[Evine]
Evine is a city covering the surface of an entire planet. If the planet itself ever had a different name, it was forgotten many centuries ago. The city is technically ancient, but has built upward on itself, so that none of the floors in use are nay more than a few decades old. The buildings themselves are great towers -- general cylindrical in shape and over a kilometre high. Only the uppermost floors are in use. (Effectively the section in use is approximately the height of a modern high-rise.) Floors are counted from the top of the building. This means that, the buildings not having a uniform height, that "level five" on one building may not be at the same level as "level five" on the next.
There is no "street level", as there is no street. The space between the buildings drops away into a shadowed void, punctuated by frequent docking platforms and other floating slabs of plascrete for similar purposes. Beyond a certain level, no light penetrates. In fact, the natural surface of the planet has not seen sunlight for a very long time. The buildings themselves conform to a colour scheme of blue, white and silver. In the day, they glisten with breathtaking brilliance. At night, they are delineated with lights of various colours, and clubs (of all kinds, depending on the district!), restaurants, so on and so forth are marked accordingly (think Tokyo-style).
[Resources]
Evine has to import everything. At different points in its history, it has even needed to import air as the buildings reached new dizzy altitudes.
Other worlds, referred to as Primary Worlds, are treated as "supply worlds": they provide raw materials, including agricultural produce, raw materials for textiles, and minerals and other mined products.
Ex-Primary Worlds now stripped of their resources have been set up as Secondary Worlds: factory worlds, where the raw materials are treated and turned into marketable products.
Once a region has been exhausted of resources (and the Secondary Worlds are impractically distant from their Primary suppliers), they are given over for residential and trade purposes, gradually being built up like Evine itself.
[Trade]
Evine is the central port for all trade in the known universe, and everything must be registered there, even if it does not pass through.
The tax on goods passing through, though, is a stinging 15%, and it is not allowed to pass by: if possible, anything being moved between worlds must pass through Evine. For this reason, it could be expected for smuggling to be a booming industry, but there is very little evidence of it at all. This could simply indicate how good the smugglers are at their job.
[Government]
The Evinian government can be considered as a kind of autocracy: the planet is run by a Board of Directors consisting of seven individuals. In the event of a board member dying or becoming unable to fulfil his duties, a successor is selected by the Board.
Appeals are able to be made to the Board, and advisors to the Board do exist, but no-one other than the Board has any say in the running of the planet at all.
[Technology]
+{Transport}+
The nature of the city had dictatedthe nature of transport: Small out-of-atmosphere craft (the SW X-Wing would fit into this category) are common enough, but other atmospheric vehicles have been developed. The most common types are:
MPATV/Speeder: The Multiple Personnel Atmospheric Transport Vehicle is the Evinian version of a motorcar. Evine's (lack of) weather has led the normal design of these to be open-top, although there do exist some which do not conform to this. The shape essentially resembles a car without wheels and with a softly glowing repulsorlift cell array underneath. Availible in just about any color and style you can imagine.
SRAR/Racer: The Single Rider Aerial Racer is a fast, lightweight craft intended for one rider, although it is possible to double-up. To give an idea of what is looks like, consider, say, a Suzuki motorbike. Remove the wheels, and stretch it to roughly twice its original length. It is ridden with the upper body basically lying along the "saddle", creating a very streamlined profile. Like the Speeders, lift is provided by repulsorlift cells.
HovBoard(tm)/Board: Shaped essentially like a snowboard, but somewhat shorter, these things are an extremely popular new development. Using the newer repulsophibre technology, they are far more manoeuverable and thinner than their repulsorlift predecessors. Riding one is a bit like snowboarding, a bit like surfing, and a bit different again. Unlike the repulsorlift cells, repulsophibre is non-light-emitting.
+{Weaponry}+
The usual sci-fi arsenal of blasters, plasma cannons, and so on are available, along with various primitive, hybrid, and just plain weird options.
+{Computers}+
Laser, quantum, biological... you name it, and it has been tried. Currently a point has been reached where the refinement of all these different systems has brought them to more or less precisely on-par with each other, and work has been put into making them more compatible with each other. Direct interfacing has been developed, but is generally considered impractical. The most common setup is not very much of a step up from what we use now.
+{Communications}+
In spite of the popular rejection of direct interfacing with computers, implanted chips serving the purpose of today's mobile phone are the norm.
A possible problem with these -- although not a concern to most people -- is that once removed, their origin is extremely easy to trace. Also, in all cases if a closed network is discovered, it is possible to trace devices attached to that network. The chips are not simple to remove, of course, which means the people associated with the network can be found more easily than if more primitive devices were being used.
[Peculiarities]
In the Evinian universe, magic is real. Different cultures draw upon it to differing degrees -- many do not use it at all. Planets where magic is a highly important element of the society are referred to as "mage worlds". Among them are the planets of Dyrwyndd and Caerwyn (one of my invention, the other not). On Caerwyn, so profuse is the use of magic that mundane technologies are prone to malfunction!
Little or no research has been done into what drives magical development on a planet.
Oddly, magic does not work on Evine. At all. Whatsoever. With no exceptions. Although this is a very well-known fact, precisely why is a mystery, which no-one of influence or importance really cares much about, so no funding has been allocated to find out.
[Residents and Immigrants]
The cost of living on Evine is very high, and most of the permanent residents are wealthy traders and princes of merchant empires.
As with any port, there is a constant through-flow of traders and associated individuals, some of which are forced to stay for several days as they wait for the passage of their goods to be cleared.
A great many young people have bought their fare, or stowed away to get to Evine, to seek their fortunes. While it is fairly easy to get to Evine as a stowaway, it is impossible to leave thus. They now make up the gangs of the shadowed Lower Levels, groups with names like "the Razor Sharks" or "the Red Shadows". (I had a player once insist on calling them all "Cyberpunks.") Life expectancy is a few years at best. Of course, no-one knows about this until they reach Evine, because the fortune-seekers have no way of getting a message off the planet. They have nothing.
[The Tower Network]
Some of these young individuals have better luck. While small criminal organisations are quickly quashed by the autocratic Evinian government, there is a single large network influencing the entire planet who have managed somehow to slip underneath the government radar -- perhaps simply by dint of being so large that they faded into the background rabble. This is the Tower network.
The Tower network try to screen all young new arrivals to the planet, wherever possible, in order to pick up individuals of certain skills -- whop would otherwise end up in the lower-levels gangs -- to bring into the organisation. This ranges from exceptional sharpshooters, abnormally skilled engineers, brilliant programmers, right through to -- when required -- good cooks.
Members of the Tower network are organised into cells of between four and six, with an alphanumeric designation selected according to the time of formation of the cell, but which does not really indicate anything. The exception to this is the Omega cells. These are specialised assassin squads, generally with only three or four members.
Tower members are almost all under 25 (or their racial equivalent), with only a small number of exceptions.
There are actually ten Towers, controlling activities in a certain sector of the planet: North, South, Equatorial North 1 through 4, and Equatorial South, 1 through 4. These sectors are not official divisions, but are instead mapped out by the Tower Network. There is a hierachy of Towers, with North set as the highest-ranking. Each Tower has a Towermaster: for North Tower, this is Caleb T'au.
