Headscratchers / 3%

• Taking the smartest 3% of society and preventing them from having kids would gradually breed intelligence out of the population.
  • Note, however, that intelligence isn't the only aspect that The Process tests for. The Interview test examines the motivation of the people, and likely shuns several intelligent people who are motivated for multiple reasons that don't align with the desires of the Process. And if they pass the Interview and are smart enough to pass the Cube, they could fail the Investigation test due to an oversight. After all, Rafael was the one who caught Fernando's errors despite Fernando being the smarter or more-intelligent of the two. On top of this, there's also the Cave which weeds people out by confronting them with their inner demons. Remember, Fernando and Rafael both struggled to make it through while Joana alone was able to resist the gas enough to save her teammates. It's easy to believe that people roughly as intelligent as Fernando or as intuitive as Rafael failed in their own Caves, leaving intelligent people on the Inland. And then there's the Family/Bribe test and the Individual Test. Those clearly weed out intelligent people who might not want to abandon their family or who are faced with something they might not be able to complete or resist. In the end, this means intelligent and capable people are turned away at each step, leaving them to produce children for the next generation to send to the Offshore.
  • And then there are the confident candidates who leave offspring in the Inland before going through the Process: those include Júlia, Marcela, Marco... Though this arguably just further complicates the issue.
• If Marco's parents already made it to the offshore when they were 20, and the Offshore mandates sterilization, how was Marco born? Would that mean that Marco was born when his parents were relatively young?
  • We find out that his family has a tradition of conceiving/having children just before they leave for the process. In season 2 we meet his mom Marcela who says that she had him just before she made it to the Offshore.
• What's going on in the rest of the world? Is the process and the Inland/Offshore thing unique to Brazil or did it somehow happen elsewhere?