New Culture

Darya Demeter wrote:Modern Bands.

In the future, as now, there are many, many, many groups of musicians out there. The following is a list of a few of the bands around in the Corporate era.

Quiet Barking In Your Head
One of many groups to use technology to create bizarre new niches, QBIYH produces their music not with instruments or synthesisers, but with specially-engineered cyberwolves with highly-adjustable voices. They were surprisingly popular for 3 years, during which sales of cyberwolves spiked, but were widely considered to have lost their way with their 4th album Scratching, which introduced a cybercat to the lineup.

Rhythm of the Stars

This band defines the term `nerdcore`. It boils down to a team of bored stellar scientists studying the fluctuations of the surface of stars due to internal conditions, which, if the star was in a medium like air, would cause it to produce sound. By examining these fluctuations, it is possible to create the sound of the star.

Being bored, they decided to take the obvious route. Record the sound, use it as a backing beat, then rap over it.

They have had some moderate hits, with four albums, each with the sound of a different star. The most popular, ES 1293a, had a heavy focus on political issues, but now they mostly appear on Comoros television shows, educating kids about astrophysics.

The fact that the UIG loves them for doing this has resulted in them gaining rank at a ridiculous rate, meaning that now, most rap artists are trying to break into children's educational television for the perks.

Gale and Stanton

Mixed to the sound of the discharge of various Y&S weaponry with Synth and haunting, Kreig syntheised vocals Gale and Stanton where and underground hit over night. By morning they were mainstream and their cult following would have been lost forever, had the band not declined a contract with Yaeger and Stanton. The newly revealed E.I. agents lost no time in coping their work to S-disc and buying the copyright. By the time Y&S realised what was going on it was far far to late. They appealed in the court of law, for royalties due to copyright infringement stating that the sound of their weapons discharging was as distinctive as their name but the E.I. groups lawyers argued the cases down to half a credit per S-disc sold.

Y&S are not happy with this state of affairs but can do nothing about it since the groups cult status within E.I. territory brings Y&S more than a 100,000 credits every year. The E.I. agents themselves are reported to be pricks high off of their own success but are actually nice guys in private and fun to hang around. In an exclusive interview they said they only used Y&S because they didn't have enough AMS weapons.

AMS had bought the eternal rights to their firearms discharging the moment the court dispute occured only to find that they had just wasted hundreds of thousands of their credits, since they were all ready all under their copyright by their appearance in the Tex Callanghan show. Tex is quoted saying that the the WF could really use some actual lawyers. The E.I. agents and Y&S alike still laugh about that.

Mulitmeat Candy Synthirettes/Synthigars

Smoking remains a status symbol, even in the post-corporate war world. However, with the near extinction of tabacco, only the rich can afford to truely smoke cigarettes.

Multimeat, seeing a gap in the market, promptly created a new substance that had two properties. Firstly, when burnt, it was almost exactly like smoking a tabacco cigarette, but with much fewer health risks, due to UIG health officals stepping in. The second quality it has is that they can be eaten as a food source, perfect for agents on the go. Each cigarette contains around 100 calories. A box of 20 will cost around 50 credits, depending on tax issues, which seems step until you remember that even hardcores smokers will rarely burn through a whole one in a day.

Different brands offer different flavors when consumed, different colored smoke and different quantities of smoke.

Puzzling Psyches.

These puzzles were designed in lew of therapy for those who go through clinical telepathy training. Primarily because all attempts at actual therapy have failed horribly, even on those rare occasions that a telepath has become so enthralled with their powers that they ditch everything else in order to join Comoros, whose mind guides have been unable to repair the damage done to the psyche. But these "thought" experiments allow a clinically trained telepath a focus through which to develop new abilities or enhance old ones. Using them to practise with, causes the cards and other training stimuli embedded in the corners of the Telepaths mind to flow more easily together and the simple pleasure the mind takes from solving a puzzle helps to smoothe out the... unpleasantness of the memories, almost without the user realising. Since using these puzzles to develop telepathic powers in any meaningful way takes exactly as long as developing them on your own they are not essentials or must haves, but the time it takes and the amount of different puzzles you solve may account for the somewhat therapeutic nature of the exercises.

Solving the puzzles strictly speaking does not involve the use of the telepathic power being developed but utilises some other aspect of the human brain involved in the power. For example the telekinetic puzzles are almost universally focused on spatial awareness while the prescience puzzles rely on the users quick reflexes or accurately predicting when something will happen. Lesser known Telepathic powers, such as cloak, psi armour and nullify do not currently have a set of puzzles to go alongside their development. All of the puzzles that contain pieces are set in a sleek silver design. More recently however with holo-emitters becoming more common place the developers have excitedly babbled about making the puzzles entirely holographic with the user in the centre stating that it would allow for a far greater volume of tests to be readily available and bring a whole new level to the telekinetic puzzles. The Order of the One True Faith are reportedly disgusted. Research into whether or not utilising these tests from an early age aids in the development of psychic powers is still ongoing.

Nostalgic members of Y&S recently developed a small spherical hovering automated droid, to fire a low yield laser at the user with an adjustable difficulty setting. The idea being to wear a blast helmet and use either prescience, shield, telekinesis or assault to defeat the droid or deflect as many shots as possible. A few individuals proved themselves to be so bad at it that they ended up gaining skill in biokenesis by mistake. This was thought to be in general a lark until a Member of the Order did the challenge on an unprecedented level. He wore the blast shield helmet, did not use a field shield or biokenesis and only used his psi blade, against 16 of them on the hardest setting. He did not let a single shot hit him for five minutes and proceded to destroy all of them. His motivation is quoted as, “to prove that these puny training devices pale in comparison with Belief.” His video is now a WDN hit and Y&S and Puzzling Psyches are now in business together incorporating both the holograms and the droid into a new range of puzzles.

Jet Brothel

It's an EI show about a brothel on a jet. Matt says it's canon and told me to post this.

Drop Squad

The show details the missions of ace pilot Ted Stryker and his division of WF paratroopers as they dodge incoming fire and drop into enemy territory to perform various daring missions. These are usually a range of activities from such as controlled demolitions to stealth infiltration but they are always co-ordinated from the air by Agent Stryker who’s face is shown each episode but who is mostly known for his voice as he Smeaker’s important information to the team from the skies, and for his improbable piloting skills. The hallmark of the series is the elaborate escape plans the division implement each week, from a standard gunfire covered helicopter air lift to driving a car off a cliff into the cargo hold of a transport plane as it flies past to riding an old ICBM from a long abandoned military facility into sub-orbit and bingowinging away. The team sometimes do guest specials where other celebrity agents with specialised talents are recruited to the team for a mission.

The show is now in its seventh season and has a decent cult following but it only really surged in popularity during season 4 when Tex Calahan guest stared on an episode. This episode went viral and catapulted the series to prime time, where it has sat ever since. Tex and Ted have since gone on to do a number of commercials together and Ted has appeared the Tex Calahan Show a number of times since and is rapidly becoming a major celebrity in his own right, much to the annoyance of his team who “do all the actual work” but who admit that none of their trademark elaborate escapes, or even the missions themselves, would be possible without Agent Stryker’s extreme piloting skills.

I have a random sentance generator. I generated films this time. Have fun.


Sneak Camp: A ninjaxplotation movie about a group of Shi Yukiho ninjas (all mysteriously attractive and beautiful) who attend a summer vacation camp, have sex, and then are bumped off in increasingly stupid ways. It was, of course, made by EI. Interestingly, the SY public relations department response to this was to encourage its distribution as propaganda about EI’s terrible cultural skills, for churning out this crap.

Shock the Flower: A romantic comedy about a genetic engineer on Vastaag, charged with creating new flowers and blossoms, falling in love with a man who’s malfunctioning cybernetics causes him to randomly shock people. The movie was regarded as a success, but most reviewers complained about the difficulty believing that a man living on Vastaag couldn’t afford to fix his cybernetics. A deleted scene includes a hand wave explanation, as well as a scene where he accidentally knocks out a cyberwolf, or rather, four different scenes using the hands of depersonalised people instead of his to show them reaching out to the cyberwolf. The film’s credits read “No cyberwolves were injured in the making of this movie, though we did try. Four depersonalised people were killed, but who cares?”

Hydrogen: A team of plasma engineers are forced to take up the weapons they create when their research lab is attacked by cult of machina members. Notable for the reality of the film: it was created, quite simply, by trapping a bunch of plasma engineers in their offices, which had been filled with cameras, then having depersonalised people dressed up as cult attack them. Unfortunately, half way through filming, the compound really did get attack by cult…who were promptly fought off when the engineers converted two lorries, the back up generator, a hydrogen storage system and an improvised electromagnet into what is essentially a cyberlin rank plasma weapon, and used it to, after chasing the fleeing cultists to their lair, melt it to the ground. This outside bit was filmed from a helicopter and two Kalari agents who thought that whatever was going on, it looked cool. The `actors` had a number of different paths after the movie: two went into acting as a career, one became a WF weapons designer/model/advertiser, and the other three were recruited by the UIG to act as field technicians. They still keep in touch. The company that owned the facilty was sued into the ground by the group, although Bright & Sunny Media, the masterminds behind the plan, were able to come out unscathed.

Guiding Vice

Best described as the anti-theist band of Order hating, according to their own merchandise, Guiding Vice consists of three core members, as well as several other occasional fourth members, who reject the Order's teaching on pretty much everything out of sheer hatred. All of them have been slighted somehow by the Order, whether it is, like Luke Schalten, the main singer, a response to the murder of his brother by a Crusader, or, like Risa Hang, guitarist, anger due to the actions of an order priest in her childhood.

Naturally, this has not gone unnoticed by the Order, and a couple of attempts have been made to stop their attacks on the Order, whether by making peace with them, or in some cases, by the sword. However, the third member often puts a stop to that. Known as Sam Wiltson, they are the last surviving member of a machine worshiping group who stopped short of the actions of the Cult of Machina that was wiped out by the Order. As such, they are upgraded to the point that a cult chimera would have trouble going toe to toe with them, and are more than a match for any over-zealous crusader.

Their music style is incredible varied, but is often based off of religious music...modified a bit. They are very popular at Smeak Radio, with Saint Chaos often playing their music.

Scavenger Cities

It's well known that the Ai-Jinn are the mass production makers of everything on the planet, but seldom less discussed is the Ai-Jinn's money made at garbage collecting. Little regard for pollution, aggressive recycling factories, and the criminal's natural inclination to waste management made the AI-Jinn a natural choice... And there is no end to how much money the EI will pay to get their trash out of their territory.

Garbage is routed to a few main salvage yards, squares of miles across. These yards are mostly automated, with reprocessing plants claiming back some of the rarer materials. However, there are small populations of closely knit working humans along the outskirts, living in ramshackle housing, scavenging for food and raw materials, jury rigging items to meet their needs. They look over the trash for rare or valuable items, selling back sorted material to the plants for scant amounts of slip, and generally dying of heavy metal poisoning or cancer at a young age. It's a ripe cult recruiting ground, with cult often searching for usable parts in roving bands. (They seldom bother the natives here, since they are too poor to afford even the cheapest cybernetics... And many of them have come from the local area.) Groups of feral animals and the occasional lost BIO roam the heaps, looking for food.

The wrecking yards are a good place to hide, but dangerous for any agent. There's not much in the way of food, and the cult presence is so intense with ties to the community that locals would often give up agents in exchange for increased protection. Pollution is barely liveable, with many locals being born with mild deformities. Still, there are few places on the earth so accommodating to the scum of the earth. Outlaws, the displaced, cult, and those escaping from corporations can find solace with the other garbage.

SEE ALSO: Zabbaleen

The Old West.

If there's one thing the WF love, it's county music, guns, and old fashioned values. The Old West is the combination of those. Stretching across miles of the Texan country side, the park is filled with everything wholesome. There's a museum of guns throughout the ages, Wild West towns filled with friendly faces, and it's all protected by the Sheriffs, highly trained agents who keep watch over the town and always have a smile for the innocent and a bullet for the guilty.

It's most famous attraction is the Yokem Ranch, where you can get cyber horse riding lessons from the experts for 100 credits a day, or, if you're willing to shell out, you can ride a real horse (Prices from 1000 credits upwards). The deluxe package has you stay a week in the Ranch, learning how to horseride from Alexis Georgian, one of the best horse riders in the WF, finishing up with you being let loose to round up a herd of real cows.

Needless to say, the more petty members of EI and Ai Jinn love to come and cause trouble here, as well as Comoros, who dislike the fact that the WF set this up without asking them, the culture experts. In fact, a week before the ranch opened, an EI division attempted to break in and sabotage the place, culminating in a show down between them and the Ranch's first and most famous sheriff, Jonny Shortstock.

Club music in the future is played like this.


Except imagine thousands of buttons, whole walls, and teams of people pressing buttons. Sure, imagine a neural jack.. Millions of sounds.. but then you don't get a light show, people in lit up suits throwing themselves at buttons, more maybe dancing inside of a bubble of transparent glowing cubes that light up with touch and make beautiful noises. Fuck And Yes.

The Crystal Palace Exhibition Museum

The crowning jewel, quite literally, of E.I.'s cultural monuments; the Crystal Palace Exhibition Museum in Copenhagen is a superstructure almost entirely of synthetically produced diamond. Any accusation of ostentatious was refuted by E.I. who stated that the hardiness and resilience of the building material would ensure the safety of the exhibitions, while their spokesmen smiled from ear to ear. Based on the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde park London, The Crystal Palace is a private museum of technological and industrial innovation from reconstructions of the original 19th century pieces to the first D-cell, a mock D-shift weapon with blinking lights and more modern works. The Palace itself has a hexcomb structure, endlessly repeated to form each of the rooms on each floor which house exhibits. However the walls between the floors are made of easily disposable glass in order to change the layout and accommodate different exhibitions. Whole floors are re-modelled just because one piece was too large, in order to preserve the internal hexcomb composition. The central hub is surrounded by six equally huge hexcomb modules, structured in the same way.

At key points throughout the structure, such as along the edge where one Hexcomb module meets another, Lewheins' Fluxium gems were placed. E.I. has stated that there are no more than one hundred gems in the entire Palace. This was done in order to create a reflective and refractive effect, allowing the changing light of the gems to reach every room without having to construct the entire structure of Fluxium. For this reason visitors are advised to wear complimentary shades during the day and special night viewings allow the best of these effects to be seen. There is also a remote electromagnet situated next to each of these gems, allowing the curator to set the mood of the day. Entry is through the east facing Hexcomb while the exit is through the west facing Hexcomb.

Each 'Comb holds a different display with industry & tech since 1851 as described above, art through history, relaxation methods through history, computers through time and the updated Karma Sutra each holding their own combs. Needless to say security is tight given the value of the building let alone the historic/artistic pieces. Ticket prices vary, with each tour requiring its own ticket and optional extra's which include but are not limited to; night tour, neural jack access to the full history of the pieces and accompaniment by an eminent and personable historian.

A new line from Mikuro Nanosystems, Nanojewelary initially began life as an attempt to create morphic weapons, similar to UIG hybrid weapons, but the materials they had weren't suitable. They were, however, shiny, and so nanojewelary was born. Working on the same principle as nanopicks, the jewelary can be made to reconfigure it's style every season, within limits (A ring will stay a ring, a bracelet will stay a bracelet, ect). Very popular on Vaastag.

Mond Männern

Mond Männern, or Moon Men, is a german B-movie about humanity discovering a group of metallic creatures living on the moon underground. The leaders of the two groups, the mayor of Lunas colony and the chief of the Mond Männern, declare war on each other, and is up to a plucky young freelance agent and a Moon Man outcast to stop the fighting covering the whole of the moon. Notable for being filmed on location on the moon, using cyberframes donated by a rich backer for the Mond Männern costumes.

Agent Housing

Sometimes agents just want to live off the compound and afford a nice place of their own. Some need a stable home away from home in a foreign city. Sometimes they need understanding landlords who put in bullet proof walls and neighbours who are understanding of late hours and occasional robots in the hallway. For there people, there is Agent Housing.

Normally a block of flats or a close knit network of condos, agent housing provides understanding housing with flexible contracts, liberal attitudes toward redecorating, pets, and computing, and above average security. There are a few ranges of levels, from the low ranking agent grunt budget bedsits to grand eight room three bath penthouses. Rent will be higher here than in other comparable locations due to extra security and more rigid procedures, but there is a fair deal of turn over even in the most desirable locations.There are few rules, but those that exist are rigidly enforced.

The main rule is NO FIGHTING ON THE PROPERTY. You don't bring a fight there, and if fighting erupts, you quell it. People don't take kindly to non-residents shooting up their halls. Everyone looks after the property first, and you leave your work at work. In addition to security monitoring, fire suppression, and pass-coded stairs and elevators, the other agents offer some degree of protection, especially in hallways, laundry rooms, and out doors. Neighbours also don't like it when someone comes bursting through their room to break through a floor, for example. Residents who break these rules may be kicked out or persecuted and ostracised. If you thought Home Owners Associations were bad, you should see an Agent Housing Association scorned. On the plus side, occasional parties and mixers are held, and the open common rooms are always well appointed and well guarded.

In addition to agents using the rooms for day to day living, corporations or high ranking agents may rent these flats as safe houses or places of rent in cities where they have lots of business. It's an excellent choice for agents with money to spend, or a team to bunk down together.

One such place in Seoul is Haedod-i Apateu, or Sunrise Apartments. This block of impressive round-roomed flats is very tall with excellent views of Seoul Interchange. It's high end and very nice, with highly upgradable connection speeds and moddable rooms.

EI Holiday Request Forms

EI celebrate every single holiday (or at least, the fun ones) they can. If it involves fireworks, sex, booze or drugs, EI love it. The problem is that this causes a lot of hungover agents blowing off work because they're celebrating the 4th of July. (Why the 4th of July should be celebrated has been forgotten outside of the AU and some Comoros historians, but the important bit is that EI agents love loud bangs and flashy colors.)

To counteract this, at the start of each year each division chooses which holidays they'd like to be allowed to celebrate with time off work that year. Since there only a limited number of places for each holiday, New years day is quite possibly the busiest day of the year for the offices of EI field agents as all the teams come together to make sure they get the best days.

The Zumo Rooms

The Western Federation’s policies on alcohol are well documented. While a drink every now and again is perfectly acceptable legally alcohol is somewhat looked down upon culturally in many areas, as are all recreational drugs. Detroit is not one of these places due to the presence of the Detroit River which was difficult to control during the prohibition era and remained so to the present day. The city has a more relaxed attitude to alcohol than other areas of the WF, but the stringent laws against drunkenness are probably the most strictly enforced there than anywhere else in WF territory. In the modern age most of Detroit has learned how to drink sensibly and a number of bars have set up to cater to a responsible drinker.

One such place is the Zumo Rooms. Originally a generic hotel bar for a failing hotel the Zumo Bar became well known locally when, in an effort to save the business, the bar area was repurposed as a cocktail bar. This being the WF they opened as a cross between a traditional alcohol cocktail bar and a juice bar, providing a number of high quality cocktails with a large variety of mixed fruit flavoured drinks, with and without alcohol, to suit any taste. Over time they became so well known that the bar overtook the hotel as their main source of revenue and they rebranded to the name they are now known. The menu on display is just a small fraction of the drinks actually available and tends to change seasonally, with the staff held in high regard for their ability to create unique concoctions and because of their success they are even able to offer some drinks that contain real fruit, freshly squeezed.

The Zumo Rooms have a reputation as a high class establishment, and its regulars tend to be of a more affluent persuasion, as such the drinks are not cheap. They have a decent turnover of Agents, UIG and high up corporate personnel and as such they offer a number of private rooms, ranging from small 4-5 person lounges with televisions, WDN access and a personal waiter, to function suites complete with private bars.

Blood Diamonds

This is the signature drink of the Red Room at Zumo and was designed to be both a work of art and a political statement. Needless to say it was created by a civilian with the Corporate structure in mind and is often served to Agents who ask for the bartender's recommendation.

The drink is served in a tall glass and to start with liquid is a nearly transparent mix of clear syrups and water. The unique feature of this drink is the ruby coloured gem shaped pieces of ice suspended in the liquid, neither rising nor sinking but staying where they are put throughout the surrounding liquid. Over the course of a couple of minutes the ruby colour slowly bleeds out of the crystals and turns the surrounding liquid blood red as the ice itself became more transparent. After a few minutes the ice is as diamonds suspended in a cool blood red drink that grows more transparent again over time as the ice melts. It tastes of strawberry and cherry with a touch of citrus for sharpness and the occasional fleeting hint of saltiness, which grows more common over time as the ice melts.

Seoul Water Garden.

The Seoul Water Garden is one of a number of attractions that have sprung up around the Interchange to cater to the many rich clients. These tend to be things that require too much space to be practical to rent within the interchange itself, but instead use the area around it, such as a converted set of warehouses (cunningly modified to look like it is actually a brick building) in the case of the water gardens.

Set up to profit from people such as Comoros and SY agents who prefer quiet reflection to the busy nature of most of Seoul's attractions, the water gardens are just that. Plants being too expensive, instead the inside is filled with various water features, such as fountains, mini-water falls and ponds, with long walkways where the warehouse's gangways once were, tastefully made to invoke the images of things such as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, with fairly accurate copies of ancient statues and carvings from that time lining the walls. The garden has three different sections, each linked to each other by a triangular hub courtyard. One is designed for families, filled with play equipment and paddling pools. This is the cheapest one to enter, to encourage local trade. The second area is designed for couples in particular, with lots of romantic scenery and plenty of small, private areas to talk, although it is fairly popular with most adults as well. The third area is carefully sound proofed, and is dedicated to mediation and thought. Speaking is not allowed above a whisper here, and the patrons are usually found sitting under waterfalls or on ledges of the huge, rocky hill that comprises this area.

This synth band rose to fame after being inspired by the anniversary retelling of 'Repo the Genetic Opera' in which the vile surgeon/cultist's villain song is accompanied by the beat of a cardio mechanical heart amped up live on stage. Their music consists of the whirring, whine, clicks and other sounds produced by cybernetics, mixed over one another to create each of their tracks. The band have produced this music in many different styles, usually releasing each new album in a style they have not yet used. Examples include, their first album which retained the operatic style in the length and grandeur of the tracks, their critically acclaimed rock opera, their subsequent spoof of said rock opera done in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan and a special release paying homage to Dredoth Dredcore and was only available on the mining colony.

After significant demand from fans the band made their live debut performance on Dredoth, bringing out repurposed cybernetics as instruments plugged into the sound system. After the interval the group surprised and delighted their audience by returning to the stage accompanied by none other than 'The Architecture of Haste and Desperation’ themselves. They then performed live mash ups of their works and closed with a never before seen collaborative piece. The band were praised for their technical skill and creativity in managing to turn cybernetics into playable instruments, rather than simply say, building a guitar into a cybernetic arm and then playing that.

So far the band have shown off a new range of cybernetics-come-instruments in each live performance, meeting the different demands of their many musical styles by custom building their instruments for each performance. So far, mash up sessions aside, the band has only ever played songs from one of their albums at each live performance. As of November the band has created and used enough cybernetic instruments for a full orchestra and rumours abound of the band finally living up to their name in their next LP. The main point of speculation has become which orchestra the band will work with for the performance, although the artists themselves have yet to give a public statement of intent. Given the group's penchant for collaborative works, the leading fan theory billets the Comoros Corporate Orchestra as the primary candidates for a joint Symphony.

While it is not common knowledge, the band is under UIG protection, with a response team assigned to them at all times and an Urban Assault Squad on standby whenever they are in concert in the Eastern Bank. This is because the Cult of the Machine unilaterally despise the group, as they have taken the true purity of replacing obsolete flesh with the machine and debased it into mere tools for human use. As such the band have yet to auction off any of their instruments or produce replicas for fan consumption. This has not stopped many hardcore fan groups from forming tribute bands and repurposing cybernetics into instruments themselves. Only time will tell if these bands become targets for the Cult's ire.

Following on from the club music: A classic E.I. anthem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3knD7m0-pk

Only you know with incredibly expensive and possibly flameable surroundings. And newly galvanically grounded suits instead of chainmail.

This is pretty spot on too.

http://www.imogenheap.com/2013/01/02/imogen-performs-on-dara-o-briains-science-club-on-bbc2/

Skeleton Crown

In the heart of Lanzhou Old City rises the Skeleton Crown nightclub. Run by An Jinshing, a rank 4 Ai Jinn agent, the club is the typical Ai Jinn run affair, filled with prostitutes, drugs and gang members.

It does have one gimmick however. Unlike most Ai Jinn clubs, it isn't covering up anything.
The workers are all paid well and have good health care, the drugs are all legal and the gang members who oversee the dens where they are used all have enough medical training to prevent any overdose, and anyone showing signs of serious addiction is pointed towards a support group. Jinshing is incredibly friendly and polite, and it is geniune, rather than an attempt to manipulate others into doing his will, and is loved and respected by both his employees and the local populace. Even the area around the nightclub is pleasant. Roaming groups of the local gang, the Skeleton Crew can be found giving blankets and food to the homeless, helping little old ladies cross the road, and volunteering in local schools on Agent An's orders. Behaviour that harms others is severely looked down upon, and occasionally new members of the Crew attempt to shake down local shops for "protection" money, only for the shop keeper to call the rest of the gang who come and remove the trouble maker. Most of these good works are funded by the geniunely successful nightclub, which has a bit of a cult status on the WDN, and Jinshing's wise investments.

Needless to say, this is incredibly suspicious to all other factions, and at any time there is at least one member of the other corps undercover in the place, trying to find out what is going on in the place. One intripid agent reached the basement, where she spent nearly 10 hours desperately looking for secret passages behind the washing machines for the worker's clothes before giving up. The UIG also distrust the place, and Marshall Xan is a common sight at the club, intially to investigate but now just for the company. For their part, the Ai Jinn tolerate Jinshing's way of doing things mainly because they do make money on the project and it is useful to have a legimate business around. If the revenue starts to drop though, they won't hesitate to ship in a new owner and undo years of hard work by flooding the area with Dream..

It's a club where attractive people strip down guns in front of you. Legal and sexy in one package.

EI once experimented with their own version where they used heavy weapons as strip polls. This got shut down after a squad of nukes arrived, got drunk and decided to rescue the darling weapons from the evil strippers.