Maranatha City

Maranatha City is a fictional city in the United States, the setting of the erotic story series Maranatha and heavily referenced in the graphic novel Heathen City, both written by Alex Vance. Originally its location was unspecified, though Heathen City definitively indicated that the city is located in the state of Florida, on the Blood Bay peninsula, connected to the mainland by St. Lucy's bridge.

In the Maranatha story series
Located in an originally unspecified region of what is presumably the United States, Maranatha City is an urban dystopia -- distinct from K. M. Hirosaki's Blue Forest City in that the commercial rather than the industrial sector is dominant.

In some ways resembling post-Wall Berlin, the city has a low population for its size; entire regions of the city lie empty as a result of economic shifts some time before the story started. Lacking a medium middle class, Maranatha City is characterized by a strong separation, both economically and geographically, between the upper middle class and upper class on the one side, and the working class on the other.

Crime is highly organised and regimented. It is implied that the police force is largely corrupt and disinterested in any criminal activity outside the city's prosperous center.

In the Heathen City graphic novels
Two of the protagonists of Heathen City are survivors of an event known as the fall of Maranatha. An unanticipated geological cataclysm which occurred in 2005, shortly after Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans, a large portion of the city's center collapsed.

In addition to the casualties caused by the sudden collapse of so much of the city, the geological shift freed a stratum of lethally toxic dust, later labeled as TCT.

Furthermore, the rescue efforts in New Orleans had depleted the country's already scant resources, leaving the inhabitants without support. The collapse of St. Lucy's bridge severed the only connection to the mainland.

Reports vary on the number of survivors, from 6000 to as little as a few hundred.

The toxicity of the TCT dust hampered any reclamation efforts, and, leaning on innovations by Russia in dealing with the Chernobyl incident, construction began on a 'sarcophagus' to shield the city from wind and rain, to alleviate any risk of TCT contamination through wind or groundwater. Construction was never completed.

At the start of Volume 1 of Heathen City, it is indicated that the United States government was making arrangements to sell Maranatha City and the Blood Bay peninsula, as it could no longer justify the cost of maintaining the sarcophagus and it seemed unlikely that the city would become habitable again.