Travel

Although getting around town is fairly easy, traveling from city to city is an entirely different story. The cost of traveling can be high, especially outside the cities, and security is rarely bulletproof (9.1.5).

Travel (City)

Inside the cities, including most arcologies, automobiles and motorcycles are still the most common form of personal transport. There are numerous manufacturers of vehicles spread across the globe, catering to every automotive taste, from simple, single-passenger electric commuter cars to high-performance sports cars with the latest electro-magnetic drive systems.

Every city has its own licensing guidelines, but for the most part, anyone over the age of 16 can easily be licensed to drive. Before driving in a new city, you should make sure your driving credentials are accepted.

Public transportation is heavily used in large centres, with buses and high-speed magnetic trains serving as the backbone of these systems. Most arcologies have extremely well-developed systems of mass-transit, including high-speed elevators while roadways are often narrow, cramped and in some arcologies, reserved for emergency vehicles only. So far, only the Galvanus City arcology, on the East coast of what was formerly known as Canada, has completely outlawed personal automobiles and motorcycles, but many other arcologies are currently considering it.

Electromagnetic drive systems have largely replaced the liquid-fueled engines of previous centuries and fossil-fuel-driven vehicles are almost completely obsolete, except in some Freezone communities. Small vehicles are generally fed directly from city power grids, recharging as needed by plugging in for an hour or so (3.4.7).

Travel (Wilds)

Outside the cities, transportation is a completely different beast. Travel through the Wilds is dangerous, and safe routes between cities are rare. Only rugged or armoured ground transportation is sued outside the cities. Aircraft are slowly being used to move people and relatively small amounts of cargo between cities, but even the skies are not entirely safe. Armoured caravans are commonly used to move large shipments between cities, and providing protection for shipping firms is a lucrative enterprise. Explorers, resource-gatherers, and corporate VIPs routinely pay for inter-city ground transportation protection from those with armoured vehicles and sufficient firepower to fend off marauders, raiders, and the more-than-occasional creature deciding to make a meal of travellers.

Electromagnetic drive systems have largely replaced the liquid-fuelled engines of previous centuries and fossil-fuel-driven vehicles are almost completely obsolete, except in some Freezone communities. Large vehicles designed for inter-city travel are most often fuelled by some combination of solar, compact nuclear, or chemically stored electric power system. The newest inter-city-capable vehicles also include an emergency internal combustion engine that runs on a number of different possible fuels (3.4.7).

Every major urban city has at least one relatively sophisticated airport, and most arcologies have airport facilities on multiple levels that enable aircraft to take off and land without having to adjust altitude significantly. However, the skies are not filled with aircraft because the industry faces two significant challenges. The first challenge is a cultural and demographic one. Only a small percentage of the population regularly travels outside their city-state, and of that percentage most are vacationers on their way to one of a handful of resort or vacation destinations like Divinus. Business travellers are still relatively small in number, since the need to meet in person is rare given the interactive power of the Net. Still, the industry’s power players are working hard to overcome a culture of fear that has been ingrained over several generations, and have done well selling the ease, safety, and spped of air travel.

However, in recent years several air travel companies have gotten off the ground successfully only to have some of their craft destroyed by massive avian creatures. The resulting lawsuits forced smaller organisations into immediate bankruptcy. However the attacks inspired several mercenary groups to retrofit large aircraft with weapons platforms and begin offering protective services to the air travel industry. Cargo aircraft and small, high speed personal craft are economically viable but major cargo-moving corporations as well as research and exploration firms have spent the last 100 years investigating in extremely large fleets of sophisticated ground vehicles and have only recently begun to include large or otherwise extremely expensive aircraft in their fleets.

The aerospace industry is a hotbed of competition and espionage. For years, it has been a half serious joke among aerospace executives that there are more predators fighting for control of the skies than there are aircraft in them (3.8.1).