For a few years, The Thicket rebel force didn’t do anything. They were
there, and defying the Republic, but they weren’t attacking the city, or
rescuing women, or even protesting. They were hiding, and they were
training. This was getting on the nerves of some of the members, though.
They wanted to make real change in society, and better the lives of everyone
in it, even their enemies. Well, that was the problem. There was little they
could do, because the easiest course of action was to rise up and fight
against the establishment violently. They didn’t really have any rights.
They weren’t allowed to walk down the street alone, so they certainly
weren’t going to be able to march on the Capitol. After half a century under
this form of government, things were pretty well defined, good or bad. A lot
of people had been alive during the Interstitial Chaos, and the Mage
Protectorate, but the majority of Aljabaran citizens these days had only
ever known the Republic. So getting the public on their side was not going
to be easy. No one in the Thicket wanted to go to war, and no one wanted to
make a big public demonstration. They wanted their voices heard, but maybe
kind of in secret. Maybe they didn’t even want anyone to know that they were
involved in whatever it was they ended up doing. What could that be, though?
Statues. The government had erected statues, glorifying the worst criminals
and leaders Durus had ever seen. They couldn’t even argue that the statues
themselves were an important part of history. The one they built last year
made Smith look like Superman. There were so many statues of that man that
you would think he invented air. But no, Keanu ‘Ōpūnui was the one who did
that, but he only had one statue, and it wasn’t even in the city; it was at
his gravesite.
Earth had enjoyed a long history of protestors tearing down statues, so that
sounded like the most reasonable next step for the Thicket. It was something
they could do in secret, under cover of darkness, while most people were
asleep. If they procured the right tools, and had enough womanpower, they
could get it done quickly, and get out before anyone saw them. If anything
went wrong, they could bolt and scatter as needed. They started with the
latest Smith statue, then worked their way down the line, but they stopped
at four. By then, the government had figured out the pattern, so in order to
avoid being caught, they started randomizing their vandalism, not always
going after statues, but other buildings. But they were only able to destroy
a handful of things before it became impractical. The government was tired
of trying to guess which statue or building would come next, so they just
positioned guards at every single one of them. Aljabara wasn’t exactly the
largest city in the galaxy; just the largest on the planet. It wasn’t that
hard to protect all of them simultaneously. It wasn’t a piece of cake
either, though. Seeing this, the Thicket switched gears, and developed their
own version of the underground railroad. With personnel stretched thin, the
Republicans were unable to cover all of their bases. They were so obsessed
with only letting men perform the important jobs, and only promoting the
best of the best for the most important jobs, they ended up with too little
manpower. Of course they realized their problem, and corrected it by filling
up their ranks. They obviously still didn’t allow women, but they didn’t
worry too much about skill or experience. It was too late, though. The
escape network was by then entrenched, and primed to rescue a lot more lives
for the next two decades.
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