HIVEMARKET

Decayed but vital centre of commerce in Akiton's southern wilds.

Written by ekesleight

In ancient times before the Gap, Hivemarket was more of a vast bazaar than a city, built over a natural tunnel system in the lava flows of Mount Ka. Over the centuries, the city grew out and upward until the buildings' vast artificial chasms became a miniature world of their own. During the good times, there was speculation that the tallest towers might overtop even the nearby Pillar of Heaven, highest mountain in the Pact Worlds.
The good times are long gone, now; Hivemarket's Trade Authority has deteriorated, gangs and syndicates multiply through the decaying metroplex, and the ghostly guardian spirits known as the khulan have begun to reappear, once again keeping a watchful eye out for threats to the markets' independence as they did of old. Yet for all the signs of decay, the Hivemarket's streets, tunnels, warrens and causeways still bustle, its inhabitants hustling night and day to make ends meet... and in some cases working in hopes of hitting the big score, and escaping to a better life.
It's all held together by a vast informal economy run largely by the Ysoki -- so numerous that only a fraction of them appear on any census -- from a series of Warren Cities. These makeshift settlements festoon both the tunnels of Hivemarket and its skyscrapers, to which they cling like barnacles strung together by a jury-rigged cable-car system.

Demographics

34% Human (Kedaj), 36% Ysoki, 11% Android, 9% Shobhad-neh, 10% other

Government

Formally, a technocracy called the Hivemarket Trade Authority, with delegates nominated by the surrounding and resident ethnic groups. The Trade Authority has little real power now, however. Most of the real governance is run by syndicates, warlords and informal networks of Ysoki traders.

Defences

There is no unified defense or standing army save the khulans, whose full capabilities are formidable but unclear. Hivemarket is otherwise defended by rough common agreement of its various syndicates and warlords.
The skies above Hivemarket and orbital approaches to the city are policed by the Stewards under Pact World law.

Industry & Trade

Local trade and manufacture runs on whatever UPBs and salvaged materials are available. Hivemarket is not a particularly significant manufacturing centre, however. It runs primarily on agricultural and industrial trade, salvage, vice and a small but lucrative luxury trade in Akitonian artefacts.

Infrastructure

The once thasteron-powered ancient skyscrapers are largely decayed, their upper floors running on jury-rigged solar power while denizens of the lower levels crib marginal power from wherever they can get it. The tunnel markets run on geothermal energy which by now is by far the city's most abundant power source.
Modern conveniences thrive wherever power is available, particularly in the spaceport which is the face Hivemarket presents to most outsiders. Most of the city tends to run on ingenious contrivances cobbled together from junk and salvage.

Guilds and Factions

As of 317 AG, the Kedaj Pride Front is the major warlord operation running Skymarket, the area of the city around the spaceport. Its fortunes decline during that year and particularly as a result of the Moorglade Incident, though who replaced it in the city's ecosystem is unclear.
Burning Bright is a Kedaj street gang working on behalf of the KPF.
The Machines of Loving Grace are a paramilitary android faction with apparent ties to the Android Abolition Front, and in particular to a specific faction of the AAF called the Voltaic Pleroma.

Type

Large city

Population

Approx. 5,350,000

Inhabitant Demonym

Hivemarketers

Location under

Akiton