The therapies that slow aging work, and the waitlist for them has become the sharpest fairness fight of the age. A generation that expected to inherit institutions finds the incumbents — judges, chairs, heads of household — simply declining to age out. Now the Meridian Longevity Institute's Earthside peers face a proposal to weight access by 'renewal value,' quietly favoring those who agree to step down from posts in exchange for treatment. Bioethicists call it dignified turnover; incumbents call it coercion; the young call it overdue. The waitlist has become a ballot on whether a society that stops aging can still change its mind.
As one of the Charter Court's most senior jurists renews his seat, the youth waitlist for tier-one longevity therapy stretches past two decades. Outside the Institute's Earthside clinic, the sit-in will not go home.