[Lauchenoiria]

A logistical blessing in disguise. That was how Alvarez now preferred to think about the WA's drug resolution. Certainly at first it had seemed a curse. An issue that would place tension on her already-struggling coalition, threatening to pull apart the government given the Liberals’ and Greens’ variant positions.

That was, of course, before they realised that the number of prisoners the WA wanted them to release was an almost exact match for the number of people about to be tried and likely convicted for membership of a prohibited terrorist organisation known as Warriors of Our Earth. It was a fantastic piece of providence that would prevent both the need for a budget increase to prisons and a potential overcrowding scandal.

Clay Moss had also finally been arrested. He continued to post things online encouraging violence, and even cheered on the Canal Zone attack. The risk that he would do something bad began to outweigh the PR disaster that could result from imprisoning someone tortured by Xiomerans. Naturally, of course, he had already gained the attention of enough media that his arrest was met with shock and outrage from his little fan club.

Irene Ramos had cooperated with the police investigation into both the Xiomerans and WOE. She and Savannah Martinez ended up working together to take control of, prevent the destruction of, and hand the police the entirety of, WOE's database. This, of course, led several WOE members to throw things though Savannah's windows, paint SNITCH on her door, and give her number to every spam caller in Hesperida. They forgave Irene somewhat: she had, after all, been tortured.

Amada Toledano was thoroughly questioned after her rescue from the Novellan embassy in Tlalacuetztla, but in a far less violent way than what would have happened had she been handed over to Xiomera. In the end, she was deeply thankful for the rescue - even when it transpired that her attempts to join Warriors meant that she was arrested and sent to prison. Lauchenoirian prisons had a reputation for terrible food; but compared with Xiomeran prisons, they were holiday camps.

Her brother and the other three, once they were returned to Lauchenoiria, were also thoroughly questioned. The other two, the masochist (Toni Oquendo) and the overconfident one (Demetrio Iglesias), ended up joining the numbers of WOE members crowding Lauchenoiria’s prisons. The brother, Damian, in the end was found not guilty by the judge presiding over his trial. He had shown no personal desire to join Warriors. He was, however, urged to be careful by a figure in sunglasses from LDSS: they were not entirely convinced Xiomera would not attempt to take vengeance into their own hands.

All the legitimately non-violent members of Watchdogs accepted the organisation's statement that they were winding down operations. Those who refused to accept it, and continued to call themselves members of WOE, immediately came under suspicion for being Warriors. This led to yet more arrests, including of legitimately non-violent activists. Their lawyers would not, however, be good enough. Association with WOE now ended in one of two ways: cooperate with the police, or end up in prison. Perhaps Lauchenoiria had more in common with Kerlile than it preferred to admit.

All told, at the end of the day, Lauchenoiria moved forwards and charged 4,116 individuals with membership of a proscribed terrorist organisation. It would likely take several months to get through all the trials; but every single one of those people was remanded in custody. There were protests about this, but they grew smaller and smaller as the police began to question protesters about why they supported WOE, and if they too were involved in a terrorist group.

A fear settled over the environmentalist community, even as Alvarez’s government genuinely did not intend to create it. In Usera, everyone in their large activist community knew that the office block that was destroyed had housed WOE’s offices. They did not, however, know who had destroyed it. The rumours varied from Xiomera (true), to Lauchenoirian intelligence, to (naturally) Auroras. It still made them nervous.

The amount of protests per day, on all issues, dropped from an average of nine across the country at the start of March, to a mere 0.7 on average. This was not due to any deliberate policy of the government nor the police; but the activists’ own paranoia. What does it take to save democracy? Many across Lauchenoiria asked themselves that question in 2018, and many more were asking themselves that now, not least in the halls of government. And where is the line? Security versus freedom. The question was older than the concept of a nation-state. It seemed unlikely to be resolved now.