Overview
Reliable Safe Zones allow people to build lives that do not depend entirely on their own ability to survive outside.
They provide room for government, education, housing, food production, specialized work, and lasting communities. But protection does not produce one shared way of life. Each settlement is shaped by whoever controls it, the resources it possesses, and the population living within its boundaries.
Two Safe Zones may offer similar protection while supporting very different societies.
Government and Education
Government varies according to who controls the Safe Zone. The people or institutions responsible for a settlement influence how it is governed and how its residents live.
There is no single government system shared by every Safe Zone.
Education also varies with local control. What opportunities exist, how learning is organized, and what a community considers important depend on the settlement.
A person moving between Safe Zones may therefore encounter different expectations, institutions, and opportunities without leaving the wider world of Postremo Limine.
Law Enforcement and Punishment
Most Safe Zones use their guards for all law enforcement. The same force that monitors entrances also handles order within the settlement.
Some Safe Zones have an upper guard or an advanced combat force for matters beyond ordinary guard duties. The existence and responsibilities of these forces vary.
Punishment depends on the government. Exile is a common punishment for crimes that would ordinarily carry long sentences.
For a resident, exile means losing the right to remain within the settlement’s protected territory. Its use makes access to safety part of the government’s power over its population.
Entry Rules and Checkpoints
Entry rules differ between settlements.
Most Safe Zones have guards and checkpoints to monitor who comes and goes. These are part of the settlement’s everyday operation, alongside the systems maintaining its protected boundaries.
For Divers, leaving and returning often means passing through those checkpoints. For other residents and travelers, the same entrances mark the point where one government’s rules and protected territory begin.
The requirements at one checkpoint should not be assumed to apply everywhere.
Housing
Housing reflects both local government and the wealth of the Safe Zone.
How a settlement organizes housing, and what it can provide, depend on its administration and prosperity. A protected boundary alone does not determine the quality of life within it.
In settlements divided into upper- and lower-class areas, those distinctions can also shape where people live. Some Safe Zones are further divided into subsections associated with particular races.
The layout of a settlement is therefore part of its social structure as well as its physical design.
Universal Credits and Local Systems
The Central Authority created a universal credit system that remains in use after the institution’s fragmentation.
The system was designed so that Nodes are very unlikely to generate valid credits. This resistance to Node-created currency is part of what distinguishes it within a world capable of rewriting locations and producing things through unstable rules.
Each universal credit coin holds data about where it has been, readable with known scanners, though how that information is stored and who currently maintains the currency are unknown. A blank history may indicate a fake, but rumors suggest someone is still making coins. Their supply is believed to be limited.
Some factions accept universal credits directly or use them, alongside gold, to back their own currencies. Local currencies and acceptance vary. Exchanges may take place at banks, guilds, or government-type buildings. Cards can depend on local networks: Mayhem’s card stores her account information and cross-references purchases and sales with the Safe Zone network, limiting its use elsewhere. See Currency and Trade for coins, cards, exchanges, merchant payments, and organized commerce.
Food Production and Supply
Some Safe Zones grow food within their protected territory.
Open areas can be used for cultivation, while other settlements grow food inside buildings. The space available and the settlement’s circumstances influence how it feeds its population.
A smaller number of Safe Zones obtain some or all of their food from outside their own boundaries.
For these settlements, protected housing and work do not mean the entire food supply is protected in the same place. Daily life remains connected to what can be obtained beyond the Safe Zone.
Migration and Trade
Civilian migration and routine trade normally follow set routes established by Divers. The travelling group is also protected by Divers. Crossing between Nodes is one part of these journeys; movement within a Node and admission through a settlement’s checkpoint are separate stages. See Travel Between Nodes for ordinary edges, fake edges, crossing time, and passage for groups and cargo.
Engineers, Divers, and Other Work
Engineers keep the Safe Zone running. In constructed settlements, this includes the infrastructure that preserves protected territory, such as Limi-Anchors and their supporting systems.
Most larger Safe Zones have an engineering core with subsections responsible for water, power, sanitation, and waste disposal.
All engineers have some knowledge of protection systems. Whatever their specialization, maintaining the Safe Zone’s protection remains the most important engineering responsibility.
Anchor Engineers specialize in maintaining and constructing stabilization infrastructure. Most learn through apprenticeship and demonstrate their skill for qualification, usually granted by local government. They progress through Apprentice, Journeyman, Master, and Grand Master ranks; Masters and Grand Masters usually undertake new Anchor construction. During emergencies, most Safe Zones have a Chief Engineer directing what needs to be done.
Divers leave the settlement to gather materials or complete the missions and quests that need to be done.
These two kinds of work support much of the settlement’s continued operation: engineers maintain what people depend on inside, while Divers undertake necessary work beyond the boundary.
Other occupations support those activities or serve life within the Safe Zone. The jobs available vary between settlements.
Reliable protection allows people to develop specialized skills and contribute to their community without every resident needing to be a skilled survivalist. That change is part of the history described in The Rise of Safe Zones.
Healthcare and Contamination
Healthcare depends on the government style of the Safe Zone.
Normally, one central place handles healthcare for the settlement. How its services are organized and how residents are treated depend on local governance.
Responses to infection and contamination vary according to what is involved. There have been cases in which affected people were exiled.
Exile is therefore used for more than criminal punishment in some settlements. An infected or contaminated resident may lose access to the protection and services of the Safe Zone as part of its response to the condition.
Children, Older Residents, and Unemployment
The treatment of children, older residents, and people unable to work depends on the settlement’s government.
Protection does not establish a universal system of support. Each Safe Zone determines how it treats those who cannot provide for themselves through ordinary work.
People who remain unemployed for a very long time may eventually end up in Diver work or another high-risk occupation.
A community’s government therefore influences both the support available to vulnerable residents and the pressures facing those without work.
Morning and Evening
Most Safe Zones are especially busy in the morning and evening.
Morning activity builds around Divers preparing their equipment and leaving for outside work. The settlement’s supporting occupations and checkpoints form part of that departure routine.
Evening activity gathers around their return.
This movement gives many settlements a recognizable rhythm. The work happening inside the protected area connects with the people leaving it and coming back, even when most residents do not take part in expeditions themselves.
Race, Class, and Community
Most Safe Zones are predominantly home to one race or contain only a few different races.
Some settlements are divided into subsections by race. Others are divided between lower and upper classes. These divisions can shape the settlement’s neighborhoods and the everyday experience of its residents.
Only a few Safe Zones have a true mixture of communities living throughout the settlement.
A diverse population and a thoroughly mixed settlement are therefore different arrangements. Several races may occupy the same protected territory while living in separate subsections.
Competition for Protected Territory
Some races can be combative in their efforts to gain Safe Zones.
Protected territory is valuable. Competition over access to it or control of it can become a source of conflict between communities.
Local government, wealth, racial composition, and class divisions all matter when understanding a particular settlement. Its protection explains how people can live there; its society explains what that life is like.
Settlement Example: New Tucson
New Tucson, usually called Tucson, is a contested city beneath the Black Dome in the Hollow Metropolis. Its bureaucracy operates in four-year cycles. Eligible residents elect officials, who then vote to appoint the main leader for the next four years. Voting requires primary residence in Tucson and the correct paperwork; entry registration does not establish voting rights. Most of the government is corrupt.
The city is divided into upper- and lower-class areas. Some races form small pockets in lower-class districts, but most residents live wherever they can. Only two gated entrances lead into the sanctuary. Gate guards, inner guards, and special forces make up its security structure.
Food is grown in building complexes, and local production includes fish. Other meat is rare or lab-grown when residents are fortunate enough to obtain it. The city was founded after another Node’s destruction, and struggles over its Safe Zone continue.
Settlement Example: Riseholm
Riseholm is a city spread across floating islands. Most journeys between its separate protected areas require airships. Its food supply combines grown food with birds native to the Node. An aging, beloved king rules the city, while his unpopular son and rumors of an Inventors’ Guild takeover leave the succession uncertain. City guards handle security outside the skyports; the Air Force guards the ports and protects the skies.
