Undercity

Undercities are a staple of Jhoutaioan infrastructure. They are the sections of a city where water, power, data, air, and meta are gathered, treated, and distributed to the city. They are the foundation on which the cities are built.

While undercities have officially maintained access points throughout the city, typically in the form of Jhoutigari checkpoints to large freight elevators, there are many other ways in and out. Some are official, some are not, but most all are hidden in places few can or dare to tread, such as in drainage tunnels or sub-subbasements, and lead into a confusing labyrinth of poorly documented corridors.

In dire cases, it may take hours to navigate from street level to a given point within the undercity -- such as a broken pipe or shorted conduit. For this reason, cities place some of their Provisional Housing in their undercities, to maintain a population familiar with the layout and trained on its upkeep.

Because few honest people desire to live in such cramped (and sometimes dangerous) conditions, this housing is usually populated bt the unwelcome but otherwise upstanding elements of their society, such as reformed IdPari, petty criminals, and asylum seekers. These people often live in poor, cramped, and noisy conditions, with heavy-handed surveillance and oversight by Jhoutigari.

Criminals, IdPari, and the homeless often make their spaces in the Undercity. Depending on the city, this is tolerated to a degree.

Purpose

You may find many things in an underCity.

Water

Undercities house water treatment plants for recycling water, and also often have the necessary facilities to pump water up from deep below.

Structural Integrity

Small core shafts are dug down into the coral for Ley Lines which allow Masons to come and check the integrity of the coral and bedrock.

Rutas Buffer

Most Corralum connected to a city tend to be paved over, but corralums shift often, and sometimes a Rutas Surge occurs. Undercities are the first line of defense.

Disposal and Recycling

Trash is either compacted and used as filler in corralum pits to later be gardened into filter gardens, or cleaned and returned to the commercial sector.

State Factories

Some cities have allocated space for production of important materials. Working at these factories is a typical way to pay off a crime.

Air Filtration

For surface cities, the danger is Glow Rain; for subterranean cities it's stale air. Vast fan systems and dense filter gardens help to keep the air safe.

Data

Servers kept safe under wall and lock, buried under official buildings and used as archives of state data.

Power

Years of conduits built and rebuilt and forever in need of looking after. Humanity brought electricity to Jhoutai, but it took them a while to do it efficiently.

Meta

Ley lines crisscross the undercity alongside power lines, sapping excess meta for storage in well-guarded reservoirs and redistributing the remaineder.