
Immigrants
----------

   Of course, not all starship traffic is related to the Festival. After
   Virus was halted at Catacomb and Deneb, (and several small, sharp
   battles were fought right here) Antra found itself not only having to
   rebuid from Vargr pillaging and stupid stunts (more than one Vargr
   corsair met its end on the Worldroof, weakening its integrity), but
   also having to rewire everything to meet anti-Viral spec's. Also,
   Antra made very heavy use of robots: without them, Antra simply
   couldn't meet the demands that rebuilding made.
   
   In the end, Antra - which prides itself on tight population control -
   had to allow massive immigration to provide a workforce. The
   population rose from 500 million to 700 million, almost all from
   immigration from nearby Uakari (Antra: Deneb/1710 C5349AA-7). These
   immigrants are loathed by native Antrans, and considered low-brow,
   low-tech thugs. They are not permitted to bring any family, and
   workers who get pregnant are given the choice of leaving or having an
   abortion: if they stay, a one-time contraceptive is administered to
   insure sterility, with an antidote given when the working women leave.
   
   Despite the fact that they are paid ten times the amount they would
   earn back home, unrest festers in the shantytowns of Antra, kept near
   the industrial towers and far from the tower cities where Antrans
   live. The immigrants hate the veiled (or, often, completly open)
   contempt and hatred they are held in by the xenophobic Antrans, who
   believe that they are doing the Uakari an unmerited, and unthanked,
   favour.
   
   The immigrants - refered to as "visiting workers" by upper-class
   Antrans, "thugees" by lower-class Antrans, and "toilers" by themselves
   - are hired on one, five, or ten-year workterms, with a continous flow
   of about 2 million people either entering or leaving Antra (keeping
   over 40,000 subsidized liners employed). The immigrant workforce has
   been in decline for the last 20 years, and now make up 170 million
   people: native born Antrans and non-computerized machinery have been
   slowly squeezing them out, and the immigrant workforce is predicted to
   be all gone in 20 years.

