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  1. THE FRACTURED REACH
  2. Lore

MEGACITY COMPLEX: CORELINE METROPOLIS

MEGACITY COMPLEX: CORELINE METROPOLIS

“Where progress is mandatory, loyalty is profitable, and freedom is a billable offense.”

Coreline Metropolis is the beating metallic heart of the Corporate Constellations’ empire on Iron Pass—a sprawling, multi-tiered megacity carved into the frozen crust and rising in glittering layers toward a smog-choked sky. It is the only place on the planet where the cold, iron wind is muted by noise, neon, and the constant hum of commerce.

Built atop ancient mining superstructures and expanded through relentless corporate ambition, Coreline is part financial district, part propaganda machine, part worker containment grid, and part glittering showpiece used to convince off-world visitors that the Constellations represent stability.

In truth, Coreline is a labyrinth of polished lies and steel bars.


I. FIRST IMPRESSIONS — THE SHIMMERING PRISON

From a distance, Coreline looks almost utopian:

  • Holo-billboards glow like constellations

  • Glass towers reflect the stormlight

  • Elevated rail lines ribbon between megastructures

  • Corporate mascots smile down from skyscraper faces

But step closer and the cracks reveal themselves:

  • Drone patrols sweep the streets

  • Surveillance towers blink with cold purpose

  • Advertising screens loop the same five slogans

  • Workers move in waves, synchronized by shift alarms

Coreline shines like a beacon,
but every light has an owner—and a price.


II. DISTRICTS OF CORELINE

1. The Pinnacle District — Corporate Olympus

The highest, cleanest, and most exclusive level of the megacity.

Here stand the headquarters of the three Constellation divisions:

  • Dominion Ironworks Hall

  • Hardspar Directorate Spire

  • Cindermere Research Forum

Streets are lined with air-purified promenades, corporate gardens, and armored limousines. The sky above is filled with holo-sculptures of smiling executives and corporate manifestos.

Unauthorized entry is met with immediate detainment—sometimes “temporary,” sometimes not.


2. The Commerce Lattice — Consumerism’s Maw

The mid-level maze of malls, trade halls, neon avenues, vendor blocks, and promotional plazas.

Here one finds:

  • megastores selling everything from food packs to branded oxygen canisters

  • hyperbright arcades

  • banks and credit firms tied to corporate loyalty programs

  • entertainment domes with artificial beaches

  • endless ads promising a “Better You Through Corporate Advancement™”

This is where corporate propaganda is at its loudest and brightest.
Joy is mandatory.
Spending is expected.


3. The Tiered Habitats — Contract Living

Massive cylindrical living towers packed with worker families and contract employees.

Features include:

  • narrow windows

  • recycled-air corridors

  • scheduled lighting cycles

  • biometric locks tied to employment status

  • constant loudspeaker announcements

Each habitat block has its own corporate “morale officer,” equivalent to a prison warden with a marketing degree.

Workers joke that you don’t live in Coreline—you’re stored there.


4. The Underworks — Where the City Bleeds Oil

A labyrinth of maintenance tunnels, freight elevators, coolant rivers, fusion kilns, and old mining shafts repurposed into power channels.

This is where infrastructure crews, unauthorized laborers, and the desperate barter for survival.

Here, everything the Corporate Constellations want to hide is buried:

  • terminated experiments

  • failed prototypes

  • unregistered personnel

  • dissidents

  • forgotten machinery that still hums

The Underworks is a graveyard of discarded ambition.


III. PROPAGANDA & CONTROL

Coreline never stops talking.

Every wall, every transport rail, every holo-display radiates carefully engineered corporate messaging:

  • “Compliance Leads to Prosperity.”

  • “Constellation Stability: Your Future Secured.”

  • “Iron Pass: The Heart of a Better Reach.”

  • “Loyalty Bonuses Now Available for Multi-Generation Contracts.”

Security drones recite mantra-like reminders about productivity.
Executives appear in live streams with impossibly perfect smiles.
Workers receive personalized ads based on their output metrics.

You don’t just live under surveillance.
You live under advertisements about surveillance.


IV. LIFE IN CORELINE

The Illusion of Opportunity

There are jobs, but they are indentured.
There are promotions, but they cost loyalty.
There is entertainment, but it is engineered to pacify.

Crime Exists—Just Not Publicly

The Void Cartels maintain no open presence here, but their fingerprints appear in:

  • counterfeit ID chips

  • corporate espionage contracts

  • discreet disappearances

Rebellion Flickers in the Shadows

Union cells try to organize between habitat levels.
Hackers attempt to breach morale networks.
Freecrew agents occasionally slip in disguised as vendors.

The Constellations crush these efforts quickly—yet not completely.

Enough survives to keep the spark alive.


V. WHY CORELINE MATTERS

Coreline is the Constellations’ showpiece:
a monument to corporate power built atop a world of suffering and ore.

It represents:

  • everything the Constellations promise

  • and everything they hide

For players, it is a powder keg of narrative hooks:

  • infiltrations

  • labor riots

  • corporate espionage

  • rescue missions

  • sabotage operations

  • undercover work

  • defectors seeking asylum

  • corporate war between divisions

It is a cyberpunk dystopia turned inward, polished outside and rotten deep.


VI. SUMMARY — “THE CITY THAT WORKS. YOU DON’T GET A CHOICE.”

Coreline Metropolis is:

A glittering trap.
A fortress of glass.
A monument to a broken promise.
A city where dreams are commodities
and freedom is contraband.

It is the Constellations’ pride, their mask, their machine—
and the largest crack in their armor.