Area Newsfiles

Overview

Moonside is the northern continent of the Three Territories, and due to the tilt and rotation of the planet recieves more of the sunlight and heat from the twin suns than Sunside does. Gaining its name through the pocked, dry, desert contitions that dominate the continent, Moonside is a harsh place to live. It has no borders past its sea shores, few territories delineated, and no governments except for one, which ran until recently out of Augusta City, and is temporarily being held in December City.

Unlike Sunside, there are very few laws that are enforced by the government, indeed, one would not be inaccurate to say that the military forces and government is geared more towards disaster relief than actually enforcing law. Laws are made and broken on a city to city basis, made and enforced by the local law enforcement, be it a simple sheriff and their deputies or a full out police force for the larger cities. Between the cities and larger towns, bandits and thieves rule the desert, preying upon whatever enters their realms as mercilessly as the pirates do on the Grand Line.

Water is never found aboveground on Moonside except for at the coast, and is sparse everywhere else regardless. Underground rivers and lakes provide the lifeblood for most towns and cities, though a few rely on their Plants to create water for them. The land is dry and hard-packed wherever the sandy desert doesn't venture, and jagged cliffs and barren mountain ranges are not uncommon.




Gunsmoke

Defined as the territory the eight major cities outline, Gunsmoke is the 'official' nation of Moonside and the closest thing it has to any measure of civilization. Ruled by the law of the gun as much as anything, Gunsmoke is known for its Plant production as well as its general lawlessness. Within this territory, life is at least somewhat easier than in the badlands, and those who live in the cities themselves can enjoy some measure of luxury and normalcy though disaster still seems to lurk daily.

Although Gunsmoke is defined by eight major cities, only five of these are inhabitable today. December, Mei, Inepril, New Oregon, and Orleans remain standing and inhabited, while Augusta, July and Michaelangelo Cities have been destroyed - the first two by the legendary outlaw Vash the Stampede, the third by an unexplained nuclear disaster. There are dozens of other towns and villages scattered throughout Gunsmoke and the rest of Moonside; generally wherever a ship crashed during the Fall, a town or a city would spring up. The desert has claimed many of the outlying towns and cities, but the Plants in the largest ones keep the sand at bay.

City governments are run by a mayor, who then sets up their means of control as they see fit. Most often, a mayor will have an economic advisor and a sherrif under his direct command, and exercises his control of his city or town through them. Although mayors are occasionally elected to office, especially in the largest cities, it is not uncommon for a town mayor to be an ex-bandit who killed his predecessor and took up the job through force.





Plants

Plants are living organic machines that aren't entirely in the physical worlds. Primarily humanoid and female in form, they do not require very much food or water to survive, and seem content with not being clothed as well. Plants (short for power plants, due to their massive natural amounts of raw energy) can be programmed like a computer to produce any number of things, from electricity to water to meat, milk, textiles or just about anything else anyone could want or need. Producing more than they consumed, Plants are easy to operate, and need little supervision even over decades of work. They are quasi-immortal and telepathic, each and every one bred for peaceful passivity and kept their entire lives within glass environmental 'bulbs'.

Almost all Plants are virtual slaves on Moonside, producing whatever the wasteland needs to survive. These Plants have no free will, work their entire lives without pause unless gravely ill or injured, and generally have the mentality of very young, spoiled children. Although the process of drawing energy and materials from the Plants is painful, the technicians of Gunsmoke have long before the Fall perfected a semi-euphoric gas that is perpetually fed into the bulbs to keep those within from feeling the pain. The added side effects of dampening their telepathy and making them even easier to manipulate was seen as a benefit.

Very rarely, a Plant may aquire a glitch in her programming, and attempt to create a still-living thing instead of whatever is ordinarily her task. The result is almost always 'born' dead, misshapen and twisted things thrown away as byproducts and filth. Very rarely, the produced life is still alive when found. Although humanoid-formed life is most common, other forms have been found. The resultant creatures are inviariably full Plants themselves, possessing the same lifespan, energy levels, and telepathy of their 'mother' but possessing of free will and often superior intelligence. So far, only three freeborn Plants have survived past a year: two humanoid males, Knives Millions and Vash the Stampede, and one felinoid female, known only as Kuronekosama.

OC Plants that are freewilled will be heavily scrutinized, and will require a very high-quality, detailed application.

Yes, I -am- aware that canonly Kuroneko is not a Plant. So what?





Technology

Moonside is the most technologically advanced place in the Three Territories, an ironic status given how much they have to scrape to get by. While much of their technology was lost in the Fall, Moonside's people still enjoy a working knowledge of bioengineering and cybernetic enhancements. Vehicles and advanced projectile guns are common, and many cities have access to ship-sized sand steamers that are roughly analogous to cruise ships. These sand steamers are utilized both as luxury liners and the safest (and most expensive) way to ferry goods back and forth between cities.

Televisions are sparse but not rare, and the larger cities often have a regular television program set up for entertainment for its inhabitants. Outlying towns often get the local equivalent of the weather channel and little else. Medical care is advanced enough that, should one be brought to a specialist doctor in one of the remaining five major cities, so long as one was alive upon getting there, generally whatever damage had been done can be healed. It is not uncommon to find people with cybernetic limbs, or weaponry built into their bodies, or artificial organs to help keep them alive even in the frontier.





The Fall

Most of the inhabitants of Moonside are not 'native', not present before or immediately after the cataclysm that collided worlds and merged them into one. Some fifty years after the cataclysm, countless space-faring ships fell from orbit and crashed, most peppering Moonside, some unlucky few slamming into the ocean instead. This event is known as the Fall to those who live in Gunsmoke.

The ships that crashed were extremely high-tech by any standards, possessing weaponry, scanners and biotech that makes the current forms look positively primitive. But in order to survive on Moonside, these delicate, advanced machines were stripped apart and used to build the very cities that cropped up around them, the ships' already present Plants used now to fuel a city instead of a ship. The more Plants present, the greater the city that could arise there.

Although very few alive today remember the Fall or its immediate aftermath, the disaster is often attributed to Vash the Stampede.





Lost July

One of the eight major cities of Gunsmoke, this city was one of two of the most advanced that Gunsmoke had, rivalling modern times for technology and amenaties. It had well over a million inhabitants, and its imports and exports made it a well-known name across all three Territories. But all its technology didn't save it - over the course of one afternoon, this grand city was reduced to rubble. The destruction was at first attributed to a typhoon, but eventually blame came to rest on the shoulders of one man: Vash the Stampede, earning him the name Humanoid Typhoon.

Michaelangelo City
PPECs
Galerians




Trade

Gunsmoke relies on its trade with Sunside, most notably Amestris, to aquire everything it needs that the Plants cannot quickly produce. Although many shipments are lost to the predations of pirates, food, water and clothing are often shipped from the other continent to ease the workload of the semi-renewable resource that Plants provide. In return, Gunsmoke sends back the technology it has and uses extensively - things such as televisions, sattelites, and cybernetic limbs. Although Amestris has expressed interest in aquiring a Plant, Gunsmoke guards these creatures jealously, and would sooner kill the Plant than give it to the other continent.