Mobile City

Biodata

Feature	Details
Name	Mobile City (移动城市)
Type	Neutral Character (AI)
Occupation/Role	Mobile settlement, production base, and armed survival platform
First Appearance	Chapter 1

Power Progression

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Level 0.5	33	A rudimentary city built around a steam engine, boiler room, Production Workshop, small huts, and tires or tracks. Usually accommodates about a dozen people; some models can exceed 200 km/h due to their small size.
Level 1 — Town-class	1	Accommodates 500–1,000 people. The basic standard for an independently operating Mobile City.
Level 2 — Fortress-class	1	Accommodates 5,000–10,000 people and is vastly larger than a Level 1 city.
Level 3 — Island-class	1	Accommodates 50,000–100,000 people. Its scale and slower movement make external land, sea, and air forces increasingly necessary.
Level 4 — City-class	1	Accommodates 200,000–500,000 people. Level 4 cities can master nuclear technology and support large-scale civic infrastructure.
Level 5 — Kingdom-class	1 297	Accommodates 1,000,000–5,000,000 people. Tomorrow's completed Level 5 form measured 10,125 meters long, 6,480 meters wide, and 960 meters high across 96 floors.
Level 6 — Mobile Continent-class	1	Accommodates 10,000,000–20,000,000 people.
Level 7 — Civilization-class	1	Accommodates 50,000,000–100,000,000 people; cities of this scale may operate in the ocean, sky, underground, or space.

Characteristics

Mobile Cities are self-contained steel settlements that allow survivors to migrate, produce resources, recruit personnel, and fight in the wasteland. Their structures commonly combine tires or treads, cranes, mechanical arms, watchtowers, artillery, searchlights, water towers, warehouses, processing plants, fields, and layered living districts 1.

A city is both a home and a strategic asset. Capturing another Mobile City can yield its resources, population, and the production projects stored in its Production Workshop, making city-on-city predation one of the fastest paths to development 8.

Core Systems

System	Function
Lord's Bracelet	Grants its wearer authority over the city’s Production Workshop, including production, upgrades, and permission management 2.
Production Workshop	The city’s core building; creates equipment, city components, ammunition, vehicles, and upgrade materials 2 68.
Cockpit	Controls navigation, speed, steering, and combat movement. A Mobile City can use autopilot, but the route, speed, and obstacle-avoidance parameters must be manually programmed 4.
Energy system	Powers travel and city functions. A city that exhausts its energy shuts down, leaving it vulnerable in the wilderness 1.
Tracks and tires	Provide mobility and are critical combat targets; a city that loses movement becomes unable to evade artillery fire 37.
City Radio	A Level 2 system that creates communication channels for real-time intelligence exchange, trade, invitations, and alliance coordination 42 68.
City Camouflage	Conceals a city from observers. At Level 3, it can imitate other cities, monsters, buildings, and terrain 35 170.

Structure and Population

A documented Level 1 Mobile City, Tomorrow, measured roughly 125 meters long by 80 meters wide and normally traveled at 10–30 km/h 10.

District	Share of Space	Functions
Upper District	~5%	Noble residences, observation deck, small garden, Watchtower, and better living conditions 10.
Middle District	~70%	Main residential area, fields, water tower, warehouses, and public living space 10.
Lower District	~25%	Power system, fuel chambers, cockpit, Production Workshop, warehouses, cranes, and former slave quarters 10.

Personnel

Mobile Cities require both ordinary residents and specialized personnel to remain functional. Essential roles include Helmsmen, Mechanics, Artillerymen, Lookouts, Combat Captains, combat personnel, miners, field workers, cleaners, and logistical staff 1 6 32.

A documented treatment hierarchy, from lowest to highest, was:

1. Level 3 Resident
2. Level 2 Resident
3. Level 1 Resident
4. Combat Personnel
5. Specialized personnel
6. Deputy / Management
7. Lord 32

As populations grow, cities may establish a City Committee to manage public affairs, regulations, jobs, and resident administration 100. Contribution systems can connect living standards and access to resources with each resident’s work and service 84 116.

Types and Factions

Nomad and Fortress Factions

Faction	Description
Nomad Faction	The dominant model. Cities travel continuously through the wilderness to gather resources, trade, hunt, and survive 12.
Fortress Faction	Cities that abandon mobility and settle in resource-rich locations, developing fixed defenses, markets, and larger permanent populations 12.

Functional Specializations

Type	Documented Traits
Assault-type	The most common specialization; emphasizes mobility, artillery, heavy machine guns, convoys, and direct combat 59.
Defensive-type	Prioritizes power engines, city armor, reinforced tracks and tires, and close-range weapons. It is economical and durable but relies heavily on allies for offensive power 125.
Engineer-type	Uses mechanical arms, work claws, cranes, engineering vehicles, and fortification equipment for repairs, mining, construction, and fuel processing. Such cities are rare but highly valued by alliances 60 95.
Fire support-type	Mounts large artillery batteries to provide long-range bombardment from the rear of an alliance formation 59 107.
Aerial-type	Uses airships, hot-air balloons, gas bags, propellers, and stabilizing fins to travel through the air 22 104.
Excavation-type	Travels underground using specialized drilling and tunneling components; safer from many threats, but constrained by cramped interiors and difficult terrain 133 215.
Submersible-type	Operates beneath the sea and can use underwater mobility to evade or ambush enemies 215.

Mobility and Combat

Mobile Evasion

Mobile Evasion, also called the “Dance of Steel,” is a tactical maneuver in which a city uses engine output, track or wheel steering, and center-of-gravity changes to dodge artillery or seize a better firing position 37.

• Requires precise prediction by the helmsman and coordination from the city’s systems 37.
• Includes sharp track turns, serpentine movement, drifting, and center-of-gravity shifts 37.
• Is impossible once tracks or tires are destroyed 37.

Convoy Warfare

Mobile Cities commonly deploy convoys armed with heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, and rifles during city battles 37.

• Their primary objective is to cripple enemy tracks, tires, propellers, or thrusters 37.
• Destroying mobility prevents Mobile Evasion and exposes the immobilized city to artillery bombardment 37.
• Naval cities and fleets similarly target hulls, propulsion systems, and underwater components 73 239.

City-to-City Communication

Before widespread City Radio access, Mobile Cities used horn signals to communicate while maintaining a safe distance 8.

• Two long blasts and one short blast indicate a request to communicate 8.
• Cities usually enter high alert upon encountering one another because even peaceful contact can become a predatory encounter 8.
• A City Radio allows cities to exchange intelligence, trade resources, coordinate defenses, and form formal alliances 42.

Development

Advancement requires graded resources, a City Crystal, a City Structure Blueprint, and the appropriate City Advancement Blueprint 219 293.

• Upgrades physically expand the city through retracting armor, hydraulic structures, conveyor-fed components, robotic arms, and newly assembled decks 84 167.
• Higher-level cities can produce stronger city components, weapons, vehicles, infrastructure, and training facilities 170 250.
• A Level 3 city can function as an aircraft-carrier-like platform, storing and deploying large land, sea, and air combat forces 169.
• Level 4 cities can build nuclear power plants, nuclear-powered naval units, nuclear weapons, and Mobile Suit forces 225.
• High-level cities may carry lower-level Mobile Cities as satellite combat units or logistical assets 202 271.

Notable Variants

• Monster Mobile Cities — Cities operated by monsters such as Goblins, which can employ artillery, aircraft, fleets, and Mobile Evasion 35 77.
• Zombie Mobile Cities — Cities crewed by organized zombies capable of operating weapons, lookouts, convoys, and specialized cannons that launch zombies onto enemy decks 90.
• Level 0.5 Mobile Cities — Compact family-scale cities that can be customized into airship, submarine, racing, drilling, or engineering forms 33 228.
• Mobile Islands — Vast high-level mobile structures capable of carrying hundreds of thousands of people and transporting Mobile Cities between continents 201.