Qadros

Qadros is a sizeable Rostran Archipelago Confederacy trade exclave on Rostral E2. Known as the "Great Stone Gate," and "Your Doorway to the Isles" in tourist brochures, Qadros is a prosperous city that serves as an important waypoint for airship travel to human and verdial lands beyond.

Demographics

Qadros shares the general RAC demographic makeup of High Rostran, Low Rostran, and Civil Ovinex populations. The ovinex proportion of the population is somewhat higher than it would be in other parts of the RAC's holdings because these hardy folk have certain natural adaptations to a mountainous environment that overmatch those of the Rostrans, the latter group's special barometric senses notwithstanding.
Qadros has a significant expatriate population and is considered cosmopolitan by Rostran standards. This resident immigrant population is primarily human in extraction and is mostly tied to the shipping and tourism industries. The region is uncomfortably warm for verdial physiology, but not unbearable with the right ventilation in place. Qadros has an advantage in attracting immigration due to the fact that it is considered 'halfway to anywhere' as far as Rostran territories go; the Western Tesseract over the RAC heartlands blocks inter-cube travel much more severely than the Ventral Tesseract over the city.

Defences

The Rostran Archipelago Confederacy is (mostly) at peace and, therefore, leaves the defense of Qadros up to a comparatively small local defense force. A Rostran Archipelago Confederacy Marine Forces air combat garrison is established in the Docks District (see Infrastructure) primarily to dissuade incursions by the Avarix Corps. Training facilities in the surrounding countryside provide RACMF recruits with instruction in survival skills and, should their MOS require it, the operation of MF-A2 "Kirie" Traversal Auto Armor. In the event of an actual military threat, large numbers of RACMF airships and fighters can quickly traverse the commissure to give anyone who might think of striking Qadros a lethal surprise; though not itself well-garrisoned, the city is not entirely helpless in the face of foreign adventurism.

Industry & Trade

Qadros imports seafood, fruits, grains, and luxury goods. It exports granite, timber, iron, and machinery. The city has a heavy industrial base and is capable of producing dieseltech machinery at scale, with local firms including branches of Eudoxia Chemical Group and Rostrax Aerostat & Aerodyne. Arbitrage constitutes a significant portion of the city's economy, as many goods pass through Qadros' inflection layer facilities without actually starting or ending in the city itself.

Infrastructure

Though the city of Qadros has significant paved road and rail coverage beyond even its current city limits, the majority of travel to and from the city itself takes place via dieseltech airship. Commissure transit stations provide terrestrial access to adjacent cubes, but these trade expedience for capacity and do not allow throughput across the inflection layer above. Numerous airship and autogyro launch pads, of both public and private ownership, are scattered about the city; while air service is decentralized, air traffic control is handled by a central air traffic control authority in the city center. Underground tunnels hewn into the hard rock provide space for light rail, emergency services access routes, and air raid bunkers.
Qadros is powered via a combination of municipal biodiesel facilities (fueled by biosynthesis reactors at the sewage treatment plant), solar thermal collectors, and the Seastorm Thundersnare geocurrent bridge. Docking facilities at the Western C end of the commissure are powered by tidal and hydroelectric power, tapping the trickle of water that flows from the cube-wide oceans into the commissure for energy while also serving to regulate the buildup of water in the microgravity region below.

Districts

The downtown area of Qadros is gathered mostly to one side of the commissure's edge, with light industrial and commercial areas a little further out. Dense residential areas are situated in the tall buildings near the city center, while suburbs sprawl out towards the slopes into the surrounding valleys. On either side of the crevasse lie warehouses, commercial airstrips, and other facilities tied to trade across the commissure, known collectively as the 'Docks District'; the terrain here is terraced due to early granite mining for construction purposes and, later, attempts to make the commissure more passible by widening its mouth.

Guilds and Factions

The Navigator's Guild, the Burning Hearts Social Club, the Sorority of Solace, and MartMart International all maintain strong presences in Qadros, as each of these organizations is strongly connected to the international travel industry that Qadros supports. Major corporate presences also include Eudoxia Chemical Group and Rostrax Aerostat & Aerodyne.

Tourism

While the heartland of the Rostran race is the biggest draw for tourists in the region, Qadros enjoys frequent tourism because of its more cosmopolitan nature.
New Irkima Station, a skystation located in the commissure at Qadros and strongly associated with the inter-cube shipping industry, is the modern form of the very first skystation ever launched in the Manifold Sky. The city of Qadros uses New Irkima primarily as a customs and duty inspection platform for airships travelling to and from the homeland, but the station is also a historical site and, thus, a major tourist draw in its own right. A small museum space aboard the station is bookended with kiosks where other municipalities in the RAC with connections to the Rostran aeronautics tradition - such as Kalqa - advertise trips to their own landmarks.

Architecture

More than most municipalities in the Rostran Archipelago Confederacy, the architecture of Qadros makes heavy use of carved stone bricks and columns. Local architects regard tall towers as opportunities to display their culture as much as to contain homes or businesses, and many feature beautiful statuary and facades of intricately carved granite. The tallest towers feature masts for the mooring of airships or RadNet broadcasting, lending Qadros' a unique and striking skyline particularly at dusk.

Geography

Qadros is located atop a broad, comparatively flat stretch of fractured yellow granite in an otherwise rugged cube layer. A particularly large fissure to one side of the settlement houses the local commissure which erupts among the shallow cays at the center of Rostral C5. This puts the passage to Qadros a convenient, short sailing distance away from major population centers like the capital at Exivaun, making it a popular trade route. It is also helpful that this commissure has comparatively little spillover from the seas of the RAC core regions, which, in combination with evaporation due to Rostral Tesseract heat - as well as later engineering projects like commissure transit stations and a skystation (see Tourism) - ensures that the route is never flooded except in the most extreme of monsoon seasons.

Climate

The environs of Qadros are hot, but not necessarily arid. Rivers and tributaries flow through the surrounding lowlands, creating bands of rich, tropical greenery between the high and dry stone heights. Instead of winter chills, the region has a dry season and a monsoon season fed by moisture from the adjacent cube faces - especially Rostral C.

Natural Resources

The countryside is flush with granite and timber for construction projects, and the climate is favorable for fast-growing cultivars of bamboo. The as-of-yet unspoiled woods further afield have large amounts of game. The area directly around the city is too rocky for large-scale agriculture without significant soil conditioning, but the old mines and natural hollows crisscrossing the region are excellent cites for agri-mines.

Type

City

Population

Approx. 500,000

Inhabitant Demonym

Qadrans; (Er)(et)(as)ova adQadros

Location under

Rostral Tesseract

Owning Organization

Rostran Archipelago Confederacy