LA Overview - A Brief History

[Wraith]

2022 - Massive race riots in LA cause the creation of the walled slum "El Infierno"
2027 - First of the cold fusion water plants go online on the LA coast
2028 - First of the "Big Ones". LAX is destroyed.
2045 - Green tide. An offshore reactor explodes causing a radioactive tidal wave to hit the coast. Massive toxic destruction.
2046 - Hackers in LA fix the gubernatorial election. CalFree gov't sends in troops. After several days fighting a losing street battle in El Infierno, CalFree declares LA a free city.
2061 - Another massive earthquake results in the walls going down around El Infierno, Arcology Mile, and Fun City. Looting and riots wrack the city. Less than a week later, PCC moves in to quell the chaos and annexes LA with the blessing of the city elders.
2063 - Several high-profile media and industry players in LA meet and draw up the charter for the Horizon Group. they appoin former action simstar Gary Cline (an Orc) as their CEO. Almost immediately they sign a lucrative contract to provide PR and media-relations services for Tir Tairngire.
2064 - The Crash 2.0 takes out LA's Matrix, crippling the city for weeks, until Horizon's newly licensed wireless grids come online. Horizon becomes the wireless provider for LA and much of CalFree.
2068 - Virtual World Disney is bought out by Horizon, officially making the corporation the largest in the LA sprawl.
2069 - On March 8, simultaneous earthquakes from the San Andreas Fault line and the San Pedro Shelf rock southern California. LA, at the epicenter, is especially hard hit. A major tsunami follows. 100,000 people perish as the southern west coast is forever changed.
2070 - As reclamation and reconstruction ensues, researchers discover the presence of massive underground tunnels and chambers under much of LA, San Diego, and the rest of the coast. The tunnel network is named the Deep Lacuna and appears to be only part of a major magical phenomenon that has changed the face of the City of Angels.

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Downtown and Hollywood

The old economic core of our city is where the studio big-wigs wheel and deal. The core of Downtown is the old Arcology Mile, reaching from Horizon's acrologies on the intersection of Hollywood and Highland all the way down to the waterline, the reclamation projects, and beyond where partially submerged skyscraping arcoblocks rise up from the filthy water like mushrooms, pushing above the smog level of the city. In the old days, this was ground zero for LA's entertainment industry, and it still has immense historical value. Most of the gleaming steel and glass arcologies on the Mile still stand or are currently being renovated. Many of the former tenants lefts during one of the more recent disasters, but new tenants are never in short supply.

Horizon has been picking up a lot of abandoned real estate in Downtown, thanks to the salvage laws and recently completed seawall, as a major step in reclaiming this historic area. Withing six months, the mud and debris will be cleared, and tourists will once again be able to walk in the footsteps of the stars.... or so they say.

These days, Downtown is surrounded by makeshift shantytowns where the destitute survive on the scraps and whims of the rich. Most corps and the city police have given up policing the surviving streets in this area after dark, making it into a no-man's land about an hour before sunset. Horizon has been beta-testing some automated crime-prevention systems in other areas of the city. They've announced that by the time the streets are cleaned up, the system will be fully functional and integrated into the downtown area, making it safe at all hours of day and night.

The action here takes place either at the street level, if you are common scum, or high above the streets where the real power of LA makes deals and decides fates. The air traffic around downtown is a constant flow between the arcologies and from the arcologies to the new corporate HQ in the Inland Empire.

As you move further west into Hollywood and West Hollywood, you'll find that Horizon and PCC have tried to replace some of the historic ambience of the area. Gone are the Stuffer Shacks and other chain conveniences of Arcology Mile. Here, you'll find the newest posh nightclubs and the hangouts of the rich and famous. The land here didn't get inundated and, for the most part, had been reinforced against the quakes years ago. You can cruise around in your stretch limo, enjoying the towering palm trees and cascades of flowers lining the streets. Durning the day, the area is filled with tourists and shoppers, hoping to get a peek of a simstar or two. At night, the place lights up with the glitterati and their adoring fans.

Security is so tight here you don't want to even sneeze, but they keep it very unobtrusive. Don't want to bother the tourists, after all. Don't try to walk around armed without all the right permits: sensors will tag your weapons or cyberware before you even set foot on these sparkling streets. If everything doesn't match up to your ID (which you better be broadcasting, spam be damned), you'll find yourself being discreetly escorted out. Save yourself a swim and buy the best ID you can afford if you decide to mingle with the beautiful fold.

POI

Diamantes
an ultra-chic Hollywood restaurant catering to the glitterati. Entrance is invitation only; you won't get in unless your P2.0 rep is stratospheric. And ladies, a certain amount of gliter is required. A-listers consider it THE place to be seen. This isn't a place where you have to worry about camera-drones, as the media send actual live reporters to do the star-watching. For many in Holly wood, receiving an invite to Diamantes is the sign they've hit the big time. The owner is a free spirit who goes by the name of Ruby, and she is quite possibly the most well informed person I've every met when it comes to what's going on in the world of stars.

Greenstreets
A must-see in West Hollywood. Packed with memorabilia, the bar is a favorite with tourists and locals alike. Gary Cline has been known to stop in for a drink, and there's a prominent AR image of him with the bar's owner, Sidney, right over the bar.

Electron Skies
An AR enhanced night club that's all the rage with younger stars. The place is heavily biased towards beautiful people, of which there is no shortage in LA. Agents and talent scout like to work the crowd inside, hoping to find the newest sensation, and it can be a great place to make some contacts in the showbiz world.... assuming you can get in.

Jazz Nights
Near Echo Park, is a faithful replica of an old fashioned jazz and dance club, there's live music every night. The drinks are strong, the smoke is thick, and the music is enough to make even a hardened runner feel like getting off their ass. Certain older elements of the LA Mob tend to congregate here, but they keep business quiet, if they do any at all. Mostly, people come to enjoy the music and the atmosphere.

Tedescu's
Is an upscale restaurant nestled in the shade of the Horizon acrologies, just off Hollywood and Highland. It is immensely popular with high-flying entertainment biz execs, and at lunch it fills up with the movers and shakers in the trideo and music industries. Many a major Hollywood bysiness deal is sealed here. Johann Kurtz, the manager, is a former Amalgamated Studios producer who keeps up many of his connections in the industry and has been known to act as a fixer for friends and acquaintances.

Casanova
Is an exclusive casino that draws the truly rich and powerful. It's an open secret that the Mafia owns, runs, and breaks multiple laws inside it every night. No one would ever consider busting the place, though, since the clients read like a who's who list of politicians, execs, and simstars. You won't find any AR games or noisy slot machines here. Just the sweet sound of card on a felt covered table, the clink of real chips and the smell of money. You can't get in without being a member or being invited by a member. I suspect there may be a minimum bank balance just to walk in... and it is a black-tie only sort of place. If you can get in, go--you'll feel like you stepped back 150 years in time.

Daybreak Clinic
An accessible betaware and biosculpting clinic that does a lot of confidential work for stars-in-the-making and stuntmen. As befits a Hollywood clinic, Daybreak has access to all the latest implants and gadgets. Unlike other places, the Daybreak docs aren't too high and mighty to do some work for shadowtypes when needed.

[Wraith]

Ever since the worst parts of LA were sealed behind the walls of El Infierno decades ago, the well-behaved poor mostly trickled down to East LA and undermined buddge attempts to rebuild the area. Both areas were razed by the Twins and the flood, claiming some of the highest mortality rates of all LA.

East LA remains largely under-populated today, though several new structures have recently sprung up, reclamation porjects run by construction and eco-corps. Though the numerous sinkholes prove a major hazard. The waters aren't particularly deep, and there are areas of dry land, small islands with shattered buildings that harbor water-hangs, scavengers, and the occasional shedim or critter. No one travels there except by boat.

El Infierno has only slipped further into hell. Decades ago, the area was walled up by a city government that lacked the resources and the will to deal with the largely poor and underprivileged residents. Over the years, it became a ghetto for all sorts of underirables, and even though El Infierno managed to ride out the quake of '61 without too much death, the flood in '69 was another matter. Nearly 70% of El Infierno residents perished in the quake, the flood, or in trying to flee the area over the remnants of the walls and gayes that had kept them penned in. In the weeks that followed, the survivors found themselves horribly sickened by the chemicals and toxic flows brought by the floodwaters.

Almost fifty years of hopelessness, rage, and despair have left their mark on the astral space in and around El Infierno. The massive toxic flows haven't helped. Add in the horrible deaths of tens of thousands of people, and you've got a recipe for truly corrupted astral space. Budding attempts at rehabilitating the area have been derailed by the ongoing strings of tragedies, and many corporations are leery of rebuilding in such a contaminated astral area.

Horizon, however, has finished seawalls, drained the water in a large section, and quickly constructed a large, enclosed facility on the site. What they were doing was pretty much a mystery until the recent announcement of their plans to open The Haven, a social reeducation facility, that will also include facilities to "rehabilitate magically and technologically awakened offenders."

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Lying along the coast and nearly at sea level for most of its expanse, the Westside remains underwater. Fortunately most Westsiders were able to flee the tsunami, and the inner enclave walls acted as temporary dykes. The area around UCLA fared particularly well through the nitial disaster and now is slowly building outwards with the help of Horizon.

Most of the residential and commercial areas that survived behind the now-reinforced walls have been subsumed into Studio City, the huge walled-off corporate enclave from which 80% of Hollywood's trideo and sim production flows. Horizon and Amalgamated Studios are the two biggest players in the biz, and are constantly at odds. the only reason sabotage of productions and sets doesn't get our of hand is a strange form of detente.

The Westside waterfront wallws in a shallow toxic stew picked over by scavengers and haunted by strange critters. Tousands of Westsiders lost their homes, and most now live in either the Fun City camps or the Riverside camps. Serious efforts are being made to clean up and rebuild, with dozens of corps throwing up seawals and claiming sections. It's created a hodge-podge of enclosed corporate zones, separated bu shallow waters with little or no cooperation or planning between them. Floating construction sites move from seawall to seawall and water buses haul construction workers to the sites. Floating roads (supposedly temporary) link dry areas, creating a tangle web of plasticrete lines between corp enclosures. Horizon has been sponsoring much of the rebuiling, and Wuxing follows behind at a close second. Saeder-Krupp is also investing in the area, although the corp is wary of actually rebuilding in such a disaster-prone area, they're subcontracting and have a lock on the heaby construction industry right now. A smaller corp, a privately held construction and real estate firm called Ciara Holdings, has been gobbling up land in the West side.

Industrial sabotage and claim-grabbing is at an all time high for the LA construction industry.

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Long Beach experienced a similar fate to the coastal Westside, but, due to the importance of the airport, it has been quicker to recover. The strategic value of Long Beach's airport and the fact that it was one of the few functioning airports in the area after LAX was leveled led to the city and the corps protecting Long Beach. After the quake that destroyed LAX, the port and air facilities at Long Beach were fortified to survive nearly anything. Even the flood barely interrupted the flow of commerce through Long Beach. I swear, new seawalls went up pretty much overnight around many of the outlying areas that were flooded.

Today, massive freeways rise up over the seawall, like white tentacles stretching out toward the core of the city. It's an eerie sight when you come by road, traveling over the stretch of murky water, rising up over the heavily-armed seawall, then dropping down into a bustling port filled with industrial port complexes, steel high-rises, and the constant roar of air traffic.

As in other parts of town, Horizon has discreetly been buying up and laying claim to parts of Long Beach, and it runs the local network. The Pueblo aren't at all happy with this state of affairs, and officials practically foam at the mouth when they have to negotiate permission to use the port. After all, having access to the Pacific was one of the major reasons Pueblo agreed to help out LA. Having to beg, hat in hand, for that access from the very people they rescued... yeah, that's not sitting well at all.

One suprisingly popular spot at the moment is the Drowning Narcissus nightclub in Long Island. Build on two top floors of a highrise that sunk into one of the smaller sinkholes, it stands only five stories from the dangerous waters but in considered stable. It's been refurbished to a tropical theme and the lower floors sealed off, its relative inaccessibility (you can only get to it by boat) making it all the more popular with the in-crowd.

The Harbor remains the primary economic artery into and out of LA. If anything, its importance has increased in the months following the quake and flood. Air traffic just can't handle the tonnage, and ground traffic is almost impossible in large areas of the city. Consequently, the first area to be rebuilt has been the Harbor, with gleaming new buildings and partially submerged arcoblacks rising up from among the ruins.

Several main roads have been transformed into canals, and stretches of heavily reinforced freeways and bridges tower above it all, connecting the Harbor to Long Beach and LA Center. Floating walkways and bridges connect busy corporate centers and air traffic darts about, shuttling VIPs to and from the Inland Empire and Arcology Mile. The Harbor has also received a fair amount of security upgrades since the only land routes into and out of it go through the reconstruction areas. Knight Errant is based out of the Harbor and provides much of the security for private corps who feel that the PCC's Security services are too focused on the mainland. MCT and Shiwase Biotech also have massive presences in the Harbor, and the latter has coordinated a highly publicized water cleanup effort out of their huge corporate complex.

South Bay also provides access to Santa Catalina Island, an exclusive Horizon resort and retreat. The island is heavily secured to ensure that the employees aren't disturbed during their "creative brainstorming." Cline himself keeps a house there and considers it his favorite weekend getaway.

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