Thrust Vector Lore - Civilian Life

Slums Underneath Highway 18, Consortium City State of Mao

It has been almost three hundred years since mankind was forced from the surface. Beneath the clouds of the W-Layer, the Old World lies in permanent slumber, and above it, the last bastions of humanity survive.

 Almost all of the world’s population lives on City States situated between four and seven kilometers in altitude. The exceptions to this are the few surviving on smaller scale platforms or the lucky(arguably unlucky) handful living on the last bastions of mountain fortresses.

The souls within the packed concrete and steel of the city state reside in conditions that would be considered squalor in the Old World, but fulfill the basic necessity, and rarely luxury, of life. Those living closest to the state centers are housed in towering habitation blocks, each in a dwelling barely able to hold them and their small families. Citizens with slightly more status sometimes own apartments with more room than the slums of the central city, and those at the highest echelon of the state’s society live within overt homes that, although would be laughable compared to a dwelling from the surface, are the largest offered in the limited room of the sky.

Generally, strict laws are in place to ration resources as well as to limit the population growth of the cities. Every pair of parents are allowed only two children for population stability, though, this is lifted on occasions where a human buffer is needed. Every family is given rations  based on a variety of factors: its members, the jobs that each person holds, their ages, and most importantly; military status.

Because for as much hard work and sacrifice a person makes in the sky, nothing will compare to the unlimited ration payout of the military. This alone is why many young members of society join the Armed Forces; the allure of the enlistment bonuses too much in comparison to the chance of never coming home. Added to this, the ever present possibility that they pass the entrance exams and physical tests well enough to be considered for the Vector Corps.

And if a single member of a family makes it through the brutal training and becomes a Pilot, the ascension towards the highest echelons of the state begins. Because for as much the family tries to retain its place among humble origins, the single fact that their bloodline has birthed a god can not be overlooked.

The influence of propaganda creates a very large impact in the day to day life of the Citizen. The Consortium has the Department of Truth, while the Syndicate is more direct in their naming of the Ministry of Propaganda. Broadcasts in the Syndicate are filled with government plugs and recruitment ads, while those of the Consortium are much more privatized. But both share the fact that all information is censored and carefully pruned to further the goals of each nation. And every person, bombarded constantly by such, is completely malleable.

In the sky, the war for resources is constant. The Markets of the Consortium are merciless in consuming those drowning in its tides, and even more so is the Board that shatters those it deems perform “unfair practices.” In the Syndicate, the Central Government is charged to distribute resources between city states, though, they have mostly resorted to using a smaller, more controlled scale of the Consortium’s market structure. Both of these systems give the average citizen just enough to subsist and live upon, and nothing more; hungry but not starving, discontent but not rebellious.

It is this fine balance that defines life in the sky. From the careful positioning of the City States’ gravity generators to the slum workers’ spending of his rations, every single decision a individual, and in turn their society makes is all for the pursuit of total equilibrium.

Constantly teetering on the knife’s edge of existence, the life of the average person is grim, yet hopeful. Every day, hundreds of people die and hundreds more are born. Every day someone slips, or perhaps jumps to the Earth below. But everyday, the human being returns home to their family. And everyday they find places to smile and laugh. Because in the sky, for every ten horrors, there is one smile. For every twelve hours in the factory, there is two for family. Every life is fueled by the fire of hope, that in the darkness in the black smoke of the factories there will be a end to work. That underneath the shattered moon, the sun will rise again.

And if there is one thing that humans are good at, it is surviving through the darkest of nights, the coldest of winters, the emptiest of stomachs, and the thinnest of air.

In the Sky, all things are squeezed to the edge. And even in such a place, mankind still hold onto what makes them push forward. For that, is life.