Service territory

A service territory was a part of a corporate territory where slags lived and worked. It was also colloquially known as slagland Everywhere habitable place outside the corporate enclaves was potentially a service territory, although in practice a corporation might only use less than one percent of the available area.

Structure and architecture

Service territories varied widely in design and size. The smallest was probably the lower decks and bilges of New Singapore which were crammed with slags, while the largest was probably the near-uninhabitable frozen wastes of Imprimatur which were dotted with small factory settlements. The service territories of Shigenobu corporation were essentially the existing suburbs of Japanese cities, while Ramdhun always purpose-built great open tower blocks for their slags wherever they ruled. These tower blocks were separated by wide roads on which the younger hanyos, in deefiance of the rules of their elders, would run their drag races late at night. Pentecostco, as one of the few corps exporting food, had parcelled out the arable land of the American Midwest into farm settlements staffed by slags. Al Ayyarun had service territories embedded in the heart of their corporate enclaves, walled off and access-controlled. The service territories of Hasgod were descendants of the old kibbutzes.

Service territories always included the Foodworks, the Baby Barracks and the Slag Schools. Low status Cleaners and Fixers worked in the service territories, while high status ones bussed in to the corporate enclave every shift. All service territories were ringed by Bully Boy outposts.

Life in slagland

Entertainment was forbidden in the slag places. Shifts were mostly twelve hours long or more, so teh service territory was just a place to eat and sleep for most slags. The only source of amusement were the handheld devices called 'phones' although you couldn't actually use them to make calls. They were passive devices slaved to the network that could only receive content from the corp servers. The corps put out ads (mostly for marriage) puzzles and short videos to keep slags busy in idle times. The Survivors hacked this system in order to send out the Karma Sutra.

In theory, the service territories were no-go areas for hanyos, since the slags held U-jobs that required them to remain unseen and unseeing of hanyos. This allowed Human Resources propaganda about the lofty genius and benevolence of the hanyos to remain unchallenged. In reality, however, hanyos would occasionally raid the service territories late at night to find suitable victims to chicken-hunt. Or they would lure slags away to victimise them. Since slags were taught to trust and revere hanyos, and did not have the experience of them that chicks had, they were easily exploited, and some hanyos developed a taste for them. This behaviour was, however, frowned on by the hanyo mainstream and regarded as sexual slumming.