The Wastes
Ungoverned Territory
Overview
Between the megacity cores of the Sprawl lie the Wastes—vast stretches of territory that no corporation claims, no authority governs, and no sane person enters without good reason. They're not empty. They're ungoverned. There's a difference.
The Wastes are what's left of the old world. Suburban sprawl that never merged into the megacity. Agricultural zones that collapsed when ORACLE's supply chains died. Industrial parks abandoned and never reclaimed. Hundreds of millions of people live out there, beyond corporate borders, making their own rules.
Some call it hell. Others call it freedom. Both are right.
Geography
The Margins
Where the Sprawl ends and the Wastes begin. Technically ungoverned but close enough that services sometimes work, power sometimes flows, and Enforcers occasionally sweep through.
The Deadlands
Former industrial and agricultural zones that died during the Cascade. Automated farms with no one to harvest them. Infrastructure collapsed, corroded, but there. Salvagers make fortunes here—if they survive.
The Rad Zones
Not everywhere survived the Cascade cleanly. Malfunctioned defense systems, uncontrolled industrial processes, areas that are simply wrong—radiation, contamination, rogue nanite swarms.
The Havens
Scattered autonomous communities that actually function. Former towns that organized, defended themselves, built something sustainable. They trade with each other and want to be left alone.
Who Lives Here
The Exiles
People who fled or were expelled from corporate territory. Political dissidents, failed entrepreneurs, criminals too small for corporate justice. Many died in the first year. Survivors learned fast.
The Born
Second and third generation Wastelanders. Never lived under corporate rule, never held a citizen credit account, never been tracked by surveillance systems. Their own culture, slang, way of seeing the world.
The Ferals
Survivors of the Cascade who never recovered. Broken minds, broken bodies, surviving on instinct. They're not evil—they're damaged. That makes them more dangerous.
The Cults
The Wastes breed belief. ORACLE worshippers seeking shards. Luddite communes rejecting technology. Transhuman cults pursuing their own path. Out here, you can believe anything.
The Clans
Organized groups controlling territory, resources, or routes. Some criminal enterprises, others genuine communities. They war, trade, and occasionally unite against outside threats.
Survival
Resources
Water is scarce but findable—underground aquifers, purification systems, rainfall collection. Food is harder—hunting mutated wildlife, farming in contaminated soil, trading with Havens.
Wildlife
Decades of uncontrolled breeding and environmental stress. Most just surviving. Some are predators.
Weather
Climate control exists only in corporate territories. The Wastes get raw weather—storms, heat waves, floods.
People
The most common threat. Raiders, slavers, desperate refugees, territorial clans. Trust earned slowly.
Technology
Rogue systems still running pre-Cascade programming. Drones protecting facilities that no longer exist.
Notable Areas
The Rustbelt
Thousands of kilometers of dead industry between former North America and the Atlantic Megacity core. Factories, refineries, automated plants running on backup power until they finally stopped. Richest salvage territory—and most dangerous.
The Green Sea
Former agricultural mega-farms in central Eurasia. Without ORACLE's coordination, the automated systems failed mid-season. Now wild—mutated crops growing unchecked, abandoned farm machinery, communities that learned to live with chaos.
The Bleach
Coastal zones where sea level rise, industrial contamination, and Cascade fallout combined into something toxic. Salt flats that burn the lungs, dead forests, water that glows. People still live here.
The Cradle
A cluster of Havens in former Australia's interior that actually cooperate. Trade, defense agreements, shared resources—something close to functioning society. The Collective uses them as safe harbor. Corporations pretend they don't exist.
The Free City (Zephyria)
The largest functional settlement outside corporate control—2.3 million people in the North American Wastes. No supply chains, no corporate infrastructure, no computational networks. And yet it works. Founded in 2154 by survivors of the Phoenix Collective, governed by the Council of Seventeen. The corporations officially deny its existence.
Relationship to the Sprawl
Corporate Extraction
Corporations don't claim the Wastes, but they use them. Mining, resource extraction, waste disposal. Fly in, take what they want, fly out. It's not occupation—it's harvesting.
The Human Trade
People flow both ways. Wastelanders trying to enter the Sprawl (usually failing). Sprawl citizens fleeing to the Wastes (usually dying). Slavers operate in both directions.
Information Flow
The Collective operates here—easier to hide. Smugglers run data and goods both ways. The Wastes know things the Sprawl has forgotten.
The Buffer
Corporations tolerate the Wastes because they're useful. Absorb excess population, provide resources, create barrier between territories. Ungoverned space makes governed space more valuable.
Player Relevance
Age 1-2: Distant Threat
The Wastes are stories. Warnings. "Behave, or you'll end up out there." You can see the Waste border on clear days—a smear of brown where the environmental domes end.
Age 3-4: Resource Opportunity
Materials the corporations don't control. Salvage, rare elements, technology that fell through the cracks. Make Waste runs—in and out, quick, dangerous, profitable.
Age 5-6: Expansion Space
With real power, the Wastes look different. Not dangerous territory—available territory. No corporate claims means no corporate resistance. Build your own domain.
Age 7+: Irrelevant
Once you're building orbital platforms, the Wastes are just more ground-level problems. Let someone else worry about them.