The Damocles Sector
The Damocles Sector is where much of Megacorpolis centers its heavy industry, a mixture of old traditional manufacturing and high-tech assembly. Factories and laboratories rub shoulders, clustered around solar-power or nuclear power plants that provide them with energy. Sealed basins of pollutants are only occasionally breached by industro-terrorists or unlucky urban explorers. Corporate spokespersons have reassured those who live in the sector that flooding occurs only rarely.
Description
The nature of industry have changed greatly in the 22nd century. Most heavy industry is performed by robots with human overseers, inside vast hive-like factories that teem with robotic limbs and carefully modulated production templates. It is no place for accident-prone humans, and entire marketing campaigns can be made around the fact if something has gone through the ridiculous expense of being "made by humans". Mobile 3D printers can construct entire houses and stationary ones can churn out consumer goods at a ferocious rate. The days of a smog-choked sky and smokestacks belching poison into the air have disappeared and have been replaced by towers gleaming with solar panels.
by Johny Mnemonic (with slight alterations)
Damocles is also the center of the Megacorps asteroid mining facilities. Several shuttle-ports are scattered around the Sector, with friendly corporations sharing space to offset the costs. Shuttles dock and offload the ore acquired in the void above, often on lines that lead directly into great founderies that smelt the ore and pour the molten material to where they need to go.
Places of Interest
Prototypetopia
A R&D district within the Sector, where engineers and researchers work with marketing to try and make the "next big thing". Invariably, each department hates the other, making the name somewhat ironic. Energy, metallurgy and aerospace research are the most popular fields of research, was long as they can show how profit will be made.Nukeville
Although most energy in Megacorpolis is derived from either fusion or geo-engineered renewables, Nuclear Power was an important transitional power source. Nukeville, or Energy-Grid Sub-Sector 17A, is an quickly aging cluster of nuclear power plant that are still in operation. Don't drink the water in the coolers.Foundry
The Foundry is where most of the heavy and polluting industry is contained, such as old-school smelting and manufacturing - although the methods used in the 22nd century tend to use more solar powered lasers. It is a grimy, dirty place by design - the coal stains and grime is rubbed in by janitors at the start of each day to match the marketing aesthetic. People don't just buy the goods, they buy the idea of how it was made.The Spire Damocles gets much of its water from the same shuttles that bring it ores and metals. Ice is harvested in great quantities among asteroids and other celestial objects, stored tightly in sealed hulls and brought back to earth. These hauls are supplemented by vast desalination plants that constantly churn away to provide water both for the industry and the sector's inhabitants.
Heavy-Duty Competition
Nearly every Corporation in the mega-city has some interest in the Damocles sector. Most own manufacturing facilities either in or adjacent to the sector, as the need for new goods for the market is insatiable. Competition in Damocles is less about resources, with metals that were once considered incredibly rare now abundant due to orbital mining, but about talent and perception. by Johny Mnemonic (with slight alterations)
Corporate espionage and outright kidnapping is common. Sabotage, explosions and gunfights between various corporations, industro-terrorists and various competing brand are nearly daily occurrences.
Consumers are just as often as not participants, eager to fight for the cause of their particular and favored branding.
Sector 4 The Megacorpolis divides its megacity-region into Sectors, each one large enough to envelop any single city of the old world with ease. No single Megacorporation control any of the 13 sectors in its entirety. They are patchworks of corporate enclaves, wild and abandoned slums, communal housing and private property. Damocles have the designation of Sector 4.
by Johny Mnemonic (with slight alterations)
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