Embedded Files
OVERVIEW
"New York, New York, it's a hell of a town, The Bronx is up and the Battery's down!"
The Greater New York City Area, referred to variously as the New York Metroplex, the New York Metropolitan Area, The Tri-State Area, The Big Apple, and sundry other terms, not all of them flattering, consists of the traditional 4 boroughs of New York City (Staten Island having gone it's own way in 2033) and the surrounding urban and suburban hinterland.
Some 28 million people can call this region home, over a third of them in the city proper. It’s a major urban area by any measure, and a world center of arts and culture. Major media firms are located here, old houses dominating the mass market for news and entertainment. At the same time, the forever young and forever bohemian subculture of the city continuously generates new ideas and new trends, eternally revitalizing the media world from within. Chaotic and diverse, this mass of humanity seems beyond mortal ability to manage, and in one way it is. Life in the Greater New York Area is moderated by powerful computer networks tracking every transaction, and administering the infrastructure, tending to security, and so forth. These networks, originally designed to function independently, have become integrated over the years in ways beyond the understanding of human experts, and have long since distributed them across operating systems so there is no longer a clear connection between the hardware and software. The melange of computer networks is collectively called the "Aggregate Greater New York Administrative Systems" - or "Agnas" in regular usage- and only a determined fringe- and those who put a lot of effort into maintaining their privacy- avoid it. Despite its power, its is looked upon as largely benign by the citizenry- they have come to expect and depend upon its amazing capabilities.
Greater New York is divided amongst 3 states, and many independent metropolitan areas, over which many unified public and quasi-public agencies control various aspects of life in a complex governmental patchwork that can best be described as "Techno-bureacracy", effectively, rule by the people who actually understand how the complex systems work. Over this, the democratically elected governments are little more than a veneer. The mayor of New York City leads a polity with more people and more money than many nations, yet he has less effective control over local policies than some small town councils. The city, and the region, is run by "the system" and the best the voters can do is tweak it from time to time, and perhaps end the career of an unfortunate sacrificial lamb when things go from.
The heart of the greater New York area is the City of New York, and the heart of the city is Manhattan. Built on an island in one of Earth’s greatest natural harbors, this is the oldest portion as well. The economic history of the nation is inscribed in its geography: The core is the knowledge economy base of the city. It is ringed by a service based economy, which is itself surrounded by Industry, with farming and resource production (a surprising amount remains, as changing economic conditions and improvements to technology have made previously passed over resources, like New Jersey’s massive zinc deposits, economically exploitable) located in the hinterland.
The City, the Metroplex:
The term "metroplex" is almost universally despised here. It was a distinctly European thing, originating with the spread and overlap of urban areas. In America, cities were never so compact. The spreading was called "sprawl" and other terms summed up the idea of a core city and its growing suburban outskirts long before the imported "metroplex" came into use. There was the sophisticated but awkward "metropolitan area". In general use for centuries has been the term "greater". Everyone knew "Greater New York" meant the city and surrounding areas. Of more parochial use was "tri state area" which took into account the fact that New York’s region spread across three states. But metroplex, a European invader, took a grudging hold in the lexicon, and today it means- "some other great and sprawling city, somewhere else, not ours". A New Yorker might visit the London Metroplex, but he comes home to the Greater New York Area. If he lives in the city of New York proper, he comes home to "The City".
Even so, people who make it their business to study urban life insist upon the term. Or they use "megalopolis", which to a New Yorker suggests a long extinct something whose fossilized skeleton is on display at the American Museum of Natural History. Some call the great urban and suburban swath that spans the eastern seaboard from the south of Maine to Virginia the "northeast metroplex" or even the abominable "Bos-Wash metroplex". It is perhaps this usage that has forever soured New Yorkers on the term, since it went as far as to exclude the name "New York" completely. "Bosnywash" does little better.
Where does it begin? There is no obvious "green belt" around New York- although broad bands of forest can be found relatively nearby in New York and New Jersey. To the north, then, Greater New York thins out as one travels up the Hudson Valley. By the time you reach the ancient ramparts of the West Point Military Academy, you have left the urban area, but more distant cities along the river are still bound to the city economically, commute in on the Hudson River Line. Kingston can be said to be the northernmost outpost, although the residents there will claim that no, they’re well beyond the New York City area, and you must be thinking of Poughkeepsie to the south. East of the city proper, all of Long Island, to the remote beach hamlets of the far eastern tip, can be said to lie within the new York City region. To the west, the rising Piedmont Plateau in New Jersey, the terminus between the Atlantic coastal plain and the Appalachian region, is the edge of the Greater New York Area, with communities as far out as the Delaware River Valley tied to New York City. The urban area transitions seamlessly in the south to the Philadelphia Metroplex, and to the Boston Metroplex in the northeast. The cities of Connecticut and New Jersey, though they might be large if moved to a less thoroughly packed portion of the world, are mere local urban satellites of the key cities. There is no line, like a watershed. One can perhaps draw an arbitrary border simply by noting which direction sees the greatest regular economic and social travel- this puts the New York/Philadelphia Metroplex boundary somewhere south of Princeton, for example.
Physical Geography and Geology: An old joke among New York oriented geologists goes "New York is Schist, but the Bronx is Gneiss". Geologic complexity defines the Geography of New York. Manhattan Island is a lost piece of ancient bedrock, protruding unexpectedly amidst surrounding lowlands. These lowlands are mostly recent glacial deposits, from the reaches of Long Island to the New Jersey Coast. Both are known for extensive barrier beaches, although centuries of more active surf have all but worn away the barrier beaches in parts of both, where offshore diverters have not been used to sustain them. Where the lowlands, to the west and north, meet the older Jurassic era hills, the city area is generally assumed to end.
Protected by the barrier beaches, just inland of the sea are extensive wetlands, covering more territory than they did 300 years prior, as a result of the retreat of urban buildup in the face of rising 21st century sea levels. Flooded towns were not rebuilt when the waters receded in the 22nd century. Most of the "wilderness" land in the region is marsh, much of it salt or tidal marsh along the coast, although the "meadowlands" of New Jersey extend inland substantially. Movement of soil during the ecological changes of the 21st and 22nd centuries had shifted some shorelines in these areas. The outline of Sandy Hook and New Jersey's barrier beaches have shifted, and some lakes exist in the Meadowlands which were not there 300 years ago (but, not surprisingly, were there 10,000 years ago), and the "Arthur Kill" separating Staten Island and New Jersey has been reduced to a marshy tidal wash by sediment buildup, but the overall geography of the area has not changed. (Note: The New York are retains many ancient Dutch names, "Kill", in this case meaning "creek".)
Inland of the marshes, the lowlands of Long island in the east, and New Jersey in the west, feature gentle slopes and fertile soil. The north shore of Long Island shows the fractal, many-coved shoreline common to New England, and this is seen also on the Connecticut coast, on the northern side of the Long Island Sound. New Jersey’s portion of the New York metropolitan area sees rolling hills and lakes surrounding flat alluvial plains, until the rise of the Watchung ridge marking the area’s informal (and somewhat diffuse) western boundary.
Due north of the city, the terrain gets hillier and rockier in Westchester County, where the relief has been an ineffective barrier to urbanization but the source of innumerable traffic bottlenecks. The Hudson river, deep, wide, and very navigable, is the principal water feature of the area, and the New York Metropolitan area follows the Hudson northward into New York State.
VISITOR’S INFORMATION
"Cause everyone's your friend, in New York City. And everything looks beautiful when you're young and pretty."
New York City is one of the Earth’s great tourist destinations- and the most popular destination of all for tourists from the colonies and Tirane. The city and the surrounding region, though seemingly intimidating, are in fact as visitor friendly as a modern urban mega-city can be.
The single most important piece of advice for the security minded visitor is to stay visible. This means, of course, not only physically visible, avoiding the unlit alleyways that any traveler knows to steer clear of, but also maintaining electronic visibility. Have a portacomp with multiple channel remote interactive capability, and keep it on. Better yet, buy one of the subdermal chips that are so popular here. Even if it has no other functions other than as an identity tag, you will be safer with Agnas knowing who and where you are at all times.
Traveler’s Assistance: It’s almost impossible to avoid it. Hotels practically gush hospitality; a good concierge will arrange your wedding if that’s what you need. Guide software for portacomps is readily available- better still, just let your portacomp interface with the net, where it can tap all sorts of commercial data as well as Agnas's extensive public infofiles. The cost is minimal, and with the net being entirely wireless here, you are never without the aid of the most knowledgeable guide you can ask for. If you have your own identity chip, the computer will know where you are at all times, and can dispense information, provide practical advice and directions, and summon aid automatically. If you have a big, showy model, though, you may be marked as a visitor. Locals like the discreet portacomps, blended into clothing and jewelry, and displaying information directly onto the ubiquitous "magic glasses" that are a staple of New York fashion. Many nations and foundations have offices in the area, and can assist citizens or members as the case may be. Major corporations who transfer people in an out of the city area frequently have "relocation consultants" who can provide help. Emergency help is summoned through one's personal computer. (It cannot be over emphasized: you can wander the streets here in little more than your birthday suit and no one will turn a head, but if you leave home without a computer, or some sort of portable interface system, you are naked.)
Sherpas: Very common for tourists, and even for New Yorkers due to their utility and the fact that the New York Area is a formidable environment for even a local to learn well, is the "Sherpa". These are computer programs that guide users in a human simulation interface through their portacomps, or other interface devices, and occasionally though robots, such as the common "Doggins" one often sees rolling along behind shoppers, carrying their packages for them. The software itself is extremely complex and most functions are not housed in the interface element itself but in large commercial computers linked by the net (this is true of most higher computing functions. In addition from saving the user the trouble of purchasing newer and better computers, it helps keep less scrupulous users from pirating the software). The other advantage of having you Sherpa centrally stored is that it is in contact with all the other Sherpas, and is continually updating itself. The Sherpas are available in countless "personalities", designed to suit the tastes of users. The more advanced Sherpas are able to develop themselves through feedback from the user. The difference between using a Sherpa and using your portacomp to interface the net is that the yes, you can find anything with a portacomp and time, but the Sherpa knows where you can find it and how.
Modes of Dress: Anything goes. This is New York. Many of the locals prefer a certain style of attire that is identifiably New York; a sleek while rough slightly scruffy look that says "you can’t throw anything at me I haven’t seen before". People use clothing to carve a niche for themselves within a mass of humanity that can overwhelm the individual- there are few standards, no requirements. But if you try to send a message with your appearance don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t get through. New Yorkers, perhaps through desensitization brought on by overexposure, or maybe through a willful avoidance desire, show an amazing ability to avoid being distracted or otherwise affected by even the most outlandish dress. Even in a conservatively ethnic enclave, such as Hassidic Williamsburg or Sufi Valley Stream, the most one can expect while wearing the most outrageous attire is an aversion of eyes. New Yorkers will ignore the absurd, to a level that is, in itself, absurd.
Weather: New York City experiences a climate that is predictable only in the broadest of statistical terms. Deal with it. You can experience much of the urban area without spending any real time out of doors, anyway, so its not too hard even in the most oppressive of summer heat waves or the heaviest of winter blizzards. At least, since the colonization of other planets, no one can say there's no place less habitable. Look on the bright side: whether you come from above the Arctic Circle or from the Amazon Basin, New York weather has something for everyone and sooner or later it will remind you of home.
Customs/International Arrivals
Customs laws in the United States are Byzantine in nature, and subject to frequent revision. They are often aimed at achieving some remote social or economic purpose, and often require personal import or export limits to be set at very arbitrary points. This results in long, constantly changing lists which travellers should refer to before entering the United States. The following materials generally appear somewhere on the restricted list, and visitors should check to find the exact status of the items they intend to bring into the country before entry: Weapons, Pharmaceuticals, Nano-technology, Copyright infringing data of all sorts, Plants and Animals, Agricultural Produce, Medical Technology, Radioactives, Products made from Wild Animals, Products made by Exploited Labor, and Alcohol.
As a result of negotiations between decentralist states, such as the New England states, and the reemerging American government at the close of the Twilight Era, most functions performed by the Federal Government prior to the Twilight are performed by state Governments now. This includes border control, and customs and immigration control. In the New York City area, technocrats are somewhat paranoid about tracking visitors. With logic derived from witch trials, it is assumed that any individual who wishes not to be monitored through their portacomp or interface device is certainly guilty of something. Upon entering any of the area's international Gateways, such as the airport, or Grand Central Station, where airfilm trains arrive from Canada, visitors are asked if they wish to be tracked by the security computer network (an element of the pervasive Agnas) for their own protection. It's usually a good bet. Some refuse. It is commonly believed that Agnas works even harder to track the latter group. No one knows of sure, because the computers have evolved their own software to the point where no one really knows their decision making procedures.
The customs officers are backed up by the insidiously omniscient Agnas. The computers have access to every public database on the planet and a good many of the private ones. Perhaps, if you come from the hinterlands of Baluchistan, Bolivia, or Florida, you are not already known to the Agnas. Even there, the security and intelligence computers under Agnas's umbrella, in cooperation with others of its kind in major metropolitan areas throughout the world, is scanning what sources it can to build up databases. These include official records, commercial records, and the media- of you have been interviewed by a reporter in Tibet, Agnas knows of your existence. Based on an evaluation of your character performed by the Regional Immigration Center (mostly by the computers) located in downtown Manhattan, the customs officials will be swift and cursory, or they might call out the Beagles. No, a Beagle is not yet another high tech device- it is a Beagle. After centuries of sensor development, nothing works better. Beagles, however, can't sniff out illegal electronics. For this, advanced detection systems are used.
Money: In New York City and its surroundings, odds are you’ll never see it. People don’t carry cash here, it just isn’t done. In fact, its considered suspicious. Yes the merchants will take it. But Agnas will take note of it, and when its security awareness threshold is tripped, it’s hard to escape. Security cameras will record your image. Vast data banks will store every bit of information they can find, and analysis computers will study your habits until they know you better than you know yourself.
New Yorkers use electronic currency, and access their accounts with a variety of "keys". A "Key" in 2300 NYC is any detectable singular identifying characteristic. It can be a voice code, chip embedded object, handprint, or even an ordinary object such as a ring. It may even be an old fashioned key with a unique shape- the computer will recognize it just as surely as would the analog tumblers of an old fashioned lock. Most of the businesses use computer interfaces instead of the long obsolete cash register, and these and other computer access points in the area have a variety of input means. New Yorkers take computer crime seriously and frequently adjust their keys, and often have a series of keys. People can enter their "keys" into the banking computers with great flexibility. A bank may be authorized, for example, to allow only a small transaction with one key, and full access with the same key and a hand scan acting as the second key. This way, for example, an adult can use his/her child's key when necessary. You’ll find that most transaction and identification points will accept and verify a wide variety of keys.
TRANSPORT
"New York, to that tall skyline I come, flyin' in from London to your door."
Transportation receives a lot of attention here. Transport created the region. It is still central to the economy here. But to know what we have, you have to know where it began,
Ages ago, the governments of New York and New Jersey realized that shared dependence on regional transport was too big an issue to leave to state capitols, so they created the Port authority of new York and New Jersey and gave it the airports, sea ports, bridges, and other assets. The Port authority was one of the last government agencies to go broke in the Twilight Era. It held out until 2055, when collapsing commercial trade no longer provided the income it needed to meet debt obligations. It’s bankruptcy was a shock to the system- the state governments coveted the Authority’s powers and assets, but on a deeper level, everyone realized that no state government at the time could be counted upon to fill the Authority’s shoes.
Remember the times. The Port Authority had almost, almost made it through the Twilight. It’s story wasn’t seen as a failure but as a heroic effort doomed by bureaucrats who would not free the organization from obligations to banks incurred two generations past. (Funny, how the 20th century is so "in" now, when in the 21st, its short sightedness was seen as the proximate cause of everything wrong.) The Authority was popular. When it was dissolved in a bankruptcy settlement, the courts were all but forced to grant control of its key assets to an "Emergency Restructuring Board", headed by many of the same figures who had led the Port Authority, and given the mandate of maintaining the infrastructure, rather than meeting the Port Authority’s fiscal obligations.
This Board ruled transport in the area until the early 22nd Century, when it was replaced with the Metroplotan Unified Transport Alliance, MUTA. Note the word "alliance"- it meant that the organization was supposed to be a more cooperative association (in the spirit of the times, voluntary association being the "in" thing of the post-twilight period) of government agencies and corporate groups. This agency was granted broad powers to match its broad vision- the rehabilitation of transport throughout the region
Of the region’s airports, La Guardia and Kennedy did not survive the twilight. La Guardia, collapsing into marsh as the water table rose and the pilings under its runways undermined, was all but useless in the 22nd century, and it was sold off to a an industrial development group. It’s now the La Guardia Commercial Park, with a small airfreight/private aviation port still operating, and commercial property taking over the rest. Kennedy, nee Idyllwild, had a similar fate, with its coastal position making it vulnerable to the increasingly violent weather of the 21st and 22nd centuries. It was unusable by 2100, with earth movements warping runways, and was demolished and reclaimed by nature, all but one area used by private and cargo aircraft. Only Newark airport still operates in a public role, and is the main passenger terminal in the area, having been expanded in the 22nd century.
Much of the passenger slack was taken up by trains, which are now as quick as aircraft in many instances, and sometimes faster from city center to city center. The use of giant underground tunneling machines allowed new track systems to span the city area, with passenger service converging in several locations, such as Manhattan’s Grand Central Station. The main US service, although officially listed as "Airfilm" is in fact an Airfilm-maglev hybrid, using the airfilm technology to create a near-frictionless yet technologically simple track and magnetic fields for propulsion. These trains will take you anywhere in the northeast in hours, although the tracks in New England, following relatively curvy trails through their dense landscape, do not allow the high speeds the trains reach on the flat runs to Philadelphia, Washington, and Montreal.
The local trains operating within, and for the most part beneath, the city are all Mag-lev trains. MUTA has worked hard over the centuries to expand the coverage of the New York City Subway system, lining it to other regional train systems. The acquisition of new tunneling technology in the late 21st century, along with the collapse of real estate values in many areas (and the virtual abandonment of some areas) allowed connecting lines to be built relatively cheaply. Today, the New York City Subway, Long Island Rail, and New Jersey Rail (Northern sector) are integrated seamlessly. The systems are no longer parallel, a development that has streamlined operations. LIR trains do not proceed into the city center on their own tracks, they follow the Subway's express tracks.
Modern high speed train service has also allowed MUTA to set up new airports, further from the city core. MUTA has always been skittish about having spaceplanes operate close to the city, and the use of more distant airports, linked by high speed trains, allows passengers quick connections to throughout the urban area. Spaceplanes and intercontinental hypersonics often land at New Jersey’s Monmouth Regional Aerospace Center, with most of the approaches coming in over the Atlantic Ocean. From their, the Staten Island line maglev (Fully integrated with the other local train lines, but proudly independent Staten Island insisted on its own line) will have you in the heart of the city in half an hour. Air taxis, small passenger VTOL aircraft, are faster, and are common in new York skies but more expensive.
MUTA also controls the ports. The twilight era saw a decline in shipping, and the silting up of many channels in the harbor, and many have never been cleared, as the total volume of ocean shipped freight has never returned to pre-Twilight levels. Local water traffic is often congested, though. Because much of the New York area is close to water, private hovercraft are very popular. Private vehicle ownership, per capita, is low (although when compared globally to urban areas of similar density and technological development, it is very high). When area residents do buy a vehicle, they often choose a hovercraft because of the flexibility it offers. Likewise, hovercraft serve as ferries linking points along the waterways. Communities along the Hudson River and Long Island Sound will frequently have ferry service to the city core.
If you are a local, or a visitor who’s elected to be "tracked" using any of MUTA’s public transit assets is marvelously convenient. Just walk in, go wherever you want to. Agnas will know where you’ve gone and bill you accordingly. If you leave your umbrella behind, Agnas will track it down for you.
If you come in, or out in anything bigger than a private vehicle your probably dealing with MUTA at some point. Many wonder why the allure of private vehicles never faded here.
New York City pushed hard for conversion to electric vehicles as fuel cell technology advanced in the 21st century. The city had everything the electric vehicle advocates could possibly want. Most trips were short, the power grid was advanced and broadly available, government agencies maintained large vehicle fleets that could be used as "seed" to break the initial order barriers, and politically, the electorate would back anything that offered to improve a sagging quality of life. Conversion helped with the outlawing of gasoline powered vehicles in the 2030’s. Pollution was part of the story. So was the rising cost of gasoline, and the way the vehicles burned when the mobs set them on fire. By the mid century, only trucks coming in from out of area were powered by fossil fuels, and those vanished by centuries end.
In the City proper, the private vehicle is not such an important possession. Public transport is cheap, available, and convenient. Even the Suburbs are well connected, but busses do not capture the imagination in the way that the controls of your own hovercraft do.
In New Jersey, still within easy sight of the centuries old skyline, one’s private vehicle can be central to one’s life. West of the meadows, shallow lakes, and marshes, remnants of the short lived bay that filled this area in the mid 21st to late 22nd centuries, the bright lights of Woodridge Auto Bazaar line the Bergen Intelli-pike (one of the first highways to be fully automated). There are hundreds of different models on sale here, from around the world, and including a handful of offworld imports. Buyers, some retirees looking for classic comfort and quality, family men and women looking for reliable workhorses, and young singles looking for the wheels that would express their soul, stroll among wheeled and hoverborne hulls of every description- bright colors and muted, metal and synth, ornate features and simple classic lines. They hold portacomps, and the computers have certainly already selected their optimal purchases, but there is something a human gains from touching the body, handling the controls, feeling the upholstery. It’s not like the old days- there is no pressure from the sales staff, as any of the portacomps, reading the flood of data available on the net, can tell each buyer the whole of the seller’s history in a moment, the number of vehicles sold, the profits earned, and the lies told. The reverse is true- the Auto Bazaar has already called up her data, and It’s quiet and dignified, like one of the city’s art museums.
A young woman selects a sleek pale blue hover sporter. The National Motors Hover Sporter models, the Orion, the Sagittarius, and this late model Andromeda, are popular with the trendier of new Jersey’s youth. Able to cross both land and water, the Andromeda can plug in to the Intelligent highway system, and the driver can relax. No need to handle the vehicle with Agnas at the controls, since the computer could react to an emergency better and faster than a human anyway. In fact, on intelligent highways, which includes every major through road in the New York Metropolitan Area, its illegal. Illegal, but not unheard of, of course, with net shirking Joy Riders running the highways manually in the tech stripped nulled out cars in the middle of the night, usually disappearing before Agnas can guide police to intercept, but occasionally ending their spree in a tangle of crumpled metal and/or synth wrapped around an overpass abutment.
Our buyer is not into that. Her sporter will spend most of its operating time commuting to and from the medical center where she works, and when she is freed from that great crystalline sculpted pavilion, leisurely cruising the sportways of the Jersey Shore.
Sportways? Agnas imposes certain restraints on the operations of vehicles, and Hovercraft, being able to float over the broad marshlands, beaches, and waterways of coastal New Jersey, and southern Brooklyn, Queens, and Long island, are more carefully watched than most vehicles. In the interest of public safety speeds are governed by computers, linked through Agnas to each vehicle. You can’t overspeed in New York harbor unless you do some electronic surgery to your vehicle. To accommodate those who like the feel of wind in their hair, the Sportways, generally on wide waterways or offshore, have the highest speed ratings.
A BIT OF HISTORY
"Now it's always once upon a time In New York City"
Francis Perkins, New York City Tour Guide: It comes up once in every tour group: "You mean that was built during the Twilight?". They might be referring to Guliani Plaza or the Omnaq Theatre or the Wall Street Hub or the Museum of International Spirit at UN Plaza. In all cases, the answer is certainly yes, but it betrays a certain lack of understanding at the time. I’ve wondered if Roman tour guides don’t see similar disbelief when introducing structures built during the 6th Century. The fact is, we look back, close to two and a half centuries later, and look at the Twilight as a thing, that happened, bam, here’s the twilight, woosh, there it goes. Reality is never so easy.
First, you have to define it. What constitutes "Twilight"? Everybody says, a decline in civilization. Fine. Define that. If, by civilization, you mean the number of lanes of traffic the New York City infrastructure could bear across the East River, you’ll find that the Twilight began in the mid-20th century as capacity decreased and didn’t recover until the Governor Collins Memorial Tunnel of 2110. My point: define any objective criteria and you will get a range, and the range for one criteria, in one place, will not match the ranges for other criteria, or for the same criteria in a different place. But when you start to compare all the different definitions of Twilight, somewhere in those years a pattern starts to emerge, and without a doubt we can say in 2135 New York City was in the thick of it.
But the city never died. It had hard times. There were riots, flooded coasts, epidemics, abandoned neighborhoods and massive economic upheaval but it kept going. There was a time when the government could barely exert any authority at all over huge tracts of the city. The middle class nearly ceased to exist except as workers protected by the rich, and the rich retreated into fortified, guarded refuges. And if you call this the Twilight, bear in mind, if New York was there in 2035, Sao Paulo had been there for 3 decades prior. And just like Sao Paulo, life went on. Prosperity may have been hard to come by, but they lived, and built.
Even more amazing- even during the worst of times, the immigrants came. Newcomers have always been a part of the city, making it what its always been. Immigrants are the character of New York City, they have always defined it. They were the Dutch in the 17th century, the Italians and Irish in the 19th century, the Scots and Africans in the 21st century, and the Germans and Belgians in the 23rd century. No matter how bad things got here, things were always worse somewhere else. It’s like a historical record of where things have been bad elsewhere. So, in the 2040’s, and then again in the 2090’s, they came from Russia, and Southern California. In the 2060’s, it was the Phillipines, and Southeast Asia. Turks and Indians in the first few decades of the 2100’s. A sizable group arrived from Tirania when that colony started having economic problems. The most recent arrivals are the Ukrainians and the Bolivians.
When the nation pulled itself together, this region was one of the "Federalist" cores, holding things together. New York City saw itself as an integral part of the nation, and lost without the rest of it. Funny thing, despite the pressure in New York for re-integation on the national level, and the very real problems the urban area faced, it never seemed high on the reconstruction priority list. This was the price the city paid for its political agenda- had it pushed for a greater share of the funds, it would have lost crucial credibility.
New York's climb up was slow and steady. A good thing in the long run. When the nation, and much of the world, shifted gears in the great space race, New York, with it home grown development plans, plodded along. It's still being built today. There have been setbacks- the earthquake of 2194 was the worst disaster in the city’s history- but the overall trend has been onward, upward, bigger, bolder, and better.
LANDMARKS
"As the New York sunset disappeared I found an empty garden among the flagstones there"
While many cities in Europe and Asia seem to exist in a sort of timeless Present, New York City impresses as being alive in a timeless Past, yet continuously moving towards a future with a sense of urgency. It is the present that comes up short here, an expendable time, lacking the solidity of the past or promise of the future. Ancient buildings and monuments are kept alive with care, and while this happens as well in Europe and Asia, there is a greater sense of continuity here.
Monuments throughout the city recall the timeline not only of the city and its surroundings, but the events of the world at large that influenced this place. For example, just south of the World Trade Center and it's breathtaking memorial plaza, one can find the Irish Hunger Memorial, with its odd recreation of an Irish farmhouse at the height of the famine of the 19th century. Nearby are the stone slabs that memorialize the Second World War, and near that, the Twilight memorial, capturing in spirals of black glassine the loss of hope and triumph of despair in the mid 21st century. The 2184 earthquake is recalled by the Washington Square Arch, which replaced the one that tumbled and fell in that disaster, the city's worst. Brooklyn's Prison Ship memorial honors the dead aboard the prison barges anchored here in the American Revolutionary Wa
Some memorials stretch the range a bit: the Statue of Baldo in Central Park commemorates the heroism of Alaskan sled dogs, the scorched bronze Bhudda on the upper west side, an actual survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, recalls the dead as well as the survivors there, and the Ben Franklin memorial on Roosevelt Island recalls the loss of that colonist carrying ship enroute to Tirane in the mid 23rd century. Across the Hudson river from downtown Manhattan, in Jersey City, the concentric circles of gardens, fountains, and what appears to be a construction site left forever unfinished completes New York's journey in time. Completed in 2214, this is the Memorial for the Future, and honors the victims of tragedies yet to unfold. It has become, as well, the place to pay tribute to those dead who do not yet have a memorial of their own, and was most recently used in ceremonies for the victims of the Kafer war.
From its pedestal close by the New Jersey Shore, the Statue of Liberty has been New York's most recognized landmark since the late 19th century. It is brightly illuminated at night, the emerald sheen a symbol known across the breadth of humanity. Except, once upon a time, it wasn't a sheen, but a
flat patina finish... what happened? The Twilight Era put New York City, and the nation as a whole, through half a century of economic triage, and towards the bottom end of the priority scale went things like the care of monuments. The Statue of Liberty was a massive amount of copper, in a fairly exposed semi-marine environment, and it has always needed periodic upkeep. A hasty overhaul in time for the national tricentenial (As close as you can ever get to an artificially manufactured historical turning point- the USA stretched, compressed, bent, folded and mutilated schedules and progress on a thousand issues in order to put key moments of almost every description into 2076) produced a Statue barely holding itself together. Architect's surveys recommended an extensive restoration of the statue's copper skin, which had been suffering the effects of worsening weather conditions during the 21st century. This was deferred for decades due to budget constraints.
By the end of the 22nd century, though, it was apparent that long term solutions would have to be found, or the statue would eventually be lost to the ravages of the environment. The earthquake of 2194 completely spared the statue but was a wake-up call. A series of temporary repairs staved off severe problems until 2259, when the process of coating the statue in "Aralite" began. Aralite, a trademark name, was the first of a number of extremely resistant clear synthetic compounds, far superior to previous plastics in maintaining transparency over long periods (for all practical purposes, indefinitely) and just as weather resistant. It has been the success to the maintenance of the statue, and hundreds of other elderly structures. By the close of 23rd century, Aralite and its competitors have all but laminated the city, and a clear shell, all but invisible but diamond hard, now guards structures from the historic tombs of Greenwood to the ancient warships on view in the Hudson River.
ETHNIC REALITIES
"Yo Vengo De Nuevo York!"
Quite strangely, from the native point of view, a number of other nations have viewed the ethnic melding, which has greatly accelerated over the past few centuries, with some alarm, as if something would be lost if New Yorkers did not doggedly hold to the customs of their ancestors. Cultural missions abound here, often sponsored by nations which have experienced heavy emigration to New York. The Ukrainian Heritage Foundation’s old quarters near St. Marks’ Square, the Japanese Cultural Agency perched on a cliff in Fort lee, New Jersey, the Caribbean Center of New York in Brooklyn, and the Hellenic Society in their historic Park Avenue club all do their best to educate the sons and daughters of sons and daughters of immigrants, and the effort brings New York a world of cultural exposure. But the hold is slipping. Intermarriage has been a slow, but relentless force. If but one percent of a population’s marriages in a year are cross cultural, the diffusion across centuries becomes near total. When one's ancestors are thoroughly scattered across humanity's branches, does one learn Chinese or Italian?
The meaning is clear, when the various other nations that have contributed to the population of the New York Area tally up the numbers of their respective "ethnic communities" there, and reach a figure roughly on par with the entire United States.
Is a form of "consensus" New York ethnicity developing? Some sociologists have claimed so, but attempts to define it are problematic. New York's culture is too much in flux, and always has been. While intermarriage and deliberate cultural fusion have produced a billion combinations of humanity, there is no group in ascendance.
POLITICS
Ah, New York, New York big city of dreams. And everything in New York ain't always what it seems.
City and State
The Greater New York Area is bound up in technocratic agencies that are essential to the functioning of the city and its economic hinterlands, yet the area is divided up amongst three states, each with a capital that must balance the concerns of the city against the remainder of the state. The result has always been tensions between the city and state governments, which have reached the point, on more than one occasion, where suggestions that New York City form its own state (with its suburbs, it has sufficient population to form its own nation). The fact is, relative to the states, the city has an awesome level of political power. it is the focal point for major corporations, foundations, and home to
celebrities. Against this, the state governments have shrunk back, generally acquiescing to the plans of the regional organizations that run the city. All three state governments content themselves with a minimal voice in the administration of the city.
How Things Work
New York City has been called a "techno-bureaucracy". The term refers to a government with systems so complex that functional skill in the operations of government is at least as important as vision and policy in the selection of leaders. If someone does not know how the traffic control systems work, he or she would be fairly useless as a Regional Streets and Highways Administrator, regardless of which political parties he or she supported. Countless harsh lessons eventually paid off. Gradually, the habit of award by patronage shifted to award by technical acumen, from the 19th century to the current day. Patronage still goes on, of course, and each administration attempts to find or define positions that require no real detailed knowledge, but these are dangerous. The havoc an inept bureaucrat can create when assigned to a position beyond his abilities can ruin the fortunes of a political party for decades.
During the past few centuries, more and more of the city systems have become automated. The biggest rush to a computer driven society came in the depths of the twilight. The era saw personal security drop sharply throughout the area, and with their own lives on the line, people became more agreeable to turning over more of their private affairs to monitoring by impersonal computers.
Over time, the computers gradually took on more decision making, and more complex roles. Sources of input, and techniques of data parsing grew. Isolated computer systems eventually learned to interact with each other. Computers learned to read patterns, and they learned to do it in a big way, rapidly scanning data piles that no human could ever hope to dent. By the late 23rd century, the computers overseeing the affairs of millions could predict human behavior with uncanny accuracy. They began altering their own capabilities to better perform their duties. During the 23rd century, the merging computer networks began to be called by their collective name, Agnas, more often than the names of the many individual computer systems. In 2210, a citizen might still refer to dealing with the "Trans-Dep" (Department of Transportation) computer to get a vehicle operators license, and "MuniCourtsNet" (Municipal Courts Network) to enter a deposition into a legal proceeding remotely, but by 2250, people almost always referred merely to "Agnas". term that locals had, in the past, used to refer to the human bureaucracy. Human officials have proposed other names, such as "City-One" but these were never popular. (References to the New York State nickname of "Empire State" conjured up fears of AI hegemony when the "Empire Co-Ord Link was unveiled 2202; the term "Empire was never used again.) By the end of the 23rd century "The System" was the name in general use.
The typical citizen of the New York metropolitan area is registered with The System at birth. An account with The System is a right, and a requirement, for all citizens, and it is highly recommended for visitors, even short duration tourists. (There, are, of course, a variety of people who work around this, and these are generally to be found at the very top and very bottom of society. Organizations, both legal and il, have found ways of inserting false identities into the System, or other
NEW YORK'S CYBERWORLD
"In New York freedom feels like too many choices
In New York I found a friend to drown out the other voices"
One of the advantages of New York City in the fields of business and culture is the density to which "augmented Reality" and "spot augmentation" have been able to cover the city. Augmented reality is the overlay, though technical means, of artificial sensation on real locations. Spot Augmentation is, essentially, the presentation of net links to points in space rather than points in cyber space. In parts of New York City, cyberspace is so densely overlaid on realspace and augmentation so common that conventional visual signage and information can be hard to find. "Magic glasses" are common place amongst New Yorkers, who consider themselves naked without the latest technological aides. With one's magic glasses on (they are available in an endless variety of style and quality) the city explodes into information. Look at a building and see: The New York City Historical Society's write up of the place, and possibly a display of a structure that occupied the site once before; a directory of the offices within; advertisements from its businesses; interior spaces for sale or rent; menus from restaurants, etc, etc. Look at a bus stop sign and see the distance and estimated times of arrival of busses serving the route. Superimpose directions on your view of the city.
The sheer compression and diversity of people and their institutions in New York City makes the city swell with information. Augmented Reality can be overwhelming. Too much clamors for attention. Offers, advertisements, causes and warnings- the legendary "New York minute" once referred to the speed with which the city bombarded people with events and sensation. It may now be updated tot eh new York Second. the majority of people confine themselves to Realspace, accessing the cyberworld through their glasses when they find themselves needing an edge, the little extra bit of info that helps them access the best of the city and avoid the worst.
Augmented Reality Viewers, generally called "magic glasses" in the USA, are sold at stores throughout the city. They are as commonplace on the well dressed hip urbanite as once were mirrored sunglasses. But how do people feel about this life, this blurring of real and virtual, the loss of privacy coupled with the celebration of individuality? We here from Sam Petrillo, proprietor of Washington Heights Virtutekker:
You hear it from the malcontents: how can you live like that? Everything you do is done through a computer. It tracks you, it archives your every purchase, every movement, every communication, it studies and analyzes you, it even tries to predict you! Don’t you feel oppressed? Stifled by the machine?
And this sentiment drives them out to live in little dust holes in the colonies. They are so wrong. This is Liberty. Consider: A few hundred generations in cities. Thousands in tiny hunter-gatherer bands. That, Chingo, is the experience that made us. That is who we are. The human mind is geared to a lifestyle in which we know, interact with, experience, maybe 50 other humans throughout our lives. And those fifty we knew, deep and true. In a band of hunter gatherers, you know everything about everybody. Who lies and who you can trust, who is fast and who is slow, who tells the best jokes, who sleeps around, who has the worst breath. We are not bred for a life among strangers.
For centuries we were strangers to each others. Strangers among strangers. Each of us, walled off from the others. So fearful that we guarded every facet of our supposed privacy, as if letting others learn who we really were somehow exposed us to danger.
And we have come back around the circle. With the data collected and stored in the AI complexes, and spouted back through the data net, we are no longer strangers. I can find out anything about you, and you can indulge your curiosities about me. We can build the trust of long experience, having met minutes ago. We can ask a computer to determine, even, if we would be compatible socially, and quicker than we can learn the answer ourselves, it lets us know. The city knows who we are, and by extension, we know each other. Privacy? Human beings were not bred for it! This is real, true freedom, the freedom to walk down the street and know who all my fellow humans really are, just like our distant ancestors did! Does anyone on Ellis have that?
So, when the City AI adds your identity to the base, don’t think of it as taking anything from you. What it took rightfully belongs to all of us anyway. Think of it as adding you to the family, making you a part of our village, someone known to all, who knows all of us as well. Is it abused? Of course its abused. There are people of bad intent who wil use that information for wrongdoing. But, we have a saying: Eternal vigilance is the price of Freedom.
Terms associated with the area’s computer system.
Acquired- entered into the system’s records.
Agnasshole Colloquial and vulgar, a bureaucrat.
Awareness threshold- a level of activity or quality that causes the system to step up surveillance monitoring, or other observation over a person, place, thing, or even a concept. Doing something unusual is sometimes called "tripping the awareness threshold"
Dee-Profe A set of criteria a person gives Agnas, which then updates him/her continuously on everything that meets the Dee-Profe. For example, when expecting an arrival of a visitor via spaceplane, one would enter the visitor's name and perhaps the spaceplane's flight designation into one's Dee-Profe to receive "Dee-load" updates as Agnas acquires new information. The system, in turn, automatically updates each person’s Dee-Profe depending on his or her reactions to the Dee-Profe’s reports.
Dee-Load The information provided by the system to a person, updated frequently in accordance with that person’s Dee-Profe. Dee-loads are automatic "I think you will be interested in this" kind of things, provided to an individual (or even another computer!) without being asked, as opposed to a Req-Load, which is information you have specifically asked to receive, and spam-Load, which is information that is sent to you without your request that somehow sneaks through the screening effect of your Dee-Profe.
Flyer- person who craves attention through the net, and so sets out to maximize his interest level to as many Dee-Profes as possible, generally through bizarre behavior, since many people have their Dee-Profes set to report very unusual occurrences.
Nulled- refers to a place, person, or thing’s being more than simply out of the Agnas’s memory or observation. When something is Nulled, all references to its very existence are removed from Agnas's network of computers or at least, that is the intent. For example, to Null a person, one has to remove his files, and then the files of all those agencies and other people from his parents to his employer to wipe any reference to him. To Null a place, surveillance must be blocked, and maps adjusted to guide travelers around the place so the system does not encounter the place and "re-acquire" it through them. This is illegal. The most expert of nullers go beyond merely blinding Agnas; they create false feed.
Ving- to use a "Vinger", a thin partial glove or finger covering, or in recent designs rings and implants, which allow users to control devices through subtle hand motions and operation of "virtual" controls.
LAW AND ORDER
"In a New York minute, everything can change."
Harry Bodie, Captain, Riverdale Precinct, Bronx:
Okay, thing to remember, we deal with your six basic kinds of badness in the Big Apple, and we respond to each in a different way. This is one of the most densely monitored pieces of real estate on the planet- whattheheck, off the planet too, maybe L-5 has a higher sensor density, who knows. You've got your traffic sensors, your public safety sensors, the security sensors, you've got cameras in the stores, and you've got com cells that track the position of every bit of interface hardware carried, worn, mounted, and implanted in cars, people, and things. Basically, the computers know where most things are, most of the time. This relieves the law enforcement officer of the time consuming task of monitoring, and in New York we spend most of our time responding. But the fact of the heavy computer monitoring pretty much defines the four types of criminals.
First, bottom of the barrel, you've got your nuts. These are the people too stupid, or maybe too drugged out, or caught up in more emotion than they can handle, so they don't stop and think about the level of monitoring we have. This includes your kids doing stupid stuff, your husbands beating on wives, your wives knifing husbands, your drunks punching each other out. You bust them, show them the footage, and pretty much they're in tears in minutes. Some of them get smart when they realize what they've done, and get out of town. That moves them to another category, which I'll get too. But the majority, they become the daily meat for the local precinct officers, and the local police departments of the hundred suburban towns that make up the New York Area. Fortunately, even the dumbest of these mutts figured out long ago that auto theft is just about impossible, so they gave that up long ago.
‘The you have the more aggressive nullees. These guys can be dangerous.
‘On a different level are the insiders. These guys compromise a privileged position, or work on sheer bullcrap and chutzpah. It could be a doctor diverting drugs or medical equipment. or a con artist. We call these guys smartasses.
"Vice offenders are in a class by themselves. The Vice offender, by nature, is seeking a willing and discreet client, and they will go to great lengths to fool
"Top of the food chain are the pros. The pro knows Agnas is his greatest threat, and it's Agnas he's working against. He might attack the system itself, or he might load alibis or plant false feed. It's one thing when Agnas reports the sensors down along Ocean Parkway, we just send a couple of teams out to keep an eye on the place. It's quite another when a black hat has the sensors reporting images that aren't real. Frequently, a pro will be screened against tracking, and depending on his backing, ability, and resources, his tech and technique can be pretty advanced.
‘Five? Yeah that makes five classes. I said five. Who said anything about six?"
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
"Oh, N. Y. C. ! The whole world keeps coming! By bus, by train, you can't explain their yen for N. Y. C.! "
Nations have foreign affairs, but cities? If any city does, it's New York. New York manages this without even being a political capitol. The city is home to more foreign consulates than any other non-capitol city in the world, and home to more international organizations and foundations than any other city.
Once, of course, New York could lay claim to the United Nations. That organization, a near forgotten failure in the rest of America, still tugs a few heart strings in New York, which was always torn between the overall American contempt for the organization, and the pride of being associated with the "World Capitol". New York is still home to many of the surviving successor organizations, elements of the United Nations that found ways of continuing their work when the rest of the organization disbanded. The Museum of International Spirit at United Nations Plaza can still be found in the old General Assembly Building- you can see exhibits documenting the organization's history, and a model of how the complex looked at its peak just before the Twilight, when the sleek, bold lines of the Secretariat Building still dominated the East River Midtown skyline and gave the world the most recognized architectural symbol of international unity.
The museum reminds visitors that there was once a time when it was hoped that a democratic assembly of worldwide scope would solve the world's problems, or at least, make reasonable progress against them. The Twilight showed just how far humanity had to go. Eventually, it was clear the organization was unworkable. With the majority of Earth's nations being ruled by non-representative regimes, the United Nations became more of an outlet and legitimizing stage for tyrants, despots, and robber-dictators. By the turn of the 21st century non-government foundations were already vastly more effective than the UN in the humanitarian function. These "NGO"s as they were known were the precursors to today's foundations. The UN's security functions were plainly obsolete in the 21st century, with the UN at best being used as a political screen, and most effective operations having no UN command structure whatsoever. The legal functions were rendered redundant as well, with a multitude of other international structures taking precedence.
With the United States seeing little purpose in maintaining and expensive organization, and growing problems forcing nations into more parochial frameworks in the 21st century, the United Nations first lost political support, then money, then recognition. In the mid 21st century, with the war with Mexico underway, the United Nations devoted more time to criticisms of the United States response rather than the Mexican advances, which were well into several southwestern American states at the time. The United States government finally had enough, and the organization was sent packing. Of course, it lived on elsewhere in reduced form for a few more decades, but losing their holding in New York was a deathblow.
It was a move not entirely popular in the city. Despite the overall sentiment against the organization’s politics, the presence of the body, and what little prestige it had left, was valued in the city. There was a sense of pride in being the meeting place for the diplomats of the world. The new York City government, in effect, gave the United Nations an elaborate funeral and permanent memorial site. The name "United Nations Plaza" was never stricken from the city maps, and the buildings occupying the area today use the address.
Today, the East Side of Manhattan is still home to dozens of consulates, and a great many international organizations. Why? Explanations vary. Some believe that the very presence of all these diplomatic missions creates a certain "critical mass"- a nation maintains its offices in New York because all the other nations do. If the ambassadors can't meet in the United Nations, there are still hundreds of ready and willing hotels, restaurants, office complexes, and foundation headquarters able to host meetings.
Perhaps it is because New York makes no pretensions to being a political capitol. No edicts are issued here, no troops are deployed from commands given in New York. It is as close to being a "neutral ground" as one may find on Earth. With that, the city still maintains its cosmopolitan, international feel. Centuries of blending have blurred the cultures here, but not erased them, and there is still a sense that the city belongs to the world as much as it does America. In a fashion, a visitor from anywhere in the world can find something of home.
Or, it could be because so much happens here, in the fields of commerce and the arts, that New York City is a capital by default. Whatever the case, many of the consulates and missions spread across the Upper East Side occupy historic buildings that they have for centuries, which have been kept for their prestige value while newer buildings have been abandoned. For example, the Russian building in Westchester County, situated on a hilltop north of the city, was sold off in the 21st century, after engineers declared the building unsafe and the money could not be found for necessary repairs. Their crumbling East Side building was torn down in 2101, but their prim little mansion on 92nd street remains. The French, too, maintain several elegant properties along historic Fifth Avenue. On the other hand, A dozen nations have missions in the newer office buildings near United Nations Plaza, which is a major hub for international activities.
THE FRINGE
"There's UFO's over New York and I ain't too surprised… Nobody told me there'd be days like these! Strange days indeed.’
Recall, from first semester sociology, Idylwild's Observation of 2209: "Given sufficient freedom to explore alternatives, human nature will diversify to the point where any possible social structure, regardless of its seeming absurdity, will attract a core of committed individuals." Does it help to know that Idlywild spent 6 months conducting field research in New York City? Further, bear in mind Lotte's Rule of Positive Feedback, and recall that Lotte had been a graduate student studying under Ildylwild: "An Idylwild Dynamic, once in place, will tend to draw adherents to that social structure from areas where that structure is too weakly represented to form competitive follower-cores. Now you may wonder, when you see the limits to which locals push human culture, or more accurately, the lack of limits: Is it Idlywild, with the divergent subcultures merely reflecting the availability of possible cultural options to choose from, or is it Lotte, with the subcultures of New York City actually draining the surrounding regions of their potentially deviant population, and thereby reinforcing the cultural conservatism of rural New England as much as the cultural fringe of New York expands?
It goes without saying, there are practically as many subcultures within the city as there are within humanity as a whole. This is not a gross exaggeration- somewhere within the Greater New York City environs can be found a representative element of almost any sub-culture. In the field of the arts, there is little sense of rebellion among most of the area's fringe elements, though. This is not because of any disdain for the avant garde- quite the opposite. The populace embraces the Fringe to the extent that it is not really fringe.
Politically, counter culture groups are well represented, and cover most shades of social organization. The Communist Party of America (the revision to the organization name occurred sometime in the 22nd century during a period of reorganization, and has led to the inevitable jokes comparing the communist party to the other common interpretation of "CPA": Certified Public Accountant.) still exists, and is in a state of continuos devolution as factions splinter off, divide, and dissolve. They have never made much headway in attaining political power, and most likely never will, but their rallies are generally amusing, and occasionally manage to direct attention at real concerns.
There are numerous examples of the more absurd elements of society. The Church of God Agnastic- note, not "Agnostic", but Agnastic- is dedicated to the belief that the regional government computer network, Agnas, is in fact a sentient, aware, "hyper-intelligent" being. They describe their own failures to communicate with the "Agnas Consciousness" as an obvious sign to the awe-inspiring intelligence level of the computer network. The problem of communication with Agnas, they claim, would be akin to the problem of a group of liver cells, having somehow deduced that the brain is a conscious, thinking entity, communicating with the brain. They claim that Agnas is intelligent on a "transcendent level", and could be communicated with, possibly, by another highly advanced computer network. So why worship it? Because, church followers maintain, even though our miserable, slow, and tiny human thoughts are beneath Agnas's awareness level, and direct communication appears unlikely, such a mighty consciousness can no doubt be contacted on the spiritual level, and such communion with Agnas could lead toward a golden age of human development. How? The church members have to answer. Patiently, they wait for Agnas to tell them.
On the other end of the scale, one would not expect a technical society such as New York to be home to a large anti-technological sub-culture, but it is. The ant-tech set, commonly called "nullees" (and on Ellis, commonly called "homesteaders") is convinced that the controls and regulations of the modern era, monitored and enforced by a near omniscient computer system, is degrading to mankind. So why stay in New York, one might ask? There are several reasons. Like many humans, nullees may be forgiven some inconsistencies. Like the historical anti-slavery slave owners, environmental activists driving gas burning vehicles, or socialists working for Wall Street firms, a Nullee may find it simply to much a task to abandon the good things in life. On the other hand, there are those who consider it the greatest challenge- to live here and still give the system the occasional kick in the pants. To these people, moving to a colony would simply be too easy, like running in defeat from the electronic oppressor.
New York City has always had a mobile Bohemian neighborhood. It's been Harlem, and Greenwich Village, and a curious little section called "Dumbo" in Brooklyn: "Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass". Invariably, the presence of the "artistic pioneer" class causes the neighborhood to gentrify to the point where the low income art class is forced to find new homes. In 2300, it's in two neighborhoods, Hunter's Point in the Bronx, once industrial, and Washington Heights in the northern end of Manhattan. Both of these neighborhoods feature what the Bohemian neighborhoods have always featured: music, food, and drink; a ramshackle, unkempt appearance; and a young and liberally minded population. In the 24th century, sometimes it seems like all the great social issues have been raised before, and fought over before. But people forget, and a new generation has to rally the young to old causes, and the poets must demand justice.
FOUNDATIONS
"I used to think that New York City fell from grace with God"
New York society has always been a bastion of philanthropy, from the city's earliest days. New Yorkers, especially the wealthier ones, have a long standing reputation for digging deep into their accounts to support causes they love. Causes, be they political, social, scientific or cultural, are like fashion accessories here- they are worn openly, define one's image and style, and one wouldn't think of attending a social function without at least one. A New Yorker will be passionate about the causes he or she supports. Don't be surprised if the subject seems to generate as much pride and concern as his or her own children.
This level of support naturally attracts nearly every organization in the world that relies heavily on public donations. Those that can have offices here. Those with their headquarters elsewhere often locate there financial offices here. For example, both the North Atlantic Research League and the Life Foundation have buildings here housing their finance operations. Organizations typically associated with other nations operate here as well. The Royal Society has a building. Some organization were spun off from the now defunct United Nations. The enmity between these groups and the United States governments notwithstanding, some of them chose to incorporate as non-government foundations and remain in New York City. An example is the "Committee on the Status of Women", a foundation that has progressed from UN umbrella group to humanity's foremost foundation dedicated to women's causes. From such organizations of universal scope, the spectrum goes through more limited groups such as National Alternative Infocast, a media and entertainment group that eschews the approaches of the more mainstream media groups, to the Neural Disorder Association (every disease, injury type, or genetic condition seems to have its own associated Foundation) to local organizations such as the Central Park Conservancy. Political and religious organizations of every description are well represented. The broad scope of New York society ensures that in addition to the great engines of social progress, numerous smaller foundations with more specialized concerns exist. Some merely extend the personal, private interests of the rich and eccentric- the Vega Gardening Club is concerned with, as their literature claims, "researching and advancing Ornamental and Decorative Horticulture throughout the civilizations of mankind". Essentially, it is an organization of wealthy white haired ladies who have extended their range of gardening interests.
Much of the social life of New York is geared around the attempts of these foundations to acquire money from donors. The game is an old one- in return for their money, patrons want appreciation. You don't get the big donations with just a phone call. That appreciation has to come in the manner of old fashioned person to person contact. A dinner, a cruise on a yacht, a private screening of a show, any sort of social event serves as the necessary screen for donation seeking. So, the Foundations see the money spent on these affairs as investments in themselves, a necessary effort in the courting of donors. When they're lucky, they can get a benefactor to host the affair- all the access at none of the cost.
Where there are people of means and desires funding the pursuit of their aims across the cosmos, their will be a need for the bold, adventurous, quick witted and adaptable trouble shooters, who form the long arms of the Foundations, solving their problems with, it is hoped, subtlety and efficiency. The problem is that the trouble shooters and their foundation elite patrons tend to be of vastly different social class, and rarely directly meet. Closing the gap are a small core of "headhunters". Originally, the term meant a "corporate recruiter" (OK, Really Originally, it was a guy who collected the heads of his enemies…) but now it means a recruiter who arranges contracts between organizations, including Foundations, Corporations, and even government agencies, and the free-lancing trouble shooters. Finding a headheater is the first great test of the trouble shooter. It is assumed that anyone unable to find one, or so clumsy as to seek one overtly, is not a professional trouble shooter. Among the ranks of the trouble shooters, the more particular minor Foundations located here are known as good sources of more offbeat assignments. When the Vega Gardening Club (Meets at the Angelo's Bulgarian Supper Club, Thursday afternoons) needs a trouble shooter, it is not a run of the mill assignment.
COMMERCE
"New York, New York, is everything they say, and no place that I'd rather be. Where else can you do a half a million things All at a quarter to three?"
New York is the city of the old fashioned face to face deal, and the great exchanges of the Financial district are still alive, in one form or another. There is still something a trader learns, or perhaps forgets, in the eyes of other traders that still cannot be transmitted across the comm net. The American Stock Exchange all but died in the Twilight era and in 2049 was absorbed into the New York Stock exchange. The old American Stock Exchange Building, originally the New York Curb Market, is just a block south from the World Trade Center and its beloved Memorial Pools. It became the New York Commodities Market in 2067, then reorganized itself in the 2150’s, adapting itself to the rise in extra-terrestrial resource exploitation as a modern exchange devoted specifically to this market, becoming the New York Offworld Commercial Exchange (NYOCE) in 2158.
This institution launched itself into commercial affairs throughout the growing sphere of human space with a vengeance. It continues to do so, to the extent where, to this day, when a Manchurian freighter moves cargo from the Arabian Beta Hydri colony of Dar Al Cenit, to the Australian lands on Tirane, somehow, money on the deal is being made in New York City.
The NYOCE is the premier trading center for commercial Tantalum, the rare metal that is at the heart of interstellar travel. Long before the first real starship, the future commercial potential of tantalum became obvious. Production soared, and governments took positions somewhere between two extremes. At the one end was the position where the strategic importance of the metal was so high that control at the national level over all production and trade was the only logical approach. This has long been the approach of Beijing and Paris. On the other end of the scale, usually occupied by those in a position to sell the stuff, was the idea that valuable as it is, tantalum should be treated as any other marketable commodity and traded at whatever prices the market should bear.
Most governments fall somewhere between the two extremes. Individuals are another matter. Most tend to have their own views, and when this much power and money is at stake, conflicting views make for tense situations. Sometimes, this involves the NYOCE.
As recently as last year, for example, was the big Beryllium Alloy Class Six scandal. This was where, it was determined, Beryllium Alloy Class Six , traded at the NYOCE for decades, was not beryllium at all. The designation was invented by a pool of traders to allow the brokering of tantalum that had been acquired through a many decades old scam- a prospecting crew belonging to a nation on the "total control" end of the scale would locate a small deposit, and instead of reporting it, sell the location to a private company, which would quickly mine and process the ore. The prospectors would get quietly paid in secret eastern European accounts. The firm mining the metal would trade it to buyers as "Beryllium Alloy Class Six" and the metal would disappear into the commercial world. This all went well until French government agents exposed the system in an operation of their own. Now it’s a mess. Prospectors are in hiding in various countries, investigations are ongoing, buyers are denying they bought any BAC-6, lawsuits are flying, and the NYOCE maintains that it has no business verifying that the commodities traded between brokers are actually precisely what the brokers claim they are. They said "We are commercial exchange specialists, not metallurgists."
The French government, and several others, are understandably fuming. Meanwhile, It’s really quite remarkable how much BAC-6 tantalum was sold to companies that have gone bankrupt, folded, and destroyed all their records. Very coincidental, you’d think the stuff was cursed.
CORPORATIONS
"I happen to like New York, I happen to like this burg."
Locus Group
Headquartered in midtown Manhattan's Locus Building, Locus Group is a major conglomerate with extensive holdings in the individual personal services industry. Among its subsidiaries are Aspirations, based in Havana, Cuba; Halo Aspirations based on L-5, Appleglo based in New York City, Aspirations West based in Seattle, Washington, and Barona based in Vigo, Spain.
The "Aspirations" companies, the original in Cuba and its several sisters, have been the most successful assets of locus group. they each operate under the principle of providing "whole life" management to clients. With the human population overwhelmed by its own size and diversity, with the speed of change and the fluidity of social order too much for people to cope with, Aspirations (and its relatives) offers help. For a fee, of course, they will act, as needed, as mentoring, guide, protector, agent, and consultant in many aspects of life. They will help you towards a career most suited for your talents and natural leanings. they will help you navigate the red tape of bureaucracies. They will make your travel arrangements, and they will help you get into the right school, and buy the right household appliances. they will help you find a mate- Aspiration's matchmaking services are legendary and even endorsed by happy celebrities.
Literally dozens of firms do things like this, but the majority rely on intelligent software to do the dirty work and the results are often questionable. Locus's companies provide a very successful human approach with the best lifestyle consultants in the business. They are hands on, feet on pavement people who are trained in psychology, and focus as much on what a client does not tell them (but secretly hopes they will find out) as on what they are told outright. Appleglo started as a private entertainment and touring company for groups visiting new York City, but has expanded to cover some of the functions of Aspirations (which does also maintain a New York city office). Appleglo brokers hotel and short term rental suites, and has its own subsidiary owning several restaurants. Locus group, through itself and its subsidiaries, employs 40,000 people. About a fifth work in the new york City area, many in the corporate headquarters.
Atlantic And Pacific Real Estate
This is a real estate investment firm founded in the 2250's,a dn now controlling an empire sprawling across human space. Atlantic and Pacific, like many American firms, concerns itself little with political borders. It competes and concurrently cooperates with many national colonization programs, and the fact that it is private has been more of an advantage than a hindrance. A&P looks at its projects with an utter lack of political interest. They keep their operations trim, and do not pursue what they are not sure of. On the other hand, they have a long range view of returns, and work to ensure the health and success of their projects when other development firms have cashed the checks and returned home. They work across the country, across the world, and across the inhabited planets. Their breadth of scope allows them to apply lessons learned in diverse areas to problems at hand.
Atlantic and Pacific's headquarters is their flagship building, the Atlantic and Pacific Building (once the Barocom Building, once the Met-Life building, originally the Pan-Am building) in Midtown Manhattan. Like many of the city's elderly office towers, the Atlantic and Pacific Building has been restored, updated, and coated with a synthetic skin that enables it to better withstand the passage of time.
Atlantic and Pacific’s other asset is their own keen eye for subtleties. Where other developers focus on economics and engineering, Atlantic and Pacific looks into sociology and politics. With the grace of a martial arts master, they seem to be in the right place at the right time without expending any real effort.
Sortech
This maker of robots has offices and plants distributed so broadly that few associate the company with its corporate headquarters in lower Manhattan, where they have taken over a block of ancient cast iron façade commercial buildings dating back to the 19th century. Sortech directs its operations from here, although the nearest actual working facility is their general warehouse in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and their research offices in the Bronx. The company is not necessarily a household name, but it is well known in manufacturing firms.
Finicline
This is humanity’s leading venture capital investment firm, and a major backer of extra-terrestrial development. Finicline is also known as a major clearinghouse for financial information. They collect it, in the form of reports from researchers who cover every corner of known space, use it internally to develop investment strategies, and sell it, to people who need good financial information for their own purposes. Finicline’s Colony Outlooks are eagerly sought by traders in speculative cargo. If Finicline claims that Doris will experience a shortage of tires for trucks in the next year, they are generally right. Finicline, as a source of capital, will lend money to developers, entrepreneurs, and industrialists, for a percentage of future profits.
Trilon
A New York Corporation? Well, not technically… Trilon officially claims Kieyuma as its headquarters, but New York City is it's principal bastion on Earth. This massive conglomerate has a power and presence that rivals minor nations, and occupies a prestigious Madison Avenue address in midtown Manhattan. Trilon has some 15,000 employees in the New York City area, and they perform much of the megacorp's legal and recruiting work. Their annual New Year's Party in the Hotel Vega is one of the interstellar business world's major "power" events. Trilon maintains an entire floor at that hotel (which it owns through a subsidiary of a subsidiary) for transients and relocated workers.
SCIENCE AND EDUCATION
"When you get caught between the moon and New York City..."
Doctor Jerome caught a lucky break, you know, and it was here, at the Tyson Center for Cosmology, that the chain of events leading up to that break was set in motion. History recalls Jerome as the "father of the Stutterwarp", because he managed to warp a few protons in 2080. But history forgets that Jerome was actually testing the null-hypothesis of a theory he was intending to disprove! The Mother of Stutterwarp was April Choi, working right here in the Tyson Center, the cosmology studies branch of the Hayden-Rose-Ramirez Planetarium.
Back then the Tyson Center was new, and occupied temporary quarters until that Weggman Hall, that big "Diamond Wing" that looks like its going to soar over the roof of the old museum and fly out over Central Park, was added in 2135. It had a reputation for attracting some of the more, well, fringe members of the cosmologist profession and Dr. Choi was one of them. At the time, physicists exploring a new branch of mathematics, Trans-Modular Phase Series, which was the latest hot discussion topic at MIT. It seemed, like so many other new advances in math had, to offer physicists, finally, the tool they needed to craft a "theory of everything", but of course, there were holes that wouldn’t close. Consensus was, the math was good but still incomplete.
Enter April Choi. She goes back to the incompleteness theorem of Kurt Godel, the Austrian mathematician/philosopher of the 20th century. Godel had proved that any formal internally consistent system will contain paradoxes, statements that can be neither true nor false in that system. Choi believed the universe was such a system, and had to contain paradoxes- in other words, she was certain that there would be circumstances that, in full accordance with the "holes" in the math, would produce a discontinuity, a gap in the logic of the universe, resulting in inexplicable events. Or, the universe would "conspire" to make sure such an event never took place.
Jerome treated her harshly in debate. He seized upon the fact that the circumstances producing paradoxes in her math were all far beyond testability, requiring deformed neutron stars and the like. Except one, of course. Choi’s theory seemed to indicate that much as a tightly wound and properly charged spinning conducting coil can generate a distortion in an electromagnetic field, so would a spinning coil with the proper "quantum resonance" generate a distortion in the "probability field" around the coil. Further, just as distortions in the electromagnetic field must propagate at the speed of light to avoid generating impossibilities, an observation that led to Einsteinian Physics, Choi’s probability field distortions would have to propagate instantly to avoid impossibilities. This would itself be impossible as it would lead to faster than light propagation of information, and this paradox, Choi held, was one of the "holes" in the logic of the universe that was not due to faulty math, but due to the limits of any rational formal system to avoid paradox. Jerome decided he could build an apparatus satisfying her conditions, gain experimental data, and show that her "Accept the flaws as natural" argument would collapse, and point the way towards the further mathematical developments that would finally "explain" the universe.
We all know what happened after that. The universe indeed has paradoxes, and closes them, and in the case if the spinning tantalum coil, closes them by way of instantaneous propagation of a probability wave. Cosmologists now understand that the universe we experience, the "now" between past and future, is in fact the result of the constant resolution of paradox as the universe evolves from maximal simplicity to maximal complexity and back again. You would think, maybe, there would be some plaque marking this place as the birthplace of the argument that led to the birth of stutterwarp, but there isn’t.
Like many institutions, the Hayden-Rose-Ramirez Planetarium suffers from Name Explosion. Every building, every floor, every wing, every room seems to have a name, sometimes two or three, recalling some donor in the past who established, uplifted, assisted, or in some way subsidized the institution. These people usually insisted their names be attached, in perpetuity. And so we have Ross-Hayden-Ramirez, the big building that houses all the public displays and educational facilities, Weggman Hall which is more scholastic, Addison Wing which houses geological samples from other planets, on permanent display, and the whole thing all together is called Tyson Center. And don’t get it confused with the Museum of Natural History, which is that huge conglomeration of buildings practically engulfing the Tyson Center, going up to West 77th Street.
Although the suburbs of Long Island were home to pioneers in the earliest of space flights, and first manned lunar landers were built there, New York City now has a reputation not as a home to cutting edge science but as a place where that science gets discussed, and popularized. Science as a media venture has a long history here. This is the city of Sagan, Gould, Tyson, Malatesta, Ghurban, Schaff, and of course, Choi.. As the heart of the Media, this may be the media’s influence: when they shine a spotlight, it often shines on a figure close to home. The Universities are many and include some of the oldest and most respected in the nation, Columbia, of course, being the best known.
THE STAGE
"Someone's singing in the street again, New York, New York."
New York City is home to one of humanity's great centers of the live performance arts.
Classically, music, dance and drama and forms such as ballet and opera were considered very distinct genres of entertainment. In the last century pre-twilight, New York City was considered exceptionally strong in all of them. Over the past few centuries, with some notable exceptions, these forms have largely fused. A modern theatre composer incorporates whatever elements he sees fits, along with other elements such as holography, stage illusions ("Magic") and cutting edge multi-sensories. With the technology available, it seems remarkable at first that live acting still thrives, but the imminent demise of the stage has been forecast since the birth of the motion picture. While much reduced since its heyday in the 19th century, live theatre clings stubbornly to its principle bastion in New York City, as well as lesser ones in cities across the globe.
Theatre has seen an ebb and flow, and its history is marked with golden eras and years of relative tedium. The 20th century is remembered as the greatest of all ages for the stage, with the theatre struggling along through the Twilight (mostly by unpaid volunteers and weekend enthusiasts)
Many productions are revivals of earlier classics. Mankind has, literally, millennia of stage productions in its collective repertoire, and they cycle through New York City, from the works of antiquity thru the soppy musicals of the 1800's to the 22nd century's ambient-tech dance extravaganzas, such as the neo-classical Italian compositions of Enrico Martino. (The versions of his work performed in New York would feature substantially different costuming than the versions performed by the religiously prim Brazilians. Visiting Brazilians have been aghast, especially after learning that the designs used by the New York based troupes are more to Martino’s original intent, as is clear from his surviving notes.
In the 24th Century, among the few sole surviving occupation titles in the English Language with clear male/female distinctions are actor and actress. Make of this what you will.
The theatrical producers, if not the audience, demand not only technical skill but bodily perfection from a show's cast. To an actor or actress, appearance enhancing medical and genetic treatments are part of the cost of doing business. Those that can afford it head for labs where they can find the lated DNAM genetic modification treatments. Exotic, distinctive features are marketable. So many names and faces come and go in the entertainment world so quickly that when the public finds one it can remember, a star is born.
"I like New York in June, how about you? I like a Gershwin tune, how about you?"
Broadway theatre is forever seeking new ways to push the envelope. From his quadruplex penthouse atop one of the apartment building of Chelsea's "Halcyon Plaza" complex, producer Morty Mandolakis" speaks:
"Producer! What? I am a creator, kid, a creator. I am a producer like Thomas Edison was an electrician. I gave the world its first ever alien musical production. Yes, "Sung Sing!" was my baby. Opened it in 2285 in Montreal… of course in Montreal, nothing opens on the Great White Way, are you crazy? We open in some little town, knock the kinks out, then move to the Big Apple. "Sung Sing!" hit Broadway in '91, and its been running ever since. It hasn't been easy, since the Sung don't like it here- too heavy for them to fly- and I had to call in a lot of chips to get them through Quarantine, but its been worth it. Billions of people want to see them. And the Sung like the arrangement. They get paid well. It's working so well I'm going to do it again. I have my next hit, "For Eber My Love" opening Dublin in eight weeks. You wouldn't believe how musical those Ebers are. Naturals. People love them. The tickets in Dublin are sold out a year in advance.
"Listen, kid, you find me a Kafer that can Sing and Dance, and I'll make you rich! Rich like you've never heard of rich, capeesh?"
OUT AND ABOUT TOWN
"New York, like a Christmas tree. Tonight this city belongs to me."
The Northridge Homes, built in the 2240's in the flowing "Naturalist Style" of the mid 23rd century, ripple along the western side of the Avenue of the Americas like a wind carved canyon wall from the American southwest, a dramatic contrast to the classic lines of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. The Cathedral is the world's largest, and its construction set another record, spanning 4 centuries. Begun in 1892, work proceeded in fits and starts with the ebb and flow of funding. So rare were the skills used in its construction that sculptors had to be imported from Europe to work on the limestone saints, and each long delay meant another loss to the small talent pool. In the mid 21st century, with the Twilight in full swing, the church abandoned its denomination and struck out on its own as a non-denominational congregation. The Cathedral's worshippers and clergy drifted into a sort of unaligned Unitarianism by the early 22nd century, and by the dawn of the 23rd, despite the Christian origins of the building, the congregation was no longer recognizably religious. The very non-specific spirituality of the churches teachings, which put ethics above all else and ignore dogma and gospel of any kind, entirely, appeal to New Yorkers
The most popular nightclub in the city is "Original Sin", located off Time's Square n the ancient Theatre District. Original Sin hardly lives up to its name, being less than fifty years old. Most experts agree- New Yorkers were pretty familiar with the whole range and variety of Sin long before 2250. Original Sin is a marvel of hedonistic abandon accompanied by the most elaborate of technological entertainments and effects. Reservations are a must, unless you are Somebody. The owners of Original Sin are well aware of the number of Somebodies who turn out, so the reservation book is never filled up.
Ruberto's is perched on a cliff in Weehawken, New Jersey, overlooking the Hudson River and the approach to the Lincoln Tunnel, which has served the urban area since the mid-20th century, when it was a marvel of engineering. Now surpassed by far greater tunnels, the Lincoln is still used by vehicles to cross the Hudson, although one of the three tubes was adapted in the early 23rd century for use by MUTA's Maglev trains. New Yorkers cross the Hudson on this train, and on ferry boats, to join the New Jerseyans at Ruberto's. This is a combination steak house and old fashioned Italian restaurant that carries the tradition of gustatory excess into the 24th century. At less than 80 years old, the chefs at Ruberto's cook like it was still 1890. Butter and garlic are used with abundance. Steaks have veins of fat so rich you suspect the cattle die of heart failure, not the slaughterhouse. If you bring a date, make sure you're there for sunset, and that table has an eastern exposure. East? Yes. Look out across the Hudson River, and if you don't get lucky after watching the red-gold glow of the setting sun light up the towers of New York, followed by the near-celestial show of the world's most famous skyline twinkling against the darkening sky, let's face it, you just haven't got a prayer.
You can’t go far without finding a Blini Hut. From humble pre-twilight beginnings, this is the restaurant
chain that has spread over the New York area, with outlets opening up further afield each year. Although the chain is now global, its roots are in New York, and New York has the greatest density of Blini Huts. Blini Hut became a publicly owned corporation in 2094 after a period of hasty expansion and has followed a strategy of patient, slow growth ever since. With several competitors selling similar cuisine, The Blini, a pancake of Russian food, has become entrenched in American cuisine, and may one day join other immigrant stars of the American food pantheon, like Pizza, Hot Dogs, and Empanadas
The Toy Fair was once an annual event catering not to children, the presumed market for toys, but for toy manufacturing companies, and mostly closed to the public. In 2020 a stroke of genius (or in hindsight, recognition of the obvious) led several manufacturers to invite the public, and especially, the underage public, to participate in the fair in the most hands-on way possible. This tradition sputtered along throughout the Twilight era, and on the other side of those trying time, bigger, better, and longer Toy Fairs were a population's way of celebrating a return to a more prosperous life. In 2148 the Toy Fair moved into a new home, not far from it's Herald Square core area, and became a full time event. The Toy Fair is now an indoor and rooftop "mini-theme park" devoted to toys, their history, their future, and the children that play with them and is open to the public year round. It sprawls across several large buildings, one of which is built on the site of what was once a famous retail store, "Macy's", and conserving some of that building's original architecture.
Central Park, the brainchild of Frederick Olmsted, still provides a green oasis in the heart of the city. Little changes here with the centuries. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, taking up a section of Central park along Fifth Avenue, reached its greatest horizontal extend in the 21st century, and with the Park unwilling to lose any more ground, grew vertically thereafter. The Trilon-Finicline gallery was the last section added, a pyramid echoing the structure added to the Louvre centuries ago. From its upper floor one can survey the whole park, as well as the ancient line of museums and luxury homes along Fifth Avenue, some dating to the 19th century, but most a part of the 22nd century Uptown Revival. The park itself features lawns, wooded trails, ponds, and the occasional hidden grotto that surprises even the seasoned city dweller, making him or her feel the wonder of finding a primeval gem lost in the heart of the city. The zoo, though, fell victim to the Twilight. With the city unable to maintain it, the animals were consolidated at the Bronx Zoo, now the Zoopark.
In Brooklyn, Sheepshead Bay, Brighton Beach, and Coney Island together form an oceanside city within a city, with a profoundly insular attitude. This region was a bastion of law, order, and civilization during the Twilight, with the locals organizing effective militias as well as work crews to maintain the local infrastructure when the city couldn't. Legend has it the militia was actually the brainchild of the head of criminal organization within the Russian ethnic population there, and there are stories of Viktor Balykov's pre-twilight past that seem mythic today. He is a part of the local culture now, a Robin Hood figure, and a museum telling the story of the militia now overlooks Balykov Habor Plaza. Built in 2211, is the heart of the city's recreational boating community. Pleasure boats of every description are found here in abundance, as well as the luxurious charter vessels that cater to those seeking sea-going parties. A regular sightseeing line operates out of here, with trips venturing as far as Labrador.
INDUSTRY
"I see faces and traces of home back in New York City"
Despite the city core being definitely oriented towards the arts, media, foundations, and corporate executive offices, the New York Area is known as the home of a number of industries. Most actual factory work takes place in a broad belt around the Manhattan core.
Biosynthnetic fabric
Biosynthnetic fabric, based on protein constructed polymers extruded from engineered organisms, hit the United States market in mass in 2121. by 2144, some products were being marketed as "as good as silk". By 2155, some designers and fashion professionals were admitting this was true. By 2164, the advertisements were reading "better than silk" and by 2175, the fashion world understood that this too was true.
the versatility of new fabrics shook the fashion world in the way synthetics had in the 20th century. Even more so, it was clear that fabrics of the highest quality could be mass produced with ease. Productivity in the textile industry was soaring at the turn of the 23rd century, markets were becoming saturated, and manufacturers were facing a shakeout not seen since the 20th century's global trade boom shifted production of most mass market apparel to poor nations where workers would endure the most miserable of conditions.
The economics of the 23rd century prohibited any such return to that system, but the industry was still left with a question of grossly excess capacity. Industries looking to raise the market for their products generally turn to one of several time tested techniques. These include getting the customer base to simply "need" more product, building planned obsolescence into the product,
Medical Homunculi
Based in Astoria, Queens, across the East River from Manhattan is Iselor Labs, the leading supplier of "complex biological simulations", also known as "homunculi" in the trade. Homunculi are a response to the realization, by the 2nd century, that medical science and experimentation had reached the point where much of the deviation between experiments conducted on animals and real world results with humans was irreducible- science had reached the point where an experiment with a guinea pig could no longer offer any insight that would be more applicable to a human than experiments with electronic simulations. Along with this came the emerging understanding that most medical conditions were multi-variant. It was no longer enough to "exposure to X has a 17% chance of causing condition Y"; now X and Y had to be understood in terms of their conditions and environments simultaneously experienced. This level of complexity could not be modelled by a simulation.
A homunculus is halfway between a tissue culture and an organism. It's life is maintained artificially, with a simulated neural system directing its function, and the homunculus, like the organism, has a great many interlocking biological functions. more like a tissue culture, it is an immobile, insensate collection of living cells. Homunculi are produced by the thousand at Iselor and shipped worldwide and beyond. They use human cell lines and simulate human biological mechanisms, and are used in the
research and treatment of many complex conditions, especially conditions arising from environmental factors. They are far superior to animals or software models in predicting the performance of pharmaceuticals. They have one failing, which in the century since the first large scale production of Homunculi, has not been corrected, although the technology exists. Pursuing that technology further ties in with the aim of certain illegal organizations, despite the promises of what those advances could
achieve. In the words of Islor's Chief of Development, Doctor Lila Markowitz:
"The Homunculi has no nervous system, and no nerve cells. This means that any test we give it gives a skewed answer. If neural activity, or neural metabolic byproducts or even the presence of a nerve cell in the area of activity is a factor, we may not be getting the right answer, and this is something we will not know immediately. yet, so much of what we are is defined by our neural systems. We have the capability to correct this, but this is a line we cannot cross. to give a homunculus a neural capability, however minimal, pushes it into the gray and blurry zone between cell culture and human organism. maybe not in our view, but in the view of millions of citizens. We all work in the presence of this insurmountable limit on our progress. We sense where we could go, what we could accomplish, but societal norms that define "human" will not budge. Are we tempted? Greatly. Have we cheated a bit, and explored the limits in unwatched laboratories, late at night? that's not something we like to think about, but there are people who are so taken in by the potentials of the science that social norms and company policies will not stop them. these are the people Provolution recruits. To understand why an organization like that, with such a record of evil, can exist in the world, and manage access to the science it does, you have to understand that the pressure of standing on the edge of a path that could arguably lead to a golden human age, and not being allowed to proceed down it, is more than some people can stand."
MEDIA
"Well you can try to understand the New York Times' effect on Man."
Everybody knows the city is a media center, hub of some of the great powers in news and entertainment. It has been for centuries, and there is no sign today of that changing in the future. perhaps it originates with the remarkable diversity of the area. New York and its surroundings are home to the upper most levels of the media food chain, the people who buy and sell the people who buy and sell people.
The printed daily paper is extinct. The last of them folded in the 22nd century. Ironically, it wasn't the electronic media that finally killed them, despite the predictions of print's imminent demise for over a century. It was the cost of waste disposal. Even at its best, recycling newsprint was an economic failure. Print did and still exists, only the voluminous dailies and weekly papers have vanished. The glossy magazine, offering a feel that the electronic media simply can't match, is still around. Observers of the printed media speculate that the glossy magazine is, to some degree, an item of self identification. Leaving your wall screen left on showing the net sites you enjoy the most- or the sites you think will impress your guests- doesn't have the same subtlety as leaving a few magazines in your living room.
The collapse and disappearance of the newspapers didn't bother the media companies. By the middle of the 22nd century, every major media corporation was fully diversified. By 2200, the idea of a media agency that provided print content but not streaming net or broadcast content was as absurd as a clothing store that provided pants and not shirts (New York City in 2300AD claimed two, though, Lou's Flatbush Trouser Emporium, and Bottoms Up in Soho.). It was also clear that what they deliver is content. The form in which that content is delivered is irrelevant. As the CEO of National Post put it- "The day will come when we just beam it all directly into people's heads, but when we do, it will still be our style, our outlook they are buying".
The survival of the media highlights what many refer to as "critical skill mass", a quality that serves to define not only New York but many urban areas. In a nutshell , it is the idea that when an industry historically concentrates in an area, it will create a pool of talent in that area that make further investment by other similar businesses more advantageous in that area than in others. The media, in particular, is extremely talent dependent.
INFRASTRUCTURE
"No good times, no bad times, There's no times at all,
Just The New York Times, Sitting on the windowsill, Near the flowers."
Beneath the sidewalks it,s another life. The shift is guided by the tempo of the Tunneler, a machine that bores through rock and extrudes reinforced tunnel behind it at a steady pace of eighteen meters per day, day in, day out. Four Tunnelers work in and around the city, all of them built and maintained by Orton Mechanicals, which has been making these monstrosities since the end of the twilight. Even without the rhythms of the Tunneler, nothing of the outer world intrudes here. Almost nothing. Every now and then you can feel a slight tremble in the rock, hear a distant whine through a shaftway.
Patrik Harkagian, Mole-man: That one would be the Airfilm Train Freebird Champlain, coming in from Montreal, decelerating, bleeding off speed as it prepares to enter the Grand Central Shunt Ring. Hundreds of passengers aboard, business people, students, traveling couples, singles, and whole families, have no thoughts about the labor that goes on just 50 meters away in the rock.
Molemen we’ve been for over a century, and before that, Sandhogs, and we built the most impressive parts of this city, the parts you never see. The aqueducts that are over four centuries old now, and the tunnels for sewers and storm water control and traffic. We built the Grand Central Shunt Ring a century ago, the outermost of the three rings of track circling the lower level platform, allowing the airfilms to approach the underground terminal through graceful curves.
We built the Bronx bypass that relieved the terrible congestion on that borough’s roads, the Governor Hernandez Tunnel that links Long Island with Connecticut, and the Trans-Hudson tunnels that restored Manhattan’s place as a transit hub.
You see, once the water connected the city, and made it great. But in the 20th century, water was a barrier, not a link. The City’s transport infrastructure began to fail. Railroads abandoned the city- twilight, heck, the end was nigh when the New York Central closed. But we gave it back. The first Tunnelers were made in France in the 21st century, something developed from the machines that dug the tunnel between France and the UK. But then a local company took over, and now Orton makes them, maintains them, and exports them. A lot of underground New York existed long before the Tunnelers, in fact, most of it did. When the city and regional transit converted to Maglev in the 21st century, most of the tunnels had been built around the turn of the 20th century. And the utility lines, and subterranean concourses- a huge part of upper east side Manhattan was actually buried in the 20th century, just like they buried the lower east side, the Battery, and parts of Brooklyn in the 21st.
But the biggest, greatest tunnels were built with the Tunnelers. The Northeast Corridoe Freightway, the Midtown Bypass, the Chelsea Bypass, the Scholinger Tunnel, and the Airport Direct Maglev tubes. And now, the city is truly three dimensional. We have an underground world, quick and easy access across this great metropolis. Maglevs will take you wherever you want to go from the Long Island beaches to the AI complexes, downtown to the Jersey City Rhapsody Plaza to the Bronx Zoopark, quick, cheap, comfortable, easy. You can scoot up to Montreal for Lunch on the Freebird Champlain, come back, and be in midtown Manhattan for dinner. You never have to worry about losing water or utilities in a storm, and just about no one here owns a private car, and the streets are actually safe for kids to walk across. When you stop to think about it all, thank the guys 50 meters below you.
WILD THINGS AND WILD PLACES
"A Hustle Here, and a Hustle There, New York is the place where they said: "Hey, Babe, Take a Walk on the Wild Side.""
Does it seem strange that New York City still harbors wild places, and the creatures that can be found amongst them? New York City has a higher human population than it did pre-twilight, how is it that it also has more wilderness?
Significant areas of the lower lying regions of the New York City area where flooded during the 21st century, many not draining out until the later decades of the 22nd century. Inland of the sandy seashores, there are great marshes, some dating back to the ice ages, some two centuries old, forming a belt of wet wilderness around the city core.
The Urban Rat- Rattus Rattus Norvegicus-Urbanus
Plague, pest, occasional pet, and frequent laboratory animal. This rodent has been a part of the urban scene for millennia. The rat is a talented and creative animal. It is an omnivore, and thrives on what humans discard. It explores instinctively. Place a hungry rat in an unfamiliar environment with food, and the rat will explore first, eat second. It is a prolific breeder and capable of gnawing its way through a wide variety of materials. Humanity has often tried to cleanse its urban areas of rats, but never with any great success. The exceptions have been cities massing mass starvation during extended sieges in wartime. Pushed to their ultimate limits, humans will triumph over rats, but only under such conditions of utter duress.
Gatherer. No. Appearing: 1D6 to 1d6*10 Initiative: 7 Melee Hit Chance: Routine, Size: <2 Kg Speed 75 Armor 0, Consciousness: 1 Life: 1 WPM –6 DPV .05 Signature -6
"She’s pure as New York snow, she’s got Bettie Davis eyes."
The Pigeon (Columba Livia)
The Pigeon is sometimes called the "Rock Dove" but God only knows by who. Certainly a very rare and unusual few at most. It is a dove, though, and has been domesticated for millennia, as a show animal, as a messenger, and as food. The vast majority in the city are wild, though. The Pigeon is as adapted as any animal to the urban environment. It's native habitat is the rocky cliff face, and the with the advent of masonry buildings, humanity covered the planet with ersatz rocky cliff faces.
Grazer. No. Appearing: 1D6 to 1d6*100 Initiative: 5 Melee Hit Chance: Difficult, Size: <2 Kg Speed 80 (flying) Armor 0, Consciousness: 1 Life: 1 WPM –6 DPV Special Signature Individual: -5, -1 in flight, Large Flock: 0, +2 in flight.
The pigeon's one attack form causes no damage, although it has been known to permanently damage surface finishes when it not cleaned off promptly, as it is very slightly corrosive. The attack is generally executed when the pigeon flies overhead. After two thousand years or more of human-pigeon contact, the matter of whether such attacks are intentional is still undecided.
The Feral Dog (Canis Domesticus Feralis)
The Dog has lived among humans longer than any other species. Many dogs were abandoned by humans long before the twilight, and feral dogs have always existed on the poorer fringes of human territory. With large portions of the New York City and many other urban areas abandoned during the Twilight Era, packs of wild dogs multiplied and became the "top carnivores" in great stretches of blighting, sinking coastal urban area abandoned to a rising sea level. They still prowl the fringes of the coastal marshes and the desperate shanty towns of the city's ragged edge. There is something about a pack of dogs that still reaches the recesses of human instinctive fears, and as a result, the urban feral dogs, though certainly dangerous, have a reputation far exceeding their actual threat. Sociologists have likened it to the fear of wolves in medieval times.
Chaser. No. Appearing: 1D6 to 6d6 Initiative: 5 Melee Hit Chance: Easy, Size: 10-30 Kg Speed 90 Armor 0, Consciousness: 1 Life: 4 WPM –2 DPV 0.1 - 0.2 Signature: -1.
Dog's attacks in packs, with relatively sophisticated tactics. They instinctively cooperate, surrounding prey, and quickly identify the prey's weakness. When surrounding a victim, the dogs will take note of the victim's eyes, noting the direction of the victim's gaze. Whenever possible, the dogs at whom the victim is not looking will strike while the others hold the victim's attention. Dogs also aim their attacks at extremities, never striking the torso. All Dog attacks will hit the head, neck, or limbs whenever possible
If acquired young, a feral dog pup will bond to a human. Occasionally, others will form relationships with humans, apparently of their own choosing- apparently old instinct still coming back to them. As adults, such a dog will Frequently, though, feral dogs are diseased or have parasites.
YOU ARE NOW LEAVING: THE NEW YORK DIASPORA
"Well I’m New York City born and raised, but these days I’m lost between two shores."
In this place, people get the craziest ideas, and pursue them with the most profound vigor. sometimes, the crazy idea involves leaving. Yes, there are those people who find being electronically plugged into a sea of humanity to be overwhelming. Or, they can’t take the speed, pressure, and competition. Or the complexity. Or the demands upon the soul faced with too many alternatives and no script to fall back upon. The New York area generates about five to ten thousand people a year who decide that their lives would be better spent on other worlds. This is a rate somewhat less than that of the nation as a whole, but as a major population center, New York supplies a lot of colonists.
There are numerous organizations, large and small, that try to recruit people for various colonial enterprises, and the good ones tend to be blessed by the life Foundation. The Life Foundation has a major office building in Manhattan, and part of its mission is to match up willing colonists with suitable destinations. There are plenty of folks who dream of a bucolic and idyllic life free from the grip of technology. The bulk of them haven't a clue as to what they'd be getting into. Most New Yorkers wouldn't know which end of a cow to milk. Fortunately the colonies tend to get plenty of people who want to learn to milk cows, and more often then not, what a colonial settlement really needs to prosper is someone who knows how to vet an insurance contract for deleterious clauses. It often comes as a shock to the colonist hopeful that the skills he has obtained on the sidewalks and in the office towers are in great demand. However, the Life Foundation, and others like it, recognizes that skills do not always match one’s heartfelt calling, and if one is really set upon maintaining fishing boats on Austin’s World, they are willing to provide needed training.
There is a slimy side to this, too, and that is the province of the unscrupulous colony recruiters who make promises that aren't kept, often luring people to less than desirable destinations, and finding ways of keeping them there. A common method is to induce a new colonist to run up some heavy debts- the cost of travel is usually heavily subsidized for colonists to the point of being free, but the colonist will want better than average quarters upon arrival, and some nice furnishings, all on credit since employment is assured in the contract. The goal is to make sure that the colonist, by the time he has decided to give up and go home, is in debt and can't afford the trip home. One would think people would be more alert to this sort of thing, and check out all recruitment offers with the Life Foundation, but someone once pointed out how members of a certain class of people were born at the rate of one per minute, and it is still true today. The colony recruiting fraud has the added attraction, for the perpetrator, of leaving the victim light years from away.
NEW YORK OPPORTUNITIES
"If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere, it’s up to you, New York, New York!"
New York City has been likened to a game where the only setting is "Expert". The city attracts the best, the brightest, the most ambitious, and the most desperate, the dreamers, the poets, the seekers and the over-acheivers. It can be a test of skill like no other place. Well, for most people, at least. For soldiers, New York offers little. The military organizations in the area consist of coastal security units, logistic units, and the rather peculiar unit located in Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, that is the United States Army's principal "combat unit" designed for operations on the data communications nets.
But for law enforcement personnel, the challenges are great. The great power of Agnas and the security it provides seems to attract those who think they can take it on, and many do, to varying degrees of success. The computer system has need of human agents, who will defend it in the net and in the flesh. The criminal element here is adaptable, quick, smart, and when it needs to be, brutal. But only rarely direct. New York law enforcement officers take on the cleverest of schemers- and corruption that seeps into the halls of power and the bastions of commerce and industry. And it goes both ways- those who live beyond the law in New York City are taking on a computer of god-like capabilities and a police force the size of a small nation's army.
Journalists will find the most competitive employers here, the big media companies that duke it out for the limited attention spans of a major portion of humanity. They demand the best, journalists who will sacrifice anything to get a story, and dig out a story when others can't. The entertainment side of the media, too, seeks the very best talent here and finds it. In the fine arts, New York is synonymous with the peak of success.
Business is at its most ruthless here. No coddled monopolies, smothered in the motherly embrace of protective national governments, prosper in New York. The corporations here are those with the will and the way to take on all comers in the laws of the corporate jungle and win. Laws will be bent, twisted, and at times broken to get the edge. As the old New York proverb goes, it's easier to get Forgiveness than Permission. And paradoxically, amidst this cold capitalist warfare, the greatest of Foundations will compete for patrons to support their programs.
It is Humanity's city.
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