I'm writing a short story in which a small police group finds that their government caused a 'natural' disaster in order to seize control. However, the problem is that as the government controls this police force, if they were to expose the government, they'd be closed down and the story would effectively end. Are there any plausible methods of keeping a plot like this under the character's hats, without killing them off?
This is hard to answer without more information. If they really wanted to, I guess they could just not say anything out of fear. I don't know. I need more info.
What info in particular? I'll try to be a bit more in-depth. This is a cyberpunk-esque storyline, so the government is run by a single corporation. This corporation employs a police force to defend against cyber crimes in particular, ever since technology became too advanced after it was used to help rebuild the city after an Earthquake. It was in this time the coporation took over control of the city. After a smaller Earthquake, a cavern to part of the city lost during that original quake is opened up, and the police force has to go in because there is 'dangerous cybertechnology' down there. During this case, they discover that the great Earthquake was caused by technology this corporation developed, so that they could take control of the city AND corner the market on cybertechnology. Obviously, after finding this out, they want to expose the government. They can't initially contact the outside world- the tech underground is interfering with radio communications, so they need to get closer to the surface. However, if the government got exposed, it'd sort of ruin the whole cyberpunk aspect of a corporation owning the city. I need a way to force the witnesses to be silent, without killing them off.
Maybe the government figures out that they know and threatens them? Other than that I can't really think of a reason why they wouldn't tell. Maybe the media doesn't believe them. Maybe they didn't get hard proof, and they can't tell anyone without evidence, because it won't be believed.
Are these folks in the "small police group" the main characters in the story? Or is the occurrence of this discovery and the police group's silence just a little factoid told as an aside during the actual story?
The story is about the police group in general, but amongst the number are the main characters (Three are the main characters, their 'team' is a little higher than that.) I can therefore afford to kill off some of them. The more I think about it, the more it seems that the only way to stop them is to make sure that any evidence they uncover is destroyed before they can reach the surface.. Any threat to their life would have to come while they are underground, as they'd surely radio their forces if they reached open ground to safely secure the evidence - this sort of rules out blackmail, and as the main characters have to survive, an assassin could only go so far. Unless i'm overlooking an option.
Well since the police group comprises the main characters, I'm bound to ask: If the effort to expose the evils of this corporate government is not the primary conflict or overarching goal of the MCs in your storyline, then what in the world is?
It might be an idea to slowly kill them off. You could have your charecters return from the underground cave's and decide to go public with this. People or journalists that they tell about it could turn up dead and then your main charecters could be placed in situations where they die until your left with one who goes on the run to save himself from being inexplicably killed. Other then that I don't think you can do anything diffrently to it.
