History

Here's a brief history of the most important events of our time, outlined by me, Captain Chaos.

2001 = The Shiawase Decision, in Japan, gave Shiawase extraterritorial status. This decision made Shiawase the first true megacorporation.

2002 = The First Optical chip that can withstand electromagnetic pulse effects is constructed. Welcome to the Data Revolution!
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2003 = A flash flood in the North Sea region of Germany spreads toxic water everywhere. Hamburg is flooded in sewage, and several nuclear plants go through emergency shutdown.

2004 = In Great Britain, a nuclear meltdown in Kent creates a local irradiated zone and kills more than 6,000 people.

2005 = A major earthquake rocks New York City, killing 200,000 and doing billions of nuyen worth of damage.
The East Coast Stock Exchange moves from NYC to Boston in the aftermath of the quake.

2008 = A meteor impacts with the Mir II space platform (recently sold by the Russians to the Harris-3M corporation), killing two of the crew outright. The rest die later when Harris-3M fails to launch a rescue mission. (Nice folks, those 3M guys.)

2009 = The French nuclear plant at Cattenom, on the German border, suffers a meltdown, contaminating Luxembourg, French Lorraine and German Saarland.

2010 = The Vitas Plague is first discovered in India. By the end of the year, the disease will claim roughly a quarter of the world's population.

2011 = A banner year. Hurricane-force winds push poisoned North Sea waters into the mouth of the Elbe River, bursting numerous dams and dikes. The flood washes away much of the Netherlands and buries large parts of Belgium, Germany and Denmark under toxic sludge. Heavy spring floods hit western England, landslides bury Wales and central Scotland suffers an earthquake. The natural disasters are followed by a string of toxic leaks from landfill sites and chemical spills into rivers. And to top it all off, two more nuke plants in Great Britain suffer critical meltdowns, killing thousands.
The first elves and dwarfs are born to "normal" human parents.
The great dragon Ryumo first appears near Mount Fuji.
Hamburg becomes the Free City of Hamburg.

2012 = The great dragon Lofwyr appears in Germany and makes his first moves toward becoming a major corporate player.
The great Dragon Dunkelzahn appears near Cherry Creek Lake in Denver.

2014 = The Ghost Dance War begins.

2015 = Hong Kong wins their independence from China, becoming the Hong Kong Free Enterprise Zone.
The orbit of the U.S. space station Freedom begins to decay. Scientists predict it will burn up in Earth's atmosphere within two years.

2016 = A gang of terrorists causes a major oil spill in the North Sea that penetrates more than 20 miles inland, creating the Scottish Fringe Toxic Zone.
Ares Industries purchases NASA from the United States government, reestablishes Freedom's orbit and expands its facilities.
Mexico renamed Aztlan.

2017 = The Great Ghost Dance is performed.

2018 = The Treaty of Denver is signed, acknowledging the sovereignty of the NAN.
China erupts in civil war, from which emerges the states of Manchuria, Xinjiang, Guangxi, the Canton Confederation, and numerous others.

2020 = In response to a jihad declared against the emerging metahuman race by Iran's ruling Ayatollah, the dragon Aden demolishes the city of Tehran.
The World Bank, suffering from financial problems, is replaced by Global Financial Services, a Zurich-based financial corporation. (There's a point to this one. Wait for it.)
Ares Industries unveils it's new space platform, Apollo.

2021 = One out of every ten humans suddenly metamorphosize into Orks and Trolls.
Sheila Blatavska establishes the Atlantean Foundation, which advocates "a return to the enlightened days of Atlantis" (Whatever the frag that means).

2022 = Cuba, Jamaica, Grenada, Bermuda, and the Virgin Islands join together to form the Caribbean League.

2023 = The U.S. Supreme Court grants metahuman races equal protection under the law.
The Independent City of Kronstadt, West Africa  is established.
The Corporate Court is established.

2025 = UCLA establishes the first undergraduate program in occult studies. Within three years, similar programs are established at Texas A&M, University of Chicago, MIT (renamed "MIT&T", for and "Thaumaturgy"), BYU, Oxford Edinburgh University and several others in Germany.
Cyberware comes to professional sports; the first cyber-modified players enter the NFL. (Their teams lost, go figure.)

2026 = Nerps goes on the market. Need we say more?

2028 = A major earthquake rocks Los Angeles, destroying LAX.

2029 = Computer systems all over the world are attacked by a killer virus. Governments topple and the worlds economy nearly collapses.

2030 = The United Canadian American States is formed.
Ghouls from all over Africa migrate to northern Ghana, where the ghoul nation of Asamando is founded. (The latest hot spot for tourists?)

2032 = The Corporate Court takes over Global Financial Services. It moves GFS to the Zurich-Orbital Habitat and renames it the Zurich-Orbital Gemeinschaft Bank. (Told ya there was a point.)

2033 = Damien Knight pulls of his infamous "Nanosecond Buyout" taking control of Ares Macrotechnology.

2034 = The Confederated American States is formed.
Tir na nÓg is formed.
Southern Florida joins the Caribbean League.
A collection of criminals, anarchists and mutineer military officers seize control of Kronstadt, Russia and manage to keep it. It becomes the Free City of Kronstadt.

2035 = Tir Tairngire is formed.

2036 = Fuchi Industrial becomes the first major corp to market it's own third generation cyberdeck, the desktop CDT-1000.

2037 = The California Free State is formed.
Tsimshian withdraws from the STC and NAN.
New and improved simsense gear can broadcast emotive signals. Say hello to chipheads and BTL dealers. If it's Better-Than-Life, it's got to be good!
The Denver Data Haven comes out of the closet and into the shadows. And we're not going to say anything more, on the grounds it might tend to incriminate us. So there.
Anarchists take over Berlin, Germany.
DocWagon is founded in Atlanta, Georgia. It promises to provide better emergency on-site medical care by responding to calls much faster than any other private paramedical service.

2039 = A massive chemical spill in the Teeside district of London kills more than 70,000 people.
The great dragon Dunkelzahn's second interpreter resigns and is replaced by Nadja Daviar, an Eastern European elf with no personal history on file. (And I mean nothing. Lots of us have been looking.)
In Charleston, South Carolina, a serial killer is captured after the detective-mage handling the case studies the ghost of one of the killer's victims. The ghost's actions reveal sources of evidence that lead to the murderer's arrest and conviction. (And yes, it held up in court.)
Fuchi sponsors the Universal Matrix Specifications Conderence in Toyko. More than 7,000 humans and metahumans meet for three months to determine the details of Matrix programming. (That's where we get all that boring generic imagery from.)
The Night of Rage takes place on February 27th.

2040 = Southern Africa finally settles into it's current Azanian Alliance, composed of the Cape Rebublic, Oranje-Vrystaat, the Trans-Swazi Federation and the Zulu Nation.
Construction begins on the Renraku Arcology in Seattle.

2041 = EuroAir flight 329 from London to Atlanta is destroyed over the Atlantic. A garbled last transmission and recovered tapes indicate that the aircraft was attacked by a dragon  (Later identified as Sirrurg), and the one heroic passenger held the beast off for several minutes with sorcery before the flight's demise.

2042 = The Zeta-Impchem corporation is exposed in the Poldopa scandal; seems they'd been dumping neurotoxins in central Africa for the past four years. Net result: 4,000 deaths and 35,000 cases of irreversible brain damage.
Dunkelzahn launches "Wyrm Talk", a semi-annual vid program. Topics range from celebrity interviews to insightful commentaries on culture and society. (Catch the reruns on channel 62 in Seattle.)

2043 = The Universal Brotherhood opens it's doors. It is dismissed by many as just another new age cult.

2045 = After Decades of secession and infighting, more than fourteen separate states form the German Alliance.

2046 = Los Angeles becomes a free city.
Aztechnology, Shiawase and Universal Omnitech announce they have fully decoded the human/ metahuman genome.

2048 = After Aztlan government nationalizes all foreign business, the corporate court strikes back with Operation Reciprocity, a corporate military strike. Aztlan negotiates the Veracruz Settlement. The Panama Canal becomes a Pan-Corporate Zone, under the control of the Corporate Court.

2051 = A major earthquake hits the San Francisco Bay area.
Shadowland exposed the Universal Brotherhood for what is was, a collection of insect spirit hives.

2052 = In the New-And-Better-Ways-To-Frag-Yourself-Over department, 2XS- a chip lots more potent and addictive than your average BTL - hit's the streets. This sucker works on the body through what it does to the mind. Nasty.
The Virtual Stock Exchange in Chiba, Japan crashes in the middle of trading.

2053 = A United Oil tanker dumps millions of gallons of petrochemicals into Boston Harbor. The marine life that survives is mutated beyond recognition.
Tir Tairngire attempts to capture Shasta Dam in northern California, but the great dragon Hestaby forces the elven troops to withdraw. Hestaby takes possession of the dam and surrounding land.
Newly published magical theorems describe the anchoring skill, which allows a mage to cast a spell that won't go off until specific circumstances trigger it.
Proteus Corp completes construction of two offshore arcologies in Japan, followed by four more in the polluted North Sea.

2054 = In Boston, a team of scholars and archaeologists report a major archaeological find 130 miles off the coast of Crete. The expedition, funded by the Atlantean Foundation, discovers a  treasure trove of artifacts in an area known to history as the location of Thera, which may be the site of Atlantis. (Or may just be a rock in the Ocean.) Experts dismiss allegations that the artifacts are magical in nature.
A dozy of a year in Tir Tairngire. First off, some slag named Lacrima- a self-styled "mage-historian" - declares that the exact date of the volcanic eruption that formed Crater Lake in Tir Tairngire is July 22, 3454 B.C. A few weeks later, the Tir military seals off Crater Lake. A sioux-registered air bus that blunders into the region suffers engine failure and crashes, with no survivors.

2055 = The otaku appear.
Ares Macrotechnology, the UCAS, and various other governments, use their resources to attack Universal Brotherhood chapter houses and destroy the insect hives.
Panic sweeps the globe as information about insect spirits is leaked to the public.
After a huge insect hive is discovered in Chicago, UCAS; Ares Macrotechnology detonates a nuclear bomb inside the city.
The UCAS quarantines Chicago.

2057 = Dunkelzahn is assassinated when an explosion engulfs his limo.
Proteus completes another North Sea arcology, as well as a space-launching arcology on Devil's Island in French Guyana.

2058 = Ares Macrotechnology release a biological agent, Strain III, or FAB III, into Chicago. It weakened the spirits and Ares moved in with troops and drones. Ares declares victory.
The UCAS lifts the Chicago quarantine.

2059 = The Renraku Arcology in Seattle shuts down for no apparent reason in December, a few days before Christmas.

2060 = Fuchi Industrial Electronics is officially dissolved.
An island appeared of the coast of Petrolia, CFS, just as Dunkelzahn predicted.

2061 = Halley's Comet returns to the Earth and a probe race ensues between the megacorps, all the probes are mysteriously sabotaged.
In September, many people suffer Sudden Unexplained Recessive Genetic Expression, or SURGE, and become Changlings.
Ghostwalker breaks through the Dunkelzahn Rift and attacks the FRFZ.
Shidem appear for the first time.
The Unzen Volcano in Japan erupts, killing the Japanese Emperor.
The Pueblo Corporate Council annexes Los Angeles and most of southern California.

2062 = Ghostwalker takes over the FRFZ.