The 3.5 Fascism Challenge! How oppressed can you make your people with:

[Bulwer]

A city and environs of 20,000 or so people of a different species than you and 2,000 of your people, both humanoid

About 500 people are under your control, though most of the other occupiers are bureaucrats. Maybe 20 or your people are in the 8th-to-12th level range, the rest with a handful of class levels. You have, at most, 5 12-level full spellcasters and a few dozen lower-level ones. Your country is willing to spend hundreds of thousands of gold pieces every year to keep order.

High magic, but you're limited to Core+Completes for your oppression.

How ubiquitous can you make scrying within the city? How much can you restrict the subjects' use of force? How fast can you get your people anywhere in the city?

[TiaC]

Make all your high-level characters Thrallherds/Diplomancers.

[Maat Mons]

Glyph of warding (and the greater version) can explicitly be used for racial profiling.  You can set them up anywhere you don't want the underclass going, since they're permanent.  Anyone triggering a glyph must pay a fee to facilitate its replacement and may be subject to additional penalties for engaging in unauthorized activities.  The government is not liable for injury or death resulting from triggering a glyph. 

Each member of the underclass can be kept under the effects of mark of justice.  Just make sure the curse triggered is highly visible.  You can also have multiple instances of the spell with different triggering conditions and effects.  For example, breaking curfew could cause the subject to glow, while criticizing the government could cause the subject's tongue to grow to three feet in length. 

[Halinn]

You want your police force to have a keep of some sort that's filled with teleportation circles to various areas in the city for fast reaction times.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Make all your high-level characters Thrallherds/Diplomancers.

Ninja'd ... +1
This doesn't have to be completely borkt.

You can have your Fanatics who hate everything else about you.
Meanwhile you are varying amounts of Friendly+ with the rest.
Competing organizations perhaps?

Everybody has to learn "the" Secret Language.  Rather easy
to tell if an outsider shows up, they don't know the lingo.

[Bulwer]

Glyph of warding (and the greater version) can explicitly be used for racial profiling.  You can set them up anywhere you don't want the underclass going, since they're permanent.  Anyone triggering a glyph must pay a fee to facilitate its replacement and may be subject to additional penalties for engaging in unauthorized activities.  The government is not liable for injury or death resulting from triggering a glyph. 

Each member of the underclass can be kept under the effects of mark of justice.  Just make sure the curse triggered is highly visible.  You can also have multiple instances of the spell with different triggering conditions and effects.  For example, breaking curfew could cause the subject to glow, while criticizing the government could cause the subject's tongue to grow to three feet in length.

I really like the idea of crews going around the city glyphing everything, taking away anywhere you don't want the peons to go. 5th-level+ clerics also get fun stuff like Locate Object. The elites, a few levels above that, get to apply the Marks of Justice and do some stuff. Locate Object makes it hard to smuggle, say, a bomb into the city. Divination, used by several clerics on the same question, lets you pin down any impending uprisings.

[phaedrusxy]

Illusory Script warning signs (or just billboards, for mass mind control).

Clairvoyant Sense is much better than any equal level scrying spell, and better than most of even the higher level ones.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Max Intimidate and Max Gather Information fit.
Do it on everybody.

A little bit of this works:
Spells that save you from taking feats or investing skill points?
http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=3797

[Cyclone Joker]

Run a Weird engine, have it check for thoughtcrimes, possibly even go all Minority Report on thoughtcrimes.

Also, Primordial Halfgiant secret police. At-will invisibility is useful.

[Halinn]

If putting a thick layer of Marks of Justice on everybody is too difficult, have it be a requirement for getting jobs beyond basic labor. Of course, they'll have to pay to have one of your clerics do it and get the requisite paperwork. Similarly, anyone in the city who could remove a mark would have to get marks that make that basically impossible (double-layered mark, minus casting stat and 50% chance of doing nothing).

[Bulwer]

If putting a thick layer of Marks of Justice on everybody is too difficult, have it be a requirement for getting jobs beyond basic labor. Of course, they'll have to pay to have one of your clerics do it and get the requisite paperwork. Similarly, anyone in the city who could remove a mark would have to get marks that make that basically impossible (double-layered mark, minus casting stat and 50% chance of doing nothing).

That's a good idea. Put the mark on their faces, Fringe-style.

Clairvoyant Sense is great. I picture a room full of young, rapidly-trained psions that are paid a good amount of money to sit and cycle through a list of locations at set intervals until they run out of PP.

[sirpercival]

You too can have security cameras everywhere!  Using Stone Metamorphosis from Underdark, simply metamorphose a small piece of stone in every room of every building (and various places outside, to get full coverage) into Photostatic Stone.  Then connect them all with tiny veins of the stuff running down into the ground, and have it all converge into a single nexus (maybe a stone throne made of the same material).  If you can make it all one continuous piece, and have someone in contact with the throne at all times, you have real-time monitoring over your entire city.

[Cyclone Joker]

Clairvoyant Sense is great. I picture a room full of young, rapidly-trained psions that are paid a good amount of money to sit and cycle through a list of locations at set intervals until they run out of PP.

Paid? Psssh. Fear, loyalty, and brainwashing should be enough.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Bluff >>> Sense Motive
Sense Motive downtime training is strictly regulated = No for most.

Plant lots of lies and rumors.
Discern Lies 4 is a real breakpoint.

[Endarire]

Use a city-wide calm emotions that renews every round.  It'll stop a lot of the violence and 'destructive' tendencies.

[Halinn]

Use a city-wide calm emotions that renews every round.  It'll stop a lot of the violence and 'destructive' tendencies.

Makes it difficult for your guys to kill any "traitors", though. It's an extra cost to get your guards immune to mind-affecting (though I suppose only having them be immune for limited amounts of time also ensures that they won't revolt against you)

[8wGremlin]

I'm AFB at the moment, but in an old thought experiment I think we came up with the following...

There is a Mirror magic item can't think what its called, or what book its in. The Mirror, if you look in it turns you in to a LN version of yourself your stats change to 11's across the board.

There was also a quill (quill of law) which when you wrote a law, whom ever read it would be compelled to follow out that law.
It would allow upto 5 laws to be in effect at any one time.

Now first law is that you must come to the town center and read this notice once every month.
second law is that you must view the mirror 1/month (just to make sure it sticks)
I think the quill gave you a save if you were 6th level.

Now put the mirror in a prominent place in the towns hospital for the "others" and make sure that the children she it in some kind of ceremony

If you make these items yourself then you can tie it that it doen't work on your race, just for added protection.

[8wGremlin]

Use a city-wide calm emotions that renews every round.  It'll stop a lot of the violence and 'destructive' tendencies.

how do you make it city wide?
and if its a magic item make it only effect the other race

[bionicgeek]

Make all your high-level characters Thrallherds/Diplomancers.

You can have your Fanatics who hate everything else about you.
Meanwhile you are varying amounts of Friendly+ with the rest.
Competing organizations perhaps?

Lord Vetinari anyone?

[Endarire]

Bionicgeek: Yes.