Password was the name of a television game show which first aired in the 1960’s. Non-celebrity contestants, teamed with celebrity partners,tried to guess passwords based on clues given by their partners. The game was timed, and if the clue-giver broke the rules by saying part of the password, they lost that round. Winners received cash prizes. Losers didn’t. This was a tame precursor to reality tv today.

Imagine our world in the not so distant future, when it is governed by The Password Games – translate this game into a political mechanism for winnowing out losers, in a society where money is the defining value of human life.

It won’t be difficult to ground this story in believable detail, drawing from what is ‘fact’ today.