Kenema
Kenema is nestled at the foot of the Red Hills -an ancient mountain chain rich in iron ore, copper, and tin- where it was founded as a colonial mining center. During Reconstruction, Kenema rapidly built up its military power and began to exert its influence on the region around it. When the NLC was founded, Kenema was one of its principal enemies. Tulkas Brothers Iron & Steel Works and other Keneman community leaders saw Revisionist missionary work as a threat and expelled the faithful on several occasions. The city eventually had to surrender to integration with the NLC when the Great Crusade cut it off from its agricultural lands in the Auroran Basin and imposed a damaging siege. The siege ended when ambitious corporate leaders deposed the city council, intent on turning annexation into an opportunity for trade. Kenema negotiated a highly favorable relationship with the NLC that allowed it to become one of the leading industrial centers of the burgeoning league. Gradually, more and more corporations relocated to Kenema and the city came to support a transient population of traders, peddlers and tinkers of every sort. Land zoning regulations forced the fusion of production facilities and corporate headquarters into great compounds, with worker residences and smaller commercial business established in the spaces between. This gave the city a patchwork Layout: corporate "islands" of glass and steel rise above more placid neighborhoods.
Although prosperous, the city-state has suffered through several boom-bust cycles, which have left deep social scars. Corporate leaders are reluctant to invest heavily in social development and corporate taxes are kept very low. These policies have led to patches of intense poverty in the cityscape and a violent counter-culture. Youth gangs with customized vehicles ride the elevated parkways at night, and shock-metal clubs set in downtown buildings vibrate with their pulsating, grinding music. Thugs and lowlifes rule the city's seedier sectors, comforting lonely factory workers with drugs and prostitutes. Kenema has the highest violent crime rate in the NLC and the Kenema Police Department is renowned as the hardest working cops in the North. Crime has been increasing in leaps and bounds since the War of the Alliance, as the Forzi and Kolson cartels from Wounded Knee fight for control of the lucrative Keneman underworld. Local crime bosses and gangs unwilling to align themselves with the cartels have been largely, and ruthlessly, eliminated. Mayor Allysandre LeStrade campaigned on a law and order platform and has made increased resources available to the KPD, including the new Cheetah Polizei urban police Gear.
The corporate leaders of the city have also increasingly stepped to the fore to assume responsibility for security and quality of life in Kenema. Shaian Mechanics fancies itself a social corporation and has provided almost all the funding for upgrading and expanding the Kenema Police Department, creating a dependence at city hall. Tetsuko Hatsushiba, Shaian's chief executive, would like to see his corporation become the effective seat of power in Kenema and has no intention of letting the municipality get out of its debt to him.
Demographics
Corps, Collars and Bangers
Keneman society is split into three groups: corps, collars and bangers. Corps hold high-level corporate jobs or are media personalities or public officials. The average corp lives in a rat-race of office intrigues and ever-tightening deadlines. Collars include the working class (the largest percentage of Kenema's population) and small business owners. Collars are what outsiders associate with Kenema: hard-working, determined, yet simple people. The real social dynamic in Kenema are the Bangers. Although Collar children are raised with a strong work ethic, some tend to resent the lifestyle and seek release. Likewise, corp children live an affluent life, and have none of the sense of ethical responsibility that their Collar peers do. These attitudes manifest themselves in street crimes, gang activity, and underground Shock-Metal clubs. These clubs are often the "turf" of a particular gang, and gang wars at these places (usually during concerts) are not uncommon. Most Corps and collars see the bangers as the greatest problem facing their city-state and blame them for street crime, gang activity, and the prevalence of illegal activities in the shock-metal clubs. Revisionism is quite prevalent in Kenema, especially among the collars; the Allied Workers Union - the largest Keneman union - has a long-standing friendship with the church. Some other faiths have footholds in the city as well, including the Benjakob Congregation, a Reconstruction era Jerusalemite Temple in the oldest section of the city-state.
Corporate identification is not as strong in Kenema as in the United Mercantile Federation or Mekong Dominion, but it remains strong in comparison to other Norlightcities. Shaian Mechanics, the largest Keneman corp. actively encourages this identification using corporate-sponsored housing, educational funding and medical plans to ensure loyalty among its employees. The banger counter-culture is notoriously intolerant of corporate affiliation and most young people on the shock music scene go out of their way to offend all corporations equally. Ironically, a new form of employer identification is taking hold of the underground scene: the Kolson and Forzi cartels have both made use of banger culture (which regularly flouts many laws) as a base for underworld activities and cartel loyalty is growing every day. Most street gangs can now be classified by which cartel they work for, sporting distinctive dress, jewelry and tattoos to advertise this. Even more ironically, the various corporate prefectures roughly correspond to the territories of the cartels. The Kolson-backed Jesters, for example, hold much of the Shaian Prefecture despite the best efforts of their from rivals, the Red Ravens.
Government
Method of Goverment: Representative Democracy
Power in the Motor City
Kenema is divided into six prefectures along the lines of its major corporate "islands." Each prefecture gets a certain number of delegates in the city-state's legislature, the number of which is determined by its population (Shaian Prefecture, the largest, has four delegates). Each delegation, however, receives only one vote, therefore an individual delegate's vote is only a fraction of that of his delegation. Consequently, delegates must curry favor among their fellows, and power struggles occasionally develop. Delegates earn no income from their post as public officials and are most often corporate employees, usually managers or vice-presidents who see their work load reduced while they serve (often representing their employer as much as their constituents). The legislature meets every two weeks (barring any emergency sessions), and elections are held every 4 cycles. The mayor i s elected from within the ranks of the legislature, serves as its head, and holds a 6-cycle term. Unlike normal delegates, he is paid by the city.
Mayor LeStrade, currently in the fifth cycle of her term, is generally well liked by the populace. She was elected as the cartel war began to explode on Keneman streets and promised a tough campaign against criminality. Many of her recent measures passed the legislature with an overwhelming majority, although her latest bill, dubbed the "Gear Police Act" by the press, has some people worried. The AWU and other unions, who are not represented on city council but nonetheless form an important power block in the city, have begun to fear that Kenema will become a police state by the end of LeStrade's term of office. Already she has broadened the powers and resources of the police, initiated complete cooperation with the NorPol national anti-cartel task force and is preparing a new bill which will greatly increase officers' leeway in the use of deadly force. This policy is supported by Krystine Balmont, the Keneman chief of police.
Defences
QRT-9 Gear Police
Part and parcel of Mayor LeStrade's anti-crime agenda, the ninth Quick Response Team QRT-9 of the Kenema Police Department hit the streets at the end of TN 1930 with the first eight examples of Shaian Mechanics' HMVS-OlLG-CP Cheetah Polizei. In the last two and a half cycles, QRT-9 has been involved in a large number of operations, specializing in fast-pursuit through the crowded city-streets and occasionally deployed as not control unit (banking on the sheer intimidation power of a Gear). QRT-9 has recently been joined by similarly equipped QRTs -10 and -11, but team nine remains the most respected and feared. Most of the pilots are gleaned from the ranks of the citys regular police, but some are rookie pilots trained from the start. Becoming a QRT-9 Gear pilot has become the dream of many KPD rookies. QRT-9 is headed by Lieutenant Karl Methoras, a War of the Alliance veteran Gear pilot and an expert at SWAT tactics.
QRT-9 has citywide jurisdiction, but is stationed in Shaian Prefecture, right in the shadow of the great Shaian Tower complex. Shaian Mechanics treats QRT-9 as a showcase for their own "civic leadership" and has provided the team not only with now a dozen Polizei Gears but fast-pursuit cars and personal equipment, all at almost no cost. The "Gear Police," technically a SWAT unit, has found itself dealing increasingly more with crowd control situations, mostly near the city's shock-metal clubs. The unit is not without its problems, however. Even with rubber pellets, the Gears' weapons pack quite a punch, and Methoras has demanded that they only support more traditional riot control units. In addition, some members of the squad have been discipline problems, seemingly unable to restrain their use of force and speed. While this has led to numerous arrests of drug traffickers and smugglers, it has also resulted in numerous angry citizens and city-funded repair bills. Lieutenant Methoras has begun imposing a stricter code of discipline on his officers and demanded that the unit's non-SWAT activities be kept to a minimum. He knows full well that civilian deaths as a result of careless use of force could see his unit shut down. Mayor LeStrade, however, is anxious to gain political mileage from her elite police unit.
Industry & Trade
Principal Industries
- Automatovie and defense manufacturing
- Consumer goods
The Flow of Marks
Kenema's success comes from its mammoth manufacturing industry. From government-contracted giants like Shaian Mechanics to small concerns like the Most Unusual Surplus chain (a five-store chain selling old military items), the Keneman business world seems to be in a permanent frenzy. Perhaps it i s that Kenemans envy the economic powerhouse of the United Mercantile Federation, particularly Rapid City. Whatever the case, economists have recorded a marked rise in productivity since the end of the War of the Alliance, almost to the point of over-production. Kenema-made products are known for their superior workmanship.
As Keneman businesses try to outdo each other and their UMF counterparts, innovations in consumer and defense technology have developed astonishingly fast. Corporate alliances have been reshuffling frantically as new design studios produce the "next big thing." The most important deal signed in the post-war period has been a long-term alliance between Keimuri Motor Corporation and the Mercantile giant Northco. This deal for the production of a series of highly specialized light Gears (including the Tattletale and Ferret Mk II) has made the struggling Keimuri a major player once again. Shaian Mechanics has responded with the announcement of the Lion, a high-performance commando Gear designed for the Norlight Armed Forces. This competition has also resulted in a marked upsurge of "corp-crimes." Industrial espionage, patent violations, even blatant sabotage of a competitors facilities are not uncommon. While this phenomenon has made the Keneman market one of the harshest on Terra Nova, it has also done wonders for the quality of services and merchandise in the area. The Kenema Police Department's Business Crimes Unit (BCU) is responsible for working with corporate security to pursue these types of criminals.
Maps
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Kenema
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