Mega-City One
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Mega-City One is a huge fictional city covering much of what is now the Eastern United States in the Judge Dredd comic book series. The exact boundaries of the city depend on which artist has drawn the story.
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Description
Mega-City One has far greater population density than anywhere in the present-day world, with a total population of over 400 million people. Most city dwellers (citizens) live in huge apartment blocks (50,000+), though many citizens live a perpetually nomadic existence in mo-pads (mobile homes) due to inadequate housing provisions. Some mo-pads are quite luxurious, complete with swimming pools.
City Blocks
see also: City Block
Blocks are huge and can be considered to be a small town unto themselves and a citizen can quite easily live their whole lives without leaving a block. Due to the high unemployment rate boredom is rife among citizens thus leading to many "Block Wars".
Blocks are often named with current events in mind. A typical example; shortly after the Kidman/Cruise separation there was a prog with a block war breaking out between the 'Kidman' and 'Cruise' Blocks.
Law
Mega-City One's laws are harsh, with many crimes not found in present-day law. Possession of sugar, for example, is illegal, as is possession of tobacco. The laws are enforced by the Judges, who are a combination of judge and police officer. The Judges themselves are not above the law -- a violation that would earn a citizen a few months in an Iso-Cube would get a Judge a twenty-year sentence, to be served at hard labor on Saturn's moon, Titan, after modification to enable the convict to survive outside there without needing an expensive space suit.
see also: Judge (2000 AD)
Judges
Chief Judges
- Judge Solomon
- Judge Goodman
- Judge Cal
- Judge Griffin
- Judge McGruder
- Judge Silver
- Judge McGruder (again)
- Judge Volt
- Judge Hershey
Other Notable Judges
- Judge Dredd
- Judge Anderson PSI
- Judge DeMarco
- Judge Giant Snr
- Judge Giant
- Judge Guthrie
- Judge Rico
- Judge Castillo
- Judge Edgar
- Judge Griffin
Divisions/Bodies
Criminal influences
Many crimes in Mega-City One are controlled by flamboyant mob bosses:
- Slik Ike Kolorado is in charge of perp running (transporting felons off-world) and chump-dumping (conning aliens into believing Earth is a paradise, taking their money, and then dumping them in hard vacuum).
- The Jong family are umpty-baggers (pushers of umpty, a candy that tastes so good it forms an instant psychological addiction).
- Remington Ratner is a body-shark (someone who loans money to people willing to put a loved one into cryogenic storage for collateral).
- Shanklin Franks and Jeremy Soll run the psycos (telepathic protection rackets).
- Lumpy Lepke runs the numbers racket (buying computer passcodes for industrial theft).
- Councillor Rudd runs the stookie glanders (men who raise and butcher stookies, an intelligent race, for the anti-aging drug they produce).
- Elmo Hammer is just one of many thugs who oversees packs of hitmen, or blitzers.
Leisure
Most work in Mega-City One is carried out by robots; this has led to problems with boredom and underemployment. Boredom has fostered many problems in the city, with weird fads including Block Wars (wars between neighboring apartment blocks, waged by each block's defense militia), "ugliness clinics", and odd fashions.
Leisure in Mega-City One consists of a number of weird and wonderful futuristic hobbies and attractions:
- The Aggro Dome was conceived as a way for frustrated citizens to let off steam without endangering their fellow Meggers. Within the domes, citizens can vent their anger on robots, mock storefronts, and parked vehicles. Aggro Limited, the owners of the Aggro Dome franchise, petitioned for Judge replicoids to be added to a number of their buildings as a target for client retaliation. The request was promptly refused.
- The Alien Zoos are ever-popular attractions, featuring the most bizarre creatures from the Milky Way galaxy and beyond.
- The Central Mega-City Library is open free of charge to the public and is the storehouse of information on Mega-City One and beyond, past and present.
- The Dream Palace is a popular leisure activity -- for some, a growing necessity -- and the ultimate in escapism. Customers are plugged into dream machines where their dreams are made real. Morpheus, Inc. own the original chain of dream palaces, but were unsuccessful in blocking the expansion of rival Dream Parlours, back street services utilizing reconditioned dream machines. Some parlours offer other "diversions" to supplement their income.
- The Mega-City Chamber of Horrors features robot replicas of history's most infamous miscreants.
- The Mega-City Museum is one of the tallest buildings in Mega-City One. It specializes in the history of Mega-City One. Home to the most complete records of pre-atomic American civilization in North America. A transceiver beacon is sited atop the museum's roof, for use by the Justice Department.
- The Museum of Death focuses on murderers, warfare that resulted in mass death, and historical instruments of torture.
- The Palais-De-Boing® is a chain of purpose-built structures designed for Boingers. Boinging is illegal outside of the Palais-De-Boing®.
- The Smokatoriams are the only locations within Mega-City One limits where it is legal to smoke tobacco and nicotine-related products.
- The White Cliffs of Dover were imported from a cash-starved Brit-Cit in the aftermath of the Atomic War. It remains a popular attraction despite the fact that it is nothing more a crumbling pile of rock, chalk, and sand.
- Stookie is an illegal drug made from the glands of an intelligents alien species that stops it's users aging. Withdrawal from Stookie causes users to rapidly reach their 'real' ages.
Transit systems
Pedestrian
- Back street: Two-way passages, located in Old Town and City Bottom.
- Broad-Way: A large pedestrian plaza.
- Crossway: Any pedway intersection (AKA Crosslink).
- Eeziglide: One-way pedestrian conveyance that functions as a human conveyor-belt.
- Pedway: Pedestrian-only walkway found right across the City at all levels. Subpeds are enclosed pedways that run under Pedways.
- Zipstrip: One or two-way pedestrian walkway that links blocks and smaller interchanges. Enclosed zipstrips are called Pipeways.
Vehicular
- Boomway: One or two-way multi-level Mega-Way (between four to ten lanes width, two to four levels height).
- Filter: One-way exit or entrance to and from parking areas.
- Flyover: Skedway that passes over a city block (AKA Overzoom).
- Inter-Block Zoom: Maglev train-system which replaced the old Sky-Rail network in the late Twenty-first Century. Provides a link between all the city blocks in any given sector.
- Intersection: Road junction.
- Judge's Lane: Two-way road that runs parallel to major roadways, reserved for Justice Department usage.
- Median Strip: Protective barrier which prevents accidents in one half of a road from spreading to the other half.
- Mega Circular: Two-way, six-lane Meg-Way which bypasses through-sector traffic to benefit long-distance drivers.
- Meg-Way: Largest road design in Mega-City One. Two-way, between four to twenty lanes, amd central reservation (AKA Megaway, Speedway, Throughway, X-Pressway).
- Parkarama: Ground vehicle park.
- Podport: Hover vehicle park.
- Skedway: One-way highway, between one to five lanes. Interskeds connect one skedway to another (AKA Feedway). Underskeds are single-lane roads, often reserved for public service traffic only, that pass underneath skeds. Overskeds are the same, but pass over skeds.
- Sky-Rail: Obsolete monorail public transit-system introduced in the early 21st century. One-third of Mega-City One still actively uses the Sky-Rail network while it awaits upgrading to the zoom-system. The largest Sky-Rail intersection in the City is Hell's Junction.
- Slipzoom: One-way, between one to four lanes, used for larger interchanges. An Underzoom (AKA Flyunder) is a single-lane road often reserved for public service traffic only that passes under a Slipzoom.
- Superslab: The longest Meg-Way in Mega-City One, bisecting the City from north to south. Twenty-four lanes, 1,220 kilometers in length (AKA Mega-City 500).
- Wayby: Small zones set aside Meg-Ways and Skedways in regular intervals where drivers can pull-off and temporarily park their vehicles.
- Zoomtube: The most recent traffic innovation in Mega-City One. An enclosed road-system where all traffic is platooned and computer-controlled for optimum speed and driver-safety.
Other cities mentioned in Judge Dredd
- Mega-City Two - located in Southern California.
- Texas City - also called Mega-City Three, home of the Angel Gang and notable for its Western motifs.
- Brit-Cit - in the British Isles.
- Andean Conglom.
- Ciudad Baranquilla.
- East Meg One - Soviet Mega City equivalent.
- East Meg Two.
- Megagrad - On the ruins of East Meg One.
- Ciudad Espana.
- Euro City.
- Hondo City.
- Sino Cit.
- Oz.