Presidio

Where the dice are hot, and the blasters hotter

During the heyday of the Terran Mandate, La Magdalena was a glittering, far-flung resort world with Presidio as its crown jewel. While the initial chaos of the Silence extracted its toll on the world, in the years since the city has bounced back in astounding form. The new Presidio is once again the place to be for anyone who's anyone, but travelers beware: the brighter the lights, the darker the shadows.

Demographics

A majority of the city is working class, residing in Presidio's dense suburban blocks. These people can trace their origins to either La Magdalena's hinterlands, or are destitute offworlders who sought security and steady work. Most are either employed directly in the city's hospitality sector, or work in support fields such as urban maintenance or construction. A sizable miniority are there to augment the city's growing manufacturing sector, which has yet to become fully automated.
The city's middle class tends to reside in the so-called outer districts that ring Presidio's fortifications. This group works largely as educated professionals, either for families or other corporations, or as independent merchants. Most are native Magdalenans, but a minority are relocated offworlders. The city's elite are a scant minority of its population, residing the the luxurious inner districts. Almost all of them are either affiliated with the Presidio Clique or in the employ of a major corporation.

Government

The city is directly governed by the Presidio Clique. Under the current arrangement, each family is tasked with the governance of their respective districts. City-wide infrastructure maintenance is handled by Presidio's various expert systems under John Doe's direct control, and carried out largely by fleets of machines. Key sites and infrastructure, such as the city's defenses, major roads, and its spaceport are also under Doe's direct control. Doe is content to leave the day-to-day administration to his expert systems.

Defences

Like the rest of La Magdalena, Presidio is protected by an ancient network of pretech batteries and perimeter sentries. The city center is protected by sloping walls and artillery placements, from which the city originally took its name.

Industry & Trade

Tourism remains a major driver for Presidio's economy, with a majority of the city's population working to support the city's many resorts, casinos, and entertainment venues. La Magdalena's position at the center of the Sierra's main trade routes also make it an important commercial and transportation hub, which in turn helps support the city's growing financial sector. Under John Doe's tenure, effort has also been placed into research and development, hoping to capitalize on the planet's pretech edge.

Infrastructure

• Large spaceport

• Monorail network

• Terrestrial harbor

• Airport

Guilds and Factions

Presidio serves as the capital city for both La Magdalena and the wider Sierra Special Economic Zone. It is also the political and economic center of the so-called Presidio Clique, which takes its name from the city. The leading factions within the Presidio Clique include the Amarillo Family, the Lucky Dice, the Silverside Cartel, and the Rooks.
The Sierra Navigators' Association, the largest spacers' guild in the sector, has its head office in Presidio, near the spacer district.
Several polities maintain embassies within the city, the largest of which belongs to the League of Planets. The League embassy complex is large enough to make it a gated community in its own right, housing hundreds of League diplomats, attaches, staffers, and their families within its walls.

History

Presidio was founded as a fortified resupply outpost sometime in the mid 26th century, in the midst of the Second Wave. Existing in the murky boundary between the Terran Mandate's overextended grasp and the fraught old frontier, Presidio was able to enjoy the relative security of Mandate control alongside the looser norms of the old frontier. As a result, Presidio flourished as a resort world, in the vein of classical getaway cities like Macau, Las Vegas, and Old Dubai. Its position relative to the old frontier also made the city a useful point of contact between Mandate and frontier organizations, whether it be commercial, diplomatic, or criminal. At its height, the city boasted a core-class spaceport, a multitude of resorts and casinos, a nascent research and development sector, and an advanced city management AI.
In 2665, all of La Magdalena was devastated by the Scream. The destruction of the system's Jump Gate left the entire system isolated from the rest of human space, and the sudden death or insanity of every human psychic plunged the world into chaos. Within Presidio, the wealthiest and most powerful sought refuge within the city's core fortifications while its suburbs succumbed to strife and plundering. However, these survivors were unable to fully wrest control of Presidio's core systems away from its AI and after the dust settled, began to find its attempts at asserting control intolerable. Throughout the Silence, Presidio remained a largely abandoned husk of its former glory as the city's surviving elites deserted the city in favor of more sustainable redoubts, stripping the city of any tech that wasn't bolted down. These survivors would go on to become among the planet's many neofeudal warlords. Yet the city's AI would continue to maintain Presidio until it went dormant sometime in the 28th century.
Presidio would become resettled in earnest sometime between the 2910s and 2930s as planetary polities began to rebound from the Scream's technological and social collapse. The city's new inhabitants took advantage of its array of remaining technological resources to restart industrial-levels of development, leading to an economic boom for Presidio's new masters. In time, portions of the old AI's functions were restored too, albeit as a series of fragmented, lesser expert systems. Beyond a mutual interest in the city's power and prestige, Presidio's new elites, many of whom descended from its survivors, bitterly clashed for control over key sites, neighborhoods, and eventually entire swaths of La Magdalena. These elites would go on to become the current ruling families.
With the rediscovery of spike drive-based interstellar travel, Presidio's elites would go on to reforge old trade networks, gradually restoring the city's place as a center for interstellar commerce and travel. Although once again prosperous, this new Presidio was also lawless, as conflicts between the families led to street fighting, and crime took root in the gaps between different houses' control. It was not until the sudden emergence of John Doe, who rose from obscurity when he managed to gain control over the planet's entire remaining defense network in 3180, that order was restored. Doe's coup forced the surviving families into cooperation, folding them into his so-called Presidio Clique. From there Doe's new clique was able to assert unitary control over all of La Magdalena.
Under the new regime, Presidio has thrived, reaching heights unseen since before the Scream. Although calm has once again returned to the streets, that does not mean the city is without peril. The families remain pernicious as ever, as those unfortunate enough to be caught in the wrong end of their dealings are

Architecture

The city center boasts an impressively well-maintained collection of late Mandate high rises and a multitude of themed resort hotels. Surrounding the city center is a mix of restored pre-Scream structures alongside entirely new districts built over ruined neighborhoods, inhabited primarily by Presidio's middle class. The suburbs consist of high-density apartment complexes for the city's millions of workers.

Geography

Presidio is located on a peninsula abutting a brackish ocean, and next to a dry chaparral. The outskirts of the city are fringed by a low-lying mountain range.

Type

Capital

Population

6 million

Owning Organization

Sierra Special Economic Zone