ZERO PARADES wiki

Portofiro

“It’s a bit shit, but it’s fine.” — Pigeon, to Hershel Wilk, on Portofiro

Portofiro is the entire game. Island city-state, former La Luz colony, currently in long debt to EMTERR, and the place Hershel lost her career in ‘91 and got dropped back into in ‘96. The whole story of For Dead Spies happens here — specifically inside the Quisach district.

You’re not going anywhere else. Pigeon’s review of the place is also the game’s review: a bit shit, but it’s fine.

The shape of the city

Portofiro is one of those small-world city-states the spy genre loves: independent on paper, structurally captured by other people’s money, balanced precariously between three foreign powers that all have an interest in it.

  • La Luz — former colonial parent. Four hours by air, but no direct commercial routes anymore. Cordial relations on paper. The Weeping Eye operates freely on the ground. Portofirans sometimes call Luzians their “strange cousins across the strait”.
  • EMTERR — the investment bank Portofiro owes everything to. 16 stabilization packages, none paid off, the sol currency in long decline.
  • Superbloc — runs the Operant Bureau here. Uses the Kohilan Import-Export Bureau as cover. Hershel is its operant on the ground.

It’s a place that everyone has an angle on and nobody quite controls. That’s why the Opera works there. That’s why the Weeping Eye works there. That’s why the Bootleg Bazaar in Quisach can exist at all.

Overview[]

Originally established as a colony of La Luz during its imperial age, Portofiro eventually gained its independence. Relations with La Luz remain cordial, and some Portofirans refer to Luzians as their “strange cousins across the strait”. Portofiro is only a four-hour flight away from La Luz, but currently there are no commercial airlines with direct routes between the two countries.

Portofiro attained global renown as a center of silk production. In modern times, the silk industry has declined and Portofiro is dependent on loans called “stabilization packages” from the global investment bank EMTERR. Over the years, Portofiro has taken on 16 such loans and has sunk so deeply into debt that it has yet to pay any of them off.

The last several decades of Portofiran history were indelibly shaped by the late Supreme Leader Sweet Nestor. Nestorista ideology championed Portofiran self-governance, rejecting both communism and the revanchism of La Luz. During his first administration some 40 years ago, Nestor accepted Portofiro’s first stabilization package from EMTERR. During his second administration, Nestor pushed for the creation of Portofiro’s domestic space program in the ’70s. It was an expensive investment, and when the first and only manned Portofiran space mission in ‘77 ended with the rocket exploding and the deaths of all cosmonauts aboard, the space program was decommissioned and the Portofiran economy collapsed, forcing Nestor into his second exile from power.

Portofiro’s currency is the sol, the value of which has fallen sharply in recent years due to the city-state’s economic stagnation.

Portofiro features a unique public transportation system known as the aero-tram. Built and maintained by Carriles de Portofiro, the country’s oldest transit company, aero-trams are large, two-level passenger carriages that travel along cables suspended from pylons that tower over the city’s buildings.

In ‘91, operant Hershel Wilk of the Operant Bureau was on assignment in Portofiro when something went wrong and her network of local contacts was burned to the Weeping Eye. She escaped the fiasco and made it back to the Superbloc, but her career as a spy was effectively over. After five years, the Operant Bureau abruptly reactivated Hershel and sent her back to Portofiro for a new assignment in the city’s Quisach district.

Overview[]

Originally established as a colony of La Luz during its imperial age, Portofiro eventually gained its independence. Relations with La Luz remain cordial, and some Portofirans refer to Luzians as their “strange cousins across the strait”. Portofiro is only a four-hour flight away from La Luz, but currently there are no commercial airlines with direct routes between the two countries.

Portofiro attained global renown as a center of silk production. In modern times, the silk industry has declined and Portofiro is dependent on loans called “stabilization packages” from the global investment bank EMTERR. Over the years, Portofiro has taken on 16 such loans and has sunk so deeply into debt that it has yet to pay any of them off.

The last several decades of Portofiran history were indelibly shaped by the late Supreme Leader Sweet Nestor. Nestorista ideology championed Portofiran self-governance, rejecting both communism and the revanchism of La Luz. During his first administration some 40 years ago, Nestor accepted Portofiro’s first stabilization package from EMTERR. During his second administration, Nestor pushed for the creation of Portofiro’s domestic space program in the ’70s. It was an expensive investment, and when the first and only manned Portofiran space mission in ‘77 ended with the rocket exploding and the deaths of all cosmonauts aboard, the space program was decommissioned and the Portofiran economy collapsed, forcing Nestor into his second exile from power.

Portofiro’s currency is the sol, the value of which has fallen sharply in recent years due to the city-state’s economic stagnation.

Portofiro features a unique public transportation system known as the aero-tram. Built and maintained by Carriles de Portofiro, the country’s oldest transit company, aero-trams are large, two-level passenger carriages that travel along cables suspended from pylons that tower over the city’s buildings.

In ‘91, operant Hershel Wilk of the Operant Bureau was on assignment in Portofiro when something went wrong and her network of local contacts was burned to the Weeping Eye. She escaped the fiasco and made it back to the Superbloc, but her career as a spy was effectively over. After five years, the Operant Bureau abruptly reactivated Hershel and sent her back to Portofiro for a new assignment in the city’s Quisach district.

Districts[]

A section of the Quisach district

  • Capoblanco - An upscale district with residences.

  • Hill of Pigs - A neighborhood located east across the bridge from Quisach.

  • Pitol Tract

  • Quisach - A seaside industrial center and shipping port situated on a spit of land, now rundown and used as a hub for bootleg and contraband goods.

  • The Sunset - An upscale district.

  • Vale de Suspiro - An overgrown area north of Quisach known for its population of wild boars.

  • War Criminals Shrine

Local organizations[]

  • Carriles de Portofiro - Portofiro’s oldest company, and the operator of the city’s aero-tram public transit system.

  • Guardia Municipal - Portofiro’s police force; officers are called GMs or carabineros.

  • Renotel - Portofiro’s largest corporation, with a monopoly over the city’s telecommunications; Renotel’s logo is a dolphin, and its public payphones are designed to resemble dolphins.