You want to protect us? Stop starting wars, stop bombing people in other countries

[kenny blankenship]

69. Can't have an empire without a police state

Pushing the frontiers out to envelope the globe has the effect of erasing borders for The Homeland. For the glory of Rome, Rome sets out to conquer the rest of Italy, then to bring home the spoils of Europe, Asia and Africa. Before you can say Septimius Severus though, you have all kinds of people from the periphery of the Empire floating around the Homeland and even the Capital! It becomes impossible to feel sure about who is a Roman anymore, and who is a loyal subject, and who is plotting treason? Some are even rising within the military to powerful positions in the government itself. A silent transformation takes place, wherein the people of the Homeland are regarded not just as the most vulnerable spot, as they were before, to be guarded, but also as the likely source of greatest danger to the state. You just can't trust them if they aren't part of the Security Apparatus with a background check and a clearance! Society divides between the watched -who have no right to know, but of whom everything is known- and the all-powerful watchers. It is necessary, they argue, for the watchers to have every imaginable power to keep those they watch over safe. But who will watch the watchers?