Brit-Cit
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Brit-Cit is a huge fictional city in Judge Dredd which covers the south of England and bordering on the Black Atlantic. It also has jurisdiction over Cal-Hab (covering part of Scotland) and Murphyville (Ireland)[citation needed]. It is unknown what happened to Wales.
Contents |
[edit] Description
Brit-Cit has many similarities to Mega City One - it is crowded with hundreds of millions of inhabitants who live in huge City Block apartments and unemployment & crime is rife. Quite a few of England's more classical architecture remains, and much of the lower classes live outside the city in decaying 20th Century houses. The deposed royal family, inbred to the point of lunacy, live inside the Forbidden Citadel, an independent city-state. The city is split into Sectors, named after the original area they were built over, such as Oxford Sector and Nu Soho. Class divisions are rife. From the year 2092 to 2099, Brit-Cit was involved in a civil war.
[edit] Law
The Brit-Cit Justice Department is based in the New Old Bailey. It is very similar in structure and effect to the Mega City One justice system, and aside from a few cosmetic differences (lions instead of eagles) even the Judge uniforms are the same. As such, the laws are harsh, with many crimes not found in present-day law, and the Judges have the power to act as both police and judge/jury/executioner, though they do portray more of a stiff upper lip when doing so.
The laws are more lenient in some areas though - Detective Judges are allowed to marry and the Dredd story The Satanist featured a perfectly legal Orgy Club in the outskirts of Brit-Cit. The British Justice Department has also faced problems with corruption in its higher ranks in the past. Despite this, it proved a solid ally for Mega City One during the Second Robot War, covertly aiding and supporting Dredd's attempts at recapturing the city. Brit-Cit also runs an Endangered Species Squad, specialising in capturing and caring for supernatural lifeforms.
Judicial corruption in Brit-Cit is a major problem - in fact, the Justice Department was originally set up by criminal overlords in order to get aid from Mega City One after the Atomic Wars. Senior Judges can buy their commissions in the same way as Victorian military officers. Most are incompetent or directly controlled by the crimelords and it is left to Street and Detective Judges to get the work done. The worst were the Order of the Star Chamber, a group of very old, very senile and very useless Judges. However, the recent Judge Dredd Novel Psycogeddon saw them killed while in Mega City One (by a perp); Detective-Judge Steel, who had been the escort, is believed by many to have been the killer and, as the Order were an embarrassment, this has made her quite popular. Institutional corruption has gone down over time with the deaths of many Senior Judges & crimelords, and with the rise of a new generation of Judges who just see the crimelords as criminals.
Brit-Cit has a special relationship with Mega City One and the two work together quite often - Brit-Cit provided refuge for MC-1 Judges when Nero Narkos took over the city, and provided technical & personnel support to Judge Dredd to help him liberate Mega-City One. Brit-Cit is now contributing medical & technical personnel and commando units to assist in an international humanitarian mission in Ciudad Barranquilla.
[edit] Judges of note
The most famous Judge for Brit-Cit is Detective-Judge Armitage, often paired with Detective-Judge Treasure Steel. A British version of Dredd called Judge Armour died as part of the global team sent to end Judgement Day. Cal-Hab boasts Judge MacBrayne and the powerful Psi-Judge Schiehallion, while Murphyville's most famous Judge is Judge-Sergeant Joyce, who was originally part of the Judgement Day team. Inspector Jericho Strange of the Endangered Species Squad gains note solely for his sheep-skull head.
[edit] Cal-Hab and Murphyville
Murphyville and indeed the whole Emerald Isle has been turned into a giant theme park based around stereotypes of traditional Irish life. The Judges are generally more laid back than their Brit-Cit counterparts and the uniforms are more unique, with the colouring based around the Irish flag.
Cal-Hab has traditionally been used as a dumping ground for toxic and nuclear waste, which has turned much of the population feral. The Judges have added a Celtic helmet and kilt to their uniform; all judicial decisions are made from Brit-Cit, leaving the Cal-Hab Judges demoralised. There is a large amount of nationalism and desire for Cal-Hab to be independent, but the ruling clans spend too much time fighting each other to be a credible resistance to Brit-Cit. Quite a few disasters have hit Cal-Hab, mainly due to the actions of Schiehallion. Cal Hab is also the homeplace of trashzine artist Kenny Who?, alter-ego for artist Cam Kennedy.
[edit] Criminal influences
While Brit-Cit does have much conventional crime (or the 2000AD equivalent thereof), it also has faced a lot more body-horror murderers and more supernatural crimes, with Satanic cults all over the place. It is also the home of the major crimelord Efil Drago San, who along with other crimelords was directly controlling the higher-ranking Judges in the Armitage strips. Having killed many senior Judges and crimelords for his own reasons, Drago San is very unpopular with his fellow crimelords and in the Dredd audio dramas he is hiding out offworld.
[edit] Depiction
Brit-Cit has contradictory depictions depending on who is writing. Under Dave Stone, Brit-Cit was considerably fleshed out and there was much focus on institutional corruption; John Wagner, who originally created Brit-Cit, has ignored this in his Dredd stories and has the Justice Department as being almost exactly like Mega-City One's. This can be explained away as Dredd looking at Brit-Cit from a different angle to Armitage; indeed, both takes on Brit-Cit justice existed in the Dredd audio play Get Karter!. Generally speaking Brit-Cit Justice Department suffers from more racism and sexism than its counterpart in Mega-City One. Brit-Cit society is also riddled with class division and privilege, which as far as satire goes, is perhaps slightly dated.
Cal-Hab has had multiple cameo appearance's in the stories of Wagner and Alan Grant, nearly all of which are played for laughs and which focus on Scottish humour. Jim Alexander's Cal-Hab Justice, on the other hand, was often quite grim and focused on political allegories for mid-90s Scottish issues.
Murphyville and the Emerald Isle have only really been seen in the writings of their creator, Garth Ennis, where they have played with Irish political issues and stereotypes for comedic purposes.
