[Setting/RPM] The City of Triangle

[ajardoor]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

How long has the city been established? With substantial travel bottlenecks, it's probably not going to be able to grow its population that quickly.

The city was established around 40 years ago, but didn't "hit its stride" until about 25 years ago. The "travel bottlenecks" applicable here are shifts in the area's natural planar gates - sometimes they switch off or change destination every six months, which disrupts trade. Magi can use magic to create their own gates, but this means further issues. Government oversight, sabotage, corruption, extra costs - all these explain why relying on "artificial" gates rather than existing natural gates would be less attractive until you have no choice.

Also, a "Free City" in a TL8 culture that only discovered the "outer planes" in the last 40 years? How many major trading port free cities can you think of in the modern world (I can only think of Hong Kong and it's not independent in any real sense)? How many combat divisions do it's neighbors have on it's borders to contain potential outer-planar problems? How many does the city have to retain it's independence (note that these people would count as directly employed in the above estimate).

The "Free City" thing mostly indicates that the outer planes are mostly a No-Man's Land. Earth governments prefer to offload the inherent risk of colonising the dangerous outer planes to multi-national corporations, and stick to soft power and indirect influence. Claiming outer planes settlements for a Earth nation does happen in small amounts and very rarely because it is a bit of an money sink AND it can make waves. Better to let NGOs carry the burden and responsibilities, and then take a piece of the profits by selectively opening your markets to them.

In other words, Triangle owes its political independence (if it has any below the surface) to Earth nations trying an "hands-off" approach that frees them of messy responsibilities - conquering Triangle would just make them a target, while letting it be gives them a chance to leech off the city. No doubt, the Earth nations do try to manipulate Triangle power struggles through money. If Triangle explodes, it just means a pawn is sacrificed rather than a leg cut off.

"Neighbours" and "borders" get a little blurry when interplanar gates are involved. Suffice to say, both sides of every gate are fortified checkpoints with tight security (or so we hope...criminals can make a mint off an unregistered gate). The City of Triangle itself doesn't have any outstanding outer planar problems in its area (no monsters, for instance), which is why it has prospered so. I'd imagine the city of Triangle allows certain Earth nations to station some troops and military bases to protect the city as part of their trade agreements - you deploy some men in case of monster attack and we lower some prices here or there.