Century City Overview

Century City Facts

Location: Coast of Southern California, north of Los Angeles.

Land Area: Occupies over 300 square miles (780 square kilometers).

Population: Seven million people.

Human Racial Demographics: Hispanics: 38.1%; Whites: 37.6%; African Americans: 16%; Asians: 6%; Native Americans or Pacific Islanders: 1.3%, and Other: 1%.

Estimated Superbeing Population: Roughly 600 (approx. 0.0085% of the general populace). This number includes extraterrestrials, sapient robots, and the superhuman inmates at Gramercy Island. Century City has one of the highest concentrations of superbeings in the entire United States.

Official Languages: English and Spanish.

Wealth Level: Nearly 50% of the city’s population falls below the poverty line (per capita income less than $15,000 per year). Roughly 5% of the city’s population ranks as wealthy (a net worth of 1 million dollars or more). The remainder is middle class.

Tech Level: Varies by borough. Technology level ranges from the cutting edge Society Hill (where tech is ten years ahead of the national average) to Brisby Flats, where tech lags behind by fifteen years or more.

Government: Mayor-Council system.

Mayor: Dwayne Zardona.

Boroughs: Four total (Society Hill, Center City, Brisby Flats, and Diego Verde).

Districts: 38


Century City is a world-class metropolis featuring a population of some seven million, and occupying over 300 square miles (780 sq. km). In terms of people, it is one of the largest cities on the planet, but smaller than giants such as New York, Mexico City, Tokyo, and Sao Paolo. In terms of land area, it covers about as much space as Chicago or Los Angeles. The city consists of a coastal metropolitan lowland blocked off by a thin system of hills. These hills act as a natural wall separating the inner city from the sprawling suburbs and farmland on the other side. Aesthetically, the city ranges from a gleaming techno-city of the future to a blasted post-industrial wasteland.



The Boroughs of Century City

Century City consists of four boroughs: Society Hill, Center City, Brisby Flats and Diego Verde, which have a total of 38 districts among them.

Society Hill
Far and away the nicest part of town, Society Hill still resembles the Century City of yesteryear. It is a thick forest of gleaming skyscrapers, sprawling mansions, and massive complexes boasting bizarre and experimental architecture, intertwined with streets, bridges, skyways, and rapid transit lines. The sky here is thick with personal and commercial aircraft, and the landscape is dominated by two arcologies - a pair of gargantuan complexes built to accommodate the volume of 100 city blocks - the Silver City Residential Arcology and the Millions Pavilion, one of the world's largest shopping centers. Here on Society Hill, the financial services industry keeps the high standard of living afloat, and crime is minimized by a serious police presence (the residents have enough political pull to get special CCPD patrols assigned to their neighborhood), as well as numerous well-armed private guards (some superhuman) hired by skittish residents to make sure their neighborhoods do not get touched by the citywide crime crisis.

Center City (aka "Midtown")
Center City is the middle class shadow of Society Hill and home to the hard-working professionals who are brushed off by Society Hill as wannabes, and disdained by the poorer districts as snobbish yuppies. Economics are good and crime is low here, thanks to the borough's proximity to Society Hill, a strong police presence, and the mega-freeways that separate it from Brisby Flats. Like an invisible wall, criminals simply don't cross the highway in search of new targets; they would rather stay on their side of town and ply their devious trades there. While this is good for Center City, it is bad for the town as a whole, because it concentrates the crime problem in such a way that the richer, more stable parts of town simply write off crime in other boroughs as a cultural proclivity to shiftlessness and dishonesty.

In Center City, the buildings become a bit lower, but the landscape remains a relatively featureless grid of intense urban development. Most of the buildings are large apartment and condominium complexes interspersed with strip malls, shopping centers, office complexes, and light industrial centers. Near the bay, the land turns into a riot of color and glitz thanks to the shoreline casino, amusement parks, theaters, stadiums and other entertainment operations.

Brisby Flats
Plagued by crime for years, this borough had the most to gain from the Project Daedalus revitalization. Consequently, they were hurt the most when the project crashed. These people have not given up hope, and many neighborhoods pull together for mutual security against the crime epidemic. It is interesting to note that most vigilantes in Century City come from or live in Brisby Flats.

Brisby Flats is where the squalor of the city takes hold. Most of the districts are marked by crumbling and shabby buildings and other signs of urban decay. In the "Dreadzones" - districts that have been reduced to near lawlessness and abject poverty - such as Waingroh and The Grinder - entire city blocks' worth of debris mark where buildings have been destroyed but not cleared, much less rebuilt. Many of these buildings went down during the Bloody Monday riots, but every year, one or two more are reduced to rubble by acts of arson or carelessness, or from collateral damage caused by a superbrawl. Brisby Flats accounts for nearly half of the metro Century City area, extending right up to the foot of Rattle Ridge.

Aside from a thin zone of polluted forest near Brisby Flats, Rattle Ridge is a beautiful expanse of old forest where there still exists a preserve of native wildlife. The area is popular with campers and hikers, although as of late, the area has also become a spot for criminals to meet secretly, dispose of victims or evidence, or to waylay defenseless citizens.

Diego Verde
On the other side of Rattle Ridge lies Diego Verde, a broad expanse of pleasant suburbs and farmland, where the city seems to have spilled over but not really taken root yet. Here is where you find vast fields of single-family homes amid rapidly diminishing farmland. Most of the enterprising young folk of the city live out here and commute to work in the greater metro area. The difference between Diego Verde and the metro area is like night and day. Just as urban sprawl and decay has a difficult time crossing over freeways in the metro, so too does it have the same problem (only more so) with Rattle Ridge. On one side of the road, the traveler looks down into a valley of crumbling cityscape, but on the other side is a beautiful, verdant vista of rolling hills, pastures, and orderly, new developments free from the crime waves Century City proper knows all too well. Many of these middle-class communities are essentially the same, with little crime to speak of, and virtually no superhero activity.

With things so bad in the city, people are moving "over the ridge" to Diego Verde, which is why there is such a rampant rate of commercial and residential development going on in the area. The farms are rapidly disappearing as developers pay 20% over the going rate for land, encouraging an entire generation of agribusinesses to cash out early and move on to - if you will pardon the pun - greener pastures



History

This city was founded shortly after the U.S. Civil War, when the legendary Diablo Verde silver vein was discovered. For nearly a decade, the town lived well as massive quantities of the precious ore were extracted from the earth, making many miners and entrepreneurs rich beyond their wildest dreams. As Diablo Verde began to run dry, some of the wiser business-folk in town set up a large shipping center, taking advantage of the town's deep coastal waters, which could accommodate even the largest of vessels. Soon, the city became a regional distribution center for all kinds of manufactured goods. With time, business owners decided to relocate their production facilities to the city itself and save some money on transportation costs. For much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Century City thrived as a manufacturing town.

Project Daedalus
Nearly 25 years ago, the Daedalus Foundation – a cutting edge scientific research organization – selected Century City as the site for what it called "the most ambitious scientific project in human history." Project Daedalus, as it became known, involved the building of the world's first cold fusion reactor, relying on numerous breakthrough technologies and a whole new line of scientific thought that took many conventional notions concerning nuclear energy and tossed them out the window. With little to lose and everything to gain, Century City accepted the offer and set the stage for the project to take root.

Since Project Daedalus involved top-level scientific exchange with nearly every other major industrial power in the world, special legal considerations had to be made for the passage of sensitive scientific information to countries that the U.S. sometimes locked horns with. The easiest way of doing this was to carve off the city as a separate "District," not unlike the District of Columbia, so it could better craft laws and regulations tailor-made to allow for the Project's many unusual legal requirements. At first this was opposed vigorously in the House of Representatives, but once it was made clear Project Daedalus' ultimate goal - producing cheap and virtually free energy and selling it worldwide - would make the city one of the most affluent tax revenue generators in the country, opposition to the plan softened instantly.

Once all legal opposition had been cleared away, Century City was granted status as an autonomous District within the United States. Its first act was to clear all import/export restrictions regarding Project Daedalus, including those for intellectual property of any kind, even that which might have a military application.

Many opponents doubted that cold fusion was possible, decrying the entire project as a massive waste of money. Of course, this faded as the Daedalus scientists, led by the charismatic Dr. Leopold Sarnhoff, ran several small-scale experiments where they not only got cold fusion to work, but were able to repeat the effects and explain how they did it. In a surge of wild optimism, Project leaders rushed to finish the building of the Daedalus arcology, a massive science center that would house the largest fusion reactor in the history of the planet. Complete with a residential and office block that accommodated up to 15,000 workers and their families (with a maximum occupation of 50,000 people), it would become one of the most extensive complexes of research and development laboratories anywhere.

With baited breath, the world watched as Dr. Sarnhoff and his design team powered up the Daedalus reactors for the first time, drawing in sea water from the coast and running it through a gargantuan series of cathode rings built deep underground. The rings generated a massive and sustained fusion reaction, unleashing incredible amounts of power into the city's transmitter batteries. Even though Daedalus charged half of what conventional energy providers normally did, the project made untold billions due to the massive demand for its product, and because of its extremely low overhead.

In the meantime, Century City flourished like it never had before. As per its agreement with Project Daedalus and Dr. Sarnhoff, the city leveled entire districts and relocated thousands of angry residents to make way for the arcology's further expansion. Other citizens were relocated to make room for a number of high-tech companies who were lured to the city so they could benefit from the extraordinary concentration of scientific minds. Almost overnight, Century City became the foremost research center in the world, drawing brilliant scientists and high-tech industry to it from all over the planet. Extremely lenient tax codes placed on all science based and cutting edge technology businesses only added to the District's appeal. The City Council virtually abolished taxes on all such industries within the District, getting more than a healthy tax surplus from kickbacks received through Project Daedalus' profits, not to mention energy supplied by the Project to the District for free.

A vast stretch of town was re-engineered and developed with sprawling science and industrial centers and Century City became an industrial and manufacturing powerhouse. With a sudden need for production workers, the city became the fastest growing community in America. The population boomed as folks from the U.S. and around the world flocked to the District looking for work and fortune, neither of which were particularly difficult to find. Racial tensions that might have otherwise caused a problem evaporated in the face of overwhelming prosperity for all. And, with the proliferation of high-tech industry, Century City's tech level was noticeably higher than any other U .S. city, becoming the first to employ widespread electromagnetic monorails, a citywide computer mainframe for citizen use, plentiful hospitals and parks, and even the advent of the "air car" - a fusion of airplane and personal automobile that promised to make conventional traffic congestion a thing of the past. For these and hundreds of other reasons, Century City was enviously dubbed the "City of Tomorrow."

What Went Wrong
Five years to the day after project Daedalus went fully on-line, an alien superhero named Alpha Prime arrived in the city on a mission of galactic importance. This was not so unusual, since for reasons unknown to anyone, Century City had always been a haven for superhuman heroes and villains alike. Although no official census had ever been taken, it was widely considered that if Century City did not have the highest concentration of "supers" within its borders, then it certainly was a top contender. So, the occasional visit from a traveler from another world was not as Earth-shaking as one might think. Alpha Prime's prompt arrest of Dr. Sarnhoff, however, was.

The beloved genius who brought the city from ruin to riches in a matter of years, as it turned out, was an alien imposter named Zere-Tovuxa. For the last 300 years, Tovuxa had been breaking every possible permutation of "The Covenant", a nearly sacred piece of galactic law that forbade starfaring civilizations from meddling in the affairs of those which had not yet mastered space travel and left their native solar system. Earth was definitely one such system, and very quickly, it became clear that Sarnhoff was no genius, but that Project Daedalus was merely the implementation of advanced alien technology in a much less sophisticated environment.

Alpha Prime called in reinforcements, and a small legion of alien soldiers touched down at Century City to disassemble the Daedalus power plant and take Tovuxa into custody. Unwilling to challenge a group of such tech-nologically advanced beings, the U.S. Federal Government offered full cooperation to Alpha Prime and her fellow heroes as a sign of the Earth's willingness to adhere to "galactic law." And it was hoped, to buy the planet early admission into the galactic community, but things never quite worked out that way. Alpha Prime headed the deactivation and confiscation of all off-world technology Tovuxa had developed on Earth, as well as any "hybrid" technology that incorporated off-world principles or developments. Furthermore, Alpha Prime announced that she would remain on Earth for an unspecified time to prevent any further violations of The Covenant.

The City’s Decline
Following the Daedalus fiasco, conventional energy and technology companies tried to step in and return Century City to its former prosperity. But it was not meant to be. When the high-tech sector pulled out of Century City, it left behind a sprawling and largely empty technopolis that none of these corporations could adequately fill. Citizens descended into debt and despair. The mad spending sprees of the glory days came back to haunt almost everybody as banks foreclosed on homes, small businesses and families went belly up.

Meanwhile, the city government was in big trouble as well, for it had lost nearly 80% of its tax base. Without Project Daedalus and the many ancillary businesses to keep the city afloat, the city treasuries emptied almost overnight. When a new tax structure was proposed, the remaining companies successfully lobbied against any such reforms, promising that their plan would save the city. With barely enough money to even maintain basic city functions like street and traffic lights, more demanding city operations like school and law enforcement suffered terribly. The average education level fell drastically as dropout rates spiked to 80%. Meanwhile, with far too few police to handle crime and civil disorder, many of these youngsters turned to crime. Drug manufacturing and distribution became the top industry in the hardest hit neighborhoods. Addiction and alcoholism ran rampant among desperate folk in all walks of life willing to do anything to escape their troubles. Nearly every form of crime imaginable became widespread, with auto theft, carjacking, homicide, contract homicide, and armed robberies topping the list.

Bloody Monday
In the lawless and devastated Waingroh district, a superhuman gangster named Doctor Primoris had openly claimed the area as his personal criminal kingdom. The evil mastermind was at the center of a vast criminal network, and it is believed that ten cents of every dollar illegally earned was kicked back to him. Primoris vowed to destroy any police officers, government agents, or superheroes who dared to challenge him, and this proved to be the last straw for the city government. Intent on rooting out Doctor Primoris, most of the city’s police force and superheroes planned to raid his urban citadel, and they chose to do it on a night in which he was hosting Syndicate leaders and supervillains from throughout Century City.

Unfortunately, a ring of corrupt cops alerted the Doctor to the impending raid, so he laid a trap for the invading law enforcement. Waiting for them in Waingroh was a small army of combat robots, a legion of armed thugs and gangbangers, hired mercenaries, and a cadre of supervillains. In the resulting battle, nearly ten blocks of Waingroh were completely flattened, including Doctor Primoris' fortress citadel. Primoris himself and most of his crew died in the battle, but not before taking nearly every superhero and police officer on the scene with them by detonating a low yield nuclear bomb in his building. The city's core was decimated. Thousands of citizens were killed, and thousands more injured.

Thankfully, the bomb was an ultra-clean model, and radioactive debris was minimal, but the crater from the blast remains to this day, like a scar on the city to forever remind it of one of its darkest hours. In the aftermath of the Doctor Primoris fiasco, the surviving criminal elements sparked a wave of rioting and looting that plunged half the city into terror and chaos for three days until the National Guard moved in. It took nearly a week of intense street fighting and mass detentions before the riots were quelled. Bloody Monday finally ended, but the city would never be the same.

The Presidential Mandate
Following the events of Bloody Monday, the Mayor at the time resigned, as did his entire staff. For years, the Council of Industry was the de facto government, until Dwayne Zardona took the oath of office and began his five year term as Mayor. By this point, the President of the United States issued an ultimatum to Century City's Office of the Mayor: Restore order and dramatically reduce crime within the next five years or face serious Federal emergency measures and intervention. This meant the loss of Federal disaster aid and "District" status, as well as direct intervention by the F.B.I., specially appointed Federal Magistrates, and armed military troops. Even Federal occupation and martial law was a possibility.

Today, Century City remains a municipality with grave problems and a very questionable future. Mayor Zardona's first term of office draws to a close with less than a year left to fulfill the President's mandate. While things have stabilized since Bloody Monday, they are only marginally better than they were before it. The District remains an embarrassment to the United States and is perceived as not only a den of iniquity, but a haven for crime lords and super-powered villains. However, it is not for lack of trying. Over the last few years, Zardona has been extremely diligent, doing all he can to bring Century City back to its feet.



Problems Currently Facing Century City

Severe Socioeconomic Strife
Perhaps the most insidious problems are the miserable socioeconomic conditions. The city has been in bad financial shape ever since the salad days of Project Daedalus screeched to a premature halt. The Bloody Monday riots only made things a thousand times worse, because entire districts were decimated without any hope of rebuilding. In a way, it would have been better if the entire city had suffered the same fate. Instead, half the city prospers while the other half starves, creating a lopsidedness that is tearing the place apart like a cancer. In the posh Society Hill District, one would scarcely know that the Project Daedalus days are over, what with its high-tech infrastructure, the gleaming industrial, commercial and residential arcologies, and the comparatively minimal presence of crime. Next to that, the Center City District provides a middle class buffer zone between the rich and famous, and the poor half of the city.

For the poor, disadvantaged, and downtrodden, the salt in their wounds is the constant reminder that on the other side of the city live the elites. The rich have never suffered like they have. They have never had to scrape and claw to survive, like the residents of the poor districts (which isn't always true, but that's the perception). No, they only live their easy lives, in beautiful homes, voting down tax increases to help the poor, and squandering their wealth as if to add further insult to those who can barely afford to eat. It is this kind of disparity that causes the jealousy, bitterness and growing hatred that is rampant throughout the poorer parts of town. An "us and them" mindset is becoming pervasive and mutating into all kinds of trouble, including social and ethnic prejudices.

Crime Waves
Since Bloody Monday, Century City has become a haven for gangs, organized crime, and supervillains. For years, citizens have felt like they are under siege by criminals and rogue superbeings. That their neighborhood streets have turned into a battleground. As the saying goes, "Century City's biggest business is crime," and it is everywhere one looks. It touches everything one does. It is everyplace one lives, works and plays. No matter who one is or what one does for a living, crime is omnipresent in Century City. For the unfortunates living in one of the urban hellholes like the Grinder or the Labyrinth, illegal enterprises such as drugs, prostitution, gambling, racketeering, and the violence that often accompanies them are constant threats. The streets are either open markets or war zones; sometimes both. But even in the posh penthouses of the East End, there is crime. The $2,000 sofa one sits on might have been purchased from a store that fronts for a crime lord or syndicate. The fancy restaurants one eats at may be the site of a super-crime or gangland killing tomorrow. The best the rich and privileged can do in this town is distance themselves from crime, not escape it.

Alien Paranoia
Ever since the city was duped by Dr. Leopold Sarnhoff/Zere-Tovuxa, the people have been edgy about other aliens and the trouble they might bring. If Dr. Sarnhoff could fool everyone, who is to say that some other alien could not do the same? And, if a beloved and trusted member of the community like Sarnhoff was an alien, then just about anybody could be one. This kind of paranoia is the last thing the city needs. During the Bloody Monday riots, there were scores of people killed by hysterical anti-alien mobs, of all things, who had targeted people they suspected of being aliens, including a few superheroes. As it turns out, none of the people killed during Bloody Monday were actually aliens, but finer points like that have never stopped mobs from carrying out their mindlessly bloody work. With the advent of hate groups and the obviously anti-alien bias of the politicians in the Council of Industry's pocket, the chances of anti-alien sentiment being fanned into a flame is an ever increasing risk.

Even though there are alien heroes in Century City who are trusted and admired by the general public, such as Alpha Prime, the overall sense is that aliens cannot be trusted and are dangerous. Accordingly, these people believe all aliens should leave Earth to the Earthlings. Those who stay are looked upon with disdain as spies or worse. Thankfully, aliens are rare enough in town these days, and those who do come here know enough to maintain a disguise

Backlash Against Superbeings
Superbeings have always been a part of Century City. For decades, they have fought the good fight on behalf of the little guy, the folks too tired, small or scared to fight back for themselves. Whether they were appreciated by the law or not, Century City's superheroes are a vital part of the scene, and a worthy weapon in the arsenal against crime. Once upon a time, wherever the heroes went, cheers and adulation from grateful citizens were sure to follow. But not anymore. Now, after years of social strife and decay (much of it blamed on evil superbeings and superhuman criminals), more than a few citizens openly question the value of so-called "superheroes." If they are so powerful, why can't they put a quick end to the crime? If they are so mighty, why don't criminals run in fear of them? Why does it seem that "superheroes" attract "supervillains"? Without any clear answers to these questions, people have begun to turn away from their extraordinary saviors, cursing them instead of praising them. For "established," public heroes like The Centurions, there are still a lot of grateful fans surrounding them, but for most others, their deeds go unappreciated by a public too cynical to notice them. The average guy on the street doesn't see a superhero who stopped a bank robbery, he sees some character in fancy clothing who smashed up a car when he throws some other long johns-wearing freak into it.



Century City Organizations

The Council of Industry
Although it has seen better days, the Council of Industry remains the single most powerful group of non-governmental entities in the city. Founded during the Project Daedalus glory days, the Council was basically a trade guild designed to organize the collective political power of the city's major industrial powers and use them to pressure the Mayor's office to put through pro-industry legislation, like further tax shelter status, easier zoning restrictions, overturning environmental decisions, and so on. The Council of Industry has shrunk in size quite a bit since so many of the high-tech companies that formed the group have either left or gone under. Nowadays, the Board consists of: Advanced Transportation Technologies, Helion Light & Power, Overlund Earth Energies, Triton Industries, Korashi Technics, Genesys, Orion Robotics, Xander Financial Group, Integrated Thinking Systems, and Daedalus Industries.

CHIMERA
The Citywide Highly Integrated Metropolitan Emergency Response Agency, also known as CHIMERA, is a purely administrative effort; an overarching organization that analyzes and coordinates the city's crime situation and the efforts to combat it. Like the three-headed mythical beast from which it takes its name, CHIMERA's field operations consist of three groups: The Century City Police Department (CCPD), the government law enforcement agency Sector 10, and any publicly deputized superheroes, such as The Centurions. The hope is that this organization will help disparate law enforcement groups and superhero teams throughout Century City better coordinate their activities and share intelligence with one another.

CHIMERA acts by delegating investigations and interventions to the appropriate departments and by coordinating interdepartmental efforts. The agency assigns "conventional" crime and lightweight supercrime to the Century City Police Department. Inter-jurisdictional conventional crime and low level to moderate supercrime go to Sector 10. Serious and unusual supercrime goes almost exclusively to The Centurions and other superhero teams. This arrangement works nicely for all three groups, since it allows them to focus on their specialties without other departments getting in the way.

Sector 10
This is a covert organization within the Federal government that is ready, willing, and able to carry out quasi-military actions throughout the world (usually without the approval of Capitol Hill or the direct knowledge of the White House). The massive agency dwarves both the CIA and the NSA in terms of size and resources; a great deal of its funding comes from black budgets in the military – slush funds set aside for off-the-record operations.

In response to the rampant crime in Century City, Sector 10 formed a crime-fighting team dedicated to addressing interjurisdictional crimes committed by terrorists and superbeings - the so-called "Sector Squad". Unlike its parent organization, Sector Squad operates in the public eye and often works in conjunction with other agencies such as the CCPD, the FBI, and the DEA. Typically, interjursidictional crime is handled by the FBI, but Sector Squad also specializes in supercrime, which is where the FBI draws the line. Occasionally, Sector 10 works with the CIA and NSA when it has uncovered intelligence it believes is of national strategic or defensive value.

Project Tyche
Project Tyche is an alien watch group; a high profile endeavor by the U.S. military to keep the people safe from hostile aliens. It is the current incarnation of the Air Force's UFO investigation operations. Thanks to Century City's unfortunate history with alien visitors, Project Tyche has decided to set up shop in the city in case more interstellar travelers show up there (the place is a magnet for aliens, superbeings and strangeness). It is also interested in investigating the presence of any other aliens who might be hiding among the populace, just as the alien posing as Dr. Leopold Sarnhoff did for so many years. In addition to protecting the populace, Project Tyche’s agenda is to hunt down aliens and steal their technology in the name of national security. Project Tyche does not discriminate; it hunts down all aliens it can find with equal tenacity, regardless of the visitor's alignment, culture or intentions. Any aliens caught by Project Tyche are imprisoned, examined and interrogated.



Notable Initiatives

The NEW Century City Police Department
Perhaps Zardona's most publicly praised move was his reconstruction of the Century City Police Department (CCPD), which had been decimated by the Bloody Monday riots. Securing special funding from the Federal Government, the new police department was able to recruit new personnel and give them advanced training and firepower. The new department is less concerned with issuing traffic tickets and illegal gambling as it is with closing down drug dens, foiling crime lords, and stopping rampaging supervillains. For "lower echelon" crime, as Zardona has controversially put it, he has encouraged the formation of "citizen watch groups" who will be responsible for their own neighborhood security. He has even taken the step of authorizing specially selected citizens to receive basic police training and deputizing them to keep the peace in their neighborhoods.

Gramercy Island Penitentiary
This infamous island-based supermax prison is one of the few successful superbeing containment facilities in the country. It used to have no facilities for detaining super-powered convicts. However, Mayor Zardona arranged for the purchase of several dozen power dampener devices that effectively neutralize, weaken or interfere with a small range of super abilities, making those affected little more dangerous than a regular convict. Special reinforced prison cells, alarms, and monitoring devices have also been designed with the superhuman criminal in mind. While some still doubt the efficacy of the prison's superbeing countermeasures, the public has confidence in them.

Operation Overlord
This is the name for the city’s massive counteroffensive against the recent crime waves that have nearly brought the city to its knees. Mayor Zardona, with his freshly rebuilt police department and the mighty CHIMERA to organize all law enforcement, has declared a "crime war." An all-out offensive to clean up the streets and send all gangs, drug dealers, mobsters and supervillains packing! This sweeping initiative had been named in direct reference to World War II's famous Invasion of Normandy, a battle that in large part sounded the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany. Century City's Operation Overlord is much the same – a risky and costly make-or-break offensive determined to restore law and order. As far as Mayor Zardona is concerned, his city is at the breaking point, and nothing short of near-martial law will bring peace and civility back to the entire metropolis.

The battle plan is simple: Grant law enforcement authorities as much authority as possible without declaring martial law, establish emergency procedures for fast-tracking criminal offenses through the court system, and establish funds for financing additional prisons and super-menace containment facilities within the city. The most visible part of this operation is a constant police presence in many parts of town. With District patrols everywhere, criminals will not dare act unless they wish to take a speedy ride to 10 years without parole. C-SWAT, the police department's special weapons and tactics division, has been granted broad search and seizure powers, allowing them hard insertions to anyplace in the metro area. The over-arching law enforcement entity, CHIMERA, employs a great deal of active surveillance operations and probably issues more phone taps than any other city in the country. Most importantly, Operation Overlord gives officially sanctioned superheroes full law enforcement authority within the metro area.

The "law men" employed and encouraged by Operation Overlord are scary to the average citizen, to say the least. The potential for abuse is tremendous. Made even more so by recent tort liability limitations put in place by the city that essentially make it very difficult for a private citizen to sue the city for any non-criminal wrongdoing (such as harm caused by negligence). This takes away one of the biggest watchdogs the citizenry had to keep its "protectors" in line. Without that, they can only hope that their watchmen do not abuse the power that has been given to them.



Sanctioned Superhero Teams

The Centurions
This is Century City's largest and best-known super team, consisting of Ultima, Haven, Spartacus, Alpha Prime, Psynapse, Durandal, Iron Lotus, and Leviathan. Founded by Ultima a few years ago, The Centurions are supposed to represent the best and brightest heroes that Century City has to offer. The exploits of several of the group’s members have gone on to become legendary in the city’s annals. For the most part, they are loved and admired by the citizens of Century City.

The Centurions are unquestionably dedicated to fighting crime and upholding law and order in and around Century City. As large as the city is, the team often splits up into two or three squads so it can handle multiple crises at once. The chain of command within the group depends strictly on the order in which the members joined. Ultima is the leader, followed by Haven and Spartacus, who fill in as squad leaders when circumstances call for it. Otherwise, there is no real hierarchy within the group.

Despite its celebrated reputation, the team is not above criticism. Some regard these heroes as old school champions who are too willing to tow the line and have proven adept at following orders. This makes The Centurions somewhat suspect in the eyes of some citizens, and certainly to most "New Guard" supers. Some accuse the group of being willful flunkies to the slightly Orwellian CHIMERA. Yet even the team’s sternest detractors give them grudging respect for their power, resourcefulness, and crime-fighting history.

The Centurions' headquarters is the Century Park skyscraper, deep in the heart of the city's financial district. Due to a supervillain attack last year, all other tenants have been relocated for their own safety, making the entire structure Centurion territory.

Sector Squad
Sector Squad is a superhero team spearheading Sector 10’s efforts in Century City. Typically, "The Squad" does not go out on patrol looking for crimes to stop, as The Centurions often do. Instead, they train incessantly while awaiting orders from Sector 10 HQ to move into action. After a quick briefing, they are off, sometimes led by the Squad's founder, Apex, sometimes on their own. The Sector Squad's members are all government super-soldiers who volunteered everything they had - even their identities and families - to become part of an elite governmental anti-crime unit. For these agents, their job is their life, and they have virtually no other purpose than to carry out their duty. The bond between all four of them is unbreakable, as if they were kin, and together they have earned a well-deserved reputation for being some of the most intense crime-fighters in the city.

C-SWAT
Also known as "Super-SWAT," the CCPD Special Weapons and Tactics (or "C-SWAT") is not an independent superhero team, but rather, a type of expert unit within the Century City Police Department’s District Patrol Division. Since regular patrol officers are as well trained and equipped as standard SWAT in other cities, C-SWAT handles supercrimes almost exclusively. The unit specializes in rapid response and armed intervention, which means its members easily have the most dangerous job of any unit in the CCPD. They’re specialized nature means that they remain at the police station unless called upon, unlike other patrol units. There is one C-SWAT team per district.

What makes C-SWAT unique is that it employs a mix of specially trained human cops, as well as super-powered police officers (a.k.a. "super cops"). The unit is small and only consists of about 250 officers, in addition to a large number of support staff. Because the baseline human members of C-SWAT rely on advanced equipment such as energy weapons and robot exoskeletons, most support staff are mechanics, engineers, and technicians.



Vigilantes

Vigilantism is illegal in Century City. Only superheroes with official remit to enforce the law are permitted to fight crime and exercise law enforcement powers. Legally appointed superbeings work for the city government and CHIMERA, and they are expected to crack down on outlaw vigilantes just as they would on any other serious criminals. Vigilantes are viewed as a threat to the public and an affront to organized law enforcement. In practice, however, many sanctioned superheroes are reluctant to hunt down unsanctioned heroes that they consider good, just, and valid. This is one of the few points on which some sanctioned heroes are willing to defy CHIMERA.

Public opinion about vigilantes is mixed. On one hand, citizens love the idea of vigilantism because it appeals to their desire for vengeance after all of the crime and chaos they have been forced to live through. On the other hand, the recklessness and severity of some vigilantes can be frightening. And does anybody really want superbeings running around playing judge, jury and executioner, without any true legal authority or due process?

There are many more vigilantes in Century City than there are sanctioned superheroes. This is, in large part, because most of the city’s sanctioned heroes perished on Bloody Monday. This left a vacuum that came to be filled by independent newcomers. These self-styled "new heroes in town" tend to be headstrong and self-indulgent. They either don’t qualify to be deputized, or they simply refuse legal appointment. Reasons for a hero to decline deputization may vary. Some prefer the freedom of being able to fight crime however they wish. Others don’t trust CHIMERA or are tired of seeing villains slip through the city’s flawed justice system.

Life on the run makes it more difficult for vigilantes to do their job. Any public confrontation with criminals often means these heroes have only a few minutes to do their job and get out before the CCPD, Sector Squad, or the Centurions arrive on the scene. More often than not, however, CHIMERA forces show up in the middle of a battle and things get complicated. However, with Operation Overlord kicking into high gear, authorities are tending to turn a blind to eye to vigilantes, as these maverick heroes are low priority.



Notable Individuals

Mayor Dwayne Zardona
Zardona took his oath of office amid a firestorm of trouble. Chief among the problems was the need to rebuild the city, get a hold on crime, and satisfy a Federal edict requiring the city to make substantial improvements in reestablishing law and order or face Federal occupation in five years (the end of Zardona's first term). Mayor Zardona took all of this very seriously, and dove in head first, naming a small but powerful City Council that had sweeping emergency powers which would extend for the duration of the next five years. While Mayor Zardona initiated a number of projects that directly benefited some of the companies on the Council of Industry, he did little to pay back his benefactors for their long-time support, much to their chagrin. To Mayor Zardona, there would be time enough for patronage and kickbacks after the city got on its feet again.

In the meantime, the Mayor acts much like a benevolent dictator, starting grand projects by decree and with little to no outside consultation. Over the last few years, he has learned a great deal about leadership and has found a kind of confidence he never used to have. He has proven to be an expert in procuring additional funding for the cash-strapped city from the Federal government, international, and private investors. So far, he has managed to hold things together, and has done a surprisingly good job of "stopping the bleeding" from the wounds of the Daedalus collapse. Now he must fully heal the city, so it can reclaim its rightful position as one of the proudest and most magnificent cities in the world.

Currently, the Mayor's ratings are at a solid 76%, which is fairly remarkable considering the strife suffered by the bulk of the city's citizens. Despite his rough way of handling things, and allegations of abuse of power, the majority of people think Mayor Zardona is doing what must be done to save the city, and they respect him for it. One thing in his favor is that his office is squeaky clean and free from personal scandal or corruption – things which if they were present, would probably drop his ratings to below 33% and deal Operation Overlord a crippling blow. Perhaps the biggest strike against him is that he would rather see unsanctioned vigilantes in jail than fighting crime on their own. Until Operation Overlord proves that CHIMERA can police the city, there will be plenty of people who question the wisdom of going after people who bend the law to help the downtrodden and innocent.

Ultima
Kent Clarkson, better known as Ultima, is Century City’s "Man of Tomorrow." He is the founding member of the Centurions and widely regarded as one of the most powerful (if not THE most powerful) superbeings currently operating in the city. As a professional, full-time superhero – and one of the first to be officially sanctioned by the city – Ultima’s personal identity is known to the public. It’s not uncommon for him to make television appearances as himself, out of costume. In fact, his public image is that of a man with nothing to hide; what you see is what you get. Ultima’s public persona is that of a polite, regal, and incorruptible superman, though some find his squeaky clean image hard to belief. After all, everyone has secrets.

Ultima cuts quite the angelic figure – he is achingly handsome, crackling with energy, and cloaked in an aura of divinity. Adoring humans flock to greet him when he arrives, while other superbeings tend to go quite with awe when he enters a room.

Alpha Prime
Little is known about this enigmatic alien avenger from another world. She is a member of an unnamed interstellar peacekeeping force whose only mission is to enforce the sanctity of "The Covenant" (the tenet that no advanced starfaring culture shall interfere in the matters of a non-starfaring culture). Alpha Prime came to Earth to arrest the fugitive Zere-Tovuxa, who had been masquerading as the benevolent Dr. Leopold Sarnhoff. To Alpha Prime, it mattered not that Sarnhoff/Tovuxa was actually doing a great deal of good on Earth. The fact was he had repeatedly broken the law in the past, was caught red-handed violating The Covenant and had to pay for his sins.

After sending Sarnhoff/Tovuxa away with some of her cohorts, Alpha Prime elected to stand watch on Earth for "a few centuries" until it grew to travel among the stars itself. Here, she would guard as unyielding as a mountain, against any further violations of The Covenant. She accepted an offer to join The Centurions, and has been a dynamic member of that team ever since.

Alpha Prime is rather cold and distant in spite of her intense familiarity with Earth culture. Perhaps it is her inability to bend the rules for anyone or anything. Or perhaps she knows that a good portion of the city reviles her as a meddlesome alien invader who was directly responsible for sending Century City on its downward spiral. Regardless, she seems not to care that she is hardly considered a hero by the public, despite her brave and compassionate actions