Here we go, the next part:
Hearth and Home: Ningal, Nanmu and Ishkur.
While people live in any section of the city, those three districts are the main residential areas. Curiously, while most visitors think on steampunkers and goths as the prototype Mardukian, those live mainly on the rest of the city, while the residential zones have their own distinctive identities.
Ningal, the westernmost district, is the first neighbourhood most visitors will meet, as it hosts the rail terminal from the city's main gate.
Unlike the tourist areas, you will not find any art galleries, designer stores or souvenir shops here; this is a district of groceries, clothing, and dinner bars. Dane tourists seldom enter, but among fen this zone is know for its rock and punk pubs. And spirits; the Little Belt has one of the highest concentration of distilleries in fenspace (to the minor shock of Oscar Vykos, who had lovingly started a fancy wineries industry... Mardukan alcohol imports seldom are the kind you serve with white gloves)
Its habitants are mainly workers from the industrial section in Sumugan Gate. One of its stranger zones is the area known as the Little Belt, several neighbourhood were thousands of Belters now live.
Usually, one would think than the tough, libertarian belters and a bunch of effete artistic snobs from Luna would be natural enemies, but, as it did with so many things, the War changed everything. The last stages of the Marduk Dome project ended just as the peaceful utopia collapsed; like all other big company moguls, Oscar had to turn tracks and go in unexpected paths. Marduk's decorative walls got not-so-decorative weapon nests, the shipyards changed production from construction droids to warships, the construction sites in the Belt had to be abandoned or get an armed escort...
By 2012 the main commercial interests of Genesis were Belt habitats, so Oscar was well aware of rumours of trouble by the time of SOS-con; he had no doubts in adding his support. Genesis did not have much to give in soldier numbers, but it had a big construction facility far away from the front lines to build small ships and repair damaged ones. More importantly, when the battles began to rage and refugees began to pour into the inner system, he had an entire empty city available . He offered Marduk as a place for Belter refugees; at the height of the war, 60-70,000 belters were living in the city (more than twice its current population); their help was invaluable for finishing the crater so fast in the middle of a war. Most returned to their homes after the Fall of Boskone Prime (and the hangover from the month-long victory party) ended, but some remained.
At first, and second, sight, Nanmu district looks the most fendane section of the city. It is, actually; this is where the (mostly) spanish 'dane workers of Genesis live with their families. It would feel like a small spanish town, but for the cheerful, and tireless, efforts from the fen to assimilate their neighbours. Resistance is Futile.
This district is the hand-out of the more 'dane pseudofactions: Fans of noir detective stories, cop shows and mystery novels. That is in part due to the Church of Fenspace cathedral in the south of the peninsula. Taking his cue form Port Lowell, Oscar decided to name the church St. Joshua -”Joshua being, not an actual saint, but the pope-in-exile than fled the planet in the last chapter of Canticle for Leibowitz. As it happens, St. Joshua is also the catholic patron saint of spies, so any Mardukan fen who liked lurking and snooping (and which by their very fen nature tend to know a lot of useless trivia, like weird patron saints) gravitated there, dressed in long trenches and form-fitting dresses.
Fen never waste a chance to expand on a joke; all of the main factions, which kept a representation in Enlil, also have an official resident spy in Nanmu; they spend a lot of time following each other and doing strange signals to random passer-by (some of which may actually be true signals). There are rumours than a CIA spy from nearby Port Luna was once discovered, and Oscar sent a stern letter to Langley about the shocking breach of protocol -he was living in Innana! (the rumours are false, but after hearing then Oscar plans to do exactly that once the city Watch discovers an spy the want to unmask, just to see the face they have in Langley)
On the western tip of the peninsula is an ornate keep. This was once the second biggest watchouse (after the Headquarters in Utu), but when the Space Patrol was created Marduk reorganized its law enforcement; this is one of the two buildings ceded to the Space Patrol to serve as their headquarters (the other is one of the towers in the outer wall)
The skyline of Ishkur is the most dramatic in the city; a forest of fantasy towers, a huge coliseum rising like a giant in the middle. This is the quidditch stadium, and as it and the dozens of age towers tell in a glance, this is the magical district.
Potterites, trough, are a minority here. Marduk is the city for the goths, the necromancers, the dark sorceresses, the voodoo priests, the shifter shamans, and the vampire blood mages. In normal speak (which is rather frowned upon in most fen cities), those are the doctors, geneticists, and, for the ones who really are into the whole “evil” part, lawyers and accountants. In fact, most of the day-to-day care of the city life support systems and environment is done by those magical necromancers and shamans (and the ones living in Thronos Rokke); this shows in the formal title of the head f Life Support in the crater, “The Archdruid”
Incidentally, Marduk is possibly the only city on the Solar System than has created regulations and fines for the use of voodoo dolls against other people, and has a crater-wide Standard Zombie Apocalypse Operating Procedure. If this is a joke law to follow the city style, no one is telling.
And because handwavium is never willing to let go a good (or bad) joke:
-"Boss, boss! Good news! Someone at Nuevo Cuzco has managed to break the quirk in the translators, now we have one than does not translate to spanish!"
-"Wonderful. So we have the English-Japanese ready at last?"
-"Er... no. It is a Quechua-Isan translator."
-"..."
-"..."
-"Okay, I'll bite. What is Isan?"
-"A Laosian dialect from northern Thailand, or so wikipedia claims."
-"I think we have the only Incans in fenspace... are there any Isan speakers at all? Ot any other Thais, for that matter?"
-"Well... I think there are a few dozen in Kandor... and one group or two in Ganimedes and the Belt... some of then will speak Isan? Maybe?"
Hearth and Home: Ningal, Nanmu and Ishkur.
While people live in any section of the city, those three districts are the main residential areas. Curiously, while most visitors think on steampunkers and goths as the prototype Mardukian, those live mainly on the rest of the city, while the residential zones have their own distinctive identities.
Ningal, the westernmost district, is the first neighbourhood most visitors will meet, as it hosts the rail terminal from the city's main gate.
Unlike the tourist areas, you will not find any art galleries, designer stores or souvenir shops here; this is a district of groceries, clothing, and dinner bars. Dane tourists seldom enter, but among fen this zone is know for its rock and punk pubs. And spirits; the Little Belt has one of the highest concentration of distilleries in fenspace (to the minor shock of Oscar Vykos, who had lovingly started a fancy wineries industry... Mardukan alcohol imports seldom are the kind you serve with white gloves)
Its habitants are mainly workers from the industrial section in Sumugan Gate. One of its stranger zones is the area known as the Little Belt, several neighbourhood were thousands of Belters now live.
Usually, one would think than the tough, libertarian belters and a bunch of effete artistic snobs from Luna would be natural enemies, but, as it did with so many things, the War changed everything. The last stages of the Marduk Dome project ended just as the peaceful utopia collapsed; like all other big company moguls, Oscar had to turn tracks and go in unexpected paths. Marduk's decorative walls got not-so-decorative weapon nests, the shipyards changed production from construction droids to warships, the construction sites in the Belt had to be abandoned or get an armed escort...
By 2012 the main commercial interests of Genesis were Belt habitats, so Oscar was well aware of rumours of trouble by the time of SOS-con; he had no doubts in adding his support. Genesis did not have much to give in soldier numbers, but it had a big construction facility far away from the front lines to build small ships and repair damaged ones. More importantly, when the battles began to rage and refugees began to pour into the inner system, he had an entire empty city available . He offered Marduk as a place for Belter refugees; at the height of the war, 60-70,000 belters were living in the city (more than twice its current population); their help was invaluable for finishing the crater so fast in the middle of a war. Most returned to their homes after the Fall of Boskone Prime (and the hangover from the month-long victory party) ended, but some remained.
At first, and second, sight, Nanmu district looks the most fendane section of the city. It is, actually; this is where the (mostly) spanish 'dane workers of Genesis live with their families. It would feel like a small spanish town, but for the cheerful, and tireless, efforts from the fen to assimilate their neighbours. Resistance is Futile.
This district is the hand-out of the more 'dane pseudofactions: Fans of noir detective stories, cop shows and mystery novels. That is in part due to the Church of Fenspace cathedral in the south of the peninsula. Taking his cue form Port Lowell, Oscar decided to name the church St. Joshua -”Joshua being, not an actual saint, but the pope-in-exile than fled the planet in the last chapter of Canticle for Leibowitz. As it happens, St. Joshua is also the catholic patron saint of spies, so any Mardukan fen who liked lurking and snooping (and which by their very fen nature tend to know a lot of useless trivia, like weird patron saints) gravitated there, dressed in long trenches and form-fitting dresses.
Fen never waste a chance to expand on a joke; all of the main factions, which kept a representation in Enlil, also have an official resident spy in Nanmu; they spend a lot of time following each other and doing strange signals to random passer-by (some of which may actually be true signals). There are rumours than a CIA spy from nearby Port Luna was once discovered, and Oscar sent a stern letter to Langley about the shocking breach of protocol -he was living in Innana! (the rumours are false, but after hearing then Oscar plans to do exactly that once the city Watch discovers an spy the want to unmask, just to see the face they have in Langley)
On the western tip of the peninsula is an ornate keep. This was once the second biggest watchouse (after the Headquarters in Utu), but when the Space Patrol was created Marduk reorganized its law enforcement; this is one of the two buildings ceded to the Space Patrol to serve as their headquarters (the other is one of the towers in the outer wall)
The skyline of Ishkur is the most dramatic in the city; a forest of fantasy towers, a huge coliseum rising like a giant in the middle. This is the quidditch stadium, and as it and the dozens of age towers tell in a glance, this is the magical district.
Potterites, trough, are a minority here. Marduk is the city for the goths, the necromancers, the dark sorceresses, the voodoo priests, the shifter shamans, and the vampire blood mages. In normal speak (which is rather frowned upon in most fen cities), those are the doctors, geneticists, and, for the ones who really are into the whole “evil” part, lawyers and accountants. In fact, most of the day-to-day care of the city life support systems and environment is done by those magical necromancers and shamans (and the ones living in Thronos Rokke); this shows in the formal title of the head f Life Support in the crater, “The Archdruid”
Incidentally, Marduk is possibly the only city on the Solar System than has created regulations and fines for the use of voodoo dolls against other people, and has a crater-wide Standard Zombie Apocalypse Operating Procedure. If this is a joke law to follow the city style, no one is telling.
And because handwavium is never willing to let go a good (or bad) joke:
-"Boss, boss! Good news! Someone at Nuevo Cuzco has managed to break the quirk in the translators, now we have one than does not translate to spanish!"
-"Wonderful. So we have the English-Japanese ready at last?"
-"Er... no. It is a Quechua-Isan translator."
-"..."
-"..."
-"Okay, I'll bite. What is Isan?"
-"A Laosian dialect from northern Thailand, or so wikipedia claims."
-"I think we have the only Incans in fenspace... are there any Isan speakers at all? Ot any other Thais, for that matter?"
-"Well... I think there are a few dozen in Kandor... and one group or two in Ganimedes and the Belt... some of then will speak Isan? Maybe?"