up from the streets

Target City is the center of the Space Age, literally the target of everyone leaving home or returning, Sol-bound. It was the first successful settlement outside of our home system, deep in the darkness beyond the spires of the Alexandrian cityscape. A shining beacon of humankind, it was also the first city to turn its back against its Terran founders, the city that began with its birth this new era 76 years ago. Renamed Independence, the planet that was once the pride of Earth’s enterprise became something entirely new; birthing generations of space children and settlers, sending its people to new worlds before risking stagnation. It removed itself entirely from the corruption of Mars, remaining proudly autonomous. Target City, like so few places here, has its own history.

That is not to say, however, that it is not victim to the same faults as the rest of human civilization. It is harsh and technological, economic and uneducated, no Athens to be sure. There are few places of the old ways left, mostly hidden in the European Nation and smaller isles that could not expand to swallow humanity’s gaping maw. And in space, many have found more paradisiacal settlements: the pleasure-domes of Verisan, the chrometopia of Festia, the quiet communes of Callil. Target City still fights for every liter of water, every kilogram of grain. Not because it has to—Independence is prosperous and well-atmosphered—but because it wants to. Because it thrives on the pride it has found, because the city is vibrantly and unabashedly alive in the hard cold universe. Everyone finds what they need there. Runners become Chemmies, addicted to the streets and docks and crowds and liberty. Lawful citizens of the peripheral planets find the culture they want, but wanderers find respite. In the streets of that city that has thrown off its chains, we find understanding for what drove us outward to the stars.