Timbuktu
“If you need it, we build it!” boasts Timbuktu’s entry in the SR section of the Southern Travel Guide. The city’s economy is dominated by light industry, especially automotive and defense. Many important Southern firms, including Territorial Arms, Republic Industries, Obelisk Electronics, Mandeers Heavy Industries and Windhill Engines have head offices or factories in or around Timbuktu.
Another major firm based in the city is Republican Allied Rail, a private railway company which has been profiting from the state railway’s gross incompetence. Republican Allied also runs a special unmanned underground cargo railway between Siwa Oasis and Timbuktu. These drone trains carry raw materials to Timbuktu’s factories in a speedy and efficient manner. Because of this privileged trading line between the two cities, Timbuktu benefits from a reduced export Health Tax from Siwa Oasis.
Timbuktu’s dialect is highly distinctive. The city-state’s residents tend to blur Anglic and Universal French into a local patois. This thick accent is difficult for any non-resident to understand unless they are fluent in both Anglic and Universal French.
Timbuktu is also famous because of its local Industrial Dueling Circuit. Professional Gear dueling (mock Gear combats and games) is a popular mechanized sport across the Republic and much of Terra Nova. The Republican Federation of Duelists (RFD) is the premier national circuit, bringing together teams from every Republican city-state. Timbuktu, as the capital of Gear manufacturing, often dominates the RFD and holds internal competitions between manufacturers to fill the Timbuktan slots on the RFD roster. These local competitions are formalized in the Industrial Dueling Circuit.
Territorial Arms is the leading manufacturer in the IDC, but other locals like Mandeers Heavy Industries and Dynamic Systems are contenders as well. For the past several cycles, the darling of the IDC has been Rork Griffin, a pilot for TA.