The Block

This thing. This slotting thing. How do I describe it? It isn't exactly an arcology, not properly, and yet it isn't exactly not an arcology either.

Let me back up and try to get to grips with this thing. What you need to know is that downtown Fargo has been going through a construction boom since the turn of the twenty-first century and instead of slowing down, its only kept accelerating in pace for the last seventy-five years, until now we reach a point where everything in a square area of downtown is a single, interconnected building complex. Its a lot of different buildings still, sure, but buildings that seem to be built into each other.

* **Dimensions:** Let's try to get to grips with the numbers for a moment. Its a square area roughly (but not exactly) three-quarters of a mile to a side. It reaches from University Drive to the west to 4th St to the East, 7th St N to the North to 1st Avenue S in the South. It averages, although this varies wildly, about 15-20 stories in most places, although I've seen places were its as short as ten, and in the center, in the administrative complex, it reaches up to thirty. And Spirits only know how far down it goes.

One of the reasons its so hard to get a grip on its actual dimensions is that its always changing. That's the thing of it, they're still working on this. The whole, uneven exterior is crawling with construction drones and the interior is constantly being worked on, so it still grows, changes, old parts are torn out or refurbished, new bits being fitted into the holes. A lot of the ancient buildings from before the construction began are preserved as pieces of the whole complex. Trying to navigate it without access to TANNIN, the primary computer system that runs all the construction, and most of the rest of the infrastructure, is almost impossible.

The first couple of levels are alright. An open-air mall (although up here, it can still be sealed off with massive doors if the weather acts up) that preserves the old layout of the original downtown as much as it can, complete with streets you can drive on (although all the actual driving once you pull into the Block is all handled by TANNIN). This goes up three stories, so that most of the old signs and condos are visible from street level. On the ceiling over all this there's a projection of what the sky is like above the Block in real time, although its not a great projection and does nothing to fool you into thinking you're not actually inside.

   Above that is a maze of residential and office space. As I understand it there's a rough hierarchy with the lower rents nearest the walls of this thing and the highest near the center, although that's not hard and fast. Because all the separate parts of this are still separate buildings technically, The Group owns most, but not all of them and different renters and owners have different security and access set-ups. And like everything else here, its always changing.

For over thirty years, default security in the block was "BlockSec", the security team provided by Borderlands Security Inc under contract to the Group. However, the bloody events of the Solstice Blackout wiped out most of BlockSec's top forces (except for those loyal to local hero Russell Tallboy) and shattered public confidence in Block Sec's ability to protect the Block, which was all the excuse the new bosses at Ares needed to make the Group fire BSI and bring Ares' own Knight Errant security forces in to replace them. The KE teams are pretty new and have a few people on edge, but they're a familiar sight from over in Moorhead and most people seem to find them comforting.

There are certain things that are constant, the first three floors are always taken up by the open-air Downtown, the first basement level is always parking, floors eleven to thirteen are a perfect recreation of the West Acres shopping center as it was during the Awakening when the original was destroyed, the 'West Acres Memorial Shopping Center' or the 'Mem' to Block inhabitants.

And beneath it? That's parking, storage and the infrastructure that makes this jigsaw-puzzle of an arcology run. Its dark. Its badly policed and nobody seems to agree on how far it goes down...

Businesses:

* Kilbourne Urban Design
* The Bank of the Red
* TransForum InfoMedia
* Zone Area Transit Solutions
* Goldmark-Craig-Schlossman Secondary Offices

Hotspots

* The Historic Fargo Theater
* Kilbourne's in the Block
* Smolders
* Sideways Bar and Grill
* The Square Round
* Drumconrath
* Veterans of Foreign and Magical Wars
* The Basement

Return to: Fargo