Revision history for AvatarsRealWorld
Additions:
And if your dreams sometimes seem to have this odd pixelation-- well, it's hardly worth mentioning tomorrow at work. You don't //play// VR games. Officially.
__The Old City__
The Old City is the part of the original North Bend that survived the Ecoclysm. Failing infrastructure, no regular public air transportation, lacksadaisical support from the few utilities companies that are willing to make it out this far, and the encroachments of scavengers and gangs from the Dregs all contribute to making this part of North Bend shrink a little bit every year. If you live in the Old City, you'd better be armed and have your own car to get to the walled-in bus stations - the streets just aren't safe.
Home to the lower middle class - people just above the poverty line. Many people here are employed in the Works as supervisors, guards and maintenance crew, a step up from the line workers and the scavengers.
Outside the fortified suburbs and the Old City are the Dregs, wreckage of the Arcadia Arcology that couldn't be salvaged or sold. Toppled sections of floor serve as primitive windbreaks and roofs, filled in with torn-down billboards. The homes and buildings that weren't demolished are the best intact structures, but they are generally occupied by armed gangsters. Don't cross them - your only chance of getting justice is to appeal to the New Jersey Police Department, a tragically shortstaffed and poorly budgeted agency. No one will pay corporate police to step outside the walls and bust some heads here.
__The Old City__
The Old City is the part of the original North Bend that survived the Ecoclysm. Failing infrastructure, no regular public air transportation, lacksadaisical support from the few utilities companies that are willing to make it out this far, and the encroachments of scavengers and gangs from the Dregs all contribute to making this part of North Bend shrink a little bit every year. If you live in the Old City, you'd better be armed and have your own car to get to the walled-in bus stations - the streets just aren't safe.
Home to the lower middle class - people just above the poverty line. Many people here are employed in the Works as supervisors, guards and maintenance crew, a step up from the line workers and the scavengers.
Outside the fortified suburbs and the Old City are the Dregs, wreckage of the Arcadia Arcology that couldn't be salvaged or sold. Toppled sections of floor serve as primitive windbreaks and roofs, filled in with torn-down billboards. The homes and buildings that weren't demolished are the best intact structures, but they are generally occupied by armed gangsters. Don't cross them - your only chance of getting justice is to appeal to the New Jersey Police Department, a tragically shortstaffed and poorly budgeted agency. No one will pay corporate police to step outside the walls and bust some heads here.
Deletions:
Outside the fortified suburbs is the Dregs, wreckage of the Arcadia Arcology that couldn't be salvaged or sold. Toppled sections of floor serve as primitive windbreaks and roofs, filled in with torn-down billboards. The homes and buildings that weren't demolished are the best intact structures, but they are generally occupied by armed gangsters. Don't cross them - your only chance of getting justice is to appeal to the New Jersey Police Department, a tragically shortstaffed and poorly budgeted agency. No one will pay corporate police to step outside the walls and bust some heads here.
Additions:
====Other Locations====
__Avatars Amusement Park__ - actually the second park constructed under that name but still in the Greater Los Angeles area. The first one was virtually destroyed by an attack from the terrorist group Fracture. Resembles the city of Tasavalta, surrounded by areas named after important Shards in the Avatars game world.
__Palmdale Weapons Testing Grounds__ - a military base built in the area where the first Avatars amusement park had been. The area has been fenced off and access prohibited for the safety of residents. To all appearance, it's a stretch of barren ground ringed with military buildings and hangars.
__Avatars Amusement Park__ - actually the second park constructed under that name but still in the Greater Los Angeles area. The first one was virtually destroyed by an attack from the terrorist group Fracture. Resembles the city of Tasavalta, surrounded by areas named after important Shards in the Avatars game world.
__Palmdale Weapons Testing Grounds__ - a military base built in the area where the first Avatars amusement park had been. The area has been fenced off and access prohibited for the safety of residents. To all appearance, it's a stretch of barren ground ringed with military buildings and hangars.
Additions:
Terraforming projects is under way on both Mars and Venus, operating in very different ways. The Mars Project is under way from the Greater Asian megabloc, a political cooperative dominated by the Republic of China, and has commissioned a number of expeditions to land ice asteroids on Mars which should produce a breathable atmosphere in a few generations. The Venus Project is being undertaken by Children of Earth, a religion preaching that mankind's destiny is among the stars. They have a small research colony on Venus which is seeding the atmosphere with self-reproducing biotechnology to slowly, but surely, transform the ecology into a human-habitable one. Currently the Venus Project has over a thousand lawsuits filed against it to cease and desist its efforts.
Additions:
{{image url="http://lynx.purrsia.com/~lynx/av/phoenix_rising.jpg" title="Phoenix Rising" alt="http://tigaer.deviantart.com/art/Phoenix-Rising-165972808"}}
Deletions:
Deletions:
There are entire worldwide government agencies tasked with the protection of Earth's ecology, physical and virtual. Among these are:
__Internet Consumer Protection__ (ICP), which enforces spam prevention and prosecutes commercial fraud, sometimes with armed response teams.
__Cybercrime Emergency Response Team__ (CERT), tasked with stopping runaway AIs and other threats that could escalate into a collapse of the Net.
__Human Individuality Enforcement__ (HIE) has been romanticized for its Clone Detectors, security forces that go after suspected clones and "replicants" (androids built to exactly resemble people in order to take over their identities). The actual majority of their work is in airports and Tower checkpoints where they check papers and validate people's identities as they pass through to the megacorporate offices.
__United States__ - still exists as a government, and still employs thousands of people across the country in a variety of agencies, including fire and police departments, but it has had to delegate a lot of its authority and its ability to collect taxes to corporations - it's simply stretched too thin to be everywhere at once. As a result, some megacorporation armies may rival the strength that the US could assemble in a given place - but that's them putting everything they have there, since they don't have to save troops for defense from other countries.
__New York Police Department__ - tasked with law enforcement in the greater area of New York and New Jersey, of which North Bend is part. In practice, the corporate security in the Towers and the Districts handle petty crimes there and it's a matter of pride with them not to have to do more than ask the NYPD to come by and pick up a perp, so the investigations and patrols the NYPD carries out are mainly in the Works, and very occasionally in the Dregs when evidence of a murderer are just too numerous and blatant to ignore.
====Corporations====
__Avatars LLC__ - still the world's largest VR gaming company; as of 2064, it was estimated 1.2% of the world population subscribed to their game. However they were set back significantly by the Breakdown of 2065, and Dantech is catching up fast. In the corporate world, Avatars LLC is well known for its proprietary GESTALT AI that gives it an edge over all other companies for enormous simulations: besides their signature VR game, they also support number of military and scientific research programs, such as a next-generation weather modification program for cleaning up the Ecoclysm's fallout.
__Dantech__ is a multinational that produces computers and software. Their product line ranges from VR goggles and PDAs to high-density archives for libraries and universities, all the way up to quantum AI cores, though they haven't managed to duplicate Avatars LLC's unique GESTALT AI as yet. Their new gaming division is headlined by the Gloaming, which has become the second most popular VR game in the world with an estimated 0.8% of the population subscribing, and they predict it will pass Avatars in the next few years.
Deletions:
Consumer electronics are plentiful. Practically everyone who isn't out-and-out poor has a PDA or an earphone that keeps them in touch with everyone else.
Personal sidearms are not uncommon, more so in the Works and the Dregs where you need them for self-protection. Guns mostly use mass accelerator technology that fits in the palm of one's hands, but it's still possible to find 'old fashioned' propellant-based firearms in the hands of collectors. Explosives are clean fuel-air-based explosives. Biowarfare is illegal, as is nanotechnology capable of self-replication.
Most individuals don't own vehicles, but instead, use the public transportation system, or share communal hover-vehicles, ranging from bikes to cars to buses, all of which are electric and will recharge on widely available landing pads when not in use. These can be called for an autopilot pickup. Skybuses make regular trips between the Towers and Districts.
===AIs and Robots===
"Artificial Intelligence" is present in many places, but usually very limited - unless your question is very simple or one of those for which they were prepared, they'll have to refer it up to an actual human. Thus virtual receptionists and sales representatives are quite common, prepared with extensive spiels about their companies. People experienced with AIs will quickly see the giveaway mannerisms even in VR.
"Artificial Deities" are a step above normal AIs - but despite their ability to speak in a very natural and intelligent fashion, it should not be assumed that they think like humans. They are less and more than that. They have vast computational capabilities and can simulate whole societies according to accepted theories, but for all their power, individual human emotions and morality remain difficult for them to comprehend. For this reason, ADs are kept under strict control with network monitors in place to prevent them from reproducing themselves elsewhere, and guillotine protocols are installed on all major connections so that they can be shut off immediately if there's any sign they are going rampant.
ADs must run on quantum cores - nothing else has the processing capability. They cannot run on clouds of computers without so drastically reducing their speed that they may as well be normal AIs.
Robots generally come in these models:
- Utility robots. These look like garbage cans on wheels or treads. They can raise or lower their front and back wheels to allow them to pass stairs, and are equipped with a variety of arms and tools. These expert systems are designed to carry out one task with enough smarts to handle unexpected obstacles, not to hold conversations. They will put a call out to a human supervisor if they run into something they don't know how to handle.
- Androids. These are humanoid models that are nevertheless clearly non-human, and usually designed with smooth curving plastic to prevent injuries, should one malfunction. They are capable of understanding most natural language questions and order and holding a conversation within their area of expertise, but they find it difficult to interpret human emotions and mannerisms.
- Military robots. These are big hefty two-legged models that resemble ED-209. They have military AIs and are generally not disposed to talking about their orders to just anyone.
However, many robots are animatronics - specially built robots that can be made in the form of a wide variety of beasts. They range from pet-sized sold as toys for the kids and kids-at-heart, to lions and horses found in amusement park and zoos, all the way up to giant mechanized company mascots that resemble living parade floats. These robots can be further enhanced with fake skin and fur, and given tiny electro-muscles that let them seem very lifelike - the question is whether you can afford it.
===Biotechnology, Clones and Cyborgs===
Most diseases are curable, the problem is affording the cure.
Genetic engineering isn't available to the poor or middle class except to eliminate hereditary diseases. The rich use it to ensure their children have every advantage, but eccentric rich will sometimes add a few "designer touches". If a player wants to play an anthropomorph or other type of radically engineered character, it's possible but they will have to have had rich parents, and their looks will draw attention.
When people //want// to draw looks, of course, that's when designer surgery comes in. Want cat ears? No problem - electro-reactive plastic ears covered in fine faux fur are readily available for a price, and don't require a full cybernetics suite. This only incurs a charisma loss if you //look// like a cyborg.
Actual biological chimerae are feasible, but not on a mass-produced basis. If one is encountered, it will be a rich person's plaything or an escaped research program subject.
Cloning of humans and recording brainwaves is illegal, but that doesn't stop some people from doing it. However, it is possible to detect a clone due to trace signatures of the process used to build them. Once a clone is apprehended by government agencies or corporate security - think of Blade Runner here - it is sentenced to humane execution. This is the subject of a popular holodrama, //We're All Alike (Under The Skin).//
Bionic prosthetics are available, but will usually awaken pity or unease from those who are aware of these, especially if the prosthetics are colored or shaped in a way that violates human norms - they've all seen the shows where someone goes nuts and massacres everyone around.
Cyborgs are in use by some more extreme security forces. It costs a lot to build them, so while they are individually extremely capable and dangerous, it isn't seen as cost effective by most corporate security agencies. Their very presence strikes a chill into the heart of those around them. Again, the whole cyborg goes berserk thing. Initial market tests for a show that featured a cyborg hero were uniformly negative.
Additions:
- 2060s: a time of cautious optimism. The global economy has stabilized due to the joint efforts of governments and corporate states, and physical warfare is considered obsolete. Exploration of space has resumed, with missions being sent out to the Asteroid Belt to move asteroids closer to Earth for mining for the metals badly needed by its industries.
====Space Colonization====
The first space station collapsed and fell out of orbit during the Ecoclysm, digging a huge rift in the earth and causing great damage. A new one was built in the heydays of the 2040s, partially abandoned during the 2050s, and is now being refurbished and expanded to support the asteroid mining operations.
Asteroid miners are minor folk heroes these days - a lot of people agree that it would be interesting to go into space, and that it's brave of these people to undertake the difficult work of going out there to tag and bag asteroids... But //actually// going there seems like a lot more effort than it'd be personally worth to them to do - so there's a mystique about the ones who go through the intense physical regimen and training needed to carry out the missions.
There's a small colony on the Noon for research purposes, but it doesn't appear likely that it will be expanded much more than that - there aren't many resources on the Moon worth exploiting.
====Space Colonization====
The first space station collapsed and fell out of orbit during the Ecoclysm, digging a huge rift in the earth and causing great damage. A new one was built in the heydays of the 2040s, partially abandoned during the 2050s, and is now being refurbished and expanded to support the asteroid mining operations.
Asteroid miners are minor folk heroes these days - a lot of people agree that it would be interesting to go into space, and that it's brave of these people to undertake the difficult work of going out there to tag and bag asteroids... But //actually// going there seems like a lot more effort than it'd be personally worth to them to do - so there's a mystique about the ones who go through the intense physical regimen and training needed to carry out the missions.
There's a small colony on the Noon for research purposes, but it doesn't appear likely that it will be expanded much more than that - there aren't many resources on the Moon worth exploiting.
Deletions:
Additions:
__New York Police Department__ - tasked with law enforcement in the greater area of New York and New Jersey, of which North Bend is part. In practice, the corporate security in the Towers and the Districts handle petty crimes there and it's a matter of pride with them not to have to do more than ask the NYPD to come by and pick up a perp, so the investigations and patrols the NYPD carries out are mainly in the Works, and very occasionally in the Dregs when evidence of a murderer are just too numerous and blatant to ignore.
Deletions:
Additions:
If you're a scavenger, charity soup kitchens serve up a filling (if thin) gruel in the morning and then if you're lucky, there'll be bosses from the Works or the farms calling for workers. If you're not, you get to go diving into the wreckage, or pass a few folded-up New Dollars to a guard to let you into the Dump so you can try to find some actually salvageable goodies. Then you bring these back to the Beach, a shantytown where washed up types will fix what can be fixed and buy them off you. Hopefully you've made enough to buy a cheap mealpak and a beer. Pull the heat tab, eat up, then find someplace to sleep out of the cold rain that's begun to fall - you don't want to be out in that stuff, it'll burn you.
If you're a gangster, you worry a lot more about who really rules the Dregs. Maybe this is a day you go and stake out some of your territory, chasing out interlopers and making sure those scavengers picking over your junk know who's boss. Maybe this is a day to push. Some days you're helping out with the sleaze operations like gambling and electro-drugs, other days picking your teeth off the ground and looking for something to make the pain stop. The idea of quitting and going to the Works never enters your head. That's /going legit/. You're /better/ than that.
- 2050s: short-sighted greed cut the legs out from under the world's economy, producing what is now called the New Depression. The Mafia, still alive and well in the 21st century, turned out to have used substandard materials when its union workers built the arcology, which reacted poorly with the new acidic soot that began to rain from the skies. Several disasters later, it began to collapse into a shantytown. Mr. Arcadia channeled his resources into holding onto the last, most profitable residents, the corporate executives and their workers, reinforcing the towers in which they lived and stripping workers and robots from the rest.
====Technology====
Consumer electronics are plentiful. Practically everyone who isn't out-and-out poor has a PDA or an earphone that keeps them in touch with everyone else.
===AIs and Robots===
"Artificial Deities" are a step above normal AIs - but despite their ability to speak in a very natural and intelligent fashion, it should not be assumed that they think like humans. They are less and more than that. They have vast computational capabilities and can simulate whole societies according to accepted theories, but for all their power, individual human emotions and morality remain difficult for them to comprehend. For this reason, ADs are kept under strict control with network monitors in place to prevent them from reproducing themselves elsewhere, and guillotine protocols are installed on all major connections so that they can be shut off immediately if there's any sign they are going rampant.
ADs must run on quantum cores - nothing else has the processing capability. They cannot run on clouds of computers without so drastically reducing their speed that they may as well be normal AIs.
- Utility robots. These look like garbage cans on wheels or treads. They can raise or lower their front and back wheels to allow them to pass stairs, and are equipped with a variety of arms and tools. These expert systems are designed to carry out one task with enough smarts to handle unexpected obstacles, not to hold conversations. They will put a call out to a human supervisor if they run into something they don't know how to handle.
- Androids. These are humanoid models that are nevertheless clearly non-human, and usually designed with smooth curving plastic to prevent injuries, should one malfunction. They are capable of understanding most natural language questions and order and holding a conversation within their area of expertise, but they find it difficult to interpret human emotions and mannerisms.
- Military robots. These are big hefty two-legged models that resemble ED-209. They have military AIs and are generally not disposed to talking about their orders to just anyone.
===Biotechnology, Clones and Cyborgs===
Most diseases are curable, the problem is affording the cure.
Genetic engineering isn't available to the poor or middle class except to eliminate hereditary diseases. The rich use it to ensure their children have every advantage, but eccentric rich will sometimes add a few "designer touches". If a player wants to play an anthropomorph or other type of radically engineered character, it's possible but they will have to have had rich parents, and their looks will draw attention.
When people //want// to draw looks, of course, that's when designer surgery comes in. Want cat ears? No problem - electro-reactive plastic ears covered in fine faux fur are readily available for a price, and don't require a full cybernetics suite. This only incurs a charisma loss if you //look// like a cyborg.
Actual biological chimerae are feasible, but not on a mass-produced basis. If one is encountered, it will be a rich person's plaything or an escaped research program subject.
====Government Agencies====
__Human Individuality Enforcement__ (HIE) has been romanticized for its Clone Detectors, security forces that go after suspected clones and "replicants" (androids built to exactly resemble people in order to take over their identities). The actual majority of their work is in airports and Tower checkpoints where they check papers and validate people's identities as they pass through to the megacorporate offices.
__United States__ - still exists as a government, and still employs thousands of people across the country in a variety of agencies, including fire and police departments, but it has had to delegate a lot of its authority and its ability to collect taxes to corporations - it's simply stretched too thin to be everywhere at once. As a result, some megacorporation armies may rival the strength that the US could assemble in a given place - but that's them putting everything they have there, since they don't have to save troops for defense from other countries.
__New Jersey Police Department__ - tasked with law enforcement in the general area of New Jersey, of which North Bend is part. In practice, the corporate security in the Towers and the Districts handle petty crimes there and it's a matter of pride with them not to have to do more than ask the NJPD to come by and pick up a perp, so the investigations and patrols the NJPD carries out are mainly in the Works, and very occasionally in the Dregs when evidence of a murderer are just too numerous and blatant to ignore.
====Corporations====
__Avatars LLC__ - still the world's largest VR gaming company; as of 2064, it was estimated 1.2% of the world population subscribed to their game. However they were set back significantly by the Breakdown of 2065, and Dantech is catching up fast. In the corporate world, Avatars LLC is well known for its proprietary GESTALT AI that gives it an edge over all other companies for enormous simulations: besides their signature VR game, they also support number of military and scientific research programs, such as a next-generation weather modification program for cleaning up the Ecoclysm's fallout.
__Dantech__ is a multinational that produces computers and software. Their product line ranges from VR goggles and PDAs to high-density archives for libraries and universities, all the way up to quantum AI cores, though they haven't managed to duplicate Avatars LLC's unique GESTALT AI as yet. Their new gaming division is headlined by the Gloaming, which has become the second most popular VR game in the world with an estimated 0.8% of the population subscribing, and they predict it will pass Avatars in the next few years.
If you're a gangster, you worry a lot more about who really rules the Dregs. Maybe this is a day you go and stake out some of your territory, chasing out interlopers and making sure those scavengers picking over your junk know who's boss. Maybe this is a day to push. Some days you're helping out with the sleaze operations like gambling and electro-drugs, other days picking your teeth off the ground and looking for something to make the pain stop. The idea of quitting and going to the Works never enters your head. That's /going legit/. You're /better/ than that.
- 2050s: short-sighted greed cut the legs out from under the world's economy, producing what is now called the New Depression. The Mafia, still alive and well in the 21st century, turned out to have used substandard materials when its union workers built the arcology, which reacted poorly with the new acidic soot that began to rain from the skies. Several disasters later, it began to collapse into a shantytown. Mr. Arcadia channeled his resources into holding onto the last, most profitable residents, the corporate executives and their workers, reinforcing the towers in which they lived and stripping workers and robots from the rest.
====Technology====
Consumer electronics are plentiful. Practically everyone who isn't out-and-out poor has a PDA or an earphone that keeps them in touch with everyone else.
===AIs and Robots===
"Artificial Deities" are a step above normal AIs - but despite their ability to speak in a very natural and intelligent fashion, it should not be assumed that they think like humans. They are less and more than that. They have vast computational capabilities and can simulate whole societies according to accepted theories, but for all their power, individual human emotions and morality remain difficult for them to comprehend. For this reason, ADs are kept under strict control with network monitors in place to prevent them from reproducing themselves elsewhere, and guillotine protocols are installed on all major connections so that they can be shut off immediately if there's any sign they are going rampant.
ADs must run on quantum cores - nothing else has the processing capability. They cannot run on clouds of computers without so drastically reducing their speed that they may as well be normal AIs.
- Utility robots. These look like garbage cans on wheels or treads. They can raise or lower their front and back wheels to allow them to pass stairs, and are equipped with a variety of arms and tools. These expert systems are designed to carry out one task with enough smarts to handle unexpected obstacles, not to hold conversations. They will put a call out to a human supervisor if they run into something they don't know how to handle.
- Androids. These are humanoid models that are nevertheless clearly non-human, and usually designed with smooth curving plastic to prevent injuries, should one malfunction. They are capable of understanding most natural language questions and order and holding a conversation within their area of expertise, but they find it difficult to interpret human emotions and mannerisms.
- Military robots. These are big hefty two-legged models that resemble ED-209. They have military AIs and are generally not disposed to talking about their orders to just anyone.
===Biotechnology, Clones and Cyborgs===
Most diseases are curable, the problem is affording the cure.
Genetic engineering isn't available to the poor or middle class except to eliminate hereditary diseases. The rich use it to ensure their children have every advantage, but eccentric rich will sometimes add a few "designer touches". If a player wants to play an anthropomorph or other type of radically engineered character, it's possible but they will have to have had rich parents, and their looks will draw attention.
When people //want// to draw looks, of course, that's when designer surgery comes in. Want cat ears? No problem - electro-reactive plastic ears covered in fine faux fur are readily available for a price, and don't require a full cybernetics suite. This only incurs a charisma loss if you //look// like a cyborg.
Actual biological chimerae are feasible, but not on a mass-produced basis. If one is encountered, it will be a rich person's plaything or an escaped research program subject.
====Government Agencies====
__Human Individuality Enforcement__ (HIE) has been romanticized for its Clone Detectors, security forces that go after suspected clones and "replicants" (androids built to exactly resemble people in order to take over their identities). The actual majority of their work is in airports and Tower checkpoints where they check papers and validate people's identities as they pass through to the megacorporate offices.
__United States__ - still exists as a government, and still employs thousands of people across the country in a variety of agencies, including fire and police departments, but it has had to delegate a lot of its authority and its ability to collect taxes to corporations - it's simply stretched too thin to be everywhere at once. As a result, some megacorporation armies may rival the strength that the US could assemble in a given place - but that's them putting everything they have there, since they don't have to save troops for defense from other countries.
__New Jersey Police Department__ - tasked with law enforcement in the general area of New Jersey, of which North Bend is part. In practice, the corporate security in the Towers and the Districts handle petty crimes there and it's a matter of pride with them not to have to do more than ask the NJPD to come by and pick up a perp, so the investigations and patrols the NJPD carries out are mainly in the Works, and very occasionally in the Dregs when evidence of a murderer are just too numerous and blatant to ignore.
====Corporations====
__Avatars LLC__ - still the world's largest VR gaming company; as of 2064, it was estimated 1.2% of the world population subscribed to their game. However they were set back significantly by the Breakdown of 2065, and Dantech is catching up fast. In the corporate world, Avatars LLC is well known for its proprietary GESTALT AI that gives it an edge over all other companies for enormous simulations: besides their signature VR game, they also support number of military and scientific research programs, such as a next-generation weather modification program for cleaning up the Ecoclysm's fallout.
__Dantech__ is a multinational that produces computers and software. Their product line ranges from VR goggles and PDAs to high-density archives for libraries and universities, all the way up to quantum AI cores, though they haven't managed to duplicate Avatars LLC's unique GESTALT AI as yet. Their new gaming division is headlined by the Gloaming, which has become the second most popular VR game in the world with an estimated 0.8% of the population subscribing, and they predict it will pass Avatars in the next few years.
Deletions:
If you're a gangster, you worry a lot more about who really rules the Dregs. Maybe this is a day you go and stake out some of your territory, chasing out interlopers and making sure those scavengers picking over your junk know who's boss. Maybe this is a day to push. Some days you're helping out with the sleaze operations like gambling and electro-drugs, other days picking your teeth off the ground and looking for something to make the pain stop. The idea of quitting and going to the Works never enters your head. That's /going legit/. You're /above/ that.
- 2050s: short-sighted greed cut the legs out from under the world's economy, producing what is now called the New Depression. The Mafia, still alive and well in the 21st century, turned out to have used substandard materials when its union workers built the arcology, which reacted poorly with the new "Plastic Snow" that began to rain from the skies. Several disasters later, it began to collapse into a shantytown. Mr. Arcadia channeled his resources into holding onto the last, most profitable residents, the corporate executives and their workers, reinforcing the towers in which they lived and stripping workers and robots from the rest.
==Technology==
Energy is plentiful, as are consumer electronics. Practically everyone who isn't out-and-out poor has a PDA or an earphone that keeps them in touch with everyone else.
- Utility robots. These look like garbage cans on wheels or treads. They can raise or lower their front and back wheels to allow them to pass stairs, and are equipped with a variety of arms and tools.
- Androids. These are humanoid models that are nevertheless clearly non-human, and usually designed with smooth curving plastic to prevent injuries, should one malfunction.
- Military robots. These are big hefty two-legged models that resemble ED-209.
Actual biological chimerae are feasible, but not on a mass-produced basis. If any is encountered, it will be as the result of some corporate experiment, and should be considered highly dangerous.
==Government Agencies and Corporations==
__Human Individuality Enforcement__ (HIE), which has been mythicized for its Clone Detectors, security forces that go after suspected clones and androids. The actual majority of their work is in airports and Tower checkpoints where they check papers and validate people's identities as they pass through to work.
Additions:
There are entire worldwide government agencies tasked with the protection of Earth's ecology, physical and virtual. Among these are:
__Internet Consumer Protection__ (ICP), which enforces spam prevention and prosecutes commercial fraud, sometimes with armed response teams.
__Cybercrime Emergency Response Team__ (CERT), tasked with stopping runaway AIs and other threats that could escalate into a collapse of the Net.
__Human Individuality Enforcement__ (HIE), which has been mythicized for its Clone Detectors, security forces that go after suspected clones and androids. The actual majority of their work is in airports and Tower checkpoints where they check papers and validate people's identities as they pass through to work.
__Internet Consumer Protection__ (ICP), which enforces spam prevention and prosecutes commercial fraud, sometimes with armed response teams.
__Cybercrime Emergency Response Team__ (CERT), tasked with stopping runaway AIs and other threats that could escalate into a collapse of the Net.
__Human Individuality Enforcement__ (HIE), which has been mythicized for its Clone Detectors, security forces that go after suspected clones and androids. The actual majority of their work is in airports and Tower checkpoints where they check papers and validate people's identities as they pass through to work.
Deletions:
Additions:
Cloning of humans and recording brainwaves is illegal, but that doesn't stop some people from doing it. However, it is possible to detect a clone due to trace signatures of the process used to build them. Once a clone is apprehended by government agencies or corporate security - think of Blade Runner here - it is sentenced to humane execution. This is the subject of a popular holodrama, //We're All Alike (Under The Skin).//
Deletions:
Additions:
Energy is plentiful, as are consumer electronics. Practically everyone who isn't out-and-out poor has a PDA or an earphone that keeps them in touch with everyone else.
Personal sidearms are not uncommon, more so in the Works and the Dregs where you need them for self-protection. Guns mostly use mass accelerator technology that fits in the palm of one's hands, but it's still possible to find 'old fashioned' propellant-based firearms in the hands of collectors. Explosives are clean fuel-air-based explosives. Biowarfare is illegal, as is nanotechnology capable of self-replication.
Most individuals don't own vehicles, but instead, use the public transportation system, or share communal hover-vehicles, ranging from bikes to cars to buses, all of which are electric and will recharge on widely available landing pads when not in use. These can be called for an autopilot pickup. Skybuses make regular trips between the Towers and Districts.
"Artificial Intelligence" is present in many places, but usually very limited - unless your question is very simple or one of those for which they were prepared, they'll have to refer it up to an actual human. Thus virtual receptionists and sales representatives are quite common, prepared with extensive spiels about their companies. People experienced with AIs will quickly see the giveaway mannerisms even in VR.
Robots generally come in these models:
- Utility robots. These look like garbage cans on wheels or treads. They can raise or lower their front and back wheels to allow them to pass stairs, and are equipped with a variety of arms and tools.
- Androids. These are humanoid models that are nevertheless clearly non-human, and usually designed with smooth curving plastic to prevent injuries, should one malfunction.
- Military robots. These are big hefty two-legged models that resemble ED-209.
However, many robots are animatronics - specially built robots that can be made in the form of a wide variety of beasts. They range from pet-sized sold as toys for the kids and kids-at-heart, to lions and horses found in amusement park and zoos, all the way up to giant mechanized company mascots that resemble living parade floats. These robots can be further enhanced with fake skin and fur, and given tiny electro-muscles that let them seem very lifelike - the question is whether you can afford it.
Actual biological chimerae are feasible, but not on a mass-produced basis. If any is encountered, it will be as the result of some corporate experiment, and should be considered highly dangerous.
Cloning of humans and recording brainwaves is illegal, but that doesn't stop some people from doing it. However, it is possible to detect a clone due to trace signatures of the process used to build them. Once a clone is apprehended by government agencies or corporate security - think of Blade Runner here - it is sentenced to humane execution. This is the subject of a popular holodrama, //Clone Runners.//
Bionic prosthetics are available, but will usually awaken pity or unease from those who are aware of these, especially if the prosthetics are colored or shaped in a way that violates human norms - they've all seen the shows where someone goes nuts and massacres everyone around.
Cyborgs are in use by some more extreme security forces. It costs a lot to build them, so while they are individually extremely capable and dangerous, it isn't seen as cost effective by most corporate security agencies. Their very presence strikes a chill into the heart of those around them. Again, the whole cyborg goes berserk thing. Initial market tests for a show that featured a cyborg hero were uniformly negative.
Personal sidearms are not uncommon, more so in the Works and the Dregs where you need them for self-protection. Guns mostly use mass accelerator technology that fits in the palm of one's hands, but it's still possible to find 'old fashioned' propellant-based firearms in the hands of collectors. Explosives are clean fuel-air-based explosives. Biowarfare is illegal, as is nanotechnology capable of self-replication.
Most individuals don't own vehicles, but instead, use the public transportation system, or share communal hover-vehicles, ranging from bikes to cars to buses, all of which are electric and will recharge on widely available landing pads when not in use. These can be called for an autopilot pickup. Skybuses make regular trips between the Towers and Districts.
"Artificial Intelligence" is present in many places, but usually very limited - unless your question is very simple or one of those for which they were prepared, they'll have to refer it up to an actual human. Thus virtual receptionists and sales representatives are quite common, prepared with extensive spiels about their companies. People experienced with AIs will quickly see the giveaway mannerisms even in VR.
Robots generally come in these models:
- Utility robots. These look like garbage cans on wheels or treads. They can raise or lower their front and back wheels to allow them to pass stairs, and are equipped with a variety of arms and tools.
- Androids. These are humanoid models that are nevertheless clearly non-human, and usually designed with smooth curving plastic to prevent injuries, should one malfunction.
- Military robots. These are big hefty two-legged models that resemble ED-209.
However, many robots are animatronics - specially built robots that can be made in the form of a wide variety of beasts. They range from pet-sized sold as toys for the kids and kids-at-heart, to lions and horses found in amusement park and zoos, all the way up to giant mechanized company mascots that resemble living parade floats. These robots can be further enhanced with fake skin and fur, and given tiny electro-muscles that let them seem very lifelike - the question is whether you can afford it.
Actual biological chimerae are feasible, but not on a mass-produced basis. If any is encountered, it will be as the result of some corporate experiment, and should be considered highly dangerous.
Cloning of humans and recording brainwaves is illegal, but that doesn't stop some people from doing it. However, it is possible to detect a clone due to trace signatures of the process used to build them. Once a clone is apprehended by government agencies or corporate security - think of Blade Runner here - it is sentenced to humane execution. This is the subject of a popular holodrama, //Clone Runners.//
Bionic prosthetics are available, but will usually awaken pity or unease from those who are aware of these, especially if the prosthetics are colored or shaped in a way that violates human norms - they've all seen the shows where someone goes nuts and massacres everyone around.
Cyborgs are in use by some more extreme security forces. It costs a lot to build them, so while they are individually extremely capable and dangerous, it isn't seen as cost effective by most corporate security agencies. Their very presence strikes a chill into the heart of those around them. Again, the whole cyborg goes berserk thing. Initial market tests for a show that featured a cyborg hero were uniformly negative.
Deletions:
"Artificial Intelligence" is present in many places, but usually very limited - unless your question is very simple or one of those for which they were prepared, they'll have to refer it up to an actual human. Thus virtual receptionists and sales representatives are quite common, prepared with extensive spiels about their companies.
Additions:
__The Towers__
Arcadia believed he was building the future - an arcology, a giant indoor city that would provide housing, food, and work for everyone within, and a standard of living comparable to the richest of the 21st century. His vision faltered when disaster and scandal beset his company, and he was forced to scale down what he had to those who could pay and abandon the rest.
The Towers are massive buildings that loom over the city. Each one is a hub of commerce and residence, with offices, shopping and theaters and restaurants, and clean, luxurious apartments within walking distance of all three. They are served by airpads at the top where Skybuses and taxis wait to ferry people between the towers and the suburbs, or even to the lights of New York City itself. Real food is plentiful, and served by smiling humans who are secretly grateful they're not "down there". Utility robots are ubiquitous, carrying out thousands of little tasks, then vanishing into the hidden robot tunnels.
__The Districts__
Where Arcadia failed, other investors stepped in. They salvaged still-good buildings and construction materials and built walls to keep out the hordes of scavengers and derelicts, and instituted regular security patrols to man the walls. Rent is a lot cheaper than the Towers, but every time someone looks up from the suburbs to the darkly gleaming Towers, they can't help but be reminded that so is their pay.
Apartment buildings have landing pads to serve those who work in the Towers but can't afford the rent. The streets can be walked during the daytime, but a curfew sounds at 9 PM and then skimmers start to patrol - if you're on the street, you'd better have your citizen's ID so you'll just get a warning and a flyover to your home rather than thrown out of the walls.
Districts are generally numbered after the Tower they adjoin, so Magnolia Seven is the 7th suburb next to the Magnolia Tower.
Life inside an apartment building is comfortable. You have real vegetables from the hydroponics in the Works - not just enhanced proteins like the //proles//, though no one points out the fast food restaurants everywhere that serve up soy substitutes, they're just so //convenient//. Once a month you can splurge, go out on a date, have a //steak// and feel like you're living in the Towers. There's chatter everywhere, talk about who's winning in //real// sports and who's starring in the latest holocast sensation. You don't play VR games, you're too busy having a //real// life.
Or at least that's what you say in public. In the privacy of your own home, who's going to know when you boot up Avatars or that hot new game, the Gloaming? And in VR, you can have the kind of success you imagine that people in the Tower do - people looking up to you, doing what you tell them to, bringing you the finest food and wine. It's a heady sensation, one that lasts until your head hits the pillow.
And if your dreams sometimes seem to have this odd pixelation-- well, it's hardly worth mentioning tomorrow at work. You don't //play// VR games.
__The Works__
Taking up a big corner of North Bend is a big heap of metal that was originally going to be the manufacturing and hydroponics sector that provided all of the arcology's needs. After the near-meltdown disasters, Arcadia abandoned the concept of his own industrial sector as too much trouble - but with all that machinery around, some of the smarter scroungers were able to get enough of them running to start small scale operations, and that led to what is now called the Works.
There's a big field, the Dump. Garbage operations dump the trash there, and scavengers swarm through to pick out anything that can be salvaged or has high value when recycled properly. Junkers swear at them as they work mechanical shovels, scooping up huge loads of what's left, wheeling them around and dumping the rest into the Sludge Pits, where they get melted down and fed into reclaiming pits that break down everything into different kinds of goo, all of them gray. Some gets turned into fertilizer for the high-density soybean farms. Others go to the Factories, and get made into cheap and shoddy consumer goods.
The Works is pretty much a company town. If you work there, you make just enough to get by, and you turn a blind eye to the scavengers that slip a bit of change to the guards so they can try to "strike it rich" off of the gleanings. And at night, you line up for the buses - not Skybuses but old fashioned, unbelievably gas-burning relics - that take you back to the cheap tenements and soup kitchens just outside the walls of the Districts.
But distraction is cheap. You get a discount on all the goods they make here - so pick up that dented VR helmet and jack right into another world.
__The Dregs__
Outside the fortified suburbs is the Dregs, wreckage of the Arcadia Arcology that couldn't be salvaged or sold. Toppled sections of floor serve as primitive windbreaks and roofs, filled in with torn-down billboards. The homes and buildings that weren't demolished are the best intact structures, but they are generally occupied by armed gangsters. Don't cross them - your only chance of getting justice is to appeal to the New Jersey Police Department, a tragically shortstaffed and poorly budgeted agency. No one will pay corporate police to step outside the walls and bust some heads here.
There used to be a lot more people here, "back in the days" - after the Ecoclysm, when refugees poured into North Bend to get shelter. They're mostly gone now, and the pickings are better for those that remain - scavengers and gangsters.
If you're a scavenger, charity soup kitchens serve up a filling (if thin) gruel in the morning and then if you're lucky, there'll be bosses from the Works or the farms calling for workers. If you're not, you get to go diving into the wreckage, or pass a few folded-up New Dollars to a guard to let you into the Dump so you can try to find some actually salvageable goodies. Then you bring these back to the Beach, a shantytown where washed up types will fix what can be fixed and buy them off you. Hopefully you've made enough to buy a cheap mealpak and a beer. Pull the heat tab, eat up, then find someplace to sleep out of the cold rain that's begun to fall.
If you're a gangster, you worry a lot more about who really rules the Dregs. Maybe this is a day you go and stake out some of your territory, chasing out interlopers and making sure those scavengers picking over your junk know who's boss. Maybe this is a day to push. Some days you're helping out with the sleaze operations like gambling and electro-drugs, other days picking your teeth off the ground and looking for something to make the pain stop. The idea of quitting and going to the Works never enters your head. That's /going legit/. You're /above/ that.
Arcadia believed he was building the future - an arcology, a giant indoor city that would provide housing, food, and work for everyone within, and a standard of living comparable to the richest of the 21st century. His vision faltered when disaster and scandal beset his company, and he was forced to scale down what he had to those who could pay and abandon the rest.
The Towers are massive buildings that loom over the city. Each one is a hub of commerce and residence, with offices, shopping and theaters and restaurants, and clean, luxurious apartments within walking distance of all three. They are served by airpads at the top where Skybuses and taxis wait to ferry people between the towers and the suburbs, or even to the lights of New York City itself. Real food is plentiful, and served by smiling humans who are secretly grateful they're not "down there". Utility robots are ubiquitous, carrying out thousands of little tasks, then vanishing into the hidden robot tunnels.
__The Districts__
Where Arcadia failed, other investors stepped in. They salvaged still-good buildings and construction materials and built walls to keep out the hordes of scavengers and derelicts, and instituted regular security patrols to man the walls. Rent is a lot cheaper than the Towers, but every time someone looks up from the suburbs to the darkly gleaming Towers, they can't help but be reminded that so is their pay.
Apartment buildings have landing pads to serve those who work in the Towers but can't afford the rent. The streets can be walked during the daytime, but a curfew sounds at 9 PM and then skimmers start to patrol - if you're on the street, you'd better have your citizen's ID so you'll just get a warning and a flyover to your home rather than thrown out of the walls.
Districts are generally numbered after the Tower they adjoin, so Magnolia Seven is the 7th suburb next to the Magnolia Tower.
Life inside an apartment building is comfortable. You have real vegetables from the hydroponics in the Works - not just enhanced proteins like the //proles//, though no one points out the fast food restaurants everywhere that serve up soy substitutes, they're just so //convenient//. Once a month you can splurge, go out on a date, have a //steak// and feel like you're living in the Towers. There's chatter everywhere, talk about who's winning in //real// sports and who's starring in the latest holocast sensation. You don't play VR games, you're too busy having a //real// life.
Or at least that's what you say in public. In the privacy of your own home, who's going to know when you boot up Avatars or that hot new game, the Gloaming? And in VR, you can have the kind of success you imagine that people in the Tower do - people looking up to you, doing what you tell them to, bringing you the finest food and wine. It's a heady sensation, one that lasts until your head hits the pillow.
And if your dreams sometimes seem to have this odd pixelation-- well, it's hardly worth mentioning tomorrow at work. You don't //play// VR games.
__The Works__
Taking up a big corner of North Bend is a big heap of metal that was originally going to be the manufacturing and hydroponics sector that provided all of the arcology's needs. After the near-meltdown disasters, Arcadia abandoned the concept of his own industrial sector as too much trouble - but with all that machinery around, some of the smarter scroungers were able to get enough of them running to start small scale operations, and that led to what is now called the Works.
There's a big field, the Dump. Garbage operations dump the trash there, and scavengers swarm through to pick out anything that can be salvaged or has high value when recycled properly. Junkers swear at them as they work mechanical shovels, scooping up huge loads of what's left, wheeling them around and dumping the rest into the Sludge Pits, where they get melted down and fed into reclaiming pits that break down everything into different kinds of goo, all of them gray. Some gets turned into fertilizer for the high-density soybean farms. Others go to the Factories, and get made into cheap and shoddy consumer goods.
The Works is pretty much a company town. If you work there, you make just enough to get by, and you turn a blind eye to the scavengers that slip a bit of change to the guards so they can try to "strike it rich" off of the gleanings. And at night, you line up for the buses - not Skybuses but old fashioned, unbelievably gas-burning relics - that take you back to the cheap tenements and soup kitchens just outside the walls of the Districts.
But distraction is cheap. You get a discount on all the goods they make here - so pick up that dented VR helmet and jack right into another world.
__The Dregs__
Outside the fortified suburbs is the Dregs, wreckage of the Arcadia Arcology that couldn't be salvaged or sold. Toppled sections of floor serve as primitive windbreaks and roofs, filled in with torn-down billboards. The homes and buildings that weren't demolished are the best intact structures, but they are generally occupied by armed gangsters. Don't cross them - your only chance of getting justice is to appeal to the New Jersey Police Department, a tragically shortstaffed and poorly budgeted agency. No one will pay corporate police to step outside the walls and bust some heads here.
There used to be a lot more people here, "back in the days" - after the Ecoclysm, when refugees poured into North Bend to get shelter. They're mostly gone now, and the pickings are better for those that remain - scavengers and gangsters.
If you're a scavenger, charity soup kitchens serve up a filling (if thin) gruel in the morning and then if you're lucky, there'll be bosses from the Works or the farms calling for workers. If you're not, you get to go diving into the wreckage, or pass a few folded-up New Dollars to a guard to let you into the Dump so you can try to find some actually salvageable goodies. Then you bring these back to the Beach, a shantytown where washed up types will fix what can be fixed and buy them off you. Hopefully you've made enough to buy a cheap mealpak and a beer. Pull the heat tab, eat up, then find someplace to sleep out of the cold rain that's begun to fall.
If you're a gangster, you worry a lot more about who really rules the Dregs. Maybe this is a day you go and stake out some of your territory, chasing out interlopers and making sure those scavengers picking over your junk know who's boss. Maybe this is a day to push. Some days you're helping out with the sleaze operations like gambling and electro-drugs, other days picking your teeth off the ground and looking for something to make the pain stop. The idea of quitting and going to the Works never enters your head. That's /going legit/. You're /above/ that.
Deletions:
====Social Classes====
__High Rent__
Corporate executives, government officials, and other well-to-do types. They identify themselves as living in one of the arcology towers still in good working order, like Magnolia Seven, rather than North Bend - in fact they don't really associate themselves with North Bend at all. Real food is plentiful, and served by robots in their houses or smiling humans in fine restaurants who know how lucky they are to be able to work up here, away from the riffraff.
__Average Joes__
Citizens who live in the lower levels of the towers or in fortified suburbs around the towers. The luckier ones work in company offices in the same tower or nearby, but an unfortunate number have to commute to the factory. They pay for protection from the gangsters and carry badges to mark themselves under so-and-so's protection. VR games and entertainment are their best escape from the gray skies and smoke-tinged walls of their homes and works.
Citizens eat farm-grown vegetables and synthesized soy proteins, processed and fortified with vitamins and minerals. Steak is a once-a-month sort of luxury for those who like to imagine they'll someday be promoted to a penthouse apartment. Meat simply can't be mass-produced the way it used to be.
__The Poor__
Those who can't pay the rent live in abandoned homes and stores or wherever they can put up a tent or shanty, outside the towers, colloquially called the Heap. If they're not lucky enough to have jobs, they scrounge through the wreckage of the Ecoclysm and the New Depression for junk that has enough weight and value to be worth toting back to the Junkyard, or if they are lucky, has enough intrinsic value to be sold as is.
Food is plentiful: given some space, an industrious scavenger can gather up enough "Plastic Snow" from the falls to throw into the stained gray recycling vats, and get a gray goo, flavored with one of several "exciting, tasty condiments". Everyone dreams of making it big though, striking it rich, finding that lost treasure somewhere out there that'll get them out of the Heap.
__Gangsters and Racketeers__
There are two kinds of profiteers that dominate the Heap: the factory owners and those who work for them, turning society's trash into freshly made (if shoddy) goods and food for the masses, and the gangsters that run gambling, drug operations, and "security" at the gates surrounding the Junkyard. They work hand-in-glove with each other to keep the poor "down where they belong" - the factory owners pay the very same people that buy the majority of the goods they produce, and the gangsters collect a protection fee on top of that, so in the end, a scavenger is back where he began.
They have access to some of the luxuries that they ship up to the High Rent districts, so by and large, a gangster or racketeer lives better than the poor or Average Joes, but it's a live fast, die hard kind of life for them.
Additions:
[[http://tigaer.deviantart.com/art/Phoenix-Rising-165972808 Phoenix Rising by Tigaer]]
Additions:
AvatarsCampaign > AvatarsRealWorld
======The Real World of Avatars 2.0======
====North Bend of the Present====
{{image url="http://lagkitten.purrsia.com/phoenix_rising.jpg" title="Phoenix Rising" alt="http://tigaer.deviantart.com/art/Phoenix-Rising-165972808"}}
There is a curious culture in North Bend and New York City, where the most prosperous live in the 'High Rent' districts, using aircars and elevated landing platforms to get around, most of the people are either average citizens who brave the street when they must, scavengers and ne'er do wells who eke out a living combing through the trash and ruins of the past decades, and gangsters rule the streets and shantytowns. Junk brought into the Junkyard gets weighed, paid for, then tossed into the Sludge Pits where it gets broken down by atomic weight into raw materials, and nearby factories product cheap goods to be flown off to New York City, ever hungry for novelties and construction materials.
- 2060s: a time of cautious optimism. The global economy has stabilized due to the joint efforts of governments and corporate states, and physical warfare is considered obsolete. North Bend's population has stabilized and even begun to grow with an influx of corporate executives and middle-class looking for a place to live near New York, without the exorbitant rent of the Big Apple itself.
======The Real World of Avatars 2.0======
====North Bend of the Present====
{{image url="http://lagkitten.purrsia.com/phoenix_rising.jpg" title="Phoenix Rising" alt="http://tigaer.deviantart.com/art/Phoenix-Rising-165972808"}}
There is a curious culture in North Bend and New York City, where the most prosperous live in the 'High Rent' districts, using aircars and elevated landing platforms to get around, most of the people are either average citizens who brave the street when they must, scavengers and ne'er do wells who eke out a living combing through the trash and ruins of the past decades, and gangsters rule the streets and shantytowns. Junk brought into the Junkyard gets weighed, paid for, then tossed into the Sludge Pits where it gets broken down by atomic weight into raw materials, and nearby factories product cheap goods to be flown off to New York City, ever hungry for novelties and construction materials.
- 2060s: a time of cautious optimism. The global economy has stabilized due to the joint efforts of governments and corporate states, and physical warfare is considered obsolete. North Bend's population has stabilized and even begun to grow with an influx of corporate executives and middle-class looking for a place to live near New York, without the exorbitant rent of the Big Apple itself.
Deletions:
Additions:
- 2050s: short-sighted greed cut the legs out from under the world's economy, producing what is now called the New Depression. The Mafia, still alive and well in the 21st century, turned out to have used substandard materials when its union workers built the arcology, which reacted poorly with the new "Plastic Snow" that began to rain from the skies. Several disasters later, it began to collapse into a shantytown. Mr. Arcadia channeled his resources into holding onto the last, most profitable residents, the corporate executives and their workers, reinforcing the towers in which they lived and stripping workers and robots from the rest.
Citizens who live in the lower levels of the towers or in fortified suburbs around the towers. The luckier ones work in company offices in the same tower or nearby, but an unfortunate number have to commute to the factory. They pay for protection from the gangsters and carry badges to mark themselves under so-and-so's protection. VR games and entertainment are their best escape from the gray skies and smoke-tinged walls of their homes and works.
Citizens eat farm-grown vegetables and synthesized soy proteins, processed and fortified with vitamins and minerals. Steak is a once-a-month sort of luxury for those who like to imagine they'll someday be promoted to a penthouse apartment. Meat simply can't be mass-produced the way it used to be.
Those who can't pay the rent live in abandoned homes and stores or wherever they can put up a tent or shanty, outside the towers, colloquially called the Heap. If they're not lucky enough to have jobs, they scrounge through the wreckage of the Ecoclysm and the New Depression for junk that has enough weight and value to be worth toting back to the Junkyard, or if they are lucky, has enough intrinsic value to be sold as is.
Food is plentiful: given some space, an industrious scavenger can gather up enough "Plastic Snow" from the falls to throw into the stained gray recycling vats, and get a gray goo, flavored with one of several "exciting, tasty condiments". Everyone dreams of making it big though, striking it rich, finding that lost treasure somewhere out there that'll get them out of the Heap.
__Gangsters and Racketeers__
There are two kinds of profiteers that dominate the Heap: the factory owners and those who work for them, turning society's trash into freshly made (if shoddy) goods and food for the masses, and the gangsters that run gambling, drug operations, and "security" at the gates surrounding the Junkyard. They work hand-in-glove with each other to keep the poor "down where they belong" - the factory owners pay the very same people that buy the majority of the goods they produce, and the gangsters collect a protection fee on top of that, so in the end, a scavenger is back where he began.
They have access to some of the luxuries that they ship up to the High Rent districts, so by and large, a gangster or racketeer lives better than the poor or Average Joes, but it's a live fast, die hard kind of life for them.
Citizens who live in the lower levels of the towers or in fortified suburbs around the towers. The luckier ones work in company offices in the same tower or nearby, but an unfortunate number have to commute to the factory. They pay for protection from the gangsters and carry badges to mark themselves under so-and-so's protection. VR games and entertainment are their best escape from the gray skies and smoke-tinged walls of their homes and works.
Citizens eat farm-grown vegetables and synthesized soy proteins, processed and fortified with vitamins and minerals. Steak is a once-a-month sort of luxury for those who like to imagine they'll someday be promoted to a penthouse apartment. Meat simply can't be mass-produced the way it used to be.
Those who can't pay the rent live in abandoned homes and stores or wherever they can put up a tent or shanty, outside the towers, colloquially called the Heap. If they're not lucky enough to have jobs, they scrounge through the wreckage of the Ecoclysm and the New Depression for junk that has enough weight and value to be worth toting back to the Junkyard, or if they are lucky, has enough intrinsic value to be sold as is.
Food is plentiful: given some space, an industrious scavenger can gather up enough "Plastic Snow" from the falls to throw into the stained gray recycling vats, and get a gray goo, flavored with one of several "exciting, tasty condiments". Everyone dreams of making it big though, striking it rich, finding that lost treasure somewhere out there that'll get them out of the Heap.
__Gangsters and Racketeers__
There are two kinds of profiteers that dominate the Heap: the factory owners and those who work for them, turning society's trash into freshly made (if shoddy) goods and food for the masses, and the gangsters that run gambling, drug operations, and "security" at the gates surrounding the Junkyard. They work hand-in-glove with each other to keep the poor "down where they belong" - the factory owners pay the very same people that buy the majority of the goods they produce, and the gangsters collect a protection fee on top of that, so in the end, a scavenger is back where he began.
They have access to some of the luxuries that they ship up to the High Rent districts, so by and large, a gangster or racketeer lives better than the poor or Average Joes, but it's a live fast, die hard kind of life for them.
Deletions:
Citizens who live in the lower levels of the towers. The luckier ones work in company offices in the same tower or nearby, but an unfortunate number have to commute to the factory. They pay for protection from the gangsters and carry badges to mark themselves under so-and-so's protection.
For the poor there're synthesized soy proteins, processed and fortified with vitamins and minerals, and actual farm-grown vegetables find their way into the diet of the middlin' well-to-do, with steak a once-a-month luxury. The fragile ecology makes it impossible to simply mass-produce meat the way it used to be.
Those who can't pay the rent live in abandoned homes and stores or wherever they can put up a tent or shanty, outside the towers. If they're not lucky enough to have jobs, they scrounge through the wreckage of the Ecoclysm and the New Depression for junk that has enough weight and value to be worth toting back to the Junkyard, or if they are lucky, has enough intrinsic value to be sold as is.
__Gangsters and Hoodlums__
//TODO(lynx)//
Additions:
- 2030s: The Ecoclysm struck. Global warming caused the sea to rise up over miles and miles of coastline all over the world. The population crashed, and only emergency deployment of an experimental CO2 reduction technology brought things back under control over the next ten years. North Bend suddenly became a waterfront city, swamped by refugees from the once-glittering skyscrapers of New York City. They built shanties and tents, anything that would hold the teeming millions, and cultivated vast algae farms to produce enough food to keep them alive.
Deletions:
Additions:
- 2050s: short-sighted greed cut the legs out from under the world's economy, producing what is now called the New Depression. The Mafia, still alive and well in the 21st century, turned out to have used substandard materials when its union workers built the arcology. Several disasters later, it began to collapse into a shantytown. Mr. Arcadia channeled his resources into holding onto the last, most profitable residents, the corporate executives and their workers, reinforcing the towers in which they lived and stripping workers and robots from the rest.
- 2060s: a time of cautious optimism. The global economy has stabilized due to the joint efforts of governments and corporate states, and physical warfare is considered obsolete. There is a curious culture in North Bend and New York City, where the most prosperous live in the 'High Rent' districts, using aircars and elevated landing platforms to get around, most of the people are either average citizens who brave the street when they must, scavengers and ne'er do wells who eke out a living combing through the trash and ruins of the past decades, and gangsters rule the streets and shantytowns. Junk brought into the Junkyard gets weighed, paid for, then tossed into the Sludge Pits where it gets broken down by atomic weight into raw materials, and nearby factories product cheap goods to be flown off to New York City, ever hungry for novelties and construction materials.
Corporate executives, government officials, and other well-to-do types. They identify themselves as living in one of the arcology towers still in good working order, like Magnolia Seven, rather than North Bend - in fact they don't really associate themselves with North Bend at all. Real food is plentiful, and served by robots in their houses or smiling humans in fine restaurants who know how lucky they are to be able to work up here, away from the riffraff.
Citizens who live in the lower levels of the towers. The luckier ones work in company offices in the same tower or nearby, but an unfortunate number have to commute to the factory. They pay for protection from the gangsters and carry badges to mark themselves under so-and-so's protection.
For the poor there're synthesized soy proteins, processed and fortified with vitamins and minerals, and actual farm-grown vegetables find their way into the diet of the middlin' well-to-do, with steak a once-a-month luxury. The fragile ecology makes it impossible to simply mass-produce meat the way it used to be.
Those who can't pay the rent live in abandoned homes and stores or wherever they can put up a tent or shanty, outside the towers. If they're not lucky enough to have jobs, they scrounge through the wreckage of the Ecoclysm and the New Depression for junk that has enough weight and value to be worth toting back to the Junkyard, or if they are lucky, has enough intrinsic value to be sold as is.
//TODO(lynx)//
"Artificial Intelligence" is present in many places, but usually very limited - unless your question is very simple or one of those for which they were prepared, they'll have to refer it up to an actual human. Thus virtual receptionists and sales representatives are quite common, prepared with extensive spiels about their companies.
- 2060s: a time of cautious optimism. The global economy has stabilized due to the joint efforts of governments and corporate states, and physical warfare is considered obsolete. There is a curious culture in North Bend and New York City, where the most prosperous live in the 'High Rent' districts, using aircars and elevated landing platforms to get around, most of the people are either average citizens who brave the street when they must, scavengers and ne'er do wells who eke out a living combing through the trash and ruins of the past decades, and gangsters rule the streets and shantytowns. Junk brought into the Junkyard gets weighed, paid for, then tossed into the Sludge Pits where it gets broken down by atomic weight into raw materials, and nearby factories product cheap goods to be flown off to New York City, ever hungry for novelties and construction materials.
Corporate executives, government officials, and other well-to-do types. They identify themselves as living in one of the arcology towers still in good working order, like Magnolia Seven, rather than North Bend - in fact they don't really associate themselves with North Bend at all. Real food is plentiful, and served by robots in their houses or smiling humans in fine restaurants who know how lucky they are to be able to work up here, away from the riffraff.
Citizens who live in the lower levels of the towers. The luckier ones work in company offices in the same tower or nearby, but an unfortunate number have to commute to the factory. They pay for protection from the gangsters and carry badges to mark themselves under so-and-so's protection.
For the poor there're synthesized soy proteins, processed and fortified with vitamins and minerals, and actual farm-grown vegetables find their way into the diet of the middlin' well-to-do, with steak a once-a-month luxury. The fragile ecology makes it impossible to simply mass-produce meat the way it used to be.
Those who can't pay the rent live in abandoned homes and stores or wherever they can put up a tent or shanty, outside the towers. If they're not lucky enough to have jobs, they scrounge through the wreckage of the Ecoclysm and the New Depression for junk that has enough weight and value to be worth toting back to the Junkyard, or if they are lucky, has enough intrinsic value to be sold as is.
//TODO(lynx)//
"Artificial Intelligence" is present in many places, but usually very limited - unless your question is very simple or one of those for which they were prepared, they'll have to refer it up to an actual human. Thus virtual receptionists and sales representatives are quite common, prepared with extensive spiels about their companies.
Deletions:
- 2060s: a time of cautious optimism. The global economy has stabilized due to the joint efforts of governments and corporate states, and physical warfare is considered obsolete. There is a curious culture in North Bend and New York City, where the most prosperous live in the 'High Rent' districts, named not only for the expense of living there but their lofty height, and most of the people are either average citizens who brave the street when they must, and pay a protection fee to the gangsters, or scavengers and ne'er do wells who eke out a living combing through the trash and ruins of the past decades. Junk brought into the Junkyard gets weighed, paid for, then tossed into the Sludge Pits where it gets broken down by atomic weight into raw materials, and nearby factories product cheap goods to be flown off to New York City, ever hungry for novelties and construction materials.
In North Bend, the population is roughly 10% 'High Rent' who refer to their homes by district numbers rather than mention "North Bend", 30% average citizens who brave the streets if they must, paying protection to gang lords so they can pass unmolested, 40% poverty-stricken migrant workers who scavenge the fields for whatever they can sell or feed into the sludge pits to be recycled into raw materials, and 20% gangsters that extort money from all but the High Rent.
The rich eat 'real' food. For the poor there're synthesized soy proteins, processed and fortified with vitamins and minerals, and actual farm-grown vegetables find their way into the diet of the middlin' well-to-do, with steak a once-a-month luxury. The fragile ecology makes it impossible to simply mass-produce meat the way it used to be.
Additions:
====Timeline====
- 2040s: the United States government, depleted of most of its resources and at a huge deficit, turned to private enterprises to make up the shortfall, resulting in an apparent era of limitless growth as the waters receded and investors seized the opportunity to profit off of the rebuilding. One such investor bought up most of the land around North Bend and constructed a massive mall and arcology, 'Arcadia', where people could live, work, and shop in the same building. It would have supported itself with its own hydroponic gardens, and been powered by wind and solar energy.
- 2050s: short-sighted greed cut the legs out from under the world's economy. The Mafia, still alive and well in the 21st century, turned out to have used substandard materials when its union workers built the arcology. Several disasters later, it began to collapse into a shantytown. Mr. Arcadia channeled his resources into holding onto the last, most profitable residents, the corporate executives and their workers, reinforcing the towers in which they lived and stripping workers and robots from the rest.
- 2060s: a time of cautious optimism. The global economy has stabilized due to the joint efforts of governments and corporate states, and physical warfare is considered obsolete. There is a curious culture in North Bend and New York City, where the most prosperous live in the 'High Rent' districts, named not only for the expense of living there but their lofty height, and most of the people are either average citizens who brave the street when they must, and pay a protection fee to the gangsters, or scavengers and ne'er do wells who eke out a living combing through the trash and ruins of the past decades. Junk brought into the Junkyard gets weighed, paid for, then tossed into the Sludge Pits where it gets broken down by atomic weight into raw materials, and nearby factories product cheap goods to be flown off to New York City, ever hungry for novelties and construction materials.
====Social Classes====
__High Rent__
__Average Joes__
__The Poor__
__Gangsters and Hoodlums__
In North Bend, the population is roughly 10% 'High Rent' who refer to their homes by district numbers rather than mention "North Bend", 30% average citizens who brave the streets if they must, paying protection to gang lords so they can pass unmolested, 40% poverty-stricken migrant workers who scavenge the fields for whatever they can sell or feed into the sludge pits to be recycled into raw materials, and 20% gangsters that extort money from all but the High Rent.
==Technology==
==Government Agencies and Corporations==
- 2040s: the United States government, depleted of most of its resources and at a huge deficit, turned to private enterprises to make up the shortfall, resulting in an apparent era of limitless growth as the waters receded and investors seized the opportunity to profit off of the rebuilding. One such investor bought up most of the land around North Bend and constructed a massive mall and arcology, 'Arcadia', where people could live, work, and shop in the same building. It would have supported itself with its own hydroponic gardens, and been powered by wind and solar energy.
- 2050s: short-sighted greed cut the legs out from under the world's economy. The Mafia, still alive and well in the 21st century, turned out to have used substandard materials when its union workers built the arcology. Several disasters later, it began to collapse into a shantytown. Mr. Arcadia channeled his resources into holding onto the last, most profitable residents, the corporate executives and their workers, reinforcing the towers in which they lived and stripping workers and robots from the rest.
- 2060s: a time of cautious optimism. The global economy has stabilized due to the joint efforts of governments and corporate states, and physical warfare is considered obsolete. There is a curious culture in North Bend and New York City, where the most prosperous live in the 'High Rent' districts, named not only for the expense of living there but their lofty height, and most of the people are either average citizens who brave the street when they must, and pay a protection fee to the gangsters, or scavengers and ne'er do wells who eke out a living combing through the trash and ruins of the past decades. Junk brought into the Junkyard gets weighed, paid for, then tossed into the Sludge Pits where it gets broken down by atomic weight into raw materials, and nearby factories product cheap goods to be flown off to New York City, ever hungry for novelties and construction materials.
====Social Classes====
__High Rent__
__Average Joes__
__The Poor__
__Gangsters and Hoodlums__
In North Bend, the population is roughly 10% 'High Rent' who refer to their homes by district numbers rather than mention "North Bend", 30% average citizens who brave the streets if they must, paying protection to gang lords so they can pass unmolested, 40% poverty-stricken migrant workers who scavenge the fields for whatever they can sell or feed into the sludge pits to be recycled into raw materials, and 20% gangsters that extort money from all but the High Rent.
==Technology==
==Government Agencies and Corporations==
Deletions:
- 2040s: an era of seemingly limitless growth and prosperity as the waters slowly receded and people were able to rebuild from the wreckage. An enterpreneur, Mr. Arcadia, built a massive indoor mall/arcology where people could live and walk to work in the same building, supported by its own hydroponic gardens and wind and solar farm.
- 2050s: humanity's desire to rebuild had outreached its capacity to absorb such growth. The Mafia, still alive and well in the 21st century, turned out to have used substandard products in its construction, and the arcology experiment failed. It began to collapse into a shantytown. A curious culture sprang up in North Bend and New York City, where vital services continued to be supplied to those who lived in the highest towers, the 'high rent districts', and they traveled from one place to another via aircars, never having to subject themselves to the iniquities of the streets where scavengers and squatters reside.
- 2060s: a time of cautious optimism. The global economy has stabilized due to the joint efforts of governments and corporate states, and physical warfare is considered obsolete, but now the real battle is online: a war for control over the wealth and beliefs of the world's population. In North Bend, the population is roughly 10% 'High Rent' who refer to their homes by district numbers rather than mention "North Bend", 30% average citizens who brave the streets if they must, paying protection to gang lords so they can pass unmolested, 40% poverty-stricken migrant workers who scavenge the fields for whatever they can sell or feed into the sludge pits to be recycled into raw materials, and 20% gangsters that extort money from all but the High Rent.
Additions:
The world in which Avatars takes place is halfway between our own and the dystopian cyberpunk future imagined by William Gibson. To illustrate the changes that swept across the world, we'll use the fictitious city of North Bend, New Jersey.
Timeline:
- 2020s: North Bend was a small town in the northern part of New Jersey, a suburb near the Big City. If you climbed up to the top of the North Bend University clock tower and looked east, you'd be able to see the towers of Manhattan.
- 2030s: The Ecoclysm struck. Global warming caused the sea to rise up over miles and miles of coastline all over the world. The population crashed, and only emergency deployment of an experimental ozone replacement technology brought things back under control over the next ten years. North Bend suddenly became a waterfront city, swamped by refugees from the once-glittering skyscrapers of New York City. They built shanties and tents, anything that would hold the teeming millions, and cultivated vast algae farms to produce enough food to keep them alive.
- 2040s: an era of seemingly limitless growth and prosperity as the waters slowly receded and people were able to rebuild from the wreckage. An enterpreneur, Mr. Arcadia, built a massive indoor mall/arcology where people could live and walk to work in the same building, supported by its own hydroponic gardens and wind and solar farm.
- 2050s: humanity's desire to rebuild had outreached its capacity to absorb such growth. The Mafia, still alive and well in the 21st century, turned out to have used substandard products in its construction, and the arcology experiment failed. It began to collapse into a shantytown. A curious culture sprang up in North Bend and New York City, where vital services continued to be supplied to those who lived in the highest towers, the 'high rent districts', and they traveled from one place to another via aircars, never having to subject themselves to the iniquities of the streets where scavengers and squatters reside.
- 2060s: a time of cautious optimism. The global economy has stabilized due to the joint efforts of governments and corporate states, and physical warfare is considered obsolete, but now the real battle is online: a war for control over the wealth and beliefs of the world's population. In North Bend, the population is roughly 10% 'High Rent' who refer to their homes by district numbers rather than mention "North Bend", 30% average citizens who brave the streets if they must, paying protection to gang lords so they can pass unmolested, 40% poverty-stricken migrant workers who scavenge the fields for whatever they can sell or feed into the sludge pits to be recycled into raw materials, and 20% gangsters that extort money from all but the High Rent.
Timeline:
- 2020s: North Bend was a small town in the northern part of New Jersey, a suburb near the Big City. If you climbed up to the top of the North Bend University clock tower and looked east, you'd be able to see the towers of Manhattan.
- 2030s: The Ecoclysm struck. Global warming caused the sea to rise up over miles and miles of coastline all over the world. The population crashed, and only emergency deployment of an experimental ozone replacement technology brought things back under control over the next ten years. North Bend suddenly became a waterfront city, swamped by refugees from the once-glittering skyscrapers of New York City. They built shanties and tents, anything that would hold the teeming millions, and cultivated vast algae farms to produce enough food to keep them alive.
- 2040s: an era of seemingly limitless growth and prosperity as the waters slowly receded and people were able to rebuild from the wreckage. An enterpreneur, Mr. Arcadia, built a massive indoor mall/arcology where people could live and walk to work in the same building, supported by its own hydroponic gardens and wind and solar farm.
- 2050s: humanity's desire to rebuild had outreached its capacity to absorb such growth. The Mafia, still alive and well in the 21st century, turned out to have used substandard products in its construction, and the arcology experiment failed. It began to collapse into a shantytown. A curious culture sprang up in North Bend and New York City, where vital services continued to be supplied to those who lived in the highest towers, the 'high rent districts', and they traveled from one place to another via aircars, never having to subject themselves to the iniquities of the streets where scavengers and squatters reside.
- 2060s: a time of cautious optimism. The global economy has stabilized due to the joint efforts of governments and corporate states, and physical warfare is considered obsolete, but now the real battle is online: a war for control over the wealth and beliefs of the world's population. In North Bend, the population is roughly 10% 'High Rent' who refer to their homes by district numbers rather than mention "North Bend", 30% average citizens who brave the streets if they must, paying protection to gang lords so they can pass unmolested, 40% poverty-stricken migrant workers who scavenge the fields for whatever they can sell or feed into the sludge pits to be recycled into raw materials, and 20% gangsters that extort money from all but the High Rent.
Deletions:
North Bend, New Jersey, is just one example of a town wracked by the back-and-forth shifts of the world. Practically in sight of the gleaming towers of Greater New York, it's a shantytown built in what was once a prosperous suburb. The 'beachfront park' is miles from the shore, and as the property values dropped, so did its population - now it's a low rent district and squatters huddle in the abandoned houses. Salvagers pick through the trash heap from New York and sort out valuables, then toss the rest into the sludge pits where voracious bacteriae digest it down into plastic and metal tablets, sorted by atomic weight, ready to be sold to the discount factories.
