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Chapter 585  Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys

The people watching Aron’s address on the holographic screens above the LEAs were stunned into silence. The tailgate party atmosphere instantly cooled down and became glacial, as everyone watching was stunned into silence.

The silence stretched for minutes in the audience’s collective stare state, then a baby began fussing. The sound ignited the crowd, who collectively chose violence. They picked up sticks, rocks, pipes... one enterprising person even kicked over a stall and dismantled it through sheer rage and armed himself with a rather effective makeshift club.

Then the chaos began.

Chairs, sticks, pipes, rocks, and all kinds of other detritus rained down on the LEA, wielded by an angry mob. Thankfully, Aron had expected exactly that kind of reaction, so the LEAs merely remained standing and allowed themselves to be destroyed. The mob’s rage was soon vented and they collectively fell to the ground, panting, and looked at the pile of scraps that had once been a piece of advanced imperial technology.

After admiring the pile of lightly smoking scrap for a while and catching their breath, they took to the streets and headed toward the cube on the outskirts of the city. But they had also already learned their lesson from the last few “protests” and restrained themselves, intent on only damaging the cube itself.

Adelaide, in the south of pre-empire Australia.

In contrast to the actions of most noncitizens around the world, the Australians maintained their party atmosphere. If anything, the partying grew even more intense, with keg after keg making their way to the impromptu block parties from nearby liquor stores and grocery stores.

The general mood was rather high, and all told, Australian remnants had a much better relationship with their “neighborhood impies” than most. Thus, when the mobs moved out, their goal was to drag their imperial friends out of their homes to join in the celebration. It wouldn’t be the first time in the history of Australia that they had been forcibly emigrated, so by and large, they saw it as no big deal. n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Besides, they had grown up on a continent that would qualify as a death world forbidden area among most of the civilizations in the galaxy. And even though they didn’t know that—nobody on Earth had had any contact with any of those civilizations yet, after all—they still knew the wildlife that already existed on and around Australia, so they figured their new home wouldn’t be any worse.

At least they wouldn’t have to worry about being dragged into any more pointless wars that were fought over matters that didn’t involve them, anyway. So on that front, their destination had at least one gigantic plus over their home on Earth.

Soon, the partying spread until practically the entire continent was inebriated to one degree or another. It only died down after it became apparent that the people had drunk the entire continent dry.

But as a completely unintended consequence, most of the imperial citizens in Australia had been talked into, or in some cases dared into, joining the Terran Empire’s voluntary colonization initiative. If their friends talked them into joining them, they would request a spot on that specific transport to join them. And if they had been dared into joining the diaspora, they would also join the person that dared them, if only to show that they hadn’t chickened out on their end of the bargain.

Australia’s reaction to the news could thus be considered fairly unique, when compared to the violence spreading around the globe.

......

Imperial citizens, on the other hand, had a wide variety of reactions.

Though the prevailing majority of imperial citizens were rather dispassionate in their reaction, not having a dog in that particular race as it were, there were still a variety of responses by minority groups around the empire. Some were enraged by the highhandedness of the emperor, and were determined to protest the plan. Others were incited to sign up for the colonization initiative, either out of anger or excitement. And still more breathed a sigh of relief, as they had only recently joined the empire in order to survive the Carrington event of a few days before and still maintained their faith in their previous remnant governments.

Then there were those who were angry about the unilateral decision, but not angry enough to join protests. Instead, they became keyboard warriors and expressed their outrage on Pangea and other social media platforms, along with sending their thoughts, feelings, and prayers to those who were “the most affected by such a horrendous action on the emperor’s part”.

But for the silent majority, they just shook their heads and moved on with their lives. They didn’t care about the news at all, and found the reactions of others to be rather silly. Hadn’t they learned their lesson in any one of the recent protests? And as far as the social justice warriors, the majority felt that they simply didn’t understand how the world worked.

Besides, the empire had already built up a proven track record of success in their endeavors, so most people just wished the soon-to-emigrate people well.

Thus, by number, the reaction of the empire could be said to fall along the lines of “not my circus, not my monkeys”.

But of course, wherever there was one group with an opinion, there would always be another group that held the exact opposite opinion. So those people took to the streets and social media platforms to stage hastily conceived counterprotests, some of which grew violent. Medical response shuttles were a common sight in the sky for a few hours after Aron’s address ended, but thanks to them, the casualties were mostly limited in scope and severity.

The imperial police agency had been informed of the expected mess ahead of the address, so they were already in position and waiting for the rioters to “storm” the cubes, or other imperial brick-and-mortar offices. The directive had long come down to let them vent their anger on the LEAs, then any who were still stubborn enough to actually reach imperial property were to be arrested and processed along with the rest who were to be shipped off to colonies across the galaxy. Citizenship was to not be a factor in anything; if they were angry enough to march, they would be shipped off whether they were a citizen or not.

Thus, a mass arrest began. No matter which side of the issue they were supporting, getting violent would not be tolerated and they would be arrested all the same.