Once upon a time I lived in a kingdom far far away. In this nation, the society was divided into 4 social classes; including the king and royals, the law enforcement (Nobility), the merchants (Store Owners) and the peasants. Each had a different hierarchy status, living conditions and wages.
The rules and laws were imposed by the royals, and everyone had to obey the law. My job was to enforce the law (put people in jail) and collect taxes, as a member of the nobility/ law enforcement group. I got paid 5 $ a day. The merchant class was in charge of the shop; they set all the prices, but with the profits they made, they were heavily taxed. The merchants only made $2 a day. To admit, we had life pretty good compared to the peasants at the bottom of the hierarchy; they picked up trash, wrote long paragraphs about their despair, worked, couldn’t move around the nation, or speak to other groups without permission, and only got paid 1 dollar per day.
Anyways… our Nation has recently been put under stress as rumours, and gatherings have come up because people are angry and want to revolt against a law or even the king himself. Here were 4 heck of a busy days, which ultimately lead to the fall of Nation X. Keep reading as my entries will go into more details about these 4 eventful days in the life of a law enforcer in nation X.
Day 1:
Today, at sunrise, we received the newspaper ; it had all the usual “ The King is Great” and “Long live the King” messages, as well as a bit about how the royals/ group D and the Nobility/ group C were the most educated and therefore were the only ones who could vote. It seems as though some members of the merchants ( group B) and peasants (group A ) think that they should deserve to be just as educated and participate in the vote. But that’s not how it works, and they would have to do more than ask for change. We received our pay for the day and got ready for our tasks.
As the day went about, my group made some arrests, I took a shift guarding the jail (so that prisoner’s don’t walk free) and visited the store. I was surprised to see that the prices were so high for the two highest class divisions, who made the highest wages. I couldn’t afford any food with my 5$, that was unacceptable. The king and royals had a higher wage then us, and could afford plenty from the store and the Nobility just watched them drinking pop, enviously.
When came evening, it was time to collect taxes. The assigned task collector of my group went about collecting money from each group. The peasants obeyed the law and payed their taxes, however members of the merchant group were reluctant. We had to emprision some, but it seems as though they were still hiding some for themselves.
Day 2:
Same as yesterday, we read the newspaper and got distributed our money for the day at dawn. Some new laws were imposed by the king: like the peasants could now roam freely through the nation, people could write notes and pass them along, peasants get payed 2$ a day, and taxes would go up 1$!! The royals (highest class) came and spoke to us; only to tell us we needed to keep a closer guard on prisoner’s walking free from jail. I noticed that it seemed the merchants has loads of money, due to their sales at the shop. But yet again when we went about to collect taxes, they wouldn’t. They wrote that they’d lower our food prices if we stoped taxing them; but we need to collect taxes from people and peasants were already on the bridge of being bankrupt already due to their wages of 2 $ per day. People weren’t happy about the recent increase in taxes, and the law enforcers gathered for a meeting on the relevant topic. We secretly had a change of perspective; if we couldn’t beat them, we could join them and overthrow the leaders… so we made a truce with the merchants. We agreed that they could pay less taxes, in we could in-turn receive part of their earnings, so we could join forces in overthrowing the government and the king. When came time that most of the nation was sound asleep, we heard a rumour that a Revolution was beginning, and we would would take part in it.
Day 3:
People started questioning the trustworthiness of members of their own class! And when I visited the store, supply and resources were scarce, not nearly enough to feed the people, it was only feeding more anger. We must join forces with the merchants and peasants, and take action as soon as possible. We started writing a petition for our cause.
Day 4:
Chaos! Disease! Weapons!! Things were getting pretty hectic and people were restless. The king was apparently trying to cure people with the new disease spreading through Nation X, but there was so many, and limited medicine. A few peasants from group A died. DEAD LIKE, LONG GONE! And I had spoken to those peasants before! I realized that as the the peasants got sick, no one was there to farm and get food to the stores, pick up trash and work for us. The disease made our society fall apart. What would become of our society?
A call to action was held for groups A, B, and C, we signed an agreement to work together and revolt against the king and government. The government had weapons now to protect themselves ; one of the weapons was for sale. If we could get the merchants to buy us a weapon, maybe we could assassinate the king. We heard whispering about a Nation Y threatening us? The king says it’s all under control. But things aren’t.
Day 5:
(Journal of a ghost)
If things weren’t crazy enough yesterday, today was worse. The fall of a kingdom in fact. The death of me, in fact. A special bulletin of news was published the morning of.
Members of the royalty fled, leaving one governor behind, who took things to a vote and court meeting about each group’s new wages and new rights. I attented the nation meeting, expecting some havoc, and new laws, but I had no idea that…
I didn’t even see it coming… Nation Y’s armies were making an appearance, quickly. And they were armed!!!! Aaahhhh! Help! Runnnn for your life!! Nation Y appeared when Nation X was not prepared for battle. We were so lost in our internal nation problems that we almost forgot about other external Nations, coming to war with us. This turned into a messy fight, with members of Nation X trying to kill a governor, and with Nation Y, resulting in a huge massacre. I got sliced with and ax through my back, and unfortunately that was the end of me and Nation X. Nation Y successfully beat our nation and any un-killed members of Nation X were to join Nation Y.
See you in my next (PLP learner) life…I’m dead now.
Hey! Well, that was quite a fun post to write. Here’s a little backround information, that might make you understand the story much more. To initiate our Humanities project about Revolutions, we did a simulation where the class was divided into four groups. We went about our days, and experienced some of the factors that could lead to a Revolution. A Revolution means an overthrow of one system for a new system, in this case an overthrow of a government. Although our simulation only lasted 5 days, because of the division of social classes, and un-equal rights and wealth within the nation, people constantly want change, and are sometimes willing to revolt for it, even if it means violence and deaths.
What an eventful way to kick off our project about Revolutions!