Brit-Cit

Brit-Cit skyline dwarfing St Pauls Cathedral

Brit-Cit is a megacity sprawling across south England, from Dover to Cornwall and north to the Watford Gap.

Other territory under its control (the Brit Territories in 2100) have included Cal-Hab, South Welsh Peninsula, Gib Rock, and New Raj Protectorate. It has a power-sharing agreement with Sino-Cit over Hong Tong and with Mega-City One over the Atlantis transport hub, and corporate influence over Murphyville.

The "Brit Territories" were first mentioned in prog 50, and Brit-Cit both mentioned and depicted in prog 485.

Description

Dredd patrols the underclass "hovels"

Brit-Cit has many similarities to Mega City One - it is crowded with a population who live in huge city block apartments and crime is 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. In Brit-Cit proper, there are slums, such as the notoriously grim Behemoth housing project that spanned four square miles and was overrun with gangs and addicts; and pretty much all of Sector 4, a gangland full of body-modifying fringe cultures that the New Old Bailey saw as a riot in the making. The city is split into Sectors, both given the usual "Sector [number]" system and some named after the area they were built over, such as Oxford Sector, Sloane Enclave, or Brixtonia.

In marked contrast to Mega-City One, the welfare system ensures that everyone who isn't a criminal or insane has a job.(One definition of insanity is that you don't take the jobs the system gives you)

Class divisions and warfare are rife, with the aristocracy having great power and privilege. This has diminished since the massacre of the Judges' Star Chamber in the late 2120s. The Royal Family still exist within 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 Royals have been seen in the wider world.

Brit-Cit zoom tube and one of the Silver Lions statues (as named in Dredd Annual 1988)

The BBC has evolved into the BCBC (Brit-City Broadcasting Corporation), which still runs a World Service.

It has a smaller size than some of the other megacities - among other things, this means fewer psychics.

The city gets its agriculture from the Eastern Agronomy: an artificial mountain range of hydroponic-vat complexes scattered throughout former Wales and East Anglia.

Institutional corruption exists throughout the city, most directed by the criminal Overlords who came to power after the Atomic Wars. For many years, they were untouchable figures (and made use of 'dead man switches' like bombs or pre-planned massacres to ensure their rivals couldn't kill them without suffering consequences too); the Dragon Sector, a pleasure-zone, was almost openly run by the Overlords and quietly ignored by the New Old Bailey. One of the more notorious ganglords was Efil Drago San, who is currently hiding off-world after he went too far even for them but retains influence in the city.

Landmarks include Battersea Power Tower, the Isle of Old Dogs for veterans, Saint Paul McCartney’s Cathedral, the Greater London Crater in Sectors 29 & 30, and the Tat Gallery. The White Cliffs of Dover have been sold to Mega-City One and an artificial Black Cliffs built in their place. Around the Spaceport are the Hinterlands, an international free-zone where the local laws did not apply and aliens mingled with humans. The New Old Bailey, headquarters of Justice Department, dwarfs every other building and rises up sixty floors; a statue of Sir Robert Peel is in the lobby.

Brit-Cit and Mega-City One

Brit-Cit has a "special relationship" with Mega City One dating back to before the Atomic Wars (to the extent of being the only nation that didn't condemn President Booth) and the two work together quite often. It was the Mega-City Justice Department that helped first establish the New Old Bailey in the aftermath of the wars. The harsher MC-1 laws are seen by a number of Brit-Citters as ridiculous or disturbing, including the fact that tea with sugar would be a cube crime there.

The two jointly administer Atlantis, the mid-point in the Atlantic Tunnel. Brit-Cit was responsible for the American Judges driving out Nero Narcos, Brit-Cit assisted in a MC-1 led international humanitarian mission in Ciudad Barranquilla, robot aid was sent in 2134 to help with Chaos Day, and 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 concealing 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 between Britain and "unknown parties" in 2150.

While Mega-City One and Judge Dredd have routinely counted on Brit-Cit as an ally, they have on several cases made it clear this goes mostly one-way. When irritated by the Privy Council talking up their alliance, he snapped that Mega-City One's "special relationship" is no different to any other small, corrupt state it wants something from.

Relations between Brit-Cit and the post-Chaos Mega-City One were undermined when Dredd exposed the Isle of Man conspiracy. Hershey suspected in 2138 that Brit-Cit was deliberately trying to "break us". This was not just true, but the Brits were colluding with Texas City to do so. Since then, relations have been slightly cooler despite both states still being allies; Brit-Cit also is now stronger against Mega-City One than it previously had been, making it harder for the Americans to get their own way.

History

Deathwatch

A time-travelling Brit-Cit Psi Judge, John Dee, accidentally ended up in Elizabethan England and presumed to be a witch. Sputter of the London judges blackmailed Dee into forming a unit of citywatchmen, which Dee outfitted in a simulcra of his timeline's Judges and outfitted with the clockwork Lawmaster Velocipede 'bike', "you only need to wind it up ever five miles". Among his agents was William Shakespeare, trying to avoid becoming something as low as a playwrite, and Chastity Steel, apparent ancestor of Treasure Steel.

A powerful demon was accidentally summoned by the play Doctor Faustus. Wanting to time travel to 2117 and kill the Chief Judge to fulfil a blood curse, the demon offered Dee a deal to sacrifice a soul to it and he could come home with it. Before Dee could confirm either way if he'd do it, he had to trap the demon to stop Sir Walter Raleigh using it to seize the throne. Dee then blackmailed Raleigh into 'having the idea' that the Queen could give Dee's Judges a Royal Charter.

Formation

By 2047, the United Kingdom was "starving" following decades of economic slump after exiting the European Union. Having sold off everything else of value, it sold the Royal Family on the 25th August of that year.

At some point in the 21st century, poverty and government incompetence had reached shocking heights and the government simply declared martial law.

Brit-Cit had formed by 2057. Under the Unified Accord, religion, bigotry and sexism were been banned in Brit-Cit. The Church Of Grud And Jovus was allowed to remain only as a placeholder to prevent other faiths springing up to fill the gap. In practice, these bans didn't stick.

Brit-Cit, alone at the UN

In 2070, while every other power was condemning President Booth, Brit-Cit remained America's ally and talked about compromise. Despite its ties the United Kingdom still had a police force instead of the instant-justice system, in common with the rest of Europe. By this point, while the city liked to talk big about its glory days, it was a minor player. One of the city's big exports was terrible reality TV.

Following the Atomic Wars, Brit-Cit had been directly hit and northern England and the Midlands were devastated by rad clouds blown in from the continent. The Royal Family fled to an underground bunker (which would become the Forbidden Citadel) and never re-emerged, chaos reigned, and the Emergency Military Government was unable to impose their will on most of the country. Various factions filled the gap before civil war finally broke out in 2075. included Gaels in the west, nomadic tribal clans across Northumbria, the Kentish Theocracy, the New Surrey Raj, the Merseyside Tech-Zone, and the Overlords of the South London "freetrade zones".

Before the war started, in 2071, the government assassinated a prominent Irish politician, Aileen Brady, who was pushing for unification of Ireland. The botched operation by Covert Ops sank a passenger liner, the St Joshua. Unwilling to let the civilians onboard drown, Covert Ops (masquerading as Coast Guard) saved 78 of the boat's passengers and crew. This was one of the key events that ended Emerald Isle and Brit-Cit's historical animosity, and a covert group in the Isle of Man was charged with keeping the real events secret.

EMG occupied London during the Civil War

The EMG eventually blockaded themselves into North London in 2079, and started to slaughter any opposition and carry out state terrorism on the civilian population. The London Liberation Army tried to fight them with guerilla warfare. By this point, the smarter Overlords (who traded with every faction) became aware collapse was inevitable. They formed the Conclave and rebranded their soldiers as the 'Brit-Cit Judges', hoping to survive and take power by getting Mega-City One's aid (as Chief Judge Goodman wished to spread the Judge system further).

Their main remaining threats were Gaels, the Nomads, a psychotic mutant Gabriel establishing a "Deathzone" in the northern wastes (though they were unaware of his existence), and the growing force of Judges taking over the south of the country. (The The early Judges were in fact formed by a conclave of the smarter crime bosses and warlords, hoping to survive by getting Mega-City One aid (as Chief Judge Goodman wished to spread the Judge system further).

The remains of Birmingham

In 2080, the main factions were the EMG, the Gaels, the Nomads, and the Judges, who had taken over the south. An unrecognised threat was the psychotic mutant Gabriel in the northern "Deathzone". A young Armitage, fleeing London, and a small group of Judges clashed with Gabriel in the ruins of Birmingham, and seemingly killed him. The Judges, expanding fast, believed they'd soon have control of the whole country in "five years tops". In fact, they'd taken the country by 2082.

By this point, Mega-City One had cut off aid after realising the true nature of the Conclave but it was too late by then. However, this didn't go all the Overlords way either: too many Brit-Cit Judges had been trained by their Mega-City counterparts and saw the Conclave as an alliance of criminals. To protect themselves, the Overlords would go on to develop a system where if any of them was killed or arrested, then rigged computer systems, planted bombs, and armies of mercenaries would take out whoever was responsible. In response, a number of dissident Judges set up a countermeasure where if the Overlords overstepped, there would be a series of information dumps and mass murder. This balance of power would continue for decades with foreign megacities unaware.

Eton College not only survived the civil war, but aristocrat Devlin Waugh was attending during it. His father Magnus, the foremost magical adept in Britain and Head Baphomet of the Tythonian O.T.O, died in 2083.

Brit-Cit opened relations with the decaying lunar colony of Puerto Lumina - one of the few states shameless enough to do so. This allowed one of its rising criminal psychopaths, Efil Drago San, to emigrate and establish himself as one of the Conclave's Overlords.

Entering the 22nd century

In 2087, Brit-Cit was still a post-war state, with visible damage and food shortages. The newly promoted Detective-Judge Armitage discovered that corrupt Judges and Efil Drago San were colluding to provide torture victims for rich clients, with people being picked up and 'disappeared' in the system. Armitage stopped Drago San and crippled him; Drago San murdered his partner Liora in revenge. At this point in time, the Overlords were still establishing their control systems and were not yet as powerful as they would become.

Marine Judge Faustus was transformed by a time anomaly in the Black Atlantic in 2089; now having total control over his body's makeup and quite mad, he slaughtered his way through Brit-Cit until captured. The city obscured most of the facts of this out of shame. He would go on to escape in 2119 but Mega-City One's Psi-Judge Judy Janus would end the timeloop that created him, meaning he never was changed at all.

As the years went on, the Judges began to accidentally recruit more people who actually believed Justice Department was about justice or cynically saw it as the only game in town for order, as well as the original bully-boys and thugs.

The Annual Black Atlantic Swim began in 2088, where competitors from the western sectors would try to swim all the way to Mega-City One. This carried on until at least 2105: one swimmer finally survived the trip only to be sent right back home.

In Armitage's youth, a youth drug manufactured from sloathe parasites was causing rich users to go psychotically violent and then die. The New Old Bailey fought a war of attrition against the dealers before Drago San, whose stookie business was being undercut, shut the trade down and committed mass murder on users (including vanishing them from their cells), their associates, and their families.

Goodman attended a Christmas Goodwill Summit in 2098.

Brit-Cit's government invested in bringing the Caledonian Wastes back into the global community. Brit-Cit set up the Song-in-the-Sky satellite network to bombard the locals with subliminal messages, making them more controllable (and more 'comedy stereotype'). The Baxter Genepool project, started in the 2080s, began to create a breed of future Judges. By 2101, the newly established Cal-Hab and its Judges - under the control of Brit-Cit - were back in the global community. Brit-Cit also gave aid to the Emerald Isle; the county was reclaimed in 2095 in exchange for Brit-Cit corporations having a hold on it.

Orlock visits a 'park' in 2100 Brit-Cit

The economy was still in a permanent state of stagnation in 2100, which was born with cheery resignation by the citizens. Mega-City One had given Brit-Cit the same missile defence lasers that they had - unfortunately, East Meg One had established cells in the city and Orlok was able to gain data on it for the upcoming Apocalypse War. (Most of the cells would be killed by Orlok when he passed through the city to Euro-City)

In 2101, occult super villain Mister Bliss attacked the city with Qlippothic larvae and Psi-Division were unable to stop it - Devlin Waugh, now freelancing for the Vatican, saved the day. This was the first time he came to public attention.

A young Vienna Dredd was taken to live in Brit-Cit, under advisement from her uncle.

In 2105, an enraged art-critic destroyed half of the Statue of Blind Justice’s head with a rocket launcher. The New Old Bailey never got around to fixing it.

King Iggy made his first official visit to Mega-City One in 2107 and was harrassed by Judge Dredd for wearing fur and a crown that was incitement to mugging.

Gib Rock was nuked in 2108 after becoming impossible to control and too much trouble for the New Old Bailey. In secret, this explosion in chaos was down to a failed mind control pacification plan.

Chief Judge Jones was in charge in 2109, when Barbara Hershey made a visit to arrest a fugitive sugar dealer trading in alien eggs; she found the city's smaller size and "softly softly catchee perpee" approach bewildering. The Judges allowed dissidents to advocate law-breaking and taboo subjects at Speaker's Corner, as nothing they said there would mean or change anything.

Brit-Cit Judge in pursuit on motorbike

The city joined Luna-1's "Global Lunar Partnership Treaty" sometime in the 2110s, agreeing to guarantee the neutrality of Luna-1 and provide Judicial assistance (both Brit-Cit and Cal-Hab Judges). In reality it hoped, like all Treaty members, to have influence in the lucrative colony.

After years of negotiations, Brit-Cit were able to sell Mega-City One on a new trade agreement in 2111. Assassins tried to kill the British ambassador but were thwarted.

During the 2112 Fortean event, there were 419 sightings of the Black Dog and a descendent of the psychic Doris Stokes claimed to have Excalibur & pronounced the return of Albion. In the same year, Supersurf 12 was held in Brit-Cit.

Armitage Investigates

In 2113, the Black Museum's curator Nathan Hand went violently paranoid, faked his death, and began killing Senior Judges. Armitage, his old protege, had to kill him in self defence. Unknown to Armitage, Hand had been unknowingly part of an operation involving Special Branch.

The Oswald Mosley massacre

In early 2114, the psychotic Heir Apparent Prince Regent Arthur - who had begun leaving the Forbidden Citadel for trips to the city - slaughtered forty-eight people at an Oswald Mosley Block, many of them influential industrialists and bankers. Detective-Judge Armitage tracked him down but only a reprisal assault on the Citadel by Efil Drago San, now the most powerful ganglord in the city, brought Arthur to justice: Drago San's fire power was needed to overpower the Citadel's security. Afterwards, the New Old Bailey took over and Arthur was brought to justice: eighteen months in low-security rehab.

Brit-Cit Vice ran an operation against the slave trafficker Emmanuel Block, AKA the Iceman (named as the victims were cryogenically frozen to be sent offworld), having undercover Judges infiltrate his social circle and operation. The operation turned into a disaster - while Block was killed, so were two Vice Judges and multiple frozen victims - though Vice command considered this acceptable losses, to the disgust of Judge Shea.

The most significant event of 2114 was the horror of Judgement Day, where Brit-Cit was surrounded and almost overrun by the zombie hordes. Judge Armour was part of the pan-judicial strikeforce to take down Sabbat but unfortunately died in the first few minutes. Millions of zombies rose from within the city out of un-recycled graves, as well as pouring in from the north. Simultaneously with Judgement Day, Gabriel returned and attempted to spread a techno-demon mutagenic across the world; an ad-hoc team led by Armitage stopped him. The dual zombie and techno-demon attack on Brit-Cit left countless people dead across the city, as well as leaving Justice Department severely understaffed.

The slums of the notorious Behemoth housing estate, 2114

Judge Dredd made his first visit to Brit-Cit in 2115 to allegedly investigate a crashed Mega-City/Brit-Cit zoom train (actually a cover for investigating a murdered Wally Squad operative). He and Armitage reluctantly worked together as the train wreck was revealed to be a body-hopping alien murderer called the Jokai; the creature attacked the Dragon district and killed 40,000 people. The two Judges discovered Drago San was using the Jokai massacres, and other disasters before that, as cover to abduct people for his Secret House torture-for-hire dens: something sheltered from judicial investigation by the 'balance of power', which Dredd was disgusted to learn of. (Armitage was left afraid that the Overlords would kill Dredd, inviting retaliation from Mega-City One and collapsing the whole city) Dredd would be temporarily captured by Drago San but rescued as Armitage learned where the Secret House was from the other Overlords: they were angry Drago San's disasters were wrecking the city and undermining the balance, and cut their peer loose. Drago San had to escape into the Wastelands. Dredd, Armitage, and Treasure Steel then successfully stopped the Jokai but not before it had massacred the Sky Hook orbital installation (something the Bailey blamed on Drago San).

Brit-Cit Brute 'restores order'

Also in that year, issues with the Euro-Cred threw the Financial Sector into violent gang warfare between rival currency speculators. Judge Newt, the "Brit-Cit Brute" of the Search and Attack Squad, restored order by extreme violence and caused severe economic damage by killing most of the city's top economists and financial analysts. (The New Old Bailey tried to reform Newt's Search & Attack Squad into a more 'caring' agency. They failed)

Brit-Cit was part of a multinational mission to Mars with Mega-City One, the Sovs, and Sino Block, who all feared the aliens that once lived there were returning. Their contribution was Reverend X, the city's top expert in religions ("personally I'm agnostic"). Reverend X was able to decipher the ruins and realise it proved Zecharia Sitchin's theories of 'ancient astronauts' uplifting mankind. When the group was attacked by Orlok, Reverend X prayed for God to give him aid (and then he triggered a booby trap & died).

InterDep had been operating Culling Crews in Brit-Cit in 2116, carrying out gangland killings that the New Old Bailey couldn't be seen to be involved in. (Any Judges who got too close were also killed.) A Sector 15 overlord named Benny Kane was one of the victims. Unfortunately for Brit-Cit, InterDep went rogue the following year. Two members of the Council were (accidentally) killed at an InterDep conference that hoped to brainwash top Judges.

Cal-Hab's Psi-Judge Schiehallion went insane in 2116 but as he'd come back from the dead, Brit-Cit ordered them to keep him around for examination. This was a mistake: now with great power and madness, he took out the Song-in-the-Sky satellites that pacified the country. Brit-Cit lost control of Cal-Hab and ordered the Brute to lead a psi-squad in. They were defeated and the Flux blanketed much of the zone. Since then, Brit-Cit appears to have lost control of the country.

In 2117, Psi-Division stopped a demonic summoning at an orphanage. The sole surviving child, Lilian Storm, was inducted into Psi-Div.

Psi-Judge John Dee was sent on a time travel mission to the future at this point, checking how Brit-Cit faired, but went the wrong way.

Brit-Cit in 2121

Brit-Cit officially refused to help Judge Dredd against the Nero Narcos takeover in 2121, fearing nuclear retaliation. In secret, it provided him and other exiled MC-1 Judges with the technology, firepower, and support they needed, and was instrumental in liberating the city.

During the Herod crisis of that same year, Jack of Knives activated a Centre of Pestilence over the city.

By 2122, the New Old Bailey was under severe budget cuts - except for Shok-TAC, who had an increase on budget - and various services were being outsourced under "parallel resourcing" (nobody knew what that meant), while a general revamp had stripped many middle-management Judges of position and made them Administrators, with only bureaucratic powers and not judicial. The new Overlords had kept Drago San exiled in the spaceport-adjacent Hinterlands, stripped of his citizenship, as too many Judges were focusing on the Overlords and the foreign Drago San was chosen as a scapegoat. By this point, the 'balance of power' situation had mostly ended.

Various rich and powerful figures were buying a new brand of sloathe drug from Medigen, including the Star Chamber; when the drug seemed in danger of being exposed, the elites ran multiple conflicting campaigns of murder to try and cover it up, only making it more obvious to Armitage that things were not right. With Drago San's help, he shut the operation down - and as Drago San (now with a stookie monopoly) planned to keep Medigen's clients cut off, it was likely that a lot of the elites and the entirety of the Star Chamber were going to die soon. The Chamber would manage to cling on to life but their extreme vulnerability turned them into a front organisation for the Overlords, who at this point in time merely wanted the system to remain stable and began using other ways to direct Justice Department. Drago San proved unable to exploit anything as the Overlords let Justice Department declare 'open season' on him, forcing the crimelord to flee to Mega-City One.

Brit-Cit's new crown prince, the obnoxious Prince Rudolph-Wilheim III, visited Mega-City One in 2123 to attend university. He was soon arrested by Judge Dredd for littering - which increased diplomatic ties between the cities.

In the same year, Brit-Cit joined Mega-City One and Hondo City in presenting a united front against the alien Law Lords. In the event of the Lords arriving on Earth, Brit-Cit will go to war against them.

Queen Betty celebrated her Golden Jubilee in 2124 (Dredd used it as an excuse to carry out an extradition on a foreign dignitary and was blunt that Brit-Cit couldn't do anything about it).

Brit game show Dead Lost dropped three teams in Mega-City One with 500 creds each and instructions to make it back home to win a holiday. Unfortunately it had dropped them off during a riot, which left four contestants dead, one serving five in the cubes, and a sixth had a leg shot off, and the showrunners arrested.

Judge Dredd and Brit-Cit expat Judge Amy Steel headed for Brit-Cit to investigate Steel's stepfather, the ganglord Harry "Killer" Karter, in 2124. Claiming to be reformed, Karter had offered Chief Justice Willink – a man who had been too close to the gangster for years - a micro-crystal pilfered from Drago San that contained all the data on Brit-Cit crime bosses. Karter had added a data bomb so that when the New Old Bailey hacked in, every judicial file, alarm, encryption and code would be disabled and he could rob the city blind. Karter was killed by Dredd before he could use a databomb to commit mass bank robbery but Steel was left psychologically broken. Armitage promised that Willink would be watched and shortly after, Brit-Cit had a new Chief Justice, Leavy.

The city's Old Brit Company took the play Charles III on global tour, with Vienna Pasternak in the role of Camilla.

Horus Mercator, a psi and Satanist nicknamed the "Beast of Wimpole Street" for his foul crimes, was arrested and executed in early 2125. The Secret Satanist Society cult stole his body, which now had a demon trapped in its form; unable to free the demon despite sacrificing five infants, the demon had Vienna Pasternak abducted to draw out Judge Dredd in the assumption he would be a sacrifice of "someone infinitely good". Dredd defeated the cult and rescued his niece.

Chief Justice Leavy was part of Brit-Cit's delegation to the Global Justice Summit in 2126, where he immediately attempted to suck up to Chief Judge Hershey and was accused by Euro-City's Chief Judge Boltstern of ignoring his city. As with other Summit delegates, Leavy wanted Hershey to capitulate to Judda demands.

To draw out a traitor in the Royal Court, the Judges staged the assassination of Queen Betty, Duke Stavros, and Heir Apparent Prince Albert in 2126. To their surprise, Mega-City One popstar Brightly Shines claimed her son Justin was the heir - he was unwittingly a clone intended for this purpose - and tried to wrangle her way into power. The Royal droid Polearm was revealed as the traitor (trying to kill the Royals to drive up the value of collectibles) and Justin was killed protecting his bodyguard Judge Dredd from a bullet.

Brit-Cit was one of multiple states that stepped back and allowed the Sov Block to violate Luna-1's sovereignty in 2126. Ironically they'd sent up a Judge, Foster of the Diplomatic Corps, to be rid of him - and he helped defeat the invasion and allow acting-Marshal Dredd to annul the Partnership Treaty so Brit-Cit lost all control.

"Bright new dawn"

Brit-Cit city street at the dawn of the 2130s

The Star Chamber was wiped out in 2127 by one of Drago San's plots and Justice Department openly celebrated their demise. The sudden loss left a confusing power vacuum. This was labelled a "bright new dawn for Brit-Cit", though nobody was quite sure what it meant. The new changes included the loss of many of the more incompetent Senior Judges, as well as a mass of procedural nightmares from having no replacement hierarchy. The fall of the Overlords had also left crime decapitated, with no overall control and mistrust rampant, forcing any deal between syndicates to be in public.

The disgraced Senior Judge Guy, left jobless by the fall of the Star Chamber, took control of the Chamber's sleeper agents in 2131, using them to kill "undesirables". Armitage found the secret chamber of "bio-processor units" (brains in tanks) that controlled the sleepers and had it destroyed: most of the sleepers fell catatonic with intense grief, screwing up Brit-Cit's infrastructure and causing a survivor (formerly of the Culling Crew) to bomb the New Old Bailey in revenge.

By 2133, the Grand Order of the Privy Chamber ended up taking control by default, despite their previous unimportance and their reactionary social agenda, as there was no one else left and First Minister/Prime Chancellor Jeremy Caine spent "Daddy's money" filling that void. Caine made sure to please the mob with bigoted platitudes (even announcing plans for "hygienic and well-appointed camps" for foreigners) and relations were cut with Euro-City. Using a covert agent, he had Mega-City One biotech assets stolen to develop weapons (and it's quite likely MC-1 agents tried to stop this by shooting a stratoflight down, causing a large number of British casualties) Aware that his career could only last so long before he was caught out as a grifter, Caine became obsessed with using Dredd's DNA to create a "paragon serum" to boost his own charisma. Instead, it was booby-trapped and he was killed, while Mega-City Judges destroyed and recovering the biotech.

The Chaos Bug reached Brit-Cit in 2134. Borders were sealed to prevent further contagion.

Post-Chaos

In the brutal aftermath of Chaos Day, for the first time in centuries, Britannia was larger and stronger than America. British aid was required for several years. After the revolution on Mega-City One's Titan penal colony, the Americans had to seek aid from Brit-Cit to rebuild it.

Gulshaw, north-west Brit-Cit

In Britain itself, Psi-Division lost control of an artefact in Gulshaw, north-west Brit-Cit and, after losing two Judges, sent Judge Storm in.

Brit-Cit from above in late 2130s (note reference to David Cameron and a statue of Corbyn)

Most significantly in 2137, Brit-Cit sent Judges to help Murphyville murder Dredd while "resisting arrest", after his partner Fintan Joyce was believed to have evidence on the St Joshua cover-up. When this led to a massacre, Murphyville's acting-Chief Judge Walsh called it off and revealed the truth. Brit-Cit and Emerald Isle raided the Isle of Man to 'clean up' the affair and the full details were obscured, but the details of the cover up came out. Both city-states blamed each other and tensions began to rise. In 2138, they decided to make Dredd and Joyce into a shared enemy to reduce tension; Brit-Cit requested Dredd be extradited for the Murphyville Spaceport shooting and Council of Five member Farrow was concerned that the foreign city had the power to enforce it. (Hershey and Judge Beeny worried he was working for the Brits) Other judicial factions wanted to take this opportunity to finally bring the Emerald Isle to heel and one faction, under the noses of the rest of Brit-Cit Justice Department, combined the two plots and faked Dredd's death before teleporting him to their custody.

After the assumed death of Dredd, Mega-City One extradited Judge Joyce to Brit-Cit for a show trial (on assurances he wouldn't be sentenced) to buy diplomatic breathing room. Senior Judge Mayhew's faction, including members of Intelligence, then staged a fake paramilitary raid to 'rescue' Joyce (killing several Judges), hoping to manipulate him into giving them an atrocity to turn on both MC-1 and Murphyville for. Joyce saw through it and was pursued through Brit-Cit, while the faction attempted to make use by staging fake 'Irish' terrorist attacks; the plot was undone when Joyce teamed up with Armitage to identify the culprits and Dredd simultaneously escaped from his prison ward, taking Mayhem captive. The MC-1 Judges were allowed to depart by Armitage, who called in other Judges to arrest the conspirators and officially, nobody high-up knew Mayhew's group had gone "off book".

Judges quash an anti-Executive Tunnel protest in 2141.

For a year after, relations were severed with both Mega-City One and Texas City - the new Chief Judge Lewis being a secret agent of MC-1 - until the new ambassador, September Hart, was shown to be someone they could trust. The ambassador's son Frainger turned out to have been buying guns with his friends, hoping to flog them back home, which got them kidnapped by a mutant gang while he ran for it. Dredd rescued the teenagers, with the aid of one hostage who escaped - Nelson Bunker Kreelman, who to Dredd and Lewis' disquiet had bludgeoned the mutant leader to death and then continued for some time after out of sheer hatred.

The long-overrunning Executive Tunnel project, an elite new train line that would displace poorer residents, was still being built in 2141 despite heavy protest - all such protests ignored by Councillor Agnes Magnus. The project was targeted by a series of supernatural murders.

The time-tossed gladiator Blackhawk and his comrade Battack arrived in the city in 2142, their portal causing a severe storm to tear through the place. Psi-Judge Lillian Storm sent them back through the warp and ended it.

Brit-Cit was testing out an experimental "poverty sector", George Osborne Conurb: cramming as many cheap city-blocks in as possible, and trialling the Auster nano-mite system that would stop the poor feeling hunger or needing food to live. Auster was trialled on the poorest children in 2142, but the Horseman Famine manifested in of the scientists responsible and ensured Auster caused everyone in the conurb to be devoured from the inside; Brit-Cit authorities could not stop it. A covert striketeam led by Judge Dredd, landing without Brit-Cit's awareness, assassinated Famine before the plague spread.

Lawmasters in Bentley car style, originally only a bike driven by Judge Storm in Storm Warning

Ciudad Barranquilla's "Returners" arrived in Brit-Cit the same year in search for a cure for their immortality. They were set up for an ambush by Brit-Cit Justice Department.

In 2143, Brit-Cit learned they were a target for Mega-City One's "Project Providence" technology espionage. They discussed sanctions and expelling the city from the Conference of Ten with other powers. This interfered with a planned Mechanismo deal with Brit-Cit, not helped by Accounts head Judge Khatri's tight policies; Judge Maitland joked if the trade negotiations went on longer, they'd be at war.

Government

Queen Betty and Dredd

The city-state remains a constitutional monarchy (where the Judges truly run things), presumably leasing some of the royals back from the venture firms Gifthorse and, after 2101, United Exploitation. They reside in the Forbidden Citadel in Sector 43's Dulwich Park, their bunker during the Atomic Wars. The full title of the monarch circa 2114 was the Sovereign King Of Albion, Emperor Of Asia and the Turkistan Protectorates and Postmaster General Puissant of the Anglo-Celtic Commonwealth.

King Iggy was on the throne in 2107 and a popular, middle-aged man. In 2114, the monarch was the incredibly senile and decrepit King Dilbert, with Arthur as the Prince Regent. Queen Betty was seen having a golden jubilee in 2124, which would mean she'd been the monarch since 2074, and was married to a Duke Stavros; the Queen Mother, "Queenie", was a demented brain in a robot body. Some of the lesser royals had suffered mental degeneration due to inbreeding and were kept locked in secure wings of the palace. In 2138, an image of an older Rudolph-Wilheim III was on the wall of the embassy in Texas City, implying he was now the king. (The main line suffered a regicide in Antarctic City and Queen Beatrice's psychotic son Harry was made Harry II, still leased out to foreign cities until he was shot in Mega-City One in 2140)

Senior Judges in 2114

Command of Justice Department was originally held by the Conclave of criminal overlords but would later be held by the Grand Order of the Star Chamber - a fancier title for their Council of Five, with the nominal heads of Uniform, CID, Special Branch, Psi, and Tactical Arms, whose chamber was decorated with obvious masonic symbols. They were known for high institutional corruption and were drawn from the ranks of pre-war politics, business, and minor royalty rather than from the Judge ranks. Many were horrifically old, kept alive by stookie and other illegal drugs. When two Council Judges died in 2117, the Star Chamber stayed did not replace them: they were shown to have just three members in 2122, including the perverted Councillor Sleed. The Overlords, while no longer having direct control, still de facto ran a lot of the city but had to take into account the autonomy, and genuine anti-crime interests, of the newer Judges.

A Chief Judge, Cumberland, was in place in 2117. Dee was disparaging of his intelligence.

In 2127, the Star Chamber was up to five again and they were well-known within Justice Department to only be a front group, clinging on to dear life. The Overlords were now de facto in control via other means. What remained of their minds was dedicated to getting their power back.

After the Star Chamber was wiped out, a confusing power vacuum left the city-state riddled with jurisdictional issues and CID enjoyed a brief few years of greater autonomy. Various aristocratic connections ceased to work and the Overlords were partially on the backfoot. The Grand Order of the Privy Chamber - the future version of the Privy Council - would fill the vacuum, much to the distaste of some of the Judges, before First Minister Jeremy Caine's.

Councillor Magnus on the overrunning Executive Tunnel Project

In 2138, Chief Judge Mitchell was in charge.

In 2141, a city council akin to Mega-City One's was also in existence (and notably corrupt and elitist). Councillor Neville had been replaced as leader by Councillor Agnes Magnus, who held blackmail photos on a prominent BCBC manager in case she needed favourable coverage.

Judges

Street Judges and a CID Detective-Judge (Armitage)

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, with uniforms that appear based on their American counterparts. Compared to the modern day, the Judges are highly fascistic. Compared to Mega-City One though, they're quite lenient: Detective-Judges are allowed to marry, tea and sugar is legal, crime blitzes and lie detectors are not yet legalised.

Prospective Judges spend ten years at Hendon Academy, followed by twelve months on probation with a Judge.

Mega-Special #1 describes Street Judges as: "Calm, assertive. Tolerant to a point then swift to act and deadly to go up against." (In the Mongoose RPG and audio drama For King and Country, these were called Beat Judges)

Armitage with Shok-Tak

Due to the Overlords' establishing the Justice Department, judicial corruption in Brit-Cit has historically been a major problem. Senior Judges could traditionally buy their commissions in the same way as Victorian military officers (in some cases simply walking off the street with shifty pasts), and many at the top were Freemasons with links to the criminal Overlords. To some extent, the actual processes of Justice Department were formalised and computer-controlled, so the Seniors often did nothing but interfere to enrich themselves. The incompetence and corruption left it to Street and Detective Judges to get the work done. This has changed over time with the rise of a more principled new generation - basically, by faking that it was a force for justice, the New Old Bailey ensured function followed form - and the death of the old guard.

Specialised branches of the Justice Department include:

The sinister Special Branch clash with Armitage.

• Street Division, previously called Uniform
• Dispatch, the equivalent of MC-1's Control)
• Riot Control
• Psi Division, also called Psyk-Division in the 2130s
• Med-Division
• Special Branch, 'men in black', who have a sub-division called External Affairs that serves as the equivalent of the Special Judicial Squad. They have explosive implants in their heads as a security measure (Armitage has said their code was once accidentally set to the New Old Bailey's intercom frequency and blew a load of them up)
• The Endangered Species Squad, who capture fantastical creatures and attempt to breed them in order to rejuvenate the collapsing 22nd century ecosystem;
• CID, the plainclothes investigative branch.
• For intense military strikes, the city has Shok-TAC (introduced in the 2120s), the military uniformed Tactical Arms, and the Special Judicial Service commando unit. It had the Search and Attack Squad until all had died by 2114.

Psi-Division HQ, late 2130s

Overseeing this since the 2120s are Administrators, who wear formal suits and lack judicial powers.

CID is not popular with the "uniform plods" but gained an unspecified autonomy following the end of the Star Chamber, up until the Privy Council stepped up.

Psi-Division are hamstrung by the small number of psychics and have recruited many psychics with psychiatric problems to fill the gaps. The head of Psi-Division in 2137 was Judge Campbell.

Judges of note

Detective Inspector Strange.jpg

The most famous Brit-Cit Judge in Dredd strips is Detective-Judge Armitage, often paired with Detective-Judges Treasure Steel and Timothy Parkerston-Trant.Tek-Judge 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. Detective Inspector Jericho Strange runs the Endangered Species Squad and is notable for his grotesque, sheep-skull head; this has made him a media star with his own TV show. Arthur Conan Newt, "Brit-Cit Brute", was the city's highest rated combat Judge until he was MIA during Cal-Hab's Flux crisis in 2116.

Two prominent Brit-Cit Judges who were transferred to Mega-City One are Judge Stark and Amy Steel, a sidekick for Dredd in the Big Finish audio dramas.

Foreign territories

End of Gib Rock

• Cal-Hab (unwillingly)

• South Welsh Peninsula: the name implies the Atomic War has altered the geography. The only known settlements are small, rural villages. The coast was dominated by the massive Pembroke Dockport fuel refinery in Milford Haven, the source of a number of contaminants and spills that killed, infected, and sterilised small Welsh villages; the Justice Department was paid to ignore the environmental damage. The conspiracy was exposed in 2134 and the Dockport shut down. The village of Llandris has a breeding colony of satyrs and was declared a protected area by the Endangered Species Squad.

• The New Raj Protectorate, AKA the Turkestan Protectorates, in former Turkmenistan. It was occupied by the New Surrey Raj after the civil war.

• Hong Tong: somehow, Brit-Cit has gained jurisdiction over half of its former colony.

• Gib Rock: future Gibraltar. After the territory became too much trouble - with food riots, terrorist groups, and clashes with Ciudad Espana - Brit-Cit dropped a nuclear bomb on Gib Rock in 2108. Unknown to the world at large, Brit-Cit had run a population control operation at Gib Rock using genetically engineered monkeys but instead of calming the populace, a flaw in the process had sparked greater chaos. S

Mongoose RPG

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

• The term "Beat Judge" for Street Judge (which made it into an audio drama), Iron Lion for their version of Lawmaster, and an 'official' name of "Her Majesty's Justice Department". Psis were called Para Squad, rather than Psi or Psyke.

• Judges receive salaries and have holidays off; "with enough money, a Judge can buy himself any promotion short of a seat on the Chief Judiciary."

In the Core Book, it's also stated:

• Street and CID can't get ahead in the ranks without finances and Masonic backing. Upper levels are rife with competing secret societies, leading to conflicting orders.

• Command is held by the Parliament of Judges (based on the depiction of such a body in Doomsday Scenario)

A later sourcebook would flesh out the city further, running with Dave Stone's depiction of the city as heavily corrupt and ruled by implacable class systems:

• There's still a parliament with MPs (one for each of the 69 sectors), a House of Lords, and a Prime Minister, which oversees the Chief Judiciary (the ruling body of the Judge's parliament). At least, that's the front: real power is held by the Star Chamber under parliament, a gentlemen's club dominated by the Lords Executive (literal Lords ala the Lords Spiritual) and the megacorporations they run. The corps ensure Brit-Cit is ruled by them - the Lords Executive own most land and can turf out citizens whenever they want - but allow the New Old Bailey great freedom, albeit with having bribed Judges high-up. (This is on top of the Judges bribed by crims!) 'Cleaners' are minor thugs paroled and 'unofficially' used by this government to indimidate citizens who threaten the stability of the government.

• A secret society called the Old Boy's Network exists among the Judges and elites, opposing this new rule and hoping to restore the old political parties & a strong monarchy.

• Among the megacorps are British LeyMek, B'Stard Industries (a reference to the sitcom The New Statesman), John Bull Global (which takes over small states and sells them to developers), and the Union, a conglomeration of the trade unions which has become severely corrupt and sold out the workers. The deposed trade union bosses formed the Office Party, hoping to hack the Union's computers and expose its dodgy dealings in the hope of restoring the old unions.

• As Armitage said you can buy a judicial commission, there is a table that shows how much money your character can pay to become a senior Judge; the process does not give you the usual skills of a Judge.

• HM Justice Department is split into CID, City Defence, Special Branch, and Beat Division. The Chief Judge is a politician in the House of Lords, with the Chief Judiciary his constituency.

• Beat Division comprises of Beat Patrol, the armed Tactical Arms, Public Order (the PR front), the Back Street Unit support groups (i.e. forensics), and U/C Squad (undercover), this last one often lured away by the underworld's higher pay. Ranks rise from Beat Judge to Senior Judge, Duty Officer, and the Sector Sergeant that runs a sector station. Comms are handled by Dispatch. Beat Judges are trained with criminal psychology and taught to try to calm perps down before using violence, and are intended to seem the 'friendly face' for the populace. Beat Patrol Judges only have the stinger gun stun weapon, due to the low levels of illegal guns - a detail that made it into a Big Finish audio but obviously doesn't fit the comic strips! (An exception, which may be the cause, is Millar & Morrison having a Brit-Cit Judge say they're "unarmed" in the "Crusade" story)

• City Defence, controlled by the Minister of Defence, overseas the Royal Air and Space Force and Royal Navy; all personnel are specialist Judges. RASF is split into No.1 Group (first line of defence with Forthwith cruisers), No.2 Group (support elements), and No.3 Group (space), controlled by Strike Command tower. Nuclear weapons exist in nine Anvil sites hidden in the wastelands and run by retired or disabled Judges - or should be hidden, but anti-nuclear protestors have built permanent settlements around them. The Territorial Army was the backbone of all the civil war factions and disbanded afterwards with a general amnesty; now the Star Chamber hires a standing army of mercenaries. The Isle of Old Dogs in Sector 33 is home to the elderly war veterans and retired Judges.

• CID ranks go Detective Judge, Superintendent Judge, and Chief Superintendent. They're recruited from Beat Division. The game has it that Armitage's clothes are the "trademark" uniform of CID, ignoring they're presented as plainclothes officers in the strips and the trenchcoat is just Armitage's actual coat.

• Special Branch covers a wide area of intelligence work, as well as running the anti-corruption unit called the Ferret. Para Squad psis work for Special Branch. (The Ferret and Para Squad would be contradicted by Dave Stone later)

• Hanging, drawn-and-quartered, and flogging are all sentences brought back to deal with crimes, to public approval.

• Judges allowed to use guns use the Palmer-Coventry Model 101 (PC-101) handgun, which fires standard execution and armour piercing.

• As well as Iron Lions, Judges can call on the H-Van road carrier; D-buses, converted buses for perp transport; Panda Truk utility vehicles that can be mobile command, mobile labs, or D-bus substitutes; the avenger patrol car; Forthwith-1 cruisers, domestic equivalent of the military Forthwith-2 and 3's; and AN-N1siege breaker robots, who primarily work with the SAS.

• Criminal and corporation infiltration of society means the Judges risk destabilising the city if they ever make too big an arrest. The Lords Executive make a lot from the illicit drug trade and so the Judges, to their anger, are prevented from cracking down too heavily on it.

• The Royal Family from the Armitage and Gordon Rennie strips gets combined. The extremely bored Queen Betty, reigning since the 2070s and the only royal allowed overseas anymore; King Delbert is retconned as her consort Prince Dilbert; and Crown Prince Rudolph and the murderous Prince Albert are both sons of hers. Queen Mother "Queenie" exists as well, a massively alcoholic brain in a jar, and there is a late Prince Regent Valiant-Portcullis (killed by an STD). The Old Boy's Network works to stop the Lords Executive from bumping the Queen off to increase their rule.

• Under the lower class ("plebs") is the underclass of extreme poverty and the homeless Displaced Persons ("DPs"). The New Homeless Aesthetic Act of 2101 makes it illegal for the homeless to be seen in public and they will be shot on sight. Community Care exists to track down and massacre the homeless, for which its directors were inducted into the Order of the Lion; and Guy Fawkes Night is a time when the plebs set fire to any DP they find. Some DPs have formed the Abandoned United militia to fight back.

• The Free Church, a combined force of New Faith churches and the Muslim communities under a General Synod & twin archbishops, exists in opposition to the militant Vatican.

• Brit-Cit National Health, operating out of Nightingale Isle (formerly Isle of Man), is privatised - and if you can only afford Discount care, you may need to agree to spend a year in the BCNH's Ciudad Barranquilla slave camps to pay for serious problems. The BCNH is a major drug smuggler as well, and its commission in the pocket of Efil Drago San. The Little Sisters of the Everlasting Grud Mercy is the main alternative, providing free care out of a converted fire station in Sector 11 and facing BCNH propaganda to slander them.

• Football hooliganism was solved by recognising "hoogs" as a legitimate subculture - so long as they did violence on the telly as a sport. Battlepitch has thus displaced football as the top sport: two teams of ten in each "clashbash" run into each other with weapons, the third team fights whoever still has over half their members standing, and a fourth mob attacks the winner of that. The ultimate winner goes on to the Lethal League all over again. Brit-Cit schools play Battlepitch with non-injurious spongiplas sticks. The hoogs live in luxury in their terraces, raising their children as the next generation of hoogs, and heavy security prevents them escaping.

• Espionage beyond Special Branch remit is carried out by the Shadow Ministry, a unification of the old agencies run by the ends-justify-the-means mandarins. It is so secret many of its own agents don't know it exists, thinking they work for a regular ministry.

• The Isle of Wight has become the Isla le Pen, where all foreigners (unless they bribed their way through) are detained until they're approved access to the city

The Allotment

Map of the Allotment

A setting created for the RPG, the Allotment was a new name for the radioactyive wastelands between Brit-Cit and Cal-Hab. They were abandoned for decades, with the war survivors and mutants eking out a living in the ruins; they had to put up with antique seekers and jallopers (thrill-seekers in petrol cars) entering their land. In 2124, this area was renamed "the Allotment" and targeted for 'development' to relieve housing pressures. The hundreds of thousands of mutants are not happy about this.

• Mutants are protected by some laws, thanks to pressure by the European Congress and the campaigns of the Equal Humanities Commission. They cannot be simply deposed, they have to be given six months notice and can make a legal appeal. However, they've so far lost every legal appeal. Elgar August, Secretary for the Department of the Allotment and a former John Bull man, speeds the whole thing up by secrettly having criminals called the Merry Men attack mutants and force them to ask for Brit-Cit jurisdiction.

• The Federation of Redevelopers, an alliance of eleven corps, are scrubbing the environment clean with a force of terra-meks (taken from Ro-Busters). They've agreed to employ displaced mutants as service workers in the new conurbs, but it's clear to campaigners that the mutants won't be allowed to actually live there.

• One of the crusaders for mutant rights is Horatio Wesley-Smythe, who also runs the Battersea Mutants Home. He has covert agents spying on the FOR's misdeeds. (In a fanzine supplement for the game, John Calibur revealed this was originally meant to be the father of Nelson Bunker Kreelman, the mutant-hating demagogue from Strontium Dog!)

• Mutants in the Allotment trade via a series of caravans. They mostly try to keep the same names for places as pre-war.

• A poisonous rad-mist called the green night will descend on the lowlands without warning, killing everyone without a radsuit.

• The Brit-Company army patrols and keeps the peace for Brit-Cit interests in the Allotment. The North Brit-Company has been stationed in Carlisle to keep out the Low Cal Habbers, but they've gone 'native': sympathetic to the local mutants, even marrying them. It's unclear what side they'll take when the terra-meks arrive.

• Coventry is a city-sized prison, surrounded by miles of radiation. Inmates there are forced to build Judge equipment.

• Ironbridge is home to the Hard Men, survivalists who willingly moved there from Brit-Cit and reopened the forges. They sell arms and defend allied settlements, and swear to fight to the FOR.

• Brutal radwood forests - steel trees with mercury sap - have overgrown Lincolnshire and Northumberland. Lincoln's only good food source is at the centre of the woods, controlled by the corrupt Brothers of Thacker monks.

• Mancunia is the centre of the northwest canal networks. Various mutant settlements sprung up around the canals, and leader Guru Peterloo has requested Brit-Cit help for crime. (Dave Stone would go on to say Manchester is a completely dead area)

• Newpool is the great sea port of the area, made wealthy by trade. It fights of air-gliding pirates from the nearby peaks of Deadpool. (In a fanzine supplement for the game, John Calibur revealed this was originally written to be Northpool from Ro-Busters: The Terra-Meks)

• The Yorkshire Moors are home to the yorkies, rural-dwellers with a steam engine network. They fight off the mutant bog men.

• The Welsh Wastes is home to archaic prisons that resemble Wales' old castles. Some of the prison governors have let that go to their heads and have made literal kingdoms & castles, dressing up as 13th century monarchs.

• Fear the Cumberland Sausage, a man-eating worm preying on the mutants of the Shake District!

Judge Dredd Uprising: The Live Experience

Promotional concept art for Uprising

The Judge Dredd Uprising: The Live Experience escape room, announced in 2020 by Little Lion Entertainment, was to be set in Brit-Cit; punters would need to escape from iso-cubes into the city, following instructions from Dredd. The five zones would have included the New Old Bailey and the future Piccadily Circus. (Another zone was the Cursed Earth, which appears to be used as a general term for radwastes outside megacities for the purposes of using the recognisable 'Cursed Earth' term)

In August 2021, following the covid-19 pandemic, the plan was dropped in favour of a Tomb Raider themed escape room.

Depiction

The first Brit-Cit Judges by Ron Smith

Brit-Cit was first created for the Daily Star Dredd strip, for the story "Annual Swim". Ron Smith drew a pair of Judges from the shoulders up - a design that would be partially reused by Smith in a later Star strip, "The Royal Visit", but was supplanted by Brendan McCarthy's design for "Atlantis". As a setting, rather than a brief cameo like "Atlantis", it would first be used for Judge Dredd Annual 1988's text story "Judge Hershey: Sweet Justice".

Storm Warning Brit-Cit as rainsoaked and old architecture, by Jimmy Broxton

The city has contradictory depictions depending on who is writing. In "Sweet Justice", Neil Gaiman said the Justice Department worked out of Scotland Yard and had banned tea & sugar just like Mega-City One, both elements dropped by every subsequent writer, and they had a conventional Chief Judge. Both these elements were dropped by later Under Dave Stone, 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, the city simply America's very British ally. When Dredd visited Brit-Cit in "The Doomsday Scenario", instead of the Star Chamber we saw a Chief Judge and a large governing body in an open assembly room. In the 1990s, when Armitage was a more regular presence in the Megazine, other writers would more often lean towards Stone's approach but since then, they tend to follow the Wagner model. One exception is Michael Carroll, who wrote the city as subtly antagonistic and power divided between quiet factions.

Brit-Cit and its people appeared multiple times in the Big Finish 2000AD audio dramas, to make use of the company being based in England. The audio play Get Karter! was predominantly using the Armitage approach, 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.

Brit-Cit city street PJ Holden, deliberately more modern

One other minor divergence is that the Royal Family lack any real political status in Brit-Cit and are just a vestigial presence in Armitage, whereas most other material (beginning with the Daily Star and being the plot of For King and Country) presents the Royal Family as the constitutional heads of Brit-Cit - up until Wagner decided in 2018 that the monarchy had been sold off long before!

How the city looks is dependent on the artists, with the usual approach to make it look 'British' compared to Mega-City One - exactly what that means will depend on the artist, ranging from quaint and anachronistic buildings & clothes to something that closely resembles contemporary London but taken to an extreme. The look of the Judge has been solidified as the Brendan McCarthy design but the colour of the lion shoulder pad & boots has mostly changed to be the same as MC-1's eagle and boots, rather than the grey-green. The little star on their chins has been dropped too (explained in "Sweet Justice" as a trendy beauty mark).

Brit-Cit's "Old London Block" in Sector 6 by Nick Percival, monuments surrounded by bizarre futuristic buildings

The origin of Justice Department and Brit-Cit's history is also contradictory. Dave Stone's version is 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." Indeed, it has been contradicted by other Brit-Cit stories - Meet Darren Dead (Megazine #240) and Wagner's "Origins" both show Brit-Cit being bombed during the war (Darren Dead refers to the city almost being annihilated). John Smith's Devlin Waugh: Innocence and Experience shows no sign of a civil war. When first mentioned in the "Deathmasques" book, the civil war's cause is quite different to how it's mentioned in the Armitage strip: the Tory government of the 1990s continued into the early 21st century, imposed martial law, and the EMG retreated into North London decades before the Rad Wars, leaving a vaccuum. In the strip, this was changed to the EMG retreating after the wars.

Trivia

Volgans defeat the British Army in prog 2 - part of Brit-Cit history??

• There is a cosplay trend of Brit-Cit versions of Dredd style Judge uniforms.

• In early progs and Annuals, Invasion!, Ro-Busters, and Flesh were also loosely in continuity with Judge Dredd and Harlem Heroes. This would have made the 1999 Volgan invasion of Britain as part of Brit-Cit's history. This has had three references in Dredd material: a Mega-City Time Tour feature in the annuals (reprinted in Judge Dredd: The Restricted Files vol.4) refers to Volgan-occupied 1999 England as a holiday destination, the timeline for Games Workshop's RPG, and a text feature in Judge Dredd Megazine (Vol.2) #1 refers to the Volgan invasion as a historical event. It has since been retconned out by both Dredd writers and Pat Mills in Savage.

• Dave Stone's Armitage and Treasure Steel stories in the 1990s were building up to an event called Janus involving Special Branch and the ZipCo company, which was related to Judge Nathan Hand's insanity and involved placing an implant within Steel. The pitch for the final story never happened. Stone gave the pitches to the Class of '79 fanzine. It had been planned that the Judge/ZipCo conspiracy used neural implants to force Armitage and Steel to murder 'loose ends' (a prototype of this had driven Hand mad), and the grand Janus plan was to infect the city and brainwash them into violent greed in order to shift ZipCo's shoddier products.

• In the same article forClass of '79, Stone sent over a pitch for an Armitage revamp: "a loosely connected series of two- and three-parters, each at 6 pages", with Armitage as a Chief Inspector leading a team of detectives "rather like the fine TV-show Homicide". A revamp of Justice Department "has stripped slimy middle-management little shits like Warner of the right to call themselves Judges, and relegated them to an administorial Accounting infrastructure", a detail that did make it into the subsequent story "Bodies Of Evidence" in 2000.

• Another Brit-Cit is the home of Sam Slade in some of 2000AD's Robo-Hunter stories.