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There are a lot of different ways that people can invoke fear or intimidation tactics, but ultimately you will have to decide what works best for your story. A lot of times a group or individual wi...
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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/4083 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
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There are a lot of different ways that people can invoke fear or intimidation tactics, but ultimately you will have to decide what works best for your story. A lot of times a group or individual will carry out some extreme act, and from that point on, just the mention of a repeat will be enough to cause fear. For example, a suicide bomber walks into a crowded marketplace and activates his bomb. From that point on, anyone could call and say that there is a bomb in a crowded location, and authorities are going to clear the place out even though there may not really be one. Depending on how your story goes, this could even be used as a diversion for something else that the instigator wants to cover. There are so many examples in plain sight, but it depends on how extreme or how mild you want your tactic to be. For example, a radiation sign on a fence tends to keep people outside a selected perimeter. A skull and crossbones on a container or on a door will prevent people from proceeding with whatever they were doing.