Iirc, in the book, the point was that it was hazardous service - there was a real risk of loss of life or limb, which they underlined at every opportunity (remember the recruiter’s obviously prosthetic hand? He had one that blended in much better!) Otherwise, like dick_fineman said, customized to your abilities and you’re provided for. The idea was to filter out the self-serving sort.

But yeah, the problem becomes who gets to assign which duty - it becomes very easy to assign some people more hazardous positions depending on how “correct” their thinking is. Or more subtle things, like cultural fit, or education level.

I read it as “1.” Which underlines the point, I think

Given that nobody even spotted the knife until they had already arrested him and removed him from the scene… I’m pretty sure the knife wasn’t there until after the arrest.

As I understand it, there was one timeline in the nineties where he came in a “birthing pod”, just so he’d be born in the US. That’s been changed again since; aside from that weirdness, he’s always been an immigrant.

Which makes sense - wasn’t his concept conceived by two Jewish immigrants who wanted to give their spin on what an actual Übermensch would be like, as opposed to what Nazi Germany was putting out? Pretty sure that’s how he got his name…