NEW AVALON, REPUBLIC OF ZETA CYGNI

GENERAL DATA

New Avalon, the City in the Sphere, has in its short life become one
of the galaxy's most notable settlements. Its skyline is among the
most recognizable in known space, along with those of Earth's New York
City, New Japan's MegaTokyo, and Yedor, the crystal capital of Minbar.
It is also widely recognized as a very nice place to visit and a
very nice place to live, assuming you're not up to anything more than
the usual level of no good.

With almost twenty million inhabitants representing every catalogued
sentient race capable of surviving in Class M environment (and a few
that aren't), New Avalon is a bustling place, full of life and
activity. The city boasts franchises in all the major sports leagues
(it has two Major League Baseball teams), a flourishing nightclub and
live music scene, and a number of good museums for those who are into
that sort of thing. 80% of the city's population is human, of one
kind or another. Salusians, mostly Cheltari, make up its largest
minority at 12%, which explains the city's vast number of Salusian
restaurants and shyamatana. The remaining 8% are just about
everything else.

The best place to get a drink is Allard's, the bar and lounge of the
Imperial Hotel Monolith (17 Allard Boulevard, Monolith stop on the
N's Purple Line). The best place to get a steak and listen to some
hot twentieth-century swing is the Cobalt Club, right around the
corner (101 Cranston Avenue). The best place to take a date, to set
that special mood, is Yahagi's, perhaps the galaxy's best Italian
restaurant (9190 Winters Street West). For other places to go, see,
be and eat, see Appendix 1, "Dining and Nightlife".

New Avalon's climate is modeled after that of the city of Boston,
Massachusetts, on Earth, except it isn't as humid in the summer.
Average temperatures range from 10 degrees in winter to 75 degrees in
summer. In an average winter, the city receives sixty-two inches of
snowfall. In the spring and early summer, evening thunderstorms often
roll in off Daniels Lake to the east.

New Avalon has the Known Galaxy's highest concentration of
lighter-than-air aircraft. They are used for anything a normal city
would use trucks or aerodynes for - freight deliveries, passenger
services, advertising. The night sky over New Avalon is a remarkable
sight, filled with the comings and goings of its thousands of
airships.

GETTING AROUND

New Avalon's public transportation systems are operated by a
municipally owned corporation, the New Avalon Public Transit
Corporation. The NAPTC system is universally known, thanks to the
company's prominent logo, as "the N".

An N token is a 3/4" square brass coin containing a uniquely
identified short-range transponder. They can be bought from vending
machines in every station and elsewhere throughout the city. 85
standard centicredits buys you one subtube or airship transit and
unlimited bus access for 24 hours. Tokens can be "recharged".

The N system includes 5 subtube lines, 4 airship routes and a
near-fully-meshed network of bus routes.

N airship routes connect the GENOM Tower, Aztechnology Pyramid, Entire
State Building, Hotel Monolith, Exposition Center, and many other high
buildings and outlying areas. Subtube lines feature direct service to
the above and many other prominent places.

Additionally, taxicabs (ground and air) and airships-for-hire are very
common and reasonably affordable.

CRITICAL BUILDINGS

Entire State Building
1 Avalon Plaza

The Entire State Building contains all of the governmental offices of
the City of New Avalon, Avalon County, and the Republic of Zeta Cygni.
At one time the top 30 stories were leased to the Wedge Defense Force
as WDF Headquarters, before these were moved in 2395 to a
purpose-built complex elsewhere in the Sphere. The Interstellar
Police Organization (Experts of Justice) also had their first
temporary headquarters here, from the IPO's founding in 2390 until the
completion of their permanent headquarters the following year.

At 276 stories, it is the tallest freestanding anchored structure (ie,
building) in the Known Galaxy. As it does not contain living quarters
suitable for its entire office population, nor shopping facilities to
provide internal self-sufficience for same, it is not an arcology. It
is a sort of Gothic Art Deco in style, seeming to have been
transplanted whole from Gotham City on Kane's World, then fed growth
hormones. The top six floors are made up of a massive spire
containing a huge lighted beacon, the color of which is varied to
report prevailing weather conditions:

- Blue: Rain/snow
- Green: Merry Christmas (OK, it's not really weather)
- Steady Red: New Avalon Knights are winning/have won tonight's game
- Flashing Red: Storm warning in effect
- White: Clear

The shape of the building precludes a helipad, but there are airship
docks every 100 floors. Subbasement 2 contains an N station.

GENOM Tower
45 Daniels Avenue

The second-tallest building in New Avalon at 268 stories, the GENOM
Tower is a representative of a completely different architectural
style. It resembles nothing so much as a huge, foil-wrapped roll of
breath mints, standing on end in the middle of town - a massive,
featureless silver cylinder, its entire outer surface covered in
silvered windows. The saving grace of this somewhat boring design is
the fact that the windows are mirrored with an iridium glaze similar
to that found on expensive sunglasses, making the afternoon sun
against GENOM Tower a spectacular chromatic sight indeed. The Tower
is not a true arcology, although it does contain resources and
quarters to support a good proportion of its clerical and
middle-management staff. Living in the Tower is strictly optional,
although restricted to GENOM employees and guests only unless some
special arrangement is made.

There is a helipad and an airship dock on the roof. The Tower's
second basement level contains an N station.

Imperial Hotel Monolith
17 Allard Boulevard

The Imperial Monolith is the best hotel in New Avalon, some say the
best hotel in the entire galaxy. It is also Art Deco in style, but
lacks the Gothic influences to be found in the Entire State Building
and many of the smaller buildings; instead it bears more of a
resemblance to New York City's Chrysler Building, with its glittering
stainless durasteel spire and scalloped facades. At an even 250 stories,
it is the third tallest building in town and the biggest hotel anybody's
ever heard of, with nearly ten thousand guest rooms. "Nothing
less than first class!" is the rallying cry of the Monolith's 8,000
immaculately uniformed employees.

The Imperial has all modern conveniences for all major and most minor
sentient life forms, including an equally opulent virtual environment
for machine intelligences, and its rates are quite reasonable, even
considering its magnificence. The food there is so good, people go
there to eat even if they aren't staying.

There is an N station accessible from the main lobby, and airship
docks every 75 floors. The hotel maintains its own small fleet of
zeppelins, which provide limousine service from the hotel to Mathews
Memorial Spaceport.

Aztechnology Pyramid
100 Itlan Loop

The fourth-highest building in New Avalon at 236 stories, the Pyramid
is a sprawling structure reminiscent of a high-tech Aztec step
pyramid, the great stairways up the sides replaced with open-air angle
elevators. The main parking structure is at the top, beneath the
helipad and airship dock. The Pyramid is the city's only true
arcology, a fully self-sufficient enclosure. It is also the largest
artificial building in the known galaxy, outsizing the GENOM arcology
in MegaTokyo, New Japan, by a mere but telling 180 cubic feet. The
sides of the pyramid are decorated with an attractive, majestic
combination of scarlet and gold which is lit up magnificently at
night, and reflect in interesting ways from the iridium-mirrored GENOM
Tower, three blocks west. It is also aligned so that, on the
solstices, Zeta Cygni sets directly over the center of the roof.
The persistent rumor that the Board of Directors perform human
sacrifices up there on the solstices and equinoxes, just before the
company releases its quarterly financial report, is an urban legend.

There's N service to the basement level, but access is restricted
to Aztechnology employees and those carrying special visitor
dispensations.

OTHER PLACES OF INTEREST

New Avalon Colosseum
The Colosseum is a traditional open-air megastadium, the venue
of choice for big-ticket musical performances as well as the home
grounds of the New Avalon Cossacks of the Galactic Football League and
the Zeta Cygni Sphere of Major League Turfball. It also has
facilities for track-and-field events and can be converted, with a bit
of groundskeeper ingenuity, for some forms of motor racing.

Morgan Arena
This multi-mode sporting facility is the home of the Galactic
Hockey League's New Avalon Razors, the New Avalon Monolith of the
Galactic Basketball Association, and the New Avalon Marauders of the
Interstellar Gravball Federation. Additionally, it hosts ice shows,
anti-gravity gymnastics exhibitions, and smaller-market performance
events.

Knights Field
Home field of the New Avalon Knights of Major League
Baseball's Galactic League. The Knights are a perennially underfunded
and terrible team, but they have a pretty ballpark, dress and comport
themselves in a very nostalgic sort of way and generally manage to
lose with style, so their following is considerable.

Chandler's Point
A tongue of land jutting into Daniels Lake on the south side
of the city, Chandler's Point is a popular recreational area,
featuring such attractions as the Chandler's Point MultiPlex hi-res
entertainment facility, the South Shore Plaza shopping center, and
Aztechnology Park at Chandler's Point, the home field of the
Federated League New Avalon Monarchs, who are better than the
Knights but quite modern and tacky, and universally despised by
Knights fans.

New Avalon Battledrome
One of the galaxy's premier combat-simulation centers,
situated in the heart of downtown New Avalon, the Battledrome hosts
small-unit actions, Capture the Flag sessions, assassination drills,
and full-scale Destroid combat trials. It's as close as the civilized
universe gets to bloodsports, unless you count turfball, but at the
Battledrome, safety procedures are elaborate and injuries rare.

Zeta Cygni Speedzone
Located some distance outside New Avalon, the Speedzone is an
elaborate compound of facilities for different forms of motor racing,
including oval tracks of several different sizes and surfaces, a
number of road and anti-gravity courses, and, in the airspace above
it, an aerospacecraft trials course.

Flansburgh Center for the Performing Arts
Musicians and thespians come to New Avalon from all over the
galaxy to play the Flansburgh Center, though its seating capacity and
high-brow reputation keep the heavy-metal groups away.

John J. Boyce Memorial Medical Center
The Wedge Defense Force's military hospital, which also has a
wing open to the public. One of the finest medical facilities in
known space, with a staff as diverse as they are talented.

New Avalon Institute of Science
One of the two or three most highly-regarded institutions of
higher learning specializing in the sciences and engineering
disciplines. Endowed by the WDF and closely allied with the WDF
Academy, which is nearby. Owns and operates the New Avalon Museum of
Science.

New Avalon University
The city's other premier post-secondary school, NAU specializes
in less technical subjects than NAIS, providing a liberal-arts counterpoint
to the Institute. It is especially noted for its galactic history program
and the caliber of its music department.

New Avalon Zoological Gardens and Oceanarium
A zoo and oceanarium. Nothing really outstanding, if you're
not impressed by a wide variety of animals from around the galaxy,
presented in carefully simulated (or in some cases transplanted)
habitats.

New Avalon Central Post Office
Just what it sounds like - a big post office. Not too
exciting, but one of the city's more practical resource centers.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/