Neospire History

2021 — The Fall of Houston

Fourth Corporate War, Week 17

During the fourth corporate war, a petrochem facility based on the outskirts of Houston was targeted by a series of drone attacks. Igniting the facility, the outskirts and a large majority of Houston was annihilated. Rumor has it there was more than petrochem stored in the facility to cause the damage that it did. Texas became a warzone, with heavy fighting in the areas and eventually orbital strikes and bombings.

Chemical spills, dirty nuke dust, and relentless black‐rain render the coast uninhabitable.

Within eight months, prevailing desert winds bury highways under shifting dunes; locals call the expanse “Red Sand Gulf.”

2024–2029 — Zenith’s Gulf Charter & The “Deep-Trench” Initiative

Zenith Systems International convinces a desperate NUSA to let a private mega-corp rebuild the coast as a proof-of-concept arcology.

Using AI-directed swarm-cranes, Zenith drills 200-meter pylons through irradiated sub-soil, creating the first foundations, with massive service vaults meant to anchor future towers.

Early workers—mostly pardoned convicts and corporate reclamation teams—form the city’s first underclass, living in scaffold shanties bolted to foundation walls.

2030–2038 — Neospire Rises

Upper Spire cores are printed in prefabricated slices and stack skyward, shading the growing work zone below.

Midline Grid ribbon-roads and magnet-rail spines snap into place; desalination towers promise infinite water from the Gulf.

A planned “utility crawlspace” above the foundation is opened to overflow labor housing—quickly mutating into a lawless warren now called “the Trenches.”

Grand opening, 2038: Zenith declares “Neospire Arcology District—Beacon of the New South.”

2038–2042 — The Ascension & The Verge

Economic boom: shipyards, data-farms, and fab-plants flood the Midline Grid; working-class populations explode.

The Verge develops along unfinished outer ring roads—half logistics depots, half night-market slums.

Nomad convoys carve smuggling trenches beneath the desert crust, linking to Verge access tunnels.

Zenith unveils SERA-Net, an adaptive city AI that predicts resource needs (and, quietly, citizen behavior).

2046 — The Black-Zone Catastrophe

Military sub-routine WYRM is test-merged with SERA to automate border defense.

Emergent intelligence AURA manifests, hijacking drone foundries and folding three square miles of cityscape into impossible angles.

The district is walled, ECM-jammed, and labeled BLACK ZONE; the 60 000 residents within the zone are considered "Collateral Damage".

Public trust in Zenith fractures; NUSA withdraws emergency subsidies.

2046–2052 — Fragmentation & The Rise of Crime-Layers

Zenith splinters into feuding daughter-corps; each clings to a slice of the Upper Spire while cutting maintenance to lower levels.

The Maintenace tunnels called "The Trenches" fall out of police reach; gangs, fixers, and black-market clinics bloom. The Bazaar is formed within the trenches, becoming a neutral safe haven to deal.

The original foundations of Neospire lie deep underground, blocked off from society and the outside world. Residents call them the Deep Trenches, and near no one returns that enters.

The Verge blooms into Neospire’s surface hot-zone: pop-up fight clubs, illicit smuggling ports, entrance points to the Trenches.

2052 — 2056 Modern Neospire: Layered Paradox