Laures

Laures, known to some as the Capital of the Human Resistance, is a growing metropolis with a largely organic population. Laures was once a proud military leader for the cause against assimilation, but in the twenty years following the last major rebellion has fallen into a period of reluctant peace with the Nexus.

Despite this, rumours circulate regarding the city's involvement in funding groups of organic rebel extremists, and questions have arisen regarding the motives of city-supported encampments deep within the treacherous mountains.

Geography and Climate
Nestled between the base of the Laurean Mountain Range and the great wide mouth of the Mariana Bay, Laures is geographically protected, its mountains reaching into the southeast and a smattering of tiny islands barricading the north. Aside from air, the city is accessible only by shallow water and narrow passes that connect a network of mag train rails between the city, its surrounding settlements, and its refineries.

Due to the nature of Thaeta's long day-night cycle, most of the vegetation around Laures is stunted and hardy; small trees, mosses, and low grasses are plentiful, as are bogs and standing water during the night that turn to dry and yellowed grasslands nearing the peak of day. While the lowlands near the city are kept fertile, boasting year-long crops, the surrounding foothills and mountains remain natural and can be dangerous to the unprotected wanderer.

The city itself is pleasantly mild due to its aeroformed climate. In light months, temperatures range between 15 and 25 degrees Celsius and during the dark months only drop down to minus 10 Celsius.

Fog and overcast skies are common during the light cycle, burning off as the day grows warm and long. Thunderstorms often pass through the lowlands as day shifts into night, and because they pose no sizeable threat to the city, are rarely neutralised. As night settles in and temperature drops, frost is common along the city outskirts. It rarely gets cold enough to snow at sea level, though as the night cycle grows long, the highest Laurean peaks don thick caps of white. Avalanches are common in the mountains as dawn comes again.

Culture
It has been over a century and several generations since any Earth-born Thaetan visited their home world, though the connection to Old Earth is still strong. However, some things have been mixed, confused, and others forgotten entirely, to the point where Laureans have recycled several old concepts to make something new.

Much of Laures is a standing celebration to Old Earth. Its architecture is an amalgam of old Earth styles, ranging from Baroque to Romanesque and Old and New Modern; Laureans have made liberal use of their ready sources of stone and steel. These flamboyant displays are found primarily in the Business and Memorial Districts; the Farm District focuses on utilitarian construction--simple steel-and-brick homes dot a checker board of flat and arable land.

The people of Laures vary wildly: farmers, businessmen, artists, and scholars all call the cultural melting pot home. Diversity breeds disparity; while the majority of Laureans are middle-class citizens, the city is not without its slums and its gates.

English (sometimes known as Standard or Standard English) is primarily spoken in Laures and throughout the Laurean settlements. French is widespread among smaller communities and farmers. It is commonly accepted that Standard English and French are Laures’ official dialects, with a scattering of Mandarin, German, and Romantic languages throughout.

The Aegis
Formed prior to the First Rebellion, the Aegis was once a formidable dual-purpose law enforcement and government entity, sanctioned by Earth’s Council of Nations. When Earth fell to the Great War and Laures to the Rebellions, the Aegis was scaled down by order of the Nexus, Thaeta’s self-proclaimed capital. Its enforcement group was replaced entirely by the Authority, and the Aegis shrank to a small group of politicians. To resist further conflict between Laures and the Nexus, no efforts have been made to restore the Aegis to its former incarnation.

Though the Authority is a strong presence in Laures, due to its Business District's dense population, the city is not without crime. Those caught breaking the law are dealt with swiftly and mercilessly, many being shipped out of the city entirely, never to return.

As of present day, the Aegis is lead by Yvonne Fletcher, a Laurean-appointed senator.

Commerce
Having several remote mines and refineries under its control, Laures’ economy is highly reliant on its exports of steel and zinc to Mourier. The Nexus also has trade agreements with Laures: while Laures is well off in terms of material and food, it does not have the space or the technology to create many of the life-sustaining chips that its citizens need.

Laures provides food, medical assistance, and supplies to its outlying settlements that litter the harsh mountain range.

Both Credits and Platinum Pieces are accepted as currency in Laures.

Infrastructure
Laures is split into three districts: one third of the city, levelled by the Abolition, serves as a standing monument to lives lost in the First and Second Rebellions.

Memorial District
The Memorial District has all but grown over, little more than an aging graveyard of weathered stone and steel being slowly assimilated by native plant life. Once a hub of activity, the former extension of the Business District was destroyed during the First Rebellion. The Aegis Memorial park is the focal point of the district, where remnants of buildings were levelled to favour artificial ponds and Old Earth trees; smaller parks also commemorating the lost have sprung up all over. More recently, housing development has spilled into the Memorial District due to a rebounding population.

Business District
The bustling Business District is Laures’ downtown area. Sprawled across the rocky shore of Mariana Bay is the city skyline. Hospitals, schools, apartments, businesses, and shops are all clustered nearly on top of each other in by far the densest part of the city. The focal point of the Business District is its mag train station, where ninety percent of the city's transportation passes through daily. The station is topped by a clock tower that can be seen throughout Laures.

Unlike the sparse Memorial and Farm Districts, where apartments are new and relatively uniform, the cluttered Business District ranges vastly between slums and high-end housing.

Farm District
The Farm District is the last and largest of three districts of the city, and is better classified as several small agricultural communities. Plots of land are dotted with houses and livestock and fields that are carefully tended to by hundreds of farming families and co-ops within Laures itself. This district surrounds the valley and foothills of the Laurean Mountains with no distinct border, far beyond the city proper, and provides Laures with most of its food.

History
Laures began as a series of small encampments set up by the first wealthy organic families and militant exploration teams to trickle out of the Nexus capital. Laures was once much closer to the Nexus, spread out as a shanty town across the shore on the swampy flatlands just south of the city.

As more civilians came to settle Thaeta, Laures grew. By 24 AL, Laures was recognised—soon after Mourier and Singh—by the Council of Nations as its own settlement. With government backing as well as continued trade agreements with the Nexus, the town was able to relocate west of Phoros Bay, nestled in the range of proliferous mountains and valleys that were named for the new city. For the next several decades, Laures was allowed to grow and flourish along with its surrounding refineries as an iron mining settlement.

During this time, the Aegis was formed, as much the city's leaders as was its law enforcement group. The Aegis, lead by an individual elected by the Council of Nations, was tasked with keeping peace among the Laureans and before the Rebellions did a fair job of keeping their settlement crime-free.

When news came of Earth’s self-destruction, the Laureans were devastated. The Nexus swept in to fill what holes the Council of Nations had left behind, but were so far from Laures that communications over the next few years all but stopped, save for their tenuous trade relationship. During the First Rebellion, Laures joined Mourier and Singh in a force to overthrow the Conclave’s proclaimed capital of Thaeta, a movement that ended in a widespread massacre and destruction that was later named the Abolition. The Abolition levelled half of Laures’ Business District, decimated buildings, and killed tens of thousands of its citizens.

Due to this overwhelming upset, Laures, still under the Aegis' rule, strengthened its stance as a passive city-state and did not involve itself with the Second Rebellion. This did not stop the Nexus from inserting the oppressive presence of the Authority and labelling them as rebel sympathisers when refugees fled to Laures in the wake of both rebellions. The Aegis was forcibly scaled down, leaving only a handful of appointed politicians to rule the city with the Authority all but replacing the group's law enforcement needs.

Famine and disease spread without the Nexus’ technological crutch. Infant mortality rates rose, and life expectancy lowered. It took years for Laureans to realise their own power, but soon restorative magic, most notably the ability to heal flesh with touch, was discovered in Laures. The few privy to seeing it first-hand called it miraculous; others deemed it a necessary turn in human evolution; fewer still placed the blame on Thaeta itself.