Lous Brenom

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A dictator of the Ramn Confederation who systematically exterminated over 2 billion of his own citizens during a 3-year ethnic cleansing. He was a very hands-on leader, and activated the gas chambers at various death camps himself on many occasions. He is known to have killed over 1000 victims.

Lous lived from A.Y. 2491 to A.Y. 2547, with the cleansings during the 3 years preceding his death.

Rise to Power

Lous lived during a tumultuous time in the Confederation, when dozens of nation-states were (after failures) forming a 1-world government. Lous was elected democratically but seized absolute power some years later by replacing high-ranking officials with his own trusted lackeys. After changing his title from Prime Minister to Emperor, he waited ten years to consolidate his power.

Then the killings began.

Genocide

Ramn has a population of around 9 billion, of which nearly 4 billion belonged to a racial subgroup. Though this group were enslaved thousands of years earlier, there was little racial strife in modern Ramn. Most Ramnins ignored their differences of skin color, except in a few small regions. Lous hailed from one of these regions, and his anger was so strong that he sought to wipe his enemy from the face of Ramn.

For five years he built up an intense program of racial segregation and subjugation: barring his hated people from many jobs and regions, displacing them, and finally forcing them into ghettos and labor camps, where their slave labor built the later infrastructure of death.

Poison and disease were effective; but the most efficient means of death were the gas chambers, whereof Lous personally designed and oversaw the construction of many. His most famous method involved loading prisoners onto ore cars in trains (filling the large buckets to capacity), themselves driven into a tunnel sealed at both ends, where the locomotives were uncoupled and the entire train-load of people gassed. The train could then be driven to a mass grave where the bodies were simply dropped from the ore cars.

Personal Habits

Lous never took a wife but was well known for his torture of prostitutes. This was kept strictly out of the news; but his inner circle often had his consorts put to death to ensure they would not talk.

Not long after the cleansing began, Lous initated a daily ritual that would cement his place in history as the worst man ever. Every morning, his servants would bring one of the people from the death trains in and have the victim wait by his bed. Initially, selection was random; but Lous quickly developed a fondness for young girls, instructing his servants to find "The most innocent, frightened young thing you can", herself brought to his chambers and forced to wait beside his bed. Lous would then awaken, and begin his day by strangling the prisoner to death.

This went on for three years.

How many more he personally killed is unknown; but the accounts estimate three or four per day, depending on his schedule. He was often quoted saying "It just puts me in a good mood, to see one of them die".

Downfall

Though officially a Gudersnipe Protectorate and member of the Alliance, the Ramn Confederation was located in a fairly remote Autonomous Region of Joint Space. With no off-world trade and little communication, it took three years before word of the genocide on Ramn reached the Foundation.

Gudersnipe's response included 100 battle groups, including two Mercury Ships and a Mothership, in line with the Foundation's favorite motto: "There's no kill like overkill!".

The fleet division took hard burn to reach the Ramn System as quickly as possible, and systematically annihilated military forces and liberated death camps. The attack took only five days to secure the planet. Lous and most of his senior staff were captured and held accountable for their crimes.

Crimes

In all, Lous's cleansing claimed the lives of over 2 billion people (roughly 1.8 million per day over a three-year period). The military force that carried out most of the killings was largely annihilated during the invasion (anyone in a Ramn uniform was shot on sight with no chance to surrender, and only the upper echelons were intentionally taken alive, though without a genuine trial).

Lous specifically chose brutal, sadistic men like himself to run his government. All supported Lous, only because he encouraged them to carry out grievous crimes. In addition to the genocide, most were guilty of sexual slavery and barbarism not seen since the Marcon Alliance, collapsed nearly 3,000 years before.

These wicked men forever changed the Ramn Confederation, and ultimately destroyed it.

Aftermath

Most of the government officials were held until investigation could confirm their guilt. They were then executed, usually by a single bullet to the head.

Those allowed in court did not recieve anything resembling a fair trial. The highly publicized proceedings were all for show, with both defense and prosecution following a scripted and well-rehearsed plan, meant to vilify the worst offenders and forever mark them the enemy of the Ramn Confederation.

Lous himself, for the unusually severe nature of his crimes, was secretly taken to the Counting House, where he was made a vampire.

The incident also changed the way the Foundation treated its protectorates. Before Ramn, Gudersnipe permitted autonomy; after Ramn, they made sure of a noticable presence everywhere they controlled.