InfiniCon: An Introduction

Much to my surprise, a friend on /tg/ went and picked up a project I had started on a few months back. Seeing as I've sort of slacked on the updates already, this seems like just as good a reason as any to post.

First off, InfiniCon is an idea I had a couple years back. I never did anything with it because I wasn't sure what to do with it. I never wrote it down or anything, I just sort of had it floating around. It came to me after leaving an anime convention on a Sunday, wherein the real world sets in again and you come back down from that weird feeling of being surrounded by all that shit you know and love.. Then I thought, "what would it even be like if this never ended?" It was one of those wishful, escapist thoughts you get sometimes.

Later, I started thinking more about that idea. "What if there was a Convention that never ended?" At the time, this thought led to some strange stories about a film noir sort of detective, examining a crime scene at a hotel room, getting into shit with some local costumed thugs, and running for his life down the back halls and service tunnels of an enormous city-tower Hotel, clinging to a well-worn wooden sword for dear life.

Then I just sort of shelved the idea. Like I said, I had no idea what to do with it. Cut to January. I'm flipping through the Yaruki Zero's blog, reading through some of his various projects, and I come across Monday Afternoon Blues. That game resurfaces the Endless Convention idea. This time, I decide that this would be an awesome setting for a pen and paper RPG. I consider even using it as the setting for a one-shot World of Darkness game to run with my gaming group, all of whom are my con-going group also.

So, this time, I head to /tg/ and start kicking around the idea. I work best when I'm bouncing ideas off other people and /tg/ is full of just the people I needed. Some folks take to it immediately and we start eagerly discussing the possibilities while others start writing short stories about it. We run 2 or 3 successful threads, pick up a small dedicated crew, put together a pretty decent wiki article on 1d4chan, and then interest just sort of waned. I can't remember if my muse just up and left me, as she is prone to doing, or if I was simply burnt out from thinking and talking about the project for about 2 weeks straight.

With my creative process fully elaborated on, that brings us to the present, where the idea has been resurrected by my friend The Hungarian LARPfag, who had enjoyed the idea enough to look into developing it further. After about a week of further refinement, we've expanded the idea even further. So, without further ramblin:


InfiniCon, the con that never ends.

As the little tag-line suggests, InfiniCon is a convention that takes place every single day of the year, without stopping. This is because InfiniCon is huge. So huge, in fact, that it occupies its own city; the cleverly name Infinity City. You see, InfiniCon isn't just one giant anime convention, or sci fi, or any one thing. It is a convention for every sort of nerdly pursuit, genre, and media.

To help contain all the different fandoms, different types of people, and conflicting groups the city is actually separated into 5 distinct districts, each focused on a certain subject or theme. If you gander at the map below, you'll see what I mean. One for Anime and all things Japanese, one for Comics, Cartoons, and Movies, one for RPGs and Fantasy, A Forest for the LARP guys to beat on each other with foam-covered sticks, and one for the Sci-Fi and tech oriented folks.

Size and dimensions not representative of actual scale

Each of these districts may cater to their theme, there is also a great deal of crossover between them. The Eastern and Western districts both have their own form of comic books and those comics can be Fantasy or Sci-Fi. Likewise, video games may seem tech oriented, but there are plenty of games that would be equally at home in any other district. There is a certain exclusivity when it comes to certain things, but there are also a lot of other shared things between districts. Additionally, it was sort an executive decision on my part to just mash some things together, rather than split the city into a dozen different districts and neighborhoods for every little group and fandom.

Now, while its origins may be mysterious (mostly because I haven't decided on a specific history for it), InfiniCon has been running continuously for over a decade, as far as most citizens know. Some might claim it's been even longer or that it has always been running, but there's no real way to know for sure. This constant running means that the attendees can actually choose to live in Infinity City and become citizens. Those who do, inevitably end up helping to run the city and the convention, as there is no shortage of jobs to be done.

Seeing as the average convention, which can start as early as wednesday and end as late as Tuesday, depending on the convention and the size of the crowd, can drive the average hotel worker and convention center staff to the brink of madness, a workforce of like-minded con-goers seems to solve that problem outright. In this way, an attendee can afford to pay rent and remain int he city, while also supporting InfiniCon itself by supplying additional manpower as a worker for the city.

At this point, things are seeming too good to be true; a whole city of nerds working together, getting real jobs to pay for rent while attending the greatest convention ever.. that couldn't possibly work, not even in fiction. You'd be right. InfiniCon is not as great as it seems. There are numerous problems, but the city manages to keep running, regardless.

First off, most districts don't really get along all that well. Most con-goers living int he same districts can get along most of the time, but between other districts, arguments are prone to break out, and with so many people carry replica weapons, fighting is actually fairly common. Territorial disputes and turf wars are a regular part of life amongst the more defensive fans.

On top of that, space is at a premium. Everyone wants to move to Infinity City and live there forever or set up the next big successful store or business, but there isn't enough property to go around and the city can't expand fast enough to meet the demand. In some unfortunate cases, this has led people disappearing from the city, either run out of town or discreetly disposed of when no one is looking.

Additionally, what with a lot of con-goers being somewhat irresponsible and immature, some can't really afford to stay in the city, nor can they hold down a job or manage their money, but they want to stay in Infinity City anyways. After they have run out of places to squat and rooms to crash in, they are eventually driven into the service and sewer tunnels that are tangled beneath the city, known as the UnderCon to many. Along with the homeless, those who have been banned from the convention or driven out also reside in the UnderCon, making up the darker and much seeder underbelly of InfiniCon. If you need knockoffs, illicit goods, or illegal substances, there's a good chance the UnderCon has it somewhere..

Fortunately, these sort of troubles have opened up another sort of business which is booming in Infinity City. There are lots of problems and people are willing to pay to have them solved. Tracking down a missing person, extracting months of owed rent from a shut-in dead beat, locating a rare collectible, dealing with stalkers, and all sorts of other odd jobs are the lifeblood for certain freelancers.

There's a lot more to talk about with this setting and I'll be continuing to elaborate on this over time, but for now, just let this chunk sink in. If you are dying to read more, just chunk out the page on 1d4chan to see the other stuff I've written about the setting with the help of my friends and various anonymous contributors.