International Organizations
International organizations, both criminal and otherwise, have often attempted to finagle their way into Mirai City’s inner workings. However, this seems to be one case where city authorities are well-informed enough that whether it be the Triads or the CIA, agents have not managed to make any meaningful inroads other than some minor support from organized crime of for Skill-out, mostly in the form of drug trafficking within the city and gambling.Even in the case of the group closest to home, the Yakuza, between bribes that have fallen through through and surprise Antiskill raids disrupting their planned operations, they have largely failed to make any meaningful impact on the city.
Mirai City authorities seems to have good intelligence, at least as far as external influences are concerned. Internal problems, though, are another issue entirely.
Mirai City Gangs
Skill-Out
The primary pool of low-level troublemakers are called “Skill-out”, almost entirely composed of Level 0 students or dropouts. Most Skillout gangs don’t have a name, just a particularly charismatic or tough individual leading a small group in petty crime, vandalism, mugging, and so on, although some groups engage in more serious activities like weapon and drug trafficking, extortion and bombings. This informal cell-like structure, and a consistent pool of underachievers make it basically impossible to eliminate from the city.
The biggest moneymaking activity for Skill-out groups is drugs; distribution is highly profitable, and even though not much makes it through city security from the outside world, there’s plenty of opportunity to grab some lab equipment and get to work if you have someone who knows how to cook. Just about every common dug, stimulant, and downer, can be found if you know the right people – and many other drugs you can’t find outside Mirai City, with radical chemists concocting new designer drugs all the time or stealing formulae from pharmaceutical labs.
While they can get technically get access to cyberware or biomods, many Skillout don’t. Part of it is the money required, but part of it is a kind of pride in NOT being special, just making it on their own with nobody but themselves, unchanged as people.
The Low-Rollers
The Low-rollers are so called so because they take to the city’s underground sewer systems. It’s not a good place to bully and mug, but it’s a great place to sneak around, grab, and smuggle goods from high-value targets. The current leader (although there’ve been many) is Raimi Nichols, who’s gotten himself biomodded to have gills – convenient for when monsoon rains make the water levels in the storm sewers a bit too high to manage for most.
The Low Rollers are a source of some of the rumors regarding monsters lurking in the city’s sewer system – some based on their presence, and some spread by them about things they’ve seen in the darker corners of the city...
Karasu
As the Low-Rollers are in the sewers, so are the Karasu in the sky. Less profit-minded as a group, this group is made up of thrill-seekers, breaking into rooftop areas and throwing parties up there, or simply trashing the place. They can also do surveillance for other groups on the ground, and sometimes have radio/telescope/jamming equipment to mess with drones and other aerial devices.
Karasu pranks and vandalism are the primary reason White Cat Delivery doesn’t do air drone deliveries anymore.
Death Leopards
Break shit, have fun, rock out. Mock the powerful, whatever you can get away with is fine, just don’t be boring. Also loosely affiliated with, but not really considered part of, Skillout, due to having some members with Psi powers. The gang talks big but in reality most of their activities are pretty tame, since none are actually very powerful and they don’t want to catch any heat, so it’s limited to alleyway shakedown, random grab-and-smash of low-value items, and crass graffiti.
Student Factions, Cliques, and Extracurricular Clubs
In addition to official school clubs around sports, art, or culture, some students have other extracurricular social clubs or groups they participate in, ranging from innocuous social groups through to youthful power grabs for money, power, and glory.
GHOST
Initially formed to destroy the remaining researchers connected to a Dark Side facility several years ago. The plan was to signal to Mirai City’s Dark Side that there would be no more ways to avoid facing justice – they would destroy the reputation of their research first, sabotaging it to ensure no one made use of it.. and then track down and eliminate them, personally.
Unfortunately, taking a very ends-justifies-the-means approach to sabotage meant that their operations were halted by other students caught in the middle.
The Masquerade
A rather secretive group, connected by the fact that all the users wear colored masks during their activites. Only appeared for a short period of time while Yanigawa Academy was still operational, and seemed to focus most of its efforts on countering GHOST's plans that would have directly harmed the students there, as well as destablizing the school.Tektronic
Radical cybernetics fans, most members of Tektronic have as much cybernetics as they can afford, and steal the rest. Ideologically, they figure that humanity is obsolete; with where technology is with AI and cybernetics, it’s only a matter of time until the machines take over – a perfect society with only logic and reason and not pesky emotions and biology. It’s ironic considering how emotional many of them are about their ideas.
Although they’re a pretty radical group, high-tech experimental theft is their main criminal niche, making them a lot less obviously disruptive. Most are Level 0.
Psion
Halfway between a fan club for the Level 5s and an organized gang of bullies, members of Psion are united in thinking that gaining superhuman abilities does, in fact, make them better than everyone else that hasn’t. With that said, not a single Level 5 has ever acknowledged their existence, and most of the members’ abilities are very low Level, and easily overwhelmed if a Skillout gang decides to show them what’s what.
Third Eye
A secretive information-brokering organization. Exactly how to contact them seems to vary depending on who you talk to, but everyone says their information is always right. Unfortunately though, information doesn’t come cheap, since even secret organizations have rent to pay.
SPOILERS
Third Eye is run out of NXT Makerspace by June Kawashima and her friends Nora and Haru. They will often blackmail or otherwise coerce others into joining their little organization if they have useful powers they can use to extract information -- but no boys allowed!
Order of the Psi-Knights / Chounouryoku Kishidan
Inspired loosely by chivalric codes, the “way of the samurai” and Galactic Conflicts (off-brand Star Wars) this group of students are nerdy even by Mirai City standards. Although they maintain that they’re about honor and justice, it’s more like a social club with a dash of roleplaying. They practice duelling with swords and psi powers, and have minimum Level requirement of 2 to join, along with a ridiculous overly formalized initiation ceremony. Their Code of Honor includes: never using your powers except in self defence, never for personal gain, and never using powers to invade someone’s privacy.
Dark Side
Every city has its dirty underbelly, and Mirai City is no exception to the rule. While it might present a very clean and beautiful high-tech exterior to the world, Mirai City has a real problem with experimentation of questionable ethics, inter-lab sabotage, and political underhanded tactics, even going so far as assassination. Bad actors within the city's everyday operations have an easier time flying under Antiskill's radar, and some of the city's highest authorities are good at looking the other way if it benefits them.
Mercenaries and Proxies
Some students end up in groups tied to Mirai City’s Dark Side – hired as part of espionage and sabotage operations between rival companies, labs, and it’s rumored that even some of the Board of Directors have students doing their dirty work.
Although mercenaries and proxies can be solo operators, it’s much more common for them to form teams -- either organically though friends and schoolmates, or through introductions from their patrons. Teamwork is a good way to make up for weaknesses in the same way a MMORPG raid group needs a tank, DPS, and heals. Elite teams that perform well are even given perks beyond the usual including exclusive training opportunities and access to performance enhancers (drugs, cybernetics, and biomods).
Mercenaries, of course, will work for anyone, with the rewards negotiable – and often not monetary! Rewards might include a hideout space, access to technology beyond normal availability, or even admission into a more prestigious school. Proxies, on the other hand, do the same kinds of work but on behalf of the same person and have the same handler for all their jobs.
Ultimately being a mercenary is more dangerous, since you could build up quite a few enemies over time, whereas proxies know who their friends (and enemies) are and may (MAY) be able to get out of trouble via their patron (or might get burned, depends on how useful they are).
There are persistent rumours that powerful individuals within Mirai City’s Dark Side also use the Reformatory as a recruitment ground, offering higher Level delinquents their freedom in exchange for acting as their personal proxies in Dark Side disputes – and with a lot of the more violent offenders, an excuse to go wreak some havoc is welcome.
These groups, once established, often specialize. These mainly fall into
- Assassination: This is often very easy with powers taken into consideration, but people that know they are being targeted can come up with some innovative defences all the same, considering that psi jammers are not at all common.
- Enforcers: Dealing with other targets, not necessarily to kill, but to intimidate, bring them in, or so on.
- Security: Defending someone, something, or somewhere of value against other Dark Side agents.
- Retrieval: Or documents, information, or physical objects.
The one important thing about proxy warfare is to keep it away from average citizens. Antiskill and Judgement are in a vague sense aware of these activities, but solid leads can be difficult and it is usually covered up well enough by ‘owners’ of a proxy team or by the team themselves that it’s another difficult aspect of Mirai City that seems almost impossible to eliminate.
Electric Boogaloo
A low-tier proxy group that hasn’t had as much success as they hoped. Headed by the arrogant asshole Tatsuya (Level 4 Bioelectric Manipulation), they don’t have the organized ruthlessness down yet, but they make up for it in mean-spirited cruelty between Tatsuya himself and Irina (Robotics, Mantis Mech).
Black Operatives
So who does the dirty work for folks like the Saizawas, the ‘expendables’? Some are mercenaries hired from abroad. But more are actually taken from convict populations, former security guards or Antiskill who’ve been fired for one reason or another, or simply lured with money – or blackmail
They often carry similar equipment to Antiskill in general, although weapon models may be more out of date – or experimental in some rare cases. Many black operatives work under assigned generic names on the job: John and Tanaka being the most common.
Alongside the more militarily focused black operatives are the more business-minded, and administrative, acting as intermediaries and go-betweens for people who are worried about their good name, or simply want a little extra distance but between themselves and their targets.
