2.1 Literary Adventure.
Coruscant is a big place and this small bar on the southside of sublevel B is a nice, quiet oasis of peace.
Well "peace" really, it's a pretty big city with all the noise and congestion which comes with it.
Coruscant, the planet, the city, is probably best compared to a spacecraft rather than a normal planet. It doesn't have a normal ecology, most if it's food is provided by imports, The winds can be predicted by fluctuations in the power grid and the overwhelming majority of the planet's heat comes from the untold trillions of small devices used by each and every one of it's citizens. As a result the strata of the city is... strange.
For a start the planet is split up by latitude, ninety sections from the north to the south pole, and by longitude, though the longitude splits vary depending on where you are on the globe. Around the equator there's on hundred and eighty while at the poles there's just one. Each section, a block about two hundred and thirty kilometres square in each is ruled by a Prefect and under that Sub Prefects rule each level and sublevel within the section each with their own progressively smaller and smaller administrative units.
In some places it's very feudal in structure, and some the Prefects have noble titles. Goodness knows they have enough people under their wing to qualify as Kings or Dukes back home while other Sections maintain pretences of democracy, it's a pretty varied planet. Underneath the prefects are the Sub-Prefects, each of them rules a level and/or in their Section. The city has levels like an onion, quite a few of them actually.
The base level is Topside, it's the nominal ground level which everyone works off, it isn't actually the topmost level all of the time but rather the bottom most agreed upon aboveground level above topside there is Skywalks, Transit and Tower. The roles of each of these levels should be fairly obvious from the name, Skywalks is the most expensive consumer level on the planet, great walkways stretched between the arcology skyscrapers like steel spider silk providing attractive sun kissed frontage to businesses of all shapes and sizes.
Transit is the level occupied almost exclusively by skyscrapers and aircars, a safe distance above the skywalks the cars shoot to and fro barrelling through the air at high speed. I don't use the transit level habitually, only really for short hops between parts of my section, jumping from one surface gate to the other. They top out at at about five hundred meters a second which is fast but it's a very very big city, there are more efficient means of travel elsewhere.
Tower is the highest level and extends all the way to the upper atmosphere if you're willing to spend the cash. It's exclusively home to only the most pimpin architectural phalluses and ostentatious representations of the virility of ones bank account. I could fairly easily rent an apartment in one of the less shiny of the towers, it would only require a weekly trip into the cities monster infested jockstrap buuut it's rather buy a spaceship because spaceship.
Each of these levels is five to ten hundred meters above the previous level. When the time comes Skywalks will become Topside, Transit will get Skywalks, tower will become transit and yet another layer of vertical urban sprawl will be added to this onion of a city. All in all the total aboveground population of each given section is a little bit north of a billion people
Belowground the sublevels are just given alphanumeric designations based more on the local economy more than any actual feeling of depth. On average each 'level' is two to five hundred meters deep and serves a different purpose borne at least of a part from economics and ecology. Sublevel A, Downside, is probably best described as the also-ran level, the level where the not-that-rich of the city planet live, work and try desperately to get ahead in the rat race so they can afford to move to topside.
The population is dense here, middle, upper middle class dwellings sandwiched close to each other each decorated lavishly inside. Far more so than topside. Merely being able to see the sun on this planet is worth more than all of the gilded hallways and polished chrome droids. Most who do eventually find topside accommodations find it becoming Sublevel A in short order, it's not a nice place to be, everyone is always busy all the time no time to slow down no time to stop everyone needs just that little bit of extra money to get that little bit further ahead.
Imagine if Western Sydney was a layer of cling wrap the size of an entire planet and you're probably halfway to a good idea of what it's like. In total there's probably another half billion people per section through that level.
Below that there's Sublevel B which is significantly less packed. Sublevel B is almost entirely light industrial, Close enough to the surface for small ships to come in through the Level A portal but deep enough underground that the rent can support warehouses, carparks, gymnasiums and the like. If you're a mid profit company and you want to be able to service surface clients in a timely fashion then Sublevel B is where you're at. Most of the big towers at least start at sublevel B, their bottom most entrance and Speeder parking zones ending at this level.
As places go it's pretty nice, But i'm just biased because I live here. That said this level is deeper, usually comprised of five to ten large caverns each two hundred meters or more in height honeycombing their way down beneath the surface. net population per section is not actually that large given it's neighbours but still comfortable above a billion in most sections.
Deeper we have Sublevel C or as it's colloquially known, The Deep Roads. The dominating feature of sublevel C is it's subway system, a sorta kinda hyperloop network is built into the level linking then entire planet, it takes pretty much every shipment from anywhere to everywhere and is good for long and medium distance hops at absurd speeds, easily more than a couple of kilometres per second. for anything more than a couple of thousand kilometers it's better to go suborbital if you're in a hurry and have the cash.
If you're planning to move between nearby sections the Hyperloop is your number one choice. As a result it's also the most populous residential level on the planet. Everyone likes to live next to transit and the access elevators which can carry people straight to the tallest towers allow anyone to get almost anywhere in short order from Sublevel C. it's fairly deep and packed to the gills with small service businesses, Clubs, pubs, shops, supermarkets, police stations, schools, barracks and everything in between. the entire level is an endless live of activity clustered around the untold thousands of Hyperloop tributaries. The Subprefects of this level have their own global council separate from their bosses.
Total population is somewhere round two trillion per section.
Sublevel D is where things start getting sketchy. How sketchy do you ask? Pretty Fucking Sketchy. D is the lowest properly administered level which isn't entirely given over industrial affairs and is a real shitfight. A decent minimum wage job can get you a shoebox sized apartment in C and that means D is more or less by default where all the fuckups of society end up, the unwanted, the unloved and the just plain mad. It's also where pretty much every criminal enterprise of the city is run out of or through.
Below that it only gets worse.
The air purifiers, payed for by a trillion taxpayers sits at sublevel H, processing the funk of a few trillion people into a liveable atmosphere, probably selling off most of the organic waste as well, there's bugger all in the way of farms in this city so it's all gotta go somewhere.
I is the Stinkzone. Breathing gear is recommended below here and level AC, twenty nine levels and over a dozen kilometres down is apparently the planetary surface.
Or at least that's what the guidebooks tell me, I've never gone that deep and I honestly never plan to.
Perhaps if I have to go to ground one day it'd be the ultimate hostile environment to loose anyone save the most nasty force sensitives but it's not a prospect that I'm loioking forward to.
So that's Coruscant, a lovely little place which is the centre of galactic civilisation and possibly the most convoluted collective engineering marvel in the known universe.
Anyway this is a B level pub with a lovely beergarden illuminated by the fractal reflections from a sheet of purest crystal extending right to the surface. I sip my drink while Errai Lounges back atractively in her seat.
"So You have a job from the Empire?"
"Afraid so, it's not like I was in much of a position to refuse."
"Do you really believe that?"
"Yeah, mostly. I'm not really willing to chance it. The captain is a good customer but he's about as Empire as Empire gets, all stiff upper lip and Human Exceptionalism bullshit. I don't think he personally would have a go at me but I wouldn't put it past him to speak of me unfavourably around some ears who might be a bit less forgiving."
"You do know that by working for him he's going to mention you to more and more of his no doubt wonderful colleagues." she says with a wan smile, leaning back in her plush seat.
"Yeah" I sigh. "At least they'll approach with the appropriate persuasion in order to keep the captain onside, maybe, I hope, if I'm lucky." Errai chuckles richly at my cagey answer.
"Well lets change subject, your ship."
"Mmmmm. Spaceship." I purr.
"Not what I mean you silly man. Ryan's moved it into the garage?"
"Yeah, the old fuzzball put down enough of a payment to get it moved into the shop. It's super nice, Ex military, lots of space where there used to be radio equipment We're keeping the ventral trubolaser so that eats a bit into the potential space but its still a real nice boat. On my old homeworld a flyer of that size would be worth... I dunno? Triple digit millions?"
"Ah and how much are you paying for this one?" she asks coquetishly.
"Two Fifty thou. For a vessel that size with engines like it's its a super good deal. I've already set aside room for the library, got the shelves on layby and I'm trying to set up a workshop as well once I pay it off, it's going to be so nice to just fly around, maybe expand the business. Sorry I've been talking about my boat for too long I haven't given you a chance to talk about my boat."
"Ha." She snorts. 'I'm not going to talk about your boat. Besides it's not a boat, it's a ship."
"Hurr hurr, that's what she said." I grunt and Errai punches me in the arm.
"That was awful, it doesn't even work."
"That's what she... err.. umm. Finishing that sentence is probably a bad idea." I trail off. Arrai only smiles warmly as she takes a swig of her not quite beer.
"Anyhooo. How goes class?" I ask deftly changing the subject.
"Classes are pretty good, we're running out of places in Djingo's afternoon classes four nights out of five and the adults are booked almost from dawn to dusk. I'm actually doing more paperwork than teaching."
"You know you can get accountants for that." I say.
She sighs tiredly.
"Yeah I know. But accountants." she says plaintively.
"Well, I'm looking to get a class one or two droid to do archiving for me, Last time I checked they should be able to handle a few accounts."
"Yeah, that's probably a good Idea, might even take on more staff anyway. See if I can't poach Albert from across the way."
"He any good."
"He used to be a great swordsman, not so much anymore. As a teacher... Well the man's almost eighty and has been running classes for more than half his life, he was the one who taught me my first bits of bladework when I was this high." she holds her hand yay high off the ground.
"I'm sorry I can't believe that. Surely you were never this high it's simply impossible." She chuckles warmly and my feigned incredulity and I can't help but grin as I take another swig from my drink.
"That sword you got me, it's cortosis." She says quietly.
"Well yeah, 'course it's cortosis anything which wasn't got lightsabered in half well before it could be abandoned."
"Well thanks. Thanks for the book as well. I've never thought of swordplay in the way it shows." She smiles and I can't help but smile back.
"Anytime." I smile. I drain the last of my drink and place my empty glass next to hers. She waves the waiter down with a smile and orders some snacks and another round.