The year is 2092, and Akihabara-2 floats in the neutral waters of the Sea of Japan: a megacity-platform built jointly by China, its ally the Neo-USSR, Korea and Japan. Part of it stands on gigantic ocean seawalls that also work as hydro-nuclear power plants, and part of it on old oil platforms. That made it an energy and fuel crossroads for the neutral bloc. Today it is a semi-corporate city, a place where the Soviet-Chinese camp and the American-Japanese-Korean camp sit down to talk, and a quiet capital of black-market business and shadow tech. The police are private and answer to their sponsors. Real power is split between the districts.
WHO RUNS THE PLACE
Two corporations handle corporate interests and mediate between the states, with a third one pressing in from the side.
> Yutani Corporation (Japan) — practical cybernetics and prosthetics, plus frontier pharmacology and care for the neurological side effects of implants.
> Weyland Corporation (American-British) — research and development, space exploration, terraforming and off-world colonisation.
> Seegson (European) — Weyland’s direct rival, invited in by the Neo-USSR and China. Biotech and finance: civilian pharmaceuticals and budget synthetic androids of the Working Joe line. Divisions: Communications, Security, Synthetics, Credit Services, Pharmaceuticals, Biomedical.
HOW THE CITY IS STACKED
The middle and upper classes live in residential mega-tower complexes in the centre and the districts around it, with every kind of infrastructure close by. The lower class lives on the edge of those areas, in cheaper towers next to the oil districts. The poorest huddle in settlements the locals call Kowloon-2, Kowloon-3 and so on, either along platform borders facing Soviet and Chinese territory or deep inside decommissioned, drained cooling chambers.
POPULATION ~12M (3M synthetics)SIZE 5-6 km x 25 kmTOWERS 200-530 m, tallest 650 mMIX Asian bloc 70% / Neo-USSR 20% / other 10%LANGUAGES EN, ZH, JA, RU, KO
HOUSE RULES
Robotic prostitution is legal. So are mild euphoriants, known as “ascorbinki” in the Russian style and “umi” in the Japanese one (after Umibozu). Organic prostitution is officially banned and in practice lives in a gray zone.
WHAT IT FEELS LIKE
Neon everywhere, constant noise from the flow of traffic and from a many-layered tangle of bridges, walkways and stairs. At night the light pollution turns the sky anything from rusty orange to murky navy. Whales are the city’s mascots and show up all over its graphic design; on the main squares, life-size colourful holographic whales drift through the air. The oil districts are wrapped in permanent fog from cooling steam and processing plants. Raincoats and disposable masks are the most common pieces of clothing.