Registration System

The Registration System is a system of citizen tracking that the Republic uses to keep tabs on the citizens in the Dome. Some underlying cruelty and unfairness remains in the system, borne of the Republic's original post-End lack of interest in expending effort for citizens that cannot return that effort, such as individuals that they believe are too ill or injured, thereby unlikely to survive unaided, as well as those that do not contribute to the Dome as a whole, those without jobs and so on.


Origins

Initially, the Registration System was conceptualised as a way of encouraging the poor of the Dome's denizens to try harder, to gain an income, a livelihood, and work for a better life. This concept was essentially borne of a belief that the poor were simply being lazy, and had decided not to bother trying to work for a better life for themselves, because they were so dependent on the Republic's assistance that they saw no reason to do so.

Unfortunately, the Registration system's root goal was a somewhat decent one, but it failed miserably at achieving it. Instead, all the registration system managed to do was widen the gap between the wealthy and the impoverished. Cities began to literally segregate between Registered and Unregistered, and many companies and businesses would turn you away merely on the grounds that you happened to be Unregistered. Many shops and merchants wanted to know that you had a bank account, which only Registered individuals could open, so that they had assurance they would be paid, closing off a lot of avenues for purchasing necessary items and food from Unregistereds.

Since then, there has been created a gaping rift between the two — the Unregistereds believe that those who are fortunate enough to be Registered are blind, selfish, privileged, and lazy. The Registereds, amusingly, see Unregistereds as lazy, stupid, and dependent, and occasionally, drug-addicts. Neither side truly understands the other, and it seems that the gap between the two may never truly be bridged.


Registereds

Registered citizens are, whether they realise it or not, the upper social class of the Dome. They are afforded medical care, fertility treatment, adoption services, access to life-saving Daeni technology operations, jobs, bank accounts, loans, education, and the ability to own property and land. Many Registered citizens do not necessarily consider Unregistereds, some even outright forget they exist unless they are faced with one, and usually just go about their lives and don't worry about someone else's life.

Despite how much of what they gain is technically given to them by the Republic, most Registered citizens believe that they worked for what they have and earned it, and while some of it they may have to some extent, a lot of it was simply handed to them. Registered children are often raised with the belief that Unregistered citizens are simply lazy no-goods, and that they shouldn't concern themselves with that side of the Dome.


Unregistereds

In most respects, an Unregistered citizen may as well not even exist at all. They have very few resources at their disposal; some shops and merchants may sell to them, but never on credit or good faith, and usually only things that are easy to get anyway, such as food and cheap trinkets, or poor quality materials. Many Unregistered citizens have never been to school, never seen a doctor, never owned a home before. Many live in clusters under bridges, but some are fortunate enough to manage to take over a crumbling, dilapidated building that no one else has bothered with, but it usually isn't for very long before it's torn down, sometimes even with them in it.

Many Unregistered citizens turn to crime, assassination, gangs, bounty hunting, and the Pyxis fighting rings to be able to survive, as they have very few other choices.


Fees

The reason it is so difficult to register is because it is extremely costly. At birth, the price is only around 566,000 Caps ( 5,000 USD ). However, if one does not register their children at birth, the price of registering continues to go up the older they are. The initial fee is overwritten at 1 year old beginning at 1,080,000 Caps ( 9,500 USD ), and continues to go up by that amount every following year.

Thus, at 22 years old, it would cost you 23,760,000 Caps ( 209,000 USD ) to register. This makes Registration fees a consistently just out of reach fee for those that have poor income, if any at all, to begin with.


Division

Neither side likes the other; it is obvious, usually, in the ways they interact with one another. You'll often find Registered citizens speaking to Unregistered ones as if they are mentally challenged and incapable of speaking Tyrrhenian, obsessively cleaning anything the Unregistered citizen touches, and Unregistered citizens generally treat Registered ones as if they are coddled, sheltered children ( it's not entirely wrong ), that wouldn't even know a Seviper if it turned around and bit them. They may also be rather rude.

Almost every city in the Dome shows this division very clearly and obviously, as they are almost all segregated into two districts. One district is very clean, well-maintained, often featuring many parks, pristine sidewalks and art pieces, and the occasional water feature, while the other district is often falling apart, dirty, with a stunning lack of proper shopping centres. Unregistered districts tend to feature open market streets, where Unregistereds and merchants that are happy to sell to them will push their wares right on the open road — often very broken, ill-maintained road, if it's even made of asphalt at all and not wood slats or gravel.

Very rarely do these two districts ever cross. Notably, the only city in the Dome that is not segregated this way, is Indus.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License