“I’m betting most of my streamers have traveled through Spyglass towns before. Probably don’t even notice half the time. There’s a few spots in Landria that Spy owns, they’re not much different than the rest of it: loud, blocky, perpetually trying to sell you something (you’ve all heard me rant about Mars’ “pride and joy” before, I’ll spare you a repeat) sufficed to say, the little splats don’t often live up to the rather foreboding reputation a lot of native MC civs tend to grow up hearing about. The stories of lawless, dangerous streets and rampant theft and corruption, and people who’ll just as soon steal your bone marrow as buy you a drink. Places the IRPF calls “Dark towns,” which is just about as stilted a description of anywhere I’ve ever heard and should probably be laughed at and ignored on principle. None the less, it paints a grim picture, and many people are downright frightened to travel into deep solo-Spyglass corptowns. Ignorance will do that. So take a walk with me and I’ll clear the air a little on what actually goes on in a Spyglass town, and hopefully, when you get up the gumption to visit, you’ll have a better understanding of just what to expect.
About 10 years ago, I moved to the Mars-based Spyglass town of Senisen as a way to force myself to deliver streams more objectively. Getting around in different corps helps you see things from new angles, and I had this (admittedly childish) idea that if I trotted around the solar system for a while and slept in everyone’s camp, I’d come out of it with a unique and varied insight. I think in the end it mostly just made me broke and bitter, but that creditless vitriol helped fuel my current style anyway, so hey, in the end, time well spent. Senisen was my first stint in a fully Spyglass corptown, and of the places I’ve rested my head, it’s one of the few I still think of as “home.” Took about a year to get to that point, though. Spyglass living is an acquired taste. You either get used to it and see the value, or you pretty much run away screaming. I spent about 6 years there before wanderlust and curiosity sent me on to the next location, but I seat myself firmly in the former of the two categories. And in case you’re wondering, publishing that openly just upped my potential threat index on the IRPF charts by several points.
By far the most common question I get from worried travelers hinges around the Spyglass justice system and what sort of legal protections they can expect from a society that doesn’t employ the IRPF to handle its law. Which is always worth a giggle, since I do have Spyglass streamers, and they send me worried letters about what they can expect when traveling through a town where the actions of the civilian populous are arbitrarily judged by a bloated mercenary corporation with no accountability beyond its contract with whatever megacorp owns the place and hired them specifically so they could hold up their hands and say “not our problem, talk to the IRPF” whenever someone gets shot. Frankly, both questions are valid ones, but since we’re looking from the outside in, I’ll address the Spyglass side. Disputes in a Spyglass town are settled largely by community merit, which seems a rather sloppy way of doing things (and indeed it can be) but is remarkably effective at promoting cooperation. They actually have a social currency, called Sing, that serves to rate and monitor personal social debts, loyalty, favors, things of that nature. Sounds a little maddening from the outside, but we do much the same thing thing credit contracts, they just let us de-personalize the situation a bit. Spyglass towns don’t de-personalize anything. Friends are made quickly and easily and hinge on working together to preserve what has been established by to community as “the good life.” That definition can change from community to community, but less than you might think. Businesses communicate all over the worlds, and all throughout the town, and over time many of big behaviors have homogenized in their overall public response, allowing people to pretty accurately police themselves within their own communities. Violations are dealt with between the offending parties, usually with guidance by locals and witnesses.
Spyglass towns have trials, but they’re smaller affairs and usually hinge around the judgments of prominent and respected members of the community more than the arbitration of an IRPF judge who may not even be from the same planet as you. It breeds favoritism, certainly, but the people who find themselves in these positions of respect got there because they acted in fairness and the community recognized it. It’s not something you can buy your way into (well, it IS, but you buy it with sing, that social currency I mentioned earlier. It basically shows that you have quantifiably assisted the people you’re representing). I knew about six in Senisen. Four I liked, two I could’ve done without. I understood all of them, though. I could see how they had achieved their status. That in itself was rather refreshing; I can’t say the same of the IRPF Justice Arbiters in our fair city. Which I will likely catch hell for when this stream goes live, but hey. I’m not paid to be nice. The famous duels-to-the-death over petty crimes are a real thing, but they’re a lot less common than your local vids might make them out to be. The major ‘rule’ in a Spyglass town regarding punishment is that the nature of the punishment is an agreed upon value between all parties affected by the crime, and that said weight is supported by the community. The stakes of a trial are determined before the trial begins, which goes a long way toward keeping rather obscene punishments from popping up repeatedly. Rarely will two people agree that the loser of an argument over theft or personal violation should be outright killed before the tribunal is satisfied on who is guilty or not. Most often, an actual duel will only take place if a community agrees on a guilty party and said party refuses to accept punishment, acts in a way that endangers a larger group, or otherwise chooses to pursue an argument outside the established social justice contract. Duels will generally only involve two people and usually have various stipulations attached about the protection of ones family against future violence from the winner (which the public becomes rather violently incensed about should they be violated). It’s a frightening thing to watch, but it’s remarkably effective within its setting. I’ve seen two, and in both situations there was a notable, almost unreal shift in emotions when one side fell. Forgiveness is exchanged evenly, memories are shared, and while hard feelings must surely exist, there is a sense that this conflict has been seen through to its conclusion, and should be left alone.
No one is untouchable in a Spyglass town, and they like it that way. It keeps people honest and doesn’t sugar-coat the nastier parts of business. Bounty hunters and assassins here will work extremely cheap if their mark is someone who has violated the local social code in some way, often seeing it as a community duty or charity they can provide to promote better behavior. Likewise, they will refuse petty hits they feel undermine a positive influence. It makes people think very hard before reaching for the higher rungs of wealth and power, as they know Spyglass itself will expose their secrets, and if their benefits don’t outweigh their detriments, it may cost them their fortunes, or their lives. I personally loved spending evenings over drinks with some of the local Spyglass strongarms. They’re a far cry from the muscle you usually expect from a mercenary corp sitting near an IRPF posting board looking for work. These operators are idealists and scholars and social activists with a stronger moral compass than my own. They value the jobs they take as social units more than just things to exchange for credits. It makes them more inherently respectful of life, and less quick to threaten or cajole over silly insults.
I typically like to let travelers know what sort of personal protection they should be packing when they visit foreign corptowns. It varies pretty dramatically (there are parts of Ganymede where it’s considered suspicious to NOT be armed), but in most Spyglass towns, if you’re not a local, leave your gun at home. Seriously. Don’t even give yourself the opportunity to draw it. Your visitor status grants you a degree of protection among Spyglass citizens; they recognize that you’re not necessarily part of the system and they gain clout among their peers for helping to keep you out of trouble. All that goes away if you start trying to throw weight around where you have none. It’s no coincidence that most of the reported visitor casualties from so-called “dark-towns” are hyped up as “killings of able-bodied, trained combatants” or other such media nonsense. The translation is “they packed heat and threatened someone with it, and the community considered them more trouble than they were worth.” The will of the citizenry is not a fickle beast; it’s actually quite simple to follow and work with. But it is, nonetheless, beastly. In short, the surest way to avoid legal woes in a Spyglass town is to try and be a friendly, helpful, and otherwise decent individual who sticks to their word and respects the word of others. Shocking, I know. As tourists, you’re given a fair bit of leeway, so don’t fret the small stuff. That doesn’t equate to a free pass, though. Spyglass towns have the highest civilian deathtoll directly attributed to other civilian action of any corptown. The IRPF likes to toss that statistic around a lot, you’ve probably seen it before. Consider, however, that these deaths are almost entirely due to their communal policing system, and should probably be compared to IRPF kills in the line of civil defense in equivalent populations rather than “crime,” like they usually are. Stack them up sometime, it’s rather eye opening.”
-Story excerpts from the upcoming full disclosure book, which will contain in-character stories and out-of-character breakdowns of many megacorp situations, so you can see how public opinion, propaganda, and advertising, differ from the reality of how the corptowns work.
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