Their Empire Style: A Brief Account of the Ares State

I know a woman named patrica Jameson. She advocated that teenagers be assigned a partner, to avoid the psychological pressure lack of release could provide.
 

Pax

Banned
I know a woman named patrica Jameson. She advocated that teenagers be assigned a partner, to avoid the psychological pressure lack of release could provide.

I don't know if I want to know what kind of "release" that is...

It's shocking how similar the Ares world is to our own at times. Appalling, frankly.
 

Pax

Banned
"What's this Pat?"

"Nothing, just some old movies."

The soldier pulled an old chair out from behind and sat down next to his friend, "what movie is it?"

"You wouldn't know, just some really old ones."

The soldier scuffed, "bah, I love the old ones! What's it called?"

He picked up the case, "'Emily's Fifth Birthday, September 1983.'"

"Let me see?" He nodded, handing him the case. "Yeah, you're right. I never heard of it. So, what's going on so far?"

"They're smiling, having a party," his friend replied, staring emptily into the screen.

His friend stared too - who could those people be? "What kind of a party?"

"Dunno."

His friend smiled, "I wonder who those people are."

"Were."

"Pardon?"

He kept staring at the screen, "just think that everyone in that film - they must have lived here. There," he pointed to a molded, dilapidated old couch, "that's where this little girl could have been sitting that morning. Or up there," he pointed to some shattered stairs leading into the forest canopy, "that's where the mother could have been making her last family meal."

His friend just smiled, "hell of a thought there Pat, hell of a thought," he took out a candy bar, "want a bite?"

But he just waved it off, "I found these while patrolling the line a couple of weeks ago. It took me a while to scour up a player, but I did it," he bent his head down into his lap, "you can't even imagine what it would have been like back then, could you?"

His friend looked up at the screen, "no, I reckon not."

"Look at them, smile, laugh - see there? They're going out to eat at a restaurant."

His friend broke out laughing, "call it 'The Last Supper', it'll stick longer."

He shook his head, "there's dozens of these things in the case, dozens I tell you. I've looked at all of them, following their life. It's like a story."

"Yeah, and?"

"This is the last one. Dozens, and then right at September, 1983 they stop. Almost as if time itself had. Look around you, don't you get that feeling?"

His friend did as told, "not really."

"Just imagine, waking up one morning , your mom cooking breakfast downstairs, your dad getting in the car to go to work - you never even said goodbye."

His friend patted his shoulder, "maybe you ought to take it easy?"

"The fireball didn't get here until a little while later. They were alive when it happened. Alive one second, then...blinded by the flash, deafened by the blast, the world collapsing around you. Could you imagine? Sitting on that couch, in your mothers' arms, crying, not being able to do anything but pray the flames were only some bad dream? That it was all some bad dream?"

Now he shook his head.

"Could you imagine hope and cry so much, only for it to get worse? Only for your skin start to glow white hot, your embrace burning you alive, your world around you vanishing into flames, with you along with it? Could you imagine being the mother and trying to shield poor Emily from it all, only to watch her melt away in your eyes as you went blind from the light? You rlast sight being your daughter die right before you, nothing you can do."

"Jesus man, no, you know, I think you need to stop watching this. For all you know they were Papists," he got up and walked over to the camera, "here, turn this off man."

The movie started to fade. As the screen returned to white Pat would catch the last glimpses of that which he was so intently gazing. There they were, Emily and her mother, smiling, laughing, hugging each other tightly. Now look, there they were, pointing at the camera, smiling, laughing, living. "Poetic," was all Pat said as that loving image, that sweet familial vestige, faded back into white. Instead of the restaurant now came the moss covered ruins he hung the sheet on.

His friend took out his rifle, thrusting his finger down and giving a full magazine into the camera, "this will do you some good, pal." He kicked the shattered remains for extra measure.
 

Pax

Banned
That sight he described was depressing. Your birthday and nuclear war started....

Yeah...I've been listening to some of the older country music so I guess that sort of did it.

But that wasn't the only purpose of this story. It helps illustrate something about the path the Ares were taking.
 

Pax

Banned
POLITICAL ABUSE OF PSYCHIATRY IN ARES AMERICA

Of all the medical fields, psychiatry was perhaps the most open to abuse. Even before the Great War those with psychiatric problems were allowed to be held against their will, being forced likewise to receive "treatment" to make them fit for society. It could be used as a cop out for establishing guilt or innocence in the legal realm and have people locked away for, quite possibly, the rest of their lives. It is no surprise then that it quickly became used as another tool in tyrannical regimes. Indeed, the imprisonment of political dissidents in mental hospitals or psychiatric wards was hardly a new concept by the time the Ares regime had risen to power in 2008, let alone by the time it had consolidated itself by the 2020s. Arguably it would be the Soviets who had perfected this sad art, with confidential reports from the 1970s showing had rampant the practice of locking away dissidents was. But whereas the Soviets mainly focused around political dissidents (and, in the state atheism of Soviet Communism, this did involve religious dissidents as well) the Ares would take it a step further to imprison those who did not conform to their vision of society.

Under Lither's tenure, the abuse of psychiatry appears to have been mostly at a minimum. At this stage the Ares regime was still getting acclimated to the political world, and had arguably more pressing concerns to deal with, chiefly the Third World War. By Rosenbloom's presidency, however, that would change. A multi-year study of 200 different hospitals scattered across the US by the Department of Health spanning from 2020 to 2027 found that patient numbers in every single case had increased by more than 50%. Of the 200 hospitals studied, 190 were considered to be "overcrowded" or "beyond capacity" (the difference between the two never being made totally clear), and of these the overcrowding situation in over 120 was considered "severe." This sort of ballooning in hospital population does not happen overnight, and looking at the trends from 2009 to 2028 it is clear that there was a marked uptick in hospital population in the 2021-2028 period. This was seemingly backed up again by the Health Department, which listed the number of patients in psychiatric hospitals in 2010 at over 25, 000 nationwide to over 100, 000 in 2020, and nearly 250, 000 by 2028.

Digging deeper into the records from Ares times it would become clear just why this number had grown so rapidly as it did. A Bureau of Education initiative from 2021 showed clearly what role the schools and universities had in expanding the psychiatric imprisonment of over a quarter million people. Under their initiative, started at the behest of Rosenbloom himself, school and university counselors were to make periodic "examinations" of their student populations and record any "social abnormalities" in them. These "abnormalities" could include anything from continued absence from community events, lack of membership in the Rosenbloom Pioneers or other Ares youth organizations, lack of "social progress" (i.e. a difficulty in connecting with fellow peers, or, in other words, if a child did not have many friends it was off to an asylum!), and, of course, a new edict in 2026 that sought to punish "counterrevolutionary" thoughts and behavior by mandating counselors to report instances of students who raised "frequent" or "troublesome" questions to their teachers or professors. A separate edict in 2026 also made it possible to imprison those who displayed "anti-social behavior" of not conforming to the Ares ideals of promiscuity. These measures were "justified" by research pouring out of the Ares quacks who (of course!) concurred with Rosenbloom and the SD that "liberation of sexual gratification" had marked benefits on a person's ability to interact in a "respectable" manner with their peers as well as the added benefit of destroying "archaic mores" that still lingered from Papist times.

In the Ares world, the hospitals weren't merely a place to house troublesome people so much as a way to "destroy them and then build them back up again with Citizen Rosenbloom as their crutch," as one former patient put it in late 2028. "Treatment" and "therapy" sessions at the psychiatric hospitals often ran disturbingly similar to ones at the assimilation camps, with hours long instructions around "proper" social behavior, special "bonding initiatives" between groups of patients, and mass, forcible consumption of mood altering drugs. But perhaps the worst of the Ares tactics was the use of "sexual release therapy," especially among younger populations.

Horrifyingly, however, these Ares concepts didn't materialize out of thin air, and did have roots in pre-Great War movements. One of the most popular, and influential, professionals of the pre-Great War era for the Ares was John Money. Money was a New Zealand sexologist, studying psychology at Victoria University of Wellington and earning his PhD at Harvard in 1952. Although his research was focused around the issues of sex, gender, and other such things, his opines on certain matters and some of the experiments he ran made him a popular figure nonetheless amongst nearly all Ares era psychologists, psychiatrists, and others. His most infamous "experiment" would be a 1960s case involving a boy named David (at the time Bruce) Reimer. The "experiment" was too much to discuss in all but brief, but the essentials were that, after a botched circumcision and the urging of doctors, Reimer's parents had him changed to a girl in his infancy.

The boys' parents had taken him to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore to seek out Money, a budding persona in the field of sex and gender studies who had become famous for his idea of "gender neutrality" - that gender is learned socially and not innate to a persons' being. Bruce had a twin brother, and a case where one child could be raised as a "girl" and another as a boy was the perfect opportunity for Money. Money then urged the parents to seek a sex re-assignment surgery for Bruce, which they did, and the child was renamed "Brenda" afterwards.

From here the story of Money and the Reimer children would take a grisly turn, and they may have never come to light had inquisitive Brazilian scientists not dug deeper in the greater Latin American initiative to combat the Ares prevision of the sciences. Despite their being young children, Money forced the twins to perform sexual acts, including "thrusting movements," with David on the bottom, as well as instances where David had to get on his hands and knees while his brother came to his rear. On multiple occasions the twins were forced by Money to remove their clothes and conduct "genital inspections," on at least one instance Money even taking photographs of the children.

Words could not describe how appalling Money's actions were, and his justification that "childhood 'sexual rehearsal play'" was necessary for "healthy adult gender identity" was just as quack and repulsive. But considering Money's stance on other issues it is perhaps no surprise that he believed such perverse nonsense. Money would go on to make statements that the public "did not understand" the difference between "affectional" and "sadistic" pedophilia, and even advocated that "affectional" pedophilia was about genuine love (stemming from a "surplus" of love in one's childhood) and wasn't objectionable, but that rather heterosexuality was an example of a societal ideological concept!

Upon hearing this it is no surprise why the Ares quacks were quick to devour Money's works. On the one hand they offered the belief that gender identification was learned during childhood and could thus be molded to whatever the Ares wished them to be, supporting the Ares concepts around social habilitation of counterrevolutionary elements of society, and on the other hand offered "scientific proof" that "age inconsequential relations" were in reality a "Papist construct" and "perfectly normal and healthy to develop." Out of Money's theories, the Ares quacks began to argue that it was in fact Papist "moral normativity" that had so stigmatized "misunderstood eroticisms" and that, in deed, the natural inclination of humankind was towards promiscuity, "age inconsequential relations," and other such perversions. Even Money's experiments were eaten up by the Ares who heralded them as "undeniable evidence," as Rosenbloom would personally add in 2028, that their social engineering initiatives were legitimate and could be successful. As a result, Money's work became the cornerstone of the social engineering efforts in the Ares psychiatric hospitals .

It was hoped by the Ares that these hospitals would provide a cheap way to rehabilitate "anti-social" persons into "proper" lifestyles, but it was not to be. Overcrowded and already facing a critical shortage in trained medical professionals, the populations of the psychiatric hospitals were left to rot in appalling conditions. Open defecation was a common sight in many hospitals as nurses and other staff were overwhelmed dealing with the influx of patients that pounded at their doors. One visitor from the English State noted how the reception room at Forest Haven Asylum near Washington DC was "filled to the brim with the putrid stench of stale urine. In place the stench was so thick as to be almost visible, the stains on the tiles and walls only adding to he revolting scene." Too many patients and too little staff also meant a breakdown in control over the hospital population, with fights between patients being a "daily occurrence" as one former nurse from Kings Park Psychiatric Center in New York noted. "Twice a day," another staffer, this time a doctor from Minnesota, said, "I am forced to leave my desk to break up some altercation between the patients, usually over one of the few chairs in the day room, the TV remote, or some other such trifle." To help maintain order hospital staff reactions were usually a combination of indifference and sheer tyranny. Locking "acute" patients (those deemed as "salvageable" by hospital staff) in large, often empty, day rooms was common practice, even encouraged by some Health Department officials to help fight the overcrowding problem. "Chronics", or those who could not be cured, were often subjects of terrible abuses, sometimes being physically tied to their beds all day with metal chains while nurses and doctors routinely drugged and force fed them.

Patient neglect and other abuse was rampant, however. An undercover report into the state of Ares psychiatric hospitals (started after rumors of rampant abuse had become too worrisome even for the rather indifferent Australian and New Zealand governments) from Anzac officials had found this to be the case "in every hospital we studied, with nearly every staff member, nearly every day." "Scarce an hour," one agent would later write, "would go by without our noticing some outrageous act." One common practice was to force feed patients while they were chained flat against the bed, a practice that had led to numerous issues of asphyxiation pneumonia and other respiratory problems. Instances of staff hitting, punching, and shoving patients were also "so numerous as to render any collection of cases pointless" and in some cases staff would even hit patients with objects, "usually whatever was within arms reach."

But aside from this there were also many other terrible abuses. Sexual abuse, particularly during the "release sessions," was extremely frequent, with both male and female staff equally complicit in their crimes against the often innocent patients. "Children were not safe from such outrages," the Anzacs would report, "and indeed the young ones were often the most vulnerable." Several other methods of punishment were also employed, none being anything short of pure sadism. Children who did not comply with the staff's often arbitrary rules would often be "physically excluded from group activities, denied the 'privilege' of outdoor exercise, meals, and often subjected to group mocking sessions where their peers were forced by staff to come up with as many, and as hurtful, insults as possible to hurl at them, the justification being that this would 'foster the spirit of combativeness and struggle within them.'" Here can be seen the ways in which Ares ideological concepts had interwoven into what should be politically neutral territory, but the worst of it was that the Ares abuse had so many negative consequences. Depression was rampant among large swaths of the patient population, further straining hospital staff resources, and patient suicide became a particular worry, enough so that both the NBI and Health Department launched a mass, nationwide investigation into reports of it over the course of 2020-2025. One case in West Virginia was particularly brutal. Rumors out of the Trans-Allegheny Psychiatric Center were so disturbing that none other than the Public Safety Service, the dreaded domestic wing of the SD, was called in to investigate the matter. They found that the staff at the hospital were "without exception, wholly incapable of handling their normal daily functions, to say nothing of the concern of depressed or suicidal patients." Reports of staff holding patients hostage in their rooms, denying them water, food, or psychiatric help (ironically enough) were "sadly" verified by PSS agents. In one instance a girl named Amanda Roberts, who had been locked up by her school peers in the asylum after a failed stint at a Social Rehabilitation Hostel, was found to have been the victim of "hellish abuse," with even nurses "lining up" to "have their way with her" (Amanda would later be kidnapped from the hospital by sympathetic PSS agents, and was later adopted by one of them. From what has been uncovered her life afterwards was markedly gentler and happier). Trans-Allegheny was soon shut down on orders of the SD later in 2026, but by then it was too late. Nearly 1, 000 patients had passed away within it's horrid walls. None of the staff or doctors were ever bothered again about their actions.

Sometimes this abuse took a more personal level. Patients who showed a particular aversion to something, like a dirty room, loud noises, bright lights, or other such things were actually targeted by staff for abuse, their being subjected "for hours on some occasions" as the Anzacs would note to their aversions. It was one thing to hold exposure therapy, but in the Ares hospitals the Anzacs noted how "many staff took a deep personal satisfaction out of their work, even seen smiling and chuckling amongst one another while they tormented their patients, listening to their screams." Patients sent to a hospital for social rehabilitation were likewise targeted for rampant discrimination and abuse, often being locked in tiny rooms so small so as to make it impossible to move any inch of their body for hours upon hours so as to "educate them," as one "doctor" would write, "about the importance of the community and communal living."

No form of punishment was out of the reach of the sadistic staff, however. In many cases medicine was purposefully withheld from "troublesome patients" and therapy sessions became times for the staff to vent their anger at patients. In some hospitals, groups of particularly bright "acutes" were organized as a sort of secret informant force for the staff, reporting instances of infractions to the hospital staff for rewards like extra TV time, increased rations, and the like. During group sessions, patients were encouraged to rat out each others' infractions and vent their frustrations against each other, more out of the hospitals' interest to prevent mass revolt than any genuine psychiatric assistance.

As a matter of fact, many of the nurses and doctors as psychiatric hospitals weren't even qualified to be such. An NBI investigation into Forest Haven asylum found that the head doctor at the hospital had been working there on a medical license that had "been revoked for malpractice almost a decade ago." Underqualification was the most common problem, as the Ares takeover of higher education centers had dramatically destroyed educational standards and as the few trained doctors that did come out went to more lucrative fields instead. About one fifth of all doctors at psychiatric centers a Health Department report would uncover in 2027 were "not trained in the matters of psychiatry," most often being a variety of pediatricians, researchers, and even a group of surgeons, who were quickly pulled out of Menlo Park State and forced into a regular hospital. Nurses at the hospitals were "overworked, overstressed, and underqualified" as the Health Department would state. In their mad rush to get as many workers as possible, psychiatric hospitals often hired anyone that they could, something that had led to "many of the most questionable members of society becoming top nurses at hospitals." One particularly noteworthy scandal occurred at the Hyde Park facility in Pennsylvania, where it was found that the head nurse, as well as 15 of the 25 others, had all been "ladies of the evening who had gotten together to take up a more 'respectable' profession" as the local paper put it. This lack of qualification, and the questionable caliber of people hired by the hospitals in the first place, invariably led to the rampant abuse and other scandals that occurred at the hospitals, often with tragic results.

Not just were depression and suicide common problems, but deaths from other forms of abuse and maltreatment were also frequent as well. At Forest Haven some 2, 500 patients had died between 2015 and 2025, 300 in the course of April-June 2024 alone. This was a common trend for many hospitals, and to help combat it many resorted to horrid measures. At Forest Haven the number of dead easily overwhelmed the hospital's limited burial capacity, forcing staff to dump the bodies of patients in unmarked, shallow, mass graves in the nearby woods. Even these were rushed and poorly done, and over the years of erosion many had become uncovered, much to the horror of visitors (who were often prevented from visiting their relatives) and patients alike. Diseases were rampant in many facilities, particularly such infections as TB, the flu, HIV/AIDS and venereal diseases.

The Ares abuse of psychiatric hospitals and the psychiatric process to imprison troublesome elements of American society was perhaps one of the most disgraceful aspects of the whole regime. It had poisoned the scientific environment of the country, and led to the terrible suffering of hundreds of thousands of persons. But worse than even this abuse was the reaction, or rather lack thereof, to it from the public. Many simply did not care for what happened to the "vegetables." Things were not helped by how hospitals often prevented family and friends of patients from visiting, often out of their sadistic punishment and power schemes. For years the most defenseless members of American society were faced with horrid abuse, trauma, and neglect, only to get worse (for recovery rates among hospital populations were practically nonexistent) and sucked down into the deep abyss.
 
All too common. As a survivor of physical rehab designed to promote complience, my experience was mild compared to many. Power drunk experts don’t see the humanity of subjects.
 
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