallace, having served his reassignment, is offered a position with the Anchorage police force. He accepts, despite despising law enforcement after his brother’s death, vowing never to use his weapon.
Vincent Cruz is elected Mayor of Los Angeles, youngest in the city’s history.
Communication from Dina’s family in Afghanistan stops entirely. She will not learn their fate for years.

2063

The Selection Process begins in Anchorage. The Department of Preservation, having determined that the population has exceeded the city-state’s sustainable “Golden Mean,” issues its first Selection notices.
Adrian Wallace meets Grace, a young woman from Chicago who manages a coffee shop he frequents after his shift. They fall in love quickly, recognizing in each other the same losses, the same displacement, the same quiet survival.
Jessup’s father passes away in Montana. Jessup does not fly home for the funeral — there is no air travel. He video-chats with his mother until her prayers become too much and he ends the call. Grayson sends a cryptic condolence: “It doesn’t have to be the end.”
Rain Coulter’s parents, Eric and Marie Coulter, receive a Selection notice. Rather than participate, they choose to leave the city. Rain’s grandparents, Jeremiah and Matilda Hansel, hide 9-year-old Rain from her parents on the day of their departure. The officers arrive for Marie. Eric could stay. They look at each other. They leave together. Rain is left behind.
Grayson Minx informs Jessup that the city will close and Selection will begin as the only means of maintaining sustainability.

PART FOUR: BEHIND THE WALL (2064–2078)

2064

Jeff Brent, founder of Horizon Enterprises, dies. The city mourns. Grayson Minx formally assumes the role of CEO, a position he has been performing de facto for years. Jessup takes Brent’s death harder than his own father’s. He dedicates himself to one of Brent’s most secretive projects.
Abby Beckett can no longer reach her parents in San Francisco. Communication outside the wall is increasingly unreliable.
Dina Kazemi begins manufacturing her own “escape” drugs — potent opiates mixed with antidepressants — after receiving news of her family’s fate in Afghanistan. She and colleagues begin operating an underground facility offering sedation and emotional relief to citizens unable to cope with the pressures of the city-state.
Rain Coulter, 10, begins life with her grandparents in Anchorage. She is enrolled in good schools and given weekly therapy sessions with a woman named Olivia Prieda. She begins painting on the walls of the city at night.
Mandy Butcher graduates high school in Fayetteville, having barely survived the loss of a boy she loved.
Vincent Cruz’s son, Ernesto is born.

2065

Grace Wallace is among the first citizens selected in an early round of the Selection Process. Adrian loses control for the first time in 15 years — he punches two officers and breaks the fingers of a third before being tased into submission. Grace goes in. She does not come out. She passes her lifetime abstention to Adrian. He is exempt from Selection for the rest of his life. He is not punished for the assault. He is given time, then offered a quieter position with the Selection Process itself.
Mandy Butcher meets Clint Butcher at a football game in Fayetteville when he pulls her out of a stadium riot. He is a soft-spoken army engineer. They are inseparable for two weeks before his contract takes him away. Their first kiss is their goodbye.

2066

Clint Butcher returns to Fayetteville and asks for Mandy’s hand. He has a job offer in Anchorage and needs to be married to take it. Mandy is afraid to leave home. Her sister Heather tells her to go. They marry at her church. They board a military transport for Alaska.
Pregnant Mandy and Clint settle into the growing city. Clint works on Anchorage’s wind and tidal farms in the bay with his army buddy Nick. Mandy video-chats with her family and explores the city, calling it God’s country.
Vincent Cruz re-elected Mayor of Los Angeles.

2067

The Great Quake strikes Southern California — a 10.3 magnitude earthquake centered near Burbank. The city of Los Angeles is destroyed. Privatized fire departments, years of deferred maintenance, and Vincent Cruz’s cost-cutting construction contracts cause the death toll to skyrocket. Hundreds of thousands perish. Hundreds of thousands more are displaced.
Vincent Cruz is forced out of office. He is sued for millions. He decides to flee Los Angeles with his belongings and whatever he can carry.
Chloe Butcher is born to Mandy and Clint.
Spencer Pace, 24, moves into the archive department of an Austin newspaper. He buys an old computer with no internet connection and uses it solely as a word processor. He writes everything his paranoid mind produces — connections between the climate crisis, corporate power, media manipulation, and the AU–US split.
Vincent Cruz and his son travel north through California, Oregon, Washington, and into Canada. When the electric vehicle runs out of charge, no one will help them. Money holds no value in rural Canada.

2068

Spencer Pace, now 25, is promoted to copy editor and given an internet-connected computer for the first time in nearly a decade. He posts his accumulated writings as a blog and finds hundreds of thousands of followers almost immediately. His trust fund — earnings from his childhood apps — is released to him. His mother Juliana dies. Their relationship had been strained since she forced him out at 20. He had wanted to reconcile. He never made the time.
Rachel Cook, 30, becomes pregnant while working in psychology and dating a Horizon lab technician. She and her husband plan to keep the child.
Abby Beckett, despondent over the fate of the world and unable to reach her parents, discovers an underground healing space run by Dina Kazemi in the basement of a restaurant near her home. Jazz plays. Rows of people sit in soft chairs connected to IV drips. Dina welcomes Abby with tea and a gentle question about her headaches. An IV is set in Abby’s arm. A woman massages her head and shoulders as she drifts pleasantly off.
Vincent Cruz and a companion are offered a ride to Anchorage in the back of a cargo truck in exchange for their vehicle — a journey that echoes his parents’ smuggling into America decades before. They are released miles outside the wall.

2069

Spencer Pace moves to Anchorage to be near his father, stepmother, and half-brother. He lives meagerly off his trust, spending all his time writing and researching, his paranoia sharpened rather than soothed by proximity to Horizon’s headquarters.
Abby Beckett’s headaches worsen until they are debilitating. She refuses to see a doctor, relying on Dina’s treatments. When she can no longer reach her parents by any means, she stops leaving the apartment. Jessup physically carries her to a doctor. She is diagnosed with brain cancer.
Abby begins treatment: genetic modification, immunotherapy, then chemotherapy. Jessup stops working entirely. They watch old movies, listen to music. He reads to her. Cooks for her. They are happy again in unbearable circumstances. Grayson proposes using experimental nanobots to destroy the tumor. Jessup refuses to let Abby be a test subject. Surgery is the only option.
Abby undergoes surgery and does not survive the operation. Jessup crumbles.
Vincent Cruz and his son, Ernesto, enter the refugee camp outside Anchorage’s wall. He joins a small fishing community along the Eagle River, trading fish for supplies. Each week he returns to the wall to request entry. Each week he is denied.

2070

Clint Butcher’s coworker and friend Nick dies in an accident on the exterior wall maintenance platform. Clint comes home drunk and crying. He distances himself from Mandy. Stops eating. Stops talking. One night he doesn’t come home. The next day, a representative from Horizon arrives at Mandy’s door. Clint fell from the wall. The episode’s teaser will later reveal that the safety harness was deliberately unhooked.
A letter arrives for Mandy from her sister Heather. Their father was shot during a food theft at the Dixie Diner. He is not expected to survive.
Mandy is told by a church acquaintance that Clint was gay. She slaps the woman and leaves the church.
Jessup Beckett is catatonic in his apartment for six months. Grayson, monitoring him remotely, has the door removed and walks in with a team. He tells Jessup: “We’ve reached critical mass. Selection has been running for seven years. I’m sorry, old friend. There is no other choice.”

2071

Alexander Dolan, 19, completes his education at Holy Rosary Academy and is hired at the Anchorage city morgue through a connection with the boarding school’s librarian. He takes meticulous care of the bodies. He holds their hands. He spends his nights in the morgue and his days in the library reading everything he can find.
Rachel Cook becomes pregnant a second time. She conceals the pregnancy from everyone, including her husband, knowing it violates the One Child Law. When her husband discovers it, he approaches Gordon for help. In one of the most painful decisions of his life, Gordon sides with the law over his daughter. Rachel never forgives him. The estrangement from both children — David over politics, Rachel over this — becomes permanent.

2072

Rain Coulter finishes her secondary schooling. Her grandparents push her toward university. She drops out after a semester. She tries trade programs. Nothing holds. Her therapist, Olivia Prieda, offers her a job at one of the city’s self-elimination facilities. Rain takes it.
Jessup Beckett, drunk, walks into Rain Coulter’s suicide clinic and demands a procedure immediately. Rain, 18, tells him calmly they cannot assist someone under the influence. “Sir, you are clearly drunk. We can’t do anything with you like this. Either leave or I can call an officer.” He leaves. Takes a swig from his flask.
Vincent Cruz and Ernesto are admitted to the city-state after waiting nearly three years outside the wall. They are bathed, immunized, photographed, fingerprinted, and DNA-stamped. Vincent is given work as a janitor. Ernesto is enrolled in school. “We don’t care who you were. You are a Horizon employee now.”

2073

Jessup Beckett begins working in the Verdant Tower, tending plants. He talks to the flowers. He plays his and Abby’s favorite songs on repeat while spritzing the leaves and drinking from a bottle. Grayson watches on a monitor from his office. “I don’t know what else I can do for him.”
Rain Coulter begins an affair with her therapist Olivia Prieda, who is married with a teenage son. The relationship is consuming and unbalanced — Rain waits for Olivia; Olivia comes and goes. Rain retaliates by seducing Olivia’s husband.

2075

Rain’s affair with Olivia ends badly. Rain is arrested for property damage after a series of increasingly provocative acts of revenge. She serves two months in a work facility. When she returns, Olivia is gone — new address, new number, no trace. Rain has an abortion and goes back to her life.

2075–2078

The city-state of Anchorage settles into its equilibrium: clean streets, autonomous vehicles, Verdant Tower produce, Horizon governance, and the quiet hum of a civilization that works — as long as the numbers hold. Outside the wall, the refugee camp has swelled into a permanent shantytown.
Mandy Butcher works as a waitress while Chloe is in school. She shoplifts small items from stores on the way home — the only release she allows herself. She never gets caught.
Rain Coulter paints increasingly ambitious murals across the city. The D.O.P. covers them within hours. Rain paints them again.
Jessup Beckett receives his Selection notice. He does not confirm attendance. The D.O.P. dispatches officers Stefan Kolev and Jonathan Walker to collect him.

2078 — SHOW PRESENT

Selection Day. Ten citizens of the city-state of Anchorage are summoned to the Department of Preservation. One will be chosen. The audience will decide who.
The participants: Gordon Cook (69), Atka Quintero (65), Timothy Whitaker (50), Vincent de la Cruz (51), Jessup Beckett (45), Dina Kazemi (43), Amanda Butcher (31), Spencer Pace (34), Alexander Dolan (25), Rain Coulter (23).
The officer: Adrian Wallace (39), the last man in the room who knows what the process truly costs.

SELECTION. Created by Jon-Barrett Ingels & Obren Milanovic. WGA Registration #2019507.

Show present is always 50 years from the current production year. As of 2028, the show is set in 2078.