S: The ”social strike”

A while before the High Circle (also called the Inner Circle) who ruled the Free City of Jubylon was disposed, a strange protest took place by a group usually called “the Salamanders”. The name is unknown, but some kind of admiration or worship of fire seems to have played a part. Others have compared them to the Friends and Followers of the Fiery Foundation with a similar fiery motif. What the Salamanders did was to dress in red (sometimes just a scarf or handkerchief) and then carry out what they would call a social strike. They would isolate themselves from any social contact, often in public. Which meant that suddenly, a large crowd of people dressed with at least one red item of clothing would show up in public and stare into the distance, not interacting with anyone. They seem to have coordinated this beforehand, but never in writing. At least not any that I have been able to encounter. Their strikes went further and further to the point where the members stopped communicating with anyone except shop keepers when buying food and to answer any questions from authorities, people passing by, friends or families with this quote only: “I am engaging in a social strike to protest the Inner Circle and the civil war, and I have no more to say.”

This social strike was carried out three times, until one of the factions of land owners broke them up with violence, usually driven by loneliness due the extreme kind of ostracization. The social strike did not discriminate. The Salamanders deliberately ignored all and interacted with nearly none. When they were attacked for the third time, they revealed how coordinated they were by defending themselves in what became known as “The Third Battle of Second Street”. A woman in a red dress waved her scarlet scarf before the mercenaries hired by one of the land owners’ faction charged the process. The mercenaries were armed with clubs, knife and pistols and were swiftly met with rifle fire. The battle lasted for just about five minutes before the attackers took to their heels, leaving behind twenty of their numbers, dead on Second Street.

A rumour persists that I am unable to verify (to a Jubyalonian standard, obviously) that the officers’ corps in the reformed army formed by the Doctors’ government came from the Salamander. The only detail I found was that the reformed army's dress uniform included a red scarf. That and the civil servants for the new government included a “silentiary”, an official who calls for silence. The silentiary would call for a moment of silence and contemplation before each official government meeting would begin.