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Lud

Lud is a fictional city in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. In The Waste Lands, the book's protagonists travel from Lud to an alternate reality version of Kansas via a supersonic monorail. However, they also pass through a thinny before reaching Kansas; therefore there may be no relationship at all between the Kansas of our reality and Lud.

Lud resembles New York City in many ways, most notably in a version of the George Washington Bridge. This "GWB" spans a massive river canyon that protected the city from marauders after the fall of the Imperium, and later of the river baronies. The bridge, and the rest of the city, has been in disrepair for at least two thousand years.

The state of Lud
Since the technological capacity of the Great Old Ones was lost, Lud has been slowly decaying for thousands of years. This decay has been hastened by the siege and eventual (partial) occupation by the Grays.

Lud's streets are strewn with relics from The Great Old Ones. Cars are a common sight, albeit without glass and tires, both of which were probably highly prized commodities at one time. The streets are also strewn with human bodies: either ones killed in the frequent battles between the Pubes and the Grays, or sacrificed to the God Drums.

Nearly everything created by The Great Old Ones has incredible longevity: this applies to the robots who surface occasionally in the series and also to the more important buildings, i.e. skyscrapers and military installations. Most, if not all, of the skyscrapers in Lud are in quite good condition for having been abandoned for over two thousand years.

Geography
Lud is uniquely situated; it is protected on one side by a deep river valley that can only be traversed by the GWB parallel (see below); on the other, by deep cliffs that drop down into the radioactive hell known as The Wastelands. As a result, Lud is easily defensible, especially against the sword-wielding barbarians who tried to conquer Lud in the past.

Post-Affiliation history
Lud possibly belonged to a River Barony during the time of the Affiliation. After the local governments were destroyed due to John Farson, Luddites began defending their city from roving gangs ("harriers") who pillaged any village they came across.

Lud was besieged by various armies for many years, but because of its fortunate location, the only way into the city was the "George Washington Bridge" and a small foot bridge. The "GWB" had many weak spots and holes, and was watched at all hours by both attackers and defenders. People in days of old who wanted to join the "Luddites" simply had to cross the bridge; few survived the attempt.

Armies were routinely turned away by the Luddites, but their power was fading. Finally, David Quick, an "outlaw prince," mustered the "last army in the world" and attacked the city with what few advanced weapons he had.

Eventually, the Luddites were worn down completely. They had lost all technical knowledge and dissolved into nothing more than primitive inhabitants of a once-advanced city. They still managed to prevent a complete takeover of Lud, and David Quick's army was soon reduced to the same state as the Luddites. They soon became two factions: the Pubes and the Grays.

Pubes and Grays

Pubes
Pubes were the original inhabitants of Lud (after the Great Old Ones). The admittance test required quick wits and agility, and so youths more easily gained entrance than older people. The name Pubes is an apparent reference to this, as most of the members were pubescent at the time they joined. This may have originally been a derogatory term, but has become the commonly accepted name for the group. Blue bandannas are a identifying mark of the Pubes.

Grays
Grays are the descendants of David Quick's army who managed to infiltrate Lud and take control of the vast underground network of tunnels.

Since the Grays were originally a predominantly male army, there were few women to inhabit the Gray part of Lud. This forces the Greys to routinely "harvest" women and children from the Pubes. Yellow bandanas are the identifying mark of the Grays.

The God Drums
The God Drums are a form of psychological warfare used against the Pubes.

Shortly before the Cataclysm created the Wastelands next to Lud, its leaders installed large loudspeakers throughout the city. This P.A. system was still intact when the Grays took control of the city's underground, which included vast computer banks that controlled the P.A. system as well as the "brain" of Blaine the Mono.

The Grays used the P.A. system to periodically play a deafening recording of pounding drums. The superstitious Pubes executed one of their own, usually by hanging, every time these "God Drums" were heard. These sacrifices, the Pubes believed, appeased the evil spirits and prevented them from possessing the bodies of the dead to attack the living. Eddie Dean, upon hearing the "God Drums," recognizes them as the drumbeat from ZZ Top's song Velcro Fly.

It is unlikely that the Grays actually planned the Drums to have this particular effect; although the Grays are the most technically advanced people remaining in All-World, they cannot use most of the thousands of computers that fill the city's underground. According to the Tick-Tock Man:

"There's a thousand of those ever-fucking dipolar computers right under the ever-fucking city, maybe even a HUNDRED thousand, and the only ones that still work don't do a thing except play Watch Me and run those drums! I want those computers! I want them working for ME!"

Blaine the Mono mentions that he had done nothing for several years but play the God Drums for the Grays. This seems to indicate that the Tick-Tock Man was unable to use the city's computers because Blaine prevented him from doing so, not because he was unable to understand their operation. Additionally, Blaine does not appear to have any particular motivation for activating the Drums other than the sadistic pleasure he takes in sensing the Pubes' fear.