Switzerland

Switzerland is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is a major center for banking on Earth Aleph and presumably remains so on Earth Bet; likely in a reduced capacity.

Points of Interest

 * Lausanne - de jure capital of Switzerland - devastated by Simurgh victims and subsequent containment measures.
 * Bern - de facto capital of Switzerland - still smaller then Lausanne.
 * Zürich - renowned financial hub, largest city in the country, unknown what happened to it.

Background
The Simurgh first appeared in the Swiss city of Lausanne in December of 2002. Within six months, many of the residents who'd been around her became violent and antagonistic. This included a promising scientist who committed suicide, a man attempting to blow up a TV station to get back at his girlfriend, an unnamed superhero assassinating a Prime Minister of an unidentified country with the politicians successor causing a war. These were just a few among the thousands who attempted to commit mass murder and disrupt global resistance against the Endbringers.

Over the course of roughly two years, when it was found that the brainwashing was irreversible, the entire city of Lausanne was quarantined and most of the population either killed or incarcerated. One of the people involved in this campaign was James Tagg, who considered the residents to all be victims of the Simurgh.I was in Lausanne in two-thousand two through oh-three. Fought a whole mess of ugly. People that couldn’t be reasoned with, people who were hopeless, in the grand scheme of it. Victims, as much as anyone else.” I found myself listening, despite myself. “We shot them, the people who heard too much of the Simurgh’s song, who weren’t just walking disaster areas, but who’d listened long enough that they lost something. Men, women and children missing that moral center that people like Miss Militia and I have. Hell, even you’ve got morals. They didn’t. I’m sure you heard about it, you’re not that young. Suicide bombers, dirty bombs. Terrorism, if you will. Eleven year olds and old men making their way to Amsterdam or London and opening fire in a crowded area. Just like that.” Tagg slammed his hand down on the metal table, coinciding with the ‘that’. I jumped a little, despite myself. He’s just trying to rattle me. “Once we realized what was happening, we had to act, contain the damage. Contain families. Had to act against people who went home from a day of trying to kill the rest of us and cooked a nice dinner, oblivious to just how fucked they were in the head. People who were otherwise good, who got warped on a fundamental level, left open to the preaching and the incitement of their angrier neighbors. Two years of fighting before we got the word down from on high, that they couldn’t rehabilitate the ones they’d captured, the ones who’d listened too long. The poor assholes would play nice until they saw an opportunity, then they’d take it, do as much damage as they could. Two years fighting good people who’d been convinced they had to throw their lives away fighting an enemy that didn’t exist. So we closed the perimeter, bombed them out, herded them and gunned them down.” - Excerpt from Cell 22.2

Story Start
Has become a precautionary story of the Endbringer assaults.

Trivia

 * According to Weaverdice Lausanne campaign, run by Wildbow, Switzerland of Bet is noticeably more urbanized, than the Earth Alph "original" in late 2002.
 * Despite Fanon Switzerland was not completely devastated by the Simurgh, nor were the Swiss wiped out. Losing most if not the entire population of the symbolic capital of one's country would still be devastating.