City State

Theoretically a city state is a city that has grown so large and acquired so much land that it could splinter into an autonomous elected kingdom, if it meets the following criteria:

* A sufficient standing army,
* A bureaucracy,
* Defined borders,
* Sufficient public services and healthcare,
* Stable policies,
* Verified basic rights,
* A legitimate leadership.

The creation of a new kingdom also requires the approval of the High King himself through an imperial admission of royalty. So far the only example of city states are the cities of Pentagon.

Although recently, given the Dalmer’s slow population growth, the definition of a city state has been drastically modified.

Dalmer city states are now more generally defined as cities or small states where Guest Theory and the general isolationism that defines the Dalmer doesn’t apply.

A city-state is a political system where an independent city serves as the center of political, economic and cultural life over its contiguous territories. Is considered a truly sovereign city-state, a city that has the full right and power to govern itself and its citizens, without any interference from outside governments beyond that of imperial rule. It also usually has its own currency, a technologically advanced military and a significant population.

## Overview

Citizens of city states embrace the frivolity of violence that plagues these cities, they always come back. Rampages, zombie outbreaks and shootouts are all normalized and are frighteningly regular occurrences. A newcomer to the city may cry after killing someone for the first time and go on a rampage the next day.

City states are set in a world where chaos is the norm and medicine is advanced enough that it never affects people on any significant scale. Gunfire and explosions and crime are tolerated, with police only responding to active emergencies, never bothering to search more than a few minutes for a suspect, and moving on immediately if the suspect is killed. Even when a citizen is arrested, they simply pay a hefty fine (again based on a percentage of cash total) and are on the street again a few hours later, no worse off than if their crimes had culminated in their death.

Citizens of the city states are very limited, even in supposedly major cities. Prisons in the city states are rare, and always sparsely populated, probably only housing serious or recurring nuisances.

Most citizens are concerned about giving away their location, when using mobile phones for criminal ends, because the only way you end up in prison in a city state is to be caught before reaching the threat level warranting a police shootout.

As such even cemeteries are sparse, despite the constant murder. Cemeteries are only for people who die of more natural causes, such as old age.

The behavior of criminals in city states are treated with leniency due to it being mostly kept out of sight, and criminal enterprises are exceedingly common,

Stores and other places of business are populated by providers, but some are really just citizens who don't take part in the chaos. They work and take the bus and other mundane things and are inconsequential to the games because they're just minding their own business and not getting involved.

These cities often have a hold airship flying above them to ensure a rapid response to attack. Among other things they also have military bases, an aircraft carrier, and military districts to ensure the security of the city and surrounding territory.

## Medical apparatus

In city states, people who are injured or die always respawn at hospital no matter how impossible it seems. This is why the population remains the same, it is virtually impossible to wipe out the whole city. This led to the city states being known as where the dead return to life.

Respawning at a hospital costs a percentage of total cash, making it readily affordable for all.

Citizens do die, in a way, if shot in the head, the medbay wipes the victims memory and the government sends it to a place within the Empire. As a preventative measure, every person ‘killed’ requires that the culprit pays for their hospital stay and rehabilitation proportionally to their total cash.

In city states, paramedics treat the patients after being shot, maimed, etc., by Fountainwater shock pads after which they get back up after a while for more serious cases they are sent to hospitals where they leave after at most 6 hours.

Citizens have a limited amount of respawns however, as there happens to be a morgue in city states where there is a cloning machine.

The cloning machine is mostly for police forces due to the inherent danger of their mission and the frequent need for troopers. This is why criminals on the run find that the police forces seemingly never run out of troopers even when 200 were killed without moving anywhere.

## Economy

This causes city states to have a plethora of cheap and reliable products. Effectively an entire car can be replaced for under a thousand rubble, literal resuscitation is cheap. However telecommunications and radio service is expensive and poorly covered for unexplained reasons.

Between the rampant consumerism and lack of any lasting danger in the world, city states represent a very dull dystopia that doesn't go beyond working and consuming products and media. Products are cheap and plentiful but lack variety and the same people can be seen outside the same nightclubs and movie theaters every night (most of these providers and androids).

Movies are often short and simple and, much like TV, seem to be boiled-down media for low-hanging fruit, or absolutely absurd. Some people behave like providers because they really don't care. They're long-lived and have nothing better to do.

## Media

At times criminal events are acknowledged on the game's social media sites, the shootings and other crimes are treated more like an inconvenience.

## Crime Wave

Crime waves are infrequent and usually take place over the course of a few weeks, before things go quiet again for years. Crime is otherwise quiet and out of the way due to the stakes being so remarkably low.

A city state’s vast criminal underworld is the only excitement anyone ever really gets. This is why the police are so eager to have a shootout but lose interest quickly if the criminal decides to run and hide. For actual threats such as the arrival of other races within the city state, imperial agents resort to torturing random citizens for information or targeting other agencies for the sake of more funding or to hide their own criminal activities.

When an emergent criminal is deemed too dangerous, it is targeted by the Empire, or by someone with sufficient political wealth, killed, and moved elsewhere in the empire outside the city state.

The revolving door healthcare system in city states has a database where the Empire can have a certain profile flagged as DNRWCS (Do Not Revive Within City State).

Obviously these operations are above local law enforcement, which serves as more of a wrangler for crime that isn't big enough to interfere with hardened experienced criminals who can actually cause problems to the city’s infrastructure.