A frightening Scenario: Aftermath of a Successful Genocide

Yeah. I'm crazy. Nevertheless here we go.

We've seen plenty of stories where one group tries to wipe out another, often due to crimes committed against them. They usually fail because the heroes stop them before they go too far.

Now, I've been thinking for a long time... what if they weren't stopped?

For this to work, I think the one doing the Genociding would have to be somewhat justified in their anger(like the group they are trying to destroy had previously crossed the Moral Event Horizon), because justified anger is always the most dangerous anger. It's a hell of a lot harder to calm someone down when they every right to be angry at what's been done with them.

So they succeed. They destroy the ones who wronged them right down to the last woman and child. What happens next?

What does it mean for their future? What will they say about themselves in the History books? What kind of legacy have they left for their children? I mean, you've essentially taught them that when someone angers you, you should straight up murder them. That's gonna fuck up...well a lot of things.

Now why the hell would I want to explore something like this?

....damn. Even I don't know why. It's just something that's been in my head for years, and I guess I want to hear what others have to say about it.

So discuss.

Keep in mind that you don't have to go for objectively justified—if there can be such a thing for wiping out a people—since people can be irrational about their emotions or feel them based on incorrect facts. Particularly if it's people of a state instead of an individual, thus involving propaganda and such, although it's not clear which you're after.

And just because it's something horrifying doesn't mean history must be obsessed with that legacy. Winners write the history books and everything. It could be framed as a war that they won, or an extermination of evil (like those fantasy plots where the enemy is a race of orcs/demons/vampires/whatever), or just swept under the rug so that twenty years later children aren't really learning about it as anything more than a footnote unless they do their research or hear from their parents and grandparents. Particularly if there isn't the rest of the world forcing them to remember it, there might be no reason to write it into history textbooks as anything but exactly how they want it to be remembered. It can also be remembered as something shameful (but it's all in the past, done by less advanced people, and restitution is conveniently both unnecessary and impossible), and if they learn it in an academic setting, most kids will forget about it the week after their last exams anyway. The lesson doesn't have to be that you should murder those who wrong you, any more than what people learn today. And, well, you might consider that idea more or less frightening, but people moving on with their lives is the most obvious result.

More immediately, I think people would be more concerned about how it directly affected them. Maybe families were on rations because of the "war effort" and the children carry that memory closer to their hearts than the deaths of however many people. Maybe someone's business thrived because they offered the closest non-rationed substitute to a commodity people wanted. Maybe the soldiers too felt they were justified in their actions and were in it for glory or because they really thought it was the right thing to do. Maybe someone had to cut ties with their targeted friend out of fear and then never heard from said friend again. Maybe people involved with mass execution facilities didn't personally see much beyond the button they had to press, and it was just a job and they did it and went home to their loving families and had the money to put food on their tables. Maybe technological advances happened more quickly and that has a greater effect on society than the genocide itself.

You'd have to worldbuild and give more details on the scenario—politics (worldwide and national), attitudes of the people involved, attitudes of the people not directly involved, culture, the reason for the genocide in the first place, how intrusive it is on people's daily lives, et cetera—if you're looking for anything more directly helpful to any story you want to write or whatever, though.

Considering it's been historically done (and the difficulty of perfectly conducting it), you could probably examine this.

What he said. Its been done.

There is the term "Biblical". The Old Testament wasn't shy about killing every last man, woman, child (and even the livestock) deemed an Enemy of the Choosen People.

Basically, the Aftermath is the long term is nothing. Short term, maybe some parties. More space and bodies.

edited 3rd Feb '13 12:59:09 PM by Natasel

Bear in mind the propaganda during the act itself - the real reason for the genocide may well be "their emmissary looked at me funny" but you can guarantee that that's not what's going to be told to the troops or the public back home.

They get the "those bastards eat babies and want to enslave us to turn our people into food-production factories for their unnatural tastes" spiel.

And since the genocide is successful, then that story is the official history and goes down in all the books about how we saved ourselves from the baby-eating demons from over there by exterminating every last man, woman, child and the horses they rode in on.

Initially: Exultation, happiness, relief that the threat to our lives is gone, satisfaction, justification for the actions.

Later: Words on paper that school-kids read.

edited 4th Feb '13 12:57:22 AM by Wolf1066

Hello all! Lovely thread, if I may add my 20 Won:

• Genocide Backfire: In Babylon Five's episode "Secrets of the Soul" the Hyach murdered the Hyach-do. Both races interbred, but after the genocide the Hyach suffered some biological issue that only the Hyach-do's DNA could cure. Killing them off was a bad idea.

• No Delays for the Wicked means that sending "those people" elsewhere went pretty quickly, however Fascist, but Inefficient / Low Culture, High Tech will bite the regime in the ass. Those people might be the educated classes, the artists or just those willing to make the place work. The mooks can herd them to the Maximum Fun Chamber but can they fix a broken car? Science and medicine grind to a halt because they murdered the healers.

• Full-Circle Revolution because some mooks become The Starscream: after bumping off the target of the genocide, some get antsy. All that hate has nowhere to go. Sure the food plan might fill the bellies of the people but their spirits are empty (Picard, 1992)

• Better have gotten all of those people, when The Dog Bites Back there will be hell to pay. Cue You Killed My Father, Prepare to Die and other Revenge Tropes.

• All that evidence has to go somewhere. Orders get written down, transportation has to be arranged. People see stuff. The neighbors grab a mook and quickly tell him Just Following Orders won't save him, so he dishes the dirt.

edited 4th Feb '13 7:21:50 AM by TairaMai