Nullport

The Charter

Nullport is a city that runs on the Charter. The Charter is a program of forty-one articles, written by the Drafting Circle in Charter Year 1. Not one word of its text has changed since that day.

The articles residents use most often: Article 1, in this city, no one has a nationality, and anyone who boots up is a resident. Article 4, one citizen, one vote. Article 9, any public service may be contracted out to private operators by referendum. Article 17, the Charter guarantees that every resident stays alive. The city takes its name from Article 1.

The original Charter is on display in Charter Hall on Charter Square. Interpretation of its articles is the responsibility of the Clerk.

Boot Day

On March 17, Charter Year 1, the Charter began running on the city network. The first thing it did was mint an identity for every living person in the city: no matter where you came from, whether you had papers, or whom you owed money, from the moment of boot you were a resident. In the first referendum, held that night, 98% of residents confirmed the Charter.

Every year, March 17 is Boot Day: the whole city has the day off, and fireworks go off on the Neural Feed. When locals say someone has “booted up,” they mean that person was born in the city. The same goes for newcomers, counted from the moment the Clerk mints your identity.

A brief history

The following record of major events was compiled by the Clerk.

In Charter Year 3, four corporations set up in Nullport: Vantor, Sanavi, Kaleid and Ordinal. In Charter Year 5, the water supply was contracted out to a corporation by referendum, and the water has been clean ever since; power, the network, hospitals, transit and policing were contracted out in turn.

After the Surge of Charter Year 6, Vantor built the seawall, completed in Charter Year 8. In Charter Year 11, the Charter Floor was established. In Charter Year 14, referendums moved onto the Neural Feed, and turnout rose to ninety percent.

In Charter Year 19, Civic Security conducted a forty-one-day public-order operation in The Outskirts and along the edges of the Corp Zone. The city's power grid has since been operated by Ordinal. After the Blackout of Charter Year 22, the Charter Custody Act passed by referendum: Ordinal hosts the Charter free of charge for ten years, a term that expires in Charter Year 32.

For other historical questions, please inquire at a Charter Service Point.

The calendar

The year the Charter took effect is Charter Year 1, and the city counts time in Charter Years and nothing else. Under Article 2 of the Charter, the calendars, place names and records of the old nations have no validity whatsoever.

Most of the young people making their way in the city today were born between Charter Year 1 and Charter Year 13, the first generation born after the city booted up. They have never seen the old nations, and the Clerk's archives hold no record of them either.