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Entry tags:
✘ SETTING & LOCATIONS
Still WIP:
- CITY FUNCTIONS: LAW & ORDER, TRANSPORTATION
- NOTABLE PLACES
- CITY FUNCTIONS: LAW & ORDER, TRANSPORTATION
- NOTABLE PLACES
ıllıllı SETTING & LOCATIONS ıllıllı  THE CITY OF SVELTE  The city of Svelte is what most would describe as cyberpunk or neon-noir, a fusion of every technological convenience and an eclectic appearance, bathed in an unrelenting palette of coloured lights. The city strikes a balance between sleekly futuristic and gritty industrial, accented with intricate metalwork and lots of exposed structure like beams, grates, and vents. However despite the aesthetic, the city's construction appears quite new: there's little in the way of wear on any of the surfaces, except where it's been very deliberately and artificially applied, like someone's been testing ways to make it look old. For the most part, the city is also unnaturally clean, with little in the way of trash or other debris. Though there is a fair amount of graffiti to be found throughout the city, it's very artistically done like it was meant to be there, rather than intended as defacement. Svelte occupies an area approximately 65km² (25mi²) or slightly larger than Manhattan Island. The layout is roughly that of an irregular quadrilateral, but given the changes it so frequently undergoes, it's impossible to map it precisely. The topography is varied, with some sections of the city built higher than others, and there are slopes and inclines between some streets. Svelte appears to have been designed from the center outward, with the more extravagant buildings clustered near the epicenter, called the Core by the NPCs. The further one gets from there, the more visible evidence of the city's unfinished — or hastily finished — state becomes apparent. Buildings sit half-constructed, sections of mag-rail track are still stacked and awaiting installation, and even sections of pavement haven't been fully laid out. These areas are sometimes referred to by the NPCs as the Dregs, and it's unsurprising that they attract less savory types to them. Such locations provide a backdrop for criminal elements (which has increased since the visitors began arriving), along with those seeking to avoid the bulk of the citizenry. Finally, on the outermost edges of the city, forms the Firewall — a mostly-invisible yet seemingly digital barrier. When touched, it will light up in colourful traceries of light and pixels. The more force is applied, the brighter these bursts will be, though they quickly fade back to transparent. No matter how much force is applied, no matter by physical or magical effect, the boundary remains whole and undamaged. Despite many people's initial impression that the city is firing on all cylinders, looking deeper reveals that it is still unfinished in some ways. Some rooms are inexplicably unfurnished, bare with not even light fixtures; some doors open to blank walls — or worse, to open air! Watch your step. Even basic design principles are sometimes disregarded, leading to windows mounted in the floor instead of the walls, or staircases that go nowhere or go on forever. Sometimes architectural elements clip through one another, leading to streetlights embedded in the middle of walls, or sidewalks that seem to pass through solid objects. Other times, sections of buildings are supported by architecture that couldn't possibly hold them by the laws of physics... but there they are. And all of this is only the veneer of Svelte, because it's impossible to forget what this city really is: a computer simulation... and one still very much "in the works". Buildings frequently relocate, sometimes with people still inside of them, or abruptly become wireframe models, which can sometimes be interacted with normally, and sometimes become impossible to interact with. More than one person has plummeted to death because they lived on a high floor and the building stopped being solid. ENVIRONMENTAL DETAIL CLIMATE The city has noticeable day/night cycles, although the daylight hours barely manage to lessen the overwhelming tint of multicolour neon. The simulation appears to be modeled after a fairly temperate climate, similar to North America's upper west coast (think Seattle/Portland/Vancouver) with the average temperature falling between 10°C-24°C (50°F-70°F), and very often rainy — a little cool, but not intolerably so. While it's very difficult to see any stars or constellations through the artificial light pollution, none of them are familiar. NPC POPULATION  Scattered around the city are the NPC avatars which are meant to populate the Svelte simulation. Despite the size of the city, there are only about 250 NPC avatars spawned at a given time, meaning the city often has a half-ghostly, lonely vibe with many houses, apartments, and businesses remaining empty throughout the day or night, invisibly tended. All the NPCs appear to be human of various backgrounds and ethnicities, ranging from very ordinary appearances to those who sport distinctly unnatural hair or eye colours. Most of them wear outfits consistent with the city's cyberpunk aesthetic (one, two) — but there are also some who sport more futuristic looks. The NPCs themselves don't seem to notice these differences about themselves, nor will they react if it's pointed out. Like NPCs in any video game, sometimes they're randomly generated simply to fill a space or role. Other times, certain NPCs may populate a business or other location regularly. Most of them appear to be in various stages of debugging and interaction protocols, like they're still being built, which means that they don't always act quite... right. Sometimes they will interact with characters normally, just like normal people if sometimes a bit vacant in demeanor. They will make small talk, be able to answer basic questions about themselves (such as their addresses within the city, or their favourite business) and will respond to stimuli — so if you punch one, expect them to be angry about it! Unlike the characters however, they don't know they're not real, or that they're part of a computer program. Any attempt to convince them otherwise will be met with varying levels of skepticism and good humor ("this is a simulation, huh? suuuure") or simply blank confusion, as if they literally cannot process what's being told to them. Even characters who are distinctly non-human or who can demonstrate extraordinary abilities aren't viewed as aberrant — they simply smile and nod, apparently unconcerned by the discrepancies. Other times they'll simply repeat the same limited set of actions endlessly, even when the parameters aren't right. For example, a firefighter may be trying to rescue a cat from a tree — even if there's no cat in the tree, or even no tree! And from time to time, they're just not there at all. The developers sometimes turn off that subroutine, leaving the city completely empty of life except for the trapped characters. Spooky... COMMUNICATIONS & TECHNOLOGY  Within the simulation, Svelte is depicted as a technologically advanced city and hallmarks of that are everywhere. Many things which are still analog in the worlds that characters may be familiar with are now electronic, everything from door locks to trash collection, to the mag-rail trains which are entirely automated. NETWORK The network which characters can connect to using either the provided devices (see below) or their own electronics superficially resembles real-Earth internet in a lot of ways. There are web sites, search engines, social media — none of it ones that characters will recognize by name or design, but will likely be able to find analogy to. However, beyond the simple browsing for Svelte's weather (which is never accurate) and local restaurant menus, the vast majority of the network is filled with wrong, incomplete information or are entire pages are nothing but paragraphs of placeholder text. Events are dated incorrectly or are missing entirely, or have been replaced by events and places that characters will never have heard of. Even simple facts are skewed: platypus have hooves, or the Mona Lisa was painted by Amelia Earhart. There is also a lot of non-Earth information filling the network. Smattered through everything are references to places, objects and people from characters' worlds. Like the Earth-themed material, many of these facts are incorrect, but the fact that they exist at all... DEVICES One of the things characters wake up in Svelte with is a network device, a semi-transparent small tablet and phone. Physically, these devices are very resilient and extremely hard to damage or break. It's not impossible, but difficult. Replacing one however is extremely complicated (and requires mod approval) as they only arrive with new users — the simulation NPCs do not possess them, although they treat their presence as normal, much like the characters themselves. In addition to the on-screen display, much of the functionality is handled through holographic menus. In addition to interfacing with the many electronic services in Svelte, they have the familiar functions of text, calling, video and picture messaging, both to the network at large and to personal inboxes. Characters can create their own usernames (or create secondary ones) for their network ID, however sometimes the network interferes with adding or editing, so some characters may get unwanted ones (and often humorous) ones. These devices are not keyed to specific users, which means if a character finds one belonging to someone else, they may be able to access the data on it (with that player's permission only!) Finally, various levels of filtering and encryption allow for customized posting, including a fully anonymous mode. One thing that all characters will find right away on their devices is a introductory file marked "WELCOME TO THE SVELTE SIMULATION", which contains the following fragment of text: Thank you [$NEWUSER] for participating in the SVELTE city simulation! Having reviewed your application on [##DATE] we have decided that you are a prime candidate for our focus group, and encourage you to engage in everything our newest product has to offer. LANGUAGE & SIGNAGEEnjoy the unparalleled immersion courtesy of our cutting edge digital recast technology. As a special bonus, you'll also be receiving a [%%PROMO (error:file missing)] as a token of our appreciation at the completion of the simulation. This introductory file will help guide you through the various [%%LOADFAIL:content (welcomeguide.sgm) not-found] —— [uplink||terminated // #framework:corrupt] While characters will find that their spoken language has either been changed to a universal default, or they simply have the inexplicable ability to parse languages other than ones they should understand, the same does not carry to written. Furthermore, all the signage in Svelte — everything from the newspapers to business names, street signs, restaurant menus, anything that is made of alphabetical letters — is constantly changing. And despite the overall appearance of them, many of the letters aren't actually real letters. They may appear to match certain alphabets, but the actual shapes themselves are no known letters. The digital network is the only thing that's exempt from this strange phenomenon, though nobody can explain why. The city functions on a pseudo-calendar involving days, weeks, and months although the names of each are not familiar, apparently made up. Curiously, nothing current is dated with a year, and the year dates found in the mishmash of information on the network are all incorrect. Asking the NPCs about the signage or language in the city produces mixed results. Some NPCs will act like nothing is wrong, that whatever pseudo-language is currently displayed is perfectly normal. But others will just laugh and shrug, and say things like "Beats me, I've never been able to read it. Why do you think we use pictures for so much around here?" ACCOMMODATIONS & PUBLIC SPACES  HOUSING In addition to the two group housing locations, there are numerous other options spread across the city. They're almost all apartments, as the design of the city does not seem to have included spaces for free-standing houses within its borders, much like similar metropolises. Characters who do not want to stay in either the Proxy Hotel or the Qubit House may venture out into the city to claim their own space, which come in the usual one or two bedroom varieties. Some of them come fully furnished, as if that section of the simulation code has been settled, others are empty and bare, and some seem to be in an incomplete state — furniture may be present but piled in a huge heap in the middle of the apartment, or placed impossibly, like the couch hanging upside down from the ceiling. Like the rest of the city design, these spaces trend toward a more minimalistic, slightly industrial vibe, with a lot of smooth surfaces and exposed metal, and of course, neon accents and lighting. Most of them look very similar to one another, as if the simulation is reusing just a handful of pre-populated codes in order to generate them. While some of the floorplans might vary, there's no great disparity between the apparent level of affluence in them regardless of where in the city they're located. Nominally there is no cost to claiming any of these spaces, however some NPCs include landlord subroutines, which means they may randomly show up and start banging on doors (at all hours, no less!) and demanding rent payments out of the blue. Some of them might even get aggressive regardless of whether the character "pays" them rent or not!   The Svelte simulation seems to have been designed as a functional city, which means that many of the locations one would expect to find are present. While not a complete list, some of the common ones are:
DIGITAL CURRENCY & BOOLEANS  CREDITS SYSTEM Svelte runs on a fictional digital currency simply called "credits", which characters will find linked to their new network devices. Upon arrival, the simulation will have assigned a random amount to them, but it's about the equivalent of $50 USD. While ordinarily this wouldn't last most people very long, the bigger problem is that Svelte's currency subsystem doesn't appear to be fully programmed yet. This causes things to happen such as: amounts of credits appearing or disappearing from characters' digital bank accounts (you're rich! 12 hours later, you're broke), prices on items fluctuating (pick up a stylin' jacket for 30 credits, get to the checkout and it rings up as 5000?!), or getting paid wildly disproportionately by the NPCs for completing a task (grocery run? 1000 credits! donate a kidney? 5 credits.) As with many other aspects of the simulation's behaviour, the NPCs either can't or won't acknowledge these oddities. Bringing it up to them may cause some general confusion and an attempt to shrug it off — "inflation's been terrible these last few years!" or "wow, what a great deal you're getting on this purchase!" — but it seems impossible to convince them something's actually wrong with the monetary system. BOOLEANS By contrast, these small tokens (about 2" long) are made of a smooth, semi-transparent material and engraved with lines like circuitry. They come in a variety of colours and slightly varied shapes, but they have no denominational markings as they are all worth the same amount. While booleans are recognized by the NPCs, they are not used in any types of transactions within the city. NPCs will almost always remark on their rarity ("wow! it's been a long time since I've seen one of those!" or "you're so lucky! bet you're headed to the Candy Store now!") but they will refuse to accept them as currency for normal items, even large ones. If asked about it, they will attempt to laugh it off, saying that the booleans are far too rare and valuable for the item being purchased — akin to paying for lunch with a solid gold bar! But if pressed, they will become distinctly uncomfortable and even afraid, and in some cases even demand that the character leave, they don't want any trouble! Booleans can only be acquired through in-game special events, and the only place they can be spent is at the Candy Store. CITY FUNCTIONS: BUSINESSES, LAW & ORDER, TRANSPORTATION  SHOPS & BUSINESSES Svelte is home to all manner of businesses, offering various services and goods. Most are quite small and have a personal feeling — no well-known chains or big box stores here — and many are located along narrow streets, so getting to them can be sometimes tricky and may require assistance or a friendly guide from an NPC, who inexplicably always seem to know what shop is being spoken about, even with just the vaguest of descriptions. (That's not creepy at all...) Everything from arcades to tattoo parlours to convenience stores, from food vendors with open-air eating stalls to shops offering custom clothing and accessories. There's little that can't be found in the city as far as services covered, a full range of upstanding propriety to shady dealings, depending on where you look. Some shops are populated by a random selection of NPCs, and some simply exist open and unattended. Stylistically, the overall feeling is very reminiscent of East Asian or Southeast Asian countries in design... think Tokyo, Seoul or Bangkok, a feeling often enhanced by the fact that the pseudo-lettering of the city's signage often resembles the same sort of ideograph languages. LAW & ORDER Suspendisse vestibulum gravida nibh. Quisque id leo nec elit lacinia convallis ut in purus. Proin a sollicitudin lorem. Suspendisse vestibulum gravida nibh. Quisque id leo nec elit lacinia convallis ut in purus. TRANSPORTATION Suspendisse vestibulum gravida nibh. Quisque id leo nec elit lacinia convallis ut in purus. Proin a sollicitudin lorem. Suspendisse vestibulum gravida nibh. Quisque id leo nec elit lacinia convallis ut in purus. ıllıllı CITY LOCATIONS ıllıllı Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of notable places around Svelte. Click on any picture to see the full sized version. ⏩ NOTABLE CITY LOCATIONS • (click to expand)Latest Revision: Boolean description NAVIGATION ➤ |
