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Maa & Pa worked this during WW2
Rule #1 for surviving tyranny - Don't comply in advance. They can make you pretend to work for them at the point of a gun, but don't walk in and just go along to avoid the unpleasantness of being forced, and never do anything more than is specifically required of you. You can be a collaborator or a wrench in the gears. Foreign occupiers always try to use existing government structures to manage their conquests, and they generally appoint a council of the occupied to be mouthpieces and for the population to focus their hatred on. These people have no real power, and refusing to do the occupiers' bidding leads to severe consequences. They also tend to have a short life span. Eventually they become virtual hostages of the occupiers in cases of acts of resistance by the public, and the public hates them as tools of the occupiers. Being hated by both sides, targeted by one, and liable to punishment or death at the hands of the other is a no-win game. Incompetence is a viable option, and so is assisting the resistance covertly. You'll probably get caught and the worst will happen, but the worst was going to happen anyway. At least there's a chance that after the war, someone will speak up for you and you won't get hanged by your own side. This kind of situation makes victims of the people involved, but some will fold and some will stand. The ones who go along aren't terrible people, or even especially weak. They're normal people who react to fear the way normal people do. The others, though, are a much rarer type. Valor in the dark without any expectation that anyone will ever know what you've done takes real strength of character. The more you learn about history, the more it begins to seem like a broken record played with a loose needle. The songs are the same, but they sound a little different each time.
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