NationStates Jolt Archive

It was first noticed within the FSEZ's, the Foreign Special Economic Zones. People stopped showing up for work. It took awhile, but finally, the foreign workers inside the FSEZ's noticed that all the people who had stopped showing up to work had been devotely religious.

It only took a little investigating to find that these people had dissappeared completely, and dissappearing in Red Tide meant only one thing: You are either dead, going to die, or heading for the Gulag.

The statistics in Red Tide showed that out of its approximately 7.8 billion people, a staggering 210 million were devotely religious. Behind the scenes, it didnt take long for the Gulag's to begin to fill up. And then the mass graves began.

Despite its Totalitarian tendencies, the Red Tidean Government had mostly refrained from using mass graves, preferring individual, unmarked graves. But it quickly became apparent that it was going to be a bigger then usual purge... and hence, the graves.

Women, children, old people, whole families were destroyed as people were lined up infront of massive graves and shot.

Of course, the news got out... five months into the purge, a video began circulating NS YouTube. Nobody knows how it got there, but it showed a entire community of Amish, who were quite rare in Red Tide, but still existed, lined up infront of a ditch. What was obviously a Red Tidean Commissar barked at them, they layed down, parallel to the trench. And then, the Commissar alongside each of the Amish folks, shooting each one in the head.

One child tried to get up and run, but was gunned down by a burst of SMG fire from off camera. The Commissar continued until every single Amish person alongside the ditch was dead. Then they were rolled into the grave and a bunch of Zheks from the Gulag began to fill-up the ditch.

The video was gone pretty quickly, but not before it had been copied and posted all over the net.

The news was world-wide very fast.

State Department Communication
The Holy Reich of The Peoples Freedom has received news of the horrible atrocities being committed against the religious in the nation of Red Tide. As your ally, we strongly urge that Red Tide immediately cease and desist the persecution of the religious. We would be willing to set up and administer refugee camps in the nation of Red Tide until such a time that the persecution has ended or the religious find new homes in TPF and other countries. We suggest that these camps be jointly protected by TPF and Red Tide troops, and we promise that aside from the small defense force only charity organizations will be inside the camps providing food and support to the populace. We think this is th best solution for all.

The Youtube video had circulated the globe fast, and despite Waverunner - an Amazonian aerospace company that had requested, and confirmed, a space in the TSRT ecomonic zones - noticing significant numbers of worker absences, the video stirred fastest up to the government. The people of Amazonia were simply amused by the actions - it was entertaining, after all, to watch mass executions, as Dominion public television had aired mid-day showings of the Pudite exeuctions. The government, however, was feeling opportunistic, as usual.

To government sources in the Dominion, it wasn't clear whether Red Tide authorities were killing random people or a specified group from the somewhat grainy video, so some points of a deal would have to be left vague. The Dominion communications department was high-caliber, however, and was quickly to work communicating the latest whims from the Imperial Council.

SIC:

Amazonian Communications

While you dispose of such...undesirables...through wasteful garbage disposal, the Dominion is looking for potential individuals to incorporate into the armed forces through indoctrination. Such undesirables are found in nearly every nation, and through ample training and...other methods, can become productive members of the military. Therefore, the Dominion offers to take such undesirables off your hand for you, and even offers up a small price per individual open for bargaining.

~Amazonian Dominion Imperial Offices

It was inside a quite open, but bullet-proof compound compared to corporate buildings. A massive lot of many hundreds of square meters which house the massive 5-floors tall office, the 3-floors tall manufacturing plant and a quite beautiful garden of black roses and other exotic plants between both. It was inside there that something big was to happen.

There was a large, six hundreds square meters lobby, with glass decorated ceilings, teal colored concrete walls, and filled with several actual iron columns in honor of their same-name organizations, with its floor of black and white marbles covered by a red carpet. It was completely empty asides from several security cameras which watched it, nobody could be seen at all besides the people depicted in several paintings and artistic works of Picasso, with a reproduction of Guernica drawing all the attentions, located far ahead over the wall of a reception area.

On the now vacant reception room, seven lined black leather seats ahead and behind of a large grey marble 70 centimeters tall and 7 meters wide balcony. A message board on the wall between two elevators just ahead of the balcony and at the left of a copper placard with the name "Tienda del Coche Cooperative Confederation", the board had a large notice which was highlighted:

TODAY: Emergency Meeting(8:00AM - 8:00PM)

We apologize for all Tienda del Coche customers and interested parties in Red Tide, but we have a very important internal issue to decide upon and cannot attend your needs today. If you have any urgency, please use the terminal access to the left of this balcony. Our activities shall return to normal tomorrow. Thank you for your comprehension.

It was in this environment that the cameras kept their images, while in a room 2 floor aboves filled with several screens above a pine wood rack, with an steel door labeled with a red "SECURITY" tag, as a white uniform-wearing dark haired and blue eyed bearded and overweight middle aged man watched their output sat upon a fiber foamed chair, while his headphones played several classical musics in sequence coming from an iPod he owned. He kept his attention to the screen showing the input to the camera pointed at the glass entrance doors to the building, his boredom biting him like a wasp as he yawned.

Then suddenly someone blitzed through the doors, not someone but about 20 people stormed through the lengthy lobby like a scared stampede running from a predator. Adrenalin flowed through the security officer as he watched the desperate people running, there were both young and old and even five children, they seemed to be calling for help, and as he paid more attention to the scene with his light blue eyes he noticed one of them was carrying a Holy Bible.

"Oh shit!", he immediately thought as he looked then at the notebook stationed at a smaller table nearby the rack with the screens. It seems like the issue they were discussing in their emergency meeting came straight to them as a mass of victims of Red Tide government's oppression was asking for help... their help. The security soon adjusted the webcam of his notebook to record the feed from those cameras and took a microphone:

"Comrades, you must see this!", he said as the image of the desperate refugees inside the lobby trying to open the locked elevators was broadcasted through all projectors of each their teleconference meeting rooms.

This was the greatest dilemma Tienda del Coche ever faced. This time it wasn't anymore a discussion on how to become a contractor for the MilNet, on how to design a tank which fitted the unusual tactical needs of the MilNet or on what design objectives should be sought for their next automobile. This time what they had to decide was between risking being persecuted by Red Tide government and an opportunity of increasing their profits drastically for 20 innocent human beings victims of oppression or not risking themselves and letting those foreigners die for the sake of profit and to ensure they wouldn't be killed by the KGB or whatever secret police existed there.

The massive, long and rectangular meeting room was entirely covered in walls, ceiling and floor by ebony wood. Even its spacious seats and huge round table surrounding them where all 100 members that could fit were reunited to discuss regarding the "Emergency Meeting" was of a dark wooden coloring. At each corner wall there were a total of 20 different projections being shown from several projection devices hooked to computers which were spread out below the table. It had a quite retro feel and its wall were filled with 20s and 30s style pencil art and cartoons. From one of the hundred of wooden seats, a man almost immediately got up. He was young and idealist, trimmed brown hair and equally brown eyes, shaved and quite slim. He did not make a speech as expected to defend his position, instead what he was to say was something more deep and emotional, he sang as if reciting it from the depths of the History behind his nation ideals and from the depths of his own heart, kept to themselves as the sound isolated room allowed, while his action revealed a high caiber pistol being held in his pants right pocket, others also carried handguns with them all time, and thus a chorus was to begin:

"Negras tormentas agitan los aires
nubes oscuras nos impiden ver
Aunque nos espere el dolor y la muerte
contra el enemigo nos llama el deber.

El bien más preciado
es la libertad
hay que defenderla
con fe y con valor.

Alza la bandera revolucionaria
que llevará al pueblo a la emancipación
En pie el pueblo obrero a la batalla
hay que derrocar a la reacción

¡A las Barricadas!
¡A las Barricadas!
por el triunfo
de la Confederación."

The song went deep through their memories and emotions. Many of the members of Tienda del Coche belonged to the first and second generations where many lost their parents and grandparents, respectively, during the dark days when the phantom of oppression loomed against their relatives. Soon, one by one the men and women reunited in that room started to join a chorus which sang the same anthem, the revolutionary anthem of the Anarchists of the Spanish Civil War and the unofficial anthem of Third Spanish States...

Economics, business, statistics and charts... nothing mattered anymore as soon other people in the other meeting rooms started to sing in a massive demonstration of the strength of an ideal over ambition. The security officer saw no other thing to do but to unlock the electronic doors to the stairways and the elevators as even those refugees heard the baffled chorus. "Thank God!", one of them probably said, although the security officer could not read lips. Those poor people managed to avoid being caught so far so hopefully there was nobody behind them. They slowly went through stairs and elevators and once all were inside, those doors and elevators were again locked, while the "Emergency Meeting" message was again the only thing that remained.

The young man who started the song then stopped to sing, but others did not, until he asked them to as he had now something to say, his tone was decisive and certain, as now there was no turning back of what they were to do:

"Comrades!", he shouted. "Tienda del Coche is not a business with an ideological background. The reason we were born, the reason this organization exists. What sparkled its creation is not the will of becoming rich, not the will of innovation and enterpreneurship. As we are not an embodiment of the free market through our ideology. We are an embodiment of our ideology through the free market. And behind all those charts, all those yearly sales and expenditures graphs there is much more. Behind them lies the foundation of a new social order, based on equality, democracy and freedom. And no matter official statements or goals, our true reason to exist is to promote the ideals of anarchism through economic means. Profit is not our end. Designing those among the best cars in the international market is not our true mission. Our true mission is to push forth the struggle of anarchism! Our wealth must be employed to help not only ourselves, but all those who seek freedom and shelter from fascism and totalitarianism! We are legitimate representatives of the ideal and it's our duty to protect these people!", he said with a voice which idealism was incomparable, and then, after a few seconds applauds progressively started through all the window-less, sound-proofed and Intel-protected meeting rooms. They always tended to exert their freedom of speech to the fullest extent during meetings and the risk of letting something slip to someone who shouldn't listen it was considered when they built the facility.

The security officer putted his submachinegun on his back as he headed to greet the refugees. One by one they passed through him as he tried to do his best to be friendly to them, as they did not know his language and neither he knew theirs. He seemed like a protector to them, someone which heart seemed as big as his belly. Soon other security officers went to keep a watch through the cameras and they started to barricade the building floors above its lobby with steel tables, chairs and everything they could improvise, including junk and cardboard boxes. Although maybe nothing would come for them.

And the lobby remained as empty and deserted as before, while the cameras kept a deep watch of all that could happen at the front doors, and the members of the cooperative now were busy with other issues, attempting to play the role of armchair generals and to prepare for the worst.

(OOC: This is exactly the difference between a capitalist corporation and a Third Spanish States mutualist cooperative. And no, I'm not looking for a Matrix-esque gunfight in a lobby full of pillars, in fact it would be preferable that no conflict happened at all)