NCH

New Crobuzon Hero

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• The City of New Crobuzon
  • Political Groups
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Political groups

Fat Sun party
Currently in power. In the time of the Perdido Street Station and The Scar books - Bentham Rudgutter is mayor. During his time the Militia is a hidden secret police, Handlingers are rumours, a war with the Grindylow was rumour, there was the Season of Nightmares, the Construct Wars and an attack on Armada. Wrightby starts his company to put railroads across Bas-Lag.
Almost twenty years after this, in the book Iron Council, Bentham is dead and Eliza Stem-Fulcher is Mayor. She is also of the Fat Sun Party. Under her leadership, the Militia wears uniforms and walks openly, but are more like Military Law than a normal police force. Handlingers are recognised and given condemned prisoners for hosts. Golems replace constructs as cheap labour (aside from Remade of course). There is a major revolution from the Collective, war occurs with Tesh and the Iron Council returns.
Note - none of the New Crobuzon books so far have ever dealt with the upperclasses. So how the city is run, and how those who don't have to struggle for a living survive in it is a mystery. All the books have been street-level.

Three Quills party
One of the political groups active in the New Crobuzon parliament, on Strack Island.

Diverse Tendency party
One of the political groups active in the New Crobuzon parliament, on Strack Island.

Finally We Can See party
One of the political groups active in the New Crobuzon parliament, on Strack Island.

Seditionist and dissident groups

New Crobuzon is such a totalitarian city that many dissident groups (often called Neuvists) have formed in it over the years. Here are a few of them.

Runagaters
Also known as Double-R's and Doublers. A number of dissident groups that get together and discuss (much like a book club) the various news items that occurs in Runagate Rampart, one of the most famous illegal free press newspapers in New Crobuzon. Runagaters are generally non-violent although they may protest. They are occasionally recruited by the more militant dissident groups. The newspaper was briefly shutdown, and its editor caused to disappear by the Militia during the time of Rudgutter, however it recovered and the hidden reporters for it returned.

Toroans
Toro is the leader of this very select and small group of very militant dissidents. All their missions have been well planned, all the members loyal and all the missions succeeded. Toroans arise sometime between the two mayors. Their final act was the assassination of Stem-Fulcher. Toro herself, is a Remade.

Iron Councillors
The Iron Council was formed towards the end of the Wrightby rail enterprises. The camp following prostitutes, the Remade labours and the skilled human and xenian workforce rebelled from lack of pay and poor working conditions. Stealing the train they took it through The Stain's cacotopic zone and settled on the far side creating a commune that treated all races equally. There were many losses on the journey and many losses on their return to New Crobuzon. During the time of the Tesh War, the Militia managed to free the straits leading to the north coast of Bas-Lag and circumvented The Stain by sending a force after the Iron Council via the sea, instead of overland.

Collectivists
The Collective was formed from all the dissident groups and many volunteers just before the mayor was assassinated. Thousands of citizens throughout New Crobuzon rose up against the government in a revolution that lasted weeks. Many others stayed at home, or fled the city. Towards the end of the Collective, the Iron Council returned to New Crobuzon.

Member names

Many of the dissident groups took great pains to hide the identity of their members, due to the nature of the Militia. The would often refer to each other as Chavrim, or Chavers, or even Jack (after Jack Half-A-Prayer the fReemade). Iron Councillors refer to each other as Sisters (as almost a third their number were prostitutes, and did not like the assumption made they should be called brothers).