Welcome to Post-Apocalyptic Sydney

Flag of the semi-autonomous corporate enclave of Sydney

I figured that while I’m explaining things, I should spill out a few key facts about Sydney and what it's like to Run there. Calling it different would be an understatement.

The first thing you need to understand is that Sydney is sort of kind of but not quite a part of the Republic of Australia, except for those times that it is. Strictly speaking, it's not even a part of the state of New South Wales any more either. That's a rather complicated story, and is a big part of the 'different' that I mentioned above. You see, Sydney is ground zero for a massive, semi-permanent Mana Storm. It fluctuates in strength and intensity, and some days it's almost normal, but the point is that it's there pretty much all time. The storms are massively disruptive and incredibly damaging, and have gone a long way to the city's current state.

Australia circa 2076. The lack of Hobart is intentional

The storm first appeared sixty-something years ago in a massive surge that devastated the city. Massive casualties, buildings being destroyed, disruption of services and the near destruction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge among other things. By the time it was over, the city was a right mess and in desperate need of aid. What it got was a none too polite 'bugger off' from the Australian Government, being essentially told to look after our own mess and not to expect any help. To add to it all, the State government up and fled the city, shacking up with the Federal Mob in Canberra. All sorts of other things moved as well, like the ASX buggering off to Melbourne of all places.

Instead the Corps moved in and formed a 'Civic Council' with the city's leadership, in essence turning Sydney into an independent city-state within Australia. Basically the Federal or State Governments have no real power over it, but it's still a part of the Nation on paper and for useless things like the census and crap.

So the Corps basically run the City, more so then they do in other places (For the benefit of Yanks reading this, think of it as being more like Corp-Ruled Manhattan but with Seattle's sense of geographic isolation in the middle of hostile territory. Fun times!). There's a bunch of Corporate 'advisers' on the City Council who's job is to look after their interests and effectively control every decision the council makes.

The Big Ten are present in spades, Power comes from Shiawase Nuclear at Lucas Heights. Telecommunications and Matrix come from Baird Communications (Formerly Telstra, now a subsidiary of Renraku). Hospitals and healthcare come from EVO via their Crashcart subsidiary. Policing comes from Knight Errant. Hell, the biggest bloody airline to operate out of Kingsford Smith is Qantas, an Ares subsidiary (though that could also be because no other mongrel is brave or stupid enough to do it).

Octan Logo (as if the name wasn't obvious)

There's also a host of other companies present one way or another. The completely privatized transport services are run by a gaggle of corps including the Brown Bus Company. There's Tanamyre, Australia's home-grown Mega, who are all about mineral extraction, electronics, drones and weapons. They and Aztechnology have been vying for the Sydney Water service contract for years, with it going back and forth between the two (And never getting better). Or Octan, who do energy, media, surveillance systems and overpriced coffee among other things.

There are four major corporate enclaves in Sydney. The City's CBD, North Sydney, Chatswood and Parramatta. All four of them are high-security Corp Zones where your SIN will be regularly checked by KE, so they're not a good place to be if you're a Runner. The CBD is by far the most tightly controlled of the four, especially given the restricted vehicle access (see below) and is home the City Council. The Chatswood and North Sydney ones dominate a corridor of controlled space between them and are slowly merging into one contiguous Corp Zone. Finally the Parramatta one is more of an island of corp power in the middle of an urban wasteland, so there the cops are primarily focused on keeping the rabble out.

The former State Parliament building. I don't remember who
owns it now 

Amusingly enough, the former State Parliament building (a lovely early 19th century Sandstone job) was bought by one of the corps after it was abandoned who turned it into a prestigious PR front office. So even if the government did come back, they'd have no place to go. Serves the buggers right.

Getting around Sydney is a pain in the arse. The roads are generally in poor shape at best (and completely buggered at worst) the result of a combination of Manastorms and deliberate neglect. Most people get around by public transport, be it busses, trains or light rail. (Unlike many other places, the busses in Sydney usually have drivers so that they don't lose control during a Mana Storm.) Added to this, the city CBD is completely blocked off to private traffic, the result of some "brilliant" Lord Mayor's master plan decades ago. The result is that a driver like me has to learn to be creative. I look for the side-roads, the back routes, the disused industrial lines or whatever else as a way of getting from A to B. It definitely helps to have a rugged off-road vehicle capable of taking a hit.

Security Zones in Sydney. Blue is the best, yellow is the
worst. Red is "No way, mate"

And finally, there's the Mana Storms. They're pretty much constant and vary in intensity from 'annoying background' to 'apocalyptic'. You get used to the former, but as they ramp up you learn to run for cover. When it gets really bad the city is completely isolated from the rest of the world, communications get spotty and all sorts of crap can and will happen. It’s also apparently hell on the awakened, not that I’d know anything about that. While there have been several ideas on ways to protect the city, none of them have come to fruition largely because they're just so insanely big. (Maybe if we had Federal assistance...). Nobody knows where the storms came from, why they're so strong or why they've stuck around for so long, but there you go. It also makes Sydney the most downright hostile city in Australia to live in. (Well, besides Hobart, but that's another matter...)