Renegade Rodian
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To flesh out the canon location of Choal.
- Image: The Forge by GeorgeLovesyArt
- Canon: Choal
- Links: Jabiim, Mara-Perlemian Trade Council
“Not many, even of the inhabitants of a manufacturing town, know the vast machinery of system by which the bodies of workmen are governed - that goes on unceasingly from year to year. The hands of each mill are divided into watches that relieve each other as regularly as the sentinels of an army. By night and day, the work goes on, the unsleeping engines groan and shriek, the fiery pools of metal boil and surge. Only for a day in the week, in half-courtesy to public censure, the fires are partially veiled; but as soon as the clock strikes midnight, the great furnaces break forth with renewed fury. The clamor begins with fresh, breathless vigor, the engines sob and shriek like gods in pain.” (Life in the Iron Mills)
- City Name: Choal
- Classification: Metropolis (Population of 2.9 million)
- Location: Jabiim
- Affiliation: Jabiim Planetary Government / Choal City Government
- Demographics: 80% Human, 12% Hutt Space Species, 3% Near-Human, 4% Droids 1% Other
- Wealth: Low. Choal is the largest city on Jabiim, not to mention the seat of the Jabiim Congress. It is home to hundreds of ore refineries, factories, and spaceports. Billions of credits make their way through Choal every day… It’s just that most of them don’t end up back in the hands of the average citizen.
- Stability: Medium. Criminality runs rampant throughout some sections, especially abandoned industrial parks. There are at least several dozen “no-go” zones that law enforcement refuse to travel through. This is a symptom of the wretched poverty most of Choal’s citizens live in.
- Description: Choal is a city choked to near death by its own industry. The sky above is blackened by plumes of smoke, many streets and public walkways are clogged with soot, debris, and trash. The planetary government reigns from Choal, but has no tangible role in governing the city. Instead, the day to day operations of the city have been more or less delegated to the various mining corporations that make their home there… With predictable results. As with the rest of Jabiim, it is almost perpetually raining - but even the rainwater is filthy.
“A city of fires, that burned hot and fiercely in the night. Fire in every horrible form: pits of flame waving in the wind; liquid metal-flames writhing in tortuous streams through the sand; wide caldrons filled with boiling fire, over which bent ghastly wretches stirring the strange brewing; and through all, crowds of half-clad men, looking like revengeful ghosts in the red light, hurried, throwing masses of glittering fire. It was like a street in Hell.” (Life in the Iron Mills)
- The Lower Districts: Choal’s lower districts account for the majority of the city’s residential areas. Most of the city’s population lives here. The Lower Districts are, of course, indistinguishable from slums on other. Crime can be found in its worst aspects in the Lower Districts - brothels, drug dens, gambling halls, fighting pits, and so on. Several areas are completely cut off from any semblance of law enforcement. Environmental and health hazards of every stripe are synonymous with the Lower Districts. The Lower Districts form the outermost ring around Choal. They are not actually built below anything else.
- The Industrial Districts: The source of all of Choal’s misery, the industrial districts are an overcrowded mass of warehouses, factories, and refineries. Residents of the Lower Districts commute here through either an overwhelmed public transit system or on foot to work in ghastly conditions. Speeder trucks and shuttles loaded with ores and metals from the various mines on Jabiim flow through the district constantly. Most of Choal’s exports consist of minerals or metals. The goods churned out by the factories frequently go no farther than Jabiim.
- The Government District: The government district has, in reality, precious little to do with Choal. The Capitol Megaplex is the only government building present. Everything else consists of the offices of the various corporations that essentially run Choal and its industry. This district is noticeably more secure than others, featuring a number of security checkpoints to keep the riff-raff spilling in from the Industrial Districts.
The Capitol Megaplex, where of Jabiim’s congress converges, is located here. This is the ruling body of the entire Jabiim System and where all processes of the federal government occur. The megaplex lives up to its name, being a massive and self-sustaining network of government offices.
[*]The Middle Districts: There are only a handful of Middle Districts, existing in small nodes within the Government District itself. Mid-ranking bureaucrats for the planetary government and the white collar employees for corporations make the Middle Districts their homes. In accordance with the surrounding Government District, these tend to be much safer and more hygienic than the Lower and Industrial Districts. Commercial and entertainment sections suitable for middle-class citizens can also be found here.
[*]The High District: Perhaps the smallest district in Choal, the High District contains upper-class, temporary residences for the CEOs and Congressmen visiting Choal. Temporary - because no one stays in Choal for very long unless they have to. Some more expensive commercial and entertainment outlets can be found here, but for the most part the residents of the High District travel to the Middle Districts if they’re looking for leisure time.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
“Shall I go over the history of the hours of that night? How the man wandered from one to another of his old haunts with a half-consciousness of bidding them farewell? Lanes and alleys and back-yards where the mill-hands lodged, noting, with a new eagerness, the filth and drunkenness, the pig-pens, the ash-heaps covered with potato-skins, the bloated, pimpled women at the doors, with a new disgust; a new sense of sudden triumph, and under all: a new, vague dread. Unknown before, smothered down, kept under, but still there.” (Life in the Iron Mills)
Choal was settled when Jabiim was still known as Gwynhes Minor. It was one of the sites chosen for its vast mineral wealth by Xim’s Empire. Ever since this initial settlement, Jabiim’s subsequent history is best characterized by its weather: constant misery. Whether it was the Galactic Republic, the Galactic Empire, Trandoshans, Yuuzhan-Vong, pirates, or the Tionese, Choal has more or less existed in a near-constant state of brutal foreign occupation… Or just being pillaged to all hell.
With the Gulag Plague over, Jabiim and Choal have largely turned a corner. While Choal itself remains a densely populated industrial waste pit wherein no hope for a happy future can survive, things are at least more peaceful. Pirate raids have all but ceased and those that do occur are nowhere near as intense as the historic ones conducted by the Trandoshans and Lythians. Things are still downright miserable, but somehow they’ve gotten better.
More peace has lent itself to more profits. Outside investment has once again resurrected Choal from the brink of collapse. Previously un-prospected regions of the planet have shown untapped ore deposits. As new companies arrive in a scramble to exploit these deposits, Choal has become both the seat of the planetary and the center for the largest planetside ore refinement operations.
