War and Occupation, and the backlash thereof

[Dust]

One of my PCs, a princess, has convinced her nation to go to war on another major capital city of about 7,000 people. The ruler was overthrown and the army now occupies the city, and I'm looking at ways to make the PC understand the consequences of her actions without drawing too heavily on real-world history, which she's extremely familiar with.

A few additional facts:

- The PC is a member of a race that has kept themselves away from the rest of the world for centuries, like elves in many fantasy depictions. As such, lots of people don't even recognize the race on sight.

- The conquering city (henceforth known as The Winners) has the whole lawful good vibe, while the conquered city (henceforth known as The Losers) is filled with mercenaries, gamblers, women of ill repute, and merchants...very chaotic-neutral.

- The Winners are seen as the bad guys to most of the populace, for obvious reasons. They marched in, killed the ruler, and now troops march through the streets keeping order. The whole situation is a powderkeg waiting to blow.

- The Losers are a city situated in the middle of a vast desert, which survives because of constant trade with other, nearby villages. The Winners have been keeping them supplied with magically-created food for the time being.

- The PC herself is lawful good, and will put her foot down against things like slavery without a second thought. How can I use this to my advantage, turning the city against her 'correct' decisions?

[Choco]

Sounds like the perfect recipe for a full-scale rebellion using guerrilla/terrorist tactics. A terrorist group plants a few bombs, picks off a few soldiers, etc. then runs away and blends into the population. The resulting crackdown will then further damage the occupier's reputation in the eyes of the population to the point where they willingly support and/or join up with the terrorists given the opportunity.

EDIT: And lets not forget that the people at home will eventually view this as a lost cause and political pressure will build up from within to withdraw (or to "purge" them all, depending on the attitude of the population).

EDIT 2: And to further rile things up, the terrorists would most likely try to hit the occupier's city as well, anything to damage their morale and make them reconsider the occupation.

[tahu88810]

The occupying generals become more "lawful" than "good". Since things are under martial law, captured scoundrels are hanged or maimed or otherwise receive a far worse punishment than they normally would. (Perhaps broaching Lawful Neutral, but in the name of "being good")

A sizeable portion of the populace, but not the majority, rebel. They begin with nonviolent protests, and then slowly move to sabotage. A schism forms within this group, and there is massive three-way fighting in the streets, between rebels who support sabotage, rebels who support terrorism/more-violence, and the Winner's who are trying to keep peace. Massive civilian casualties.
Civilian casualties continue as the terrorist group continues to act. The winner's ability to prevent these attacks is hampered by the pro-sabotage group (though they don't support the terrorists, they're just acting against the Winners)

Spurred by rather unjust laws and angered and hurt by the terrorism, half the city erupts into a full-scale riot. Even more civilian casualties. It takes about a week to fully quiet down, and even then there is still a lot of unrest. Disaffected youth continue to join the two rebel groups, and soon the Winners find themselves fighting children who are no older than 12 or 13.

[Ganurath]

A Lawful Good nation might crack down on some of the goods and services flowing through Loserville during the occuption. This would have an adverse impact on the economy, and thus the lifestyle, forcing the occupying nation to either invest to fill the gap or to let the people suffer.

[GenericGuy]

There are more than two nations in your world right? IRL most nations when they find another has been conquering get nervous they might be next or lose influence in the region, so the defeated nation’s insurgents will more than likely get lots of help and aid from outside forces.

[Telonius]

Some possibilities ...

Economic issues. The former slaves still need to eat and work, but nobody's willing to pay them. The masters of Loserville figure that Winnerville isn't going to let anybody starve to death, so they simply close up shop and sit on their gold. (Since Winnerville is LG and the Losers haven't actually broken any laws, they're reasonably sure Winnerville isn't going to start confiscating wealth). Since Loserville is no longer producing anything or trading with anyone, surrounding nations - which then see their revenue streams and trade routes dry up - are suddenly very, very upset with Winnerville.

Magic shortage. Possibly in combination with the previous, Winnerville's occupation costs a bunch in spells per day. Each Create Food and Water spell cast, is a defensive spell not cast. Compounding this, word gets around that Winnerville is passing out free food, which tends to attract the least desirable elements from all around.

Going Native. The pickpockets and loose women use some reverse psychology. They welcome in their new overlords, and start buttering them up. The loose women in particular would be uniquely suited to this kind of operation. The occupier morale has a temporary spike, but soon enough some division breaks out over the affections of some of the more prominent courtesans. The bright shiny LG forces start to lose a bit of their edge.

El Dorado! The Losers within the town concoct a fantastic story about unimaginable wealth/a demon army/the MacGuffin of Power, out in the desert somewhere. Some of the Winners are tempted by fame/deeds/greed to go out and look for it, weakening the Winners' grip over the town.

[zorba1994]

Okay, realism time:

The economy will do one of two things, depending on the scenario:

1. Lots of the Winners move in: Economy crashes because the Losers are being pushed out of their high end jobs. Violence ensues.

2. Lots of Winners do NOT move in: The economy will actually improve, as there are now fewer Losers (because they're dead).

At any rate, this will likely result in what Choco was saying: If the nations are very close together, then the terrorists will attack the Winner home base. If not, they'll settle for heating things up in Loserville.

I know you don't want real history thrown in, but consider watching the movie Battaglia d'Alger (sp, Battle of Algeirs in English), an Italian film about the Algerian revolution in the 50s and 60s. It shows what happens in this type of situation with the key differences being: Most of the Algerians would not be considered CN (being militant Islamists, the FLN was actually violently against prostitution and drinking) and the fact that Algeria had been a part of France for a very long time before the FLN acted up (it would be akin to Alaska suddenly trying to secede from the USA out of the blue). However, as far as the actual violence and responses, it hits it right on the head.