Electric Rebellion

A civil unrest that emerged in the Crucible as the City of Light was converting to mass electrical grids in late Gaia-18. Many of the apartments and workhouses in the Crucible were converted by their owners to electricity, taking advantage of state-sponsored financial insentives. Many property owners were required by law to supply certain amounts of firewood, coal, or natural gas to the occupants of their buildings, and privatized electrical grids were a means of passing energy bills onto the individual renters or workers.
Unsurprisingly, many of these renters and workers could not afford to pay the new electricity bills. Many of those unfortunates chose to start stealing electricity from nearby buildings. "Cord gaunts" would sneak out under cover of night, connecting long, spliced-together power cords from generators in nearby energy suppliers, production factories (this was long before the emergence of Coal Island) and even small-scale shoppes, burying the cords underground to avoid detection. His Majesty's Royal Houndsmen (precursors to the modern whitehounds) allegedly used their dogs to smell out these cords, but this is likely mere legend, as dogs are not adept at smelling wiring. Regardless, they did send out troops of "Digger Dogs," low-ranking officers charged with finding and destroying the illicit cords, while "Big Hounds" had the pleasure of disciplining the alleged infractors, typically without trial.
There are countless stories of old women and wailing babies freezing to death in the chill, but it was the death of Gammer Grayce, a local purveyor of illegal wares, that is said to have precipitated escalation, wherein residents began attacking energy sources, chasing out the owners and managers of the power generators, shoppes, and factories. Many of these routes resulted in the deaths of the owners in orgiastic displays of vengeance, since the actual landlords or bosses that had deprived them of heat neither lived nor worked in the Crucible itself - though it must be said that many underlords, property managers, and of course Royal Houndsmen suffered and died.
The third phase of the Rebellion, then, was state reprisal, when the Shield Bearers (precursors to the modern hoplites) besieged all of the Crucible with explosive munitions, "Iron veil" blockades, and mounted executors that were given blank license to kill anyone found out on the streets in the Crucible (and, in practice, adjacent Southside neighborhoods). The Rebellion limped on for nearly another year, with much of the residential rebels dying, until the state eventually declared victory, making it a capital offense for an individual to steal electricity. This law stayed in place until the birth of Gaia-19.
Under Gaia-19, of course, the electricity market has been greatly increased via both a massively expanded market and state supplements that help keep prices relatively affordable. The unrest and agony of the Electric Rebellion is long forgotten, though countless scars remain in the impoverished buildings of the Crucible, virtually none of which have been rebuilt (save the newer apartment buildings that replaced the factories, as production was moved to Coal Island).

Conflict Type

Rebellion