Toledo

Toledo is Renewed Detroit's second city, with over 3,900 citizens. It has two dominating features: the Fifth Century Tower and the University of Toledo - Health Science campus. Most of the city's population lives around them or between them, along or close to Detroit Avenue. Almost half of Toledoans live in the Fifth Century Tower itself.

Map

The Fifth Century Tower

The Fifth Century Tower was finished in 2233 as a monument to Toledo's first four centuries, and a statement of hope for the next century. Toldedoans usually call it "the Century Tower", or just "the Tower". The Tower is made up of four 100-story towers in a square, which support a fifth 100-story tower at the top of a pair of crossing arches between them. While not intended as an arcology, the Tower had floors for condominiums, businesses, and light industry. The tenth floor, and every 20th floor above it, was intended for restaurants, and those floors have large open spaces and balconies. City Hall occupied the first nine stories of the the northwest tower. Had the Tower been fully occupied, almost a quarter-million people could have lived and worked in it.

The Century Tower was apparently designed and completed during the early part of the Social Wars, as it's both armed and armored. Holographs in the building's exhibit about its construction seem to show that both of these were integral features of the design, not later retrofits.

A strange feature of the Tower is that even interior rooms have windows with views of the outside. This seems to be carried out by advanced optical technology, though all we know about it is that it works without external power. (We think.)

The Century Tower is well-preserved, though only a small part of it is currently in use. City Hall is still in the northwest tower, though it takes up only part of the first floor. The other three towers are inhabited up to their fourth floors. Shops and homes fill the lower floors of the two southern towers, and shops and small factories are in the northeast tower, which appears to have been intended as industrial space. Access above ground floor is by anti-gravity lifts, though most of them are powered only to the fourth floor. Both of the northern towers have powered grav lifts which go all the way to their tops, providing a way to the upper tower. The building's heaviest armament is on the roofs of its five towers.

The Fifth Century Tower is controlled by a very sophisticated Building Main Computer, which is of average human intelligence. Despite the size and complexity of the Tower, there's no evidence that it had a Cybernetic Installation, which is something of a mystery to us. Nevertheless, the BMC fills the role that a CI would occupy, and it does a good job at it.

Power is provided for the BMC and the remaining built-in equipment by both nuclear and solar power. The nuclear reactor has been been drained by past use of the Tower's weapons, so it's kept running at only minimal power except in emergencies. Like most buildings in Renewed Detroit, night-time power is provided by power cells charged from solar energy.

The Tower has sophisticated communications gear, having a multichannel long-range communicator in City Hall, a number of short-range communicators, and access to some sort of wired computer network. We've discovered only a few other places in the city on the network; the only other one of importance is the surviving University of Toledo campus.

City Hall also contains a dedicated computer which issues a single kind of Stage IV ID: the one for police commissioner. As that's the city's only surviving high-security ID available in Toledo, the mayor typically appoints himself commissioner. (The BMC recognizes our elections as legitimate, and it directs the computer to accept the mayor's authority.) The BMC controls a small number of engineering, security, and general household robots; there are ten total.

The Tower has very heavy defenses. Retractable duralloy panels can cover the doors and windows of the first ten floors. A powerful force-field generator is located in City Hall's sub-basement. We have no idea how much damage it can take, but the BMC says it was meant to withstand nuclear attack. Energizing the force-field requires requires running the Tower's reactor at at least half-capacity, so we do it only when we need to do. (Our batteries provide only about a minute of power for the force-field, but that's enough to get the reactor running.)

The Tower's weapons are similarly powerful. The tenth floor's balcony -- an armored parapet with the duralloy panels deployed -- mounts dozens of grenade launchers. More used to be on the 30th floor balcony, but we've dispersed those to the gatehouses in the city's walls.

There are emplacements for surface missiles on the roofs of the lower four towers, and we have some missiles, armed with a variety of warheads. The heaviest weapons are on the roof of the fifth tower. We have two working laser cannon (like those found on Death Machines) and a single working Negation Cannon (works like the negation bomb). All of these have very long ranges, apparently out to the visible horizon (about 40km from the top of Century Tower). There's elaborate sensors for directing the guns, too: radar, mass detectors, and Old Tech detectors we can't identify. Firing any of the cannon requires the building's reactor to be powered up.

The city's main garrison is located in the former police headquarters, adjacent to the Fifth Century Tower.

The University of Toledo - Health Science Campus

The UT-HSC is the best-preserved Old Tech complex in Renewed Detroit. While not all the buildings are currently powered, all of them in are in good repair.

The UT-HSC's most important thing is its Cybernetic Installation, Lloyd. Lloyd is not as smart as other CI's, but is still of very high intelligence (IN 16). Lloyd's intelligence is not as important as its attitude: unlike most CI's, it's been in constant contact with people since the Social Wars, it understands the current situation, and it's helpful and friendly. If directed by the Dean, Lloyd freely teaches people how to use its knowledge bases, and it even happily interacts with Humanoids and Mutant Animals. Lloyd is named after Lloyd Jacobs, who was the last president of the Medical College of Ohio. He directed its merger with the University of Toledo, and then became president of the combined university.

Lloyd will issue Stage II and III IDs to legitimate employees, even those without other ID (which is nearly all of them). While the CI otherwise accepts the authority of the Dean -- since the position has been continuously maintained without break since the Social Wars -- it believes that issuing IDs to everybody interferes with its mission to educate the public. It further argues that requiring Recoverers to work for the University in order to get an ID gives people incentive to salvage ruins for the common good, not just personal profit. UT-HSC has 47 employees presently, including 17 who are full-time researchers and/or doctors. All 17 also teach, and there are two other full-time teachers, too. There are currently 71 full-time students, and dozens of casual or part-time students.

Like the Century Tower, the UT-HSC has both nuclear and solar power. The UT-HSC's reactor is better fueled, though, since the UT-HSC is not armed. Broadcast power is available on campus during daylight hours. However, except by special request, buildings other than the hospital are powered down at midnight or whenever unoccupied.

The hospital itself is the best in Renewed Detroit. While it lacks Old Tech medicines, it does have three working docbots and one working rejuv chamber. In addition, it's the largest Healer base in the country.

The University has communications equipment like the Century Tower does: long- and short-range communicators, and access to the city's wired computer network. There's also Ultranet on campus during the daytime.

The CI also controls a small fleet a robots: over a dozen each engineering and security robots, almost thirty general household robots, and three heavy cargo lifters. It will share the robots elsewhere in the city with sufficient reason.

While the UT-HSC's CI is very impressive, its real treasure is its knowledge bases. The survivors of the Final War worked hard to preserve knowledge bases at the University of Toledo campuses and other nearby schools. However, the colleges were damaged by anti-technology rioters and saboteurs during the Social Wars, and a great deal of knowledge was lost then. While some additional Great Knowledge has been added to the collection since then, parts of the of the knowledge bases have failed, and so some has been lost as well.

The knowledge bases currently include (from best to worse):

* As much of the UT freshman course materials as possible. Despite the survivors' efforts, the Freshman Knowledge Base is incomplete, shallow, and now damaged. While many areas of study are covered, the description "a kilometer wide and a cm deep" applies well, and there are plenty of bare spots.

* A fair amount of bio-medical information

* Some computer sciences, which was expanded with everything the Toledo Software Collaboratory could save. While this knowledge base is large, it's poorly organized, and much technical information was written for specialists.

* The Bowling Green University Advanced Mathematics Knowledge Base. This consists of twenty three hyper-textbooks, all in pretty good shape. However, the math in them is so advanced that it's largely incomprehensible.

* Some music and holographs of art, from ancient to modern

* Some education classes

* The Miscellany, a loosely-indexed collection of all materials that couldn't be easily merged anything else.

In addition, all surviving exhibits from the Toledo Art Museum and COSI are displayed at UT-HSC. The Toledo Zoo was badly damaged during the Social Wars, and only one living exhibit was preserved by the survivors of the Final War: a herd of giraffes. They roam on part of the campus, and one medical research building was converted to house them. In addition, all surviving signs and other information from the zoo is displayed at UT-HSC.

One thing the UT-HSC knowledge bases are bad at is history. For example, the American History Knowledge Base in the UT Freshman collection contains a good outline of American History, which mentions a number of wars. However, we have almost no other information about any of the wars: causes, battles, weapons, or results. The most detailed information we have about any of them is from copies of a damaged hyper-textbook covering part of the American Civil War from the Battle of Antietam to the Gettysburg Address. We've found three copies of this book in Toledo, suggesting it was of some importance. The book's descriptions of weapons in the war were valuable in re-inventing gunpowder rifles, and the book provides our only information about President Lincoln, which isn't enough to tell us when he was born or died.

Other Places in Toledo

BrightWorks RoboFac

The BrightWorks RoboFac is the larger of two solar panel factories in Renewed Detroit. Solar panels provide most of Toledo's electricity.

City Walls

Like most modern cities, Toledo is walled for protection. Toledo's walls are made from large, pre-fabricated sections of the walls emplaced just before the Final War, as the city government made a last ditch effort to retain control of the center city. The Old Wall, defining the western boundary of the city, is one such wall. It's 20m tall, and has no gates or doors. The only way to cross it was by air vehicle, and those were tightly controlled by the government. The survivors of the Final War moved some wall sections to secure an area of the city.

The northern and southern walls are similar to the Old Wall, but they have gatehouses to allow road access to the city. The gatehouses are also constructed of old pre-fab wall segments. Most of the gatehouses are open only during the day; only the two nearest Detroit Avenue are open at night. Even then the gates are closed at night unless people are entering or leaving.

The partial eastern wall is much lower, as we wanted to allow easy access to the docks for our fishing fleet. It's only 3m tall. Most Toledoans feel that attacks from the lake or across the lowest reaches of the Maumee river are unlikely, since there's no other large group of people on the lake, and further, the area across the Maumee from Toledo has reverted to marsh since the Final War.

Because the Detroit Avenue gatehouses are open continuously, and because most of Toledo's population lives near Detroit Avenue, the streetlights along Detroit Avenue (and the little piece of Old 80/90 that connects it to the gatehouse) are kept lit all night. The streetlights between Detroit Avenue and UT-HSC are also on all night, as are those on Dorr Street and Monroe street from Detroit Avenue to COSI. Lights are kept lit there from COSI to Summit Street for the convenient of fishermen returning late or setting sail before dawn. Otherwise, except for lights at major intersections, Toledo's streets are unlit.

Farms within Toledo

Since the northern and southern walls of the city were built along rivers for the greatest defensive value, large parts of the modern city were expected to be thinly populated. Most of the city's residents have chosen to live near Detroit Avenue, which has left the edges of the city almost empty. In 2382, Toledoans voted to allow farms to be built within the city walls. Orchards fill the northwestern and southwestern corners of the city, and the eastern edge of the city has dairy farms (they're only allowed downwind).

Maumee River Docks

The riverfront below Old 280 is the base of the city's large fishing fleet, and the docks are also were cargo and passenger boats arrive from the rest of Renewed Detroit.