Custodians of the City’s Nervous System
The Civic Systems Authority oversees the technological and logistical systems that allow Commonwealth City to function at all.
Food distribution algorithms.
Housing allocation matrices.
Transit flow optimization.
Healthcare triage systems.
Energy load balancing.
Public AI oversight.
The CSA does not govern people.
It governs systems that people cannot live without.
This distinction allows the CSA to claim neutrality while exercising some of the most decisive power in the City.
The CSA was formed in the early consolidation era of the Unowned City, when it became clear that collective ownership without technical stewardship led to cascading failure.
Someone had to maintain the systems.
Someone had to understand them deeply enough to prevent collapse.
That someone became the Civic Systems Authority.
Its original mandate was narrow:
Audit public AI behavior
Maintain system integrity
Prevent unilateral control of infrastructure
Over time, necessity expanded its scope.
Today, no citywide system operates without CSA certification.
They insist they are not rulers.
They insist they are custodians.
Both statements are technically correct.
The CSA is organized by domain expertise, not political alignment.
Logistics & Allocation – Food, housing, material flow
Transit & Mobility Systems – Mag-rails, drone corridors, pedestrian modeling
Health Systems Oversight – Triage AIs, cyberware safety, medical data
Energy & Climate Control – Power grids, atmospheric regulation
Public AI Ethics & Auditing – Model behavior, constraint enforcement
Each division is staffed by engineers, data scientists, systems theorists, and AI auditors whose knowledge cannot be quickly replaced.
Decisions must be defensible in system terms
Human suffering is a data signal, not a priority override
Emergencies justify temporary rule bending
Temporary measures have a habit of persisting
CSA members are not cold by nature.
They are trained to distrust emotion when systems are at stake.
The CSA rarely gives orders.
It issues system advisories.
“Allocation efficiency requires rerouting resources.”
“Risk thresholds necessitate service suspension.”
“Predictive modeling indicates unacceptable variance.”
Once a system is flagged as unstable, political debate ends.
The City defers to expertise.
The CSA knows this—and designs its language carefully.
They do not decide what should happen.
They define what must happen to avoid collapse.
To most citizens, the CSA is invisible.
Systems work.
Food arrives.
Lights stay on.
Transit flows.
When the CSA is noticed, it is usually because something has gone wrong.
A district loses priority access
A service is throttled “temporarily”
An algorithmic change reshapes daily life overnight
Public opinion splits sharply:
Supporters see the CSA as necessary adults in the room
Critics call them unelected technocrats
Radicals believe the CSA already governs the City
The CSA does not respond to criticism unless it threatens system compliance.
Assembly Secretariat: Deeply intertwined. The CSA provides technical justification; the Secretariat ensures it becomes legally immovable.
Maintenance Corps: Mutual reliance, mutual resentment. The CSA designs systems; the Corps keeps them alive.
Null Technicians: Officially nonexistent. Privately acknowledged as both threat and necessity.
Block Councils: Frequent friction. Local needs often conflict with citywide optimization.
The Data Ombuds: Persistent irritant. Privacy concerns are acknowledged, rarely prioritized.
Players encounter the CSA when systems override people.
A district is deprioritized to stabilize citywide metrics
A healthcare algorithm denies treatment based on risk modeling
A transit reroute isolates a community “temporarily”
A public AI behaves lawfully—but immorally
Players may:
Audit or sabotage systems
Expose algorithmic bias
Force human oversight into automated decisions
Become indispensable experts themselves
The CSA respects competence above all else.
Opposition without expertise is ignored.
Expert dissent is… negotiated.
The CSA is not unified in philosophy.
Stabilists believe any cost is acceptable to prevent collapse
Humanists argue systems exist to serve people, not metrics
Expansionists quietly push for broader authority “for safety”
These conflicts surface in version updates, parameter changes, and silent overrides.
No one announces a coup.
They just change the numbers.
The Civic Systems Authority did not seize power.
It inherited responsibility.
And responsibility, when combined with indispensability, becomes authority whether anyone votes for it or not.
The City trusts the CSA because it must.
The danger is not that the CSA wants to rule.
The danger is that one day, the City won’t be able to tell the difference.