A university research team organises a weekend simulation of a Mars colony with 30 undergraduate participants. Upon arrival, they are randomly assigned to two modules based on a coin flip: Module Alpha ('The Officers') and Module Beta ('The Colonists'). Module Alpha are given flight jackets, access to the high-tech command suite, and the authority to distribute daily food rations. Module Beta are assigned to a basic sleeping tent and tasked with repetitive agricultural soil sorting. During a briefing, the supervisor praises Module Alpha for their 'natural strategic vision' and notes that Module Beta's slow soil processing shows 'a lack of intellectual stamina typical of low-ranking personnel.' Several Alpha members laughed and nodded, and later that day, they began referring to Beta members as 'soil-shovellers'. During a maintenance task, when a Beta member struggled to calibrate a moisture sensor, an Alpha member remarked: "Typical Beta. They can't handle basic technical equipment."