brian 333
2018-05-11, 12:18 PM
Once the Superb Textile Manufacturing Company dominated the economy of the small mountain village whose proximity to the flowing water of Prospector's Creek and to the North-South Sun-Coast Railway allowed it to flourish in the years before the electrification of the rural west coast. In time, the dam on Prospector's Creek was improved and electric generators replaced the old water-wheels which cranked the machines of the mill. But larger, more modern mills soon relegated Superb to custom orders and soon even that source of income dried up. The mill closed its doors in the 1970's and Superb was well on its way to becoming a ghost town.
In the 1980s, Winston Raliegh, sole heir to the Superb fortune and owner of much of the real estate in the tiny valley, was elected mayor and he kept his promise to make Superb into a modern city. His first accomplishment was controversial; he sold his hydroeldctric plant, (but not the land beneath its holding pond,) to the city, which he then used to guarantee set rates for electrical power to companies which entered into ten-year agreements with the city.
Mayor Raliegh then set about modernizing the city's school system specifically to teach skills the new companies looked for in new hires. In 1996 BioCorp moved in and began construction of the now prosperous little city's first skyscraper, the 15 story Omniplex. It was intended to be a multi-use facility for shopping, housing, and entertainment for the projected 300 BioCorp employees who would work there, but BioCorp exploded onto the world market with its Gene-Targeted Therapies. Not only was the Omniplex overcrowded by Biocorp, but they expanded by building two more towers, each the tallest in the city at the time, and by building several manufacturing facilities.
By 2010 a dozen other large corporations were vying for space along Skyview Ridge while families filled in the slopes leading down from Superb to Seaview, a small coastal village which grew from a clifftop boardwalk and amusement park into a tourist attraction in its own right, serving the daily entertainment needs of Superb and its suburbs as well as being the annual vacation destination for many families of the Central Valleys region of the West Coast.
The old mill still stands in the center of the city. It's now a museum, with its former retention pond vastly reduced in size and the surrounding area converted to use as a public park. A statue of Mayor Winston Raliegh was erected in 1998, a year after the mayor's death in office.
Among the preserved older buildings, such as the quaint City Courthouse and Jail, modern concrete and glass buildings sprout. Historic preservation is a relatively new, and haphazardly applied, concept. While government and legal offices tend to cluster around the old town, the action is on Skyview Ridge, where the ground allows skyscrapers to be built. Modern businesses cluster among the skyscrapers which follow the ridge along almost one third of the city's circumference.
While downslope of Skyview the many suburbs grew to fill every relatively flat space between the city and the coastal cliffs, to the east, even within the margins of the city, more rural lifestyles dominate. Small farms remain, some transformed into rural estates for the corporate elite, mere minutes from downtown. East of the city and farther uphill into the valleys of the Coastal Range farming has made a comeback supplying fresh, organic, and exotic vegetables to meet the demands of the modern city's inhabitants, but here and there along the old narrow-gauge railroad track sheep and goat farms that once fed raw material to the Superb Textile Mill still survive.
The Sun Coast Railway still operates, but only a few miles of the Seaview Railway remain, mostly in the mountainous eastern valley region, where it has served as a tourist destination of dubious profitability, kept running as a hobby by some older valley residents. The Coastal Highway crosses the Prospector's Creek Reservoir about twelve feet above the water's surface when the reservoir is full. The dam cannot be seen from the bridge, which has a span of only about 200 feet, so it is unimpressive to the sightseer, who follows the north-south corridor of homogenized food and fuel retailers and automobile dealerships, seeing little of the city save its glowing lights which illuminate the humid, coastal nights.
In the adjacent valley to the south, twelve miles from the center of Superb, is the Harmon Regional Airport. The village of San Pallides was unable to transition from a minor farming market hub on a train's regular water stop into a viable modern concern. When the offer came they sold the village and the surrounding land to create the new airport whose taxiway was once a busy farm road.
Between the airport and the city is the Monorail Cab System. It was built by an enthuisastic young financier who managed to gain corridors in the Skyview region of the city, but began to run into obstructionism in attempts to build into the east. Less than one third of the proposed system was built before the complex web of debts fell apart insuring the young entrepreneur would be hauled off to jail. The city was left in posession of the system which is the major means of public transportation in the Skyview area. It calls a suspended sphere of one to four person occupancy to a station where the passengers board and are fed onto the main throughway rail until they are routed along side tracks to their destination. Thick concrete pedastals about twenty feet high support bridges of girders which hold the monorail, allowing the cars to fly over ground traffic.
The cost to build onto the system exceeds the current revenue to recover it. Indeed, the current segment has still not recovered its construction cost after a decade of operation, which is often cited as justification for not extending the reach of the monorail, which is so loved by the people of Skyview.
Superb's rapid growth invited a criminal element to take advantage of new opportunities, and Superb's police force has worked very hard to combat them, including the deputization of three 'Special Operatives' who are known to have super powers. They are:
e- (pronounced "ee minus") is a computer hacker who can project his mind onto the internet.
Guardian is a woman who uses powered armor to take on street level violence.
The Sentinel is an older man in fedora and trenchcoat who solves crimes from minute details
A good number of other people with powers are employed by businesses or people of means. These Supers are ignored by the officials of the city unless they begin to commit crimes. That in itself draws more Supers from regions with less tolerance for people with powers. Those who have found a new home in Superb are quick to defend their town against militant or criminal Supers, and to date there have been no convictions of Supers for damages or injuries resulting from defending the town against Supers.
Most Supers try to stay below the radar, but the local media loves to post images and video of Blaze, a Super who flies inside a ball of fire. She is reclusive and seldom flies, but when she does it is a spectacular sight.
In the 1980s, Winston Raliegh, sole heir to the Superb fortune and owner of much of the real estate in the tiny valley, was elected mayor and he kept his promise to make Superb into a modern city. His first accomplishment was controversial; he sold his hydroeldctric plant, (but not the land beneath its holding pond,) to the city, which he then used to guarantee set rates for electrical power to companies which entered into ten-year agreements with the city.
Mayor Raliegh then set about modernizing the city's school system specifically to teach skills the new companies looked for in new hires. In 1996 BioCorp moved in and began construction of the now prosperous little city's first skyscraper, the 15 story Omniplex. It was intended to be a multi-use facility for shopping, housing, and entertainment for the projected 300 BioCorp employees who would work there, but BioCorp exploded onto the world market with its Gene-Targeted Therapies. Not only was the Omniplex overcrowded by Biocorp, but they expanded by building two more towers, each the tallest in the city at the time, and by building several manufacturing facilities.
By 2010 a dozen other large corporations were vying for space along Skyview Ridge while families filled in the slopes leading down from Superb to Seaview, a small coastal village which grew from a clifftop boardwalk and amusement park into a tourist attraction in its own right, serving the daily entertainment needs of Superb and its suburbs as well as being the annual vacation destination for many families of the Central Valleys region of the West Coast.
The old mill still stands in the center of the city. It's now a museum, with its former retention pond vastly reduced in size and the surrounding area converted to use as a public park. A statue of Mayor Winston Raliegh was erected in 1998, a year after the mayor's death in office.
Among the preserved older buildings, such as the quaint City Courthouse and Jail, modern concrete and glass buildings sprout. Historic preservation is a relatively new, and haphazardly applied, concept. While government and legal offices tend to cluster around the old town, the action is on Skyview Ridge, where the ground allows skyscrapers to be built. Modern businesses cluster among the skyscrapers which follow the ridge along almost one third of the city's circumference.
While downslope of Skyview the many suburbs grew to fill every relatively flat space between the city and the coastal cliffs, to the east, even within the margins of the city, more rural lifestyles dominate. Small farms remain, some transformed into rural estates for the corporate elite, mere minutes from downtown. East of the city and farther uphill into the valleys of the Coastal Range farming has made a comeback supplying fresh, organic, and exotic vegetables to meet the demands of the modern city's inhabitants, but here and there along the old narrow-gauge railroad track sheep and goat farms that once fed raw material to the Superb Textile Mill still survive.
The Sun Coast Railway still operates, but only a few miles of the Seaview Railway remain, mostly in the mountainous eastern valley region, where it has served as a tourist destination of dubious profitability, kept running as a hobby by some older valley residents. The Coastal Highway crosses the Prospector's Creek Reservoir about twelve feet above the water's surface when the reservoir is full. The dam cannot be seen from the bridge, which has a span of only about 200 feet, so it is unimpressive to the sightseer, who follows the north-south corridor of homogenized food and fuel retailers and automobile dealerships, seeing little of the city save its glowing lights which illuminate the humid, coastal nights.
In the adjacent valley to the south, twelve miles from the center of Superb, is the Harmon Regional Airport. The village of San Pallides was unable to transition from a minor farming market hub on a train's regular water stop into a viable modern concern. When the offer came they sold the village and the surrounding land to create the new airport whose taxiway was once a busy farm road.
Between the airport and the city is the Monorail Cab System. It was built by an enthuisastic young financier who managed to gain corridors in the Skyview region of the city, but began to run into obstructionism in attempts to build into the east. Less than one third of the proposed system was built before the complex web of debts fell apart insuring the young entrepreneur would be hauled off to jail. The city was left in posession of the system which is the major means of public transportation in the Skyview area. It calls a suspended sphere of one to four person occupancy to a station where the passengers board and are fed onto the main throughway rail until they are routed along side tracks to their destination. Thick concrete pedastals about twenty feet high support bridges of girders which hold the monorail, allowing the cars to fly over ground traffic.
The cost to build onto the system exceeds the current revenue to recover it. Indeed, the current segment has still not recovered its construction cost after a decade of operation, which is often cited as justification for not extending the reach of the monorail, which is so loved by the people of Skyview.
Superb's rapid growth invited a criminal element to take advantage of new opportunities, and Superb's police force has worked very hard to combat them, including the deputization of three 'Special Operatives' who are known to have super powers. They are:
e- (pronounced "ee minus") is a computer hacker who can project his mind onto the internet.
Guardian is a woman who uses powered armor to take on street level violence.
The Sentinel is an older man in fedora and trenchcoat who solves crimes from minute details
A good number of other people with powers are employed by businesses or people of means. These Supers are ignored by the officials of the city unless they begin to commit crimes. That in itself draws more Supers from regions with less tolerance for people with powers. Those who have found a new home in Superb are quick to defend their town against militant or criminal Supers, and to date there have been no convictions of Supers for damages or injuries resulting from defending the town against Supers.
Most Supers try to stay below the radar, but the local media loves to post images and video of Blaze, a Super who flies inside a ball of fire. She is reclusive and seldom flies, but when she does it is a spectacular sight.