The beating heart of Grand Nostridanian politics and the staging ground for the Bluecoats military, Capital Cross is the closest thing to a downtown that a 500-mile-wide city can have.  Defined by its towering skyscrapers, dense automobile traffic, long white parade routes, and tree-lined government buildings and gardens. Each district in Grand Nostridan has its own ruling body, but presiding over them all is the Lerin. When she is unavailable, decisions requiring consensus among the districts are brought to a vote and debated in the great halls of Capital Cross. Increasingly, this is how Grand Nostridan is governed, as its leader grows more reclusive with each passing year.