Editing Setting:Nutopia/Locations (section)

=Africa=

== New Johannesburg and the South African Super City: "New J" ==
New Johannesburg is a mega city in the truest sense of the word. What started as unchecked urban growth grew pseudopods made of steel, glass and compressed humanity, eventually connecting the whole of South Africa with strands of sprawling life and industry. Its surface area is immense, owing to cheap land prices and rapid corporate expansion. New J gobbled up Capetown and the other provincial commerce centers and capitals as it grew, and eventually the moniker of the city became a common name for the whole region.

New J survived the revolution almost entirely intact. The area was a shared commerce zone; too many different states and corporations had fingers in the proverbial pie to make burning it to the ground strategically viable for any one side.

While the infrastructure went largely unmolested, the cost in lives is sadly a different story. Fighting in the streets of Old Jo'berg itself as Armacor's Africa Division waged war on itself wreaked a terrible toll. Extensive use of chemical weapons on the densest population centers rendered large portions of the sprawl scourged clean of anything that needed lungs to live. As a result, New J's population is far smaller than her size would suggest. The density has remained somewhat constant, with communities clustering in areas untouched by the bombs, while the mad and the desperate try to eke out a dangerous living among the office parks and glittering highrises in the chem wastes

Circa 25 ACE New J has become a home to several eccentric settlements. This is not exactly surprising, the global network provides for cultural trends homogeneous only in their wild diversity, and with a long history as a planet-wide trade hub New J is even more cosmopolitan than most.

A host of settlements eke out a more or less safe existence amongst the silent streets and empty avenues of the city, but three stand head and shoulders above the rest. They form a network that supplies technology, protection and entertainment to the settlements of New J and the surrounding area. 
==='''Spire, The Tower of Lights'''===

Spire is a settlement built within the superstructure of the world’s tallest building. Rising over a mile in height the massive skeleton erupts from a manmade island along one of the few stretches of coast not overgrown with docks and freight cranes. It was to serve as the global headquarters of the company that owned both the docks and much of the shipping that went through them. The revolution cut its construction short, leaving only twenty of the above ground floors finished.

New J’s sizeable Hiver community has taken up residence here, and turned it into something incredible. The nature of the island is easily defensible, it is connected to the shore by a mile long causeway, and the island itself is constructed like a fortress. Nothing can approach Spire without someone noticing, and the natural vantage point of the tower allows its residents plenty of time to react to any incoming threats.

While only a few floors were finished, this has done little to deter the relentlessly imaginative Hivers and Crackers of Spire from using their space to the fullest. Suspended hundreds of feet above the ground, hanging around, between, above, below and through the building’s skeleton is a riotous nest of color known as Uptown. Homes and facilities are grown out of pillars or hung by nanotube cables and strung together by everything from disembodied escalators to bungee platforms. The most common method of conveyance through the insane mishmash of architectural styles and lights is flight, whether by VTOL aircraft or more commonly bio and cybermods that allow a person to fly under their own power.

Beneath Uptown is the aptly named Downtown. Spire’s original owners only completed twenty of the above ground floors, but the building foundations are almost half again as deep as it is tall, and these were finished long before the above ground portion of the building even saw daylight. The above ground floors house much of the settlement’s land locked population, or those without a taste for the dizzying, crazy heights of Uptown. Up and Down are connected by a thick central elevator stalk and a number of helipads. Those same elevators also descend into the lower levels, wherein the heart of Spire lies. 15 floors beneath the surface lies the Reactor, pumping life giving power through the lines of the tower and its defenses.

Around 30 floors below the surface lies the buffer deck, a precaution put in place by Spire’s new tenants, as much of the iceberg like structure remains unsecured. The two floor deep security zone is manned entirely by organic personnel born ACE, free of corporate implants. The nature of the place has lead to a thriving community of Delvers who can move through the buffer deck to plumb the depths of Spire’s foundations and the mysterious facilities found therein. They bring back all manner of technological oddities and marvels from the deeps, but the nature of what the previous owners were doing down in the lowest floors remains a mystery. Aside from the all organic security force the buffer deck also contains some incredibly potent code scrubbers and localized EMP devices put in place by the corporate owners.

So far the only things brought up through the buffer deck into the settlement proper have been biological or purely mechanical in nature. Rumors abound of extremely advanced computer systems and other such treasures destroyed or wiped clean by the automated systems in the buffer deck. Delvers that travel through into the deeps must do so without some of their most advanced equipment, beacause if they try to return through the deck their tech could be scrubbed or fused by the draconian security measures.

==='''Motorpool, NewJ's Defender'''===

If Spire is the center of culture in New J, then Motorpool is the center of its defense. Built among the bunkers, hangers, silos and garages of the city’s sole military instillation Motorpool is currently the world’s largest Mechanized community. Populated by reformed mercs, uploaded crackers, entirely cyberized soldiers and the like Motorpool has become a thriving center for all those who have eschewed human flesh in this new era. Synthetics flock in from less tolerant settlements around the planet and curious delvers looking into the most extreme forms of cybernetic modifications pop in now and again.

Mercs and others brought with them an entire new niche. Machine shops and armories sprouted to handle the maintenance and supply of their highly specialized bodies. Chem bars and Current clubs crept up as a means for entertaining the Jar heads. The Silos house pit fights and arms bazaars, pick up a Gungnir heavy anti-tank railgun and then watch a pair of legged APCs sumo wrestle. Later meet those same two APCs at a Chem bar for a round of spinal taps and some old war stories. 

Motorpool is the place to go if one needs the best hired guns on the market. Motorpool is the place to be to find every type of exotic weapon or ammunition imaginable. Mercenary Packs who participated in the Free States War, 15 foot long rail cannons prized free from a deck mounting on an automated littoral combat boat, mountings and ammunition for skull guns, arm guns, leg guns and thorax guns, all are available from the arms merchants in Motorpool. That trade is somewhat self-regulating however, and Delvers new to the area might find it hard to get their hands on the more exotic equipment. Many of the merchants have grown wary of new comers after a man who turned out to be a raider showed up and bought a few high yield mag mines. Those same mines were later used in a raider ambush on a merc column coming out of Motorpool on its way to the rail yards of Oasis with several tons of ammunition in tow. Since then the “good stuff” has been difficult for strangers to get their hands on, so new Delvers often need to prove their worth in the area or come highly recommended from one of the other settlements.

The settlement is also home to a sizable dish farm. Linked to corporate satellites and some truly powerful ground based radars the dish farm allows Motorpool to keep a benevolent watchful eye on NewJ’s settlements. Raiders tend to steer clear of NewJ for this very reason, only the very good, the very crazy or the very stupid tend to stick around in an area where launching a raid is likely to earn the attention of a number of protective tanks and assault armored soldiers itching for an excuse to go live. The power of Motorpool’s scanners is linked with a diverse fleet of VTOL craft, a good number of which are on patrol at any given moment. The patrol craft are often small groups of mixed craft, attack choppers flying recon and cover for larger transport craft carrying interdiction teams of mercs and soldiers. Should the farm pick up an attack force or if a settlement calls for aid Motorpool can dispatch any number of craft to deal with the threat, firing rockets and dropping troops in defense of their self assigned charges. The patrol also act as a way for ambitious delver teams to go after targets in the more dangerous parts of Johannesburg, hiring out space on one of the transports and arranging for a drop when the patrol passes near their area of interest. One should of course be sure to make arrangements for extraction, and to be on time when the patrol comes by again. They won’t leave you out to dry if you get stranded because your team missed the rendezvous, but you will owe them a favor.

==='''[[Nutopia:Oasis|Oasis, a Settlement in Motion]]'''===

Sprawling in the low-built scrublands in the uncertain border between megacity and the encroaching desert, Oasis is the first sight of many inlanders. This settlement crouches on and around the bones of massive transportation systems, the first connection in the webs of roads and Mag-Lines rooting New J to the continent.

Oasis, first and foremost, is a city of trade. Spreading the bounty of delvers into the faltering settlements in the desert in exchange for unfinished goods and materials to be broken down into still more wonders. The Oasis trainyards have lost some of the hustle and bustles of its hyper-automated heyday, but the vast warehouses teem with organic and mechanized alike, each one looking for a better score or a new buyer (or sucker)

Need to move millions of units of expiring ammunition recovered from a newly breached Silo? You can find a soldier or representative willing to talk. Eager to trade recovered corporate databases and, rarest of all, hard copy information for the annoyingly simple necessities that your own tiny Delver town just cant make for itself? well.. Our man from the office will be glad to look over what your had in mind.

Delvers and Hired Guns from all over the continent eventually pass through the tangled roads and lev lines at some point in their careers. Oasis is the northern tip of the triumvirate of NewJ’s major settlements, and thusly is the first most see of the massive southern megacity. Oasis’ largest feature is the Anansi Hub, the massive routing and loading station from which all roads and levs entering the city sprout or terminate.

The hustle and bustle of Oasis leads to a naturally brisk and somewhat unruly settlement. The unruliness can at times escalate to violence, but the powers that be in Oasis know that running gun battles are not good for commerce. Telling to people to check their arms at the gates is a little unrealistic for a settlement that has a burgeoning arms trade, so instead the merchants have formed the Anansi Defenders. Wishing to keep fatalities to a minimum and hoping not to damage merchandise or prospective customers Anansi men typically carry a wide variety on non-lethal armaments. Any delver worth his salt can find work with these black clad soldiers keeping the peace with a break open gas launcher in one hand and a stun prod in the other.

A massive trunk of lev lines three layers deep shoots north arrow straight from Anansi, gleaming in the African sun. These raised silver lanes are the Mainline that cuts Africa in half, terminating at Tunisia, where it becomes the Pillars of Heraclese, the truly awesome shining span crossing the whole of the Mediterranean, crossing Europe towards Brusselsphere.

Making the trip from Oasis to Brusselsphere can be an adventure all its own. The three decks of the mainline are comprised of the lower two freight lines and the upper “Sun Line” passenger route. Leaving from Oasis passengers will first be greeted by the jungles of the Congo, speeding through the canopy while guards keep a watchful eye out for some of the nastier bioforms. Once they’ve broken clear of the jungle there’s usually little to worry about save for the occasional raider blockade, but when the reach the Saharan Proving Grounds things get a little more interesting. Here the trains will typically meet up with a CAP patrol of VTOL craft from junkyard who will escort them to Tunisia and the Pillars. Should such support be unavailable then it is up to the guards and passengers to defend the train from raiders and ‘bots who have broken free of the restraints that kept the line safe in the past. Reaching the Pillars the trains begin the quiet and frankly beautiful crossing into Europe’s blasted cities. Crossing the large crater that was once the Sicilian space port and into Italy proper the line skirts the edge of Vatican lands (attacks from this quarter are very rare, but not entirely unheard of) through the huge factory plains of Germany and on into the routing stations at Brusselsphere. From here passengers and goods can find passage to England, or down through towards Spain and the coastal African/European Gibraltar Line, and from there they can find air or sea travel to North America. One can even, if they for some reason wished to expose themselves to that benighted place, take the lonely line that arcs towards the Russian Resource Zone and ultimately to Novaya Sibir.

=='''The Junk Yard'''==
Built on the ruins of a former corporate military base, in the middle of the Tunisian desert, the Junkyard is a small but famous settlement. It boasts the biggest population of nonhuman cyborgs and uploads in the world.

The entire commune is spaced out over the base facilities, with most newcomer residents inhabiting the hangars of the old airfield, and the older founders residing in the central underground motor pool. Most of the population are former corporate soldiers or Mercs, but a few Crackers in multifunctional utility and maintenance hardshells have also made the Junkyard their home.

The most famous landmark in the Junkyard is Ma Baker's, a saloon bar providing uplinked entertainment and direct brain stimulation to cyborg customers, accessible to vehicles. Ma Baker herself is a 14 ton light tank who doesn't like people asking her to show them her 30mm.

Since the base got hit with a tactical nuke during the Fall, partials or noncyborgs don't visit very often. And since almost every resident of the Junkyard is armed with heavy weapons, raider visits are also quite rare. However, the community lives in constant fear of EMP attacks; construction on a giant Faraday cage around the entire area has begun but is incomplete. 

Junkyard's inhabitants have taken on responsibility for the protection of the Tunisian Coastal Rail Nexus, running patrols along the northern Main Line and providing security for the confluence of rail lines that emanate from where the Main Line hits the sea and becomes The Pillars of Heraclese.

=='''Gibraltar Gateway'''==
A confluence of political and economic events would haul The Rock of Gibraltar, a nigh inconsequential speck of stone at the mouth of the Mediterranean, back into a focal point for world wide contention. Before the establishment of extensive maglev rail networks for high speed heavy freight movement, sea cargo held sway as the chief method of moving masses of goods and material around the world. Even after the construction of the new mega trains the immense robotic macrofreighters still held currency if only due to their ability to transport stunning amounts of cargo.

The method proved especially important for the Nation Corp Illium, who relied on shipping to evenly distribute their massive imports and exports on both Eurasian and American coasts. Goods coming to and from the East coast of the United States interfaced with the massive distribution yards of Volgograd, which in turn were fed by docks in the Black Sea. Increasing instability in the regions surrounding the Suez Canal made the mouth of the Mediterranean much more attractive. Armacor, sniffing the potential for profit and a chance to kneecap their largest rival, worked via contacts within the increasingly privatized British Commonwealth to acquire nearly the entirety of Gibraltar. This allowed the corporation control of the critical passage, and more importantly the ability to charge tolls on every boat that crossed their borders.

=='''The Saharan Proving Grounds'''==