Trope-a-Day: Mugging the Monster

Mugging the Monster: Oh, this happens all the time.  Mostly with tourists, in either direction.

Well, I say tourists, when I mean “people visiting the Empire with crime in mind”, which does happen occasionally due to their “just turn up” visa policy.  Such people – on the occasions that they make it through the alethiometric screening – almost always find themselves on the wrong end of Everyone Is Armed with considerable prejudice and usually fatal result.

Also happens fairly often with Imperial tourists elsewhere, given both that martial arts of various kinds are part of normal education in the Empire, and that they often take a… less compliant attitude to various people’s restrictions on the means of self-defense, and indeed other-defense.  (And who, even if they don’t bring their own weapons, or build them on the spot [see Hyperspace Arsenal], can more than likely kill you with their brain [see Psychic Powers].)  Such incidents are an ongoing headache for the Ministry of State and Outlands and an ongoing revenue stream for such specialized travel insurance/mercenary/retrieval consortia as Wolfhound Emancipations, ICC.

Also happens on a rather bigger scale.  See the Burning of Litash, and in a general sense, Disproportionate Retribution and Make an Example of Them.  And, of course, Q-ships.