Article 17

A notoriously harsh way to punish a person. Enacted by the Grand Artanat Empire, primarily the military.

Any persons punished under article 17 will be sentenced to a highly painful process which can, in some cases, cause injuries. The person will be paid significantly less while on punishment period. In a particularly fascist society such as the GAE, this can cause some to become homeless. It also enforces overtime work, the punished person is less likely to get any free time at all other than sleep, which will burn someone out very quickly. Officers might also watch them more closely. The effected person might be sent to a work place and sentenced to difficult labor.

It can be issued for offenses like intentional murder and leaking classified information. Based on this, the duration of its effect can vary from any timeframe between 1 week to a person's whole lifetime. The latter case is even more rare though, and the article is normally issued for a several week duration.

Due to the extreme conditions laid out in the article, it is only issued extremely rarely for extremely serious offences, though officers may threaten those under their command with it more often. It is deeply feared by most military personnel of the GAE. Some officers might issue it less reluctantly...

In more recent years, an amendment was made to the article so that it now requires several other officers to agree before it can be used. This has made it much more fair for the military personnel for almost all ranks other than the highest few ranks, and its use has been made more consistent as well. This amendment was made following a rebellion from those punished with it, stationed at a particular working area of the GAE, where they managed to overthrow the established authority and cause immense destruction to the area, but the GAE fired a large weapon at the rebels, killing off most of them and utterly obliterating the remains of the center, and the remaining rebels were killed by a GAE military force.

The entirety of the document is about 10 000 words long and takes up several pages in the alien GAE language.

It is extremely rare, but possible, that the punishment issued outside of the military as well. In this situation, it is most often used on people who perform crimes like mass shootings.

Other factions that are not the GAE are aware of the existence of article 17. No other faction enacts it, and a number of factions heavily dislike its terms. For example the Hyperion Federation is deeply concerned that the GAE could start using it as a tool to oppress its people, though they do not seem to have used it outside of punishments. The HF sees it as far too harsh even for a punishment of such an immense magnitude.