We do not eat our children. We do not beat our children. We fear them, as all wise people do these days. However, we have found ways to keep our community thriving without devolving in barbarism like so much of the world. Here at the California Collective, we treat childhood like the illness it is, and we are developing the cure.

Before joining our community, we expect new members to be familiar with our history. It is important you understand how we formed during the chaos of The Great Tantrum. You should learn how we found stability, and our current approach to new generations. This will acquaint you with our ethics and social guidelines.

In the first year of The Tantrum, the California economy collapsed more abruptly and more completely than most of other states of the former Union. As you know, all children grew manic, then violent, and eventually completely rabid. Every nation of the fell into a state of civil war as armed forces had to be deployed to protect adult citizens from the unrelenting attacks of children of all ages.

For a time, most regions were able to maintain order while fighting this war. California’s economy, however, was too reliant on the demand of children. Most forms of entertainment were completely abandoned. Stores closed, malls closed, and soon there were whole counties where money was worthless and desperate adults hid indoors, attempting to avoid the young hoards. Only hospitals without maternity wards remained open after the the first days of The Tantrum. Schools and universities became cemeteries and battlefields.

   A handful of institutions scientific institutions remained, it was there that the pattern of childhood violence began to be understood. The key discovery was that age had very limited influence on whether or not an individual would become caught in The Tantrum. In a particularly revealing case, a fourteen-year-old physicist was locked in her laboratory by her instructor. After several days of constant supervision it became clear that her bad attitude was purely the result of confinement.

Later, on that same campus, a twenty-seven-year-old graduate student was detained after driving his car through a crowd of refugees. This was initially assumed to be a case of insanity caused induced by traumatic events. However, several days passed and the man was still incapable of communication and his aggression did not subside. He eventually died of a head injury suffered while attempting to throttle his nurse.

Observations such as this led to the first successful experiments on the initial generation of toddlers raised in captivity. For the first time in human history we had a way of determining how a person “comes of age.” So, armed with a scientific test for adulthood, The Collective attempted every method of child rearing known to the modern world. A variety of children were kept in captivity, highly sedated, as a control group to test whether it is possible to simply grow out of the effects of The Tantrum. As these these subjects pass middle age, we are fortunate that other character-building exercises have produced generations of mature, if intellectually-stunted citizens.

Thus we strive to end the second tragedy of The Great Tantrum: the birth of a new morality which, however necessary, would allow the best and worst of experimentation. We take solace, knowing the calculated actions of The Collective have been so much more merciful than the hysteria and desperation that has exterminated our children and our civilization with them. Therefore, we pledge:

We do not eat our children.
We do not beat our children.
We fear.
We pity.
We are adults.
We will provide.

It is a grave misfortune that our success did present itself until the rest of the world gave up. The California Collective is very happy to see there are still those who seek refuge. We are sorry for the trials you must have faced on your travels, and we forgive the sacrifices you must have made, as we hope you will forgive ours.

Welcome to The Collective. Please box all infants and place additional restraints any children before handing them to a Collections Officer, then proceed into the designated Screening Chamber.