Detroit

Once known as the Motor City or Motown, Detroit was the nexus of the mighty North American car in- dustry for decades … until it all went to drek in the late twentieth century. For years afterward, Detroit languished until some slag from the GM Corporation named Nicholas Aurelius started buying up businesses in the area under the umbrella of the newly formed Ares Industries and decided to set up HQ there. Soon, busi- ness and industry were booming and the Motor City’s star was on the ascension once again. A few short years later, Ares Industries became Ares Macrotechnology, the megacorp we all know and love today! As the years passed, Detroit—under the guidance of Ares—weathered the Awakening and became one of the dominant industrial centers in North America and helped thousands of refugees from the Ghost Dance War find work and new homes. Through various corporate-sponsored programs, Detroit was eventually cleaned up, fixed up, built up, and became a shining beacon of corporate benevolence! Of course, not everyone believed the hype. Eventually, Ares bought up most of Detroit’s choice real estate and businesses. Mixed with corporate extra- territoriality, the local and UCAS government officials became nothing more than figureheads meant to pay homage to the city’s real masters. Detroit may have cast off its long-held reputation as a beacon of failure and urban decay through Ares’ corporate reconstruction efforts, but all the gloss and shine they put on the city is only a façade. Despite the PR, Detroit isn’t the corporate utopia the PR department at Ares wants you to believe it is. Motown’s shadows are as hard and run as deep as any other major sprawl on the planet. Being centrally located at several major highway intersections and with access to several major waterways, Detroit is a major hub for smugglers and features a thriving black market on par with sprawls such as Seattle, Denver (before it went to drek), Hong Kong, or Casablanca. All the major players are there as well, some hiding in plain sight, while others keep to those deep shadows. If Detroit knows one thing, it’s how to keep their shadows hidden. Paradoxically, while Knight Errant works overtime to keep Detroit’s relatively squeaky clean image intact, Ares Arms and various other subsidiaries are known to pump metric ass-tons of material into the local black markets to keep these shadow markets active. At the end of the day, Detroit is about business, pure and simple. Not everyone in Detroit is hiding out or swallowed the corporate pill. Despite Ares’ best efforts, a select few businesses (some that go back before Ares was a thing) have defiantly resisted, sometimes violently, being bought out or absorbed into the corporate fold. These places serve as small oases in a desert of corporate appropriation, and they’ll be the first ones to give Ares the middle finger every chance they get. Geographically, Detroit is broken into several districts. Downtown, of course, is the center, where Ares planted their HQ; this is where most corporate biz is done. Belle Isle is considered the most bohemian, where the social and civic-minded gather. As in years past, Windsor is the sprawl’s playground, where tourist and locals alike flock for fun. Dearborn is known locally as “king of the hold- outs” and home of Ford Motors, one of the few business- es Ares couldn’t buy up or drive out. Oakland County is a mix of several areas including Auburn Hills. Once a dumping ground for Chicago refugees, it’s since become the “artsy” district and home to several sports teams. That’s what it is now. With Ares packing up and moving out, who knows what it will be in a year.