Ellis Island

A small island just off the coast of the city, the somewhat jokingly named “Ellis Island” has been home to something of an information technology renaissance in recent years. Giving generous grants to investors and tech companies wanting to get out of the shadows of establishment giants in District Commerce and Atlas Park, Ellis Island has become the home of a ‘new world’ of advancing tech. Unfortunately, the lack of oversight and regulation mixes with a lack of inhibitions and common sense.   The residents of Ellis Island don’t seem to mind showing off their ambitions, either. While most of the city remains traditional, Ellis Island residents have a unique infrastructure of light-rail cars, green traffic, and other such innovations of urban planning. Visitors have remarked that coming off the bridge to the island feels like walking or driving into a science fiction novel. The impressiveness of these innovations, however, are somewhat mitigated by how frequently things seem to go awry. Heroic visitors to the Island might find themselves having to get a 'self-driving' car under control, fight back against rogue AI, or handle the aftermath of a blackout or other disaster caused by ignoring conventional safety regulations.   THE ARCHIVES: A fixture of Ellis Island even before the tech boom, The Archives remain a secret to even most in the area. The Archives are a massive, subterranean complex that is used to house technology seized by Department of Paranormal Affairs in the aftermath of supervillain conflicts. Ostensibly only removed when needed as evidence in trial, these items represent a massive treasure trove of possible wealth or discovery and are adamantly guarded by the DPA. With the increased activity of the tech-savvy on Ellis Island, many within the DPA worry about how much longer their secret can be kept.   INVISIBLE INC: A startup company founded by CEO Morris Grace, Invisible Inc was one of the first companies to spark the tech boom in Ellis Island. Ostensibly a cutting-edge data gathering and research firm, Invisible Inc is seen as something of a ‘super-google,’ which helps on the back end of some powerful search engines but is largely kept from public use. However, consultants from Invisible Inc are valued by world governments, superhero teams and the extremely wealthy, alike. The real purpose of the company, however, is far stranger: putting their data gathering toward the exploration and discovery of parallel universes. After what he called an ‘otherworldly’ experience while traveling through Tibet, Grace became obsessed with the idea of parallel universes, and turned his considerable genius toward their discovery.   THE FIRST COSMIC CHURCH: An established (if fringe) religion going back to the early 1960’s, preaching technological exceptionalism as a means to return to a fabled, lost ‘golden age.’