Kossuth
Kossuth was founded in TN 495 as a corporate farming community to provide food for Interlink Corporation's Badlands mining operations. While originally a highly fertile region, the combination of using labor largely unskilled in farming and the company's destructive intensive farming practices meant that within a decade, the land was degraded to a great extent. Interlink was forced to rely on massive use of fertilizers and high technology solutions such as genetically engineered crops to keep the operation efficient. When Interlink pulled out of Terra Nova in TN 1454, most of the genetically engineered crops were not hardy enough to survive and the people of Kossuth were barely able to produce enough food to eat for themselves.
Kossuth was reborn in TN 1554 as the center-point of Norlight President Gabryel Emsala's plan to sponsor the Tershaw Cooperative Alliance as a buffer-league between the NLC and UMF. Thanks to significant Tershan and Norlight investment, Kossuth was converted into a huge solar and wind farm under the management of Tershaw Power. The city-state provided electricity to Swanscombe, Innsbruck and Zagazig. When the TCA came under attack by Mercantile forces, Kossuth was the first city-state to appeal for Norlight intervention and it submitted to the authority of Valeria in TN 1576. The region gained military protection in short order and plans to expand power production for consumption across the league were soon underway.
Today, over ten thousand square kilometers of wind and solar power generators cover what was previously dead farmland, providing electricity to city-states across the NLC. Kossuth has become the service center for the surrounding energy farms, as well as becoming home to some energy intensive industries. Ecological restoration efforts undertaken since the TN 1820s have made Kossuth an idyllic place to live, with the green expanse of the Northern Plain interrupted only by fields of reflectors and windmills. This beauty was scarred in TN 1914 when the city-state came under heavy orbital bombing and was only partially shielded by the local network of aerospace defense towers. The industrial damage has been repaired, but in many areas the carefully managed soil has yet to recover from large scale damage. Several of the local hills still appear brown and burnt, nearly twenty cycles after the conflict.
Kossuth's reputation as an eden of sun and wind attracts a significant number of visitors every cycle, although Norlight Power, the city's governing corporation, does relatively little to accommodate tourism. Locally run bed and breakfasts and hostels have sprung up to fill the gap, however, and the city-state is considered a very desirable vacation spot. Most of these establishments are quite upscale and attract wealthy clients from Valeria, Kenema or Petropolis. One such resort, called Kossuth Lodge, has marketed itself as a corporate retreat and conference center and regularly hosts top executives from Shaian Mechanics, Brok Enterprises and Norlight Zephyr Rail.
Demographics
City of Sun and Wind
The laid back and slow moving nature of Kossuth's principal industry has lead to a population known for its easygoing and contemplative nature. Norlight Power is mostly content to let the civilian population do as they wish. As a result, the city has become an outpost of religious tolerance within the Northern Lights Confederacy. Many religious groups have moved there to escape persecution elsewhere in the NLC and many homegrown cults have formed as well. In addition, Kossuth contains the highest concentration of followers of Massadan Revisionism in the Confederacy. While most of these groups are happy enough to keep to themselves and get along quietly with their neighbors (and NP Security comes down heavily for those that do not, for "disturbing the peace"), there are a few who do not. One such group is The Children of the New Earth, an environmental cult dedicated to revitalizing the dead soil of Kossuth. Its members have been charged with trespassing on other peoples property on numerous occasions and are suspected of several acts of sabotage against corporate energy farms, which they consider an evil metal blight that covers the life-giving soil of Terra Nova.
Beyond basic utilities, such as electricity, water and sewage, Norlight Power does not provide much in the way of facilities to the civilian population, although NP Security does police the entire city. Instead of supplying these services themselves, Norlight Power makes regular, large donations to local charities, including a few secular ones, that fill this gap by providing social sewices such as schooling and shelter for the homeless. Transfer funds from the national government also supplement local funding of charities. Mostly, however, people rely on the support of their own religious or community groups, many of which elect their own governing bodies, even if they have no official power. The degree of community action makes corporate-run Kossuth a very pleasant place to live, often favorably compared to Petropolis. The Adjanni government remains dedicated to ending corporate rule of city-states, however, and has put increasing pressure on Norlight Power to institute a democratic system in Kossuth.
Government
Method of Goverment: Self-Perpetuatinig bureaucracy
Politics of Power
Kossuth and the surrounding energy farms are the property of Norlight Power and the city‘s administration is appointed by it. Chief Administrator Tanja Sazbo, former head of the solar power division, is in charge of Norlight Power‘s Kossuth operations as well as administerion for the city and its civilian concerns. Currently, factions within the conglomerate are in a struggle over Kossuth’s future. Many see signs that Kossuth’s energy industry will be suffering a depression soon and the company‘s response to that possibility i s undecided. Several of the top executives believe the company should focus on fusion power and abandon Kossuth to i t s fate, while others believe it has a responsibility to the city and should be working towards developing new industries for the city. Chief Administrator Tanja Sazbo is amongst the latter group and is working with several of the larger religious and community groups to present a united face to the company. Several local leaders have also proposed that Kossuth become a standard municipality rather than a corporate enclave, unfortunately fueling calls for Norlight Power to pull out of the region.
Industry & Trade
- Power Production
Energy for Sale
Kossuth is almost entirely dependent on energy production for its economic well being. City-states throughout the NLC depend on the energy Kossuth produces and relying on i t s wind and solar farms has helped keep air pollution down, a fact not lost on Norlight Power, which has discouraged the other city-states from building their own fossil fuel-based power plants. The bombing of Kossuth’s power facilities during the War of the Alliance and the subsequent delays in bringing them back on line, however, have left the other city-states wary of depending on outside sources of power production. Many are developing their own low pollution energy sources, such as fusion plants, and there is l i t t l e Norlight Power can do to stop them. Worried about a possible depression as other city-states stop buying Kossuth’s electricity, factions within the company and other locals are investigating other industries to sustain the city-state. The ecological efforts over the last century, despite the damage done by the CEF, has left Kossuth a beautiful locale and tourism has become a major contributor to the local economy.
Kossuth’s peaceful existence is also threatened by the growing underworld struggle. The city-state’s location in the low Rolling Hills which rise from the Northern Plain make it a prime location for smuggling operations to both the UMF and Badlands. The Kolson Cartel controls most local operations and Northern Power‘s security force has made a conscious effort to direct their operations at limiting Forzi attempts to infiltrate the city. NP security chief Adryan Obis has seen the carnage of a full gang war in Kenema and other cities and is ready to deal with the devil he knows to keep the bloodshed to a minimum.
Guilds and Factions
Commune of Light
The clear and bright climate of the Kossuth region and the tolerance of locals have attracted many religious communes, including the Massadan Revisionist Home of Trees and the Jerusalemite Benyamin Community. The most well-known religious community in the region, however, is the Commune of Light, an enclave of the Order of the Blue Crescent. Located twenty kilometers to the southwest of Kossuth itself, the Commune consists of twenty Low buildings arranged in a rough circle, all linked by solariums and divided by lush gardens. The Commune is permanent home to over 250 Blue Crescent adherents, including the community‘s leader Zana Yebras.
The Commune is most famous, however, for its visitors. Many Nortlight and Mercantile celebrities make a pilgrimage to Kossuth to participate in organized retreats at the Commune or to seek enlightenment of their own. Only a small minority of these famous visitors are outright members of the order (and easily recognizable by their shaved head and tattoos) but most others claim at least some kinship with the philosophies of Kolos. Revisionist authorities have at times been highly critical of this phenomenon of “crescent flirtation,” but the lenient atmosphere of Kossuth has protected the practice from overt scrutiny. This protection is aided by the fact that several key Norlight Power executives are adherents to the order, including Kossuth administrator Sazbo.
Maps
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Kossuth
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