Antony ButtsDocumentary filmmaker, camera operator and futuristLet’s talk
Original speculative world

Care Home Troopers

What if pensioners went to war so the young could stay home?

Proxy BodiesCollateralised Compassion
Design-fiction recruitment poster: “Let them grow old.” Marion, 74, a combat drone operator in body armour and leg exoskeletons, points at the viewer in a ruined town, with robot pack mules and a drone behind her. “I’d rather it was me than my grandson.”
Find CHT-01. Recruitment poster: “Let them grow old.” Speculative fiction, not a real campaign.

Everyone expects

An ageing population is a burden on defence.

What I found

Your country needs your gran.

Physical augmentation changes who can serve. Falling birth rates change whose lives a state wants to preserve. Rising care costs change the bargain between generations.

Bring those developments together and a different recruitment pool appears. Experience and judgement become valuable; the technology does the heavy lifting. Service pays for pensions and care.

Then put people inside the arrangement. A daughter encourages her mother to enlist so care fees do not consume the inheritance. Young people protest—not to protect pensioners from service, but to demand that they contribute.

The world can branch. Proud volunteers in one version; the poorest pensioners serving to keep their care in another. The idea is not simply old people in exoskeletons. It is a changed bargain about obligation, age and whose future society protects.

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Strategic wargaming and decision games

Nine more finds from this future.

The campaign changes as the world does. First it asks for volunteers. Then the letters arrive.

Phase one: the volunteers

“Book a service assessment.” Persuasion, pride and the promise of care.

Design-fiction recruitment poster: “Leave them the house. Not the care bill.” Peter, 78, in combat uniform and a rugged wheelchair, says goodbye to his son and pregnant daughter-in-law in a half-decorated nursery. A letter on the windowsill reads “Care funding confirmed”.

Leave them the house. Not the care bill.

Peter, 78, leaves for the front. His service pays for his care, so the house stays in the family.

Find
CHT-02
Object
Recruitment poster
Date
Not yet
Design-fiction recruitment poster: “I hope my grandson needs one of these.” Dennis, 79, a combat drone operator, rests a hand on a walking frame at a forward base and holds a photo of his grandson. “When he’s ninety.”

“I hope my grandson needs one of these.”

Dennis, 79, combat drone operator, with his walking frame. “When he’s ninety.”

Find
CHT-03
Object
Recruitment poster
Date
Not yet
Design-fiction recruitment poster in two halves: Arthur, 82, with a walking frame in his hallway, and Arthur in combat gear in a rugged wheelchair at the front, with a drone overhead. “I’ve still got fight in me.” “My grandson’s twenty-two. I’d like him to get to eighty-two.”

“I’ve still got fight in me.”

Arthur, 82: “My grandson’s twenty-two. I’d like him to get to eighty-two.”

Find
CHT-04
Object
Recruitment poster
Date
Not yet
Storyboard for a 30-second design-fiction film, “Marion’s retirement plan”, in six frames: gossip in a café, bowls with new teammates, her allotment, a dance, operating combat drones on the front line, and Marion holding her grandson’s photo: “I’d rather it was me than my grandson.”

Marion’s retirement plan.

Bowls, an allotment, a dance. Then the front line.

Find
CHT-05
Object
Storyboard for a 30-second film
Date
Not yet

Phase two: the mandatory assessment

“Complete your mandatory service assessment.” Decline, and the state stops paying for your care.

Design-fiction letter on a kitchen table, beside glasses, a pill organiser and an old family photo: “Your mandatory over-70 service assessment”, from the Joint Service Assessment Unit and the British Army, dated 17 May 2041. Mr Colin Ward, 76, is eligible with adaptations as a front-line combat drone operator. Declining means no state-funded residential care and a reduced State Pension.

Your mandatory over-70 service assessment.

Colin Ward, 76: eligible with adaptations. If he declines, he loses state-funded care and part of his State Pension.

Find
CHT-06
Object
Assessment letter
Date
17 May 2041
Design-fiction recruitment poster: “Take charge of your legacy. Give them the years you’ve had.” A squad of older soldiers in camouflage, one in a rugged wheelchair and one in leg exoskeletons, crosses a muddy battlefield with robot pack dogs under a golden sky.

Take charge of your legacy.

“Give them the years you’ve had.” A squad of over-70s crosses the mud with robot pack dogs.

Find
CHT-08
Object
Recruitment poster
Date
Not yet
Design-fiction recruitment poster: “Your next home shouldn’t cost your family this one.” An elderly couple stand at the gate of their semi-detached house. Enlist for front-line service: full State Pension and state-funded residential care.

Your next home shouldn’t cost your family this one.

Enlist, and the state pays for your care. The house stays in the family.

Find
CHT-09
Object
Recruitment poster
Date
Not yet
Design-fiction recruitment poster: “Be all you can be.” An old man in a woolly hat sits alone on a damp bench outside a council block in winter. “Your friends in arms are waiting for you.” Over-70s. Front-line service. Complete your mandatory service assessment.

Be all you can be.

A veteran alone on a bench in winter. “Your friends in arms are waiting for you.”

Find
CHT-07
Object
Recruitment poster
Date
Not yet
Design-fiction triptych of recruitment posters: “Curtain twitchers”, “Stubborn old gits” and “Coffin dodgers” above portraits of three older soldiers in berets, each captioned “Your army needs you”, and your vigilance, your determination, your survival instinct.

Your army needs you.

Curtain twitchers, stubborn old gits and coffin dodgers, recast as vigilance, determination and a survival instinct.

Find
CHT-10
Object
Recruitment triptych
Date
Not yet

Design fiction from Care Home Troopers, made with AI image tools and directed by Antony Butts. Not real campaigns or government documents.

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