Power does not own the City. It moves through it.
Role: Procedural authority, law interpretation
Power Source: Process control, bureaucratic inertia
Reputation: Invisible, untouchable
Threat Profile: Low violence, high consequence
Story Use: Buried investigations, weaponized delay, legal dead ends
Role: Infrastructure & AI oversight
Power Source: Technical indispensability
Reputation: Neutral in name, decisive in practice
Threat Profile: Algorithmic bias, “necessary” harm
Story Use: Data ethics, system failures, quiet authoritarian drift
Role: Logistics labor federation
Power Source: Total shutdown capability
Reputation: Working-class backbone
Threat Profile: Strikes, sabotage, external manipulation
Story Use: Labor wars, solidarity under pressure, political fracture
Role: Smuggling via accounting
Power Source: Information dominance
Reputation: Semi-legal, quietly feared
Threat Profile: Exposure, moral compromise
Story Use: Smuggling with receipts, truth as leverage
Role: Hyper-local governance
Power Source: Reputation enforcement
Reputation: Community first, city second
Threat Profile: Vigilante justice, turf escalation
Story Use: Local loyalty conflicts, street-level law
Role: Underground healthcare & cyberware
Power Source: Medical necessity
Reputation: Heroes or monsters
Threat Profile: Experimental failures, city crackdowns
Story Use: Medical ethics, hunted healers, lives on the line
Role: Historical narrative control
Power Source: Authority over memory
Reputation: Academic neutrality (claimed)
Threat Profile: Erasure, revisionism
Story Use: Suppressed truths, ideological rewriting
Role: Cultural influence network
Power Source: Reputation, legacy, funding
Reputation: “Not a faction”
Threat Profile: Soft coercion
Story Use: Hypocrisy, influence without ownership
Role: Artists & creators cooperative
Power Source: Cultural visibility
Reputation: Trend-makers
Threat Profile: Manufactured outrage, memetic warfare
Story Use: Art as politics, fame as leverage
Role: Identity brokers
Power Source: Persona control
Reputation: Necessary, dangerous
Threat Profile: Social assassination
Story Use: False lives, erased pasts, stolen futures
Role: Official infrastructure labor
Power Source: System knowledge
Reputation: Ignored until absent
Threat Profile: Walkouts, cascading failures
Story Use: Infrastructure collapse, worker revolt
Role: Unofficial system fixers
Power Source: Total system awareness
Reputation: Urban myth
Threat Profile: Knowledge monopoly
Story Use: Secret repairs, controlled sabotage
Role: Radical individualists
Power Source: Black markets & ideology
Reputation: Dangerous extremists
Threat Profile: Ideological terrorism
Story Use: Philosophical conflict, external funding
Role: Experimental collectivist communities
Power Source: Social experimentation
Reputation: Hopeful or tragic
Threat Profile: Collapse, unintended harm
Story Use: Failed utopias, moral responsibility
Role: Privacy & surveillance watchdogs
Power Source: Legal advocacy
Reputation: Publicly loved, politically sidelined
Threat Profile: Institutional neglect
Story Use: Whistleblowers, data rights battles
Role: Foreign powers & proxies
Power Source: Resources, pressure, patience
Reputation: Never neutral
Threat Profile: Infiltration, subversion
Story Use: Cold wars, ideological espionage