Where people live
The vast majority of humanity lives in or around nine cities, all of which were
created by the conglomerates around the beginning of the 22nd century for the
better management of society. Most of the cities are surrounded by farming regions,
as shown on the map, and these too sustain population in small settlements.
There are in addition further-flung installations - power plants, mines, algae
farms, sea-bed facilities, clean-up details and so on - all over the place,
generally temporary structures occupied only by their workers and families.
This is called OUT-working. But each of these people would think of themselves
as being an inhabitant of one or other city. At the management level, of course,
people move around between cities much more, and the conglomerates encourage
their high-fliers to think of themselves as custodians of the whole world, not
just of one region.
All nine cities have a presence for each of the three conglomerates, although
some dominate locally as indicated. Also, because of the movements forced upon
humanity by its tribulations, members of almost any ethnic group can be found
in any of the cities, although again some are skewed as indicated. Absolutely
everyone, though, has English as their native language: other languages survive
only as intellectual and social curiosities.
Within a city, people live in domiciles ('doms'), self-contained family units;
or in habitations ('habs'), semi-communal living quarters for large numbers
of individuals, like apartment blocks with shared facilities. Both kinds are
made of highly standardized and modular prefabricated units, so that a specialized
team can disassemble a dom and replace it with a different model in just a couple
of hours: and staying in a hab in a new city, you're likely to find the water
taps and the holo feed in exactly the same places as those in your old home
city. This makes for a cosy familiarity about living arrangements: the conglomerates
are very fond of shuffling people about within the city, to minimize the formation
of enclaves, so communities tend to be ready to welcome newcomers.
Since the cities were formalized at the start of the 22nd century, movement
between them has been rare, apart from for management types, who must undergo
very thorough decontamination and health screening. This helps ensure that viral
contagion will not endanger humanity once more.
Buenos Aires
The oldest and the largest of the new cities, this prosperous, thriving habitation
is only a dozen miles from the monstrous pile of the old Buenos Aires. When
its white domes first rose above the pampas, it was heralded as the dawn of
a new age for humanity - as has in fact proved - and its inhabitants still think
of themselves as leading 22nd century social progress. Buenos Aires was mostly
built by Mammon Inc, which retains the strongest presence there, although Tagaro
and NEO are well represented. There is a considerable ethnic mix, as Buenos
received many refugees from the Far East disasters: its Chinatown is the largest
of the eight cities. The people of Buenos have achieved a great deal in restoring
their local environment, greatly helped by their adoption of local lore regarding
the maintenance of stable ecosystems.
Celeste
The initial refugees of Celeste had a very hard time of it, driven eastwards
from Russia into some o the least hospitable territory that country possessed.
Joined by fleeing Japanese, they dedicated themselves to survival. Thankfully,
there was a strong corporate presence, thanks to the mineral resources of the
region, and so it was here that many of the important advances in sealed environments
were achieved - Celeste's early biodomes are no longer standing, but they set
the pattern for the enclosed living model which allowed humanity to ride out
the storm. These days, though, Celeste is a rather quiet place, surviving on
its former glories. Tagaro is the most important conglomerate here.
Drakensberg
Southern Africa saw its populace drawing together into a wide scattering of
camps after the Horsemen came, and under the corporations' watchful eye these
were swiftly able to set up a thriving economy bartering skills and expertise
for supplies. When the new century dawned, it was decided to build a new city
for these people too, although they scarcely seemed to need it, and so Drakensberg
was created, occupying the plateau of the great mountains that overlook the
ruins of Durban. Drakensberg is more of a showcase than a working city like
the others: its inhabitants spend much of their time out in the fertile hinterlands,
in loose shifting work communities. As well as white and black Africans, Drakensberg
is where most of the few surviving South Asians - Indians, Pakistanis and so
on - ended up. All three conglomerates have a strong presence, Mammon Inc dominating.
Harbin
Named after the old capital of the Manchu kingdom, Harbin is not all that near
any older centre of population, but when the first informal refugee settlement
was established there, it was hoped that it would form a basis for the re-expansion
of the Chinese people after the coming of the Horsemen. This did not happen
- Harbin's facilities were rapidly overwhelmed by the huge numbers of people
fleeing the devastation of the cities of the Han, together with surviving Japanese,
Koreans and others of the region. It was forced to as rapidly re-export these
people to the cities of the New World, to New Perth and to Vorkuta. Harbin has
retained a reputation (these days undeserved) for backwardness. Tagaro is the
most important of the conglomerates here.
Hope
Hope was an entirely new development, born of the desire to start afresh, away
from the polluted wastelands of North America. It lies on the shores of the
Hudson Bay, north of the old cities of Ottawa and Montreal, on land which before
the rise in global temperatures would have been thought too cold to sustain
mass habitation. Hope was built by NEO and remains their main power-base: it
is probably the leading city in the world for scientific endeavour, having initially
managed to attract the best minds of the late 21st century to deal with the
many environmental problems of its foundation and of its surroundings. Hope
has a large Japanese community, and its ethnicity is highly mixed.
Koussane
Koussane, which started life as an emergency camp thrown up in upland Senegal
after the onslaught of the Third Horseman, proved quickly to be an extremely
viable and capable settlement, mixing together the ingenuity and will for survival
of every West African race. During the dark early decades of the Century of
Catastrophes, it proved able and ready to receive those few refugees who struggled
out of the doom of Europe, although it was criticized by some for not doing
enough to help other areas of the world. In the modern day Koussane has a reputation
as a slightly inward-looking city, motivated by its own concerns and quest for
happiness. All three conglomerates are well represented in Koussane.
New Perth
Australia suffered less from the effects of pollution than the other continents,
thanks to its sparse population, but the settlements of its west coast were
pretty much wiped off the map by the tsunami that followed the First Horseman.
New Perth was founded in the mountains overlooking the new coastline, and drew
to it the majority of the population surviving the Horsemen, including many
refugees from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines: a lesser settlement,
Kimberley, is further north along the coast, and is a centre for the extractive
industries. Tagaro is by some distance the largest of the conglomerates in New
Perth and Kimberley.
Ross
Ross is the newest city, located on an island at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.
It is still primarily a research base: Antarctica is the only part of the Earth
that can be considered even vaguely unspoilt, so it is here that the best work
can be done into how human activity can be harmoniously integrated into the
biosphere's own patterns. Ross still has something of the atmosphere of a frontier
town, carving its existence out of the wilderness, dedicated to purer purposes
than the older cities - although in fact climate change and technological advance
have meant that the Antarctic environment is no more hostile to humanity than
any other, and considerably less than some.
Vorkuta
Vorkuta was set up hurriedly on the site of a 20th-century space research establishment,
and was fortunately able to expand its base of operations northwards to cope
with the massive influx of refugees from western Russia and Europe, as changing
climate thawed the Siberian permafrost. Its people suffer most, to this day,
from the after-effects of pollution, and mutation rates are higher here than
in any other city. That said, the people of Vorkuta have a reputation for hardihood
and resourcefulness, as well as for excellence in sporting endeavour. It has
a greater population of European descent than any of the other cities, and Mammon
Inc is the most important of the three conglomerates.
Space
The space installations are small in number of people inhabiting them, but important
in terms of humanity's view of itself. These last decades have seen near-Earth
space finally turned to humanity's benefit, and these achievements are of key
symbolic value.
Manned space installations are of three types: power satellites, which collect
solar radiation and beam it back down to microwave reception webs on Earth;
salvage scows, which are motile units travelling the orbit salvaging, processing
and recycling space junk from earlier eras of human astro-endeavour; and miners,
based on the Moon and extracting minerals from its surface in what are probably
the most inhospitable habitats humanity cares to inflict upon itself. There
are also of course a large number of unmanned installations, such as communication
satellites. There are habitats at the stable Lagrange points, where Earth and
Moon gravity cancel out and a habitat is in orbit relative to neither.
People who live in space think of themselves as an elite, although even they
are usually happy to rotate out of a posting after a few years.
Food
Meat similar to mammals is fabricated for occasional consumption, but there
is a social taboo against further endangering this family. Other animals are
still meat sources - very abundant since large mammal niche vacated. Ware large
lizards in Australia and Africa. There is a wide variety of vegetables, fruit
and cereals available, the bulk of which come from the clean area around each
city: these crops are climate-dependent. Those cities which do not have good
weather (soil and aspect can be engineered), rely more heavily on algae, probiotic
and mycological cultures (think seaweeds, mushrooms, Quorn-like substances).