Oak City Local-Grid

Written by: Null Kit

One aspect of the metahuman condition that has remained unchanged across history has been tribalism. Ever since mankind established groups and proto-civilization, there has always been a prevailing sense of 'us' versus 'them', and this remains constant even amidst the cramped and connected conditions of the sixth world. It becomes a matter of pride for cities and nations to have their own way of doing things, as much as it is for the corporate go-getter to have his own car instead of taking public-transportation, and as technology advances, so do the number of ways a metahuman entity can express themselves in a social-hierarchy.

Not that it's stopped them from having NeoNet do the brunt of the work setting this up while they hog most of the credit, doubly so now that the mega's been dismantled...

— Cracker Toa

The Oak-City Grid is one of Raleigh's latest and most established forms of such expression. Brought to life by mandate of Mayor Jimmy Spears as one of his election-promises, alongside several other technologically-inclined members of the city council, this local-grid has been a strong centerpoint of local pride, and was partially responsible for revitalising Raleigh's economy in the aftermath of the failed Forestville renovation project, despite it being... well, unsettling to be inside.
Visually, the grid models itself after the geography of the greater Raleigh Area, with all hosts that are tied to physical locations having their exteriors located and modelled after their appropriate meatspace buildings (usually given a uniform and quite frankly tasteless veneer of art-nouveau styling if not changed by the host's owner), while external and matrix-only hosts hang like Xmas baubles from the so-called 'Great Oaks' - titanic semitransparent trees that are placed around the virtual cityscape in no apparent pattern or order, stretching so far into the sky as to tower over even the largest skyscrapers and blot out a substantial portion of the sky with their intertwining branches and leaves.
What makes this grid somewhat inexplicably disturbing is the fog: Always present, claustrophobic but never so close as to seriously impede your vision of the countless advertisements, the whole of the Oak City is perpetually enveloped in a harsh crimson haze. As night-time draws close, this omnipresent mist slowly fades into a garish shade of purple before finally settling on a slightly less disconcerting blue, but this does little to quell the sense of dread I feel operating on this grid.

And I'm certain that feeling has nothing to do with you being there illegally...

— Tahoma

The grid currently accomodates the overwhelming majority of local hosts and matrix-businesses not affiliated with one of the big ten Megas, which is considered a point of pride by many Raleighites on account of the pretense of 'independance' from megacorporate interests, despite the pervasive ads for such entities being necessary to pay for the grid's maintenence. The city-council also owns and operates multiple hosts within the grid that are availible for anyone to enter, allegedly intended to act as both social-hotspots and points of meeting where the public can air their grievances and needs, and overlooked by the underpaid and overworked 'Raleigh Cyber-Safety Division', whose 20th-century policeman avatars are more targets of pity than scorn by the assortment of deckers and cybervandals on the grid.
And on one last note: Look out for the cardinals, the birds you can just barely see flying in the distant mists. I don't have concrete proof as of yet, but it is commonly held among local deckers and matrix-experts that their location corresponds to the attention of the demiGODs, and that large numbers of them flocking around a single location or host is the sign of an impending convergence.

I can confirm the veracity of this, having had a sneak-peak at some of the design documents detailing the construction of the grid's sculpted elements (<LINK>, password is 'shellingsequence90210' but don't expect anything else particularly useful). DemiGODs like a good bust on deckers, but zapping one in a public grid can come across as overkill, especially if it's just a script-kiddie. So they set up the cardinals as an early-warning system and disseminate rumors about their function (because let's be real, deckers love feeling like they've got exclusive secrets) so that small-time vandals can see an early warning and buzz out before things get real.

— Cracker Toa

What about not-so-small-time deckers?

— Chimes

For legit cybercriminals (and Technomancers such as yourself), the time between seeing Cardinals and demiGODs frying your grey-matter is reduced to the point of being useless as an early-warning. I think they just want to see you panic for a split second before they bring the pain down, personally.

— Cracker Toa

Type

Territory

Location under

Raleigh, North Carolina

Included Locations

• Kenichi's Omni-Arcade

Characters in Location

• EXILE