Brit-Cit
Encyclopedia
Brit-Cit is a huge fictional city
in the fictional universe of British comics 2000 AD and Judge Dredd
. It is also the home of Sam Slade in some of 2000AD's Robo-Hunter
stories. The city covers the south of England and bordering on the Black Atlantic. It also has jurisdiction over Cal-Hab (covering part of Scotland) and Murphyville (Ireland), as seen in the Cal-Hab Justice strip. It is unknown what happened to Wales, outside of a mention of "the Gaels to the West" as a faction in the Brit-Cit Civil War during 2080.
In the first mention of Britain in Judge Dredd, set in 2100, the nation was referred to as the Brit-Territories.
has evolved into the BCBC, which still runs a World Service
(For King And Country audio). Brit-Cit society is also riddled with class division
and privilege. While the country is officially run by the Judges' Star Chamber, the criminal Overlords and the surviving aristocracy are highly powerful; the Overlords tend to change, however, due to internal conflicts.
The Royal Family live inside the Forbidden Citadel, a bunker turned into an independent (and deliberately isolated) city-state from 2070-2114 before Justice Department took control . Since then, the Citadel is no longer isolated and the Royals have been seen in the wider world. (The Student Prince, Prog 2002; For King and Country)
Brit-Cit has a special relationship
with Mega City One (to the extent of being the only nation that didn't condemn President Booth during the run-up to the Atomic Wars
) and the two work together quite often. Brit-Cit provided refuge for Mega City One Judges when Nero Narcos took over the city and covertly aided Judge Dredd in liberating the city with technical & personnel support. It is now contributing medical & technical personnel and commando units to assist in an international humanitarian mission in Ciudad Barranquilla. The two cities have also run exchange programmes with their Cadet Judges, as seen in The Hunting Party. Brit-Cit is aware, however, that Mega-City One is deliberately hiding an "Alpha File" from them that could shatter this relationship; spies sent to retrieve it have "disappeared", leaving Brit-Cit unaware that the File contains information about an atomic war in Britain in 2150
.
, northern England and the Midlands were devastated and Brit-Cit faced chaos & instability, collapsing into civil war between any and all comers. The Royal Family fled to an underground bunker (what would become the Forbidden Citadel) and never re-emerged. A multi-faction civil war broke out, with the Emergency Military Government as the 'official' rulers; they eventually blockaded themselves into North London in 2079, and started to slaughter any opposition and carry out state terrorism
on the civilian population. Other factions included the Gaels in the west (presumably Wales
), "Nomads" in the east, and psychotic mutant cults in the north. The early Judges formed in the south, and in 2080 they believed they'd have control of the whole country soon.
The early Judges were formed by some of the ruling crime lords, who had banded together and taken Judicial form to beg for aid from Mega-City One
. They eventually seized control, and the original backers became the Overlords.
The dates of the Civil War are usually not stated (Dave Stone admits he uses "Fudged Time" when writing Armitage http://www.2000adreview.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=2409&st=0&p=40234&entry40234), but a story set in 2087 presents the Civil War as having ended around five years ago. By 2087, Brit-Cit was still a post-war state, with visible damage and food shortages.
uniforms are the same. As such, the laws are harsh, with many crimes not found in present-day law, and the Judges have the power to act as both police and judge/jury/executioner, though they do portray more of a stiff upper lip
when doing so.
The laws are more lenient in some areas though - Detective-Judges and Murphyville Judges are allowed to marry, several currently banned substances are legal, and the Dredd story The Satanist featured a perfectly legal Orgy Club in the outskirts of Brit-Cit.
Prospective Judges spend ten years at Hendon
Academy, followed by twelve months on probation with a Judge.
Due to the circumstance of the post-War Justice Department, judicial corruption in Brit-Cit has historically been a major problem. The Department has suffered from more racism and sexism than its counterpart in Mega-City One, and Masonic influences in the Senior levels. Senior Judges can buy their commissions in the same way as Victorian military officers. Most are incompetent or directly controlled by the crime lords and it is left to Street and Detective Judges to get the work done. The ruling body, the Order of the Star Chamber
, were known for high institutional corruption, and were drawn from the ranks of pre-war politics, from business, and minor royalty rather than from the Judge ranks . (At other times, a different ruling body has been shown: see "Depiction")
However, institutional corruption has gone down over time. This is partly due to the deaths of many Senior Judges, Overlords, and the entire Star Chamber, and partly due to the rise of newer Judges who just see the crime lords as criminals. The demise of the Star Chamber has been seen as a "bright new dawn for Brit-Cit". Part of this has included the loss of many of the more incompetent Senior Judges , as well as a mass of procedural nightmares as there's no longer a top hierarchy and nobody's figured out a replacement for them.
Specialised branches of the Justice Department include Dispatch, which handles communications, deploys Judges, and co-ordinates operations (equivalent of MC-1's Control); Riot Control; Psi Division
, later named Psyk-Division; an Endangered Species Squad that captures & cares for supernatural life-forms; Med-Division; Shok-TAC, a heavily armoured armed response team, and Tactical Arms, a militarily uniformed group; the Special Judicial Service, a commando unit roughly equivalent to the modern day SAS
; Special Branch
; Internal Affairs, the equivalent of the Special Judicial Squad; and CID
, the investigative branch. CID is not popular with the "uniform plods" but has gained an autonomy following the end of the Star Chamber; the specifics of this autonomy are not yet known (Megazine #266, Armitage: Dumb Blonde). Overseeing this are Administrators, who wear formal suits
rather than a Judicial uniform, and lack judicial powers.
, often paired with Detective-Judges Treasure Steel and Parkerston-Trant. A British version of Dredd called Judge Armour died as part of the global team sent to end Judgement Day. A Tek-Judge called Rutherford, one of the city's best robotics men, played a primary role in ending Mega-City One's "Doomsday" crisis by reprogramming Nero Narcos' Assassinator droids.
Cal-Hab boasts Judge MacBrayne and the powerful Psi-Judge Schiehallion; Murphyville's most famous Judge is Judge-Sergeant Joyce, who was originally part of the Judgement Day team.
Two prominent Brit-Cit Judges who were transferred to Mega-City One are Judge Stark and Judge (Amy) Steel.
The Judge Militia rarely deal with serious crime and are more like the traditional police service than the Brit-Cit Judges, rarely needing to use violence (outside of events such as Judgement Day). The uniforms are highly distinctive, with the colouring based around the Irish flag, and they operate out of Murphyville Justice Central. Before Brit-Cit aid grants, the Militia used spud-guns which fired potatoes, due to the inability of the force to buy bullets.
Cal-Hab has traditionally been used as a dumping ground for toxic and nuclear waste, which has turned much of the population feral. In the rural areas of the country live "wild Scotties", who have no legal protection due to living outside Cal-Hab city boundaries. The population is famed for violence, deep-frying everything, drunkenness and penny-pinching - Prog 1540 revealed it has only two charities and one of them is campaigning for an increase in miserly behaviour. Quite a few disasters have hit Cal-Hab, mainly due to the actions of Schiehallion. Cal-Hab is also the home of trashzine artist Kenny Who?, alter-ego for artist Cam Kennedy
.
The Judges have added a Celtic helmet and kilt to their uniform. Traditionally, all judicial decisions are made from Brit-Cit and the best Scottish Judges were head-hunted for Brit-Cit roles, leaving the Cal-Hab Judges demoralised. There was a large amount of nationalism and desire for Cal-Hab to be independent, but the ruling clans spent too much time fighting each other to be a credible resistance. However, by prog 1540 (2129 in Dredd chronology) Cal-Hab was said to have independence to an unknown degree, mostly due to Schiehallion covering most of Cal-Hab in a huge psychic storm, known as the Nexus, which has left a large part of the territory beyond anyone's control or comprehension. This hasn't stopped hard-line nationalist paramilitaries from trying to separate the state completely from Brit-Cit.
In the Harlem Heroes
strip, taking place before Dredd, Scotland was stated been an independent nation for some time by 2050. There was a oil boom in the 1980s that saw dozens of new townships built around the coast; when the oil ran out, the townships became destitute and the former oil men turned to the sport aeroball. The Flying Scotsmen aeroball team had a reputation as the toughest in the world.
There is also mention of a New Raj Protectorate in India, presumably a Brit-Cit territory ; and Brit-Cit has jurisdiction over half of Hong Tong (future Hong Kong
).
Brit-Cit also had jurisdiction over the Rock of Gibraltar however the British Judges decided to destroy this outpost with a Nuclear strike when the colony became too rife with criminal and terrorist activity.
The wild Scotties of Cal-Hab have been seen as easy fodder for body brokers, while nationalist terror groups like the Mental Tartan Army attempt liberation by outlandish schemes such as literally trying to separate Cal-Hab from Brit-Cit via nuclear explosions.
, Brit-Cit was considerably fleshed out and there was much focus on institutional corruption; John Wagner
, who originally created Brit-Cit, has ignored this in his Dredd stories and has the Justice Department as being more like Mega-City One's. When Dredd visited Brit-Cit in "Doomsday
", instead of the Star Chamber we saw a Chief Judge and a large governing body in an open assembly room. For the most part, this can be explained away as Dredd looking at Brit-Cit from a different angle to Armitage. When Brit-Cit Judges have been used by other writers ("Regime Change" by Gordon Rennie
, "Splashdown" by Simon Spurrier
), they tend to follow the Wagner model. One other minor divergence is that the Royal Family lack any political status in Brit-Cit in Armitage, whereas For King and Country presents the Royal Family as the constitutional heads of Brit-Cit.
Brit-Cit has appeared several times in the Big Finish 2000AD audio dramas. Both the Stone & Wagner versions Brit-Cit justice were used in the Dredd audio play Get Karter!, while For King And Country uses elements from the Armitage strips (the Forbidden Citadel and Star Chamber) while portraying the Brit-Cit Justice Department as mainly effective.
The origin of Justice Department and Brit-Cit's history is also contradictory. Dave Stone's version was that Brit-Cit was a "global irrelevance" by the time of the Atomic Wars and only faced fall-out rather than a direct assault as it wasn't worth bombing; Justice Department only existed after the fallout and resulting civil war, and was created solely by organised crime for aid. "Hardly anyone else on the job agrees with me."http://www.2000adreview.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=2295
Indeed, it has been contradicted by other Brit-Cit stories - Meet Darren Dead (Megazine #240) and Wagner's "Judge Dredd: Origins
" both show Brit-Cit being bombed during the war (Darren Dead refers to the city almost being annihilated). Darren Dead indicates that there were no Judges in existence pre-War (the titular character is unfamiliar with them after missing the years 2070-2127), in line with Armitage, though "Origins" states the Judge System was already in its infancy in the 2050s (albeit never stating it had reached Britain).
Cal-Hab has had multiple cameo appearance's in the stories of Wagner and Alan Grant, nearly all of which are played for laughs and which focus on Scottish humour. Jim Alexander's Cal-Hab Justice, on the other hand, was often quite grim and focused on political allegories for mid-90s Scottish issues; the city-state was also shown to be under heavy Brit-Cit control. Gordon Rennie's
"Judge Dredd: Tartan Terrors" (#1540) played Cal-Hab for laughs but in a slightly more aggressive manner, such as introducing penny-pinching as a Cal-Habber trait (an old Scottish stereotype); it also referred to Cal Hab as having political independence for a century. In the letters page for #1547, editor Matt Smith
(via Tharg the Mighty
) openly admitted that Gordon Rennie was ignoring Cal-Hab Justice. Cal-Habbers are also shown to have virtually indecipherable accents (especially heard in the Big Finish
audio story - Jihad)
Murphyville and its Judges have mostly been seen in stories by their creator Garth Ennis
, who used them to play with Irish political issues and stereotypes for comedic purposes. An exception was the Dredd story "Crusade" (by Grant Morrison
and Mark Millar
), which had an Irish Judge secretly working with a Vatican Judge-Inquisitor.
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
in the fictional universe of British comics 2000 AD and Judge Dredd
Judge Dredd
Judge Joseph Dredd is a comics character whose strip in the British science fiction anthology 2000 AD is the magazine's longest running . Dredd is an American law enforcement officer in a violent city of the future where uniformed Judges combine the powers of police, judge, jury and executioner...
. It is also the home of Sam Slade in some of 2000AD's Robo-Hunter
Robo-Hunter
Robo-Hunter is a recurring strip in the British Comic 2000 AD, initially written by John Wagner and illustrated by Ian Gibson. The series starred Sam Slade, a laconic, ageing, cigar-smoking bounty hunter of robots that have gone renegade. Though action orientated, the series was noted for its...
stories. The city covers the south of England and bordering on the Black Atlantic. It also has jurisdiction over Cal-Hab (covering part of Scotland) and Murphyville (Ireland), as seen in the Cal-Hab Justice strip. It is unknown what happened to Wales, outside of a mention of "the Gaels to the West" as a faction in the Brit-Cit Civil War during 2080.
In the first mention of Britain in Judge Dredd, set in 2100, the nation was referred to as the Brit-Territories.
Description
Brit-Cit has many similarities to Mega City One - it is crowded with a population of 160 million inhabitants who live in huge City Block apartments and unemployment and crime are rife. Quite a few examples of England's more classical architecture remains, and much of the lower classes live outside the city in decaying 20th Century houses. The city is split into Sectors, named after the original area they were built over, such as Oxford Sector and New Soho. Class divisions are rife. The BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
has evolved into the BCBC, which still runs a World Service
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...
(For King And Country audio). Brit-Cit society is also riddled with class division
Class conflict
Class conflict is the tension or antagonism which exists in society due to competing socioeconomic interests between people of different classes....
and privilege. While the country is officially run by the Judges' Star Chamber, the criminal Overlords and the surviving aristocracy are highly powerful; the Overlords tend to change, however, due to internal conflicts.
The Royal Family live inside the Forbidden Citadel, a bunker turned into an independent (and deliberately isolated) city-state from 2070-2114 before Justice Department took control . Since then, the Citadel is no longer isolated and the Royals have been seen in the wider world. (The Student Prince, Prog 2002; For King and Country)
Brit-Cit has a special relationship
Special relationship
The Special Relationship is a phrase used to describe the exceptionally close political, diplomatic, cultural, economic, military and historical relations between the United Kingdom and the United States, following its use in a 1946 speech by British statesman Winston Churchill...
with Mega City One (to the extent of being the only nation that didn't condemn President Booth during the run-up to the Atomic Wars
Atomic Wars
The Atomic Wars or Great Atom War is a fictional event in the Judge Dredd universe.In 2070, the possibly psychotic President Robert L. Booth started World War III by starting a nuclear war which dragged in all the major superpowers....
) and the two work together quite often. Brit-Cit provided refuge for Mega City One Judges when Nero Narcos took over the city and covertly aided Judge Dredd in liberating the city with technical & personnel support. It is now contributing medical & technical personnel and commando units to assist in an international humanitarian mission in Ciudad Barranquilla. The two cities have also run exchange programmes with their Cadet Judges, as seen in The Hunting Party. Brit-Cit is aware, however, that Mega-City One is deliberately hiding an "Alpha File" from them that could shatter this relationship; spies sent to retrieve it have "disappeared", leaving Brit-Cit unaware that the File contains information about an atomic war in Britain in 2150
Strontium Dog
Strontium Dog is a long-running comics series featuring in the British science fiction weekly 2000 AD, starring Johnny Alpha, a mutant bounty hunter with an array of imaginative gadgets and weapons....
.
Civil War
Following the Atomic WarsAtomic Wars
The Atomic Wars or Great Atom War is a fictional event in the Judge Dredd universe.In 2070, the possibly psychotic President Robert L. Booth started World War III by starting a nuclear war which dragged in all the major superpowers....
, northern England and the Midlands were devastated and Brit-Cit faced chaos & instability, collapsing into civil war between any and all comers. The Royal Family fled to an underground bunker (what would become the Forbidden Citadel) and never re-emerged. A multi-faction civil war broke out, with the Emergency Military Government as the 'official' rulers; they eventually blockaded themselves into North London in 2079, and started to slaughter any opposition and carry out state terrorism
State terrorism
State terrorism may refer to acts of terrorism conducted by a state against a foreign state or people. It can also refer to acts of violence by a state against its own people.-Definition:...
on the civilian population. Other factions included the Gaels in the west (presumably Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
), "Nomads" in the east, and psychotic mutant cults in the north. The early Judges formed in the south, and in 2080 they believed they'd have control of the whole country soon.
The early Judges were formed by some of the ruling crime lords, who had banded together and taken Judicial form to beg for aid from Mega-City One
Mega-City One
Mega-City One is a huge fictional city-state covering much of what is now the Eastern United States in the Judge Dredd comic book series. The exact boundaries of the city depend on which artist has drawn the story...
. They eventually seized control, and the original backers became the Overlords.
The dates of the Civil War are usually not stated (Dave Stone admits he uses "Fudged Time" when writing Armitage http://www.2000adreview.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=2409&st=0&p=40234&entry40234), but a story set in 2087 presents the Civil War as having ended around five years ago. By 2087, Brit-Cit was still a post-war state, with visible damage and food shortages.
Law and Justice Department
The Brit-Cit Justice Department is based in the New Old Bailey. It is very similar in structure and effect to the Mega City One justice system, and aside from a few cosmetic differences (lions instead of eagles) even the JudgeJudge (2000 AD)
Judge is a title held by several significant characters in the Judge Dredd series, which appears in the British comics 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Megazine...
uniforms are the same. As such, the laws are harsh, with many crimes not found in present-day law, and the Judges have the power to act as both police and judge/jury/executioner, though they do portray more of a stiff upper lip
Stiff upper lip
One who has a stiff upper lip displays fortitude in the face of adversity, or exercises great self-restraint in the expression of emotion. The phrase is most commonly heard as part of the idiom "keep a stiff upper lip", and has traditionally been used to describe an attribute of British people ,...
when doing so.
The laws are more lenient in some areas though - Detective-Judges and Murphyville Judges are allowed to marry, several currently banned substances are legal, and the Dredd story The Satanist featured a perfectly legal Orgy Club in the outskirts of Brit-Cit.
Prospective Judges spend ten years at Hendon
Hendon
Hendon is a London suburb situated northwest of Charing Cross.-History:Hendon was historically a civil parish in the county of Middlesex. The manor is described in Domesday , but the name, 'Hendun' meaning 'at the highest hill', is earlier...
Academy, followed by twelve months on probation with a Judge.
Due to the circumstance of the post-War Justice Department, judicial corruption in Brit-Cit has historically been a major problem. The Department has suffered from more racism and sexism than its counterpart in Mega-City One, and Masonic influences in the Senior levels. Senior Judges can buy their commissions in the same way as Victorian military officers. Most are incompetent or directly controlled by the crime lords and it is left to Street and Detective Judges to get the work done. The ruling body, the Order of the Star Chamber
Star Chamber
The Star Chamber was an English court of law that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster until 1641. It was made up of Privy Counsellors, as well as common-law judges and supplemented the activities of the common-law and equity courts in both civil and criminal matters...
, were known for high institutional corruption, and were drawn from the ranks of pre-war politics, from business, and minor royalty rather than from the Judge ranks . (At other times, a different ruling body has been shown: see "Depiction")
However, institutional corruption has gone down over time. This is partly due to the deaths of many Senior Judges, Overlords, and the entire Star Chamber, and partly due to the rise of newer Judges who just see the crime lords as criminals. The demise of the Star Chamber has been seen as a "bright new dawn for Brit-Cit". Part of this has included the loss of many of the more incompetent Senior Judges , as well as a mass of procedural nightmares as there's no longer a top hierarchy and nobody's figured out a replacement for them.
Specialised branches of the Justice Department include Dispatch, which handles communications, deploys Judges, and co-ordinates operations (equivalent of MC-1's Control); Riot Control; Psi Division
Psi Division
Psi-Division is a fictional organisation in the Judge Dredd and Anderson: Psi-Division comic strips in 2000 AD and Judge Dredd: The Megazine. It is the branch of Mega-City One's Justice Department that deals in supernatural phenomena, using Judges with psychic abilities. Psi-Judges are often...
, later named Psyk-Division; an Endangered Species Squad that captures & cares for supernatural life-forms; Med-Division; Shok-TAC, a heavily armoured armed response team, and Tactical Arms, a militarily uniformed group; the Special Judicial Service, a commando unit roughly equivalent to the modern day SAS
Special Air Service
Special Air Service or SAS is a corps of the British Army constituted on 31 May 1950. They are part of the United Kingdom Special Forces and have served as a model for the special forces of many other countries all over the world...
; Special Branch
Special Branch
Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security in British and Commonwealth police forces, as well as in the Royal Thai Police...
; Internal Affairs, the equivalent of the Special Judicial Squad; and CID
Criminal Investigation Department
The Crime Investigation Department is the branch of all Territorial police forces within the British Police and many other Commonwealth police forces, to which plain clothes detectives belong. It is thus distinct from the Uniformed Branch and the Special Branch.The Metropolitan Police Service CID,...
, the investigative branch. CID is not popular with the "uniform plods" but has gained an autonomy following the end of the Star Chamber; the specifics of this autonomy are not yet known (Megazine #266, Armitage: Dumb Blonde). Overseeing this are Administrators, who wear formal suits
Suit (clothing)
In clothing, a suit is a set of garments made from the same cloth, consisting of at least a jacket and trousers. Lounge suits are the most common style of Western suit, originating in the United Kingdom as country wear...
rather than a Judicial uniform, and lack judicial powers.
Judges of note
The most famous Judge for Brit-Cit is Detective-Judge ArmitageDetective-Judge Armitage
Detective-Judge Armitage is a fictional Judge in the Judge Dredd setting. He was created by Dave Stone and Sean Phillips for the Judge Dredd Megazine, and is from Brit-Cit, rather than Dredd's Mega-City One. He is one of the main English characters in the comic.-Biography:Armitage is a tall, white...
, often paired with Detective-Judges Treasure Steel and Parkerston-Trant. A British version of Dredd called Judge Armour died as part of the global team sent to end Judgement Day. A Tek-Judge called Rutherford, one of the city's best robotics men, played a primary role in ending Mega-City One's "Doomsday" crisis by reprogramming Nero Narcos' Assassinator droids.
Cal-Hab boasts Judge MacBrayne and the powerful Psi-Judge Schiehallion; Murphyville's most famous Judge is Judge-Sergeant Joyce, who was originally part of the Judgement Day team.
Two prominent Brit-Cit Judges who were transferred to Mega-City One are Judge Stark and Judge (Amy) Steel.
Cal-Hab, Murphyville and foreign territories
Murphyville is the urban settlement on Emerald Isle (formerly Ireland), which suffered heavy fallout damage in the Atomic War and was only reclaimed in 2095 due to Brit-Cit aid; in return, Brit-Cit corporations have a major hold on the Isle's government. Under the corporations, the entire island has been turned into a theme park based around stereotypes of traditional Irish life.The Judge Militia rarely deal with serious crime and are more like the traditional police service than the Brit-Cit Judges, rarely needing to use violence (outside of events such as Judgement Day). The uniforms are highly distinctive, with the colouring based around the Irish flag, and they operate out of Murphyville Justice Central. Before Brit-Cit aid grants, the Militia used spud-guns which fired potatoes, due to the inability of the force to buy bullets.
Cal-Hab has traditionally been used as a dumping ground for toxic and nuclear waste, which has turned much of the population feral. In the rural areas of the country live "wild Scotties", who have no legal protection due to living outside Cal-Hab city boundaries. The population is famed for violence, deep-frying everything, drunkenness and penny-pinching - Prog 1540 revealed it has only two charities and one of them is campaigning for an increase in miserly behaviour. Quite a few disasters have hit Cal-Hab, mainly due to the actions of Schiehallion. Cal-Hab is also the home of trashzine artist Kenny Who?, alter-ego for artist Cam Kennedy
Cam Kennedy
Campbell Kennedy is a Scottish comics artist. He is best known for his work on 2000 AD, especially the flagship titles Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper.-Biography:...
.
The Judges have added a Celtic helmet and kilt to their uniform. Traditionally, all judicial decisions are made from Brit-Cit and the best Scottish Judges were head-hunted for Brit-Cit roles, leaving the Cal-Hab Judges demoralised. There was a large amount of nationalism and desire for Cal-Hab to be independent, but the ruling clans spent too much time fighting each other to be a credible resistance. However, by prog 1540 (2129 in Dredd chronology) Cal-Hab was said to have independence to an unknown degree, mostly due to Schiehallion covering most of Cal-Hab in a huge psychic storm, known as the Nexus, which has left a large part of the territory beyond anyone's control or comprehension. This hasn't stopped hard-line nationalist paramilitaries from trying to separate the state completely from Brit-Cit.
In the Harlem Heroes
Harlem Heroes
Harlem Heroes is a British comic strip that formed part of the original line-up of 2000 AD. Inspired by the popularity during the 1970s of kung fu films and the Harlem Globetrotters, Harlem Heroes was devised by Pat Mills, employing elements from his Hellball comic strip, and scripted by Tom Tully...
strip, taking place before Dredd, Scotland was stated been an independent nation for some time by 2050. There was a oil boom in the 1980s that saw dozens of new townships built around the coast; when the oil ran out, the townships became destitute and the former oil men turned to the sport aeroball. The Flying Scotsmen aeroball team had a reputation as the toughest in the world.
There is also mention of a New Raj Protectorate in India, presumably a Brit-Cit territory ; and Brit-Cit has jurisdiction over half of Hong Tong (future Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
).
Brit-Cit also had jurisdiction over the Rock of Gibraltar however the British Judges decided to destroy this outpost with a Nuclear strike when the colony became too rife with criminal and terrorist activity.
Criminal influences
While Brit-Cit does have much conventional crime (or the 2000AD equivalent thereof), it also has faced a lot more body-horror murderers and more supernatural crimes, with Satanic cults all over the place. It is also the home of the major crime lord Efil Drago San, who along with other crime lords was directly controlling the higher-ranking Judges in the Armitage strips. Having killed many senior Judges and crime lords for his own reasons, Drago San is very unpopular with his fellow crime lords and in the Dredd audio dramas he was hiding out offworld before being finally arrested.The wild Scotties of Cal-Hab have been seen as easy fodder for body brokers, while nationalist terror groups like the Mental Tartan Army attempt liberation by outlandish schemes such as literally trying to separate Cal-Hab from Brit-Cit via nuclear explosions.
Depiction
Brit-Cit has contradictory depictions depending on who is writing. Under Dave StoneDave Stone
-Biography:Stone has written many spin off novels based on the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who and Judge Dredd.Stone also contributed a number of comic series to 2000AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine, focusing on the Dreddverse...
, Brit-Cit was considerably fleshed out and there was much focus on institutional corruption; John Wagner
John Wagner
John Wagner is a comics writer who was born in Pennsylvania in 1949 and moved to Scotland as a boy. Alongside Pat Mills, Wagner was responsible for revitalising British boys' comics in the 1970s, and has continued to be a leading light in British comics ever since.He is best known for his work on...
, who originally created Brit-Cit, has ignored this in his Dredd stories and has the Justice Department as being more like Mega-City One's. When Dredd visited Brit-Cit in "Doomsday
The Doomsday Scenario
The Doomsday Scenario is the collective name of a series of Judge Dredd comic stories published in 2000 AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine in 1999...
", instead of the Star Chamber we saw a Chief Judge and a large governing body in an open assembly room. For the most part, this can be explained away as Dredd looking at Brit-Cit from a different angle to Armitage. When Brit-Cit Judges have been used by other writers ("Regime Change" by Gordon Rennie
Gordon Rennie
Gordon Rennie is a comics writer, responsible for White Trash: Moronic Inferno, as well as several comic strips for 2000 AD and novels for Warhammer Fantasy....
, "Splashdown" by Simon Spurrier
Simon Spurrier
Simon Spurrier is a British comics writer, who has previously worked as a cook, a bookseller and an art director for the BBC.Getting his start in comics with the British small press, he went on to write his own series for 2000 AD, like Lobster Random, Bec & Kawl, The Simping Detective and Harry...
), they tend to follow the Wagner model. One other minor divergence is that the Royal Family lack any political status in Brit-Cit in Armitage, whereas For King and Country presents the Royal Family as the constitutional heads of Brit-Cit.
Brit-Cit has appeared several times in the Big Finish 2000AD audio dramas. Both the Stone & Wagner versions Brit-Cit justice were used in the Dredd audio play Get Karter!, while For King And Country uses elements from the Armitage strips (the Forbidden Citadel and Star Chamber) while portraying the Brit-Cit Justice Department as mainly effective.
The origin of Justice Department and Brit-Cit's history is also contradictory. Dave Stone's version was that Brit-Cit was a "global irrelevance" by the time of the Atomic Wars and only faced fall-out rather than a direct assault as it wasn't worth bombing; Justice Department only existed after the fallout and resulting civil war, and was created solely by organised crime for aid. "Hardly anyone else on the job agrees with me."http://www.2000adreview.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=2295
Indeed, it has been contradicted by other Brit-Cit stories - Meet Darren Dead (Megazine #240) and Wagner's "Judge Dredd: Origins
Origins (Judge Dredd story)
Origins is one of the longest Judge Dredd storylines to run in the pages of British comic 2000 AD. Making extensive use of flashbacks, it tells the story of how the Judges of Mega-City One rose to power. It was written by John Wagner and illustrated by Carlos Ezquerra, who between them created...
" both show Brit-Cit being bombed during the war (Darren Dead refers to the city almost being annihilated). Darren Dead indicates that there were no Judges in existence pre-War (the titular character is unfamiliar with them after missing the years 2070-2127), in line with Armitage, though "Origins" states the Judge System was already in its infancy in the 2050s (albeit never stating it had reached Britain).
Cal-Hab has had multiple cameo appearance's in the stories of Wagner and Alan Grant, nearly all of which are played for laughs and which focus on Scottish humour. Jim Alexander's Cal-Hab Justice, on the other hand, was often quite grim and focused on political allegories for mid-90s Scottish issues; the city-state was also shown to be under heavy Brit-Cit control. Gordon Rennie's
Gordon Rennie
Gordon Rennie is a comics writer, responsible for White Trash: Moronic Inferno, as well as several comic strips for 2000 AD and novels for Warhammer Fantasy....
"Judge Dredd: Tartan Terrors" (#1540) played Cal-Hab for laughs but in a slightly more aggressive manner, such as introducing penny-pinching as a Cal-Habber trait (an old Scottish stereotype); it also referred to Cal Hab as having political independence for a century. In the letters page for #1547, editor Matt Smith
Matt Smith (comics)
Matt Smith is the editor of long-running British science fiction weekly anthology comic 2000 AD, and the sister title Judge Dredd Megazine. He has also written two novels.-Biography:...
(via Tharg the Mighty
Tharg the Mighty
The Mighty Tharg is a recurrent character in science fiction comic 2000 AD, one of only two characters to appear in nearly every issue of the comic...
) openly admitted that Gordon Rennie was ignoring Cal-Hab Justice. Cal-Habbers are also shown to have virtually indecipherable accents (especially heard in the Big Finish
Big Finish Productions
Big Finish Productions is a British company that produces books and audio plays based, primarily, on cult British science fiction properties...
audio story - Jihad)
Murphyville and its Judges have mostly been seen in stories by their creator Garth Ennis
Garth Ennis
Garth Ennis is a Northern Irish comics writer, best known for the Vertigo series Preacher with artist Steve Dillon and his successful nine-year run on Marvel Comics' Punisher franchise...
, who used them to play with Irish political issues and stereotypes for comedic purposes. An exception was the Dredd story "Crusade" (by Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison is a Scottish comic book writer, playwright and occultist. He is known for his nonlinear narratives and counter-cultural leanings, as well as his successful runs on titles like Animal Man, Doom Patrol, JLA, The Invisibles, New X-Men, Fantastic Four, All-Star Superman, and...
and Mark Millar
Mark Millar
Mark Millar is a Scottish comic book writer, known for his work on books such as The Authority, The Ultimates, Marvel Knights Spider-Man, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Civil War, Wanted, and Kick-Ass, the latter two of which have been adapted into feature films...
), which had an Irish Judge secretly working with a Vatican Judge-Inquisitor.