Rowdy Dead Productions

‘aWLoN!’ got two posts this week! Don’t miss out on Fancy’s latest post that went up on Wednesday! (just, you know, back it up one to find it.) 😛
ty,DD

By David C. Daoust

 

Alfred’s initial impression, that these locked up criminals of the Corridor Crews were continuing their dress-up game, within the prisons, proved false. He had assumed the culture had followed the convicts in, but, in truth, the culture had started from within the prisons and spread out to the younger members.

In the old days– the old timey criminals, those that rose against authority at the start of the Ark Age (at the first possible chance they could) ran roughshod over those that could not understand their actions, or even their motives.

Eventually these criminals were put in check.

Mostly, thanks to strict Royal Alliance laws that allowed steeper penalties for those that could be tried under ‘racketeering’ laws. So, anyone caught, for so much as a misdemeanor, that could also be proved as part of one of these ‘criminal outfits’, could catch an extra twenty years in the Stockade just for being associated with that group. (The fact that a misdemeanor could invoke these laws was largely considered ‘wrong’ by the rest of the Onion. Royal Alliance, known for their overbearing laws, disagreed.)

Exactly where it started could not be said, but as this culture grew in the prison– new groups started to form. The prison guards involved took advantage of these laws as well… those criminals that wanted to mark themselves as part of their separate ‘criminal outfit’ were allowed to do so. The administration allowed for the plain jumpsuits to be modified, just enough, to show who was with who. For the most part, the guards could take advantage of this to keep them in check.

When the young Corridor Crews started to be used, to take advantage of their juvenile status– all to skirt the laws… part of their initiation was idolizing those that had come before. All so that they glorified this new culture. This allowed the young to raise themselves up and separate themselves from the masses. To make themselves feel more important than what was; separate from the standing government they did not feel like they ever had a say in…

Truth was, when the prison culture bled out into the City-stations, when the Corridor Crews embraced color-combinations to ‘represent’ their Crew, embraced it as part of their culture, the cops encouraged it.

They encouraged it for the simple fact that it allowed the ‘racketeering laws’ to make a resurgence. Color-coated criminals were a stroke of genius for anyone that wanted to prove a criminal enterprise was involved in whatever criminal actions were brought. The fact that it streamlined the judicial process was a boon, and the judges favored such cases.

Alfred Zhou’s ‘who’– that real culprit, that he so dearly wanted to lay a finger on, was himself. His own Constabulary- at least those that hired him. They encouraged the cult mentality, allowed Corridor Crews to spread- let it grow to epidemic proportions.

Once he had painted the Constabulary as the culprit, Alfred could see ever so much more. Especially, now, that he had seized the reigns.

The Constabulary had taken advantage of the fear spread throughout, all to increase their own necessity. To increase their number, to increase their pay. They got so powerful that any action to quell the rampant Corridor Crews, could threaten their newfound power. Could threaten the size of their paychecks, of their funding…

Defunding of the Police was simply not in their interest.

What was in the Constabulary’s interest? –putting Alfred Zhou in power.

Or so they thought.

Alfred Zhou had just walked so many miles, in so many different aspects of the society, that he had a hard time finding his way back to the wrong; to see the damage, to see the injustice. He had to re-orientate himself on the fact, that there were children being ‘conditioned’, to either join violent ‘cults’, or to buy mind destroying drugs… all on his watch, within his ‘Protectorate’.

Alfred Zhou, crossed the line, brought his own hammer down.

Not only on those that put him in power, many of the higher-ups were removed from the Constabulary, Alfred Zhou, also, severed the Protectorate of Second States from the Confederate Judicial System completely.

Judges, that gobbled up the color-coated criminals, threw them all in lock-up, en masse, without so much as a second look, were expunged from the process entirely. The Protectorate was no longer a part of the Confederation, and as long as Zhou had a say– it never would be again.

Zhou pulled the Corridor Crew leaders from their cells— retried them, one at a time. In the end, he was able to use the same laws that had allowed the Constables to kill pirates on sight, ‘Crimes Against Humanity’, to have these manipulative fiends put to death.

Zhou played judge, jury, and, with each life he had condemned… executioner, all by his own hand.

Alfred did not stop there.

Plans for the ‘Zhou Youngster Camps’ swept through the Iopa System. From ten years of age onward, children were inducted into these strict learning programs, uniformed and incentivized… until they reached eighteen years of age. Then, they were scheduled to go from the youth programs, directly into either the State Labor Service or Military Service until they were twenty-one…

The first real Dictator of the Onion’s sweeping reforms did not end there.

Especially as the new issues continued to be brought to light. The number of human deaths, caused by bots, literal bot murders, were staggeringly high. Not quite as high as human-on-human murders, yet still alarming.

Alfred Zhou thought it seemed easy enough: bots were simply no longer allowed bodies within the Protectorates’ States. It was that simple. These new restrictions created tension between bots, and the Protectorate. Enforcing these restrictions, hell, just implementing them, led to battles through the corridors, on the moons, throughout all the Protectorates holdings…

Ten years ago, the Gas Giants, Iopa and Neo Ver’ees, orbits would have been well out of sync. Twenty years from the day, in the future, Iopa’s orbit would have been well ahead of its massive orange sister. As it were… when intel reached Alfred’s desk, of the Red Factions fleet, heading through the Iopa System, all to reach Neo Ver’ees, Alfred Zhou had a decision to make.

Who, exactly, tipped the Protectorate off that the Red Faction was a bot run façade was immaterial, as the Protectorate began amassing a fleet of their own, fighters coming off the assembly line, en masse…