Quarantine Zones

Source: When No-Go Means We Go

Throughout the system, places attacked by the TITANs during the Fall remain off limits. The weapons used to destroy the TITAN machines frequently left these locations uninhabitable or destroyed beyond repair. In many places we simply failed to complete the job, leaving exsurgents and other threats lingering in the ruins.

Abandoned TITAN projects have been located throughout the system, many hidden in the outer system well away from the fights near Earth and Mars. More than one gatecrashing team has detected signs of the TITANs’ passing on unexplored exoplanets as well. Charging stations, launch sites, nanofab and research facilities, and even active machines have been discovered. Thankfully, no team has stumbled across an active TITAN — yet.

Iapetus

A large moon of Saturn, Iapetus contains deposits of silicates as well as ice. At one time, two hundred thousand residents lived at Analect, the moon’s largest settlement. During the Fall, Iapetus was targeted by the TITANs and the transhuman population was exploited for labor and exsurgent transformation.

Guarded by fractal trolls, the TITAN drones bore deep into the moon, rebuilding everything with layers of silicate circuitry. We believe their goal was to transform Iapetus into a matrioshka brain, a megastructure computing complex fit for an ASI.

Thankfully, the TITANs did not complete this project; who knows what terrible uses they may have found for it. We are unsure what happened: the transformation simply ceased. Perhaps the TITANs moved on. Perhaps the TITAN behind the endeavor died in the process.

Iapetus is now quarantined under the aegis of The Titanian Commonwealth. The machinery and other secrets buried under the ice are of great interest to many parties. Research teams from a number of hypercorps and polities have established stations in orbit and outposts in the subsurface tunnels. The Commonwealth cannot condone irresponsible research, so it does its best to limit access to what it considers responsible parties.

Reports of encounters with fractal trolls and other exsurgents indicate a few remain alive in the tunnels beneath the surface. These victims appear uniformly mad, resorting to fight-or-flight reflexes when encountered. They do need to eat but it is better not to ask what they find edible deep in the tunnels.

There are reports of shifting tunnels and encounters with selfrepairing machinery. Teams have reported discovering art scratched into the walls, disturbing crystalline statues, and hypnotic patterns in the circuitry. Members have vanished during exploration and are found later with no memory of wandering from the group. Some have never been located.

Encoded transmissions broadcast randomly every few weeks from the depths of the moon. If parts of the matrioshka brain are still active, they may contain the shattered remains of its TITAN creator. The Commonwealth does not encourage decryption of any signals recorded.

New Mumbai Containment Zone

Like other Lunar habitats during the Fall, New Mumbai’s population exploded as refugees escaped Earth to the nearest habitats. New Mumbai accepted the newcomers as quickly as they came but not without risk. An exsurgent-infected refugee slipped through screening and within a week 70 percent of the population was secretly infected. These exsurgents acted in unison to seize control of the city within an hour. Other Lunar authorities acted swiftly and dropped two fusion bombs before the infection could spread, leaving a crater of melted rock visible from orbit.

Though radiation is still at dangerous levels, signs of active exsurgents have been detected, including sightings of roving whippers. Pockets of the infected may have survived in the most protected, deepest layers of the underground city. Living exurgents may also have adapted to the radioactive conditions.

New Mumbai remains under quarantine, with automated LLA defenses and drones in place to prevent travel in or out of the area. Lunar authorities are paranoid when it comes to threats coming out of New Mumbai and they use extensive quarantine procedures and travel checkpoints to detect even the smallest signs of infection.

New Mumbai Async Risks

Asyncs in the area report an ambient “pressure” that can be felt from twenty kilometers away. Usually asyncs need to be within 20 meters to detect each other, indicating that whatever is capable of reaching across that great a distance is a truly impressive and very dangerous entity.

TITAN Quarantine Zone

During the Fall, the area that is now the Quarantine Zone was the center of TITAN activity. As the machines fell back and remaining exsurgents stayed within the Zone, authorities concluded, at least for now, that quarantining the area was easier than trying to retake it.

Ten years later, the Zone is still under quarantine, despite analysis that indicates retaking the region is possible. The hypercorps are happy, however, to have the Zone to use as a good distraction from other issues, not to mention profit from reverse-engineered Zone artifacts. Retaking the Zone would also be expensive, so it remains politically and financially convenient to leave the Zone alone. And not that any politician likes to admit it, but there are still worries that the Zone is a sleeping danger best left alone.

The southern edges of the Zone are rough terrain, featuring canyons and ridges. The rest of the Zone is pockmarked with craters, some natural and some the result of explosions, and flattens to a wide plain in the north. The Zone is full of lingering traps, dust storms, bizarre exsurgent critters, and war-time machines and nanoweapons waiting to be stepped on and reactivated. Not everything in the zone is dangerous; decorative if creepy formations are scattered throughout the Zone like an art gallery of twisted sculptures. These fractal barrows, silicate columns, and artificially eroded shapes are presumably created by nanoswarms but no one has observed any in the act of creation.

The White Zone

At the center of the TQZ lies the White Zone, the Amazonis Mensa, a high plateau one hundred thirty kilometers long and seventy-five kilometers wide. The White Zone was a hotbed of TITAN activity and remains the most dangerous area of the Zone. TITAN warbots, zombified transhumans, and nanoswarms are all still active here, sometimes in large numbers. The Tharsis League regularly drops comets here (double bonus, help terraform by killing baddies), but there are indications of massive subsurface structures and tunnels in active use.

Qurain

The city-state of Qurain was founded by Sunni Muslims looking to invest in the future of Mars. It fell to early TITAN attacks before its stone fortress was devastated by tac nukes during the Fall. Smugglers now use the ruins as landmark and shelter, though machine and exsurgent activities in the area remain high.

Containment

The Zone is monitored by Martian Rangers and orbital satellites. Things detected coming out of the Zone are shot until they don’t move anymore. Missiles provided by Direct Action are used if smaller weapons aren’t enough.

The Consortium also jams radio and microwave signals to prevent communication within the Zone across long distances, such as between towns or convoys. However line-of-sight laser communication still works and pre-arranged communication within the TQZ can be aided by relay stations outside of the Zone strong enough to punch through the jamming. Getting lost in the Zone is a genuine risk without any way to call for help.

Zone Stalkers

There are always loners in a desert: hermits, nomads, and others who want to be left alone. Smugglers can be found in safer areas and, if approached cautiously, may be helpful. Zone stalkers search the ruins and old TITAN facilities to retrieve artifacts to sell. There are also isolated communities that prefer to remain in the Zone, such as the Yazidis, a religious sect of Kurds infected with a mostly benign strain of Watts-MacLeod. They aren’t hostile, are willing to barter, and will offer visions of their own story of the Fall to friendly guests. The vision may also leave their guest infected with the Watts-MacLeod virus as a parting gift.

Other Locations

There are many smaller locations of TITAN and exsurgent activity. On Mercury, there is Caloris 18 on the southern tip of the Caloris Planitia. Records indicate biological experimentation to merge separate morphs into one continuous entity. While this effort did not produce a viable result, the area has been sealed to prevent repeat incidents.

Many of the derelict abandoned habitats in Earth orbit that suffered TITAN attacks are still there, waiting to be salvaged. The beehive habitat Blackrock was a communications nexus for Luna and an early casualty to TITAN attacks, leaving the rock barren and radioactive. Encoded transmissions originating from there indicate that some presence remains. Its orbit is unstable; it will likely crash into Luna within 5 years. Likewise, the Chinese military station Shenlong (“Divine Dragon”) was seized by the TITANs. Though damaged, it survived, and its automated defenses continue to keep intruders at bay.

Though the Consortium has kept a tight lid on it, there are rumors of a recent exsurgent outbreak on the exoplanet colony Cajamarca that has not yet been fully contained.