Selkirk (city)
Selkirk is the capital city and seat of royal, civil and legal power in the Principality of Caledon. It is the second-largest city on the home world of the Caledon system.
Selkirk is an old-fashioned conglomeration of many old districts, most of them founded in antiquity around specific industries or activities. Some districts retain their original industries; others have changed greatly, and their original reason for existence is a historical curio.
Geography[edit]
Selkirk grew up inside the two estuarial forks of the Mannoch River, the "North Fork" and the "West Fork", where the river flows from northwest to southeast into the Abernian Sea. Over the centuries, the city spilled out of the boundaries of the Mannoch, dividing the metropolitan area into four major regions:
- The City - the area between the forks
- Norfork - the area north of the North Fork
- Soufork - the area south and west of the West Fork
- The Dam - upstream of the split between the forks.
The City[edit]
The commercial center of Selkirk, "The City" is home to many of the Principality's greatest commercial endeavors. The City is the location of thriving businesses, expensive restaurants, and an extensive network of movers, shakers, fixers, glad-handers and hangers-on. The amount of money passing through The City astounds even insiders. It is the commercial heart of the very wealthy Principality of Caledon.
- Cairnleigh Row - a kilometer-long street in The City that houses the headquarters of many of Caledon's news and entertainment infostreams and other mass media, and the bars and restaurants that cater to them.
- The Malárteagh Treágtacht - An equity and bond exchange formed in 559 by representatives of dozens of Caledonian clan Credit Pools, the Malárteagh Treágtacht (an old Caledonian term meaning, roughly, "Commercial Exchange") is in effect a "stock exchange" - along with a sizeable bank, communications service and financial news bureau. The Malárteagh Treágtacht even has a small network of its own courier vessels to ensure vital financial news travels as fast as possible, giving their traders a leg up on the rest of the Caledonian business world. The Malárteagh Treágtacht operates out of a massive complex of trading floors, data centers and offices in the center of The City, in buildings that appear antique but are in fact built to the absolute latest TL12 standards.
- Fitzroy Street - This neighborhood, a long arterial avenue that connects the Roys with the Roods, upstream along the south fork of the Mannoch, is home to a row of embassies and other diplomatic facilities, as well as the offices of commercial interests that deal with the foreign countries, shops and restaurants that cater to their diplomats, and media that cover their activities. In order as one drives northwestward along Fitzroy from The City toward the Roods:
- The Grand Duchy of Marlheim's embassy, located in a dilapidated building at Fitzroy and McMurdough Streets, in a run-down neighborhood on the edge of The City, remains nearly empty, with the Grand Duchy having broken off diplomatic relations many years earlier. A small caretaker force of Marlheim "diplomats" - actually intelligence agents, a fact well known to Caledonian intelligence - maintains residence, but no diplomatic activity takes place. The "diplomats'" real roles are so well-known that neither side makes any pretense of acting otherwise.
- The Embassy of the Carrillian Assembly
- The Duncinaean Embassy is located in a Colinean-era manor house across from the Carillan embassy. Like Duncinae itself, the embassy is unimposing and low-key.
- The Embassy of the Islaiat Dominate is largely populated by human and Aslan agents working on contract for the Dominate.
- The legation of the Carter Technocracy
- The Imperium - in practical terms, the envoy of the Archduke of Ilelish and the Duke of Daibei - maintains a large, imposing facility on a walled campus on Fitzroy, just outside The Roods. A sizeable delegation of diplomats from the Imperial Ministry of State, reporting to MOS' Spinward Bureau, as well as intelligence operatives, operate out of the campus, usually openly - but monitored by Department 7 of the Royal Intelligence Service anyway.
Embassies have a widely-varied range of security, ranging from Imperial Ministry of State security forces and a comprehensive electronic security outfit at the Imperial Embassy, to the almost entirely inward-facing security at the run-down Marhheim Embassy.
The Roods[edit]
Located at the fork in the Mannock - replete with fantastic river scenery - the Roods are home to the Principality's government. The district is centered around the "Prince's Heath", a mile-long field that originally served as a military parade ground, around which are arranged the John's Keep, the Parliament Castle and the Crown Bench buildings - the three pillars of Caledonian government. The Heath is at the center of a warren of buildings that serve as headquarters and offices for the Principality's bureaucracy.
- Bollyrood - on the outskirts of the government district along the South Fork is "Ballyrood", a district of small shops, warehouse space - and the Royal University of Caledon. The neigbhorhood is dotted with student apartments, bars and restaurants frequented by students and faculty, and myriad small businesses started by graduates and staff located in underutilized old shop and industrial spaces.
- Bannockburn - an area of high-end houses and apartments downstream of the government district along the North Fork, centered around a tony entertainment and commercial district, home to the clubs, bars and restaurants where Caledon's elite meet to socialize and - much of the time - conduct business as well.
- Largo - downstream of The City where the north fork of the Mannoch empties into Largo Bay, this district is a major seaport.
Norfork[edit]
- Invergarry - Located in the lowlands across the North Fork from Largo, Invergarry was once a fishing village (and is still the home of a fish market popular among locals. Invergarry is a working-class district, dockyard and warehouse area. Cheap housing and plentiful entry-level work draws immigrants, the poor and displaced, and companies looking for inexpensive labor.
Soufork[edit]
- "Rockford" / "Steelhead" / "Ironsides" - all middle-class neighborhoods, tidy and prosperous and full of the sorts of shops and businesses that say "regular middle class life".
The Dam[edit]
Located upstream of the fork in the Mannock, the neighborhoods of the Dam include:
- Hamilton - located 25KM upstream of the fork of the Mannock on the Muir plateau - a broad, flat heath - Hamilton is Navy base town, home of the Navy's headquarters and downport for the Navy's largest upbase headquarters of the Navy's Task Force 2, and the force's key planet-side base.
- Leithdoun - Located across the Mannock from Hamilton on the Harridanscarp (another rocky plateau atop bluffs 300 feet over the Mannock), this exurb houses the Caledon Downport as well as the network of supporting installations, industries and government operations.
- Moorhead - located downstream from Leithdoun in the lowlands around the confluence of the Mannock and the Derry Rivers, Moorhead is a seedy, low-rent area mostly catering to starship crews and passengers. Crowded with bars, seedy hotels, and dens of vice that are technically dubiously legal but in fact tolerated (and big business), Moorhead is famed for unregulated gambling, strip clubs and prostitutes, and every variety of debauchery a starshipman could want after a few months jumping across Reaver's Deep.