Table of Contents
Turn of the Millennium
Towards the end of the 20th century, two forces were at work in the Seattle area. The first was the growing high-tech industry; Seattle had long been home to industry, but mechanics, engineering, and building. In the last decades of the 1900s, it added computers, software, and telecommunications, becoming one of the centers of digital development on the west coast of North America (the other being Silicon Valley in California). This gave Seattle a considerable corporate presence leading to the expanding power of the multinational corporations in the final years of the century.
The other major force in the region was Seattle’s long history as a center for labor and worker’s rights, which came into conflict with the rise of corporate power and influence. The last years of the 20th century saw a variety of protests and demonstrations against growing corporate power, the very same corporations that provided much of the region’s economic prosperity and growth. The violent outcome of some of these protests contributed to local and national court rulings like the Shiawase Decision of 1999, which allowed multinational corporate entities to defend their own interests, property, and personnel against outside threats. The labor movements also incorporated various other social agendas, particularly environmental groups and the burgeoning Sovereign American Indian Movement (SAIM).
The Awakening
In 2010, in response to the Lone Eagle incident and an attack by SAIM terrorists, the U.S. Federal government seized Native American reservations and forced the inhabitants into “re-education centers” including some in the Pacific Northwest.
At the same time, the deadly Virally-Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome (VITAS) plague killed nearly a quarter of the world’s population, while the Pacific Northwest was heading for a calamity uniquely its own. On January 13, 2011, a massive earthquake rocked the Olympic Peninsula. Among the toppled buildings were those of the main Indian re-education centers. Mass breakouts occurred, with thousands of Native Americans fleeing into the nearby mountain ranges. Under the leadership of Thunder Tyee, a Salish chief and close friend of Daniel Howling Coyote, members of the Salish, Makah, Crow, and Haida tribes began to wage a guerrilla war against the United States government.
On December 24, 2011, passengers on a Japanese bullet train speeding past Mount Fuji took the first pictures of the great dragon Ryumyo. Not long after, the first reported births of “mutant” children worldwide marked the appearance of the first elves and dwarfs. The sudden emergence of magic and the first metahumans heightened the climate of fear among the general population. They turned on anyone who was different, and racial and political incidents soon escalated into violence.
The Ghost Dance War
Fighting between Native Americans and the United States government continued for six years. Gradually, the Salish War Council (a confederation of Native American tribes and shamans) won the upper hand. Aided by the power of magic and a growing Anglo sympathy movement, the guerrilla war changed to a military offensive on all fronts. In 2015, Salish forces, led by Thunder Tyee, captured the Trident submarine base at Bangor. Two months later, they captured the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard at Bremerton. Across the Sound, Council forces were poised for a final showdown as their now superior forces surrounded McChord Air Force Base and Fort Lewis.
Then Mother Nature played her part. On August 17, 2017, at precisely 10:32, Pacific Time, Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier, and Mount Adams all erupted simultaneously. Even skeptics of the supernatural could not ignore that the event occurred at the precise moment Daniel Howling Coyote led his followers in the ritual of the Great Ghost Dance. Throughout the Pacific Northwest, thousands of tons of ash, smoke, and burning rocks instantly turned day into night. Panic erupted in the streets, and the entire social structure tottered on the verge of collapse.
Urged by U.S. President William Jarman, the governments of the United States, Canada, and Mexico agreed to negotiate with the Native forces. In April 2018, both sides signed the Treaty of Denver, giving full recognition to the sovereignty of the new Native American Nations and ceding most of western North America to them. Only California and the western cities of Seattle, Everett, Tacoma, and Denver remained under U.S. control.
A commonly asked question by kids who did not live through the (literally) earth-shattering events of the Ghost Dance War is “Why?” With all their power, including their vast army and arsenal, why would the United States, much less the three major North American powers at the time, surrender to a rag-tag force of Native American terrorists and hand over nearly half their territory to them, and why would the people there agree to it?
To understand the reasons, you have to try and imagine a world where magic was not a daily reality, but a sheer impossibility. What Howling Coyote and the Ghost Dancers did was considered flat-out impossible (and note that magical theorists today still don’t know exactly how they pulled it off), and yet, they did it. The governments—already battered by VITAS and crippling economic troubles—were faced with having to fight Nature itself, and their massive strategic weapons were all but useless. They couldn’t nuke a force too small to pinpoint, couldn’t risk the kind of casualties or collateral damage that would cause. Add the fact that the rebels held at least one Trident submarine base (and its arsenal), public sympathies for the Native cause, and the unknown degree of what else the Ghost Dancers could bring to bear, and they had little choice.
The Influx of 2019
With the signing of the Treaty of Denver, thousands of U.S. citizens living in what was now NAN territory had to give up all rights to land ownership and move back within the new U.S. borders or remain on Native American land as minority citizens. The Sovereign Tribal Council passed a resolution outlawing reprisals against people who chose to stay, and made citizenship available to anyone who could prove any Native American ancestry, and was willing to follow tribal laws and customs. But the Council did not deny plans to relocate non-Natives onto reservations. So a flood of refugees poured out of the new Tribal lands, many of them to Seattle.
The eastern United States and California had enough resources to cope (barely) with the sudden influx of displaced people, but Seattle and its neighboring cities did not. More than a quarter-million refugees arrived in the Seattle area in 2019. Pictures of the highways, backed up for kilometers with gridlocked traffic for days on end, spread across the media. Refugee camps filled any and all available space. Before long, Seattle was fighting with Tacoma, Everett, and the smaller suburban cities over every scrap of aid. The Federal government, meanwhile, had its hands full with a nationwide economic crisis.
Birth of the Metroplex
Charles C. Lindstrom, elected mayor of Seattle in 2018, was a man with a penchant for fiery speeches and daring action. His greatest wish was to make “The Emerald City” the economic capitol of the West Coast by annexing the small towns surrounding it. Critics dubbed him “Lindstrom the Conqueror,” and watched gleefully as every unification attempt for his “metropolitan complex” initiative failed miserably. After the Treaty of Denver and the onslaught of refugees coming into the region, many began to reconsider Mayor Lindstrom’s radical new ideas. With suburban infrastructure too weak to handle the problem, it seemed only logical to band together. So in 2019, Belleveue, Renton, and Kent voted overwhelmingly to become part of greater Seattle. By summer’s end, Seattle grew to include all of King County and most of neighboring Pierce and Snohomish Counties as well.
Refugees still continued to pour into the area, swelling the population so dramatically that the mayors of Everett and Tacoma realized their cities had no hope of remaining independent. On September 6, 2019, the citizens of Everett and Tacoma also voted overwhelmingly in favor of joining with Seattle.
The Seattle city government now controlled all of the land the Native American Nations had ceded to the U.S. government in the Pacific Northwest. On November 16, 2020, U.S. President William Jarman signed a resolution officially dissolving the state of Washington and recognizing the creation of the Seattle Metroplex, with Charles C. Lindstrom as its first governor.
Goblinization Day
The new metroplex government faced its first crisis on April 30, 2021, when one out of every ten people began transforming into what later came to be known as orks and trolls. Having emerged ten years earlier, elf and dwarf children had gained some measure of acceptance, but lost it with the emergence of these new “goblins.” Many humans felt threatened by these new races, with their twisted appearance and their behavior often violent and unpredictable because of the terrible pain of their transformation.
Acting on rumors that the transformation might be contagious, Governor Lindstrom ordered the Metroplex Guard to round up all metahumans and their families and detain them in the camps once used to hold Native Americans. By the end of the year, however, scientists proved goblinization—the name the popular media gave the transformation—was not contagious. In August of 2022, fifteen months after Goblinization Day, Lindstrom ordered all metahumans released from quarantine, and spoke of a united people living together in peace. But it was not to be.
Race riots erupted all over the metroplex in late 2022, with Seattle’s harried police force bearing the brunt of both sides’ anger. In February 2023, the Seattle Police Department (SPD) went on strike to protest the government’s lack of support for their needs and inaction regarding the crisis. A furious Governor Lindstrom declared the strike illegal and summarily fired all members of the SPD.
The governor then hired Lone Star Security Services, a private corporation, to take over law enforcement in the metroplex. Officials at Lone Star promised to bring the city back under control and restore law and order. Members of the defunct SPD had no choice but to apply to work for Lone Star (losing their seniority in the process) or hire on with one of the many other private security firms in the metroplex.
Lone Star did bring some semblance of law and order to the streets, but it was a second wave of VITAS that truly forced Seattleites—and people everywhere—to put aside their differences, as the disease claimed easily as many lives as goblinization touched. All major religions denounced racism as a hateful and ignorant thing of the past and only the hard-core elements on both sides of the racial divide continued to fan the flames of conflict to keep them alive.
Governor Lindstrom retired in 2028. Media personality Charles S. Kross replaced him, continuing most of his predecessor’s policies. A few months into Governor Kross’s first term, a mysterious computer virus all but destroyed the global telecommunications network in what has become known as the Crash of ‘29. Government deckers finally isolated and destroyed the Crash Virus, but not before much of Seattle’s economic infrastructure was wiped out. The chain reaction to local businesses was swift and devastating. Companies and corporations collapsed by the hundreds, and local economies began to plunge into a terrible depression. The high-tech Redmond district was particularly hard-hit and never recovered from the Crash.
The Night of Rage
Governor Kross retired in 2036, succeeded by Victor Allenson, known as “Vic the Quick,” a former combat biker for the Tacoma Timberwolves. During the election campaign, he made clear his low opinion of metahumans and rode a wave of “human conservatism” into office. In one of his first trideo interviews, Governor Allenson said, “Orks and trolls make great offensive combat bikers, but they haven’t got the brains for much else.” Allenson’s election sparked riots in parts of Seattle with a high metahuman population, leading to crackdowns from Lone Star on the governor’s orders, which led to further incidents of violence and racially-motivated terrorism on both sides, fueling the cycle.
The night of February 7, 2039, the Seattle Metroplex Guard—under orders from Governor Allenson—rounded up all metahumans in Seattle and transported them under armed guard to a series of warehouses along the waterfront. They were told that this was the final processing site before they were sent to deportation camps in San Francisco—part of the governor’s plan for “improved racial harmony” in the metroplex.
Exactly what happened next remains unclear. With the majority of the city’s metahumans herded into these cavernous buildings, anger and fear became hysteria. From one of the buildings came a series of screams. Then sounds of gunfire. Explosions. Panic swept the scene. A series of explosions went off, and flames erupted through the old warehouses. The death toll was staggering, even though many metahumans escaped through the sewer system. The violence triggered other similar incidents throughout the metroplex, and in the days to come, throughout the world, becoming known as “the Night of Rage.”
News of the holocaust stunned and appalled the public, provoking a massive outcry against Governor Allenson and demands for an investigation. Mobs of protestors gathered in front of police stations and government buildings, calling for the resignation of every Metroplex Guardsman who had stood by and refused to act while so many perished. The media used every opportunity to show disapproval of the governor’s administration. Rumors surfaced that Governor Allenson was actually a member of the Hands of Five, a humanist policlub.
Local politicians, with heavy prodding from the United Corporate Council, demanded that the governor resign. Allenson refused, denying any wrongdoing. On February 11th, he was found shot to death in his office. The mystery surrounding his death has never been resolved.
Marilyn Schultz, mayor of Bellevue, won the special election to choose Governor Allenson’s successor by a surprisingly large margin. What apparently clinched her nomination were reports that she had been one of the first city officials to appeal to the UCC for help during the Night of Rage.
The new governor immediately gave Lone Star an ultimatum: arrest the leaders of the Hands of Five or face a breach of contract lawsuit for their criminal refusal to stop a crime in progress during the Night of Rage. Lone Star turned out in force to hunt down the terrorists. The next seven days became known as the “Week of Sirens” because of the countless raids conducted by Lone Star forces. Within a few days, the Hands of Five leaders were all either dead or behind bars.
Election 2057
Despite low poll results, UCAS President James Booth won the election of 2056 by a landslide. Then it was revealed the “remote vote” system had been compromised and the election results were fraudulent. The election was declared null and void and Speaker of the House Betty-Jo Pritchard was appointed pro-tem President while Congress conducted an investigation and a special election was scheduled for August of 2057.
The election scandal polarized the already agitated UCAS political spectrum and brought many new candidates out to compete for the office of President. The most surprising was the great dragon Dunkelzahn, who declared his candidacy on an episode of his semiregular talk show “Wyrm Talk.”
Seattle’s own candidate was one of the forerunners in the race. Kenneth Brackhaven, a prominent local businessman, ran on a platform of “traditional values.” Even when it was revealed in the media that the actual son of Charles Brackhaven had perished after Goblinization Day and was replaced by an impostor, Brackhaven’s campaign barely faltered. A tearful televised confession by the candidate embracing his true past sent his approval ratings soaring.
The campaign was further shook when Republican candidate Franklin Yates was murdered in a Seattle hotel room by an insect spirit possessing an FBI agent. The killing increased public concern over the crisis in Chicago and the infiltration of insect spirits. Yates’ running mate Anne Penchyk chose to run in her friend’s place and made a valiant, but ultimately futile, showing in the polls.
In August, the great dragon Dunkelzahn was elected President of the UCAS. The dragon was sworn in and just as quickly perished when his limousine was destroyed in an explosion outside the Watergate hotel on Inauguration Night. The media reported the news to a stunned nation that the fantastic being they had invested their hopes and dreams in was no more. Vice President Kyle Haeffner was quickly sworn in as President.
The death of President Dunkelzahn triggered riots across the nation, including Seattle. The UCAS government declared martial law and moved in military forces, aided by corporate security forces, to reestablish order. In Seattle, the Metroplex Guard was mobilized to quell the riots throughout the metroplex, aided by additional forces from the regular UCAS military. President Haeffner and new Vice President Nadja Daviar calmed an angered nation by promising to carry on Dunkelzahn’s dreams for a peaceful and prosperous UCAS.
The Renraku Shutdown
In 2059, Renraku scored a minor public relations coup in the corporate conflict that turned into a nightmare for the corp. The Renraku Arcology Project in Seattle, a vast-money pit for years, was finally completed. The corp made a major media event out of the official unveiling of the ambitious project.
A few weeks after the completion ceremonies, the arcology went into complete lockdown. The designers created it to be able to exist independent of the rest of the metroplex. The arcology was built to grow its own food, process its own waste, generate its own power and provide for the daily needs of its nearly 100,000 inhabitants. One morning, the arcology’s systems severed all connections with the outside world, blast doors closed off all entrances and exits, and the Renraku intranet and host went offline. Magical wards sprang up around the outside of the building and no one was able to get in or out. Over 100,000 were sealed inside the arcology, among them was Governor Schultz herself, who was meeting with Renraku Seattle President Sherman Huang at the time.
The shutdown initially elicited confusion and frustration. Friends, family, and businesses wanted to know what the problem was and why so many people were inconvenienced or couldn’t be reached. Renraku stonewalled for as long as they could but within hours it became clear they had no idea what was going on, and even they had lost contact with everyone inside the arcology. The place had been hijacked, taken over by an unknown force. That’s when the media and the public interest exploded.
As Mayor of Downtown Seattle, Ivar Lindstrom called on emergency powers to mobilize the Metroplex Guard. They surrounded the arcology and began looking for a way inside as Renraku mobilized their own troops to “assist” in the operation. Mayor Lindstrom refused Renraku’s offers of aid and made it clear no corporate troops were to land in Seattle. Renraku protested, and tensions rose as everyone waited to see what the megacorporation would do. Renraku finally agreed to limit their personnel to technical, support, and “advisory” roles to aid Seattle forces in rescue operations.
The Guard could not find a way into the arcology. All the building’s main systems, built to withstand a small-scale nuclear war, were on full alert, and automated defense systems forced them to keep their distance. All of the arcology’s passcodes and overrides were changed. There was simply no means to reach the people trapped inside, or even to communicate with them. Mayor Lindstrom and the United Corporate Council declared the arcology off-limits and the Metroplex Guard set up a cordon around it while experts worked on penetrating the building’s security measures. The media set up camp outside, and coverage of the Renraku Lockdown appeared daily on all the major newsnets.
The Lindstrom Administration
With the loss of Governor Schultz, an emergency election was scheduled to choose a new governor for the metroplex. All of the district mayors were eligible, and it came as no great surprise when the people of Seattle rallied around Ivar Lindstrom, mayor of Downtown Seattle and the son of Governor Charles Lindstrom, seen by many as “the father of the Seattle Metroplex.” Considered the “hero of the hour” for his swift action concerning the arcology shutdown, Governor Lindstrom was sworn in immediately and promised to the people of the metroplex to do everything in his power to ensure the safety of the people trapped within the arcology and to protect the security and prosperity of the Seattle Metroplex.
Governor Lindstrom had his work cut out for him, however. It took nearly two years for UCAS military forces, under the command of Joint Task Force Seattle, to reclaim the arcology from the rogue artificial intelligence that seized control of it, with considerable loss of life. No sooner had the arcology project been declared complete, then the Lindstrom administration, the metroplex, and the world, faced a new challenge.
Return of the Comet
The return of Halley’s Comet in 2061 coincided with a series of Awakened events around the world, perhaps the most significant of which was dubbed Sudden Unexplained Recessive Genetic Expression (SURGE). A small percentage of the population underwent physical transformations into what the media called “changelings.” The winds of change fanned the embers of racial resentment, with violence errupting in communities around the world. In Seattle, many feared a repeat of the Night of Rage. Fortunately, the presence of the UCAS military Joint Task Force and increased vigilance on the part of Lone Star and the Metroplex Guard helped to contain any outbreaks of violence.
Crash 2.0
With the Matrix its lifeline to the rest of the UCAS, Seattle was hard hit by Crash 2.0 in 2063. The catastrophic collapse of computer networks in the metroplex brought down GridGuide’s traffic management systems, air-traffic control systems, and resulted in the loss of considerable amount of data. The Lindstrom Administration declared martial law and activated the Metroplex Guard to assist Lone Star and Joint Task Force Seattle in maintaining order over a panicked and largely cut-off populace. Fortunately, the Crash’s effects were felt everywhere, so no one was able to exploit the staggering vulnerabilities created by the loss of the metroplex’s early-warning systems and patrol drones.
In cooperation with NeoNET, Seattle became the ideal test-bed for the Wireless Matrix Initiative. Governor Lindrstrom announced the replacement network would be brought online in only a matter of months, and, in spite of some initial bumps in the launch, the initiative proved a complete success. Seattle embraced the promise of Matrix 2.0 like nowhere else, and served as an example to the rest of the world of the potential of the WMI, making it the global standard for reconstruction following the Crash.
Election 2070
One of the many aftereffects of Crash 2.0 was AIPS (Artifically Induced Psychotropic Schizophrenia Syndrome) attributed to the trauma many suffered while jacked-in to a collapsing virtual reality. Traumatized victims of the Crash led to numerous stories about strange phenomena related to the Matrix: sightings of electronic and virtual “ghosts,” unexplained malfunctions, and claims of people with supernatural powers over machines and virtual reality. We now know some of these claims can be traced back to the emergence of technomancers among the general population, their latent abilities unlocked by the destruction and subsequent recreation of the Matrix.
AIPS played a role in Seattle’s recent gubernatorial election, when candidate Josephine Dzhugashvili was forced to withdraw from the race after rumors surfaced of her suffering from AIPS following a dumpshock-induced stroke in 2064. This cleared the way for Seattle businessman (and former Archconservative UCAS presidential candidate) Kenneth Brackhaven to attain the governor’s office, running on the Republican Party ticket.
In his inaugural address, Governor Brackhaven called upon the citizens of Seattle “to bravely face the challenges awaiting us and the first generation that will see the dawn of the 22nd century, and make the Emerald City into a shining beacon of hope and opportunity in the world.”
“… just so long as you have round ears.” Brackhaven’s election, given his ties with the Humanis Policlub and other radical pro-human groups, truly stunned the metahuman and Awakened communities of Seattle in a “it could never happen here” kind of way. Although it hasn’t materialized (yet) people are still talking about a replay of Vic the Quick’s administration and the lead-up to the Night of Rage, and say it is only a matter of time before Brackhaven and his cronies concoct some excuse for rounding up metahumans and putting them in camps (or burning warehouses, for that matter) “for the public good”.