Occupying a tiny chunk of its coastline, Atlantia’s Manhattan Sector is perhaps a textbook example of what is meant by “faded glory.” Way back, before the mega-cities and rise of the mega-corps, when the United States was more than a historical memory, this tiny island was one of, if not the, richest conurbations on the planet. The organisations based within its confines dominated the world, financially and politically. But its influence weakened as time progressed, the end of the Cold War opened up new markets that grew quickly to challenge its dominance, and the growing political turmoil across the globe splintered its influence. As the twenty-first century dragged on and urbanisation began to swallow up the American coastlines, there were those in power who still recognised some fleeting notion of status. The first statutes creating modern day Atlantia bestowed Manhattan sector-status alongside it’s much larger neighbours, assuming that the sheen of financial strength would never fade.

Even as this recognition was granted, the groups that had prospered from the good fortune were beginning to spread out and exploit the new city space, leaving streets upon streets of once-luxury office blocks abandoned. Then, as the century drew to a close, came the biggest blow to the sector: The Second Civil War. As a global superpower tore itself apart under the strain of three competing and fiercely independent mega-cities, any international entities with no vested interest fled to safer regions, taking with them Manhattan Sector’s political reach. Even though no fighting ever reached the sector’s shores, it left deep scars across it. After the fires of war died down, Manhattan failed to prosper under the newly independent Atlantia. With no real industry to speak of and very little large-scale commercial development left, the area began a steep decline it has never recovered from. Even it’s once-mighty landmarks either faded or were repurposed, with the Chrysler building being moved up-coast to Boston Sector in the 2150’s, and the Empire State building left as a slowly rotting shell. By the time the twenty-third century started, only a single corporate patron remained on the island in the shape of Santiago Sub-Orbital, but even that didn’t last. The great recession of the 2220s was not kind to the group, leading to bankruptcy and eventual merger with former rival, Lansing Global. This put the final nail in Manhattan’s corporate coffin, as the group eventually departed the area under the guise of “restructuring” and “consolidation,” leaving a broken sector in its wake.

Modern Manhattan bears little resemblance to the former jewel of the East Coast. The once famous skyline has since vanished in between the run-down hab-blocks that were built in previous centuries with no care given to their surroundings, and what little of Central Park that remains is barely more than disorganised scrubland. Some pre-Atlantian architecture still exists, often hidden under facades of modern street furniture and in rapidly progressing states of decay and disrepair. Much of the island still adheres to the grid layout set down centuries ago, however modern developments often take up more than a traditional block size, leading to streets coming to an abrupt halt at the side of buildings, or once straight throughways taking winding paths that were at one time entirely different roads altogether. As a consequence of its dwindling importance over the years, combined with its small and relatively isolated location, the sector’s infrastructure is severely lacking by most other’s standards. The only ways onto the island is via a set of mostly pre-millennial bridges and tunnels–not intended to handle mega-city levels of traffic–or the lone Speedrail station, no Intersector Highway link has ever been built, leading to the sector often gets overlooked by both organisations and individuals alike.

The inhabitants of Manhattan Sector can be roughly divided into three categories: the law-abiding, the criminal and the homeless. Those who live within the city’s law tend to be members of the lower-income bracket, mostly commuting from Manhattan to work in either the vast dockyards of West Long Island Sector or the few non-automated industrial complexes in New Jersey Sector. While technology has certainly improved their lives over previous centuries, the average twenty-third century Manhattanite is still at a distinct economic disadvantage compared to most city dwellers in the developed west.

Those that choose to flout society’s rules within the sector are a far more varied group. As with the vast majority of poorer sectors in Atlantia, street gangs flourish despite the ACPD’s best efforts to crack down on their activities. Organised crime has also crept into the sector thanks to the proximity to a major port and the relative isolation of the area. Both the Weismann Syndicate and Ueno Yakuza Clan claim parts of the island as territory and run several operations through it: varying between drugs and gun running to the more mundane protection and gambling rackets. Alongside the modern groups that have flooded the area, the local mafia, the Manhattan Families, still exists. Once major players in Atlantian (and North American) crime, their fortunes waned along with that of the sector, but they have still managed to cling on to existence by keeping to activities that don’t encroach on those of the other organisations. The current Don has dreams of reclaiming some of the Families’ former grandeur, however, although doing so may bring down ruin upon his struggling empire.

One far more worrying group to have set up in Manhattan recently is the North-Am Unionists. This group claims to be a political organisation seeking the reunification of the three mega-cities that once made up the United States and the territory between them, though after a recent bombing of a G11 trade summit in EuroState was blamed on them the group has been classed as terrorists by governments on both sides of the Atlantic. Their leaders went into hiding shortly after an ACPD crackdown in 2242 led to their Savannah Sector headquarters being seized-however several high ranking members have been spotted openly in public in Manhattan Sector. There are growing worries amongst the sector’s population-on both sides of the law-that there will be a confrontation between the Unionists and the government that might spill over into something far larger than the island has seen for over a century. What is certain is that Manhattan Sector’s status as an overlooked and unimportant area may not last for much longer.

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