History Main / TheElitesJumpShip

** [[UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen Queen Elizabeth II]] is noted as being an incredibly rare subversion, as in-universe, she refuses to leave the UK during the zombie attacks, although she sends her family to a more secure area.

* ''ComicBook/ThePunisherMAX'' "The End" takes place an unspecified amount of time after an unlimited nuclear war with China resulting in the world is on fire. Frank (who'd been imprisoned in Sing Sing) escapes with another convict and heads for a bunker in New York built by another inmate ([[ShootTheBuilder or rather, was thrown into Sing Sing by the people he'd built it for]]). Once inside the (formerly rich and powerful) occupants explain that while there were several such bunkers around the world, they've all gone silent (the last one from the Presidential bunker apparently involved rape), and there's a good chance everyone in the bunker is all that's left of humanity. Frank kills them all anyway, then goes outside to wait to be reunited with his family.

* Discussed by radio host "[[ConspiracyTheorist Maximum Mike]]" on one of his radio segments in ''[[VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077]]''. In his segment, he relates a story about an associate of his who was busted for insurance fraud, after he removed all the valuable equipment from his failing restaurant before setting it alight, which [[SpottingTheThread clued in the police]] that the fire was intentionally set. He then compares this to the [[MegaCorp Mega-Corps]] hoarding the planet's valuable works of art and history on a lunar repository, and asks his listeners to consider the possibility that the world's elite may be be aware of a ''reason'' why they'd need to get all the valuables off the planet, and muses that the next rocket taking off from the spaceport towards the moon...might be the last one.

* Discussed by radio host "[[ConspiracyTheorist Maximum Mike]]" on one of his radio segments in ''[[VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077]]''. In his segment, he relates a story about an associate of his who was busted for insurance fraud, after he removed all the valuable equipment from his failing restaurant before setting it alight, which [[SpottingTheThread clued in the NCPD]] that the fire was intentionally set. He then compares this to the MegaCorps hoarding the planet's valuable works of art and history on a lunar repository, and asks his listeners to consider the possibility that the world's elite may be be aware of a ''reason'' why they'd need to get all the valuables off the planet, and muses that the next rocket taking off from the spaceport towards the moon...might be the last one.

* This is the core plot of ''Literature/AtlasShrugged'', as elite businessmen and industrialists "go Galt" and disappear from the world stage in protest of growing socialist policies, forming their own community called Galt's Gulch. By author Creator/AynRand's Objectivism philosophy, as well as the HumansAreBastards nature of the populace, they're considered the ''heroes'' of the story.

* During UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, United Kingdom propaganda promoted the idea of "In It Together", in which groups of people from all walks of life gathered in the London Underground to get through the war (and the German bombing of London) together. This was a reversal from their reaction early in the Blitz, when the Tube was locked up to ''prevent'' people from sheltering there - and to stop them reaching the wealthier areas of London where the rich could take shelter in, for instance, the basement shelters of grand hotels. The Savoy had a shelter it advertised as "The Smartest in London"; some shelters had bars and restaurant service (Hotels were exempted from rationing) and at least one had a gaming room so patrons could gamble while they waited out the bombing. Meanwhile, surface shelters intended to provide some protection for the working classes were so cheaply built that children could push the bricks out of the wall with their hands; they were overcrowded, had no toilet facilities, and became known as [[https://childreninthesecondworldwar.wordpress.com/2015/09/28/the-morrison-sandwich/ "Morrison Sandwiches"]], named after the then Home Secretary, because a nearby bomb hit could blow out the brick walls and drop the solid concrete slab that comprised the ceiling onto those sheltering inside. These blatant injustices were at least somewhat corrected as the Blitz went on - the Sandwiches were mostly pulled down as not fit for purpose, the Tube was no longer locked and had fold-up bunks installed to more enable people to sleep there - but in truth, less than .1% of London's citizens actually gathered in the Underground (7000 out of 8 million residents), and these people were almost entirely poor and working-class. The rich elites, who either owned or could afford to build their own bunkers, were still waiting things out in relative comfort. The Tube was safer than most shelters, but a direct hit above a station could drop chunks of the ceiling onto those sheltering there, and there were a few freakish tragedies where bombs just happened to drop at exactly the right spot and at exactly the right angle to travel down the escalator tunnels, detonating inside the stations and killing hundreds. The Government did issue kits to build your own [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raid_shelter#Anderson_shelter Anderson Shelter]], free to any family earning less than £5 a week; for those earning more, the kits cost £7. Morrison got another type of shelter named for him; the much more effective [[https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30082790 Morrison Table Shelter]], which could serve as a dining table during the day and be quickly converted into a steel-framed bomb shelter during raids, intended for those who had no garden in which to place an Anderson.

* During UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, United Kingdom propaganda promoted the idea of "In It Together", in which groups of people from all walks of life gathered in the London Underground to get through the war (and the German bombing of London) together. In truth, less than .1% of London's citizens actually gathered in the Underground (7000 out of 8 million residents), and these people were almost entirely poor and working-class. The rich elites, who either owned or could afford to build their own bunkers, were waiting things out in relative comfort. The Government did issue kits to build your own [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raid_shelter#Anderson_shelter Anderson Shelter]], free to any family earning less than £5 a week; for those earning more, the kits cost £7.

** Played straight in ''Anime/MobileFighterGGundam'': The powerful and wealthy from each country moved to space on colonies named after their nation but with a "neo" prefix (so the Japanese colony is "Neo Japan") and those unable to go into space have to suffer poverty and being collateral as the colonies send Gundams to fight a proxy war every four years to determine who controls the world's government.

* In Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's ''Literature/TheMasqueOfTheRedDeath'' a wealthy duke and his fellow nobles attempt to wait out a deadly plague decimating the populace by holding a constant party in a secluded abbey. [[EverybodyDiesEnding It doesn't work out well for them.]]

* Occurred in the backstory of the ''[[Literature/{{Wayfarers}}'' series; when Earth's biosphere collapsed, the wealthy elite took off to colonize Mars instead, while those left behind were forced to cannibalize the remaining cities into the {{Generation Ship}}s of the Exodus Fleet and wander the galaxy until some friendly aliens found them. There's still a bit of tension about this between the descendants of the two groups.

* ''Film/{{Contagion}}'': Downplayed. The government is largely portrayed positively but there is one scene when recourses needed for an important CDC scientist are instead hogged by a sick congressman. Other politicians also relocate underground although by that point there's not much they could do by staying up there without getting sick and there is an implicit need for ''someone'' in power to remain healthy to avoid anarchy.

** Inverted in the original ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'': As the world suffers from overpopulation and resultant environmental collapse, the elites ''force others to jump ship''. By 0079 (79 years after the foundation of space colonies) anyone born on Earth, regardless of class, are jeered at as "Earth elites" and are the subjects of resentment by the colonists--occasionally [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized murderously]] [[ColonyDrop so]].

* The ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'' story "World's Greatest" introduces Nu-Earth, an entire duplicate Earth intended to serve as a refuge in case the original is irreparably damaged or destroyed, which was created by a top-secret group of scientists and financed by the world's wealthiest people. The FF is initially told that Nu-Earth is meant to accommodate the entire human population. However, one of the project's top scientists (an ex-girlfriend of Reed Richards') discovers that only the "world's elite" (totaling half a million people) are going to be allowed to travel there, and that the majority of the human race will be left to rot on a dead or dying planet. The FF help foil this plan by transporting refugees from a future where Earth was devastated beyond repair to the planet instead.

* Ultimately subverted in ''ComicBook/YTheLastMan'': After all men are wiped out by the {{Gendercide}} plague the RightWingMilitiaFanatic characters suspect that it's a government bioweapon and that the elite leadership of the country is hunkered down in a bunker plotting to take over someday. A surviving (female) General also thinks the disaster was caused by a bio-weapon meant to be used against China and it's eventually revealed that there is a bunker that the American government was supposed to flee to. When the protagonists finally reach that bunker though, they are informed that, whatever the cause of the plague was, none of the elites survived long enough to reach the bunker.

* ''Fanfic/AllAssortedAnimorphsAUs'': At one point during "What if there was a zombie apocalypse?", it's mentioned that wealthy elites are buying their way off world as fast as they can to escape the zombie plague.

* Proposed in ''Film/DrStrangelove'' when it is suggested that the military and political elite retreat to deep mine-shafts to avoid the coming nuclear war. Since they are older men, it's suggested that they take 10 young women each to restock humanity. The Doomsday device wipes them all out before the idea can be implemented.
* ''Film/{{Chariot}}'': The setting is a plane designed to evacuate 191 people of power and importance (and not their families) in the event of a nuclear strike without their knowledge. Yet when the plane takes off only 7 passengers, some of them unimportant, are aboard. In the end it turns out there has been no catastrophe and their only onboard to test whether or not the idea would work without the passengers rioting. It doesn't.

* ''Film/HotelArtemis'' dances around this but remains true to the principle. During a city-wide riot caused by class-divisions, the local millionaires hunker down or flee town while sending their servants to brave the crowds with the hidden valuables they want safely stashed at the bank.

* ''Film/LandOfTheDead'': The ZombieApocalypse survivors in Pennsylvania are holed up inside of CitadelCity with a FantasticCasteSystem between the rich and poor. Once that city is breached, the leader of the wealthy elites orders that the poor people be left for themselves, shoots and loots a co-leader who argued with this proposal and then tries to flee in a limo with all the money he has.
* ''Film/MiracleMile'': This trope is referenced and used in order to ''avert'' a CassandraTruth situation. A guy named Harry trying to meet his girlfriend at a diner gets a wrong number call from a soldier telling him that America and Russia are shooting missiles at each other and World War III is upon them. Harry goes inside the diner and tells everyone else what he heard. As the patrons skeptically debate about his claim, a businesswoman named Landa takes out her phone and tries to dial all of the local politicians she knows, discovering that they've all abruptly fled the country without so much as a warning to the public. This convinces most of the people in the diner to make a beeline out of town themselves and/or try to warn people. Interestingly, they themselves arguably kick off a second wave of this (making a list of Mensa members and scientists to alert to flee and rebuild society elsewhere, and warning a lot of Yuppie friends of Landa who are seen waiting on a helipad) although TheLawOfConservationOfDetail and the fact that masses of people are seen finding out and trying to get out of the city by the end, indicate that non-elites were warned off-screen as well.

* ''Film/StakeLand'': In the backstory it's mentioned that America's politicians fled to save themselves when the vampire outbreak hit its peak rather than attempt to provide leadership.

* ''Film/WhenWorldsCollide'': Both played straight and averted. CorruptCorporateExecutive Leland Stanton will only finance the (very limited) HomeworldEvacuation in exchange for himself being included in it, but two other construction tycoons, Marsden and Spiro, finance it while explicitly stating that they ''don't'' want any seats on the rocket wasted on them. In the end Stanton ends up being forced to stay behind to ensure the rocket has enough fuel.

* ''Literature/TheThreeInvestigators:'' In ''The Blazing Cliffs'', unpopular businessman Charles Barron is convinced that society is on the verge of collapse, and has withdrawn to a well-maintained self-sufficient ranch as he waits for his beliefs to be vindicated. A group of conmen fake a BenevolentAlienInvasion and offer to take Barron, his wife, and their valuables off-planet before an imminent war and then bring them back to Earth to be leaders of society once the war is over. Barron is prepared to follow their instructions (although, to be fair, he does think that his employees will be fairly safe back on the ranch, and many of them already think the whole thing is fishy) before being convinced that he's being conned.
--> '''Ranch Foreman Hank Detweiler:''' Why should they want Barron? He's no genius. He's rich, that's all. Do the rich go first class even on Doomsday?

** Zigzagged with Tom Smith (the main characters brother) and his banker and pharmaceutical associates: They put a lot of effort into trying to stem the original outbreak, but they also set up fallback areas to flee to and ride things out for if/when that fails.
** Social media CEO [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed Mick Mickerburg]] gathered up an enormous yacht filled with his fellow executives, lots of scantily clad women, PrivateMilitaryContractor bodyguards, cooks and luxury items and went sailing off to try and ride things out at sea, like so many others. His bodyguards then attempted to mutiny and rape, rob and kill everyone else and rescue ships that arrive some time later find just two survivors.

** In the short story "Chase the Sunset," several Canadian soldiers discuss a list of their upcoming assignments. One of those assignments is liberating a six hundred foot deep bunker which houses the Canadian prime minster, a [=NORAD=] general, ten members of Parliament, and "assorted aides, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives and mistresses."

* ''Atlantis Found'', one of the ''Literature/DirkPittAdventures'' has a cabal of ultra-wealthy Nazi descendants getting an inkling of a meteor that will come to destroy Earth and spending the next several decades focused on building immensely durable and luxurious cruise ships for themselves and their followers. And when further calculations show the meteor won't hit Earth after all they decide to ''cause'' a disaster of similar magnitude by using nanotechnology to disrupt the Earth's crust so they can still wipe out everyone besides their empire. On a smaller note, when the U.S. military attacks their headquarters, its noted that members of the founding family think nothing of using their guards as CanonFodder in an effort to ensure their own survival and escape.

* ''Literature/TheFort2022'': The bunker the kids find has lots of food, records and movies inside and was built about forty years ago by an eccentric millionaire, who evidently didn't plan on sharing it with anyone else in his life, since no one else knows about it. There's also a video cassette with recorded insults for any potential foreign invaders who might have found the bunker if he died before making it there.

** The second book of the ''Literature/JediAcademyTrilogy'' has the Cardia star system (essentially the Empire's West Point on a planetary scale) about to go nova, and the governor being one of the first to make a run for it, while ordering the evacuation to be conducted on basis of rank, and there being no indication of anyone high-ranking arguing with this idea and letting their subordinates go first.

--> '''Chief Guard:''' What do you think you're going to do, Jedi? Cut right through the walls with your lightsaber? Fight off every one of us?

* The Literature/LiadenUniverse novel ''Crystal Dragon'' is set during an interstellar war; when the invading enemy armies start getting near the planet Solcintra, the rich and powerful buy up all available shipping and take off for fortified hiding places farther from the battle front, leaving the rest of the population to take their chances. (The fortified hiding places get wiped out, while the remnant population of Solcintra work together and survive.)

* Creator/BenElton's ''Stark'' revolves around the uncovering of a conspiracy by the wealthy to escape Earth - which is dying from global warming and associated ecological catastrophes - and set up a new home on the Moon. [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor Although the elite's plan comes to fruition they soon discover that their new life is lonely and frustrating]].This leads to the story's main antagonist throwing himself out of an airlock.

* ''Literature/SwanSong'': With the threat of WWIII, timeshare survivalist bunkers have become a major thing, with middle and upper class people paying $50,000 a year to stay there two weeks a year in the event that those two weeks will be ones the war starts in. [[TeensAreMonsters Roland]] and his family are in one such bunker which does not fare well due to the owners [[CuttingCorners having dragged their feet on costly, but important repairs]].
* ''The Tower'', one of two books which ''Film/TheToweringInferno'' was based on, acknowledges the mindset behind this trope but largely averts it. A skyscraper is on fire, and the people in the penthouse are being evacuated by breach buoys but there isn't enough time to save everyone. The women are sent out first, then the leaders of the group (the mayor, the governor, a senator, one of the building's architects, the fire commissioner and the Secretary-General of the United Nations) have a lottery to determine which of the men go in what order. One of the other people involved (another senator, Cary Wycoff) who's been excluded from the decision making for being obnoxious and a bit panicky, becomes paranoid that the drawing is being rigged so that the governor, the architect and the others will be among the first sent out and leads a riot against them which temporarily disrupts the rescue operations. Ironically, the drawing wasn't rigged (and Wycoff's own mental justification for what he's doing comes a lot closer to "elites jumping ship" mentality), every one of those leaders Wycoff is paranoid about drew a number which means they'll be evacuated later than he will, and most of them die before the rescue operations can be finished.
* ''Literature/UnderTheDome'': When Big Jim Rennie -- acting town leader, prosperous used car salesman and local drug kingpin -- sees a cataclysmic explosion caused by the chemicals he'd stockpiled for cooking enormous amounts of crystal meth tearing through the town, he immediately retreats to the town hall's fallout shelter with a single {{Mook}} and makes no effort to alert the other survivors (most of whom die from smoke inhalation within hours) to take shelter there. [[LaserGuidedKarma Unfortunately for Rennie, there isn't enough air to last long]].

* ''Series/DoctorWho''. In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E3Orphan55 "Orphan 55"]] we're told this happens a lot in humanity's history. Once a planet has been devastated by war or ecological destruction, those who can afford it leave and abandon those who can't to die on what's then called an orphan planet. What really shocks the Doctor and her companions [[spoiler:is that Orphan 55 isn't just another alien planet that now looks like a BBCQuarry, but EarthAllAlong.]]

* ''Series/{{Jeremiah}}'': Raven Rock Bunker contains the leaders of the government, who hid there during the plague (caused by their malfunctioning bio weapon) that killed anyone who'd reached puberty and want to reestallish domain over what's left.
* In the ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' episode [[Recap/LeverageS02E05TheThreeDaysOfTheHunterJob "The Three Days Of The Hunter Job"]] this trope is invoked as part of a con job in order to discredit sleazy reporter Monica Hunter. The Crew tricks Hunter into believing that the worlds water supply has been poisoned and that this trope is in play as the political elite of America are planning to ride it out in bunkers with self-sustaining water supplies. [[DirtyCoward One scene has Hunter trying to get in on it]] by telling a military official who she thinks is in on the scheme that a public figure like her could help comfort the people if they let her inside the (nonexistent) bunkers.

* ''Series/The100'': The Mountain Men survivor group are descended from the American president and his cabinet, who fled there when [[AIIsACrapshoot a rogue AI -one that they weren't responsible for creating- set off the worlds weapons]] and are an antagonistic faction as a whole (albeit with many sympathetic members).

** Datak Tarr is a lower-caste Castithan who won a ticket gambling, and is a crime boss on Earth.

** The wealthy American elites hid themselves in bunkers known as Vaults on the onset of the global nuclear war. Ironically, many of those elites were used along with other citizens for Darwinist social experiments by Vault-Tec (and indirectly, the [[GovernmentConspiracy Enclave]]) without them even knowing. Meanwhile, the Enclave spent the apocalypse hiding on a shelter converted from an old oil rig, and were promptly blown up by the protagonist of the second game when they tried to 'retake' America.
** As he learnt about an imminent global nuclear war, Mr. House of ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' turned himself into a cyborg, ensured no nukes would fell on Las Vegas, and then hid himself in a bunker, ready to come back after the cataclysm.
** ''VideoGame/Fallout4'':The Commonwealth Institute of Technology (branded as just The Institute) just turned their campus' basement into a customized Vault and scienced the hell out of all their problems. Unfortunately, centuries of turning away the 'mentally inferior' left them unable to handle long term problems with anything but 'release the science experiments', and were eventually bombed for their arrogance and/or forced under new management.

* In ''VideoGame/DontEscape: 4 Days to Survive'', the protagonists find out most of the elite and wealthy fled to a base on the moon after it was accidentally cracked it in half during a mining operation, which in turned utterly screwed with Earth's gravity and turned it into a wasteland. Once there, they went into machines to transfer their minds into the bodies of another universe where the operation never happened. The goal is to ultimately survive the dangers of the hostile environment through the days, get to the last unused rocket ship and get there before the remains of the moon eventually collide with the planet on the final day.]

** ''VideoGame/HorizonForbiddenWest'' the sequel [[ExaggeratedTrope Exaggerated]] this trope[[spoiler: With the trilionaires that make up [[Characters/HorizonZeroDawnFarZenith Far Zenith]] having fled the solar system to make their own SocietyOfImmortals.]]

* In 1815, after the French ship ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Meduse_(1810) La Meduse]]'' grounded in the Bank of Arguin, the commanders and officers, who put themselves on the lifeboats, cut the rope that relied them to the raft where the [=NCOs=], soldiers and sailors were, leaving them to drift at sea until a British ship rescued the considerably small group of survivors.
* This trope is what used to happen during most of the plagues in the Middle Ages (such as TheBlackDeath). The rich fled the cities and towns, escaping to their private residences in the countryside in hope that the fresher air there would protect them (it was widely believed at the time that plagues were caused by "corrupted air"). It did protect them to a degree, since contagions spread more slowly in less densely populated regions. This is also the premise of the novel ''Literature/TheDecameron''.

* ''Literature/{{Artillerymen}}'': While it’s fairly understandable that all but a few of the mostly wealthy civilians on the ''Tiger'' feel more vulnerable than the soldiers and want to evacuate to safer territory, the fact that they take their big bags of luggage with them instead of preserving room on the ship for the soldiers is less understandable. The ship they're on also abandons the soldiers still ashore after a while, although that is at least partially Colonel Wicklow's decision and not theirs. They end up blindly heading straight into Dom territory and end up tortured to death or sold into slavery.

* In ''Film/ResidentEvilTheFinalChapter'' it's revealed that the upper echelons of the Umbrella Corporation are waiting out the ZombieApocalypse as {{Human Popsicle}}s in [[ElaborateUndergroundBase The Hive]]. It's revealed that they deliberately released the T-virus in the first place, thinking the world was inevitably doomed through nuclear war or environmental disaster, so this way they got to do it on their terms.

* ''Film/WhenWorldsCollide'': Both played straight and averted. CorruptCorporateExecutive Leland Stanton will only finance the (very limited) HomeworldEvacuation in exchange for himself being included in it, but two other construction tycoons, Marsden and Spiro, finance it while explicitly stating that they ''don't'' want any seats on the rocket wasted on them.

* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', Wapol pulled this when serving as King of the Drum Kingdom when the Blackbeard Pirates arrived. Despite his arrogance, when he learned how strong Blackbeard's crew was, Wapol took his army and ran rather than fight them, leaving his country defenseless.

* Occurred in the backstory of ''Literature/TheLongWayToASmallAngryPlanet''; when Earth's biosphere collapsed, the wealthy elite took off to colonise Mars instead, while those left behind were forced to cannibalise the remaining cities into the {{Generation Ship}}s of the Exodus Fleet and wander the galaxy until some friendly aliens found them. There's still a bit of tension about this between the descendants of the two groups.

** In a clearer example of this trope, a huge group of A-list celebrities, most of them famous -- with a lot of NoCelebritiesWereHarmed going on -- take refuge in a beautiful, reinforced mansion on Long Island... [[IdiotBall which is broadcasting 24/7 to the people.]] [[InsaneTrollLogic In an inevitable turn of events]], hundreds of desperate refugees break into the mansion looking for some form of solace or shelter, the scene descends into chaos and anarchy, and most (if not all) of the elites are killed and their bodyguards and other servants abandon it.

* In Creator/EdgarAllanPoe's ''Literature/TheMasqueOfTheRedDeath'' a wealthy duke and his fellow nobles attempt to wait out a deadly plague decimating the populace by holding a constant party in a secluded abbey. [[KillEmAll It doesn't work out well for them.]]

** The wealthy American elites hid themselves in bunkers known as Vaults on the onset of the global nuclear war. Ironically, many of those elites were used along with other citizens for Darwinist social experiments by Vault-Tec (and indirectly, the [[GovernmentConspiracy Enclave]]) without them even knowing. Meanwhile, the Enclave spent the apocalypse hiding on a shelter converted from an old oil rig, and were promptly blown up by the protagonist of the second game when they tried to '[[KillEmAll retake]]' America.

* ''Literature/{{Wool}}'': In the backstory, members of the American government used a super weapon to wipe out everyone in the world except for a couple hundred thousand Americans they'd put in silo-like survival bunkers that they'd spent years making in preparation of the event, feeling that their actions are necessary to keep humanitarian's form being destroyed by a war. Notably, the vast majority of the people they got to go into the silos went in under false pretenses and had no idea that the world was going to end. Zigzagged if you accept the sequels and prequels as canon, given that they state that the original people behind the slaughter ''are still alive and running things'' due to [[HumanPopsicle having themselves frozen for cryogenic shifts]] and some of them eventually plan to blow up 49 of the 50 silos (including their own) in order to completely destroy knowledge of the old world.

* ''Literature/TheMasqueOfTheRedDeath:'' When a pestilence threatens the lives of everyone in the countryside, Prince Prospero gathers all of his aristocratic friends to his castle. Then he locks the building down and throws masquerade balls as scores of people die outside his walls.