Massacre of Anderson Station
When Anderson Station's Earth-Mars Coalition administrator, Gustav Marconi, implemented a 3-percent handling surcharge on all shipments coming through the station in an attempt to raise the bottom line, it affected millions. However, only less than 5 % of Belters buying their air from Anderson Station were living bottle to mouth, so just under 50,000 Belters would have had to have spent one day of each month not breathing, and only a small percentage of those 50,000 lacked the leeway in their recycling systems to cover this shortfall. Only a small portion of those felt an armed revolt was the correct course, so when an insurgency of armed Belters decided to strike the station, they only numbered 170. They took control of the station and threw Marconi out an airlock, and then demanded a government guarantee that no further surcharges would be added to the price of water and air coming through the station.
Years before the events culminating in the Eros Incident, the miners living and working aboard the station discovered that the children of the workers were diagnosed with cerebral hypoxia due to the low concentration of oxygen in the air. When the miners voiced their concerns to A-HCIG, the company refused to lend medical aid and even denied the existence of such health issues. In response, under Maranda Brown, the miners took over the station in a mass protest and went on strike.
The A-HCIG, unsympathetic with the worker's plight, branded them terrorists and requested that the UNN Navy blockade the station. A Leonidas-class battleship under the command of then-Colonel Fred Johnson was dispatched and held position nearby for four days, cutting off food and communications. Once again worrying for the safety of their kids, tried multiple times to surrender to the UNN Marines but these were not relayed to Johnson. Fearing that the UNN battleship was about to fire, Brown managed to get a video message out explaining what happened before the UNN fired on the station, depressurizing it and killing everyone onboard. The video then spread and people were horrified at the deaths of the thousands of civilians.
Although they surrendered, the Coalition Marine Corps force led by Colonel Fred Johnson was ordered to retake the station by force (and prevented from hearing the insurgents’ surrender), killing thousands as a deterrent.
The Belter rebels left the station's surveillance cameras rolling throughout the battle, broadcasting the three days of slaughter across the entire Solar System. Fred Johnson was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions, but in The Belt he became infamous as the “Butcher of Anderson Station”. Johnson resigned and publicly apologized for the tragedy, and today runs Tycho Station, attempting to atone for his actions. The most iconic image of the broadcast was at the very end, with Colonel Johnson standing in station ops, surrounded by corpses and surveying the carnage with a flat stare and hands limp at his sides. It dominated the nets, only displaced by Johnson's apology broadcast.
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