The biggest problem with Night City is the lack of resources. The land is small and poor, and the land outside the city is all desert. If it werenât for Richard Knightâs brilliance, taking advantage of the market economy, and building a free trade city, nothing would have developed here.
The smaller the place, the more it fears economic sanctions, and with virtually zero land mineral resources, itâs even worse.
It used to be thought that because of European companies, it was unlikely that Military Technology and Arasaka would heavily block maritime transport. Now Europe itself is a mess, so imports can only come from Africa and the south...
They did rely on issuing bonds to promote urban construction, but bond issuing is based on abundant supplies, controlled overdraft of future credit. If overdrafted too much, it will lead to rampant inflation. Night City is not a super government, the market is also small, and it canât operate on its own.
"...Since you left until today, the cityscape has improved a lot, and the law and order are still pretty good. I didnât expect those gangs could hold back their distress...
However, the economic situation is not optimistic. We used to be a financial city, with other companies continually investing capital here, but now we have to consider trade relations. Last year, we mainly exported low- and mid-tier prosthetics. Your artificial blood production was very low, almost nonexistent.
We need to purchase minerals, food, water sources at high cost... even energy has to be imported from companies. The trade volume plummeted by 50 billion, and the trade deficit exceeded 14 billion euros for the first time.
Due to the blockade, food imports have decreased by 30%, replaced by a massive influx of immigrants, supermarket shelves are empty, people can barely afford to eat...
The black market is developing the synthetic meat industry, but Biotechnology is watching us, and Iâm afraid to expand significantly, in case they find an excuse to check patents and send someone over, itâs over."
As Ryan explained the current economic situation, he took Lille into the command room.
The old Night City might have been unfair, dark, and full of conspiracies. Corporate dogs did as they pleased, ordinary civilians were so poor they picked up garbage to eat, but there was never a lack of goods.
The present Night City is indeed much more desolate. People have moved into new apartments, enjoying affordable basic services, but the companyâs withdrawal is beginning to cause shortages of supplies.
However, this is good news for Lille: it shows that Night City is either resilient or has learned how to be resilient...
"...Supporting such a situation is not easy, although we... have big brothers covering us, so nothing too big will go wrong, but we still have to find ways to support citizens from elsewhere.
Thanks to Ye Groupâs shrinkage, we acquired a large number of urban energy facilities, Adkaduo worked free of charge outside the city, building wind and solar energy without earning a penny, but they also have the right to use electricity...
The energy issue is stabilized, but the money isnât coming in; similar situations have happened in prosthetic factories, military plants, and car factories..."
Lille nodded slightly: "I can restart the blood and immunosuppressant industries, and Europeans probably donât have time to bother us, bringing the synthetic meat industry to the surface."
"I guess so, this way food and medical supplies should be sufficient, and we might even export some bioproducts."
Ryan smiled, stopped in front of a door, and said: "This is like that Eastern saying... you donât have to move, the enemyâs corpses will flow by like a river in front of you?"
Lille was stunned: "I didnât know there was such an Eastern saying?"
"Did I remember it wrong?" Ryan scratched his head.
Perares said speechlessly in Eastern: "The phrase is âTime flies like a river,â thatâs not what you meant at all... but that doesnât matter now.
Protein farms can only solve 30% of the demand; there isnât enough recyclable waste for the farms to use."
Protein farms, which cultivate a kind of genetically modified mealworm, is Biotechnologyâs exclusive technology. They can recycle wood chips, cartons, and even some plastic boxes. The mealworms feed on these things, which are then ground into meat powder, packaged into meat by meat processing workers.
This is real meat, real meat dripping with blood.
In fact, there is an even more brutal way, directly using corpses to cultivate maggots, then grinding, packaging, and disinfecting these bugs...
But the latter is too disgusting, normal people are unwilling to eat this stuff, and thereâs a very high risk of plague.
Collecting garbage, sorting, and then processing has become the starting point of the food production chain, making the streets very clean, much cleaner than before.
But itâs still not enough. Night City is a metropolis with a population of 7 million. If you count those gathered outside today and the future influx of Wanderers, this number could easily exceed 8 million.
Farming is still necessary.
The mineral resources issue canât be temporarily solved, but addressing basic housing and food issues will help Night City hold on.
Listening to this string of problems, Lille was quite satisfied with the ruling partnership of Ryan and Perares:
Although they still thought about making money, as Night City governance canât be without money, the more, the better, they ultimately submitted to the pressure of the situation and opened many things to ordinary citizens.
For example, cheap apartments, affordable energy, controlled relief food...
The medical problem can now be solved by Lilleâs return, restarting mass production lines. With infrastructure secured, itâs hard for Night City to fall into chaos for most people.
As for those who canât tolerate this kind of life...
Ryan sighed: "Alas, itâs letting Orbital Aviation rake in profits, with many unable to stay and taking flights away.
Perhaps they smelled something, as African export prices have risen by 50%! At this pace, we wonât last; weâre already up to our necks in debt, and Night City Hall is out of money...
Fortunately, our Wanderer brothers donât want wages, just food and shelter... Why didnât I realize how great they were before?
Let those spineless bastards get out!"
After saying this, they crossed the threshold and arrived at Ryan and Peraresâ secret hideout, where all of Night City Hallâs important information was stored. No one knows when a company might go mad, so the information is backed up here.
This is a command center; countless screens are on the walls, from which you can access Night Cityâs entire civic public network, transportation network, and security surveillance network...
Night Cityâs functions as a city and all necessary information can all be queried here.
Itâs also thanks to the Wanderersâ extremely low employment cost: regular Night City citizens arenât that humble. They could accept not getting paid, but if you donât pay them, itâs hard to say where theyâll go to earn a salary.
But obviously, problems started here: why donât the locals like outsiders?
"... However, our citizens are indeed unsatisfied with many job positions being taken by the Wanderers, internally there are endless frictions.
Valentino wants to preach to Wanderers and children, Vortex Gang argues with Valentino Gang over whether kids can voluntarily become experiment subjects for money, Tiger Claw Gang and Vortex Gang argue over how to film Super Dream, Tiger Claw Gang and Mox Gang argue about whether to insure Sex Dolls...
Goddamn, theyâre selling their bodies, and they want insurance? And they want the NCPD to back them up?
A little girl from Mox Gang is even funnier; she writes me a letter every month, wanting all non-female humans to see childbirth Super Dream...
Fuck, how many people in Mox Gang have that capability themselves?
Clearly, Ryan is already at his witâs end: in the past, he dealt with company matters, extremely anxious, and now dealing with city matters, heâs also pretty tense.
Of course, because he is the spokesperson for the big brother, he is much less anxious than before, but more headaches.
Ryanâs down-to-earth summary was quickly interrupted by one person:
The other big door of the command room opened, and Hansen walked out from the next room in full gear, followed by two more people â
Lille could think of one, who was now the highest officer of the Night City network department, Lark.
The other... Lille was somewhat surprised.
"Arasaka Yorinobu?"