NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLIThe PrinceStandard year 1513 PLANET EARTH The room was large enough to accommodate a hundred people if necessary. Harsh lights threw short shadows from above, the walls were bulletproof, and a large drain marked the exact center of the concrete floor. The televised executions took place every Monday at exactly 3:00 P.M. And although Chico Martinez didn’t want to watch, he always had, even though the sight of fifty or sixty people being murdered made him ill. It wasn’t unusual to see women holding their babies, children playing on the floor, or old people strapped into their hover chairs. Some stone-faced, some crying, some praying. All guilty of what? Making a critical remark to a government informer? Spray-painting an antigovernment slogan onto a wall? Or spitting on an image of the empress? Yes. All such offenses were punishable by death. The images were intended to frighten the population into doing whatever Empress Ophelia wanted them to do—and, for the most part, the strategy had been successful.
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