What is the A or B in The Walking Dead?

In The Walking Dead‘s spinoff series, "A" and "B" refer to a classification system used by the elite Civic Republic Military (CRM) to categorize individuals for medical experiments, observations, and general utilization. Assets labeled A are higher priority test subjects, while Bs tend to be more expendable resources.

This article will analyze exactly how the CRM‘s morally questionable A/B sorting approach works across The Walking Dead universe – revealing what it says about this influential organization and its mysterious goals. We‘ll also speculate on what sinister developments could still be in store. There may be spoilers ahead!

Introducing the CRM: Power Players of the Apocalypse

First debuting via helicopter in Walking Dead limited series Walking Dead: World Beyond, the CRM stands for Civic Republic Military – essentially the special forces of a little-seen networked civilization of interconnected survivor communities.

With vast numbers, firepower, technological access, and part-quantum-physics capabilities to boot, they are major power players even compared to formidable groups like the Commonwealth.

But in using their might to mount ambiguous rescue missions and sweep potential ‘assets‘ away mid-zombie attack, suspicion and mystery shrouds their activities. Just what are they selecting people for…and why?

The Meaning of A vs B: Test Subjects and Expendable Assets

That‘s where the A and B classification system comes in. As one character reveals, speaking of someone just airlifted to safety by the stealthy CRM:

"A or B? She was a B."

Here, B refers to more ‘expendable‘ human assets – helper resources that can further the CRM‘s needs, but are lower down the priority scale. They still serve a purpose.

A test subjects, on the other hand, are the true prize. These lucky rescued survivors get first-class treatment as high value individuals earmarked experiments, observations, and other unknown ‘contributions to the cause’.

It follows sinister logic: not all lives hold equal weight when rebuilding civilization.

Understanding CRM Motivations: Experiments for a New World Order

So what ‘cause‘ exactly needs assets like an A-grade Rick Grimes or a background B?

Here‘s where we move from the factual to the presumptive. Various clues suggest the CRM makes difficult moral trade-offs – deeming some as expendable supplies – all to advance secret, likely experimental research projects.

Their apocalypse-surviving civilization may be attempting to pioneer radical medical developments, unprecedented energy sources, cutting-edge technology integrations, and maybe even hold the cure to the undead plague.

But this mega-scale progress, in a fragile world, almost certainly requires ethically dubious ‘sacrifices for the greater good‘. If certain citizens must be utilized as lab rats or observations, perhaps the ends justify the means from the CRM‘s utilitarian perspective.

The below table summarizes key motives and goals the CRM could have, based on their known resources, capabilities, and asset valuation system:

The above goals aren‘t mutually exclusive either. Picture an advanced civilization fine-tuning everything from medical science, energy, and high technology to social engineering – with citizens always subject to cold reappraisal of their asset value should research needs change.

Rick Grimes – An A-Grade Test Subject

As players in a brutal game of asset optimization, even protagonists aren‘t safe. Let‘s review the most striking example of a high-value A-grade test subject from the shows:

Rick Grimes himself.

Having cut off contact with CRM helicopters once before, Rick still winds up being airlifted – wounded but special – from a bridge explosion into CRM hands at the end of Walking Dead Season 9.

His proven immunity, resourcefulness as a leader, and uncanny survival ability likely flag him as an premium candidate for medical observation or some other experimentation.

Per the A-scale rating, Investing further in Rick also boosts the CRM‘s overall futures. Imagine what innovations could stem from unpacking more of his physiology or psychology? He may be mankind‘s best bet at building resistance tools against the undead plague from the cellular level up.

C-Grade Workers – The Bottom of the CRM Hierarchy

If Ricks are the valued As and expendable helpers called Bs have some use, there also appears to be a bottom tier C classification the CRM applies to more mundane workers or ‘drains’.

In episode recaps, some CRM soldiers reference groups going out to retrieve Cs. These likely refer to background operational staff doing menial or high-risk jobs upon whom the CRM leadership has stamped a cold shoulder should they need replacement.

So the asset hierarchy has 3+ tiers:

A – High value test subjects/VIPs

B – Expendable but usable resources e.g. manual helpers

C – Largely replaceable workers

The most disposable, yes – but still arguably luckier than being abandoned completely.

Speculation on Missing Character Heath – An Unlucky B?

The callousness of abandoning groups to fend for themselves once deemed replaceable assets raises some uneasy questions. What became of those airlifted to murky fates by the CRM and its fleet of stealth helicopters?

We get one clue about a minor character called Heath, whose disappearance behind CRM lines provokes the revealing B grade dialogue above. But that‘s all.

Perhaps Heath perished in some risky supply run deemed below A grade personnel. Or faced servitude Offred-style to an CRM elite as a B-grade expendable until discarded. The “greater good” imperative could drive all manner of dicey fates for B or even C tiers across the CRM‘s vast dominion.

Even an A like Rick may face ethical dilemmas down the line – perhaps asked to sacrifice other survivors in exchange for protection or medical help saving loved ones.

Human Lives on a Utilitarian Scale

Indeed, the A-B-C classification system ties directly into moral philosophy debates on treating human life instrumentally. According to so-called utilitarian principles, actions should aim to maximize broader societal happiness through priorities some lives over others for a ‘greater good’.

The CRM seems to follow this thinking by advancing only select survivor test cases (A) under social contracts to further innovation, while ditching ‘unfit’ classes (C) and using more borderline groups (B) as handy portions of the machine.

But there are several criticisms here:

• Individual rights and dignity get violated
• Slippery slopes where lower classes suffer a disproportionate burden
• Established social hierarchies perpetuate themselves by devaluing outsider groups as replaceable classes

That last point matters because it may form part of the CRM‘s goal – crafting an engineered, selectively culled civilization of only peak specimens and those useful to asset A agendas.

Hidden Social Engineering: Envisioning the CRM Civilization

What might such an engineered civilization actually look like behind the show‘s curtain? Clues point to:

• Hyper-Stratified Social Classes – Workers, soldiers, and an elite technocratic directorate and administrators sitting atop regional settlements. Citizens graded and optimized accordingly.

• Part High-Tech Futurism, Part Social Credit Dystopia – Sci-fi robotics and energy tech contrasting with conformist communal living and constant hierarchies assessed via apps and metrics. Surveillance too – for safety and research of course!

• However, material comfort and security still far beyond other surviving groups – So long as you have asset value or critical skills, upper CRM tiers could offer educational, housing and medical resources unimaginable even for show groups like Alexandria. But also likely with constant CRM oversight and mandated research participation.

In this almost utilitarian paradise vision, personal liberties are bartered away so that select classes can push vital tech and health innovation frontiers forward rapidly. You exist primarily to improve and perpetuate the optimized system.

It‘s easy to imagine even CRM soldiers and junior staffers having status constantly assessed via artificially intelligent algorithms – just like the walker-dodging survivors they pick up. Only perhaps with better behavorial nudges and habit interventions pushing them to conform and create value!

What Dark Developments Could Still Emerge?

Whether the above dystopia speculation holds or not, mystery still shrouds later fates met by asset A characters like Rick Grimes out there under sometimes brutal CRM assessment somewhere.

Might valued incubation subjects face death if research hits dead ends? Could the CRM cyber-enhance unwilling candidates in monstrous machine integrations? The lack of ethical boundaries fosters uneasy guesses.

And if the franchise decides to revisit the civilization properly in later spin-offs, all kinds of new sinister techs and social practices could still be uncovered…

Summing Up the Troubling A vs B vs C Hierarchy

The Walking Dead‘s CRM group and its ruthless but ambiguous asset classification system make for fascinating later world-building. On one hand, culling and tightly regulating society by cold metrics could help technologically outstrip the collapsed old world through forced innovations.

But utilitarian-style calculus privileging only certain test subjects and skill sets inevitably instrumentalizes human life – an uneasy moral turn, despite potential community security and health advances being made elsewhere for select groups.

So while being an A Subject under CRM guardianship offers the greatest upgrade odds over the walker chaos outside, it likely still contains hidden ethical pitfalls, and rigid social controls.

Let‘s hope for the redemption or escape somehow of long-lost Rick Grimes on his asset A journey!

And going forward in the franchise, keep a lookout for more revelations – both exciting and unsettling – around what tradeoffs this enigmatic civilization is making in order to advance their power and vision.

What did you think of the breakdown? Are there other disturbing possibilities around the CRM you can envision? Let me know your thoughts and theories on asset grades in the comments!