Talaris is “a luminous city-state on a fictional island in the eastern South China Sea, west of Palawan but still on the Palawan continental shelf.” Its “skyline is a crown of neon and glass pressed between steep tropical mountains and an engineered deep-water harbor.”
Geography
The island runs ~380–400 km² (about a quarter the size of Oʻahu), ~35–40 km north–south and 10–12 km wide, roughly 80–100 km west of Palawan and ~600 km SSW of Manila. It is the exposed peak of the Talaris Ridge on the Palawan block, with a central mountain spine (“the Spine”) crowned by Mount Auron. The climate is tropical monsoon; hazards include typhoons, landslides, and earthquakes.
History
Talaris began as a US–Philippine “special zone” under the Talaris Joint Development Compact (TJDC, ~1973–74) during the Marcos era; Marcos was later relocated there in 1986 (the “Golden Cage Deal”). It became the Autonomous City-State of Talaris under the Talaris Basic Law with US-guaranteed defense in the 1990s. Its “hyper-liberal economic system” — near-zero corporate taxes, banking secrecy, fast-track R&D approvals — is the environment that let Foxite and Varyon tech deploy fast with weak safety oversight.
Powered by PWRCORE-1 and governed in part by Vulpine Dynamics, its dense core is The JD Strip. See also Talaris Political Factions.