User:DeadmanSkully/sandbox

The Golden Purges or the Augustushchina (Russian: Августущина, period of Augustus) was Orientia's year-long campaign in response to the Californian Rebellions, starting in March of 20XX and ending in June of the next year. It was designed as both a way to definitively crush the Rebellions as well as destroy any possibility for any occurring once more in the near future.

It primarily targeted non-Imperial nationalist groups, rightists, liberals, business owners and provincial bureaucrats who High King Aedonius believed to be the primary "infections" that caused the rebellions, but millions of innocent people would also die during operations against locations deemed "rebel territory", subsequently being on the receiving end of flame-troopers, chemical weapons, bio-weapons, bombing runs, military rampages, and more.

Of the then 40+ million population in the California province, 21+ million would be killed and another 7+ million would be enslaved and sent to different provinces where many would work until death. The extent at which people were being ordered to their deaths became so great that by September of 20XX, Augustus - Aedonius's youngest son who he had entrusted with overseeing the purges - would turn the centre of the city of Bakersfield into Urbsindustriae Corvus (English: Industrial City Raven), building outposts and concrete walls around the area and turning much of it into one big factory where an estimated 4+ million of the total 21+ million killed would die while being made to produce all manners of objects. The rest of Bakersfield would be repurposed into housing guards, secretaries and military alongside the families of those three categories. When the purpose of Corvus was deemed "unnecessary" in February of the next year, Urbsindustriae Corvus would be made into the Epidius Comitatum Provincialis Parricus (English: Epidius County Provincial Park) and Bakersfield would be remade into the city of Caliaugusta. The crimes of Urbsindustriae Corvus would be uncovered several decades later following a leak of Secretariat archives though would only become publicly known and apologised for two more decades later.

Once the purges and the rebellions were deemed over, the major depletion in population led to Aedonius issuing the Exodus Order, a declaration that every person who immigrated to California would be given 60 thousand libra and property, while families of four or more would receive 200 thousand libra. This would see 10+ million Eurasian Orientians - a rough 85% of them being East Slavic and wanting to maintain their cultures - becoming citizens of California and creating state monopolies from the ruins and distinctly Slavicising the province. Aedonius would also allow the creation of the Red Panthers, an auxiliary force primarily made up of motorised infantry, being deemed "bastard successors" of the Black Panthers who were completely annihilated as an organisation in California and being crippled in much of the rest of the former United States due to them having a major hand in the Californian Rebellions thanks to many of them being former collaborators.

The name of the Golden Purges for the campaign was created and popularised by historian Bernius Menesius in his book The Tragedy of California: Where the Scars Come From which described many of the build-ups, the events, and what happened afterwards in relation to the campaign. It is considered a mix-viewed part of Aedonius and his dynasty's history, with many claiming they shouldn't be judged too harshly due to how overextended the Empire was as the rebels backed Aedonius into a corner as well as Augustus's crimes being born from others exploiting his mental illnesses for their own gains, while others believe there is no room for discussion or redemption as there was bureaucracy made to decide who lives, who dies and who's enslaved.