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Despite
these hardships, life for this challenged majority goes on, and
society has reinvented itself to conform to the new realities of
life on Earth in the 26th Century. The human polity has gradually
reorganized into tribal groups which act variously as social infrastructures,
religious groups, militias and trade cartels as the need arises.
While not enjoying the physical advantages of the residents of the
domes, denizens of the Sprawls have proven highly inventive and
adaptive, and depending on the observer's perspective could in many
ways be considered more advanced than the dome-dwellers: necessity
has dictated that they innovate in order to survive, and they have
risen to the challenge.
Life in the Sprawls is not for the weak or timid, however. It is
not a gentle world, and in most cases the rule of law has been completely
replaced by the rule of force. Justice is delivered at the tip of
a weapon rather than the fall of a gavel, and those who possess
the greatest fighting prowess generally run Sprawl society. And
the Sprawlers are always fighting amongst themselves. Turf wars
and blood feuds are part of the natural order of society. Even among
the young, violence is considered an everyday occurrence in the
Sprawls, and over the years the lust for combat seems to have been
bred into the populace.
The fighting capability of the Sprawlers is therefore considerable.
A group commonly known as 'Rumblers' make up the bulk of the heavily
armed urban street militias, while the dilapidated highways are
traversed by marauding bands of 'Go-gos', female biker gangs with
specially modified sets of wheels. There are also bloodthirsty,
mutant 'Fiends' who lurk in the Sprawl shadows, waiting for tasty
victims to wander by. And for those who are injured in combat, there
is a kind of medical attention available: the terrifying priests
of the 'Voodun' blood cult seem to have almost magical energy-channeling
powers that allow them to rapidly heal the wounded without the use
of traditional medicine. If the Sprawlers were ever able to unite
these disparate groups into a single fighting force, the Dome dwellers
would face a serious challenge indeed.
The maintenance of the comparatively softer life of the Domes would
seem to many far more desirable, but that life comes to dome residents
at a price. Dome dwellers have become extremely dependent on a once
obscure law enforcement processing organization, the JDA, to keep
their positions of comfort and safety secure. The JDA (Jovian Detention
Authority) was originally founded to process the transfer of violent
criminals from Earth to the new prison facilities constructed on
the moons of Jupiter. It quickly became apparent to many overburdened
earth governments, however, that the more people who could be deemed
dangerous, the more people could be deported from the overcrowded
surface of the earth.
By the 26th Century, scores of people are rounded up daily by JDA
patrols and carted off to processing stations to await the long
voyage to the grim, icy prisons on Io and Callisto. This 'reign
of terror' and arbitrary law is kept in place not only as a means
of controlling population growth but also as a convenient way of
keeping the Sprawlers fearful of JDA power and of getting rid of
any of their number who gains enough political sway to possibly
unite the Sprawls under a single banner. The JDA is a prison patrol
that has become a police force that has become an army, and the
residents of the domes realize only too well that their disciplined
legions are all that stand between them and the teeming, hungry
masses in the Sprawls below. And now it seems to many in these troubled
times, both Sprawlers and dome dwellers, that this volatile social
model cannot persist, and that the JDA's very instrument of control
may become the hammer that drives the world into chaos and open
war.
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So where,
then, did the Sprawls come from? They weren't built. In fact,
they were always there. They are essentially massive ruins,
the refuse of a once great civilization. It is not the case,
as many people in our domes assume today, that people migrated
to the Sprawls to live. They were always there - and never
left. They were left behind when the rest of humanity escaped
to their new reality in the dome cities - when people gave
up on one kind of civilization and decided to start over.
Poverty and decay had been eating away at urban areas like
a cancer. But what happens when every cell has been consumed?
The organism becomes the cancer. The people of the Sprawls
are also, then, a different kind of human.
It is difficult,
therefore, to say that the Sprawls 'started' in a particular
period in history. They are made up of the remnant of humanity
left behind after the migration of the elite to the Domes
- left behind to contend with the dangers and uncertainties
of an unstable planet - left exposed to the toxic air and
the harsh solar radiation from which the whispy remnant of
Earth's ozone layer could no longer protect them. Despite
these hardships, life for this challenged majority went on,
and Sprawl society reinvented itself to conform to the new
realities of life on Earth in the 25th Century. This gigantic
human remnant gradually reorganized into 'tribes', which act
variously as social infrastructures, religious groups, militias
and trade cartels as the need arises. While not enjoying the
physical advantages of the residents of the domes, denizens
of the Sprawls have proven highly inventive and adaptive,
and depending on the observer's perspective could in many
ways be considered more advanced than dome-dwellers: necessity
has dictated that they innovate in order to survive, and they
have risen to the challenge.
Despite
this history, many people today assume the Sprawls have existed
in essentially the same state since their formation and that
all Sprawlers are pretty much alike. The truth, however, is
that groups within the Sprawls have undergone a remarkable
evolution in just few centuries, and now there are a number
of distinct ethnicities, sects, and military alliances. The
in-fighting for which the Sprawlers are well known is also
commonly misunderstood. This activity is not chaotic and random,
but rather is part of a complex system of social interaction
and a kind of 'tribal' territorialism. Indeed, instead of
being the dirty mob that you've always read about, Sprawler
society is quite sophisticated. While certain groups within
the Sprawls possess more combat prowess than others, there
isn't a precise hierarchy of tribes. Each group seems to serve
a particular function or have a particular realm of control.
The largest of these groups is the 'Rumblers'. The Rumblers
are perhaps the most militant of Sprawl groups, heavily armed
and always ready for a fight. They also serve as a kind of
de-facto law enforcement for the Sprawls. While there is no
known Sprawl law code, the 'rules' are pretty well known by
everyone: don't steal from your neighbor, don't take your
neighbor's wife or children, and don't kill anyone without
a venrit (statement issued by your tribal leader giving permission
to kill another person). Rumblers are also often accused of
raiding JDA Food Distibution Centers and supply outposts.
When the retributive 'round-ups' sweep through, most of the
men picked up are Rumblers. The exact origin of the Rumblers
is unclear. They seem to have first emerged around 2350. Over
time, they developed their own system of social organization,
dividing themselves into territory-based sub-groups, or "Rums".
Each Rum is led by a "Dorman" who serves as the group's combat
leader and judge. Within Rumbler groups, only a Dorman can
issue a venrit.
Rumblers
aren't the only warriors in the Sprawls, however. Because
of the violent nature of life in the Sprawls, everyone is
a fighter of one kind or another. But the natural conditions
shaped by the Sprawls' toxic, irradiated environment have
made for some interesting advancements in certain individuals'
fighting abilities. Some have even developed strange mutations
that give them super-human strength or the ability to see
in the dark. Those Voodun Boontas who saved my life back so
many years ago were also part of a fearsome fighting force,
capable of using energy channeling technology that JDA scientists
have yet to explain. The women in Sprawl society can also
be tough combat adversaries: Go-Gos are mostly all-female
'biker gangs' that patrol the slums looking for food, guns,
and sometimes just for trouble.
The Sprawls,
then, are home to a tremendous diversity of people. It is
my purpose to tell their story, and maybe, if I'm allowed
to, improve your awareness of who these people are, what they
care about, and what they aspire to. Maybe an improved understanding
of the people who dwell down here can lead to an improvement
in their living conditions, and their opportunities. We have
much to learn from them as well, and much to give them if
we will only realize it. If the rift between us is ever to
be repaired, humans will have to once again ask themselves
who they are, what makes them human, what really matters.
Can the two competing models of humanity ever be fused together
again? Only time will tell, but until it happens, there will
continue to be strife and bloodshed. And while our Domes and
their protectors, the JDA, are powerful, they're not invincible
- and ultimately our vision of human reality may yet be defeated.
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