Ceres

Ceres (ケレス, Keresu), known also as the Slums, the Colony, and Area 9 of Midas, is a Special Autonomous Area that gained independence from Tanagura and has, as a result, been wiped from the maps of Midas. Although there are no hard boundaries separating it from the rest of Midas, the Area is out of bounds to the citizens of Midas. The citizens of Ceres, also known as Slum Mongrels, are not permitted to cross into the neighbouring areas. As such, Ceres is both effectively and officially isolated and cut off from everything rendering it both free and trapped.

## History

Once a regular part of Midas, Area 9 called Ceres played a significant role in the history of the region. A revolt had once broken out in Midas that threatened to overturn the established order. Humans rose against the stifling oppression they were subjected to by the digital overlord Jupiter and occupied Area 9 with the goal of achieving independence.

Asserting their liberty and human rights, the revolutionaries declared a reformation - the era when men serve and submit to machines is over. The expectation was that everyone would be treated equally as individuals. There would be no class division, they would all work as one. Ceres was going to become a kind of utopia where everyone was welcome.

> “The future isn't written in stone.”
>
>

Despite its attempt to ignore the commotion, the Midas government eventually had to relent after the situation affected their trade and tourism industry. They were also aware that the Commonwealth, who despised Tanagura but were too scared to do anything against them openly, covertly backed the ringleaders of the rebellion.

Instead of countering through brute-force and eradicating Area 9, Midas simply announced that their residential records would be deleted. The rebels took this as a decisive victory. Their freedom was here. Without a single loss of life, they had done it, they had won their rights, their freedom, and their independence.

But as the initial euphoria subsided, the rebels were left to wonder why Midas was so quick to give into their demands. And on top of that – what did they really win? They had escaped the rule of Midas but now came face to face with the demands of their own existence. Together with their oppressed and downtrodden compatriots, together with like-minded people, they would build the future together, that was their revolutionary pitch. But the reality was that that they were overrun with those seeking “freedom” from Tanagura without any real vision and dedication to the cause. With no strong leader to spearhead the change, chaos ensued. Everyone had expectations, but few turned that into decisive action. The independence of an unpredictable mob rule was independence without meaning, and so Ceres descended into chaos.

> “They lived in Ceres with the painful realities of the present and the ghostly dreams of the wrecked past.”
>
>

Midas raised no objections to those who wished to resettle in Ceres, but now Midas refused their repatriation on the grounds that their residency records had been destroyed and no longer existed. Alternatively, people could return if they were prepared to undergo brainwashing techniques as "memory adjustment". Finally, Area 9 was ringed with sensors and isolated, which drained Ceres of resources and forced it to face its reality head on.

The Commonwealth human rights NGOs and lobbying groups, intimidated by Tanagura, didn’t get involved any further, and no one else was inclined to lend a helping hand to the disagreeable mongrels inhabiting the problem-ridden slums.

The dreams of the revolution broken, they wasted away in Ceres, dragging their feet, staggering under the weight of regret and despair. Eventually, the tides of lethargy eroded the remnants of the collective soul. Even when the eras changed and the sensor fences were removed, it showed no signs of stopping. Over the years, the sickness had burrowed deep into the degenerating slums. The place where the past and the future warped unto itself, directionless. A place with no ethics or taboos, ruled by instincts and lust.

It has become nothing more than an autonomous ghost town.

## Society

Ceres was an autonomously governed district that was cut off from the rest of Midas as a result of their independence. Its political structure was extant, but meek, and mostly consisted of powerful families, or clans, that guarded their own interests.

Ceres residents believed that this was the only place left on Amoi that practiced natural inception and birth, but for reasons unknown to them, the gender ratio of born children was heavily skewed, resulting in 90% of all children being born male. Until they turned 13, the children in **Ceres** were all reared together by the child care administrators of the Guardian foster center located at the western edge of the Area.

Once of age, the females who wished to give birth were moved to a separate facility, but all boys were released into the slums. Due to the largely male-dominated population, as well as very specific societal and economic circumstances, slum mongrels lived in their own world which was drastically different from the rest of Midas.

> “Growing accustomed to the constant drizzle of scorn, a man's dreams rotted away and died in the slums.”
>
>

See: Mongrels

## Relationship to Tanagura and Midas

To the citizens of Ceres, Tanagura was an unimaginably different world. But to Tanagura, Ceres served as a warning to Midas. Indoctrinated for generations to think of Ceres and its citizens as the lowest of the low, a refuse pile - “the crotch of Midas” - the residents of Midas would accept their own limitations imposed by the “Zein” class system, and stay pacified. Having something so low to look down upon gave them a sense of superiority and served as a reminder that they don’t have it all that bad, and should accept their lot in life. However bad their station was, they will always be better than the slum mongrels.

To the citizens of Midas, their greatest humiliation was not the invasive restrictions on every aspect of their lives and the disregard of their human rights, but the thought of being stripped bare and dumped in Ceres.

> To live in Ceres was to no longer be a human being.
>
>

Despite, or even because of their lack of ID, the mongrels had no problem entering Midas at will. Usually the goal was to scour the Pleasure Quarters that were teeming with slack jawed and distracted tourists and pilfer cash and cash cards from them. Cards especially had a high resale value on the Black Market so the risk was worth it for them.

Midas dealt with this in two ways. Neutralizing these predators before they latched onto their victims was the job of the Midas Division of Public Safety, or more specifically, the security guards known as the Darkmen. Having no human rights, it was a given that any mongrel caught by the Darkmen would not emerge in one piece. But it was the Midas Vigilante Corps that the slum mongrels saw as their true enemy. Driven by nothing but pure hatred for the slum mongrels, the Vigilante Corps would go on street cleaning sprees known as “mongrel hunts”. Unlike Darkmen who only bothered with the mongrels if a crime was being committed, the Vigilante Corps would drag any mongrel they could identify into a dark alley and beat them to a pulp. It is believed by the mongrels that the Darkmen send mugshots of those who were apprehended to the Vigilante Corps to make it easier for them to spot their prey.

The slum dwellers were not in the habit of taking things lying down, so they would fight back, often quite effectively. Neither the Vigilante Corps nor the police would pursue them across the Ceres border. It was understood that this is primarily due to all Midas citizens, including the law enforcement, having a Personal Access Memory (PAM) biochip embedded behind their earlobe. Transit between the areas and movement outside the established territories was prohibited by law, and so no Midas citizen would ever step foot into Ceres. That and the mere revulsion they all had for the slums. Also, gun control in Ceres was so tight, that the mongrels couldn’t really do much damage, which is why Midas tolerated these incursions, and Ceres itself.

In their efforts to completely isolate Ceres, Midas purposefully jammed the cell and radio frequencies so they wouldn’t reach the slums. This made the direct communication between the two impossible, and made the jobs of information dealers and informants in Ceres thrive as they would serve as liaison between the two in the absence of any other medium.

## Geography

Ceres (Area 9) is located in the west part of Midas, which itself is the satellite city of Tanagura. Although there are no physical borders between Ceres and the rest of Midas such as walls or lasers, the boundaries separating them are clear at first glance. Even visitors to Midas with no prior knowledge of the slums could sense the existence of a "red zone" in areas close to it such as Genova in Mistral Park (Area 3), where they must never go.

The independence revolution had left the area devastated and any attempts to rebuild have long ago dwindled and disappeared through the lack of any true leadership or organisation. Most of Ceres lay in ruins with rubble and trash everywhere. The garish neon glare of Midas only just reached it, casting a dirty brown afterglow onto the filthy, broken streets. Even the very infrastructure of the city, if it can be called that at this point, is gone with drains clogged and overflowing whenever it rained heavily, causing floods and torrents to run down the streets taking everything with them.

In the south-west reaches of the area lies Guardian, the foster center where all children in Ceres are raised until the age of 13. Guardian is walled off from the rest of the zone and is generally inaccessible to the citizens that have left it unless through great feats of bureaucratic patience. It is the only garden in Ceres which is otherwise desolate.

Some other areas are the residential Block 24 in the western part, King’s Road, Roget Bar and a shopping district with several bars including Aden’s Bar. Cuzco Avenue passes through a section in Ceres where repeated assault on the buildings had shattered their brick facades, revealing the bones of their metal skeletons. With nothing to obstruct the sunlight, the block was colloquially known as Blue Chip. Although the structures above ground were in disrepair, the subterranean levels were in good working condition, and one of the more prominent establishments was the Soraya Bar in the subterranean Level 3.

At some point, Blue Chip became a de facto demilitarized zone for the gangs. Year after year, nobody broke this social contract, and it had become something of an oasis for the gangs of Ceres – the one place where they can let their guard down and relax.

## Locations

### Dana-Burn

Dana-Burn (ダナ・バーン, Dana Bān) was an old, abandoned mining complex. It is most known as the main base for the resistance movement that fought for the independence of Ceres. Abandoned and left to rot, in time, the nature reclaimed it, with lush forests of the Green Belt swallowing it.

Now, abandoned in disrepair, with blueprints thought to be lost, even mongrels dare not venture into its labyrinths.

### Neal Darts

Neal Darts (ニール・ダーツ, Nīru Dātsu) was the area located between Ceres and Diedo. Once part of Ceres, it had become an entity of its own where even slum mongrels hesitate to enter.

### Green Belt

The Green Belt (グリーン・ベルト, Gurīn Beruto) was the area west of Ceres and Guardian, that surrounds Dana Burn. This was once the area where the revolutionaries took up arms against Tanagura and celebrated their bloodless victory and independence. But now, years later, the vines and trees of the Green Belt took over those streets and structures.

The abandoned roads and buildings were given over to nature, and among them, thick vegetation flourished. From tangled, verdant woodlands to dense, black forests, the wind passed over them from across the sea and brought fresh and moist air to Ceres. Some areas were so dense that they were dark even during daytime, with light struggling to reach the ground.

Beyond the treetops, the white walls of Guardian could be seen, but in the area covered by the vegetation, now only ruins were left. Abandoned buildings were left to rot, but some still had intact amenities such as generators, locks and underground levels. The ruins of Dana Burn, considered dangerous even by slum mongrel standards, but too expensive to dismantle were left there too.

### Bison Hideouts

#### Herma

Herma (エルマ, Eruma) was Bison’s main safe house and headquarters where they spent most of their days hanging out and getting drunk. It was located in a broken-down building, and served as their hideout for many years until it was blown up by Jeeks in broad daylight.

After this attack, there was nothing left of the building except for rubble.

#### Laura

Laura (ラウラ, Raura) was Bison’s backup safe house. After their original safe house, Herma, got blown up, this is where Bison moved. It was located on the fifth floor of an old, run-down building. The building was equipped with an old-style elevator. The door to the hideout was dark green and on the wall to the left of it was a small security panel where an access code was input to unlock it.

#### Kelly

Kelly (ケリー, Kerī) was the hideout Bison used around the time, and after Riki disappeared for the second time. It was presumably their new main hideout. Here they’d take spare parts from Maxi’s garage. It's also here that they conducted their surveillance of Riki who was in Apatia at the time.

### **Lupa Yapp**

Lupa Yapp (ルパ・ヤップ, Rupa Yappu) was a residential area in east Ceres where Norris lived.

### **Roget's Bar**

Roget (ラジェット, Rajetto) was a bar in Ceres that Bison members frequented. They had their own booth reserved for them at the back of the bar. Being a bar and not a restaurant, it didn’t serve full meals, but it was possible to get some side dishes and snacks in addition to drinks. Roget was also where the Midas Division of Public Safety came in to look for Kirie, believing he was still a member of Bison.

### **Blue Chip**

There was a section in Ceres where repeated assault on the buildings had shattered their brick facades, revealing the bones of their metal skeletons. With nothing to obstruct the sunlight, calling this block of the city 'Blue Chip' was a bit of a joke. (V3 p77)

#### **Soraya Bar**

Located on Blue Chip subterranean Level Three. (V3 p78)

Projected on the screen inside the [tracking device] case was a digital map encompassing Cuzco Avenue to Blue Chip. A location that was probably Soraya Bar was marked with a blinking orange dot. (V3 p101)

### **Colony Block 24**

Hardly a sign or porch light glowed anywhere... The tangle of streets and alleyways. (V4 p79)

The street Riki lives on. (V5 p45)

### **Cuzco Avenue**

(V3 p77) It took twenty minutes to walk from Cuzco Avenue to Riki's place. (V3 p103)

### **DMZ**

Also known as the 'whatever' zone. Apathy city. Everybody came looking for something, but nobody gave a damn what it was -- as long as nobody got killed over it. (v3 p78)

### **Hot Crack**

Area 9 free fire zone, aka "Hot Crack" (V1, P31).

Riki as the "Pit Bull of Hot Crack" (?!)

### **King's Road**

Within walking distance of Colony Block 24, apparently (V4 p79)

### **Subterranean Structures**

But although the structures above ground were in sad condition, the subterranean structures were still in good working order. As a result, at some point it had become the gathering spot and demilitarized zone for a number of gangs.... They needed an oasis where they could relax and let their guards down without being attacked. Any asshole who didn't follow that one rule couldn't show his face in the slums again. (V3 p78)

see Gangs: Creeds and Common Ground