Tornado Zone is not so much a faction, as a major location in Aqua. This far-flung aquatory is located in the eastern Pacific along the coastline of South America, reaching from Hawaii to Tierra del Fuego. In the 22nd century, numerous refugee stations were established along the edge of the deep-sea trenches of Peru, Atacama and Chile, attracting people from all over the world. The Tornado Zone soon became a gathering place for all sorts of pirates, anarchists, freethinkers and victims of persecution. Exiled Dukes of the Indian-Arabic Clansunion established their mutually hostile aquatories here. Gradually, Warlords from all over crowded into the Zone. Turbulent centuries of civil war, terror and lawlessness followed.
High-ranking but dissatisfied officers of the other power blocs in Aqua gathered followers about them and founded cities such as the legendary Atacama City, located in a cave in the cliffs on the coast of Chile.
Background[]
With the great waves of refugees around 2100, the lawless Aquatoria that today are generally designated as the TORNADO Zone, grew up. Here, those who had been driven out of all the power blocs gathered: adventurers, opportunists, pirates and criminals.
The greatest power construct of these Aquatoria lay in the middle of the Pacific, South of Hawaii in the year 2200. This was subject to a kind of arbitrary rule by two subsequently hostile clan chiefs from the Indian-Arab Aqua. The two families that did not join the Clansunion tried to exploit the manganese nodules of this Aquatorium with the use of stolen technology, which they would certainly have succeeded in doing if they hadn't split up and waged war on one another. Since then, the strongest one takes over the mining of the sought-after raw-material suppliers.
The Tornado Zone is an explosive mixture of trade partners who are to be taken seriously. The exploitative warlords, vagrant jobless mercenaries and Ronin, live by the law of the mightiest prevails. In the course of centuries, all sorts of income sources were able to be developed, such as the production plants of chemosynthetic protein around the Hot Vents off the Galapagos Islands.
There is a saying that goes: 'What you can't buy in the Clansunion, you get in the Tornado Zone. If you can't get it in the Tornado Zone, it doesn't exist'. Whether it's modern weapons, detection or sonar-protection systems, the newest firearms software, the best fighting boats or the most bloodthirsty killers: here EVERYONE finds what he wants. The Tornado Zone is an unruly, dangerous and disreputable Aquatorium where the craziest legends and stories have evolved over the course of time.
A worker in Garcia's Lounge complains that the enormous vortices of the surface brings contaminated water down to the Tornado Zone, making daily life difficult. It is said that the waters near the surface are not altogether radioactively contaminated (which is an evil rumor). Here the POM layer, a dark mixture of dead organisms which lies over all the oceans of the world, is supposed to be less dense than in other parts of Aqua (which could be the case in the areas stirred up by tornadoes, which, on account of this circumstance are especially radioactive).
There are still supposed to be fish, whales, sharks and other sea creatures, (this is the case in the vicinity of the Hot Vents; but even there ocean life is limited to only a few chemosynthetically functioning worms, mussels and crabs). Discussions between the Shogunate, Atlantic Federation and the Clans Union, are not at all uncommon. However, they are largely limited to price negotiations for chemosynthetic protein, manganese-nodule products, services and smuggled merchandise of all kinds.
Organization[]
Renegade soldiers from the dictatorial Shogunate in the Philippine/South Chinese Sea found their second home here, just like criminals who were wanted worldwide, smugglers' rings, secret organizations and all manner of refugees from civilization.
Over the centuries, the Zone acquired a famous but notorious aura of creative, lawless chaos. Industrial smuggling, illegal gunrunning, forbidden scientific experiments as well as individual freedom were writ large in the Tornado Zone. At the beginning of "AquaNox", Iwan King (an officer who deserted from the Shogunate) is the only remaining Warlord. He is intent on preserving the Zone’s independence, but tries to establish international relationships with the great powers, especially the Atlantic Federation. The Tornado Zone becomes capable of establishing a state of its own.
But whether they are extremely dangerous or simply lovably eccentric, there are still plenty of loopy characters, pirates and nutcases hiding in the canyons of the Continental Reef, the deep-sea trenches and mountain ranges of the Zone. The Zone is the main trading center for organized smuggling worldwide, a refuge for the persecuted and large enough to hide in forever.
Emerald Flint, the hero of the first great Biont war, was born here. And he keeps coming back, not so much for sentimental reasons but because he enjoys the anarchistic atmosphere of freedom, awakening, and resistance to any conventions.