Hydro Hegemony

Hydro Hegemony

In a city where drinking fountains are filled with soda, water isn’t a resource—it’s a throne. @The Hydro Hegemony sits on it like kings, controlling most that flows through Baratopia. What began as a handful of engineers and plumbers patching up the filtration grid turned into the city’s most ruthless monopoly. Their territory, @The Waterworks, is a gleaming maze of steel towers, algae-choked reservoirs, and subterranean cisterns—all locked behind barbed gates and armed checkpoints.

At the top sits @Valve, a cunning ex-plumber turned water baron, who learned early that scarcity is the sharpest blade. His enforcers, clad in plumber and scuba gear and armed with weaponized power washers, patrol the streets handing out ration pouches with one hand while marking “dry list” names with the other. Those who pay the water tax—whether in tech, territory, or obedience—drink. Those who don’t… don’t.

On the surface, the Hegemony wears the mask of public service. Their kiosks shine with polished chrome, their workers speak in clean civic tones, and they hold “hydration drives” that draw desperate crowds. But beneath the smile is a vice grip. Pumps “malfunction” in rebellious districts. Leak teams flood basements or sabotage competing wells. Even @The Citadel Council trades quietly with the Hegemony, because in Baratopia, no one survives without their flow. Every faucet, every bottle, every drop is counted.