Cal-Hab

Nighttime Glascal, in the 2110s

The Caledonian Habitation Zone, shortened to Calhab or Cal-Hab, is the irradiated remains of Scotland, which for years was under Brit-Cit control. The largest settlement is Glascal, while the Strathmeg conurbation has fallen into decay.

Cal-Hab is also the home of trashzine artist Kenny Who?.

The population is famed for extreme violence, drunkenness, pseudo-highlander behaviour, deep-frying everything, and penny-pinching (Prog 1540 revealed it has only two charities and one of them is campaigning for an increase in miserly behaviour). In large part this is due to a combination of "tartan trauma" from the Atomic Wars, where the Calhabbers mentally regressed to a version of the past, and covert Brit-Cit brainwashing.

History

Scotland had an 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.

Sometime before 2050, Scotland had become independent - an event that caused their fans to stop being the rowdiest in the world. The Flying Scotsmen, a high-ranking team out of Aberdeen, would battle (and lose to) the Harlem Heroes.

The trauma of the 2070 Atomic Wars caused the Scottish to regress to an apocryphal Highlander past. These "Caledonian Wastes" were looked down on as a lawless wasteland by the new global community, and it was used as a dumping ground for toxic and nuclear waste - particularly the Dounreay Contam-Zone, which supplies much of the West Euro National Grid and is a major broker in U-235. The unfortunates living within a fifteen mile radius of Dounreay's glow were never allowed to leave.

Official reports focused on horrific atrocities and pagan worship by the increasingly tribal Scots, but for Brit-Cit the bigger issue was Calhab was outside their sphere of influence.

The first Judges ride out of the mist

In order to bring the country to order, Brit-Cit set up the Song-in-the-Sky satellite network to bombard the locals with subliminal messages, making their tribal regression more controllable (and more 'comedy stereotype'), with a lot of folklore tales made up by a Brit-Cit bureacrat dropped in. The Baxter Genepool project, started in the 2080s in Glascal by Professor Baxter, began to create a breed of future Judges. Finally, the newly established Cal-Hab Judges were able to impose order and were accepted into the world community in 2101: once again under the rule of Brit-Cit.

James Bryson Ed MacBrayne, and the psi empath Schiehallion were three products of the Baxter Genepool and thus some of the earliest Calhab cadets. As the young Schiehallion's powers were growing out of control, they plugged him into 'song-in-the-sky' and implanted fake memories of being linked to "the spirits of the moors" after being born in rural clan stones, in order to better control his psi powers. (Unaware of this, he'd claim to be friends with ghosts for years after) As young cadets, MacBrayne used to bully Bryson until the boy snapped and shot MacBrayne in the foot - something he felt he had coming. In secret, these three were designed similar to three genetically enhanced barbary apes placed at Gib Rock: a "conduit for mind control cointegration", to pacify the locals further.

A Ranger chieftan's sonic weapon drone

Cal-Hab had been running assassination Ranger teams at the turn of the century, each headed by a War Chieftan. In 2103, after a mercenary team had slaughtered five Calhab towns in response to the Partick Thistle Uprising, Ranger Team Delta under Andy Dunn tracked the culprits down south to the Canterbury ruins and wiped them out.

Once order was established, the Judges were run partly under Brit-Cit lines and partly akin to Murphyville's, being more 'softly softly' and having civilian lives & pensions. The local Judges, if good, would be headhunted for Brit-Cit. This, combined with the area's size, left them permanently undermanned - Schiehallion was their only active psi.

Calhab Judges

The New Old Bailey bolstered these numbers by sending a quota of rookies up north on six-month tours. The locals, both citizen and Judge, loathed them as interlopers and outsiders; the Judges would give the rookies all the dirty jobs if they could get away with it, while the locals would hurl abuse at them as a symbol of all Justice Department. This was known by the New Old Bailey, who considered this a way of toughening up their rookies.

In the 2110s, hogmanay was a day of general peace and calm.

There was a large amount of nationalism and desire for Cal-Hab to be independent in the 2110s. (However, in 2129, Dredd and a Brit-Cit Judge remarked that Cal-Hab had been mostly independent for a century, which had not stopped hard-line nationalist paramilitaries from trying to separate the state completely from Brit-Cit - literally, with explosives.)

One of the main criminal factions was the Campbells, a 'whisky clan' smuggling the radioactive Spirit of the Glens brew down into Brit-Cit. The organisation split after two brothers, long-term rivals, fell out in the late 2100sover whether their joint-wife Ailsa's baby would be Banger Archie or Archie Banger, and Banger left to form the Abercromby whisky clan. While a single unified clan could've been a major challenge to Calhab Justice, two feuding groups killing each other over turf was less of a threat and so the Judges turned a blind eye.

Dounreay 'opted out' of Calhab Justice jurisdiction in 2110 and relied on its own security force. Unfortunately, they were crap.

The stolen Stone

On the 19th June 2114, the Campbell clan had the Stone of Destiny stolen from Brit-Cit and then announced a sitdown with the Abercrombies. The Judges managed to get an agreement to supervise the meeting, hoping that it would fail and the clans would kill each other again; already, Brit-Cit was irritated about the theft and whisky-related deaths down south, and were implying to Chief Inspector Bryson that they might nuke Calhab if it got too troublesome. Judges MacBrayne, Schiehallion, and Murdo were in place but were captured (killed in Murdo's case) as Archie Campbell planned to use the Stone to unite the two clans, and also to get his brother in place to murder him. The plan fell apart after Campbell was haunted by the ghost of Banger Abercromby, that only he could see, causing him to drop the Stone of Destiny (breaking it) and look mad in front of the clans. MacBrayne talked them into giving up and letting the Judges go, and everyone started fighting again.

A 'terrorist attack' was launched on Dounreay in 2114 to seize U-235, with Brit-Cit catching word and sending Judge Dupre up north to assist. Armed Judges took over the facility from the dregs of the security force (most "in bed or skiving") and fought off a cybernator attack - discovery the terrorist attack was the cover story for mercenaries hired by a South-Am City company that wanted Dounreay out of the energy market. The real Dupre had been killed and replaced with a merc agent, with the plan to trick his way inside Dounreay. MacBrayne and Patricia Buchan stopped the plot, with MacBrayne hospitalised defending the reactor despite radiation levels too high even for him. South-Am denied all knowledge.

In 2115, WarTech considered supplying the whiskey clans with more advanced weaponry in the assumption of a profitable civil war.

Judge Murdo's killer McTash, trying to boost his reputation to become Campbell clan chieftan, challenged MacBrayne to a duel at Dennistoun Castle. MacBrayne won and drunkenly agreed to be leader before the Judges retrieved him.

The Judges finally established a barracks in the Kingdom (former Fife) in 2115 and tried to control the clan-ridden area.

Near the end of 2115, a bored MacBrayne and Schiehallion were on border duty when Brit-Cit gunrunners tried to get through and citizen Helen Daziel was severely wounded in the process. Schiehallion was ordered to mind-meld to keep her stable but deliberately let her die at a critical juncture rather than risk himself. The Chief Inspector deliberately ignored a conduct report on this rather than lose the city's only empath.

Supernatural attacks across the region

The 2116 International Mega-City Sumo Championships was won by Cal-Hab.

In 2116, after another failed attempt to have a baby, Judge Schiehallion started to have a mental breakdown over a feeling that something was wrong with his life - one made worse when he discovered his wife had been secretly sterilised. In his fit, he unleashed fake 'ghosts' from his impressions of the last thoughts of disenchanted dying people (which he believed were genuine spirits). Over two hundred citizens and various Judges were killed across the Zone until MacBrayne confronted him, revealed he had no connection to any "spirits of the moors", and stabbed him to death. At his funeral, however, he rose from the dead and as Brit-Cit were interested in how he'd done this, Calhab Justice needed to keep him around

and on 1st October, as they prepared to give him judicial power again, lied that he had actually stopped the attacks. To stop MacBrayne raising a fuss, he was sent to Brit-Cit on 'work leave'. The city's tensions were still up in the aftermath.

Unknown to everyone, Schiehallion was still mentally unstable and increasingly powerful. He killed a Judge guarding him and left his wife in a coma to track down Professor Baxter. After learning the truth of his origins, he killed the elderly Professor Baxter and manipulated his way into having sex with a care home nurse & accelerating the birth to finally gain a son. Chief Inspector Bryson had a severe heart attack after learning of it. When being honoured for his 'heroics', Schiehallion revealed the Song-in-the-Sky satellite to the public and then destroyed it. The absence of the satellite's signals caused Cal-Hab to descend into tribal violence, just as had happened when similar control methods had failed at Gib Rock, and the Judges were massacred in Iona barracks. Other Judges went similarly mad and declared themselves the Knights of the Saint Templar. A Brit-Cit Psi-squad led by "Brit-Cit Brute" was sent in to impose martial law but defeated. After his baby was stillborn, Schiehallion let MacBrayne attack him and released a huge psychic storm known as the Flux, which has left a large part of the territory beyond anyone's control or comprehension, with Brit-Cit abandoning the area and the regressed Judges becoming the Order of the Templar.

Kenny Who? at home

Since then, most of Cal-Hab seen has been the rural outskirts. There is still reference to "Cal-Hab law" and there is a Ness International Hoverport and direct zoom trains to Mega-City One. In the wilds outside of the habzone proper lived the "wild Scotties", who only enter to forage illegally and aren't protected by the law; some of those tribes lived in Orkadia (future Orkneys).

In 2120, Mega-City One's ballet troupe went to the Cal-Hab Festival but their hover transport crashed in the Strathmeg Wastes, now a lawless ruin overrun by mutant ganglords. Judge Dredd went to rescue them from the cannibalistic Headbanger tribe, using Mean Machine to challenge their leader McBean to a butting contest. By the end of it, Dredd was officially the 'new McBean' and ordered the tribe to stay out of trouble (which he assumed they wouldn't).

Tourists hunting the wild Scotties

The corrupt Laird McClearance in northern Cal-Hab began to run hunts of the wild Scotties for rich Mega-City tourists, and used this as a way of gathering up some to sell for body-brokers. In 2123, an Orkadian tribe was able to visit the city and, with Judge Dredd's help, expose the trade - and then burned down Castle McClearance and left the laird to die at sea.

Chief Inspector McIntee appeared at the 2126 Global Justice Summit, flying in on the Pride of Caledonia shuttle.

The artist Kenny Who? was drawn back from rural Calhab to the Big Meg in 2127, misunderstanding that Vanity Publishing would pay him for publishing his work instead of him paying them to run it. He was arrested for entering the city illegally and for drawing work that defamed the Judges, but Public Defender 316 got him released and deported instead (it helped he misspelt Dredd as "Dread" and could be off on a technicality).

In 2129,

Not Sean Connery, honest.

Mega-City One held a parade for Cal-Habbers and their descendants, which was targeted by hardcore nationalist militias. Among the parade was famed actor Tam "Big Jock" Tamson McJock, a resident of Luna-1 who was evading his back taxes under cover of nationalism.

Doctor "Saint" Byron Ambrose carrying out charity work for destitute wild Scotties in the 2120s until he was murdered and replaced by PJ Maybe. The serial killer would use this reputation to become Mayor of Mega-City One.

Judges

Calhab Judge in colour

Chief Inspector uniform - a metal Brit-Cit lion as chest ornament, akin to MC-1's eagle

Cadets in their uniforms

The area has its own semi-autonomous Judge force, run by a Chief Inspector. 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. Even Chief Inspector Bryson was looking forward to his upcoming Brit-Cit pension and being taken from "this hellhole".

The Judges have added a Celtic helmet and kilt to the British shoulder pads (there are also tartan troosers they can wear), and ride the same 'Iron Lion' variant lawmasters as Brit-Cit. A formal 'dress uniform' version was seen at a funeral in Unfinished Business, and in Family Snapshot there are Med-Judges with no helmet and red-cross shoulder pads. Weapons include not just Skean-Dhu blasters but retractable claymores, and in extreme cases they did have heavy weaponry and Flak-Mac tanks. The Judges themselves were genetically tweaked to be immune to low-level radiation. In place of Sector Houses, they had barracks.

Due to its size, Cal-Hab had barely any Psi Judges of their own.

Like Murphyville and Brit-Cit CID Judges, they were able to have family lives, date each other, go home at night, get paid, and drink and smoke. Due to the small size of the area, Cal-Hab Judges could be personally known to locals and perps and vice versa: one Hogmany, a mugger just out of hospital greeted his arresting Judge, MacBrayne, and offered him to visit home to meet the family. While the Judges will use heavy violence and abuse of prisoners to 'loosen tongues' is accepted, they also have a pragmatic response to the violence of the locals: MacBrayne advised cadets in 2114 that if "bampots" throw bottles at you, "yeh duck" rather than open fire.

Many pubs are "Judge Free" zones, so the undermanned Calhab Justice doesn't have to deal with them..

Cal-Hab Judges were sent to Luna-1 until 2126.

Post-2116 Cal Hab still possesses a Judge force but it ignores the plight of the wild Scotties, similar to how Mega-City One ignores the Cursed Earth. In 2126, Chief Inspector McKinty appeared as part of a separate delegation to the Global Justice Summit instead of with the Brit-Cit group.

Depiction

Cal-habbers

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 Calhab Justice, on the other hand, started out comedically and with political allegories for mid-90s Scottish issues (the whisky clans feuding instead of uniting for independence was a jab on the Scottish parties) before changing to a far grimmer storyline halfway through, the state and its people torn apart. 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 Calhab Justice.

Cal-Habbers are usually written with heavy, phoenetic accents and Scottish slang & the Scots language, making them indecipherable for foreign characters. (This is a traditional way of writing Scottish characters in Scottish comics, as seen in Oor Wullie and The Broons) In most non-Alexander strips, Calhab seems to be almost entirely rural.

"Harlem Heroes" made note of the contemporary discovery of North Sea oil and the calls for Scotland to be independent on the back of oil wealth - the strip has been grandfathered into Dredd history, making Scotland independent sometime in the late 20th or early 21st century.

Mongoose RPG

In the early 2000s Dredd RPG from Moongoose, extra details were added to the Brit-Cit Justice Department for players

• Cal-Hab Judges have the same lightweight armour given to Brit-Cit's auxiliaries, due to "a lack of adequate funding".

In the Core Book:

• Cal-Hab is divided into six estates, each ruled by a Laird paid 'danger money' to stay in the area: the Highlands, Angus, McLearance, the Borders, McTav, and Dumfries. The Lairds helped build the 'Spirit in the Sky' and now hide in their castles in fear since it's gone down. (Much of this was based on the "Bodies of Evidence" story and retrofitting it to Cal-Hab Justice)

Map of Calhab from the RPG

The Brit-Cit supplement would create more details, including the idea that Lords Executive are landowners and the power in Brit-Cit, in line with the lairds in Cal-Hab. It also slightly retconned the ending of Calhab Justice to say Brit-Cit imposed martial law and in 2124 "now rules in all but name", creating a new government based on the "ideal of the Estates... Cal Hab has regressed socio-politically some six hundred years" outside of the cities Glascal and Megaburgh, where Brit-Cit has used Chorus transmitters to replicate part of the Song-in-the-Sky affect. Duke Algernon oversees the government from the Castle in Megaburgh.

• Gaelic is banned as a seditious language.

• Cal-Hab is divided into five estates after the fall of McClearance (Orkadia remains ungovernered), with various rulers. Laird Rab McAveety of the Highlands Estate is harsh but fair, with respect for the wild Scotties; wealth-obsessed Laird Thomas Angus uses the Granite City militia to cull the Scotties and enslave the fittest, while Laird Dougal McDuff of the Borders Estate (a distant royal relation) merrily dumps toxic waste on the Tay waste tribes.

• Laird Galloway's Dumfries Estate is given a huge anti-smuggling budget to stop contrabrand crossing the Calhab/Allotment border, and the Judges there are forcibly stopping the displaced Allotment mutants from coming north.

• Not wanting a repeat of the 2116 crisis, Brit-Cit has put its own Judges in charge of the rebuild Cal Hab Justice Department. They rule under authority of Duke Algernon. In 2122, the Chief Inspector requested any Calhabber-born Brit-Cit Judges to volunteer for service up north; the bulk, however, are locals signing up for the (bad) pay to feed their families. Rookies wear troosers, full Judges wear kilts, and all operate out of a Station Hoos under a station sergeant. The genetic modification that has them resistant to radiation causes many to suffer celluar degeneration as they age beyond forty.

• The Rangers are Cal Hab Justice Department assassins, killing off targets who greatly threaten the status quo or who the Judges can't be seen crossing. Those deaths are meant to be random or 'accidental'

• The Tay waste tribes are plotting a violent uprising against Laird McDuff before they die, while the Sons of Wallace terrorist group (aka McWallace clan) fights an ongoing guerilla war against Laird McAveety out of Fingal's Cave.

• Megaburgh is the second largest city and the current seat of the Brit-Cit government (as well as the Borders Estate capital). Populated by academics (from the University of Big E, famed for Burke & Hare Medical Centre) and tourists protect by a large dome, with plans to turn the Arthur's Seat extinct volcano into a power tower; the Judges only patrol the poorer areas, with the rich having private security. The Royal Cal Hab Regiment is based here. McDuff, a history buff, plans to turn Megaburgh into a theme park ala the Emerald Isle.

• Glascal remains the capital of Cal Hab proper, rebuilt after the Flux and reliant on tourist money; the "Glascal Judges" have a High Court of the Judiciary and an Academy of Law. Glascal International Hoverport is the country's largest. The River Clyde Docklands is a dingy smuggler's den. Wallace Heights is a den of McWallace sympathisers.

• Balmoral Castle is now owned and guarded by the fearsome McAnnibal Clan, who will torn you into the soup Cal-A-Leekie.

• Cape Wrath in the Highlands had its lighthouses taken over by environmental activists, who turned the place into a ship's graveyard.

• The Cairngorms are populated by fiersome mutant deer (aurochs) and cattle (och'hor), the former kiling game hunters each hunting season and the latter used by the laird as shock troops.

• Castle Douglas Hab-zone is the only safe passage from Calhab to Brit-Cit and as a result is both melting pot & smuggling capital.

• The Campbells have given up on whisky smuggling and become slave traders, preying on tourists into the Angus Estate. They often sell them to Granite City, capital of the estate.

• Loch Ness has been opened to the sea, allowing shipping into the mainland. Unfortunately both the Highlands and McTav estates claim ownership and keep blocking traffic as their militias fight for dominance.

• The Royal Estates is the major source of food, with starving wild scotties raiding it.

• Laird McDuff stationed a Judge garrison to keep the peace again in the Kingdom and none of the Judges want to be there as the locals keep beseiging them.