Hive City - Hive City Geography: Hive cities are worlds unto themselves where the populace has never seen the rest of their planet and concepts such as the ground and sky are completely alien. There are entire regions inside the hive city blocked off by the ruins of sections or layers that have collapsed or been built over.These ruined areas of the hive often hide treasures beyond price: archeotech hoards, ancient stores of advanced technology saved in caches on many Hive Worlds during the upheavals of the Age of Strife to preserve the technological wonders that existed during the Age of Technology on many Human worlds.A hive city is divided into a number of zones, moving in increasing order from the base of the arcology to its spires:Outskirts - The Outskirts of a hive city are not as terrible a place to live as the Underhive, but the Outskirts carries its own terrible risks. There is, of course, no power of any kind beyond the few portable fusion or petroleum-driven generators the residents can provide and running water and a constant food supply or basic medical care is sporadic at best. The biggest problems are dealing with the toxic environment of the ash wastes that surround most hive cities and the constant threat of attack by the fearsome mutants of those wastes. Yet the people of the Outskirts are also free to live their lives outside the rigid confines of social class and Imperial decorum that constrains all the people of the hive cities, high-and-lowborn alike or the Hobbesian struggle of all-against-all that defines the short and brutal lives of most Underhivers. Though life is difficult and extremely dangerous for the intrepid souls who decided to live outside of the hive cities all together, their lives are still their own and they serve no masters but themselves.Underhive - The Underhive is the region of a hive city where the poorest of the poor and those citizens of the hive city who have been exiled for committing crimes or for political reasons live. In the Underhive, there is no law save for that created by the gangs that rule this dark ghetto. The Underhive is a difficult place to live where the power was long before turned off by the hive city's authority and the only rule is that might makes right. All manner of crimes and atrocities go unpunished every day in the seething, violent anarchy of the Underhive. Working technology is the only real currency that matters in the Underhive and the recovery of the right equipment can transform a lowly ganger into the ruler of all he knows - until he is displaced by someone bigger, stronger, smarter or just possessed of a working Lascannon. The people of the Underhive rule through fear and shun those rich and working class alike, who live above them in the better levels of the hive.Lower Hive - The Lower Hive is the layer of the hive city that lies just above the Underhive. It is comprised of the city's industrial sectors and working class residential housing. The people of this level make up the majority of any hive city's population and are responsible for maintaining and operating the hive's manufactoria and power plants to keep the rest of the hive fed, clothed and productive. Even though the Lower Hive is home to the massive fusion plasma generators that provide the entire hive city's power production, the people of the Lower Hive must pay a premium for every watt of power they consume. This means that very few people in the Lower Hive can afford any luxuries. In general, the people of the Lower Hives do their work, raise their families as best they can, seek to keep clear of the machinations of the upper classes, maintain a deep if simple faith in the Emperor and the Imperial Cult and above all are grateful that they do not live in the Underhive.Upperhive - The Upperhive is the region of the hive city in which the bureaucrats who administer the hive on a day-to-day basis, top manufactorum managers and various important people connected to the Hive World's political and economic nobility live. The residences in the habitat levels here are better, space is abundant and power is free for all. Life is much easier here than in the lower levels and this level's people might be considered middle-class or even upper middle class on an Imperial socioeconomic scale.Spires - The hive city's Spires are the furthest from the horrors of the lower levels and as such are the most luxuriously outfitted, serving as the homes of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the city, including the planetary Imperial nobility, the wealthiest merchants, industrial barons and any visitors of importance from off-world. Some hive spires pierce through the cloud barriers of their world, providing a stunning vista of the planet to watch over. The Spires provide plentiful food, power and the most advanced medical care available. Every family in the Spires has access to what is essentially the hive city equivalent of a mansion or villa. But in some ways the Spires are even more dangerous than the Underhive due to the political machinations that are hatched and carried out there. In the Underhive you may be murdered for a piece of bread, but in the Spires your enemies may seek to steal your very soul.