Editing Setting:Nutopia/Locations (section)

===Novosibirsk, The Liberated City===

The city of Novosibirsk, Central Russia's industrial and academic hub, was where Ilium had decided to position its headquarters. Its corporate motto being "We build better lives", the corporation transformed the metropolis into a showcase for its advanced medical facilities and bio-augumentation workshops. Thousands of genemodded pets and plantlife were released into Novosibirsk (especially into the gated Ilium "Novo-alpha" and "Novo-beta" compounds built for employees), in a carefully controlled and managed ecosystem. Genemods took care of city waste, purified the air and water, and provided the citizens with entertainment and company. Life inside the gated Ilium was idyllic, where careful management of external and internal homeostasis ensured the welfare of its citizens. Well, at least the ones in Ilium employ; life outside the Novo compounds was much the same as before incorporation.

News of the Moscow atrocity were quick to reach Ilium citizens, even inside the employee compounds unrest and rebellion erupted. While Dr Lal's controversial solution was deemed acceptable for use against Moscow, Ilium executives were too afraid to use Agent IX right on their doorstep. Instead, all available merc forces were called in to quell the uprising. Genemod and cyborg armies arrived instantly via underground maglev lines, connecting Novosibirsk to all other Ilium facilities in Russia, and a weeklong nightmarish war began. PMC's were met with resistance in every hab-block, falling pray to ambushes, homemade IED's and traps. Rogue scientists released genemodded animals with kill orders against the merc onslaught, or took up arms themselves, such as the infamous ex-Ilium nanophysicist Georgij Antonovich Korolev, who rallied the population of Ilium's Novo-alpha compound in a very successful uprising under the assumed name "Georgij Svobodny" (George the Free). A statue commemorating Georgij, wielding his characteristic prybar, now stands in the compound square.

The mercs fought back with a cold, efficient and merciless brutality. Of particular note were the efforts of Ilium's Conflict Resolution Division 1A, nicknamed the Ghouls, under the command of Colonel Sergej Vladimirovich Kamenny, nicknamed "Kashei the Deathless" after an undead sorcerer of Russian folklore. The Ghouls were all a particular type of biomerc, highly augmented with cyborg implants and prosthetics to allow nightvision, wall-scaling and silent movement, as well as metal-rending claws for infiltration and close combat. Their bodies were skeletal and gaunt, with a high metabolic rate in order to fuel their enhanced brains and energy-hungry motors. In order to be efficient on the battlefield, Ghouls supplemented their metabolism via high-energy field rations, as well as by eating the corpses of recently killed prey. Kashei sent his ghoul army on a campaign of terror via the city's sewer system, and the Ghouls bypassed barricades and erupted from hidden passages into insurgency strongholds. Kashei's tactic was successful until day 4, when a fierce battle saw the rebels take over the city's water treatment facility and flood Novosibirsk's sewer system. At that point, the Colonel was forced to use his forces in a more conventional assault, however Ghoul nightly raids were still taking a large toll on the rebel forces.

Then, when all seemed lost, the New Cossacks arrived. All the fighters Stenka Razin had at his disposal were there. They had made their way to the city undetected, creeping through rural areas where Ilium had no surveillance feeds or security drones. The fresh batch of experienced guerrillas quickly established footholds in the city and gave the tired resistance a chance to recuperate. In the following two days, control of Novosibirsk was wrestled from Ilium, and as the smoke settled over the final battle on the steps of Ilium's HQ building, two victorious factions emerged. 

The New Cossack movement, with its nationalist, bio-conservative and militaristic ideology, claimed most of the city for themselves, while the anarchistic, techno-utopian Free Nova Commune (comprised of former Ilium employees and city residents) only had enough strength to hold on to the Nova-Alpha compound. Today, the factions enjoy a peaceful coexistence, though the severe ideological differences have ensured relations remain chilly. Delvers don't stay long in Novosibirsk (since home-grown scavenger teams have already stripped ruins of anything useful in order to rebuild the city for its new rulers), but those who do, stay in Free Nova since the Cossacks distrust and dislike foreigners, cyborgs and techies and grant entry into their domains only to a select few of the Delver community.