SETTING
NAVIGATION
General Index | Premise | Setting | NPC List | Around the City | Events
Welcome to Axiom Nexus, a billion-year old city in a very old universe, located on a Cybertron that has never known war. You're going to be here a while, so it'd be a good idea to familiarize yourself with its layout.
If you'd like, you may comment on this entry with suggestions for new locations, and the mods will eventually add those to this list. Please include the zone the location is in, a description, and what PCs and NPCs are usually around it.
SOCIETY
Though the TransTechs call themselves "enlightened", the reality is far different. Most of them are just as corrupt as anyone else, they just have nicer technology. Indeed, many TransTechs actually have to utilize morality programming to keep themselves in line.
TransTechs look down on anyone who isn't a TransTech, and often use the somewhat degrading term 'LowTech' to describe them. It's even worse if you're an organic life form (or 'squishy' or 'meatsack' if someone's feeling rude). While some lowtechs can work their way up in the offworlder society of the Offworlder Zones, for an organic to do so is almost unheard of. Organics are at best lower-class citizens, and at worst parasites and hangers-on - ironic, considering that TransTechs are at least partially organic themselves.
Shockwave is partially outside of this--to the Transtechs, he's regarded as an extremely influential scientist with an unfortunately questionable past. He's aware that he's undergoing government scrutiny, and works to keep his more...dubious...of experiments (such as yourself) under wraps.
LAYOUT
Axiom Nexus is a sprawling city-state metropolis, larger than the entire Tokyo Metropolitan area (including Chiba and Yokohama), a megacity of mind-boggling proportions.
Unfortunately for you, the cool stuff is inaccessible. As an offworlder, you'll be confined to the Offworlder Sector - a Manhattan-sized area in the center of the city, divided into nine Zones and fifty Levels. Most Zones cover about five Levels, though there's some significant overlap between them.
There's a small chance that you might be lucky enough to be given a letter of passage to the Transtech Axiom Nexus itself, but unless you've gotten to be real buddies with a TransTech, the chances of that are slim at best. As such, you'd better get familiar with the descriptions of each Zone.
ZONE 1
Zone 1 is the cleanest and nicest of the nine districts, the one that spans the most upper levels and therefore gets the most natural sunlight. Zone 1 includes the best entertainment, including museums with (nonworking replicas of) artifacts from other worlds. TransTech tourists and government officials come by here often to gawk at the offworlders. This is also where the TransTech half of the Offworlder Zone's autonomous government has their offices.
Notable locations in Zone 1 include:
ZONE 2
Zone 2 is where the real government of the Zones is - the actual, offworlder-run government. In addition, it's a bustling center of commerce and business, with all the most respectable offworlder-run businesses having their central offices here, as well as a few TransTech offices that deal regularly with offworlders and thus have located themselves here. Zone 2 also has the largest upper-class levels for organic life forms - the upper levels are home to beautiful gardens and sprawling farmland which the many organics of the offworlder zones cultivate organic plants and animals for food. These farms operate a brisk trade with the native techno-organic populace of Axiom Nexus - as TransTechs are partially organic, they can digest food, and pay a premium for that which they consider delicacies.
Notable locations in Zone 2 include:
ZONE 3
Zone 3 is where the more civil-service oriented facilities lie - while Zone 2 is devoted to farming, government, and high-class businesses, Zone 3 is where most of the offices of the labor unions, religious establishments, and so on reside. There's also a number of large residential districts here, many of which cater to the organics who work in Zone 2 but can't quite afford the ridiculous prices of the housing up there.
Notable locations in Zone 3 include:
ZONE 4
Zone 4 is largely industrial, home to the many factories of the Offworlder Zones. Much of the waste produced by these factories is piped directly to the Heap, with the smog sent through even longer pipelines to the outskirts of Axiom Nexus itself. Housing here is hideously cheap, rivaled only by what you can get in Zone 6 and below, given the proximity to loud clanging machines and industrial waste.
Notable locations in Zone 4 include:
ZONE 5
Zone 5 is the zone just before the really unsavory parts of the city. Thus, most of the businesses here are still somewhat legit... but only somewhat. There's a number of less-than-legal chopshops and upgrade places here, but also perfectly legitimate businesses that just don't want to operate in the upper levels. The housing here, however, is slightly more expensive than in Zone 4, and also somewhat nicer.
Notable locations in Zone 5 include:
ZONE 6
Zone 6 is where the somewhat seedier parts of the Offworlder Zones begin. Here we have the cheap entertainment, the casinos, the low-rent housing and the shady dens for underhanded deals. This is where people go to hide when they still have the money to pay people off, and where the various would-be mafia dons have their holdings. There's a lot of places to get black market goods here, if you know the right people to talk to.
Notable locations in Zone 6 include:
ZONE 7
Zone 7 is what most Earth-native organics might call the 'hood' - a truly dangerous area of thugs and ne'er-do-wells. This place makes Zone 6 look legitimate and safe.
ZONE 8
Zone 8 is what we'd call a slum - a rickety shantytown of houses cobbled together from old scrap. Very little natural sunlight gets down here at all, leaving the entire area in perpetual twilight. Organics and lowtechs live in equal numbers down here, side by side in squalor and poverty.
THE HEAP (Zone 9)
The worst part of town and the furthest from Transtech notice - as in, they really don't give a slag about what happens here - The Heap is Zone 9, and it's exactly what it sounds like. A giant, subterranean pile of scrap metal, corpses and garbage, anything can happen here. Proceed with caution; Malignus Revolutionaries, criminals, and probably a nasty case of Scraplets or two await you here.
Notable locations in Zone 9 include:
PLAYER-CREATED LOCATIONS
Please fill out this form if you wish to add a location for others to make use of.
Location Name: Zone/Area: Description:
Location Name: What is the location called?
Zone/Area: Where is it located?
Description: A brief description of what it is. Include any NPCs of note if you so wish.
General Index | Premise | Setting | NPC List | Around the City | Events
Welcome to Axiom Nexus, a billion-year old city in a very old universe, located on a Cybertron that has never known war. You're going to be here a while, so it'd be a good idea to familiarize yourself with its layout.
If you'd like, you may comment on this entry with suggestions for new locations, and the mods will eventually add those to this list. Please include the zone the location is in, a description, and what PCs and NPCs are usually around it.
SOCIETY
Though the TransTechs call themselves "enlightened", the reality is far different. Most of them are just as corrupt as anyone else, they just have nicer technology. Indeed, many TransTechs actually have to utilize morality programming to keep themselves in line.
TransTechs look down on anyone who isn't a TransTech, and often use the somewhat degrading term 'LowTech' to describe them. It's even worse if you're an organic life form (or 'squishy' or 'meatsack' if someone's feeling rude). While some lowtechs can work their way up in the offworlder society of the Offworlder Zones, for an organic to do so is almost unheard of. Organics are at best lower-class citizens, and at worst parasites and hangers-on - ironic, considering that TransTechs are at least partially organic themselves.
Shockwave is partially outside of this--to the Transtechs, he's regarded as an extremely influential scientist with an unfortunately questionable past. He's aware that he's undergoing government scrutiny, and works to keep his more...dubious...of experiments (such as yourself) under wraps.
LAYOUT
Axiom Nexus is a sprawling city-state metropolis, larger than the entire Tokyo Metropolitan area (including Chiba and Yokohama), a megacity of mind-boggling proportions.
Unfortunately for you, the cool stuff is inaccessible. As an offworlder, you'll be confined to the Offworlder Sector - a Manhattan-sized area in the center of the city, divided into nine Zones and fifty Levels. Most Zones cover about five Levels, though there's some significant overlap between them.
There's a small chance that you might be lucky enough to be given a letter of passage to the Transtech Axiom Nexus itself, but unless you've gotten to be real buddies with a TransTech, the chances of that are slim at best. As such, you'd better get familiar with the descriptions of each Zone.
ZONE 1
Zone 1 is the cleanest and nicest of the nine districts, the one that spans the most upper levels and therefore gets the most natural sunlight. Zone 1 includes the best entertainment, including museums with (nonworking replicas of) artifacts from other worlds. TransTech tourists and government officials come by here often to gawk at the offworlders. This is also where the TransTech half of the Offworlder Zone's autonomous government has their offices.
Notable locations in Zone 1 include:
- Central Processing: Ah, Processing. Home of the soul-crushingly boring lines and paperwork that you've no doubt spent your first seventeen hours in Axiom Nexus at. Processing is where all newcomers start out at, and it's where you get your ID bolt/tag and a guide from a universe in your same universal cluster to show you around. It's also where all other forms and paperwork is filled out, so if you come here, you better bring something to entertain yourself with for several hours.
- Axiom Nexus Offworld Security Administration Offices: the Axiom Nexus Offworld Security administration is run by Cheetor and his crew. You don't want to find yourself here, and you definitely don't want to find yourself in Cheetor's office. Still, there are other police forces operating out of here, such as the Freelance Security and the offworld police force that is run entirely by "lowtechs". If you fancy a job here, they're horrifically short staffed and would be very pleased... provided your record checks out.
- **Santori Hospital: A very high-tech, expensive hospital. Private rooms, clean, perfectly scaled to be able to work on Mechs or Organics, rooms are given with a preference as to what visitors you’ll likely have.
The nurses are a collection of cat-like people who wear outfits that are vaguely nun-like. If you watched Dr Who, think the crazy awesome cat nurses from that hospital episode.
There are several TransTech doctors who work here. Think Doctors Without Borders if you want an archetype. - **Meiko Clinic: A hospital with mid-range treatments and mid-range prices. The clinic is more of a walk-in than a hospital, though they do have rooms and space for emergency cases, they don’t handle long term. The hospital is VERY Japanese, and is both a place of medicine and of spiritual healing. When you think something is wrong, but not very serious, people tend to go to Meiko rather than pay the $$ to Santori, or run the risk of a misdiagnosis of St Fallen. The rooms are small and quiet, and not intended for visitors.
ZONE 2
Zone 2 is where the real government of the Zones is - the actual, offworlder-run government. In addition, it's a bustling center of commerce and business, with all the most respectable offworlder-run businesses having their central offices here, as well as a few TransTech offices that deal regularly with offworlders and thus have located themselves here. Zone 2 also has the largest upper-class levels for organic life forms - the upper levels are home to beautiful gardens and sprawling farmland which the many organics of the offworlder zones cultivate organic plants and animals for food. These farms operate a brisk trade with the native techno-organic populace of Axiom Nexus - as TransTechs are partially organic, they can digest food, and pay a premium for that which they consider delicacies.
Notable locations in Zone 2 include:
- Axiom Nexus Central Bank: During Processing, you will be directed to the Bank as a means to begin establishing credit. More information can be found here.
ZONE 3
Zone 3 is where the more civil-service oriented facilities lie - while Zone 2 is devoted to farming, government, and high-class businesses, Zone 3 is where most of the offices of the labor unions, religious establishments, and so on reside. There's also a number of large residential districts here, many of which cater to the organics who work in Zone 2 but can't quite afford the ridiculous prices of the housing up there.
Notable locations in Zone 3 include:
- Bounty Reclamation Office: ANOSA likes to put on a fairly clean face in Zone 1 for the benefit of TransTech tourists and government officials: therefore, their bounty reclamations office is located a bit further away. This office is the location for collecting criminals and distributing the payment for bounties that ANOSA puts out on criminals, as well as bounties posted by other factions and organizations. Expect paperwork and a whole lot of waiting in line.
- ** Axiom Nexus Municipal Databank Access and Library, Offworld Sector Branch:The Dal is Axiom Nexus' data respository - everything that's been learned from the offworlders (well, everything Shockwave lets the Dal's keepers know), everything that's been studied thanks to the lack of the war... everything. The OSB has a different assortment than the normal Dal, more carefully guarded. They didn't want the Offworlders to have access to all of that information. Who knew what they'd go home with?
- ** Maxon's Hostel: A great place for Newcomers to the city to stay until they get on their feet. The hostel is a building of moderate size, built with organics of around human size in mind. The majority of its rooms are dorm-style housing, but there are several private rooms available for people willing to pay the extra price. It offers a common kitchen space and recreation area, and has a respectable library and entertainment room as well as an outdoor area with several trees behind the building. Beds and rooms are available at overnight, weekly, and monthly rates.
ZONE 4
Zone 4 is largely industrial, home to the many factories of the Offworlder Zones. Much of the waste produced by these factories is piped directly to the Heap, with the smog sent through even longer pipelines to the outskirts of Axiom Nexus itself. Housing here is hideously cheap, rivaled only by what you can get in Zone 6 and below, given the proximity to loud clanging machines and industrial waste.
Notable locations in Zone 4 include:
- **The Exclusion Zone Paintball Range: The setting may not be fun and games for someone who's been through a war that left behind areas like this, but on Axiom Nexus, this is new and interesting. The sounds of industry surrounding the paintball range make the setting all the more vivid - broken-down buildings with ceilings having fallen in, places to take shelter and shoot from -- it's like acting as a scout without ever risking more than a splotch on your paintjob (or your TransTech Approved(tm) paint-repellant disposable faux-armour, for you organics) that can be washed off under the showers on your way out. The structure itself is safe (enough) that it's cleared for operation for any and all who care to visit. Just make sure you sign that waiver that says if you're hurt on the range, it's not the range's fault.
- **The old Lookout Point: Its an old lookout point in Zone 4...which was, very obviously, created long before Zone 4 became an industrial wasteland, leaving it to look out upon a vast expanse of smog. There are still statues, benches, and paths...but the statues are smoothed to the point of being unrecognizable, the benches are covered in graffiti, and the paths are cracked. Despite all of this, there isn't litter, and there is still foliage (even if most of it is weeds.) The feel is that of a place more abandoned than defiled. It has become Magnum's most common meeting grounds.
- **The Silver Bullet: This is a Gladitorial Arena, run by IDW Megatron in the basement of a working factory during it's off-hours. Mechs of all types can go tere for a night of entertainment, or can participate if they're itching for some action. There's great pay-offs for anyone smooth or brutal enough to win, and fame and fortune for those who win consistently--all in all not a bad job for any mech fresh out of war. They'll even take aliens and organics--anything that is a good show, right?
ZONE 5
Zone 5 is the zone just before the really unsavory parts of the city. Thus, most of the businesses here are still somewhat legit... but only somewhat. There's a number of less-than-legal chopshops and upgrade places here, but also perfectly legitimate businesses that just don't want to operate in the upper levels. The housing here, however, is slightly more expensive than in Zone 4, and also somewhat nicer.
Notable locations in Zone 5 include:
- Swindle, Swindle and Swindle: This store is run by not one, not two, but three of the same 'bot - Swindle, a scheming, money-grubbing Decepticon from the Primax cluster. Swindle is known for driving a hard bargain, and it's said of him that he'd sell Megatron's right arm for a toaster if he needed toast badly enough... and could get the arm off of Megatron. You can find almost anything you'd like at Swindle, Swindle and Swindle - parts, reformattings, faction symbols, items of suspicious origin, oil, anything you like. The Swindles also deal in upgrades and function as somewhat of a questionable chop-shop. They'll keep their voice recorders off too, provided you pay them. Just don't think of double-crossing them; these three slimy 'Cons won't hesitate to collect on their bills, through bribery, treachery or even physical force, if necessary. Still, if you've got the money and the means, they'll give you whatever you want.
- **Saint Fallen Hospital: Low-cost, unreliable healthcare. Right at the edge of Zone 5, St Fallen is the most ‘popular’ hospital/clinic to get referred to for it’s price, but the ‘service’ you get can be a bit iffy. There are still doctors there who do good work for all types, but it’s crowded, busy, and they’re all overworked. The TransTech in charge is not the most altruistic of sorts, and is working here more because he can’t practice anywhere outside the Nexus. They’re not familiar with Tyrans much, especially in dealing with anything as war-torn as the current set of ‘imports’.
- **Steel Dreams: Once an abandoned warehouse left to ruin in Zone 5, Steel Dreams is now a professional and well known shop to TransTechs, Mechs, humans, and others alike. It's run by Mikaela Banes, and currently has some of the best repair work Zone 5 can offer. An assortment of services are offered, from transmissions, engine replacements, and body work to a simple tune up. One can even stop in to have some air brushing done if they'd like. The prices are reasonable, the work detailed and precise, and, depending on the services and work done, very hush hush.
- **Ratchet's Clinic: Ratchet's office and quarters. He sees any mech after normal business hours and during weekends, serving as an urgent care clinic. Wheeljack has lab space in the building. There is a front room, designed as a very nice waiting room, filled with stainless steel, chrome and glass. There was a place where a tank was installed, but the space is empty now. Six exam rooms, in addition to a large treatment room where major repairs occur lead off the front room. Ratchet's office and storage room ends the hall. A very large and well locked room holds the TransTech ship that Ratchet is still tinkering with, and there is another room that is set up for organics to use as a sleeping area, in addition to several recharge berths for varying sized mechs. Then there is Wheeljack's lab.
ZONE 6
Zone 6 is where the somewhat seedier parts of the Offworlder Zones begin. Here we have the cheap entertainment, the casinos, the low-rent housing and the shady dens for underhanded deals. This is where people go to hide when they still have the money to pay people off, and where the various would-be mafia dons have their holdings. There's a lot of places to get black market goods here, if you know the right people to talk to.
Notable locations in Zone 6 include:
- The Blue Deployer: This bar and casino is ran by Cryotek, a Transtech Decepticon that often deals in information and bounties. He's extremely shady, but you'll never find that out directly from him. There's plenty of gambling tables here, and delicious drinks such as Cryotek's famous Polonium Spritzers. Watch out, however, as Cryotek's goons, plus several other shady characters can be found here.
- Widow's Cafe Cybertronian: Listed as a "Place to dump your chassis," this bar/inn is run by Crystal Widow. It's fairly nice, and the rooms are moderately clean, but all sorts of shady people hang out here. Crystal Widow isn't the type to ask questions - your secrets are safe with her. It's nice and cheap, too, and her drinks are well-known.
- **Decibel Fighting Arena: One of the few 'legal' fighting circuits. This is the place to go when you want some action, some raw energy, or if you just spent too much time in the casinos/ bars and haven't yet admitted that you're broke.
- **The Hollow: In tunnels beneath the Decibel Fighting Arena, worked into the duracrete supporting Zone 6 itself is the lair of Magnum's Decepticons. Its roomy, but its not got many amenities beyond the basics. However, it's less likely to be torn or burnt down than the last two dwellings they inhabited.
- **Videl's Diner: In an area of Zone Six that's just slightly cleaner than most of the zone is an area known affectionately as Little Island. None of the buildings are big enough for mechs, most of them being brownstones more suited to the older parts of that city known as New York City on Earth. The area always smells of cooking, heavy with meat and peppers, sometimes of baked goods. At the middle of all this is a little diner set into the front of two of those brownstones, a wall having been knocked out between them. The wide glass window is backed with wire mesh and has faded paint reading simply "Videl's."
The diner is the unofficial gathering place of the Cuban community. There are almost always children outside playing soccer and shouting in cheerful Spanish, and just walking into the restaurant is enough to get you a cup of Cafe Cubano, no matter if you understand the language or not. More often than not, there's a small gathering of older men and their younger proteges sitting in a corner, playing traditional songs on their guitars and singing in close harmony.
Come to Videl's for a slice of the island and a feeling like you've come home.
ZONE 7
Zone 7 is what most Earth-native organics might call the 'hood' - a truly dangerous area of thugs and ne'er-do-wells. This place makes Zone 6 look legitimate and safe.
ZONE 8
Zone 8 is what we'd call a slum - a rickety shantytown of houses cobbled together from old scrap. Very little natural sunlight gets down here at all, leaving the entire area in perpetual twilight. Organics and lowtechs live in equal numbers down here, side by side in squalor and poverty.
THE HEAP (Zone 9)
The worst part of town and the furthest from Transtech notice - as in, they really don't give a slag about what happens here - The Heap is Zone 9, and it's exactly what it sounds like. A giant, subterranean pile of scrap metal, corpses and garbage, anything can happen here. Proceed with caution; Malignus Revolutionaries, criminals, and probably a nasty case of Scraplets or two await you here.
Notable locations in Zone 9 include:
- Amphitheater: A ruin of a theater, often where trouble-making offworlders hold meetings and conspire out of the ever-watchful optics of the Transtechs.
PLAYER-CREATED LOCATIONS
Please fill out this form if you wish to add a location for others to make use of.
Location Name: Zone/Area: Description:
Location Name: What is the location called?
Zone/Area: Where is it located?
Description: A brief description of what it is. Include any NPCs of note if you so wish.