Gibson, Australia
Gibson, Australia |
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Once a small frontier town, the city of Gibson owes its current prosperity to its location: halfway between two major military bases. Military traffic between the bases and civilian traffic running from Perth to Darwin make Gibson a major crossroads with a large transient population. Military personnel from both bases often spend their off-hours in one of Gibson's many entertainment establishments.
The city of Gibson is located near the new Ord River Dam and the recreated Lake Argyle. It sits on the New Victoria Highway that helps connect southwestern Australia with the north.
The economy of Gibson is almost entirely service-based. Its location on the primary transportation route from Perth to Darwin means there is a great deal of traffic through the city and many businesses exist solely to support that traffic. There are many hotels and motels, garages, truck stops and bars; most lined along the main road. Most of the population works in the service or entertainment industry, though there are some agricultural efforts near the city, fed by water from the irrigation system attached to the dam.
Southern Cross and RDF soldiers from the two nearby bases are frequent visitors to the city. The low-key rivalry between the bases is often played out in the establishments and streets of Gibson, and there are also occasional confrontations between truckers and other transient civilians and soldiers. Law and order is kept by the Gibson Sherrif's office, supported by a local contingent of Civil Defense Unit peacekeepers.
One of the more popular watering holes for soldiers in Gibson is The Highwayman, where the owner and bartender Mike Allen keeps one of the most varied stocks of alcoholic beverages in the region.
At the beginning of the 21st century the city of Gibson was just a loose collection of rural townships, mainly small farms and ranches. There was nothing of interest for outsiders, and the item of curiosity for the locals was Walter Kovacs. Walter had come to the region in the mid-nineties, just as the Global Civil War was heating up, and had bought an old abandoned mine. He proceeded to convert the mine into a survival bunker. The locals only saw Walter sporadically, on his infrequent visits to stock up on supplies or to send or receive mail. He wasn't friendly or unfriendly, but did everything with a dire sense of purpose. Converstations with Wally inevitably led to rants about the Secret Government, lone gunmen assassinations and coverups of alien UFO crashes. After a while the locals took to calling him Bungle Wally.
Though they had initially dismissed him as crazy but harmless, Wally was soon to become the savior of the local people. When a giant alien fleet set about destroying the world (something he had predicted for years), Bungle Wally was able to shelter most of region's small population in his bunker, saving them from certain death.
Gibson itself was built near the start of the Reconstruction, a small town of mostly pre-fab buildings to house the populace that had survived thanks to Wally. A series of new contructions in the region, namely the new dam, new cross-country highway, and the military bases soon turned the small town into a major crossroads. The locals considered naming the city after Wally but he declined (didn't want to draw too much attention to himself or THEY might take notice). Wally went back to his isolation, more dedicated to finding the TRUTH than ever now that the existence of aliens was well and truly proven.
Gibson saw an economic boom from World War IV because of the increased activity at both bases, and the stream of people fleeing Darwin for the safety of Perth. The city was not so fortunate during the Second Robotech War. Australia was a major conflict site during the war and Gibson was a little too close to the front lines. After the destruction and occupation of Fort Gibson, traffic along the highway effectively stopped. Soon after the city became a target of frequent Bioroid attacks and many of the people were killed or taken captive, never to be heard from again.
When the Robotech Masters began their final offensives of the war a Tirolian Heavy Cruiser arrived at Gibson and proceeded to annihilate the city. The people that managed to escape the initial barrage fled out the Bungle Wally's bunker, remembering how it had sheltered them twenty years earlier. Unfortunately this time the enemy was not high above in orbit but much closer. The Cruiser spotted the exodus and promptly targeted the bunker with its massive energy weapons, destroying the bunker and killing everyone, including Bungle Wally.
A few members of the 21st A.T.A.C. who had befriended Wally found the wreackage of the bunker and managed to salvage and handful of the paranoid but oft-times prophetic Wally's papers.