Milan Metro

Milan Metro ("Metropolitana di Milano" in italian) is the largest subway system in Italy with 4 lines and a fifth under construction. Tullio Avoledo’s novel The Children’s Crusade takes place in Milan, and the metro plays an important role in the book.

World War III
When WW3 started, 2 nuclear warheads were dropped over Milan’s airports: Linate and Malpensa. Much of Milan’s population is thought to have survived the first attack, since in the western borders of the city it was possible to hide into buildings and walk through the streets. However, the nuclear winter that immediately followed and the collapse of social order quickly took their enormous toll. By 2033, almost 2 decades after the worldwide conflict ravaged the planet, the surface of the Earth remains uninhabitable. The snow has not yet melted, and the city’s ruins are trapped in an icy and silent wasteland. At first, Milan’s metro system has provided some protection, but now only a few thousands live on and most of the network is abandoned. Electric power in the metro is long gone like the rest of the city, so only small fires and torches provide some light. The surface is irradiated and a gas mask is needed to breathe there; however the radiation levels seem not to be very high, since Milan was not a primary target in WW3.

The Metro
Before the war, Milan's Metro was the biggest underground network in Italy; it counted 101 stations and 35 more under construction. Though the metro was not designed as a fallout shelter, many people managed to survive there for some time. At last, it was cold and famine which decided many survivors' fate. It's known that the Alberti faction once controlled all the interchange stations and maybe the entire network, but they were gradually pushed back at the southern stations of lines 1, 2, and 3. Now a few thousand survivors are still alive, and they constantly fight to defend themselves or to take over the whole metro. At some point, sentient humanoid mutants occupied Duomo station and the buildings above, including Milan's Cathedral. It's unknown whether they killed all the station inhabitants or simply made them leave, but no survivors tried to reclaim the station or even to pass through it since then. The station is now known as "The Nest". Some stations are flooded or destroyed, but it's unknown when or why this happened.

Conflicting Parties

 * Alberti

The Alberti are a vague and brutal resemblance of a far-right party active in Italy before the war broke out. They are very racist and sexist, while claiming the entire metro and the ruins of the city above, as they see the other factions as foreign invaders or an inferior race. They're likely to have been the far biggest faction in the metro, since a great portion of it was under their control; however, as the years passed, their numbers dwindled drastically and new factions came from the outskirts of the city, pushing them to the southern edges of the network. They are very poorly armed, but they seem not to fear death and don't hesitate to die en masse when they fight: this is why they are recruited for the front lines of the other factions.


 * Sons of Wrath

The Sons of Wrath are thought not to be in Milan when the war broke out. It's unknown where they came from, but at some point they crept into the metro and slaughtered or recruited any of the survivors they came across. Milan's Central station became their headquarter and prison, a place of horror feared by anyone and considered as an impregnable fortress. It is known as "The Iron Gates". They are the best armed faction of the metro and thave the strenght to impose tributes on the other survivors: if anyone refuses to pay, a brutal and bloody retaliation will inevitably take place.


 * Los Chinos

The faction known as "Los Chinos" ("The Chinese" in Spanish) comes from the fusion of the chinese and latin american communities; the first became the leaders and traders in the stations they controlled, and the second specialized themselves in the military. They pursue a defensive strategy, but are absolutely not a Pacific faction: it requires a lot of effort and diplomacy even just to pass through their territory. A few months before the events written in The Children's Crusade, they were attacked at Garibaldi station by the Sons of Wrath: the strong defences of the Chinos were soon overcome, their station was lost, and all its inhabitants slaughtered. After this bloodshed the faction came to be very afraid of the Sons of Wrath, as there seemed not to be a way to stop them. The headquarter of Los Chinos is Cadorna Station, where their king lives. Though the two communities of the faction remain substantially separated, they peacefully coexist; the way the faction is governed came to resemble Roma communities.


 * Two Cities

This is an alliance between two indipendent stations: both of them don't live in the metro system, as their nearest stations (Bonola and Molino Dorino) are abandoned. The Molino Dorino community is composed of young men and women who were rescued as children when WW3 broke out. They live in an underground parking close to Molino Dorino Station. In the first pages it is clear that many of them know almost nothing about the outside world, and their group vaguely resembles the Lost Boys in Peter Pan novel. The Bonola community lives inside a large shopping centre, and is composed of ordinary people who survived the war and the nuclear winter: it is guided by a rabbi named Samuel, and Sergio Crismani, the son of a female soldier who was the founder of the community. The Molino Dorino community is armed with knives, spears, bows and blank pistols, while the Bonola one is slightly better armed. Both "cities" have experienced stalkers, who venture in the buildings around them to find any sort of supplies. Since food is not so easy to find, cannibalism takes place in Molino Dorino; nothing can be stated about Bonola. The stalkers of Molino Dorino have a second base in what they call "The Tower", a tall hotel which would have opened a few days after WW3; incredibly, the building is very well preserved and looks like it hasn't been damaged at all since 2013.


 * The Nest

Mutants are a regular presence in any novel of Metro 2033 Universe, and Milan makes no exception: however, Milan looks much more like a dead city than a mutants' den. The mutants described in The Childrens Crusade are quite similar to the Dark Ones: tall, humanoid and mysterious creatures with pitch black smooth skin. They occupy Duomo station, Milan's Cathedral, the square and the buildings surrounding it. Incredibly, it seems they are fascinated by human masterpieces; all the buildings around Milan's Cathedral, the station and the cathedral itself are protected by a thin, pitch-like material from the cold and radioactive environment. What the other survivors refer to as "The Nest" is discovered to be more similar to a time capsule, since the mutants themselves explicitly confirm the intention to preserve the buildings they occupy; they also make clear that one day these buildings will be returned to the Milanese as beautiful as they were before the Tribulation took place. Not much else is known about them, but still the Chinos faction had experienced on first hand how dangerous they can be, since the Line 1 tunnel towards Duomo station is heavily fortified, and no survivors are allowed to pass through these defences.

Speculations
Every metro system in Russia is thought to have had a Central Metro Command: this is because the russian government has made a lot of effort to build metro systems which would eventually serve as undergound shelters from a nuclear war. Unfortunately, the italian "metropolitane" were not designed for this purpose; although Milan was not wiped out during the war and the city leadership could have established some sort of order within the metro, it is very unlikely that this ever happened.

Unfinished Stations
In 2013 Milan had a lot of stations formally under construction, but only a few were close enough to completion to be occupied. 35 stations were being constructed: two from Line 1, twelve from Line 5 and all the twenty-one stations of Line 4. Two stations of Line 5 would have opened a few months after WW3, but all the others couldn't provide any shelter from the cold and toxic environment. In Tullio Avoledo's novel "The Children's Crusade" Garibaldi Station is under the control of the Sons of Wrath, and it is likely that even Isola Station is occupied by them too.