Obenseuer (district)

This page is about a district nicknamed "Open Sewer", for a game see: Obenseuer (game) page.

Obenseuer (/ˈʔoːbənˈsuɚ/ oben-soo-er) is a rundown residential district and former mining city in Stalburg, located in the northern part of the city along the M5 Motorway. Obenseuer has an infamous reputation in Stalburg for the decrepit state of its buildings and high crime rates.

Obenseuer has its own change-based currency called Open Sewer Coins, which have a very low monetary value and are only accepted in a few places outside of Obenseuer.

History

The founding date of Obenseuer is unknown, but it was was originally a prosperous small mining town, thanks to a successful ore mine in the district. The mine was closed down when it ran dry in 1958, depopulating the town when most of the workforce relocated to Stalburg. In 1973, Obenseuer's city municipality merged with Stalburg's.

In the late 1970s, The Walter Corporation began large-scale public housing projects and started constructing buildings on the old mining grounds of Obenseuer to accommodate cheap housing for Stalburg's growing workforce. The intention of this was to replace the cheap construction in the next 25 years. The construction came under scrutiny of a building field inspector, John Stalberg, who documented that the buildings were too fragile and needed to be rebuilt. These reports were ignored by the corrupt Department of Construction and Planning, who disposed of Stalberg's reports.

The majority of Obenseuer's problems began to develop following the bankruptcy of Stalburg Steel in 1981, leading to massive unemployment for the tenants. The repercussions of the poor state of the tenements were felt when one collapsed in 1993. The district got its appropriate nickname of "Open Sewer" when construction work of a railway line caused a leak in mining slag, contaminating waters in the nearby canals and creating a foul smell.

In 1988, Obenseuer local Osmo Saarinen created a brewery near the main canal. The brewery experienced major success, and in under a decade helped create jobs for many unemployed citizens, at the price of skyrocketing Stalburg's alcoholism problem.

In 2016 the government of Stalburg decided to relocate homeless individuals to Obenseuer, in order to clean out other districts. By early 2017, in response to Fungal Disease outbreak, a quarantine zone was established inside Obenseuer. By 2026 those two problems caused a major housing crisis, worsening the already bad state of the district.

District Zones

Detailed locations in Obenseuer game can be found in the List of Obenseuer Locations article.

Residential

The starting district zone of Obenseuer is made mostly of out several residential tenement building complexes, including Kolhola A, Deekula building, Tenement A, Tenement B and the Player's Tenement. A local establishment of O-Market and Skeida Pharmacy chains are also present in the market square of the district zone. Here a low-level tenement contractor - "Tenement Contract Work!" run by Samuel Jonasson - is found, giving access to Makeshift I, Shabby II, Decent III and fine IV levels of renovations in the current version. The whole district zone is surrounded by border walls, in north with the rest of Stalburg and south with the Bazaar district zone. The Residential district zone is also connected to Mines district zone.

Central

This district zone can be partially visited in INFRA as a small station of the Open Sewer Minitrain Metro network, leading to the entrance of the Undergound City.

Turnip Hill

Accessible only in INFRA, Turnip Hill is a minor tenement complex southwest of the district that was adopted into Obenseuer. It was also built by the Walter Corporation, but construction was abandoned in 1986. It's mainly inhabited by homeless people who created their own community.

Underneath Turnip Hill is a network of tunnels that were previously used by S.N.W. to filch nuclear material from the Black Rock Nuclear Power Plant, as well as possibly move nuclear waste to a repository. The tunnels were repurposed by the new residents of Turnip Hill to smuggle contraband, and eventually as a metro system to connect all areas of Open Sewer, even areas outside it like Turnip Hill. The metro was expanded over abandoned Turnip Hill Metro used previously by S.N.W.

By the time of the events of Obenseuer game, the state of Turnip Hill in 2026 is unknown.

Gallery

Turnip Hill

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Trivia

• Obenseuer is spelled "Obenseur" in a Stalburg Times Newspaper articles and by Stalburg News presenter (subtitles only) in third ending. This is likely a mistake.
• Despite the construction of the tenements starting in the late 1970s, both of John Stalberg's building inspection reports of one of the tenements and the construction of Player's Tenement are dated to May 1973.