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Academy City seems like a really weird city to me. At first I thought it was
some super advanced city that was created with the sole purpose of filling it
out with educational institutions for science and research, but a lot of
things don't seem to make sense.

I watched the first season and it seemed really weird that the government was
supporting the experiments for a level 6 esper. Something like that sounds
like something the military would want. Why in Academy City?

Another thing that seems kind of weird is the Enforcement body "Judgment". Why
is there such an enforcing body with such high level espers? Doesn't that
imply that such weird and dangerous things are normal in Academy City?


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a-certain-magical-index a-certain-scientific-railgun
Is Academy City really an educational city? What is its purpose?


Academy City, also known as Academy City of Science and Technology, is a
landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave
within the Tokyo Metropolitan Employment Area. As the city's name suggests, it
is a city of several schools and institutions of higher learning from
kindergarten to university level that learn side-by-side along with the
scientists who research on psychic powers and higher technology, the latter
being one of the primary reasons for its establishment.

According to the Wiki

> **The city was founded by the magician Aleister Crowley to do studies and
> research on the development of preternatural abilities.**
>
> According to Therestina, the students in Academy City are just being used to
> further the research and development in the achievement of a Level 6. How
> truthful her words are remains to be seen, however its important to note
> that both Aleister Crowley and Board of Directors have allowed deaths of
> students, and have allowed and supported further experimentation and
> research at the expense of many lives.

As for your second question...

Judgment is one of the primary peacekeeping forces in Academy City. The other
one being the Anti-Skill; these two groups are composed of trained students
and faculty respectively which deal with crimes and conflicts with security.
They are authorized to retrieve Information from surveillance equipment within
Academy City, to check if there are any crimes occurring, in addition to their
constant patrol duties. Academy City also has a fire department as well as
emergency response organization.

Although on the surface, it seems like it is only an educational city but
there are quite a few sinister things going on on the inside. And the
administration is of course at the center of it. Yes, it does imply that there
might be other reasons for the founding of Academy City. [Ability Body Crystal
Experiments](http://toarumajutsunoindex.wikia.com/wiki/Academy_City_Level_6_Experiments)
are another series of experiments that are illegal.


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Imagine 5 years old Misaka Mikoto living not in Academy City, but in "normal"
city.

  * Misaka touched her friend.
  * Friend got electrified.
  * Misaka was surprised.
  * Friend still electrified.
  * Misaka don't now how to stop.
  * Friend got fried.

That is just one example. Another would be Shirai Kuroko using her teleport
power but left her hair and thus shows up bald at the destination point.

The main purpose of Academy City, is to educate the students with esper powers
so that they can control it well. It also educates people that want to develop
esper powers as can be seen when Kamijou Touma attended school with fellow
level 0 or Saten Ruiko's school. As those students can control their powers
better, their level goes up. This is also one of the goals of academy city,
researching esper powers. At the very least, this is how academy city shows
itself to the world.

As things currently are, the highest level known for esper powers is level 5
with only 7 people managed to achieve that. Therefore, for research purpose,
they did the experiment to see whether it is possible to achieve higher level
or not. Of course Accelerator, being the best among the 7 level 5s is chosen
as the candidate for the experiment. Railgun was chosen as the mob for
Accelerator to kill as they hypothesized that by killing Railgun 20k times
(not sure if that is the correct figure) Accelerator would be able to achieve
level 6. This is the dark part of academy city that it doesn't show to the
world.

**Judgement**

The use of Judgement is mainly because one can't be very sure whether the
criminal would be a level 0 or a leveled esper. Suppose that it is not a level
0, then normal means might not be possible to arrest them. Therefore to catch
those criminals another esper would be needed. This use the principal of
fighting fire with fire. Also to be noted, not all members of judgement are
high leveled esper. In fact, in Railgun and Railgun S anime there were no
level 5 member of judgement. Misaka indeed illegally used Shirai's judgement
armband and posed to be one before but that was illegal. As far as I know
Shirai Kuroko is the highest level member of judgment, being a level 4.
Another member, Kazari Uiharu was a level 1. The chief of the 177th branch
(Shirai and Kazari's boss) is a level 3.


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I'm sorry, but Ayase Eri's answer is completely wrong.

Misaka did not have powers before coming to Academy City. Espers who acquire
their Abilities without the help of Academy City are called
[Gemstones](http://toarumajutsunoindex.wikia.com/wiki/Gemstone), of which we
only know of a small handful. (Himegami Aisa aka Deep Blood, Sogiita Gunha the
7th Level 5, and a couple others.)

Gemstones came first. Then Academy City developed a method of artificially
recreating this phenomenon (the Power Curriculum Program), allowing them to
mass-produce Espers.

The real reason Academy City is so interested in a Level 6 Esper is because
someone who achieved that level would also achieve SYSTEM - the 'knowledge of
the the will of the heavens'. Basically, they want a Level 6 so they can
experiment with/on them, the same reason they want any other Espers.

As for Judgement, you actually get a skewed view of the organisation from
Kuroko. Judgement officers actually have [no authority outside the school they
are assigned to](http://toarumajutsunoindex.wikia.com/wiki/Judgment#Duties) \-
Kuroko keeps overstepping her bounds. Normally, any dangerous incidents are
handled by Anti-Skill, the adult-run organisation.

> Overall, the role of a Judgement officer is more like a part-time civilian
> patrol officer and are often used in community services, such as cleaning
> garbage from the streets (when cleaning bots are unavailable), helping
> locate lost objects, traffic duty, etc.

And of course there are weird and dangerous things happening all the time.
Half the point of the city is to give superpowers to children - you better
believe they have forces to keep them in check.


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