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IMPORTANT NOTE PLEASE READ:
City 04 was a beacon of Union excellence. The Communist Party of China integrated itself seamlessly with the Universal Union’s structure. For its’ Citizens, not much changed.
Political agitators were detained, opposing parties squashed, and religious freedoms completely erased. Some would go on to say the takeover was a natural progression of the party itself.
Civil Protection were famous, or infamous, depending on who you ask, for their lockstep loyalty in service not to the faceless overlords atop the Combine apparatus but to their leaders within Civil Protection. While the fully transhumanized Sector Commander formally was in charge of the metroplex and it's surrounding areas, the all too human Division Leaders were who really commanded the respect and loyalty of those in Civil Protection, both the goons and the honest men. While quotas continued to be met in daylight, by night Civil Protection often busied itself with extortionate racketeering schemes and allowing the proliferation of gambling and drugs in exchange for a cut of the material gain.
It’s populace found itself apathetic towards the doings of the UU. Most found the distractions of materialistic interest enough to be satisfied. With the people indifferent to their rulers, rackets of gambling, prostitution, and the use of drugs filled their past time. There was little resistance. Many people occupied themselves fighting against their own desires and vices instead of the state.
The sparse Chinese resistance cells in and around City 04 found themselves poorly organized and ill-equipped at the onset of the global uprising. The sweeping victories that had taken place across the globe were not to be found in City 04. The Union’s concrete hold over the populace built in the following years through either apathy or privilege brought significant challenges to bear on the resistance’s ability to organize and fight beyond their sparse footholds in the slum districts surrounding Kowloon city.
Many of the outlying districts however did fall into resistance control in the initial weeks of fighting, but one thing remained -- it’s Citadel. Hong Kong island had proven to be impenetrable. The Citizens present here found no interest in taking up arms. All thought of an uprising had been drowned out by their own choices to lead selfish amoral lifestyles. The Union provided them security, and those loyal to its banners enjoyed a lifestyle never before imaginable.
Prompted by the destruction of both Nova Prospekt and City 17 in a short 2 weeks, the stalemate in City 04 was broken by the forging of an unlikely alliance between Civil Protection and the remnants of the cities’ botched resistance. Foreseeing the turmoil and chaos that would ensue with what was surmised to be the total collapse of centralized UU presence on Earth, the Divisional Leaders of City 04 realized an opportunity was before them. In a bloody month, Overwatch was cleansed from the city by the coalition, dubbed the Human Reunification Front
In the immediate weeks following Reunification Day, remainders of the rank and file resistance were liquidated. Having outlived their usefulness, they were deemed counter-revolutionary. The remnants of the Union’s divisional leaders sought to consolidate power with a spree of mass-arrests and summary executions. Human Reunification Front remained a political aegis for the thinly guised military junta, comprised of the cities’ former division leaders, to rise from the ashes of the global uprising with firm control of the Citadel, its’ surrounding districts, and a legion of armed and loyal men. Though they no longer wear masks, some things remained as they always were.
CURRENT DAY
The creeping walls that separate the sprawling metroplex from the wastes beyond Kowloon still remain. Human Reunification Front has maintained control over Hong Kong island and the cloudbreaking monolith seated at the foot of it, off the coast of the Kowloon peninsula.The citadel remains operational despite it’s denizens lacking full understanding of its’ innermost workings. Because of this, the local suppression field node, housed within the Citadel itself, remains active. Hong Kong and the larger area around it have taken on an almost mythological reputation as a vice ridden city where all are welcome to come to make a Faustian bargain: trading future generations away in exchange for a chance to live a life of hedonism while the world burns around them.
There is some kernel of truth to it, but fact is far worse than reputation. The suppression field remains active, no children can be born in the area, reaching far beyond the city walls. Due to this and the granularization of the population under CMB occupation, family is a rare comfort. In truth, Hong Kong is now a ruthless place of vice and ambition devoid of rules outside the island. For those that do achieve some measure of success in commerce, or even for those with keen enough political sensibilities to pass threshold of Hong Kong island itself, there is some truth to the cities’ reputation as a place of luxury and wealth. However for the many more that live in the packed slums to the south, though they are behind the city walls and enjoy some measure of security from the likes of antlion soldiers, still find themselves crammed into a dog-eat-dog world. Though most can feed themselves and might scrape together enough at the end of the week to gamble it away or visit their favorite whore in the south-end, real long term opportunities are scant. Nihilism and poverty are rife on the peninsula while lights shine brightly from the island at night.
Not all is as it seems for those on the island, however. Unbeknownst to most of the denizens that dwell at the citadel’s foot, they sit in a precarious position. The citadel’s main reactor was damaged in the Front’s month long battle to wrestle control away from Overwatch. But a small pinprick, it was enough to set off a slow but certain cascade of inevitable failure that has only been forestalled by reducing the citadel’s core to its’ lowest state of output, making it impossible to provide power to the rest of Kowloon peninsula. Even then, blackouts have been radiating through the island with growing frequency and duration as of late, calling into question the opulent lifestyle many of the inhabitants have come to expect in exchange for their loyalty.
The damage done to the core can be fixed but requires the citadel’s ongoing reactor to be forestalled while repairs are made.They lack the ignition agent to restart the reaction afterwards. However, rumors have reached the junta that a sample of the ignition agent may be found in one of the labs dedicated to dark fusion research, of which there was at least one in the City 17 area. While the chairman continues his path of inaction and denial of the citadel’s continued failure, the winds of change are in the air again among his co-conspirators, the other former division leaders..
IMPORTANT CHARACTER BIOS
Chairman Suen Tak-cheung: Once an incredibly ambitious Division Leader, after personally orchestrating the plot to betray the resistance fighters that aided in clearing the city of Overwatch, he has become extremely paranoid, trusting fewer and fewer of his inner circle.This fissure has led the chairman to become wholly occupied with solidifying his own seat of power on the island for life instead of making more important executive decisions. Consequently, the Kowloon peninsula is a mostly lawless land even though it sits behind the creeping walls. Likewise, the chairman has brushed aside concerns of the failing citadel, believing it can be operated at half-mast indefinitely. Even going so far as to believe that the peninsula remaining without electricity while the island basks in it's warm glow is part of the natural order that should be upheld.
Director Conrad Lau: Former sociostability Divisional Leader. Rose to power under the Chairmans’ initial reign of terror by directing his men to carry out many of the raids and summary executions themselves. There was doubt among many to take arms against Overwatch at first, and once that bloody victory had come, double-so to betray their fellow man they’d fought beside, but Director Lau made examples of some early dissenters and the rest fell in line. His men are still responsible for hunting down remnants of those resistance cells that scattered into the peninsula following Reunification Day, sometimes seen dusting down a Kowloon street in a re-purposed combine APC.
Director Ngai Shiu-kit: Former Divisional Leader of the technical squads. Instrumental in the Front’s ability to take limited control of the citadel due to his and his people’s knowledge of the systems they had been using and maintaining for years. More recently, him and his most trusted cohorts have sought to revive the tradition of Hong Kong island as a vibrant center of commerce and trade by establishing a bank for the fledgling city state: Central Bank of Unity Bay, and began minting a new currency backed not by gold or silver but a rare semiconductor material found in combine technology that seems to defy the end of Moore’s law, known as jade among scavengers. While the bank is officially a private entity from the Human Reunification Front’s government, the other directors and chairman meet at Ngai’s estate to indulge in lavish feasts together regularly, and one can only imagine what is said behind closed doors.
Madame Jia Zedong: A shrewd businesswoman, she owns and controls most of the brothels on the southern end of the peninsula. She bought her ticket to the island not through the purity of her politics nor the force she commands. Just good old fashioned oligarchy, through the sheer influence of an individual’s accumulated wealth, fed by a cities’ insatiable lust. Her brothel enterprise has recently expanded to the island, and there are rumors it has fueled a savage and debased spree of human trafficking on the peninsula to meet the demands of a depraved elites’ carnal whims.
Võ Xuân Vũ AKA Jade Lung: Among City 04’s sparse resistance cells, none were more notorious than the Crimson Path. Responsible for multiple bombings and acts of terrorism that began early in occupation and continued all throughout it. They garnered a small amount of attention due to the restricted nature of the media, those responsible were never apprehended. When it came time for the uprising, Võ Xuân Vũ emerged as ring leader of the Crimson Path. In the aftermath of Reunification Day, he was swift to recognize the dark shadow of tyranny falling fast. Though many of the Path were captured and executed, there were enough survivors to continue the legacy, but they had to adapt. Xuân Vũ realized that they could not rely on the people of City 04, now Unity Bay, because of their apathy and hedonism, but they could rely on the hedonism itself and feed off it. The Crimson Path, once a terrorist group, transitioned into a crime organization, and soon built up a small empire of gambling rings throughout the slums and even some casinos on the coast of the peninsula. Using the cities’ apathy to bankroll another revolution was the hope. But the past caught up with Võ Xuân Vũ, as it tends to. He was struck down by an assassin, and would of died if not for esoteric combine technology and emergency, experimental surgery. His life was saved by combine technology, but he remains forever in an immobilized state, conscious but trapped in a paralyzed body. Kept alive by the repurposed combine technology, it is both his sanctuary and his prison, directing the Crimson Path from within it still. There are folk legends of a bitter, immortal spirit that rules Kowloon’s underworld, unable to die and unable to fully live, plotting the cities’ downfall. But to most, they are just legends, tales to scare children at night, if there were any.
I made this thread to gauge the communities' interest in returning to the universe of HL2 (in what could be the last time for a long time) in the format of an RR set after the events of the global uprising, in a city where the uprising didn't go to plan. Based in City 04 (Hong Kong), due to the geographical distance from C17 this setting could exist in parallel to our own somewhat recent phl2 iteration or exist within it's own separate canon. Though
mooch_
and I took some creative liberties when penning down the worldbuilding, the setting is still fundamentally and essentially HL2. While it does differ from the traditional schema of HL2rp, I think it's similar enough to the source material to excite fans of HL2 and divergent enough to excite people who want something else. One final note, this thread is mainly to present the setting/worldbuilding itself to the community in order to gauge your interest. If there is sufficient interest and
bennet
wants us to go ahead, more work will be put into plying the setting into a fun scenario for everyone to enjoy as an RR (which I already have many ideas for). Now without further adieu, here's the proposed setting.
mooch_
and I took some creative liberties when penning down the worldbuilding, the setting is still fundamentally and essentially HL2. While it does differ from the traditional schema of HL2rp, I think it's similar enough to the source material to excite fans of HL2 and divergent enough to excite people who want something else. One final note, this thread is mainly to present the setting/worldbuilding itself to the community in order to gauge your interest. If there is sufficient interest and
bennet
wants us to go ahead, more work will be put into plying the setting into a fun scenario for everyone to enjoy as an RR (which I already have many ideas for). Now without further adieu, here's the proposed setting.YEλR OF THE DRλGON
Hong Kong, a historic land built on foreign influence, and no stranger to occupation. It was one of Earth’s lucky cities to receive the blessing and curse of a kilometric obsidian monolith, containing unimaginable armies. On that fateful day, it and the other citadel cores across the globe appeared, signalling what was later called the seven hour war. Once collectivization began, Hong Kong was no longer and City 04 was born. It served as a central population housing metroplex for many people from parts of southern mainland China, Taiwan, the Philippines, and even parts of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos during the initial collectivization process.
City 04 was a beacon of Union excellence. The Communist Party of China integrated itself seamlessly with the Universal Union’s structure. For its’ Citizens, not much changed.
Political agitators were detained, opposing parties squashed, and religious freedoms completely erased. Some would go on to say the takeover was a natural progression of the party itself.
Civil Protection were famous, or infamous, depending on who you ask, for their lockstep loyalty in service not to the faceless overlords atop the Combine apparatus but to their leaders within Civil Protection. While the fully transhumanized Sector Commander formally was in charge of the metroplex and it's surrounding areas, the all too human Division Leaders were who really commanded the respect and loyalty of those in Civil Protection, both the goons and the honest men. While quotas continued to be met in daylight, by night Civil Protection often busied itself with extortionate racketeering schemes and allowing the proliferation of gambling and drugs in exchange for a cut of the material gain.
It’s populace found itself apathetic towards the doings of the UU. Most found the distractions of materialistic interest enough to be satisfied. With the people indifferent to their rulers, rackets of gambling, prostitution, and the use of drugs filled their past time. There was little resistance. Many people occupied themselves fighting against their own desires and vices instead of the state.
The sparse Chinese resistance cells in and around City 04 found themselves poorly organized and ill-equipped at the onset of the global uprising. The sweeping victories that had taken place across the globe were not to be found in City 04. The Union’s concrete hold over the populace built in the following years through either apathy or privilege brought significant challenges to bear on the resistance’s ability to organize and fight beyond their sparse footholds in the slum districts surrounding Kowloon city.
Many of the outlying districts however did fall into resistance control in the initial weeks of fighting, but one thing remained -- it’s Citadel. Hong Kong island had proven to be impenetrable. The Citizens present here found no interest in taking up arms. All thought of an uprising had been drowned out by their own choices to lead selfish amoral lifestyles. The Union provided them security, and those loyal to its banners enjoyed a lifestyle never before imaginable.
Prompted by the destruction of both Nova Prospekt and City 17 in a short 2 weeks, the stalemate in City 04 was broken by the forging of an unlikely alliance between Civil Protection and the remnants of the cities’ botched resistance. Foreseeing the turmoil and chaos that would ensue with what was surmised to be the total collapse of centralized UU presence on Earth, the Divisional Leaders of City 04 realized an opportunity was before them. In a bloody month, Overwatch was cleansed from the city by the coalition, dubbed the Human Reunification Front
In the immediate weeks following Reunification Day, remainders of the rank and file resistance were liquidated. Having outlived their usefulness, they were deemed counter-revolutionary. The remnants of the Union’s divisional leaders sought to consolidate power with a spree of mass-arrests and summary executions. Human Reunification Front remained a political aegis for the thinly guised military junta, comprised of the cities’ former division leaders, to rise from the ashes of the global uprising with firm control of the Citadel, its’ surrounding districts, and a legion of armed and loyal men. Though they no longer wear masks, some things remained as they always were.
CURRENT DAY
The creeping walls that separate the sprawling metroplex from the wastes beyond Kowloon still remain. Human Reunification Front has maintained control over Hong Kong island and the cloudbreaking monolith seated at the foot of it, off the coast of the Kowloon peninsula.The citadel remains operational despite it’s denizens lacking full understanding of its’ innermost workings. Because of this, the local suppression field node, housed within the Citadel itself, remains active. Hong Kong and the larger area around it have taken on an almost mythological reputation as a vice ridden city where all are welcome to come to make a Faustian bargain: trading future generations away in exchange for a chance to live a life of hedonism while the world burns around them.
There is some kernel of truth to it, but fact is far worse than reputation. The suppression field remains active, no children can be born in the area, reaching far beyond the city walls. Due to this and the granularization of the population under CMB occupation, family is a rare comfort. In truth, Hong Kong is now a ruthless place of vice and ambition devoid of rules outside the island. For those that do achieve some measure of success in commerce, or even for those with keen enough political sensibilities to pass threshold of Hong Kong island itself, there is some truth to the cities’ reputation as a place of luxury and wealth. However for the many more that live in the packed slums to the south, though they are behind the city walls and enjoy some measure of security from the likes of antlion soldiers, still find themselves crammed into a dog-eat-dog world. Though most can feed themselves and might scrape together enough at the end of the week to gamble it away or visit their favorite whore in the south-end, real long term opportunities are scant. Nihilism and poverty are rife on the peninsula while lights shine brightly from the island at night.
Not all is as it seems for those on the island, however. Unbeknownst to most of the denizens that dwell at the citadel’s foot, they sit in a precarious position. The citadel’s main reactor was damaged in the Front’s month long battle to wrestle control away from Overwatch. But a small pinprick, it was enough to set off a slow but certain cascade of inevitable failure that has only been forestalled by reducing the citadel’s core to its’ lowest state of output, making it impossible to provide power to the rest of Kowloon peninsula. Even then, blackouts have been radiating through the island with growing frequency and duration as of late, calling into question the opulent lifestyle many of the inhabitants have come to expect in exchange for their loyalty.
The damage done to the core can be fixed but requires the citadel’s ongoing reactor to be forestalled while repairs are made.They lack the ignition agent to restart the reaction afterwards. However, rumors have reached the junta that a sample of the ignition agent may be found in one of the labs dedicated to dark fusion research, of which there was at least one in the City 17 area. While the chairman continues his path of inaction and denial of the citadel’s continued failure, the winds of change are in the air again among his co-conspirators, the other former division leaders..
IMPORTANT CHARACTER BIOS
Chairman Suen Tak-cheung: Once an incredibly ambitious Division Leader, after personally orchestrating the plot to betray the resistance fighters that aided in clearing the city of Overwatch, he has become extremely paranoid, trusting fewer and fewer of his inner circle.This fissure has led the chairman to become wholly occupied with solidifying his own seat of power on the island for life instead of making more important executive decisions. Consequently, the Kowloon peninsula is a mostly lawless land even though it sits behind the creeping walls. Likewise, the chairman has brushed aside concerns of the failing citadel, believing it can be operated at half-mast indefinitely. Even going so far as to believe that the peninsula remaining without electricity while the island basks in it's warm glow is part of the natural order that should be upheld.
Director Conrad Lau: Former sociostability Divisional Leader. Rose to power under the Chairmans’ initial reign of terror by directing his men to carry out many of the raids and summary executions themselves. There was doubt among many to take arms against Overwatch at first, and once that bloody victory had come, double-so to betray their fellow man they’d fought beside, but Director Lau made examples of some early dissenters and the rest fell in line. His men are still responsible for hunting down remnants of those resistance cells that scattered into the peninsula following Reunification Day, sometimes seen dusting down a Kowloon street in a re-purposed combine APC.
Director Ngai Shiu-kit: Former Divisional Leader of the technical squads. Instrumental in the Front’s ability to take limited control of the citadel due to his and his people’s knowledge of the systems they had been using and maintaining for years. More recently, him and his most trusted cohorts have sought to revive the tradition of Hong Kong island as a vibrant center of commerce and trade by establishing a bank for the fledgling city state: Central Bank of Unity Bay, and began minting a new currency backed not by gold or silver but a rare semiconductor material found in combine technology that seems to defy the end of Moore’s law, known as jade among scavengers. While the bank is officially a private entity from the Human Reunification Front’s government, the other directors and chairman meet at Ngai’s estate to indulge in lavish feasts together regularly, and one can only imagine what is said behind closed doors.
Madame Jia Zedong: A shrewd businesswoman, she owns and controls most of the brothels on the southern end of the peninsula. She bought her ticket to the island not through the purity of her politics nor the force she commands. Just good old fashioned oligarchy, through the sheer influence of an individual’s accumulated wealth, fed by a cities’ insatiable lust. Her brothel enterprise has recently expanded to the island, and there are rumors it has fueled a savage and debased spree of human trafficking on the peninsula to meet the demands of a depraved elites’ carnal whims.
Võ Xuân Vũ AKA Jade Lung: Among City 04’s sparse resistance cells, none were more notorious than the Crimson Path. Responsible for multiple bombings and acts of terrorism that began early in occupation and continued all throughout it. They garnered a small amount of attention due to the restricted nature of the media, those responsible were never apprehended. When it came time for the uprising, Võ Xuân Vũ emerged as ring leader of the Crimson Path. In the aftermath of Reunification Day, he was swift to recognize the dark shadow of tyranny falling fast. Though many of the Path were captured and executed, there were enough survivors to continue the legacy, but they had to adapt. Xuân Vũ realized that they could not rely on the people of City 04, now Unity Bay, because of their apathy and hedonism, but they could rely on the hedonism itself and feed off it. The Crimson Path, once a terrorist group, transitioned into a crime organization, and soon built up a small empire of gambling rings throughout the slums and even some casinos on the coast of the peninsula. Using the cities’ apathy to bankroll another revolution was the hope. But the past caught up with Võ Xuân Vũ, as it tends to. He was struck down by an assassin, and would of died if not for esoteric combine technology and emergency, experimental surgery. His life was saved by combine technology, but he remains forever in an immobilized state, conscious but trapped in a paralyzed body. Kept alive by the repurposed combine technology, it is both his sanctuary and his prison, directing the Crimson Path from within it still. There are folk legends of a bitter, immortal spirit that rules Kowloon’s underworld, unable to die and unable to fully live, plotting the cities’ downfall. But to most, they are just legends, tales to scare children at night, if there were any.
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