With enclave space limited, it’s a guarantee that the corporations must expand or die. To that end, the corps are looking at the feasibility of reclaiming the Midwest wastelands. Of course, it’s rarely cost-effective to build an infrastructure from the ground up…
The corporations make a habit of courting established settlements. They offer protection, goods, and many other incentives to joining the corporate family… And sometimes, the settlement buys into the deal. What follows next is a process that takes years to finish. First, corporate forces move in and set up a base within the settlement, providing guards and law enforcement, free of charge. Engineers develop the fortifications and infrastructure, and the military opens up a recruitment office, offering the young and restless a career that gives them the chance of travel, excitement, and violence. Once the settlement has some reasonable defenses and services, the corporation starts shipping settlers in from its enclaves, relieving problems with crowding, and offering incentives to citizens willing to make a go at taming the frontier. Sometimes the corps send prisoners, malcontents, or other problem people to franchise towns to get them out of their hair. This can backfire on them, but at least the problem is no longer near the enclave.
The end result is to convert the town into a part of the enclave, with the same benefits and downsides. Few towns have gotten this far… The development takes time, and the town’s original natives are usually more stubborn and slow to change their attitudes to 100% conformance with the corporate line. More often, the town is destroyed or ruined by raiders or wasteland creatures, or comes under peril from another threat that causes it to become deserted or uninhabitable. Sometimes the towns betray the corporations as well, kicking them out after they’ve been fortified, or going over to another corporation. This rarely goes well, and can end with a completely destroyed town if the parent corporation has violent tendencies or wants to make an example of the traitorous settlement.
It’s really too soon to see if the idea of Franchise towns is a success in the long-term. The longest-existing franchise town so far is barely a decade old at this point.
Franchise towns offer some of the benefits of both major settlements and corporate enclaves. You can usually count on running water, electric power, a roof over your head, at least one television channel, and some sort of medical care. What you can’t always count on, is food, or law enforcement. Corporate Enclaves barely have the food to feed themselves… Franchise towns are usually chosen because they can stand on their own, and supply their own food. And the guards and soldiers assigned to garrison duty sometimes use it as an opportunity to line their pockets or extort favors and goods from the townsfolk… Not all of them do this, but enough of them are corrupt that you aren’t always guaranteed justice in a franchise town. Not unless you’re paid up with the local law, that is.
You’ve also still got the dangers of the Wastelands to contend with. The defenses help against some predators and problems, but they’re not much good against the more subtle predators, organized military opposition, or diseases.
The technology level in a franchise town is equivalent to 1960, with less infrastructure. Crude, cheap electronics and decent medicine are usually available, and some gasoline-powered vehicles are in use on the nearby roads of the settlement. Power is usually supplied by an industrial-sized fusion cell donated by the corporation, that gets expanded into a fusion plant as time goes on. If the corp-appointed representative feels a need, he can request additional material and support from the corp. This may be approved or denied, depending on what he asks for, and how much profit is expected to result.
Franchise towns typically see a lot of caravans and travelers passing through. They’re seen as a little safer than the average settlement, and make good waypoints. Opposing corporations, of course, know better than to send their trade caravans through each other’s franchise towns. That’s a good way to get shot up, or have your goods confiscated. Free Traders usually stay out of Franchise Towns, but occasionally make camp outside their boundaries. They don’t announce their arrival or departure, and usually leave within a day or two, before trouble can find them.
Franchise towns usually retain the previous settlement’s attitudes towards things like metahumans and magic, though the increased traffic through them can mute it somewhat. The parent corporation’s attitude toward those prejudices can either lessen or amplify problems of this nature. Still, the frontier tends to eat the stupid, so even the most die-hard bigots may find that they don’t mind orcs or elves or whatever so much, when a large enough threat rears its head.
To live in a franchise town is to have the freedom to come and go as you please, with a few modern day comforts. You still have to work to make ends meet, and watch out for constant danger, but you don’t have to worry about some very basic things. Many people find this a good compromise between freedom and security. Others look at the corporation’s slowly-expanding influence, and the buildings rising up from new construction, and wonder just how much freedom they’re giving up.
The Franchise towns are often the gateway to the Wasteland for many of the enclave dwellers, and a ton of legal and illicit trade goes through them. To a few who manage to gain the influence or wealth, it’s a way into the enclaves…
Back before the big one, Kron was a city in decline. With a serious lack of major industry in the area, the local government had been accepting waste disposal and storage contracts to utilize the empty space that was hollowing out its former borders. As the waste products, scrap materials, and nanite-tainted resources built up in the dumps around Kron, it got so bad that residents had to wear protective gear, and get their dwellings sealed to prevent illness and poisoning.
Ironically enough, this saved Kron when the big one came. The place was already somewhat radioactive, and putting a little fallout on top of that didn’t really do any significant harm. And most of the northern bioweapon waves found their nanites and tailored viruses incompatible with the existing pollution and nano-fauna. Kron was just too toxic to be poisoned. And since the residents had top of the line BCN gear to begin with, the fatality rates were low. At least, at the beginning.
As an isolated city far from any of the major detonations, the townsfolk of Kron found themselves besieged by refugees. Some raided them, others squatted on toxic dumps without protective gear, and others brought disease. In particular, the plague-ridden survivors of Colum acted as a vector for particularly virulent strains, that could adapt to even the toxic environment of Kron, as long as they had human hosts to germinate within. Unofficial estimates lay a full 20% of the first year’s disease deaths in Kron at the feet of Colum refugees.
The refugees also brought starvation, and a shortage of resources. Food had always been an import in Kron… The land around it was too toxic to grow good crops. After the big one, the townsfolk had no choice but to try to purify selected areas for cropland… But there was nowhere near enough to feed everyone.
Finally, after about half a year, the townsfolk decided “No More.” The survivors overthrew the interim military government, armed themselves, and started shooting refugees, bandits, and incautious travelers. A few people were spared… All those not killed were branded with a burnt F on their hands and forehead, (For “Freeloader”,) and told never to come back. The corpses of those slain in the Kron Massacre were thrown in a few abandoned coal mines, and forgotten.
A few days later, patrols started reporting strange intruders at the mines. These intruders turned out to be the first reported ghouls in the Hio land… The current running theory is that the MORTE virus originated in Colum, and mutated to its present form thanks to toxic-driven evolution in Kron. After a few attempts to clear the ghouls failed, and resulted in the spread of the virus to wounded soldiers, the city set the mines afire and collapsed the entrances. The mines still burn to this day, sending pillars of smoke up to wreathe the settlement, and occasionally causing smoking sinkholes to swallow buildings and the occasional unwary traveler.
Kron struggled on in isolation through magic’s rise, and the wars. They did so by sealing their borders, sending out raiding groups to nearby settlements, and building some serious fortifications. Their status as the pre-fall regional junkyard worked in their favor… They had plenty of bits of machinery and chemicals to construct weapons of all types, not to mention a nearby national-guard base that they’d preserved from looters.
Eventually, though, as more and more of the population died to sickness and gradual poisoning, they realized that they could not remain self-sufficient. When the Cleveland enclave made contact, they started trading with Hall-Mart, an arrangement that let them get the chemicals and nanite strains they needed to slowly cleanse parts of their croplands, and grow progressively more food. Eventually, it got to the point where they realized that they were fully dependant on the synthesized chemicals that only Hall-Mart could provide. At that point, the mayor conferred with the council, and signed up with the Cleveland enclave. No longer would they be isolated, no longer would they be alone. For better or worse, they were Hall-Mart consumers, now.
Since then, life’s been decent enough for the average resident. Hall-Mart provides the chemicals they need to keep their food and water relatively pure, and they provide a fortified outpost for trade purposes, and whatever salvage from their dumps that Cleveland might need. In the ten years that Kron’s been under Hall-Mart management, they’ve become a major link of the “Sickle Road”, a route that starts with Cleveland in the north, and ends up in Poor Smoth in the south. The town of Kron numbers about 20 thousand “natives”, and 5 thousand adventurous souls from Cleveland, who accepted a hefty bribe of Hall-Mart shares to move to the frontier. More Cleveland immigrants trickle in every now and then, with varying degrees of success.
This has caused some trouble. Some Kron natives are claiming that the corporate immigrants get major price breaks, and are stealing all the best land, while natives have to struggle to maintain the land they own, and often go bankrupt and have to yield it to corporate creditors. Hall-Mart’s offer of debt counseling and budget management seminars was met with angry scorn, and a sizeable underground movement has arisen, with the goal of bringing down Hall-Mart by any means necessary. The saboteurs call themselves “The Smokers”, and utilize the mines under Kron as a lair. No one sane goes down there, and the heavy rock tends to cut down the operating distance of drone signals, so Hall-Mart’s been having trouble rooting them out.
In May of 2208, Kron shipped the bulk of its Kron garrison to Zane. The Smokers immediately struck the remnants of the Kron garrison, burning buildings, stealing material, and killing as many soldiers as possible. Ironically enough, it was the Kron militia that prevented it from being a total slaughter, turning their guns on their own friends and neighbors for the benefit of the corp. The Smokers have since drawn back into the tunnels, and Hall-Mart has brought in fresh reinforcements, so the situation has somewhat stabilized, for now.
Kron is a town where you’ll want to wear a respirator and at least light protective gear when you’re outdoors. The smog from the burning coal mixes with the pollution of new industry, and the ground is often coated with a light dusting of ash, and the occasional trace of old-era toxins from a leaking waste dump. Exposed skin is a serious risk here, and most homes are equipped with Hall-Mart made chemical misters just inside the front doors, to get the worst of the stuff off visitors. Natives have a little resistance to the miasma, immigrants either adapt or die, but everyone gets their lifespan shortened just from living in Kron. Still, the toxicity of the environment keeps disease down and many predators out, so you could call it a double-edged sword…
There is no real metahuman prejudice in Kron, and mutation is perfectly acceptable to the average native. Less so to Cleveland immigrants, but the ones that stick around usually learn to keep their prejudices quiet. It helps that most people you see on the street are heavily garbed in protective gear anyway, so physical looks don’t tend to matter as much.
Magic is another matter. If you show off your magical abilities in Kron, expect to get regarded with suspicion. The place was a strong bastion of Christian faith before the fall, and some people still have problems with “witchcraft”. The younger generations are losing this reservation, as they drift away from religion and enjoy the magic-friendly Hall-Mart propaganda such as the “Psyker Squad!” TV show, and the “Parry Hotter” simflicks. Still, there’s enough of the ugly kind of faith in town to leave a few burning crosses around on unpopular magician’s lawns.
Kron has a few major problems, that seem to be around for the long term.
One, is that the people of Kron were right bastards to their neighbors up until Hall-Mart took over. Kron was a town that suffered greatly due to refugees, true, but the fact that they ended up slaughtering refugees and raiding other settlements around them for food endeared them to no one. Kron does not have a good reputation with anyone except for the Cleveland Enclave. Others will trade with them because they must, but many still bear long-smoldering grudges. The Free Traders, in particular, never go to Kron.
The second issue, is the ghoul infestation.
As it turns out, setting mines full of ghouls on fire and collapsing their tunnels around them isn’t enough to kill the hardier victims of the MORTE virus. Ghouls don’t seem to need as much air as humans do, and their claws are suited to burrowing. Ghouls don’t mind toxins, and generally find Kron a pleasant place to live. There’s certainly plenty of meat to be had!
Not only that, but the necessary dress code of respirators, masks, and protective garb means that a smart ghoul can conceal his or her deformities, and operate somewhat freely within Kron society. Most ghouls aren’t sane or intelligent enough to pass, but the ones that do can be hard to spot.
Needless to say, the average resident of Kron hates and fears ghouls. Ghouls are shot upon sight, hidden ghouls are shot the second they’re identified, and folks who exhibit ghoul-like behavior are shot on general principles. The town offers a high bounty on ghouls, and acts as a regional center for several ghoul-hunting mercenary groups. Recently, Hall-Mart’s been getting in on the market share as well, testing out several products designed to detect and identify ghouls. Ironically enough, this has resulted in many smart ghouls aiding and abetting the Smokers, in an attempt to dislodge the corporation before they can be hunted down.
Kron is a great, sprawling toxic junkyard that’s survived against all
odds. Though relations with its parent corporation aren’t always smooth,
and it’s got its share of problems, it is likely to be around for years
to come. A stable trading post and (somewhat) safe haven against the terrors
of the waste, it is home to a hardy breed of proud survivors.