Timeline / Shadowrun

The Fifth World

Before 1990

1810

• First known reference to Luther von Hayek, the elven nosferatu.

1855

• Allan Pinkerton founds private security company Pinkerton

1890

• Thais, the son of the immortal elf Aina and Ysrthgrathe, inspires the Paiute Wovoka to create the Ghost Dance Movement.

1960-1990

• Sean Laverty, an Immortal Elf and Spike Baby, is born sometime around this point.

1979

• December 11: Liam O'Connor, an Immortal Elf and Spike Baby, is born.

1980

• September 22: Iran declares war on Iraq.
• November 4: Ronald Reagan defeats incumbent Jimmy Carter in the U.S. presidential election
• December 8: John Lennon is shot and killed by Mark David Chapman.

1982

• December 2: The first permanent Jarvik-7 Artificial Heart is implanted, believed by some to be one of the first cyberware implants.

1986

• Chief Justice Warren E. Burger considers stepping down from the Supreme Court of the United States, but decides against it.

1987

• March 4: Due to the Iran-Contra affair, President Ronald Reagan fires several high-ranking members of his government to calm Congress. This includes his Vice President George H.W. Bush, who is replaced by James Baker III.

1988

• August 20: The Iran-Iraq War ends in a stalemate.
• November 4: Michael Dukakis defeats James Baker III and becomes President of the United States.

1989

• Peaceful revolutions against communism take place throughout the world, particularly East Germany.
• The Japanese economic bubble begins bursting.
• Emori Shiawase takes control of the struggling Shiawase Corporation, transforming it into an international economic competitor.

1990- 1999

1990

• Civil unrest intensifies worldwide. In response to the seemingly indifferent or incompetent governments, corporations begin to take matters into their own hands. Beginning with third world holdings, corporations arm their security personnel with the finest military equipment available. Professional mercenaries are hired on both short and long-term contracts. These new paramilitary assets are transferred to anywhere that civil violence threatens corporate holdings.
• October 3: The Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic are reunited, with Berlin becoming the federal capital. Corruption reigns in West Berlin, while East Berlin remains run down. There is still war damage in both halves of the city, which is also affected by the dismantling and exodus of industry.

1991

• Daniel Coleman is born on a Ute Reservation in Nevada.
• In Hessen, Germany, a coalition consisting of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Green Party gain control of the state Landtag. They begin to try and curb unfair business dealings and control environmental destruction.

1992

• November 4:: Jeffry Lynch defeats incumbent Michael Dukakis and becomes President of the United States.

1993

• January 20: During his inaugural address, he refers to his landslide victory "as a mandate to cure the ills of the nation and bring a new vitality to America.”

1994

• In the USA, Chief Justice Burger of the US Supreme Court retires for health reasons. He is succeeded by Terence Ordell, an outspoken conservative law professor from the East Coast.
• In Germany, a record heatwave sends temperatures up to 86-104 degrees F.

1996

• In Quebec, separatist advocates are finally elected into government positions.
• In the U.S. a wave of deregulation begins, touted by the slogan “Invest in America, Inc.” The Postal Service, Weather Service, Forest Service, Amtrak, and a half-dozen other public services are privatized and sold off. This altered relationship between the U. S. and big business ends the necessity for the various regulatory agencies.

1997

• The Shiawase Corporation opens an aluminum production factory in California, which strains the regional utility grid. Electricity prices experience a 550% rise over the next six months.
• July 1: Hong Kong reverts back to the People's Republic of China. Most Hong Kongers know that the Chinese state's reticence is just for show, as Hong Kong's standard of living is significantly higher than the rest of China. A resistance forms that demands an independent and free Hong Kong. At the top is Wuxing Incorporated's CEO, Wu Kuan-Lei

1998

• In the USA, the defense budget has been cut by almost 40%, with even bigger cuts in procurement and R&D for new weapons systems. Many companies see their defense contracts dry up, while predicted increases in peacetime markets failed to materialize. Congress concentrates on reducing a huge deficit, which also results in trimming or eliminating many social service programs as well.
• The Shiawase Corporation approaches the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and demands the right to set up a nuclear plant for their aluminum plant. This would make the Shiawase Corporation independent of the regional utility grid, saving it untold millions. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission refuses Shiawase's request. As a result, Shiawase takes the case to the Supreme Court
• Maria Cineball, an Elven Spike Baby, is born.
• The Perfluoro-4-methyl-octahydroquinalidine (P4MO) artificial blood replacement is created.
• September 14: In Hamburg , Germany, the Environment Minister Angela Merkel announces the breakthrough of the previously unknown institute for research into regenerative energies in the field of solar energy research.
• September 15: The 10-year ban on publication of the "Institute for Heavy Ion Research" at the University of Karlsruhe ends and a breakthrough in nuclear fusion is announced.
• September 17: The Ruhr uprising occurs. In order to save Ruhrkohle AG (RAG), whose demise is threatened as a result of the obsolescence of hard coal mining, it's decided that 25,500 jobs will be cut and RAG will be taken over by a consortium of steel companies. The enraged trade unions call for a general strike in the Ruhr area.
• September 18: Due to the strike, nearly all factories in the Ruhr area have been shut down.
• September 19: By the night of the 19th, negotiations with factory leaders have proven fruitless and the general strike in the Ruhr area spreads to other companies. The state government of North Rhine-Westphalia resigns.
• September 20: The provisional state government of North Rhine-Westphalia declares a state of emergency.
• September 21: As strikes and demonstrations continue in North Rhine-Westphalia, the provisional state government calls on the Bundeswehr for help. Three days of fighting follow, after which the entire Ruhr area descends into a three-day civil war that lays waste to much of the infrastructure, including the steel works and the Opel plant in Bochum
  • The collapse of the coal and steel industry in the Ruhr area drags the Austrian economy into the abyss. In the Alpine Republic, there is an unprecedented wave of bankruptcies, resulting in mass unemployment and ongoing unrest.
• September 27: The left-leaning SPD loses the federal election. A decisive factor was the depiction of the Ruhr uprising as a "violent and rampaging left-wing mob". Wolfgang Schäuble from the Christian Democratic Union is elected as Federal Chancellor. Shortly thereafter, he enacts a law that gives corporate security officers far-reaching powers.
• September 30: The collieries and underground mining tunnels in the Ruhr area are occupied by entrenched insurgents, and a storm is avoided, since the so-called " mine rescue service" could blow up half the Ruhr area with strategically placed explosive devices (and also demonstrate this at the Essen town hall).
• December: As international tensions decrease, domestic unrest in the United States increases dramatically. The unemployment rate climbs to 50% in some regions as overloaded welfare services began to break down all over the country. Widespread teamster strike occur, leading to food riots in many cities. In New York, many of these continue into the next year.

1999

• January 8: Members of the Truckers Union (Teamster Union) reject a final government offer of a contract and begin their strike. In the wake of the work stoppage, New York City experiences a severe food shortage.
• February 2: In the wake of the completion of a natural gas pipeline, the Dene tribe of northwestern Canada is forced off their lands after years of simmering conflict. After the tribe submitted an application to the Canadian government for claiming the lands, it went unprocessed for a long time. The Dene had taken this inactivity as approval of their presence before the government revoked it. The area was then fed into further economic exploitation
• April 12: In New York City, a Seretech medical research division truck is attacked by a hungry mob after mistaking it for a food delivery. A fight ensues during the ensuing uprising, resulting in the deaths of twenty Seretech employees and two hundred civilians.
• May 6: As the food riots in New York subside, Seretech is indicted by the state and federal government. The allegation is criminal negligence in connection with the actions of the Seretech security forces.
• October 25: East Timor receives independence from Indonesia.
• October 26 In the landmark 193-page Seretech Ruling, the US Supreme Court considers it necessary to defend the Seretech truck convoy, which was carrying hazardous medical waste, by force of arms and underlines that, while hundreds of deaths were caused, Seretech saved thousands of lives by the violent termination of the conflict. The United States v. Seretech Corporation case establishes that corporations have a right to maintain their own army.

2000- 2010

2000

• January 1: In Michigan, a new species of ferret is identified. The radio station KSAF reports about it, naming it the Century Ferret. This proves to be the first Awakened Species, emerging similarly to Spike Babies.
  • The Panama Canal reverts from American to Panamanian control.
• May 26: In Austria, a succession of bankruptcies and bad central management causes a massive downward spiral in the economy. As a result, the federal president dissolves the parliament and hands their power over to the Stahlmänner, a council of the nation's three best corporate economists that is devoted to restoring the economy.
• July 10: In the process Nuclear Regulatory Commission v. Shiawase Corporation, the US Supreme Court rules in favor of the Japanese company. Immediately after the court decision, construction of a private nuclear reactor begins at the company's aluminum factory.
• November 7: Presidential candidate Martin Hunt is elected President of the United States on the theme of "Less Government, More Liberty."
• November 8: Shiawase Corporation's nuclear reactor goes online, making the corporation independent of the public power grid.
• Late November: Within weeks of going operational, the Shiawase reactor is attacked by a special assault team sent by the radical eco-terrorist group TerraFirst! Armed with military weapons, the group penetrates the plant's security perimeter and clashes with Shiawase security forces. The Shiawase security team kills every member of the TerraFirst! team. They discover that the terrorists carry enough explosives to crack open the containment building and reactor vessel spreading nuclear material throughout the surrounding area.
• December 14: The NRC re-indicts the Shiawase Corporation on the grounds that the attack by TerraFirst! members proves that Shiawase cannot adequately protect the reactor. Shiawase, on the other hand, complains that American law restricts the powers of the security forces too much.

2001

• January 4-18: Tensions between the southern states of Mexico continue to rise. Within two weeks, the governors of the states of Chiapa, Campeche and Quintana Roo are all assassinated. The governor of the Distrito Federal barely escapes death when his car explodes outside his office, moments after leaving the vehicle. Two of the three assassins are later captured judged to have been working alone.
• February 14: Due to the precedent set by the Supreme Court in United States v. Seretech Corporation, the Shiawase Decision rules in favor of the Shiawase Corporation. This ruling firmly establishes the extraterritoriality of multinational corporations in international law by giving them the same rights and privileges as foreign governments. Other governments follow similar judgements.
• February 20: The government of France does not recognize Shiawase Corporation's extraterritoriality. Hoping to be at the forefront of a counter-movement to growing corporate power, France soon realizes that it is alone in fighting windmills.
• March: Heavy pollution hits Europe. The former landfills of East Germany pollute the environment with all kinds of toxins and contaminate the groundwater. This forces the government to evacuate and seal off large portions of the eastern Lander.
• Late March-May: A few weeks after the initial German ecological evacuations, the Baltic Sea becomes so poisoned with caustic chemical sludge that the surrounding communities can no longer survive.
• July 20: Private security forces open fire on anti-corporate protesters during the G8 summit in Genoa, killing 12 of them. The shooting has been described by the pro-corporate Italian media as a "safeguard against acts of terrorism", forcing protesters to reconsider their previous tactics in the face of corporate crackdown.
• August 15: The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the artificial blood substitute P4MO for medical use.
• August-October: NASA's Mars mission , robotic probes photograph large parts of the Martian surface. Among the images are shots of gigantic, pyramid-like structures and the skeleton of a large, unidentifiable creature. These images are kept secret from the public. NASA, led by the US Department of Defense, begins preparations for a secret manned mission to Mars.

2002

• January 21: The beginning of the Resource Rush. The now-extraterritorial corporations demand and receive from rights from the U.S. government for mining, oil exploration and logging on land that that was previously protected as Indian reservations or national parks. The millions of acres are handed over by President Martin Hunt with little resistance.
• April 5: The more extreme groups of American Indians suffering from US government abuses gather in Denver and form the Sovereign American Indian Movement (SAIM).
• June 14: General Motors board member Nicholas Aurelius merges GM and a number of smaller companies into Detroit - based Ares Industries. President Martin Hunt immediately grants Ares extraterritoriality and Ares becomes the largest corporation in the world.
• July 8: The ecologies of both the Baltic and North Seas collapse from the toxic broth of chemical sludge seeping out from surrounding nations. Unable to resolve the ecological disaster, hundreds of thousands of people are relocated in land as governments try to address these troubled areas.
• June 16: In the wake of these ecological catastrophes, a coalition of SPD and Alliance 2000 achieve a majority in the Bundestag elections in the Federal Republic of Germany. The new government promises a different course, promoting more environmental protection and other measures to prevent further disasters. Corporations react negatively to this development.
• November 19: Due to climate change and the associated rise in water levels, a massive storm surge occurs in Germany. Large parts of Hamburg, East and West Friesland are flooded by the oily, toxic broth of the North Sea and remain contaminated for some time. The Brunsbüttel and Brokdorf nuclear power plants on the Lower Elbe and the Unterweser nuclear power plant on the Weser are shut down at the last moment and reactor catastrophes are prevented. The storm surge claims around 4,800 lives in Hamburg alone.

2003

• March 24: In the UK, BAE Systems unveils the "Ghost", the first suborbital aircraft co-developed with the Japanese Aerospace Corporation . The Ghost is capable of flying from London to Boston in 76 minutes and from London to Tokyo in a few hours. Just a few weeks after the introduction, the orders from the corporations lead to waiting times of several years.
• May 13: Biotech first rises to fame in the form of the GloFish. Originally developed to check for water pollution, the fish, which glows red under a black light, is soon found in aquariums across the North American continent.
• July 8: The Washington, D.C. City Council is dissolved by the US government and the city is placed under federal government control. Widespread corruption has left the city heavily indebted and the ailing infrastructure means that nobody believes that the government is working for the common good. Congress repeals the city's self-government granted by the 1973 District of Columbia Home Rule Act.

2004

• April 26: U.S. news channels across the country report President Martin Hunt regularly paid Mexican President Miguel Ávila to allow certain corporations to continue their resource frenzy south of the border. Hunt’s laissez-faire governing style had left him with a middling approval rating at best, and the ongoing stories about the payments, while never confirmed (and dismissed as agitprop in some quarters) push his approval ratings lower.
• June: Due to the North Sea storm surge of 2002 , the last German nuclear power plants are shut down. Several minor leaks and the release of radioactive material occur in the Biblis reactor. Corporations initially cite this as evidence that the shutdown should be done more slowly, or not at all. Shortly thereafter, a meltdown in Dungeness, in Kent, England, leads to the so-called Dungeness disaster, when a partial meltdown kills 6,000 people and irradiates a large section of Kent. This event silences corporate criticism and Europeans are becoming more receptive to environmental protection laws.
• In Austria, economic and ecological disasters lead to weeklong riots. In southern Vienna, the homeless and unemployed riot for weeks. The Stahlmäanner declare some of the districts of Simmering and Liesing off-limits and all of their inhabitants as criminals. A wall is built to contain the zones with armed forces stationed around it. No one is allowed to leave, although supplies are dropped inside on a weekly basis. The area becomes known as the Sondergefangenenhaus Wien Süd, or South Vienna Special Prison (SGHWS). The authorities begin sending other prisoners to the SGHWS instead of actual prisons.
• September 10: The Ten-Minute War occurs. Libya launches an unprovoked chemical attack on Israel, killing thousands. Israel retaliates with three nuclear missiles, which annihilate Libya's largest population centers, including Tripoli. Millions are killed outright, and millions more succumb to the fallout and radiation sickness. The UN intervenes and, as part of a humanitarian mission, evacuate the few survivors to Egypt, Central Africa and the Middle East. The State of Libya effectively ceases to exist.
• October 12: France finds support from Switzerland in its fight against corporate extraterritoriality. Switzerland is reviving its famous Rütli Oath,' which states that the general public should actively defend freedom, which is cited in in the fight against the growing power of corporations.
• November 2: Philip Bester defeats Martin Hunt in the election for President of the United States.

2005

• March 25: Contrary to his promises, Philip Bester continues the pro-corporate course of his predecessor, and does not reverse his political decisions. Government funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is cut, and shortly thereafter the public broadcasting system collapses. The private broadcasters quickly gather up its resources.
• May 13: In Eastern Europe, political and social tensions erupt when the dictatorship of Belarus attacks Poland, Ukraine and its other western neighbors. This conflict, which becomes known as the Border Wars, extends to Russia and the Baltic states, claiming 15,000 lives and displaces many more. As a result of the conflict, nations such as Germany and the Czech Republic are flooded with refugees.
  • In Germany, the Border Wars cause massive migration of refugees away from the fighting. This along with the turmoil within the Russian Republic and the migration from the contaminated North Sea causes massive economic and social turmoil. The cities of the south are unable to handle the massive population explosion.
  • In the Russian Republic, the Border Wars cause internal isolationist turmoil. This brings calls for secession from the other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), from Siberia, and from other semi-autonomous areas of Russia.
• Due to the crises of the past few years, Berlin's reconstruction is indefinitely suspended.
• June 13: The Bremen police go on a five-day strike following the murder of a police officer, during which the city descends into chaos and anarchy . Finally, the Bundeswehr - together with the BGS - ended the five-day unrest and violent riots in Bremen , which went down in city history as the "Bremer Fools' Days", with unprecedented effectiveness.
• August 12: At 7:20 AM, New York City is struck by a Magnitude 5.8 earthquake. 200,000 people are killed and $20 billion of damage are caused as nearly all major skyscrapers (aside from the Empire State Building) collapse. The United Nations relocate their headquarters to Geneva.
• September 2: South Korean President Dae-Jung Rhee is killed by a Communist assassin. Army Commander-in-Chief General Kyung Han Yoon takes power and declares war on North Korea, beginning the Second Korean War. Japan supports this in order to further its own corporate interests.
• September 19: The East Coast Stock Exchange formally moves to Boston, and the city starts to experience an economic boom after previously facing a crippling recession.
• An extra-territorial economic zone (EWZ) is set up in Zurich
• December 10: In West Africa, several small earthquakes strike the region. As a result, alluvial gold and diamond deposits are uncovered in the Black Volta River. Cote d’Ivoire president Karel Bettencourt tries to gain control of the new resources by seizing the entire river. Ghana’s president Duah Fosu, afraid of a full-scale invasion, asks the United Nations for aid while building an army of his own. Both governments declare states of emergency and restrict all foreign aid shipments to “high priority” citizens. Starvation becomes commonplace in both nations. For the next two years border skirmishes and coups average once a month in both countries.

2006

• April 10: In Japan, the government asserts its position as a world power by deploying the first of a fleet of solar-powered collection satellites to beam microwave energy to receptors on the Earth's surface. With this relatively cheap method of distributing power to isolated regions, Japan begins to make strong inroads into the Third World and Northern Territories.
• May 12: In the U.S., the first High Speed Civil Transport (HSCT), a plane design based on the Concorde, is flown. Though not as impressive as the Ghost, Boeing’s HSCT completes a successful test flight.
• June: Peace negotiations between Russia , the Baltic States, Ukraine and Poland , with the participation of German Foreign Minister Möllemann, end with the final end of the CIS , which has broken up into 19 smaller states, three of which still have nuclear weapons.
  • In Ghana, President Duah Fosu is assassinated. The assassins are never captured. Fosu is replaced by General Asubonteng Ekuman.
• In China, the provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan and Zhejiang form the Greater Canton Economic Development Council, to better deal with the increased foreign investment and the economic boom caused by

the Resource Rush.

• Most of the signatory nations of the Antarctica Treaty abandon it in favor of exploiting the land's natural resources.
• Austria leases the city of Linz to BMW for an indefinite period, allowing the city to receive much-needed financial resources.
• July 27: The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization announces the birth of a healthy Tasmanian tiger, cloned from a frozen DNA sample.
• November 17: In a last desperate move, North Korea attempts to strike Japan with nuclear weapons, but the warheads fail to detonate. The attack spurs Japan on to greater military efforts, which eventually culminates in the overthrow of the North Korean regime. The Second Korean War ends and the peninsula is reunited.
  • Japan changes its form of government to that of an empire and the country is renamed the Japanese Imperial State.

2007

• Spring: In West Africa, both the Indigenous Government Party in the Cote d’Ivoire and the Ghanaian Akan People’s Federation begin a two-year process of driving out the ruling dictators of their nations and removing themselves from both the United Nations and the international community after feeling abandoned by them. The withdrawal is met with general approval by residents of both nations. The two nations are placed under international trade embargoes and, as a result, turn to smuggling and criminal networks to support themselves.
• In the Canary Islands, Spain, an unknown party detonates several bombs releasing a variant form of smallpox. Hundreds die of the disease and the islands are quickly evacuated and quarantined.
• August 14: Medellin drug cartel chief Juan Ortega coordinates cartel resources into legitimate business investments. He, David cartel chief Julio Ramos, and Masaya cartel chief Diego Oriz, buy out a major Villahermosa, Mexico Development Corporation, renaming it the ORO Corporation.
• November 2: President Philip Bester scores a Pyrrhic Victory when the Supreme Court decides not to review the dissolution of Washington, D.C.'s city government. However, the general public is becoming increasingly dissatisfied with Bester's handling of the situation, causing his poll ratings to plummet.
• December 23: British Crown Princes William and Harry die in a plane crash.

2008

• February 27: In Vienna, Austria, the Stahlmänner splits off an eastern section of the city and grants permission for the establishment of an extraterritorial business zone called Transdanubia.
• March 4: In Panama, major molybdenum deposits are discovered several kilometers off the coast in Golfo de los Mosquitos. The ORO Corporation has already obtained the mineral rights to this area indicating they had prior knowledge of the find. ORO not only had full exploitation rights to this metal, but the corporation had managed to create a monopoly on all local molybdenum extracting and processing industries, boosting their status as a corporate power. They had managed to accomplish this before the discovery of the metal was made.
• April 29:: The Bundeswehr steps in and declares all parliaments - the Bundestag and the Landtag - to be deposed. A military council under General Horst Stöckter takes over government power. Oddly enough, except in Bavaria, where the state police resisted the occupation of the State Chancellery in Munich , there was little popular resistance.
• The Harris-3M space station Wheelchair (formerly the Russian Mir) is struck by a asteroid and suffers catastrophic decompression. Two crew members die immediately, while the rest die when Harris-3M fails to launch a rescue mission. The station's orbit begins to decay.
• Israel grants full autonomy to Palestine
• June: Columbia, Panama, Nicaragua and Honduras withdraw from international treaties that provide copyright and comparable legal bases. These countries become hotbeds of piracy and other copyright infringement, which is now legal within their territory. ORO Corporation is at the forefront of this industry, making millions in the business of reselling computer software at cheap prices.
• August 23: In Germany, the coalition government collapses when the USPD breaks from it and the SPD replaces them with members of the Christian Democratic Union, as the strain of the ongoing series of ecological disasters take their toll. The government weakness translates to ongoing social instability and violence in the streets. The decaying social situation in Germany grows worse. In an attempt to control the growing violence, the government begins to rely heavily on the Federal Border Guards as well as Lander, or individual state, police forces.
• November 4: Jesse Garrety replaces incumbent President Philip Bester in the election for President of the United States.
• November 25: Harris-3M, determining that the Wheelchair platform cannot be saved, place a Fuel-Air Explosive onboard and destroy it.

2009

• April 7: In the UK, Charles Mountbatten-Windsor becomes King Charles III.
• March 4: In Lorraine, both of the cooling towers of the Cattenom nuclear plant fracture and the plant leaks highly explosive gas, which detonates and destroys Block 2 of the plant. A large radioactive cloud spreads across eastern France and western Germany. The meltdown kills 37,241 and 98,487 are exposed to radiation.
• March 7: The Saarland and the nearby district of Trier are declared disaster areas. Refugees flood the Rhineland-Palatinate and northern Baden-Wurttemberg. In Belgium, French-speaking refugees from the disaster are poorly welcomed by Flanders.
• May 5: United Oil Industries announces that it has acquired the right to exploit the petrochemical resources in one-quarter of the remaining federal parks and one-tenth of the remaining Indian reservations, which the U.S. government has just confiscated.
• July: France and Germany declare the contaminated areas from the Cattenom meltdown, consisting of a large portion of northern Lorraine, Saarland and the whole of Luxembourg, to be a special legal zone and a restricted area known as the Saar-Lorraine-Luxembourg Special Administrative zone, or SOX. Luxembourg ceases to exist as a legal entity and the Luxembourger Diaspora settles across Europe and North America.
• September 18: In Montana, USA, in immediate response to the United Oil Industries announcement a small band of SAIM members, including some one-time members of the USMC Scalpel Special Forces team, enters the U.S. Air Force's Shiloh Launch Facility in northwest Montana. The group manages to bypass the security systems in the facility. Once inside the silo, the group meets up with USAF Major John Redbourne, a full-blood Dakota Sioux. Redbourne knocks his partner unconscious and uses the man's keys and codes to unlock the missile launch fail-safe procedures. The Shiloh raiders threaten to launch the facility's missiles unless all Indian land is returned.
• September 28: The Lone Eagle Incident. After a 10-day standoff, U.S. military forces enter the missile silo occupied by the Sovereign American Indian Movement and kill the occupiers. However, during the struggle, a single Lone Eagle ICBM carrying four MIRVed five-megaton warheads is launched. The missile, which is targeted for the Russian Republic, ignores all auto- destruct signals. The military has no interceptors in position that can shoot the missile down. President Jesse Garrety contacts Russian President Nikolai Chelenko, desperate to stop him from launching a retaliatory strike. While skeptical that this is not an attack, Chelenko orders Russia's forces on high alert and all citizens into shelters. Shortly after the call, however, the missile disappears without a trace above the Arctic Circle. No seismic or space-detectors report any sort of detonation.
  • When the Lone Eagle incident is revealed to the American public, the outcry against all Native Americans skyrockets. Corporate propaganda makes all Indians scapegoats for the actions of SAIM. Anti-Indian riots break out nationwide.
• October 19: The United States and Canada each enact legislation mandating the imprisonment of all Native Americans with even the slightest connection to the Sovereign American Indian Movement. In response to the Lone Eagle Incident, the United States enacts the Reeducation and Relocation Act and Canada enacts the Nepean Act, both of which will force Indians into detention camps.
• In Austria, Tyrol and Voralberg, the two most economically stable western states in Austria, refuse to carry the nation's economy anymore and declare independence. From that moment on they refuse to send taxes and

revenue to the government in Vienna. The city of Salzburg soon follows suit. Decades of conflict follow between the wealthy tourist-friendly west and the federal government.

• December: As the military protection of the SOX proves too costly and ineffective, the governments of Germany and France agree to surround the zone with a wall. Construction is estimated to be complete by 2013.

2010

• January 20: The Re-education and Relocation Act is passed. All Native Americans believed to have connection with SAIM are sent to detention camps referred to as "re-education centers”. Due to the general feelings of hatred against Native Americans, abuse of the law is rampant, and many innocent people are incarcerated. The US government seizes all remaining Native American lands.
  • That same day, in Canada, the Nepean Act is passed, legitimizing internment camps for Native Americans in Canada. The act also dismantles the Inuit territory of Nunavut.
• February 10: A new disease is discovered in India, initially referred to locally as "Kali's Harvest", it becomes known as Virally-Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome (VITAS). Initial symptoms include fever, chills, and vomiting, before progressing into anaphylactic shock and victims dying of asphyxiation. The disease kills 450 million in India.
• Late February: Within weeks, VITAS has become a global pandemic. Populated areas use medical resources to stop the spread to some extent, but poor and rural areas are devastated by the disease. As a result, pyres and cremations are used in European cities where the number of corpses just gets too big.
• Most corporations close their facilities during the VITAS crisis and massively strengthen their security forces. Military-grade security guards secure the corporate facilities against mobs of disgruntled citizens demanding the release of medical supplies. On several occasions, security guards use firearms.
• Mexico City becomes a hotspot for the disease. The city's already overburdened supply systems collapse with the arrival of the plague. Citizens flee the city, spreading the virus to other parts of Mexico. Authorities are overwhelmed by the death toll, with bodies lining the streets and floating in the city's canals. As a reaction to the many deaths, panicked residents form citizen militias who burn down entire districts, mostly the poor districts, to prevent the spread of the disease. The authorities do not take action against these so-called "action committees" (since they sometimes have official orders to burn neighborhoods).
• Kingston, Jamaica, is the first Caribbean city to experience VITAS cases. The plague spreads from there to the rest of the Caribbean.
• In the UK, VITAS kills 26% of the population.
• In Germany, around 4.6 million people die from the disease. Among the dead are the entire Senate of the Hanseatic City of Bremen, around 170,000 people in Hamburg and 200,000 in Berlin.
• Construction of the containment wall around the SOX is hampered by the pandemic, and the entire project threatens to fail.
• The VITAS outbreak in Indonesia kills more than 40% of the population as a result of the poor health care system and lack of access to medicines.
• Pope John Paul III dies of VITAS. The conclave , hoping to maintain continuity, elects the arch-conservative Cardinal Vitali , a close confidante of John Paul III, as the new Pope John Paul IV
• Likewise, according to the Tibetan government-in-exile, the 11th Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, dies under Chinese house arrest due to VITAS. As unrest breaks out in Tibet , the Chinese government allows the 14th Dalai Lama to return to his homeland.
• Isolation in the re-education camps spares most Amerindians from the effects of the VITAS pandemic, while the United States and Canada both lose a quarter of their populations.
• In Africa, VITAS kills around 50-75% percent of the continent’s population. In Lagos, it’s believed that over 75% of the population, approximately ten to twenty million people, dies. Some regions, such as South Africa, where the Xhosa and Zulu live, are spared the ravages of the pandemic. Others, such as Kenya, can afford to provide for their residents. Warlords in Nigeria take advantage of the chaos to primarily treat their soldiers. Numerous other states simply disintegrate.
• October 8: In Madagascar, 10.5 million out of 14 million have died of VITAS, leaving the island virtually depopulated. The survivors either flee the island or take refuge into the jungle.
• October 31: The Republic of Quebec declares independence from Canada.
• December: By the end of the year, 1.7 billion, roughly a quarter of the world's population, has died of VITAS.
  • In Mexico City alone, VITAS has claimed 12% of the population, more than 2.5 million people, and another million have died of cholera and other infectious diseases.

2011: The Year of Chaos

• January: After ten years of planning, Operation Discovery , a secret, manned NASA mission to Mars is launched.
• January 11: An earthquake hits the Olympic Peninsula in the United States, destroying many facilities, including a large government re-education camp. Thousands of Indians flee into the surrounding mountains in a mass eruption. Led by the Salish Thunder Tyee, an ally of Daniel Coleman, the escaped tribes begin guerrilla warfare against the U.S. government over the ensuing months.
• January 13: Large numbers of children start being born with unusual physical characteristics, with some regions such as Austria or Ireland experiencing higher occurrences. This phenomenon is dubbed "Unexplained Genetic Expression" or UGE.
• February 7: French becomes the only legal business language in Quebec.
• February 9: The Black Tide, the deadliest flood in recorded history, occurs. Caused by an undersea earthquake and a massive gale force 13 storm, a massive and heavily polluted storm surge from the North Sea surges up the Elbe River. The Frisian dikes break and the IJsselmeer dam collapses under the strain while evacuation efforts are underway. Large portions of the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Belgium and the United Kingdom are buried under contaminated silt. Half a million are killed and over 45 million people are displaced by the event.
• February 16: The waters of the Black Tide begin to recede, but most of the Netherlands, North Frisia and all of East Frisia are either underwater or buried in toxic sludge. Hamburg remains partially flooded and is nicknamed "Venice of the North." Large parts of Denmark, particularly the province of Jutland, are rendered uninhabitable, and the East Anglia region of Britain is totally devastated by the flood, becoming a toxic marshland known as the Stinkfens.
• March: Numerous magical phenomena occur along the Tibetan borders, making Chinese military operations increasingly difficult. Tibetan protests begin to expand.
• March 14: Newsweek magazine in the U.S. labels the children born with UGE as "elves and dwarves".
• April 7:
  • Due to sheer exhaustion, the Mexican government disintegrates. Thousands of refugees pour across the border into Texas, leading to a state of emergency. The influx of people overtaxes the already strained welfare and housing system, leaving most of the refugees in the street. Shantytowns spring up in vacant lots and under highway bridges. Violence and race riots erupt across the state.
  • In former Mexico, the ORO Corporation begins operations to run the country in the absence of any other authority.
• April 14: The IRA destroys a British SAS base in Belfast with magical support. Thirteen members of the

SAS are killed along with eleven members of Protestant paramilitary groups.

• April 23: In Australia, the first reported sighting, and subsequent attack, of the Carnivorous Koala, or Drop Bear, occurs when one attacks Wildlife Ranger Patrick Stone of Sydney.
• May: Some parents of children with UGE report their infants missing, while others put them up for adoption, and sometimes simply abandon them. In Haiti in particular, reports of missing persons start increasing, a trend that continues over the next three years.
• May 3: In Québec City, rioters burn down the Latin Quarter in Old Town.
• July: Operation Discovery makes planetfall and begins its survey. Samples of the pyramids discovered in 2001 and the skeleton are collected
• August 15: Massive volcanic eruptions occur across the Ring of Fire, including Gunung Agung; several smaller islands sink and others rise from the ocean, killing 10% of the population. Already strained from the VITAS pandemic, the government of Indonesia collapses.
  • In the Phillippines, Hibok-hibok, Taal and Pinatubo erupt. Tens of thousands of Filipinos die, millions become homeless and have to be evacuated. Earthquakes and tsunamis claim more lives. Off the coast, the island of Lagu-Lagu rises out of the sea.
• September: The magical manifestations in Tibet intensify. A video message from the 14th Dalai Lama circulates, in which he describes the apparitions as not aggressive but warns against illegal entry into Tibet.
• September 3: The basalt columns of Giant’s Causeway rise off the coast of Northern Ireland, taller and more solid than they have ever been.
• October: China mobilizes the military in response to the Dalai Lama's video message. Chinese units from Yunnan try to invade Tibet, but the magical manifestations in the border area light up around the soldiers as the Mayan cloud forms, cutting off both the military units and Tibet itself from the outside world.
• October 31: At the annual Samhain ritual in Massachusetts, the Wild Hunt appears, rising out of the evening mist and mingling with the revelers.
• November 18: A tribe of yeti is conclusively identified in Nepal.
• November 23: The Passau Treaties are signed in Germany. They contain the new regulation of the rights of national and international corporations and allow companies above a certain size to be extraterritorial.
• December 21: In the United Kingdom, Stone circles and standing stones suddenly erupt from the earth as mana lines become active across the land. Most emerge especially in the center of the Welsh town of Brecon, where the town center is flattened.
• December 24: The Awakening.
  • An entity known as Saeletra makes their first and only appearance, leaving a single message on the Shadowland BBS Introduction board one minute after midnight: "Good morning world. Welcome back. Play nice."
  • Hundreds of Japanese passing Mt. Fuji in a bullet train witness as the Great Dragon Ryumyo appears over the mountain.
  • Daniel Coleman leads his fellow inmates from the Abilene Re-Education Center to freedom. Attempts by the guards to stop the prisoners fail because of a magical protection that Coleman uses.
  • The first mana storm on record sweeps through the New South Wales outback. Firestorms destroy buildings, entire flocks of sheep are mutilated and inexplicably transformed. Hundreds of people report strange emotions, sensory overload and other phenomena.
  • The main cabin of Operation Discovery 's primary Mars Module suffers a massive systems failure. The spacecraft crashes onto the planet's surface, killing five of the eight astronauts. The surviving three crew members return to Earth in the command module with most samples saved.
  • In Asturias and Cantabria, forests and other vegetation begin to grow at an accelerated rate. Smaller villages are soon overwhelmed and people flee to the cities
  • Fomorians are sighted in Connaught. Sudden ground changes, rapid growth of western forests occur and the Slighe paths appear.
  • As a result of the earthquakes and landslides occurring due to the Awakening, nuclear and chemical plants across the UK are damaged. Two of them experience meltdowns.
  • In Korea, reports of a ghost village on Jejudo Island surface.
  • New Age disciples flock to California in search of magical places.
  • The jungles of Borneo begin awakening and engulfing human settlements in their magically-accelerated growth
  • In Oświęcim, Poland, the dead of Auschwitz-Birkenau rise up as ghosts. Most of the living inhabitants of Oświęcim flee for their lives and the city quickly becomes a ghost town.
  • In France, Auvergne volcanoes erupt. A domino effect of earthquakes follows, affecting Santiago, Galicia and Lisbon. The French military then evacuates the area.
  • The first ghouls are sighted on the edge of the Sahara . However, due to the many magical phenomena, nobody investigates and they disappear from public view for some time.

The Sixth World

2012- 2020

2012

• January 1: In his New Year's address in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City, Pope John Paul IV declares the newborn metahumans to be an "abomination in the sight of God". The statement creates deep tensions between the Roman Catholic Church and society. Many Catholic denominations around the world reject the Pope's statement.
  • King Charles III announces his intention to join an unspecified esoteric order. He then abdicates in favor of his third son, George VII. Charles III then withdraws from society completely.
• January 3: The Hualpa Plumed Snake is first sighted over Mexico 's Yucatán Peninsula. Tourists report seeing a large feathered serpent flying overhead. The dragon flies to Chichen Itza, circles overhead briefly, and then disappears into the Yucatan jungle.
• January 12: In India, many sacred sites are awakening. The Ganges, Indus and Yamuna rivers are purified and turned into powerful lines of mana. Jyotirlingas light up across the land.
  • Tibet gains independence, thanks in large part to the surrounding magic barrier.
• January 20: The French Catholic Church disagrees with papal statements on dealing with metahumanity. This creates an irrevocable schism between the French Catholic Church and the Vatican
• January 27: The great dragon Dunkelzahn awakens at Cherry Creek Lake, Denver, where he establishes a lair.
  • As the military tries to seal off Cherry Creek Lake, reporters from all over fight for an interview with Dunkelzahn. The winner is Holly Brighton, an early-evening weekend anchorwoman. The resulting twelve hour and sixteen-minute interview gives humanity its first real clues into the breadth and depth of the Awakening. Dunkelzahn earns $13 million dollars tax- free for participating. Holly Brighton maintains an informal business relationship with Dunkelzahn.
• February 12: In Caerfyrddin, Wales, UK, a great dragon breaks out of his lair outside the city leaving a huge crater. He then goes on a rampage, destroying hundreds of buildings and causing the deaths of over 150 people. A few days later, he introduces himself as Rhonabwy and apologises for the destruction blamingit on "post hibernation trauma". He then proceeds to grant significant funds to repair the damage.
• March: A papal bull ratifies the New Year's address as official church doctrine, further denouncing all magical things as "unholy and ungodly by their very nature."
  • Lofwyr appears in Germany near the Mauseberg near the Dauner Maaren in the Eifel.
• March 31: The great dragon Lung awakens at Mt. Emei. He is later seen flying over the Great Wall of China.
• April: Nebelherr appears in Bavaria, Germany.
  • A huge mana storm washes over Sydney, devastating the capital city for two weeks and cutting it off from the outside world. The storm remains in place to date and irregularly engulfs the city for short, damaging periods.
• April 8: A large number of active spirit manifestations in Jerusalem forces the government to evacuate the old town, which becomes part of everyday life in the city for the next few months and years.
• May: In Germany a great dragon identified as Feurschwinge is spotted in the German Harz Mountains. The dragon begins destroying the villages and towns in the region.
• May 1: The Bundeswehr has to intervene again in Bremen in order to end the ongoing escalating unrest and violent uprisings.
• June 1: The Japanese Diet passes the Yamato Act, which deregulates Japanese corporations, restricts foreign corporate activity, and makes the nuyen the official currency of the state. Metahumans also face heavy discrimination in the country.
• July 21: In Turkey, the sirrush great dragon Aden is first spotted on Mt. Ararat. He then is seen flying east before contact is lost.
• September 16: The German military shoots Feuerschwinge down, bringing an end to her four-month rampage, the first known kill of a Great Dragon by metahumanity. Her body plummets into the SOX and is never recovered.
• October 17: Violent corporate warfare between Keruba International and BMW-] prompt seven of the largest corporations ([=BMW, Ares Industries, Shiawase, Mitsuhama Computer Technologies, ORO, Keruba, and JRJ International) to form the Inter-Corporate Council to mediate disputes.
• An earthquake hits the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, ripping open a 50-kilometer-wide strait between the Sea of Okhotsk and Bering Sea. It subsequently becomes known as Kamchatka Island.

2013

• January 1: In Cambodia, the Awakened, snake-like Naga appear near Angkor Wat. The peasants of the region consider them to be creatures of their mythology and begin to worship them as lords of rivers and rain. This lays the foundation of the Naga Kingdom.
• April 2: Another corporate war erupts as Keruba International conducts military action in Central America , clashing with ORO Corporation . The Inter-Corporate Council steps in to resolve the conflict and condemns a number of judgments and recommendations, all of which are ignored due to the ICC's lack of power. Fighting dies down of its own accord due to the lack of liquid assets.
• May 23: Britain sees increasing IRA activity, eventually culminating in a major attack on the town of Aldershot (aka 'home of the British Army'). This leads to a referendum on the future of Ireland.
• June 15: In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Vernon Prudhomme, a native, hires a group of motorcycle daredevils and stages a game involving motorcycles, stunt riding, padded clubs, and "paintball" guns as a publicity gimmick for his speedway business. The game is broadcast over radio and TV and becomes quite popular. Prudhomme jokes about starting a "Combat Cyclists League."
• In Germany, leading politicians in the districts of Munster and Detmold declare themselves a separate land called Westphalia.
• August 12: The province of Xinjiang secedes from China, renaming itself Uighurstan. Local ethnic Chinese are massacred in Urumqi and Kashgar. The central government is helpless to prevent this happening and does nothing except sabre rattling.
• September 13: Pope John Paul IV dies at the age of 82. The Conclave selects a moderate Brazilian cardinal as Pope John XXV in difficult election. Nevertheless, a handful of Irish bishops, put off by the words of his predecessor, secede from the church and form the Church of Ireland.
• November: The barrier wall around the SOX is completed.
• December 26: The great dragon Celedyr emerges in Caerleon, Wales, erupting from the floor of a Roman amphitheater that had been built over his layer. He promptly withdraws from public view.

2014

• The first world-recognized use of magic occurs, within the Sinti and the Roma. A group of Romani women use magic to walk into the headquarters of the German military government to petition against the forced settlement of the last land-traveling groups.
• March 15: In Germany, the German Catholic Church holds its Council of Bishops. This particular meeting is fraught with conflict among the differing sects brought about by the Awakening. Sticking to the conservative views of Pope John Paul IV to his more reform-minded successor, the German Catholic Church splits from the Roman Catholic Church. Immediately following the German Council of Bishops, the diocese of Münster breaks from Rome and declares itself the center of the True Church of the Lord God and His Saints. This new faith is known for its complete rejection and hatred of anything connected with magic.
• April 15: In Bantayan, Philippines, the great dragon Masaru is first spotted on Mount Mayan during a full lunar eclipse.
• June 10: After fleeing the Abilene Re-Education Center, Daniel Coleman, now calling himself Daniel Howling Coyote, makes his first public appearance. He announces that he has used the time since his escape to forge an alliance of Native American tribes called the Native American Nations (NAN). Howling Coyote and the NAN claim the entire North American continent for themselves, demanding that all persons of European, Asian, and African ancestry leave the continent or face magical reprisals. Most people and governments don't take the ultimatum seriously.
• June 16: The referendum on Northern Ireland is held. By a majority of 78%, the people vote to exclude the province from the United Kingdom. As a result, the House of Commons passes the Act of Dissolution.
• June 23: A week after the Act of Dissolution is passed, the governments of the United Kingdom and Ireland sign the Treaty of Galway. Northern Ireland secedes from the United Kingdom and the United Free Republic of Ireland is formed.
• The United Nations leaves the ruins of Libya. The territory is annexed by Egypt shortly afterward.
• July 12: Redondo Peak, a volcano near Los Alamos, erupts, burying both the city and Los Alamos National Laboratory in volcanic ash. Daniel Howling Coyote appears soon after in a vid-cast from a nearby Zuni reservation. He claims credit for invoking "our Mother Earth to punish the children who forsook her". Within an hour of the broadcast, a federal reaction force, composed of the Sixth Air Cavalry Battalion from Fort Hood, T exas is on the way to capture Howling Coyote and destroy his movement. The entire group is destroyed before it even reaches the reservation by the sudden appearance of several violent tornadoes. By the time a second force arrives, Howling Coyote is long gone. The Ghost Dance War begins.
• August 22: In Germany, parliamentary elections organized by the Military Council return Germany to a democratic government. Under the newly appointed Chancellor Meibner, the new government still allows the loosening of the federal structure and the enhanced rights of large corporations.
  • The existence of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia ends. The legal successor is the federal state of North Rhine-Ruhr.

2015

• In Siberia, reports emerge of live wooly mammoths.
• Unnatural growth of the awakened forests occur across Northern Europe, especially in Sweden and Finland.
• April 27: Berlin, now completely consumed in rebellion and violence, is declared an exclusion zone by the government and surrounded by troops. The troops however are unable to keep the motorcycle gangs and mobs from plundering Berlin and its more upscale suburbs. To control this, the government surrounds Berlin, Potsdam, Oranienburg, and a few other suburbs with a temporary wall. The city's only remaining connections with the rest of the nation are a heavily patrolled Transrapid and ECE high-speed train link as well as Berlin's three airports.
• March 18: Hong Kong, backed by Britain, secedes from China and declares itself a Hong Kong Free Enterprise Zone. However, British influence remains limited as the corporations take control of the city.
• May 5: Francisco Pavón of the Aztlan Party becomes Mexico's first directly elected president. The election was conducted by ORO, strengthening ties between the government and the corporation.
  • President Pavón's first act in office is to rename Mexico to the Republic of Aztlan.
• May 15: The Magic Hat, the first private organization for the professional practice of real magic, opens in Minneapolis.
• In Ireland, the IRA reopens negotiations with the Dublin government. Although Ireland is now unified, the IRA's political wing, Sinn Fein, still wants to further certain policies. This movement is led by Liam O'Connor, the commander of the Derry IRA. During these negotiations, O'Connor and a handful of his key advisors and allies who until now has concealed their true identities with magic are revealed to be "spike baby" elves. This leads to rumors of an elven conspiracy among the non-elven members of the IRA. As a result, a schism occurs and the IRA splits into two factions: The human led Official IRA, and Liam O'Connor's primarily elven Provisional IRA. The Official IRA breaks off negotiations with the Irish government. The Provisional IRA strikes a deal with the Dublin government that incorporates the IRA into the security apparatus of the state. In return for IRA help the Fianna Fail government agrees to initiate strict environmental protection laws, metahuman equality legislation, and government subsidized hermetic study programs.
• June: The American space station Freedom begins to experience orbital decline for an unknown reason. The prognosis assumes an entry into the atmosphere at the beginning of October 2017. Lacking resources to stabilize the station, the decision is made to evacuate the crew. The mission is almost a failure when a member of the TerraFirst! launches a man-pack SAM at the rescue shuttle. The thick ceramic tiles of the shuttle prevent serious damage.
• The islands of Bali and Lombok secede from Indonesia, establishing the Enlightened Kingdom of Bali and Lombok.
• Summer: Hungary's newly-elected Green Party goes overboard with its environmental policies, causing the country's economy to collapse.
• August: The second Berlin Wall is fully raised, but this time to keep the floods of refugees from the surrounding areas away. Bottlenecks, emergency laws and controls to benefit corporations make everyday life in Berlin more difficult.
• August 6: A submarine base near Bangor is captured by Thunder Tyee and some Salish warriors.
• October 4: Thunder Tyee and his Salish warriors capture Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.
• The Edict of the Alps goes into effect, which transforms a third of Switzerland into a nature reserve. Cut off from all major connections to the rest of the country, the Ticino Canton secedes from the confederation.

2016

• Corporations begin to realize the economic value of the space industry, leading to a new space race as they compete to gain and exploit footholds in space.
• March 12: In Scotland, a group of eco-terrorists use magic to drive a major oil spill in the North Sea, which penetrates more than 30 kilometers inland and renders hundreds of square kilometers lifeless and contaminated, creating the Scottish Fringe Toxic Zone. While the perpetrators are believed to be from the eco-terrorist organization GreenWar, no one ever takes credit for the disaster.
• May 18: Due to a number of factors, particularly the flood of refugees from the many disasters over the years, the Kingdom of Belgium officially ceases to exist as Wallonia declares its independence from Flanders following a referendum. Both sides bitterly contest the status of Brussels.
• July 28: After years of budget cuts in the space program, the culmination of the deregulation policy begun by President Lynch 20 years earlier arrives as the U.S. government sells NASA, including the Freedom space station threatened with crashing, to Ares Industries. This decision comes in view of the tense budget situation caused by the conflict with the NAN. Information about Operation Discovery is not be shared with Ares, and two shuttles are retained for reconnaissance and military operations.
  • Immediately after the NASA purchase, Ares Industries re-stabilises the orbit of the space station Freedom, beginning a program of expanding its facilities. They also team up with Lloyds of London and begin a salvaging operation of non-functioning satellites in Earth orbit.
  • Corporations begin to realize the economic value of the space industry, leading to a new space race as they compete to gain and exploit footholds in space.
• In Hawai'i, the Na Kama'aina group manages to convince Danforth Ho, a distant descendant of former Hawaiian king Kamehameha I, to join the struggle of secession from the USA He begins to broker deals with corporate interests.
• In Malaysia, the Communist Party launches a rebellion against the military dictatorship. In response, the government launches a counter-revolution, using her rural support to incite uprisings. The unexpected resistance demoralizes the military, causing many soldiers to desert. The communists take control of the country.
• October 15: President Jesse Garrety is assassinated by William Springer, a lone wolf assassin. He is never captured.
• October 30: In an event known as Bloody Monday, Russian President Nikolai Chelenko, British Prime Minister Lena Rodale and Israeli Prime Minister Chaim Schon are victims of precisely planned assassinations. All perpetrators are killed in violent confrontations.
• November 8: U.S. Vice President William Jarman wins the presidential election by strongly opposing President Garrety's policies on the "Indian issue". However, with Garrety already dead, Jarman takes office without a three-month wait and is sworn in the very next day.
• November 11: President Jarman issues Executive Order 17-321 as his first act, which declares all Indian tribes on American territory enemies of the nation and legalizes their extermination. Congress passes the law as part of the Resolution Act of 2016, effectively planning the total genocide of the Amerindians.
• December 12: The Kiowa Massacre occurs. A battalion of United States Army Rangers fake intelligence reports of a massing of Amerindian combatants near their base and began artillery bombarding the position. Said position is actually a refugee camp full of several thousand people, mostly women and children belonging to the Kiowa tribe. Only when the Rangers attacked did it become clear that the reports were fake. An investigation points to radical Cheyenne nationalists as the source of the misinformation. The Kiowa were virtually wiped out by the attack.

2017

• April 13: A massive earthquake hits the Taihang mountain range, storage site for China's nuclear arsenal Individual warheads detonate, while the majority of the remaining nuclear weapons are buried by landslides and become unattainable for the leadership of the People's Republic. This significantly weakens the power of the central government.
• May 9: Harris-3M becomes the first corporation to commission a privately built space station, Halo .
• July 22: Due to the increased need for private security due to nationwide chaos, Lone Star Security Services, Inc. is formed in Austin by the merger of two corporations.
• Na Kama'aina leaders discover Danforth Ho possesses corporate and yakuza connections. Although some want to eliminate Ho, there is a growing realization that once he is established as Hawaii's new leader, he cannot be dismissed without harm to the independence movement.
• August: Despite the magical disruptive actions of the Indians, the government and corporate forces have completed the necessary preparations for carrying out the annihilation operation.
• August 17: Daniel Howling Coyote and his followers begin performing a ritual known as the Great Ghost Dance.
  • At 10:30 am (PST), the military operation to wipe out the North American Indian tribes begins in the Pacific Northwest.
  • At 10:32 am (PST), induced by the magic of the Great Ghost Dance, Mt. Hood, Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Adams all erupt simultaneously. The Northwest is transformed into a massive firestorm as ash and lava flows bury surroundings settlements. The annihilation operation is brought to a swift end. NAN fighters and non-Indian sympathizers occupy military bases in three North American nations, demanding a multinational conference.
  • Not long after the Great Ghost Dance, Quebec President Celinne DeGaulle begins peace talks with the NAN.
• August 22: The newly-crowned King Kamehameha IV declares the independence of the Kingdom of Hawai'i from the United States. Much of the Pacific Fleet, previously en-route to North America, changes course to Hawai'i. A delegation of corporate interests tries to convince the US government to recognize Hawai'i as a sovereign nation. The government refuses. The corporations respond by firing a salvo of Thor non-explosive missiles around the Pacific Fleet flagship USS Enterprise.The great dragon Ryumyo arrives to help establish Ho’s claim and remains a secret power behind the throne. The fleet returns to San Diego and Hawaiian sovereignty is accepted.
• October 18: Hong Kong is shaken by a great Triad War, in which the Great Dragon Lung takes an active part. The war ends when the Majestic Peacock Association 's headquarters are burned down.
• In Northeastern Siberia, the Aleut tribes attack Russian listening posts, oil and gas recovery sights, and geothermal plants. The Interior Army moves in to attack but are driven off by magical forces.
• America announces a total military withdrawal from Europe. NATO is reduced to little more than a transatlantic watchdog agency.
• December 11: Quebec sends official invitations to the United States (particularly the north-eastern section) and the Maritime provinces to join the Republic. All but Labrador, the mainland portion of Newfoundland, refuse.

2018

• February: The federal governments of the United States and Canada send representatives to Denver, Colorado, to negotiate with the NAN. Quebec abstains, citing their historically close ties with the Native Americans and recent rapprochement with others who felt disaffected.
• March 17: With the loss of most of its nuclear weapons, the People's Republic of China sees more and more provinces rebelling against the communist regime. The Communist Party collapses, followed by the Chinese state as a whole. The member provinces of the Greater Canton Economic Development Council secede from China, and the Council transforms into the Canton Confederation. Sichuan, Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia also withdraw, effectively cutting off western China from Beijing and prompting the western regions to secede. These sudden losses cause a coup in Beijing, as reformers throw the Chinese Communist Party out of power. The rump nation is named the Republic of China.
• April 25: After three months of negotiation, the Treaty of Denver is signed by the United States, Canada, Aztlan, and the Native American Nations. In the treaty, all three governments acknowledge the sovereignty of the NAN over most of western North America, and a ten-year population adjustment plan that would relocate all non-Indians off NAN lands is outlined. Provisions include the establishment of reservations for non-tribal peoples and corporations, and that the United States maintains extraterritorial control over the city of Seattle and the majority of California.
  • The Treaty of Denver establishes the new Native American Nations: the Salish Council, the Pueblo Council, the Sioux Nation, the Athabascan Council, the Ute Nation, Tsimshian Nation, the Algonkian Council and the Trans-Polar Aleut Nation. Aztlan is also granted territory from the southern portions of Arizona and New Mexico.
  • Denver and its surrounding territories are renamed the Front-Range Free Zone (FRFZ), set aside as a "treaty city" under joint administration of the United States, Sioux Nation, Ute Nation, Pueblo Council, and Aztlan.
  • The Ute Nation grants the Mormon Church the rights to govern Salt Lake City, as a society only nominally part of the nation, analogous to Vatican City.
  • NORAD blows up the Cheyenne Mountain Complex to prevent it from entering Native American control.
  • In Russia, the government is forced to cede much of its northern border and Siberian territory to the Trans-Polar Aleut Nation.
  • The Sovereign Tribal Council is established as the supreme governing body of the NAN, with Daniel Howling Coyote as its head.
• The European Union begins being restricted in its functions due to budget problems. There is little confidence in their ability to deal with instability on the continent. The Council of Ministers votes to disband the European Parliament and limits the EU bureaucracy to executing established mandates, developing no new activities. The European Commission is given the task of administrating the framework already in place. Only the Council of Ministers remains fully active.
• July 12: Dr. Hosato Hikita from ESP Systems is developing the Artificial Sensory Induction Systems Technology or ASIST for short - the basis for simsense , rigger control and smartguns in Chicago . The system forms the foundation of SimSense programming and entertainment in Chicago.
• November 9: Fuchi Industrial Electronics Industrial Park is completed in Seattle. The city is a fast-growing international hub, though one suffering issues from the mass influx of new residents and refugees from neighboring nations.

2019

• Spring: By now, over 200,000 Anglo-Americans have immigrated to Seattle, causing food and supply shortages.
• March 8: In an overwhelming vote, the Washington State districts of Bellevue, Renton, and Kent vote yes to become part of greater Seattle. By summer’s end, Seattle has also incorporated all of King County and most of neighboring Pierce and Snohomish Counties.
• April 12: Amid a vigorous corporate space race, Ares unveils their Apollo space station.
• Summer: The Ute Nation government attempts to evict all non-Native people. Meanwhile, anti-Anglo extremists commit various acts of violence and stir up strife to drive all non-Indians out of the country. Those that stay are treated as second-class citizens.
• In the Canary Islands, Spain, the decontamination of the area is completed, and the quarantine is lifted. However, the Islands never regain their reputation as a tourist haven.
• A military putsch on Java establishes the Javanese Republic. In response, allied Sumatran forces instigate a rebellion that leads to the formation of the loose Sumatran Alliance shortly after.
• Dr. Clarissa Beacham writes a scale for measuring the mana or life energy in the world.
• In China, the Republic Civil War begins as communists regroup in Henan and try to retake Beijing. The provinces between the Yellow River and the Canton Confederation splinter within weeks into microstates and form the Coastal Provinces region. Communist hardliners swiftly gain control of Henan province and withdraw from the Republic.
  • The former Chinese province of Yunnan is isolated during China’s decline into civil war and declares its independence soon after.
• August 23:The Italian Transys Corporation announces the successful implantation of the first cybernetic limb on a human being: violin virtuoso Leonora Bartoli, who had lost her left hand in a bullet train accident. The new limb links into the nervous system of the user and allows fine-motor control. After 8-10 hours in rehabilitation, Bartoli is able to play violin once again.
• September 6: Also suffering from strained food and supply problems, Everett and Tacoma decide to join Seattle as well.
• November 23: Emori Shiawase, CEO of Shiawase Corporation, dies of heart failure.

2020

• By now, all America telebroadcating is controlled by 23 corporations.
• In Iran, tensions between the human Muslim population and the metahumans of the country are on the rise. After the forced deportation of all metahumans, a regular hunt and murder of all dwarves and elves that are discovered or born within the country develops, as well as mothers who give birth to them. Metahuman citizen seek asylum in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan.
• February 4: The city of Inuvik is elected the capital of the Trans-Polar Aleut Nation by an overwhelming majority.
• Spring: The Apollo space station becomes Ares Industries' main platform, even surpassing Freedom.
• March 23: Corpus Christi, Texas becomes the first city to receive Lone Star policing duties. The contract states that Lone Star is supporting the state police department, which has been operating without a contract for 11 months.
• July: In Iran, Ayatollah Hamidullah declares a jihad against the new metahuman races and all things magical.
• July 8: The Inter-Corporate Council purchases the Freedom space station from Ares Industries.
• July 12: In response to the declaration of a jihad, the great dragon Aden appears in the sky over the city. He is reputed to say, "If you would choose war, then see what you would war against!" He then proceeds to systematically destroy the entire city. All attempts to stop him fail and, within a day, the city is mostly demolished. Thousands, including the Ayatollah, are killed and hundreds of thousands more flee the city. The ruins of Tehran are left abandoned as a result. Badr al-Din Ibn Eisa becomes leader of the country and the capitol is moved to Isfahan.
• Global Financial Services, a Zurich-based financial corporation, replaces the World Bank as the world's most important financial institution.
• After clashes between Thailand and Burma significantly affected drug production in the region, the conflict is coming to an end as the money used to finance the clashes came mainly from the drug trade.
• The supposedly dead country of the SOX shows unique phenomena that only exist under local conditions. All of a sudden, the market value of the irradiated area skyrockets because researchers are very interested in these phenomena. Guillaume, Grand Duke of Luxembourg-in-exile in Germany, sells the contaminated areas of his homeland in the SOX to the corporations that are building research facilities there, making a fortune in the process.
• Ares Macrotechnology buys Kodiak Island from the Athabaskan Council.
• In Quebec City, the mayor disbands the police force and replaces it with a private corporation.
• October 13: Birth statistics from Ireland show that, within the last ten years, 41% of infants in the country were of the Elvish metatype. The country has the highest rate of elven births and the lowest rate of any other metahuman infant in the world.
• November 3: Despite the turmoil of his first term, U.S. President William Jarman is confirmed for a second term.
• November 16: President Jarman signs a resolution calling for the creation of the Seattle Metroplex and dissolving Washington State. The new city-state will be ruled by Charles C. Lindstrom, who will now hold the post of governor instead of mayor.
• December 7: The proposed 29th Amendment to the U.S. constitution is surprisingly passed. This repeals the 22nd amendment, removing term limits for United States Presidents.

2021- 2029

2021

• In Germany, the government declares the North Sea too polluted for widespread commercial use. Essential shipping lanes are kept open by special clean-up ships, but most shipping groups use computerized ships for North Sea ventures, using live crews only for transatlantic voyages.
• April 28: In the Philippines, six divisions of Japanese Imperial Marines are sent to the Islands to “protect Japanese business interests”. Almost immediately after both Subic Bay Naval Base and Clark Air Force Base become the targets of terrorists calling themselves the Bannog Hukbalahap or Huk for short. In response President Abeleda accepts the appointment of an Imperial prefecture advisor, Fukatsu Saru.
• April 30: Approximately 10% of the world's human population experiences bouts of excruciating pain that last 12-72 hours, growing tusks or horns, sometimes both, and having their body mass increase two to five times. This event is referred to as "Goblinization" by the media, and those who experience such changes are referred to as "Orcs" and "Trolls."
  • The mana level that triggered Goblinization also activates the Krieger Strain of Human-Metahuman Vampiric Virus (HMHVV) to activate, causing hundreds of people around the world to become ghouls. This goes unnoticed by most and is considered part of the effects of Goblinization itself.
  • Panic ensues from the event, fearing Goblinization is the result of some sort of disease or biological attack. Extreme fear leads to exclusion, hostility and even violent attacks on the new metahumans. Some feel that euthanizing them is the humane response.
  • King George VII of Great Britain is declared dead. Rumors emerged that he goblinized, prompting leading members of the British nobility to have him assassinated. Rival bloodlines begin to compete for the throne.
  • All victims of Goblinization are granted full citizenship rights by Quebec, provided they speak French.
  • Much like with UGE children, victims of Goblinization are treated with sympathy by the Czech Republic.
• May 4: The President of the Dominican Republic, Joaquim Delmonte, opens the nation's borders to all victims of goblinization after transforming into an orc.
• May 14: The government of Switzerland declares goblinization a disease, prompting extreme xenophobia in the German-speaking cantons. Goblinized people are quarantined.
• May 25: In Germany, where the Goblinization creates a disproportionate number of trolls, the government proposes putting the victims of Goblinization in camps. In a response to the government collecting all native orks and trolls into camps, the Goblinized victims organize the Mutant’s Congress in Cologne and threaten to revolt.
• May 28: In the Philippines, when Japanese corporations call upon the Imperial Diet for support, Japanese forces seize control of the nation to combat the “Goblinisation plague”. Metahumans are rounded up and are later incarcerated on Lagu-Lagu, now known as Yomi Island.
• June 9: Believing that Goblinization is a contagious disease, Governor Lindstrom decrees that the Seattle Metroplex Guard quarantine all metahumans in the Seattle Metroplex and their families. These are taken to the former "re-education camps" for the Indians.
  • During the course of the ensuing riots, a mob burns down the labs of the ORO Corporation, where they are researching a cure for Goblinization, and murders the scientists involved after rumors circulate that the event itself was caused by a lab accident at ORO, and even that they caused UGE. The only non-destroyed samples of the bio-agent developed by ORO are- mistakenly- stored at Monolith in Puyallup, and are subsequently forgotten.
• August 3: In a very emotional Time magazine article, acclaimed journalist McBean recounts the experiences of his goblinized childhood friend.
• August 23: Texas Gov. Melissa Santiago-Ortega establishes metahuman detention centers. She strong-arms the Welfare Board into allocating the funds to provide adequate shelter and sanitary facilities for the newly transformed population. Psychologists are brought in to find out if orks and trolls can be safely reintegrated into society. Specially trained units of Texas Rangers ensure that the new metahumans do not fall victim to attack.
• November 11: After his release from the MonoMed hospital, Bernhard Rybar- Austria 's first documented Troll-publicly commits suicide.

2022

• January 30: In Switzerland, the Metahuman Segregation Bill (MSB) is brought up in referendum. The bill strips metahuman citizens of their citizenship, civil rights, and right to live in Switzerland. The referendum leads to a political conflict between the French and German cantons within the Nationalrat but passes with the support of the German cantons and right-wing political parties. Many of those affected - especially dwarves - flee into hiding in the Alpine interdict zone, or flee into the extraterritorial zone in Zurich to avoid deportation.
• Spring: Racial tensions between the goblinized and the rest of humanity continue to escalate, and unrest erupts across the world.
• In Los Angeles, fighting over the narcosoft trade between the yakuza-controlled Green Dragons and the Seoulpa Ring-controlled Tigers erupt into all-out warfare. The fighting is eventually suppressed by the National Guardsmen. As a result, the worst slum areas of L.A. are walled off from the rest of the city. They are renamed "El Inferno" by the residents.
• March 22: In Basel, Switzerland, the Genom Corporation's spokewoman has to admit that their statement that goblinization is the first episode of a new, still unknown disease was wrong and apologizes publicly. As a result of the loss of trust, she is banned from all public discussion of goblinization and the company's public image is irretrievably damaged.
• March 25: John Timmons, the dragon translator of the Great Dragon Dunkelzahn, is assassinated by a growing anti-metahuman organization. Dunkelzahn, present at the time of the murder, destroys the assassin on the spot.
• April 18: In Switzerland, the Swiss-French cantons (with the exception of Valais) declare secession in protest of the MSB and announce the founding of the Confederation Suisse Francophone (CFS) a few days later. Numerous metahumans find acceptance in their borders.
• May 5: In Mexico, in an attempt to distance itself from its drug cartel origins, ORO Corporation renames itself "Aztechnology."
• August 12: The Seattle metahumans, quarantined in 2021 after the onset of Goblinization, are released by Governor Lindstrom after scientists prove Goblinization is not a contagious disease.
• August 18: The Great Dragon Schwartzkopf begins lecturing at the Univerzita Karlova in Prague after the university added arcane studies to its curriculum.
• August 19: Scandal erupts in the United States when it is revealed that Johns Hopkins University Baltimore has been conducting illegal experiments on metahumans . The US government withdraws any kind of funding from the institute, after which it spins off as a corporation as the Johns Hopkins Institute of Health and henceforth works for profit.
• In the Athabaskan Council, NAN, Athabaskan Oil is established and granted land rights for all currently active oil fields in the nation.
• Fall: A second VITAS pandemic hits around the world, allowing global racial tensions to recede into the background for the time being. This second wave, known as VITAS-II is not as deadly as the first, but still claims a tenth of the world's population - almost 550 million die.
  • India, once again the origin point for the pandemic, feels abandoned by the world and withdraws from the United Nations.
• September 15: The U.S. communications authority FCC is dissolved, no longer exercising control over broadcasting standards or licenses. Instead, the independent "Internetwork Transmission Control Council" - Internetwork Transmission Control Council (ITCC) - is used. This is advertised as a "self-regulating body to monitor the responsible use of communication frequencies".
• October: The German Parliament begins the process of moving the capitol from the violence-plagued city of Berlin to Hanover.
• October 15: In the Caribbean, by this year a large number of Caribbean islands have been bought out by corporations, drug lords, pirates, and even dragons (the Netherlands Antilles by Lofwyr and the Caymans by Dunkelzahn). Cuban President Guadalupe Martinez urges the remaining Caribbean nations to band together to avoid a similar fate. Terrified that their countries will also be bought out corporate powers the islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Grenada, Bermuda, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, Tobago, Barbados the Virgin Islands, and a number of smaller islands join together to form a loose confederation called the Caribbean League.
• October 24: Australia and New Zealand found the Australia and New Zealand Allied Confederation (ANZAC).
• November 19: The electronic news magazine "Data" coined the term "Awakened" to describe in a simple way those who are under the influence of magic.

2023

• February 6: In Seattle Metroplex, USA, the Seattle Police Department, tired of taking the brunt of the anger expressed in the racial riots between human and metahuman, goes on strike.
• February 7: An incensed Governor Lindstrom declares the Seattle Police strike illegal and fires all members of the SPD. Governor Lindstrom immediately hires Lone Star Security to take over all law enforcement and security measures for the Seattle Metroplex.
• March 31: The move of the German capital to Hanover is complete.
• April 29: The police and city administration try to pacify the city of Berlin with all means during the so-called Berlin Spring . An uprising follows that leaves 14 dead and more than 2,000 injured. 14,000 people are arrested and the damage is in the billions.
• May 30: The Watts district of Los Angeles is gripped by violent riots when rumors surface that VITAS serum is being stockpiled at MLK-Drew Hospital . 23 soldiers, 89 police officers and 619 civilians die while the district is almost leveled.
• Sekondi becomes extraterritorial corporate enclave. The Free City controls surrounding territory of the former nation of Ghana.
• June 2: After VITAS-II reduced the population of the Anyi territories to around 15,000, mostly orcs and trolls, united under King Kouamé. Kouamé, a troll, drives away the few remaining humans, dwarves and elves. Henceforth, the nation is reserved for trolls and orcs.
• June 21: The unearthly mists of Brittany form, effectively sealing off the region from the rest of the country. People who come into contact with the fog experience an overwhelming sense of fear and become lost in it. The fog also disrupts magic within while attracting paracritters. Thousands of humans and metahumans are missing, including entire city populations.
• July 18: U.S. Senator Franklin Moss challenges his opponent, Senator Victor Sanchez, to a duel during a heated debate over metahuman rights . The next day, live TV shows Moss being shot. The video will later be sold in various formats.
• July 28: The Metahuman Rights Act is passed in Texas. It stipulates that all metahumans have the right to choice, equal treatment in housing, medical care, education and work.
• September 1: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) establishes the Fort Lewis Zoo in Seattle. It aims to explore goblinization and the paranormal changes in critters.
• In Fatima, Portugal, during a visit by Pope John XXV, a new apparition of the Virgin Mary appears before thousands of witnesses. This event reinforces the Pope's declaration against metahumans and further pushes the Portuguese Catholic community into a conservative mindset.

2024

• Ares Industries renames itself Ares Macrotechnology, Incorporated.
• February 14: Multi-million dollar Metahuman Rights Center opens in Dallas. Governor Melissa Santiago-Ortega is the festival's patron, while Lone Star provides security.
• July 12: Renovation of Atlanta's vacant Ted Turner Stadium is completed. Georgia Tech has turned the derelict stadium into a research project where an experimental biotech membrane is capable of photosynthesis. This membrane is designed to produce food and convert solar radiation into usable energy.
• September 28: Switzerland introduces the veto law, which allows individual cantons to reject a federal law in their own canton by a referendum with a qualified majority. The cantons of Fribourg, Genève, Jura, Neuchâtel and Vaud refuse to recognize the MSB, which has divided Switzerland since 2022. The metahumans find a safe retreat in these cantons.
• November 5: William Jarman, acting President of the United States, becomes the first President since Franklin D. Roosevelt to receive a third term. The opposition claims voter fraud, but no evidence can be found to support these allegations.
• November 11: In Switzerland , the Law for the Control of Magic is passed, which regulates the use of magic for only corporate and government employees, and licensed individuals.
• November 15: New elections in Switzerland reunite the cantons of the Confédération Suisse Francophone with the rest of the country.

2025

• January 10: Shiawase sues Aztechnology, accusing them of making false claims about the structural integrity of the Monolith building in Seattle that Shiawase purchased. The investigations revealed that the damage was too severe and that repairs would be uneconomical and would exceed the purchase price. The building will be closed at the end and cleared for demolition.
• March 11: Chicago residents are relocated south of the city by Truman Technologies as part of a major redevelopment project.
• March 21: The UK Constitutional Act of the new Constitution of Great Britain creates the office of Lord Protector. The Constitution also regulates the role of Parliament and the Crown. The Lord Protector receives far reaching administrative rights to internal and national security.
• March 24: Fukatsu Saru is appointed Governor of the Philippines by Japan. He immediately turns the country into a police state with all non-Japanese media monitored and censored.
• March 30: Hong Kong is flooded by waves of refugees from the disintegrating Chinese successor states and the Japanese conquest of the Philippines,
• April 1: in the USA, the first cyber-modified player, line-backer Mario Sanchez of the Philadelphia Eagles enters the NFL. There have been concerns about these new athletes, citing their unfair advantages over unenhanced players. In order to quell a negative public response, this type of modification will be restricted to those who need reconstruction due to injury.
• The UN issues a unilateral ban on all commercial whaling.
• Papua New Guinea assimilates the former Indonesian province of Irian Jaya (West Guinea) and establishes the Independent State of New Guinea.
• The United States Global Economic Task force begins an inquiry into the state of West African Trade. Only the newly-formed Asante Nation, one of the successor state of Ghana, has the domestic stability to respond. The Asante government, due to their recent recognition by the Task Force, applies to the UN for worldwide recognition as a sovereign nation.
• The European Union privatizes the European Space Agency, selling it off to Saeder-Krupp.
• July 10: The New Druid Movement gains influence in the British government when Edward Arthur Charles Gordon-Windsor, aka Lord Marchment, is made Lord Protector.

2026

• January 30: Philippine Governor Saru bans all private individuals from making, selling or owning firearms by law. Persons apprehended with firearms face the full force of the law. Carrying melee weapons longer than 7 cm is also prohibited outside of private homes. There are also laws that ban various types of technology, such as internal combustion engines, network-enabled devices and even medical goods that could allegedly be misused as weapons.
• March 22: After more than a year of hard work, the previously very strict laws on magic research in Germany are relaxed by the coalition government. The local political institutions are also given a great deal of administrative freedom, which is overseen by an independent committee.
• May 1: In response to the new loosening of magic research in Germany, the Universities of Oxford and Edinburgh set up a Bachelor of Science in Occult Research. However, this is not without a harsh debate as to whether magic is even a legitimate degree.
  • In the Sioux Nation, the Bureau of High Technology rules that only Sioux-based corporations and/or entities related to those corporations are eligible to license technology from the University of Cheyenne. This puts a halt to any negotiations with other corporations such as Aztechnology and Shiawase.
• The UN recognizes the Asante nation as a new sovereign state, and the country opens its borders to international trade relations.
• July 25: The first cyberterminal is tested for military use. The models at the time are isolation chambers with numerous jack points and connections that occupy an entire room. The user can use the terminal to connect to the world's data networks with the power of his mind. However, first attempts end with the fact that many of the volunteers go insane.
• November 2: Milwaukee mobster Brian O'Malley is appointed by the Commission to be the head of the Finnigan family and Don of Seattle . He is tasked with stopping the yakuza 's expansion into Seattle.

2027

• Ares begins construction of the Daedalus space station.
• February 8: Dr. Etienne Dumas, Professor Emeritus of Occult Studies of Sorbonne University, leads a ground-breaking research group in magical studies. During this project he develops a test of measuring magical abilities in humans and metahumans. Labelled the Dumas Test, it is quickly employed by several leading corporations, eager to test employees for magical talents.
• March 8: in Los Angeles, California, USA, the Los Angeles Power and Water Company begins the first use of cold fusion. The process, which produces fresh water as a by-product, helps to alleviate Los Angeles' water shortage.
• May 28: The Parliament of Great Britain almost immediately passes a bill from the Lord Protector's Office that will provide for a Magic-User Registration Act. The law provides for strict control over the use of magic , which has met with harsh criticism from the media and academics.
• June 4: In the case Manhattan Inc. vs. The State of New York, the court rules in favor of Manhattan Inc. The New York boroughs of Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island are no longer recognized as part of the city, while the island of Manhattan, which is wholly owned by the corporation, is allowed to continue to bear the title of New York City, thus securing the associated prestige.
• In Italy, the government is crippled when it's revealed that the reigning politicians are either in the pockets of criminals or megacorporate interests. Protests begin across the country.
• The tax exemption for the Catholic Church is lifted by the Aztlan government.
• In China, the Republic Civil War ends. Henan has absorbed part of Hubei province, whilst the province of Shaanxi merges with the independent Shaanxi state. Manchuria also withdraws from the Republic of China.
• August 7: Ryumyo begins to infiltrate the yakuza. Ryumyo's ally Jurojin contacts the yakuza Akira Watada, heir to the Watada family, on behalf of the dragon while he is on a pilgrimage to Mt. Fuji.
• November 8: The former New York City boroughs of Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and the Bronx merge into an entity called "Quad Counties" in response to their sudden expulsion.
• November 17: The Revised Telecommunications Act of 2027 goes into effect in the United States . It stipulates that the Internetwork Transmission Control Council (ITCC) in the USA will not object to the content of satellite transmissions if this content is legal in the country of origin of transmission. If these programs with prohibited content are broadcast via local ground stations, they remain illegal.

2028

• April 10: A massive earthquake hits Los Angeles, causing millions of dollars in damage while killing 5,000. Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is completely destroyed. In addition, the cold fusion reactor built to alleviate the city's water problems is badly damaged, so the area around it is cordoned off.
• July 4: Inexperienced reporter Terri Ann Riberio, who has just graduated from journalism school, becomes the Great Dragon Dunkelzhan's new translator.
• August 4: The National Football League decides to delay the start of the season by two months to allow fields and stadiums to be rebuilt for cybernetically enhanced players.
• August 31: In Brittany, the local druids of the Druidic Revival of Brittany are finally able to contain and dissipate the mist. The mist is never completely removed as patches of it recur throughout Brittany in unpredictable patterns.
• A long-term recession forces Wallonia to join France as a semi-autonomous region.
• September 6: The University of Cambridge offers a bachelor's degree in occult sciences.
• September 11: The University of Chicago reorganizes its philosophy department to include the study of magical sciences. An anonymous donor allows for expansion and comprehensive courses such as Metamagic Theory, Alchemy, and Spell Making .
• November 3: Major earthquake strike southern France. The fatalities include members of the noble Grimaldi family. The Principality of Monaco thus falls under French control.
• November 7: Andrew McAlister is named the new President of the United States.
• November 10: Walter Bright Water gains a reputation for strongly supporting human-metahuman separation in the Salish-Shidhe Council. According to his claims, this is the only way to maintain a lasting peace. Paradoxically, he's also in favor of welcoming metahumans to the nation.

2029

• January 1: Sony Cybersystems, Fuchi Industrial Electronics and RCA-Unisys develop prototype cyberterminals. Finances come primarily from military intelligence.
• February 8: The Crash of 2029 occurs. All around the world, computer systems are attacked worldwide, apparently at random, by a virus program of unknown origin and unprecedented power. The program crashes systems, wipes software, and even burns out hardware around the globe.
  • In the USA, using experimental cyberterminals, the CIA, NSA, and IRS pool their resources and create the top-secret task force codenamed Echo Mirage project which is mobilized to combat the virus. Headed by Air Force Major David Gavilian, a liaison to the National Security Agency, this organisation recruits and trains a team of cyber-commandoes to function in t he world data network despite the balky equipment and psychoses induced by overwhelming sensory signals generated by the primitive cyberterminals.
  • The rich enclaves of Spanish Asturias are looted by the region's impoverished residents in the chaos of the Crash. They drive out the rich to draw attention to their misery. The Basque country uses the resulting unrest to secede from Spain, declaring independence as Euskal Herria. Galicia also threatens secession in order to extort generous concessions from the Spanish government.
  • In Basle, Switzerland, a Genom Corporation facility experiences a disastrous computer failure due to the Crash Virus. An experimental mutagen is accidentally released into the city, killing thousands of people. This event becomes known as the Night of Shame.
  • Austria is plunged into chaos by the 2029 crash when several critical and now-databases such as land registry and identification data are wiped out.
  • With the collapse of Thai banks, a military junta takes power in the country.
  • In Earth Orbit, the Crash Virus permanently disables Harris-3M’s Halo, Angel Station, and Nerva stations, while more than half of the other stations suffer fatal system failures. In the majority of these cases, all on board are killed.
• February 12: In response to the Crash, Britain and Ireland close their borders, preventing anyone from entering or leaving the islands.
• March 1: The first Echo Mirage team of CIA , NSA and IRS personnel fails in the cyberspace fight against the virus. The Pentagon then hastily recruits a new team, this time made up of unpredictable but brilliant industrial and academic computing prodigies, forming a second Echo Mirage team of 32.
• April 9: Despite major security measures, the computer virus infects the national air traffic-control network. As a result of inaccurate signals and scrambled communications, 27 air accidents occur within 2 hours, with a death toll in the thousands. Non-essential air traffic remains grounded for almost a week following the disaster, until a new control network can be put together. Among the dead is Keruba International CEO Kerpan Ubavie, killed over DeeCee International. His death severely destabilizes Keruba Group.
• April 12, In Japan, Corporate raider Inazo Aneki secures a massive loan from Global Financial Services and forms Renraku Holdings. He swiftly buys out the panicked Keruba shareholders.
• May 1: in Tenochtitlan, Aztlan, a major earthquake strikes. This quake destroys much of the older architecture in the city including the Metropolitan Cathedral.
• June 27: In France, the French nobility, seeking a return to political power, stir up rumors that the government is using the Crash to cover-up the plundering of the national coffers by government officials. All across the country, angry citizens take to the streets.
• July 14: Social chaos and economic collapse lead to a military coup in France , ending the Fifth Republic.
• July 30: In Italy, the Crash Virus destroys the Mafia’s worldwide financial network. With their assets gone-and still under attack by the more aggressive and ruthless Vory–the Mafia is forced to return to its roots in other more basic criminal enterprises, delving back into neighborhood protection, drug dealing, and smuggling. The Cosa Nostra and Camorra families manage to make due. The smaller N'drangheta and Sacra Corona Unitá syndicates engage in a turf war that almost destroys them. A truce is finally signed which leads to an alliance between the various families
• In Australia, due to the damage caused by the Crash Virus, The Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) relocates from Sydney to a new building in Melbourne.
• Islamist forces take control of Iraq.
• In the Principality of Liechtenstein, Prince Philip-Erasmus I resigns from all offices under pressure from the Swiss Federal Council shortly after the Crash, paving the way for the country to be incorporated into the Swiss Confederation.
• August 10: Unable to face the chaos caused by the Crash and its member nations descending into chaos, the European Union officially dissolves.
• August 20: Emergency Swiss financial protocols, which became active before the Crash, help Swiss banks to quickly recover from the aftermath.
• In the Seattle Metroplex, the 20 largest greenhouses in the world, polluted by toxic waste and damaged by the virus, are abandoned.
• August 30: The second Echo Mirage team, now equipped with upgraded cyberterminals, invades the worldwide data network to fight the Crash virus. After 18 minutes, four members die from fatal biofeedback. Scientists analyze the data from the deceased team members' cyberterminals and find a new way to prevent the feedback. Corporate observers are also finding that traditional security programs cannot do anything against a person who is directly connected to cyberspace or could even slow it down. Initial funds flow into research programs to find ways to stop hackers using cyberterminals.
• In Iceland, the nation's fishing industry collapses. This combined with the Crash forces Iceland to turn to the Trans-Polar Aleut Nation for economic aid. Desiring access to its remaining fishing industry, the Trans-Polar Aleut absorbs Iceland, renaming it the Thule Protectorate.
• November 10: First generation UGE elves, descended from various Native American tribes, move to the Salish Council . They declare the founding of their own tribe - the Sinsearach - and shift their settlement area to the area around Mount Rainer . Dwarfs , orcs and trolls also move into the area, but in smaller numbers. The nation renames itself The Salish-Shidhe Council.
  • Walter Bright Water announces his retirement from the Salish-Shidhe Council, citing a recent diagnosis of terminal cancer as the reason. After making a final public appeal for segregation of humans and metahumans, he drops from sight.
• November 28: The second Echo Mirage team develops new techniques that will allow them to isolate and contain the Crash virus.
• December 9: In the Salish-Shidhe Council, Walter Bright Water is announced dead. The city of Portland mounts a lavish funeral and memorial service.

2030- 2039

2030

• February 22: In Big Sur Coast, California, UCAS, agrobusinesses have used so many chemicals in the northern region that the area has become too polluted to sustain life. Instead of offering to clean up the area, the agrobusinesses abandon it.
• Spring: With Russian communication and surveillance systems disrupted by the Crash, Awakened forces take control of much of western Siberia and the Far East.
• March 11: The small Portuguese IT company Aegis Cognito gets a lot of attention for their talent in finding and recovering data lost in the Crash. This marks the rise of the group to one of the largest information service providers in the world.
• March 20: In response to increasing referendums on independence in Indian States, The India Act of 2030 is introduced by the Prime Minister personally, and receives support from both houses of Parliament.
• March 26: The Indian Crisis. Several states declare their independence from India, but the Government refuses to recognize the states as independent countries. The President responds by sending the Army into the rebellious states, which are considered invasions by the local governments.
• April 8: In Chicago, Dan Truman of Truman Technologies begins a colony of writers, painters and other artistic experts to create concepts for simsense chips. The area begins to grow as other corporations branch into simsense technology, and the neighbourhood becomes known as Dream Town.
• April 30: Campana&Carrindum Technical Industries conglomerate accuses Aztechnology of creating the virus that instigated the Crash of 2029, and C&C forces also begins attacking some Aztechnology facilities in Seattle. Aztechnology defends itself and completely wipes out C&C in the process. In order to avoid such "misunderstandings" in the future, Seattle's most influential corporations set up the United Corporate Council (UCC).
• May 16: Brittany, still plagued by the Fog, is declared an autonomous region. The High Council of Brittany, led by the charismatic Supreme Druid Gwendal Le Pellec, becomes the local government.
• June 1: In what used to be northern Ghana, a small group of intelligent ghouls lead thousands

of their kin to a region along the Black Volta River. Under their leader, Thema Laula, the ghouls establish the nation of Asamando, named after the Asante land of the dead.

• A German-Dutch-Japanese consortium plans to build four North Sea arcologies with support from the German government and Deutsche Treuhand.
• In the aftermath of the Crash, Sikhs in the Indian state of Punjab and in the disputed region of Kashmir seek independence. The Indian people see this as treason and Sikhs across India face severe repression, leading many to emigrate to Punjab.
  • At the same time, Kashmiri forces attempt to break away from India with support from, as the official story goes, a renegade Pakistani general. Having overstepped his authority by supporting Islamic insurgents against Indian troops, the conflict escalates out of control, resulting in the use of three tactical nukes by India. Although the Himalayan valley absorbs much of the heat and shock waves, the entire area is irradiated beyond repair, and is henceforth referred to as the Kashmir Wastes.
• October 15: Hit hard by the Crash, the United States and Canada both teeter on the verge of political and economic collapse, with riots and worsening supply shortages. In an attempt to pool their important industrial and natural resource centers together, American President Andrew MacAlister and Canadian Prime Minister Harold Frazier sign the Act of Union, an accord merging the remaining territories of the U.S. and Canada into a single nation: The United Canadian and American States, or UCAS.
• The city of Sydney, angered by the lack of support for their problems with mana storms, declares its independence from Australia, becoming a free city. The capital of New South Wales is moved to Canberra, and the Sydney Metropolitan Council takes over administration of the city. Although within a decade, corporate "advisors" become the de facto rulers of Sydney.
• November 29: A study of the infamous Bermuda Triangle by the University of Chicago Magical Studies Department finds no magical anomalies strong enough to affect large physical objects such as planes or ships. The only hint of magical activity is a low background count that gives astral space in the area a “fuzzy” appearance
• Winter: Three previously unknown elves start a swift rise to power in the southern region. These members are Aithne Oakforest, Sean Laverty, and Lugh Surehand. Around the same time, a soft-spoken author known only as Ehran the Scribe appears in Portland.
• In Kaliningrad, Russia, a series of air raids occurs. According to Russian accounts, Polish planes fly over Russian military bases and drop cheap aerosol bombs on them, which becomes known as the Kaliningrad Incident. There is no solid evidence that this was performed by Poland itself, as the country was still military weakened following the Border Wars, leadings to rumors of a False Flag Operation. Negations break down.

2031

• January 17: The Euro Wars begin. The Russian Republic, prompted by internal pressures and the loss of Siberia, steamrolls across Belarus and launches an invasion of Central Europe to secure vital industrial and agricultural resources.
  • Poland fights back valiantly and with little support from Western allies, making little counter to Russian air supremacy, which quickly cut out Polish supply lines and communications.
  • The Battle of Olsztyn takes place, where forces under General Justzin suffer a crushing defeat. The road to Warsaw becomes clear.
  • To clear away the defending Polish troops, the Russians destroy the Surwałki dikes. The toxic waters of the polluted Mazurian Lakes flood eastern Mazury, killing over 200,000 civilians.
• March 12: In India, the god Jagannatha appears at the Holi festival, taken as a sign to start rebuilding after the 2029 Crash. The state makes vigorous efforts to restore the cities, roads, train routes and network infrastructure.
• April 3: Poland surrenders to Russia.
  • The northern Pustynia sprawl of Warsaw-Łodż is abandoned as the Russians move in
• April 7: Motivated by victory in Poland, Russian forces invade Eastern Germany.
• April 17: In the UCAS, a Constitution is submitted to the Provisional

Congress. Within six months, two-thirds of the new country's states have ratified the UCAS Constitution. US President MacAlister becomes the provisional president and Canadian Prime Minister Frazier becomes the provisional vice president.

• NATO is replaced with the Euro Defense Force.
• May 23: Civil war, which broke out after the 2029 Crash, comes to an end in Austria. After a military putsch, Leopold von Habsburg leads the Austrian government and proclaims himself Emperor shortly thereafter.
• July 5: Russian armored units bypass Berlin and advance along the Elbe to northern Germany, where they are initially stopped by the Euro Defense Force and the newly formed MET2000. The city of Dresden is occupied and Russian forces summarily deport the state government of Saxony.
• July 6: Russian forces invade the Czech Republic. Emperor Leopold of Austria mobilizes his military forces to aid Czech troops. Other European militaries soon follow.
• Sikhs in Punjab succeeded in cutting off all connections with India within a very short coordinated action, where transport routes are blocked and communication routes are interrupted. The nation of Khalistan is established.
• August 30: An emergency government of Bundeswehr generals takes power in Saxony.
• September 9: Taking advantage of lingering post-Crash chaos and the Euro Wars, a cabal of Siberian shamans and sentient Awakened creatures declare Siberia and north-eastern Russia the independent nation of Yakut.
• October 21: Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland form the Scandinavian Union, both to help rebuild after the 2029 Crash and to hedge against Russian threats.
• The Danish government enacts the "land by land" law, which awards companies private land in the Jutland, which had been rendered toxic wastelands by the Black Tide, provided that they successfully clean it up. Proteus AG and Tyr Inc., among others, will later benefit from this.
• November 3: In the UCAS, the Echo Mirage team wipes out the last known concentration of the virus code. Of the original 32 members, only seven are still alive. Four of these survivors decamp into the private sector, taking with them the secrets of cyberterminal technology.
• November 30: Former leader of Echo Mirage, David Gavilan, disappears without a trace.
• December 16: Father Julian Estrella loses an arm in addition to his mother in an accident. The cause was an oncoming vehicle whose driver suddenly goblinized and lost control of the vehicle. Estrella radicalizes as a result and becomes a fanatical metahuman hater.
• December 25: Around the world, second generation cyberterminals are reduced to a desk-sized cocoon. With more affordable manufacturing costs, retail prices make it feasible for them to be released to as consumer grade electronics.

2032

• January 12: In Alpena, Michigan, after being checked in for a routine flu treatment, doctors discover Owen Whiting’s cells contain neither A nor B proteins, making them completely non- allergenic for use in transplants. With his permission, the cells are cultivated and modified for use in clonal research and transplantation.
• The European conflict slows to a deadlock due to attrition. Despite heavy loss of both men and materials on both sides, little territory has changed hands. Russia negotiates for the surrender of Poland.
• February 10: Maritech Enterprises, a Vancouver corporation, submits a proposal to the Ute Nation Council to convert Sevier Bridge Reservoir into the world's largest freshwater fish farm. After some deliberation, the application is approved.
• March 1: In the UCAS, led by senators from Alabama and Georgia, a major walkout of legislators from the southern bloc threatens to derail the merging of the United States and Canada. As the rest of the Senate argues over new tax structures and fund allocation, the delegates from ten southern states meet to discuss secession.
• In Europe and the Middle East, several Islamic states experience violent upheavals, allowing fundamentalist rulers to take over.
• In the UCAS, the AAA baseball league relaxes its rule and allows a limited amount of cyberware for players
• May 14: The American Medical Association establishes guidelines for the licensing of magical healers. This allows them to practice for the first time, even if only under strict conditions and if they have medical training.
• In the UCAS, the AAA baseball league relaxes its rule and allows a limited amount of cyberware for players
• August 19: A new technology is launched that allows total immersion in Virtual Reality. The corporate court is enthusiastic about the new technology and strives to replace the Internet destroyed by the crash virus with it. The result is called the Matrix.
  • The Corporate Court takes over the internet supervisory body ITCC and transforms it into the Corporate Court Matrix Authority.
• September 28: in Texas, Lone Star Security, having bought out seven corporations in two months, is granted extraterritoriality.
• In Bavaria, Germany, the government institutes forced registration of all metahuman refugees of the Euro-Wars.
• A number of smaller Filipino and Japanese corporations merge around Tsuruga International to form Yamatetsu Corporation. Chairman of the board of the new company is Tsuruga owner Tadamako Shibanokuji.
• October 30: Several megacorporations in Seattle are robbed of fortunes of nuyen in one week. The money never turns up, and rumors circulate that the thefts were done by a group of shadowrunners.
• November 2: Andrew MacAlister is elected the first President of the United Canadian and American States.
• November 15: The Big Seven execute a hostile takeover of Global Financial Services. Control of the bank is transferred to the corporate court.
• A new virus is isolated that apparently causes humans and metahumans to turn into such legendary monsters as vampires and wendigo. The virus is named the Human-Metahuman Vampiric Virus or HMHVV.
• In the UCAS, violent assaults, property damage and harassment against metahumans reaches record levels.

2033

• January 23: Swedish airspace monitors detect several flights of what appear to be British Aerospace FA-38 Nightwraith fighter-bombers flying across northern Europe. In short order, the aircraft obliterate key communications and command centers belonging to both sides. At the same time, unidentified commandos murder several hard-liners on both sides, while the Matrix grids of both factions are destroyed by a virulent expert attack program. Although Swedish records indicate the planes origin to be in the area of Great Britain, no nation ever takes credit for the Nightwraith strike.
• January 24: With their offensive plans crippled beyond recovery, the two sides announce a cease-fire the following day, bringing an official end to the Euro Wars. Lesser battles still continue on and Europe is left in a state of increasing economic recession.
  • In Russia, General Secretary Kropunin is forced to resign and the Democratic Recovery Alliance comes into power.
  • In Sweden, Damien Knight, a previously unknown financier, initiates his now-famous Nanosecond Buyout of Ares Macrotechnology. Using a series of expertly programmed computers in Stockholm, Knight executes a series of transactions so complicated that they can only be read by another computer. By the end of the minute that the transactions took, three corporations have ceased to exist, two multi- millionaires have lost their fortunes, three people have become multi-millionaires, and Damien Knight has acquired 22 percent of Ares Macrotechnology. It is a precedent setting event and leads to safeguards to prevent the similar computer aided buyouts in the future.
• January 28: Elves establish the Duchy of Pomorya in northwestern Germany.
• In Burma, corruption has grown rampant in the previous decade; the Thai army is on the verge of crushing the former junta’s last forces, and Mafia-linked senators urge the government to send troops to push the Thai army out and retake the lucrative poppy fields
• In Thailand, the military put a puppet monarch (King Rama XII); the population reluctantly accept him.
• March 15: Global Financial Services HQ is moved from Corporate Court to Zurich Orbital. The KGH also renamed “Global” to Zürich-Orbital-Gemeinschaftsbank.
• June 7: After Georgia Tech 's research project at Ted Turner Stadium in Atlanta was abandoned, homeless people move into the abandoned building. Over time, there are more and more who form their own micro-society in which the stronger has the say.
• August 3, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Tulsa School Board refuses to admit a troll into school and then tries to fine the parents for violating the state’s compulsory education law. The Grumman family takes the case to court but lose when the state establishes the “Academy for Diversity”; an obviously substandard school for metahumans. The Grumman family hires lawyer Richard Scott to handle the appeal.
• West Bengal secedes from India and becomes part of the Bangla Commonwealth.
• September 4: The United Islamic Conference in Damascus breaks down. Jordan and Kuwait join the moderate Federation of Islamic States (FIS). As a result, the Alliance for Allah, an organizing consisting of extremist groups and right-wing governments, is founded by al-Qaeda spiritual leader Mullah Sayid Jazrir.
• September 21: The Duchy of Pomorya gains its sovereignty thanks to the Oslo Peace Accords.
• In Spain, a local Alliance for Allah vanguard in the southern part of the nation attempt to enter Southern Portugal. They are repelled by combined corporate, mercenary and home guard forces.
• November 14: In Boston, Ken Roper and Michael Eld, two computer technicians just out of military service in the Echo Mirage project, complete their prototype cyberdeck and form their own company, Matrix Systems of Boston. Their design is much smaller than anything seen by the general public. The demonstration is marred

by glitches and a power failure that leads most of the investors to reject the company. One investor though, corporate raider Richard Villiers, buys 49 percent of the company’s stock.

2034

• In Jordan, almost immediately after the establishment of the Federation of Islamic States, radical elements depose the government and take over.
• In Morocco, radical Islamic forces chase King Hassid into exile and take over the nation.
• February 28: In the UCAS, Shiawase research and development teams successfully develop the first type “O” genetically engineered organs. The corporation is quickly granted a patent on the process by the Corporate Court.
• Following the overthrow of the governments of Jordan and Morocco, the Federation of Islamic States falls apart. Most member nations throw in their support of the Alliance for Allah.
• May 1: Matrix Systems of Boston release the first “grey-market” cyberterminal,named the Portal.
• June: In Ireland, State President Charles Mc Goldrick is impeached for vidphone- tapping, illegal surveillance of political opponents, and corruption on a grand scale. Power is passed to acting State President Eamonn McCarthy.
• June 12: Exactly six weeks after Matrix Systems launched the Portal Cyberdeck, Ken Roper and Michael Eld die in unusual accidents- Roper electrocuted in his bath at home, and while on his way to see him, Eld is killed in hit-and-run accident.
• June 13: The morning after Roper and Eid's deaths, all data relating to the Portal cyberdeck is lost when the main Matrix system computer crashes. The prototypes also disappear without a trace.
• July 4: The UK government gives Primrose Hill and the surrounding buildings to the New Druidic Movement as its headquarters.
• August 1: Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia unite into a single nation called the Danube Union. Leopold Hapsburg is elected head of state. The member nations sign a mutual defense agreement against future invasions.
• August 28: In Brazil, a force of Awakened beings and metahumans led by three great dragons, two of them identified as Hualpa and Sirrug, descends on the Amazon basin and seizes control of the city of Manaus. The army of the Amazon Awakened (as they come to be known) begin a systematic campaign of expansion from the Amazon Jungle.
• In Indochina, fighting in the Golden Triangle changes focus as the Thai forces face the regular Burmese army; Vietnam partly withdraws to deal with raids from Yunnan and Guangxi, whilst maintaining the fight on the Cambodian border.
• October 14: The Great Jihad, also known as Euro War II, begins. Incited by Mullah Sayid Jazrir, the Alliance for Allah attacks Europe through the Balkans and Southern Spain. The aim of the war is to "liberate" all Muslims in non-Islamic countries. A rag-tag army of tens of thousands of Muslims from Northern Africa gather on the shores of the Mediterranean, boarding every seaworthy ship or boat they can, and surge towards Europe.
  • Greece, the Balkans, Romania and Hungary quickly fall before any resistance can be organized.
  • European forces rally behind the Danube Union forces of Leopold Habsburg and halt the advance at the gates of Vienna.
  • Islamist forces drive north through Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Russia redeploys forces in Eastern Europe southward into the Caucasus Mountains, and the Islamist advance stalls following the assassination of Mullah Sayid Jazrir later in the year.
  • Russia is forced to put the majority of her troops on the southwestern borders to deal with the invasion. Russian troops withdraw from Poland, the Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltics, and Kaliningrad.
  • The Spanish National Guard tries to fight off the invaders and inflicts terrible casualties on the invaders but their sheer numbers overwhelm the defending forces and the Spanish coast is overrun. The invaders then start to spread into Portugal and Italy, though corporate troops maintain control of the Algarve. Spanish, Portuguese and corporate mercenaries are recalled from the Eastern front to drive off the invaders. Thousands of them are killed but the remaining Muslims arm themselves with automatic weapons from the fallen. The fighting quickly becomes a war of attrition as the French Foreign Legion is called in to support the Spanish Forces.
  • Islamist forces attack Israel. Although largely supportive of the move, many Palestinians secretly supportive of Israeli forces so as to not destabilize the fragile peace that has been built up over the years. Israeli magicians prove capable of driving many of the invaders off.
• Late October: In Kaliningrad, Russia, a coalition of military officers, Vory v Zakone operatives, smugglers, and anarchists take advantage of the conflict and initiate a rebellion against the Russian government. The Kronstadt Naval Base is seized with little effort and the channel to St. Petersburg is blocked. Some of the naval sub crews become mercenaries, others become pirates. The majority remain to defend the new nation, which is renamed the Kronstadt Republic or the Free City of Kronstadt.
• Islamic regimes take over several Central Asian nations and invade Russia.
• Germany's elite MET2000, together with an alliance of Hungarian, Czech, Austrian, and Ukrainian troops begin a slow and costly push of the Islamic invaders. Although unable to regain lost territory, the MET2000, deployed for the first time in this conflict, distinguishes itself as a premier fighting force.
• The Sovereign Tribal Council expels Aztlan from the NAN due to their treatment of their own aboriginal population.
• In the UCAS, displeased with what they perceive as President MacAlister's preferential treatment of the Midwestern and north-eastern sprawl zones, the southern states of the UCAS threaten to withdraw from the union. MacAlister, in his oft-quoted "Eat My Shorts" speech responds that if the southern states walk, there will be hell to pay.
• November 2: After two months, the Brazilian government capitulates after the city of Brasília falls into the hands of Hualpa and his forces. The Brazilian army buckles under the strain of magic. Hualpa proclaims the new state of Amazonia, and Maria Locasin makes his first appearance as his spokeswoman. Hualpa proclaims that they will be the savior of the eco-sphere and that the people of the former nation of Brazil will not be held responsible for the deforestation of the Amazon and other practices harmful of the environment. However, all such practices will cease immediately. All Brazilians are offered citizenship in Amazonia and the coastal cities will be maintained as “enclaves,” but the nation’s interior will be given over to the awakened for environmental restoration and to protect it for future generations. Manaus is declared as the new capital of Amazonia.
• November 10: A few days after MacAlister's speech, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Texas, and the portions of Missouri and Virginia, led by Republican Party Chairman Christine Caulfield, secede from the UCAS to form the Confederation of American States (CAS). Sentiments run high, and fears of a second civil war are rampant. Nevertheless, the transition is relatively orderly.
  • Aztlan is the first to recognize the CAS.
• In the Athabascan Council, NAN, Dunkelzahn begins his purchase of Lake Louise to serve as his lair.
• In the UCAS, the Centre for Disease Control lobbies to become an independent non-profit agency, stating that political bickering between the UCAS and the newly formed CAS could jeopardise its research. The request is endorsed by the Corporate Court, and the UCAS and CAS quietly accede.
• In Portugal, almost a million refugees from the collapse of Brazil flee across the Atlantic in any ship they can find seeking refuge. They are not welcomed by the populace, particularly under the strain of the Great Jihad.
• November-December: In Miami, CAS militia groups start attacking Hispanic and Caribbean-descended communities in an effort to “take back Miami."
• December 11: President of the United Free Republic of Ireland, McCarthy, demands that Liam O'Connor declare a state of emergency over the government crisis while the legislature is to make constitutional changes.
• December 19: President MacAlister signs the Treaty of Richmond with the rebel states establishing peaceful boundaries and a working political and economic relationship between the two countries. The portions of Missouri and Virginia remaining in the UCAS become the states of North Missouri and North Virginia, while the northern portion of Oklahoma merges with Kansas. The CAS is also written into the governing council of the FRFZ. Military units, divided in loyalties, split up and move to their preferred countries with few incidents of violence. The former governor of Alabama is voted pro tem president of the CAS until regular elections can be held.
• December 25: In Ireland, politician Seamus O'Kennedy, an associate of Liam O'Connor, makes a nationwide broadcast announcing further governmental changes. Chief among them is the dissolution of Ireland and the founding of a new nation: Tir na nÓg. Many humans, feeling displaced by the new predominately elvish government, emigrate to the Boston sprawl.
• December 31: The state government of Florida, incapable of controlling the fighting, eventually decides to remove South Florida from its control. An "Orange Curtain” is established across West Palm Beach to the Florida Keys, and the Caribbean League offers membership to the new state of South Florida, which it accepts.

2035

• January 1: By now, the UCAS has no military presence anywhere outside North America.
• January 10: In Denver, the NAN sector splits into three separate sectors; the Pueblo Corporate Council, the Sioux Nation, and the Ute Nation due to political differences
• The Athabascan Council government orders all the UCAS to remove all DEW sensor stations from their territory.
• April 16: Atlanta, Georgia beats is chosen as the permanent capital of the CAS, beating out New Orleans.
• May 1: In an unprecedented interruption of worldwide broadcasting by mimicking the Civil Emergency Network priority code, the Ceneste or "forsaken" branch of the Sinsearach tribe of elves of the Northwest territories of the NAN (formerly Oregon) declare their independence and announce the birth of Tir Tairngire (the land of promise). Lugh Surehand, now mayor of Portland, declares himself to be the High Prince of the new nation. Aithne Oakforest, Sean Laverty, and the relatively unknown Jenna Ni'Fairra become the first members of the Tir Tairngire Council of Princes. Ehran the Scribe also becomes a member, but secretly.
• May 2: The Salish-Shidhe Council sends troops into the Tir Tairngire area, confident that the elves are poorly armed and constitute no real threat. The elves strike back using heavy military weaponry, driving the Salish-Shidhe troops back. The Salish-Shidhe attack six more times from different directions and are driven back each time with heavy losses.
• May 9: After seeing the defeat of the Salish-Shidhe, every other member of the NAN recognize Tir Tairngire as a sovereign state. The Caribbean League, UCAS, CAS and Aztlan refuse any such recognition.
• In Russia, General Secretary Kropunin resigns over the failure of the Euro Wars. The Democratic Recovery Alliance takes power and initiates half-hearted reforms. Vladivostok, Rostov and other strategic cities that have been

closed since 2009 almost immediately reopen to foreign trade.

• In Tsimshian, a major schism opens between the government and the other members of the NAN.
• May 17: With CAS distracted by economic and political growing pains, Aztlan begins a military takeover of southern Texas. Despite the efforts of the Lone Star Militia and the Texas Rangers, Austin and San Antonio are quickly lost before the invaders can be stopped. Austin becomes a divided city, and the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex becomes the new Texas capital.
  • The State Legislature petitions for a military venture to reclaim the southwest of Texas. The CAS government, fearing that the NAN will come to the defense of Aztlan, refuses to assist Texas.
• July 9: Satellite imagery reveals that Africa's landscape is undergoing significant changes. Based on later research, it is assumed that Africa experienced a kind of "continental awakening".
• In Central Asia, there are generalized revolts against the Islamic regimes, effectively ending their wars with Russia.
• In order to save their economies, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia join together to form the Transcaucasian Federation.
• September 10: After receiving no assistance from the bureaucratic government of the CAS, Texas angrily resigns from the CAS, once again declaring itself a Republic. They immediately launch an invasion against Aztlan.
• In Indonesia, due to the Euro Wars, several of the European corporations muscle into the Indonesian markets and contest Asian corporate domination.
• In Morocco, forces of King Hassid combined with an Anglo-Spanish amphibious task force sneak behind enemy lines and initiate a countercoup. The fundamentalist forces are driven off and King Hassid retakes the throne. This disrupts the Alliance for Allah's momentum in other fronts.
• November 20: The United Nations faces potential dissolution after years of dwindling membership, economic troubles, and a complete failure to prevent the Euro Wars. At the last moment, the Corporate Court steps in to rescue and revitalize the organization.
• In Oświęcim, Poland, the Sylvestrine monks construct a network of astral wards called the "spirit barrier" to contain the ghosts of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
• In Geneva, an Extraterritorial Business Zone is established.
• 'December 22: The Yarrow reactor meltdown in England creates the Northern Radiation Zone.

2036

• January 11: The Republic of Texas, four months after their failed invasion of Aztlan, applies for readmittance to the CAS.
• March 21: In DeeCee Sprawl, UCAS, California representatives recognize their secession Proposition 129 and begin to push for heavy economic and political concessions. President MacAlister calls California Governor Nelson Treacle and tells him that if his state votes to secede he will hang them out to dry.
  • In California, UCAS, lawmakers approve legislation dissolving California's political bond to the UCAS. Secession from the Union lacks only Governor Treacle's signature, but he is in Africa at the time.
  • Upon hearing about California's bid for secession, President MacAlister goes before Congress and declares, under Article IV, Section 3 of the UCAS Constitution, California no longer qualifies as a member of the UCAS. All federal resources are immediately withdrawn from the newly independent state of California. All California citizens no longer qualify for Social Security. The only UCAS services maintained in California are veteran's benefits. However, some military units refuse to abandon California and stay as independent fighting units.
  • In California, Lieutenant Governor Marshall calls an immediate press conference to announce that Proposition 129 will not be signed into law, and that the Governor Treacle is returning to California early to deal with the crisis. President MacAlister states however that secession, based on the vote for Proposition 129, is the popular choice and that such a mandate cannot be ignored.
  • In Japan, the government immediately recognizes the newly declared California Free State (CFS) as a sovereign nation.
• April 1: Seeing an opportunity, Aztlan moves north to claim San Diego with a Light Armored Division and Tir Tairngire moves south to occupy Northern California.
  • California Governor Treacle, failing to receive help from the UCAS, makes semi-covert overtures to the Japanese Imperial State. Stating that further takeover from Aztlan or Tir Tairngire would jeopardize Japanese interests
• April 19: In Scotland, UK, druidic magic transforms acres of economically unsuitable pine forests into deciduous forests, marking the creation of the Scottish Wild Lands. This becomes known as the Monadhliath Metamorphosis.
• May 1: In Tir Tairngire, the government holds its first Rite of Progression. This series of mental and physical tests determines ones rank in Tir Tairngire. High scores allow for upgrades in rank, average scores keep their original rank, and low scores suffer demotions.
• June 23: In New Visions, Ohio, a church is fire-bombed with napalm. Twenty people, most of them metahumans, are killed. Two hours later, a previously unknown anti- metahuman terrorist group sends a rambling announcement filled with spelling errors to 187 media channels claiming responsibility for the incident. The statement claims that the group has twenty thousand members and ends with "ALL remember the Alamos. Twenty thousand". The group becomes referred to in the news as Alamos 20,000 and the name sticks.
• August 2: The nuyen gains acceptance as the world currency when the Japanese government transfers its national currency to the control of the Zurich Orbital Joint Bank.
• Tir Tairngire mounts a surprise attack on Northern California using an entire armed division supported by infantry and limited air cover. The attack catches the California National Guard completely by surprise. Within the first six hours of the assault the California units are pushed south of Yreka. By adding paranimals, combat mages, and allegedly at least two dragons to their regular army, the Tir Tairngire forces roll south of Redding, where the CNG digs in to make a final stand. The battle lasts for two days and although the CNG fights valiantly, the defending soldiers of Redding are completely destroyed by the Tir Tairngire forces with no survivors. The survivors of the CNG army retreat from Redding. The Tir Tairngire army demands that all non-elves leave the area taken from California within 30 days.
• August 21: The great dragon Lofwyr makes his first appearance in the financial world. Announcing that he owns 63% of Saeder-Krupp stock (the backbone of the BMW corporate empire), he votes himself into the chairmanship of the board ousting Wilhelmina Graf-Beloit. She flees to the Zurich-Orbital Habitat. Lofwyr then names himself president and CEO of BMW, changing the name to the Saeder-Krupp Corporation. Over the next two years, Lofwyr incorporates several other companies including Commerzbank, Dresdner Bank, Krupp Manufacturing, Ruhr Nuclear, and the Eurocar Consortium into Saeder-Krupp Enterprises.
• September 4: In the UCAS, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified. This amendment establishes the System Identification Number (SIN), requiring the registration of every UCAS citizen. Individuals without SINs are defined as "probationary citizens," and have sharply limited rights. Probationary citizens are not allowed to vote in federal elections. Species other than Homo Sapiens are eligible for probationary citizenship in the UCAS, but full citizenship to a non-human/metahuman may be granted only by act of Congress.
• September 18: In Tir Tairngire, Portland is officially recognised as the hub of trade between Tir Tairngire and the rest of the world. Construction begins on a massive wall surrounding Portland to keep international traders isolated from the Tir Tairngire. During this same period, the capital of Tir Tairngire is moved to Royal Hill just west of Portland.
• In Portugal, the nation's economy in shambles from the Euro Wars, Minister of the Economy Godinho proposes the Godinho Plan. The plan calls for the incorporation and partial nationalization of the nation's 150 largest

companies into a single corporate entity. The plan gives shareholders in the various companies an equal value stake in the new corporations. The government will buy out smaller shareholders and compensate foreign interests until it owns 20% of stock in the new entity. The corporation isnamed Lusiada and is Europe's fist corporate democracy. 60% of Lusiada stock ends up in the hands of four families: the Balsemaos, Castro-Marins, Champalimauds and Espirito Santos. These families become collectively known as "the Four."

• In Spain, the Alliance for Allah invaders are finally driven out.
• In Greece, concentrated air and naval forces begin attacks on the Alliance for Allah invaders.
• In Europe, the difficult hilly terrain of Macedonia and the Balkans combined with the guerrilla tactics of the Alliance for Allah, results in a slowinh of the European advance and heavy casualties on both sides.
• In Istanbul, Mullah Sayid Jazrir is assassinated while touring the city. Without his charismatic leadership, the Alliance for Allah quickly begins to collapse and their advance into Europe stalls.
• Turkey splits between western ottomans seeking to create a secular nation and eastern fundamentalists loyal to the ideals of the Alliance.
• In the Danube Union, inequalities within the military combined with a disproportionate number of casualties among the Hungarian and Czech troops leads to social and political upheaval and the collapse of the Union. As a result, the European ground offensive grinds to a halt as new Alliance reinforcements and counterattacks restore some of the lost morale among Alliance forces.
• November 4: Martin Vincenzo becomes the new President of the United Canadian and American States.
  • Sean Timbs becomes the new President of the Confederation of American States.
• In Milan, Italy, Protests against the ultranationalist Lega Nord's corp-backed rise to power leads to open rebellion. Rioters flood the streets of the city targeting municipal buildings and corporate offices. The military is called in but are unable or unwilling to control the violence. In Rome, the government gives up and resigns. Within a day the violence spreads to Genoa and Turin. The event, which becomes known as the Five Days of Milan, brings an end

to the Italian government.

• Corporate and Mercenary forces supported by Ares, Fuchi PanEuropa and Renraku deploy armed forces to hold key positions to ensure the peace. This leads to friction between the corporate forces and the local military who have sworn to support new local powers. Open war is only avoided when Pope John XXV negotiates a settlement between the corporations and the sindaci (mayors).
• The cities of Genoa, Milan and Turin are written off as a catastrophe zone and renamed the Special Administrative Zone of Genoa-Milan-Turin (GeMiTo). The area becomes completely lawless and its more than ten million inhabitants are left to their fate. Thousands die in the first few years of its existence. Several corporations, including AGChemie, Olgitech and Renraku, fortify their holdings in GeMiTo to keep the masses out.

• In the UK, the Zone Allocation & Procedures Act is passed. This act divides the nation into different zones, designated as either Urban (sprawls), Habitable (preserved for agriculture and tourism), Wild (home to awakened forests and paracritters) and Toxic (heavily polluted or radioactive).
• In Wales, UK, the Gwynedd Elven Enclave is established.
• The Dutch Prime Minister David Janzen and Flemish Prime Minister Jef Van Gils begin discussions on unification

2037

• February 7: In the CFS, two Japanese Imperial Marine light divisions arrive by air at San Francisco's International Airport and the Alameda Naval Air Station, claiming a need to “protect Japanese lives andcorporate assets."
• February 20: In San Francisco, CFS, less than two weeks after arriving, the Japanese Imperial Marines declare martial law "until order can be restored". Metahumans and individuals too weak to resist are expelled from San Francisco to make room for the Japanese.
  • A group of dwarves fleeing the Japanese marines start a colony in the hills surrounding Diablo Bay. This fast-growing community comes to be known as Halferville.
• February 27: In Denver, an underground computer clearing house for illegal and bootleg information called the Denver Data Haven goes online. In the years that follow, it becomes a force to be reckoned with inside the Matrix shadow community.
• March 2: Construction of the Wall around Portland is completed.
• March 4: Guerrilla warfare waged by the populace of Northern California forces the Tir Tairngire army to retreat to Yreka. An informal stalemate is reached with both nations claiming control over the territory between Yreka and Redding, but neither is able to hold it.
• Tir Tairngire is admitted into the UN.
• Emboldened by the Tir Tairngire secession, the Tsimshian nation also declares independence from the NAN.
• After Tsimshian's secession, Daniel Howling Coyote resigns as President of the Sovereign Tribal Council and retires from public life.
• In the UK, the government orders the Yorkshire Fringe Zone evacuated due to pollution and radiation hazards.
• May 1: The Big Willi prison in Hamburg experiences its worst uprising to date. The approx. 20,000 inmates start an uprising, which the security guards have practically nothing to oppose, because, to make matters worse, they have also obtained a large number of firearms through unclear circumstances.
• May 5: Just four days after the prison uprising, 640 guards and thousands of prisoners die. A mass outbreak can only be prevented by employing hired magicians and the Elbschutztuppe . As a result, the Hamburg Senate decides to make the prison island its own district with a special status.
• May 18: In Essen, Germany, Lofwyr establishes the city as Saeder-Krupp's new headquarters. The move turns Essen, effectively, into the great dragon’s personal kingdom.
• In Russia, the Democratic Recovery Alliance falls from power and is replaced by the National Soviet Reconstructionists. Viktor Kantemir becomes General Secretary.
• June 12: Famed medical service provider DocWagon is incorporated in Atlanta, Georgia. In an emergency, he promises to be able to provide better on-site care with faster response times than any other private rescue service provider.
• Tír Tairngire extends an offer of peace to the California Free State to reconcile their differences in the form of expanded trade relations between the two nations.
• In the UCAS, the first North American Urban Brawl championship, "The Super Brawl", is held.
• July 14: The Sixth French Republic is established by Antoine d'Orléans, a hero of the Eurowars , after the latter obtained government power from the military.
• August 22: Fuchi Industrial Electronics announces the launch of Realsense technology. This makes it possible to process emotions in commercial simsense.
• September 17: Frederick Goldammer dies. His Prometheus Foundation is headed by his granddaughter Yasmin Goldammer-Sorenson. Goldammer-Sorenson begins to embezzle endowment capital, which she purposefully directs to her own company.
• In Italy, the Papal States, which had been building since the Five Days of Milan when several local sindaci and governors request to join the Vatican City, are officially founded.

2038

• By this year Renraku (which has changed its name from Renraku Holdings to Renraku Computer Systems) has become completely corrupt at every level to the point where the corporation is in a desperate situation. A trio of major stockholders tries to oust Inezo Aneki and take over the board of directors. The attempt is unsuccessful, and the three stockholders are themselves removed from the board. Aneki considers the situation a lesson and, blaming the tree former members for the rampant corruption, begins to purge Renraku of all its ineffectual and criminal managers. Aneki steps down as chairman of the board and takes the sole position of president/CEO. Longtime board member Yukiako Watanabe replaces Aneki as chairman of the board.
• March 30: In Germany, a navigational error is blamed when the airship Lothar Spath flies into the path of a dragon over the Black Forest. When the dragon retaliates with fire, the hydrogen ignites, and the Lothar Spath explodes, killing all forty passengers and crew.
• April 12: Ozgur al Houssari, a Turkish-Palestinian hobgoblin, and Louise Derrida found the anarchist Black Crescent in Berlin. The organization aims to help all those who can no longer afford normal medical services or who do not want to.
• April 20: In the Sioux Nation, computer genius Steven Z Ridgemont creates FTL Technologies with a group of colleagues from Texas A&M. Ridgemont’s persona code is standard on Fuchi cyberdecks for years.
• In Los Angeles, CFS, all roads leading into El Infierno have checkpoints installed and an 11pm to 5am curfew is established.
• The Asante nation is coming online and setting up a Matrix infrastructure at least in their capital, Accra.
• In Berlin, Germany, radical, left-wing students from three universities organise massive strikes to demand improvement of unfair examination techniques. At Humbolt Universitat, the school president receives a box of severed ears of instructors from the protesters. He hires security forces to clear occupied student buildings. The confrontations turn bloody and the security officers are driven back by the students. The protests bring out many other radical organizations and the violence eventually spreads throughout the rest of the city
• May 21: After years of disagreements, often over metahuman rights, the conservative southern Lander which consists of Bavaria, Baden-Wurttemberg, Greater Frankfurt and the Rhineland-Palatinate secedes from the Federal Republic of Germany and forms the South German Federation, putting its capital in Munich. Alfons Hunggarten of the right-wing Bavarian People's Party (BVP) becomes its first chancellor. The secession is accepted with resignation by the Federal Republic.
• June: In Hamburg, anti-metahuman riots cause many elves to flee to the southern Elbe region and the Altes Land, while a portion remain there and in the Sachsenwald, the rest later moving on to Pomorya.
• June 10: Adams-Hoffmann Corporation's machinations are exposed by a London television station. For the past fifteen years, the company had been performing a wide-ranging experiment in forced gene-pool manipulation on the inhabitants of south London housing estates in order to discover how to control Goblinization. The corporation has been systematically crippling, mutilating, and generally decimating south London's population by exposing them to a huge number of experimental mutagens. One particularly shocking incident invol ves Generation Epsilon/Alpha 16 mutagen put in free milk distributed to school children. Investigation reveals the project was responsible for 720 deaths, with a further 9,500 unprovable.
• June 25: In London, in response to the Adams-Hoffman revelation, the inhabitants of Brixton, Camberwell, and New Cross in south London initiate a major riot that ends up on Tower Bridge. The police block the way leading to the corporate headquarters in the city. During this riot, the first 19 of a group calling itself the Lambeth Martyrs are killed. Tower Bridge and the nearby Thames Wharf shopping mall are seriously damaged. Several more riots break out after the Tower Bridge riot. The army and the police are able to control these.
• The Lambeth Martyrs, who have moved underground, initiate terrorist strikes with automatic weapons and rockets. The first units strike at Waterloo and Victoria Stations and in the Bond Street Station Mall. Almost one hundred innocent people are killed.
• July 1: The first collection camps for metahumans are set up in Baden-Württemberg, beginning the systematic deportation of metahumans to the neighboring area. The takeover of the national defense of the Southern German Feederation by the MET2000 begins.
• The Lambeth Martyrs initiate more attacks on government sites. Their most infamous one is at Dulwich Village, where 74 people are killed, including a retired ex-prime minister.
• August 3: The British government, unable to bring peace to the Borough of Lambeth, orders the military to seal it off, creating the Lambeth Containment Zone.
• The first border skirmishes are fought between the Ute Nation and the Pueblo Corporate Council.
• September 1: Ares Macrotechnology is expelled from Tír na nÓg for allowing cybernetically enhanced personnel to set foot on the island's soil.
• September 9: Chrysler Corporation and Nissan Corporation become embroiled in a series of hostile takeover attempts. At first it seems like Nissan might be able to gain control of Chrysler, but then negotiations ensue. As a result, both groups merge to form Chrysler-Nissan. The corporation moves its headquarters from Auburn Hills, Michigan to San Francisco.
• In the Ute Nation, NAN, the Cheyenne minority charges the government with maintaining a discriminating hiring system against metahumans. The implementation of a highly effective affirmative action program heads off any real confrontation.
• October: In the UCAS, the Super Bowl, cancelled since 2030, is re-established.
• October 28: The so-called "Rottweiler liberation" of all orcs and trolls from the largest of the collection camps for metahumans set up by the Hungarten government in Swabia takes place. Under the leadership of a troll known only as "Berthold," this marks the beginning of a guerrilla campaign known as the Troll Wars.
• In Italy, the Republica Serenissima, Mezzogiorno and Sicily establish local governments. Several other city-states soon follow suit.
• In Austria, Emperor Leopold disappears without a trace after it is revealed that his generals had been using troops from other Danube Union states as cannon fodder against the forces of the Alliance for Allah.
• In France, Financial Minister Albéric writes the Loureau Act, which curtails the powers of corporations and makes extraterritoriality illegal, although this is negotiated individually with the corporations willing to do business in France under the Act's restrictions. It is quickly passed into law.
• In Auvergne, France, Saeder-Krupp establishes a joint research project in the area devastated by the 2011 eruptions. The goal of the project, known as the Laboratories of the Auvergne Volcanic Area (LAVA) is kept secret.
• In Portugal, desperate for capital because of the post-Euro War recession, the government leases the Algarve to corporate interests. The region is turned into a massive resort known as the Algarve Corporate Enclave.
• In Basle, Switzerland, the contaminated Genom Corporation facility is covered in ferrocrete and used as the foundation for Switzerland's first arcology.
• In the UK, back-to- nature communities begin to detoxify and reforest the Welsh Wild Zone.

2039

• February 9: The Night of Rage occurs.
  • In Seattle Metroplex, the Metroplex Guard, under order of Governor Allenson, systematically rounds up 80,000 of the city's metahumans and transports them under armed guard to a series of warehouses on the Seattle waterfront in Tacoma. They are told that they are being deported to camps near San Francisco. In one of the warehouses, a series of screams prompts gunfire from the guards. Panic and hysteria take over, during one of the warehouses catches fire due to explosions, and all the warehouses are soon burning. Some witnesses claim to see Hand of Five terrorists in the area. The Metroplex Guard does nothing to stop the blaze.
  • As news of the incident reaches the public, citizens protest the barbaric treatment of the metahumans. The United Corporate Council threatens Governor Allenson with lockouts and boycotts to force him to act against the terrorism. By the time Governor Allenson acts, the fire has already ended and many of the metahumans are dead. This incident sparks violence around the city.
  • Those who escape the flames and mob flee into the Seattle sewers, where they establish the Orc Underground.
  • After years of persistent discrimination and tensions between humans and metahumans, which have often resulted in violence, a global eruption occurs following the news getting out. Thousands are killed across the world.
  • In New York City, 836 Metahumans are killed.
  • In Germany, the lives lost in the Night of Rage are almost exclusively racist humans killed by humans and metahumans working together to protect innocent people.
  • In Berlin, the Humanis supporters suffer a severe defeat against the anti-fascists and neo-anarchists.
  • In Karlsruhe, the mobs hunt not only hunt down and attack metahumans, but also Swabians.
  • In Poland, President Wojciech Rybiński, in response to the Night of Rage, asks Russia to step in and stop the violence. With the assistance of the Russian military, declares martial law, and names himself President of the new National Republic of Poland.
  • In Vienna, as neo-Nazis proclaim a "new Kristallnacht," left-wing militias backed by the Union of Trades protect the country's metahumans, prompting the racists to be quickly dispersed.
  • In Australia, Asians commit the greatest number of attacks on metahumans. The Australians respond by attacking the Asians with the same anger that metahumans experience worldwide.
  • In the Czech Republic, most of the violence is directed against Islamic groups.
  • In a few cities, including Paris, Prague and Lisbon, the Night of Rage passes almost without a trace.
• February 10: In Chicago, Alamos 20,000 use a combination of explosives and magic against the supports of the nine units making up the Sears Tower, sending the building crashing down to the street. The falling debris destroys blocks worth of buildings, streets and sidewalks. Thousands are crushed to death. Gas lines rupture and the whole area goes up in flames. A second Chicago Fire is narrowly averted by mages who contain the blaze in less than an hour. The final death toll is nearly 26,000. Alamos 20,000 attempts to blame angry metahumans for the attack.
  • The corporations of Chicago respond by sealing the metahumans and poor out of their neighborhoods. The city government and the corporations build projects on Chicago's North Side district to house the metahumans and keep them separated from the rest of the city.
  • Three days after the Night of Rage, public, civil, and media anger focuses on Governor Allenson. Rumours spread that he is a member of the Hand of Five. Local politicians, with heavy prodding from the UCC, demand that Governor Allenson step down. Allenson denies any wrongdoing and refuses to resign.
• February 11: Governor Allenson is found murdered in his office.
• March 17: In an event known as "Bloody Tuesday," more violence erupts in Boston when Irish anti-elven terrorists known as the Knights of the Red Branch set off a bomb at an elven restaurant on the march route during a St. Patrick's Day parade. The attack sparks a riot that, by the end of the day, claims 24 lives and injures hundreds.
• A special election is held to choose a new governor. Marilyn Schultz, mayor of Bellevue and a relative unknown, wins by a surprisingly large margin. Reports that she was one of the first city officials to appeal to the UCC for help during the Night of Rage apparently clinches the nomination.
• Governor Schultz delivers an ultimatum to Lone Star Security: arrest the leaders of the Hand of Five or else face a breach of contract lawsuit for their criminal refusal to stop a crime in progress during the Night of Rage.
• The Week of Sirens. Lone Star Security forces go on a massive manhunt for the terrorists in Seattle. Within a few

days, most Hand of Five leaders are either dead or behind bars.

• In Duluth, Minnesota, Alamos 20,000 attempts a mass murder spree. Eleven members of the terrorist group are captured but escape the day before being turned over to state authorities.
• June: Dr. Caitlin O’Connell discovers the equations that she has been searching for that fit into the equations of all races and cultures. Dr. O’Connell calls these equations of group consciousness the "universal brotherhood". No reputable journal will publish O’Connell’s report because her conclusions are considered unacceptable.
• June 1: Universal Matrix Specifications Conference: Fuchi hosts the Universal Matrix Specifications Conference in Tokyo, which establishes the worldwide UMS standards for the Matrix, including the standard iconography found by many deckers to be bleak and boring. More than 7,000 people meet here to set the standards within three months of work, thus driving the development of the matrix.
• In Indochina, over the next two years, Burma retakes the Kayah and Chin states to secure its borders.
• July 5: In Charleston, South Carolina, the first ever case solved with the help of one of the criminal victim’s ghosts is closed by Julius Wren, a magician with degrees in both criminology and thaumaturgy. The serial killer is captured after Wren studies the ghost’s actions, which revealed evidence that led to the murderer’s arrest and conviction.
• In Germany, the Reparation Law of 2039 is passed giving control of certain lands over to the Roma.
• In London, a massive chemical spill on the Teeside district results in more than 70,000 deaths from nerve gas poisoning. The outcry against the chemical spill leads to a schism in the British Conservationist government.
• August 6: The eco-terrorist group known as Pan-Europe spreads a paravirus in London in retaliation for their involvement in the dissolution of the European Community. The virus has immensely destructive effects on all wood and biofabrics, including the material covering the London weather control dome.
• September 5: The Anarchist Movement Berlin (ABB), which had gained significant political power following the Night of Rage, launches full-fledged revolt against the city government. This civil war brings down the corrupt city government and Das Rote Rathaus, the red-bricked city hall is burned to the ground. The Berlin Senate resigns and the rebels withdraw to Schoneberg city hall and deliberate for the next 23 days.
• September 10: In the CAS, senate hearings begin to investigate charges of racial pre judice against metahumans. The committee's shocking report verifies that conditions amount to slavery in most states. The Native American Nations impose heavy trade sanctions on CAS to speed up metahuman equality laws.
• Terri Ann Riberio resigns as Dunkelzahn's interpreter in order to begin what will become a somewhat successful, if not noteworthy, acting career.
• September 16: In France, artist Adam Alone holds a widely attended show of his works, which the great dragon Dunkelzahn attends. There, he meets and selects Nadja Daviar, an Eastern European Elf socialite with no personal history on file, to serve as his new “voice.”
• September 28: The ABB passes what they call the Last Law, establishing an anarchist state known as the Free City of Berlin. The only government body remaining is the so-called Berlin Council, which maintains a political-advisory role, serves as a discussion platform and helps with coordination, but has no legislative or executive powers.
• Due to he disappearance of Emperor Leopold and the stresses between the member states, the Danube Union is dissolved.
• November 15: In China, monarchists seize control of Shaanxi and restructure it as a parliamentary monarchy. Michelle Chou is crowned Queen.
• In Poland, General Kruk of Polish Intelligence founds the Armia Krajowa (Domestic Army) (AK) to combat the Russian occupation.

2040- 2049

2040

• In Berlin, Germany, all city services are privatised to coincide with the new anarchist ideal.
• Spring: In the Czech Republic, after the fall of the Danube Union, the nation begins to focus on education, new technologies and magical advancements. Colleges of the University of Prague become known for their innovative cross-traditional approaches to magical research, garnering world–wide recognition.
• April 7: The Athabaskan Council is one of the first countries in the world to recognize Sasquatches are sentient beings and thus grant them the same inalienable rights as metahumanity.
• July 18: The Second Iran-Iraq War erupts between Iran and Iraq, soon spilling over to much of the Middle East. The Islamic scholar Badr al-Din Ibn Eisa manages to swiftly settle the conflict together with his Islamic Unity Movement.
• August 13: In Southern Africa, the Cape Republic, Zulu Nation, Oranje-Vrysraar, and the Trans-Swazi Federation sign the accords of 2039, uniting them into the Confederated Azanian Nations, or Azania.
• October 15: In the UK, evidence emerges that suggests that the Conservative government encouraged the Adams Hoffmann Project 42-20, leading to the Conservative’s downfall.
• November 6th: Elections in the CAS and UCAS:
  • Joseph Alexander becomes the new President of the CAS.
  • Carl Preston becomes the new President of the UCAS.
  • The Democratic Reform Party breaks away from the Southern Democratic Party to protest the CAS' lack of action during the Night of Rage. The split gives the Southern Conservatives control over the CAS senate.
• December 12: In the UCAS, the New Horizons corporation comes under investigation for its Superkids project when one of them commits suicide. The Superkids project, personally overseen by New Horizons CEO Paul Louberge, was an attempt to create a perfect human by genetically engineering their bodies to accept cybernetics. The project is shut down soon after and the surviving Superkids are placed into protective custody
• December 14: In the CAS, President Alexander proposes various metahumans for influential cabinet posts. The Native American Nations then lift some sanctions they imposed in 2039 for the nation's treatment of metahumans.
• December 25: In Connecticut, UCAS, a casino on the former site of an Indian reservation is hit with a magical explosion that destroys part of the building, killing eighteen people and wounding dozens. A group calling itself Warpath claims responsibility. The organization, consisting of Native Americans from East Coast tribes claims that the attack “struck in the name of those whose lands were first taken from them, whose spirits cry out for justice”. The NAN immediately denies any ties to Warpath.

2041

• March 7: In Aztlan, a presidential order is issued rescinding the Catholic Church's right to function in the country. The Roman Catholic Church is declared a revolutionary organization and the practice of Catholicism is brutally suppressed throughout the nation. The church is forced underground and acts as an antigovernmental force.
• March 18: Global Oil and UCAS Steel corporations merge.
• April 23: In the Tsimshian Nation, John George, a half-blood Haida Indian, establishes the radical group known as the Haida National Front. This group agitates for equal rights for their tribe. As a result, George and many of his followers are put in jail. The surviving members go underground and turn to more violent methods.
• Policlubs, youth-oriented associations devoted to spreading various political or social philosophies, appear in Europe. Each club hopes to recruit the masses to its own viewpoint and thus play a leading role in the European Restoration.
• In the NAN, new border conflicts erupt between the Ute Nation and the Pueblo Corporate Council.
• May 16: The Greens oust the now-disgraced Conservatives in the UK general election.
• The nations of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uighurstan merge together into the Commonwealth of Turkestan.
• June 5: In the CFS, Lockheed Corporation completes conversion of residential East LA from a primarily Hispanic neighborhood into a sprawling factory district.
• June 7: New York City terminates its police contract with Warren Security after Knight Errant proves Warren's employees have killed homeless people in corporate-owned buildings.
• In Greater Frankfurt, Germany, the Der Nachtmachen policlub bombs the Fermnmeldenturm in Bockenheim. Half of the neighbourhood is destroyed. The policlub begins a months-long hostage campaign.
• June 10: In Atlanta, Georgia, DocWagon has become the city's de facto official on-site healthcare provider.
• July 11: All UCAS professional sports leagues are mandated to allow metahumans.
• July 25: In China, the Nationalist War erupts with Fujian and Zhejiang declaring independence away from the Canton Confederation and joining Taiwan. The Confederation declares war and invades Fujian.
• August 21: The Duchy of Pomorya is successful in revitalizing the Baltic Sea with biologically-altered bacteria and magic.
• September 5: In France, the Loureau Act is altered under pressure from the Corporate Court.
• September 10: In Saudi Arabia, the conservative Sunni movement leader Jamil Islamiya establishes the first madrassa dedicated to teaching magic in Medina.
• September 19: Troll commandos attack Karlsruhe's substations as part of the Troll Wars, causing a three-day blackout that engulfs the city's streets in chaos, anarchy, street fighting, and looting.
• September 21: In Lyon, France, Yohann de Kervelec takes over the French Diviners and Mediums Guild, an organization with powerful influence over the French nobility, and establishes its official headquarters. He begins reshaping it into a formidable arcane organization.
• September 23: EuroAir Flight 329, enr oute from London to Atlanta, is destroyed over the Atlantic with no survivors. Though garbled, the flight recorder indicates that the plane is attacked by a dragon (later identified tentatively as Sirrug). The recorder also states that one passenger holds the dragon off with magic for several minutes before the plane is destroyed. Strangely enough, the passenger in question was travelling under an assumed name, and when the authorities look for his next of kin, they discover that no such person exists. Many believe the plane is destroyed in retaliation for the Night of Rage.
• The Yamatetsu Corporation manages to make headway into obtaining a seat on the Corporate Court and the Zurich- Orbital Gemeinschaft Bank. Ares Macrotechnology, Fuchi Industrial Electronics, and Mitsuhama Computer Technologies all resist Yamatetsu and skirmishes erupt between corporate forces around the world.
• October 16: In the UCAS, the FDA clears antibacterial monoclonal antibody treatment for human use.
• November 25: The Copenhagen Agreement is signed, unilaterally banning the manufacture, use and research of biological weapons.
• In Sudan, the great dragon Celedyr is spotted in the Nubian Desert. This is the first time he has been seen since his initial appearance in Caerleon.
• December 22: In Tir na nÓg, President Liam O'Connor marries Lady Brane Deigh. He then secures her position as Prionsa within the Court of Stewards.

2042

• January 10: In Tir na nÓg, State President Liam O'Connor stages his own election as High Steward.
• February 5: Start of the full automation of coffin hotels to reduce personnel costs in this line of business. Coffin hotels are becoming the new standard.
• February 24: In Tsimshian, police discover the headquarters of the Haida National Front. They attack with Japanese-built one-man gunships and decimate the HNF headquarters. Few HNF members survive and founder John George is imprisoned.
• The Yamatetsu Corporation is finally recognized as a member of the Corporate Court and the Zurich-Orbital Gemeinschaft bank. Skirmishes between the disputing factions die off.
• March 2: A magnitude 4.7 earthquake with an epicenter near Neuenburg / Wittlich is registered by seismologists from the Ruhr University , but it causes little damage and does not claim any lives. Aftershocks are recorded almost every hour until the 4th.
• March 7: In Japan, Yamatetsu achieves AAA status and is awarded a seat on the Corporate Council. Hideo Yoshida takes control of Yamatetsu from Tadamako Shibanokuji. He immediately begins to purge most of the Filipino directors and make the corporation more Japanese. However, 11% of Yamatetsu stock is purchased by an unknown source. The source turns out to be a Japanese teenage woman who identifies herself as Ms. Buttercup. She claims to have inherited money with which she bought the stock. Her percentage in the company earns her a seat on the board of directors.
• March 13: Business Recognition Accords establish the global requirements for corporate extraterritoriality. The Accords give the Corporate Court authority in determining which corporations qualify for extraterritorial status. Most nations sign, but Scandinavian Union refuses.
• April 8: In Tir Tairngire, Ehran the Scribe puts his support behind Lester’s Gaia Hypothesis that contends that if the biosphere is a living organism, its Awakening will cause “ripple effects” in minerals, soil, and landscapes.
• April 20: In Salish-Shidhe Council, NAN, Masaru formally becomes a great dragon and purchases a huge complex as a lair on Vancouver Island.
• April 25: In Sichuan, Sichuanese combat mage Liang Hong drives back Canton Confederation forces using magic. In gratitude, the militia appoints him as general.
• May 31: In the South Lander, South German League, metahumans are placed into containment camps. The South German parliament considers passing the "Eugenics Program" into law to keep any more from being born.
• June 1: The Neuenburger Kopf and Lüxenburger Kopf volcanoes in the Eifel erupt almost simultaneously, burying the surrounding area under lava and ash. These are followed by others, and the lava flows dam the Rhine just above the mouth of the Ahr as far as Lahnstein, causing the Neuwied Basin to flood, which drowns Koblenz, Neuwied and the decommissioned Mühlheim-Klärlich nuclear power plant. Grand Duke Adolphe III von Luxemburg uses his private wealth to set up a fund for people and metahumans who have become homeless, generously and without regard to the person, to help with the reconstruction.
• June 2: Fearing that the Eifel Disaster was the result of metahumans, the South German League abandons their proposed eugenics laws and grants full rights to metahumans. Fearing for their lives however, South German dwarfs begin to emigrate to the Eiffel and Hunsruck hill regions. Orks and trolls follow suit by resettling in the Black Forest, the Upper Palatinate Forest and the Bohemian Forest.
• The Zeta-Impchem Corporation is exposed in the Polydopa scandal of dumping neurotoxins for the past four years in central Africa. This results in 4000 premature deaths and 35,000 cases of irreversible brain damage
• June 7: Ares Macrotechnology’s space exploration division AresSpace, implements Project Cydonia. This project launches a probe that flies to Mars and performs detailed scans of the planet.
• July 7: In the UCAS, the pro sports commissioners charter a joint committee to consider physical adepts in sports.
• In London, England, UK, several floors of the Angel Towers Arcology are damaged when a missile from the Lambert Containment Zone is misfired.
• August 10: The Czech Republic grants limited civil rights to non-metahuman sentient beings.
• September 9: In the UCAS, Dunkelzahn begins a semi-annual vid program called Wyrm Talk. Topics range from celebrity interviews to insightful commentaries on culture and society.
• October 21: In Istanbul, Turkey, the city, caught between the crossfire of the eastern and western factions of Turkey for six years, claims the region around the Bosporus Straits and declares itself an independent commonwealth, renaming itself Constantinople. They receive immediate recognition from the Ukraine, who sends warships across the Black Sea to support their claim. This forestalls any reaction by the other warring Turkish factions.
• October 25: In the Papal States, Italian Confederation, Pope John XXV declares that women may now be appointed priests in the Catholic Church.
• A few months after his charity work with the Eifel eruptions, Grand Duke Adolphe III has bought up almost the entire Eifel and Hunsrück region that had been devastated by the volcanic catastrophe, and also acquired the federal government's bunker near Bad Neuenahr, which had been shut down since 1990.
• After months of negotiation, the Union signs a modified version of the accords which grant concessions and contain a clause to renegotiate every four years. Extraterritoriality is only assured for AAA corps. Each member country of the Union will determine extraterritoriality for AA corps. Extraterritorial corporations are forbidden from performing police functions in the Union, and corporate armed forces are restricted from using large armored vehicles, explosives and certain crowd control agents. Police are given more leeway but need specific court permission to use anything beyond what is necessary for standard policing. Finally, sales of large multinational corporate shares to foreign investors is strictly curtailed, keeping majority interest local.
• November 8: In the Scandinavian Union, Henrik Gaarde, noted entrepreneur and founder of Ship City, dies. Luka Jankevitch of the Lobatchevski Vory quickly takes control of the community.
• November 13: The United Nations recognizes the Sasquatch species of North America and the Hsing-sing species of Japan as sentient races.
• December 8: In the UCAS, Veil agents intercept and destroy all data from the Cydonia Mars probes.

2043

• February 1: The Universal Brotherhood, a humanitarian organization that preaches a philosophy based on the group consciousness equations of Dr. Caitlin O’Connell, opens its first chapters: Two in San Francisco, one in Ukiah, and one in Gilroy.
• February 19: In Germany, the Troll Kingdom of the Black Forest proclaims itself a separate state from the Federal German Republic. It places its capital at Freiburg.
• March 19: After years of planning, the nations of Flanders and the Netherlands unite to form the nation of the United Netherlands.
• Multiple branches of the Universal Brotherhood open across Africa. In Lagos, rampant corruption, thefts, and armed robberies against the charity and its brotherhood force most of the branches to close.
• April 7: In Germany, soon after the Black Forest secession, the dwarfs announce the formation of the Grand-Duchy of Westrhine-Luxemborg. The German government initially tries to retake both seceded lands but eventually gives up.
• May 1: In Tir Tairngire, the second Rite of Progression is held.
• May 2: In Tir na nÓg, State President Liam O'Connor disappears
• May 21: Lady Brane Deigh proclaims herself Rian, or "Queen" of the Seelie Court, a non- legislative body independent of the Court of Stewards. James O'Brien is named state President of Tir na nÓg and William O'Dunn is named High Steward.
• In Siberia, a team of negotiators from Mitsuhama try to negotiate for the rights to do magical research there. The Siberians refuse and send the team back to Japan. Undaunted, Mitsuhama makes it public knowledge that they will pay handsomely for Siberian magical supplies. This creates a large smuggling industry based in Vladivostok, Russia.
• June 2: Damien Knight is re-elected chairman of Ares Macrotechnology
• June 14: In Turkey, under the leadership of Ahmed Massoud, a Cambridge- educated politician, the Kurds proclaim the creation of the Kurdish Autonomous Zone. Turkish andIraqi troops try to bring down the Kurdish rebels but find themselves facing a well-armed insurgency and quickly retreat. A truce is then signed legitimizing the existence of the Zone.
• June 22: In France, powerful earthquakes devastate the south-eastern and Mediterranean regions
• June 29: In Bonn, the EBMM scandal occurs. It is the only reported verified event of magical cheating in Urban Brawl.
• July 8: In Wales, UK, Rhiannon Glendower, an elf mage, becomes Countess of Snowdonia.
• July 13: In CAS, Freepark, the new federal government complex in Atlanta, is completed and the turbulent government transition comes to an end.
• July 31: In the UCAS, professional gladiator games debut.
• July 22: DocWagon opens their first Seattle office.
• In the Dominican Republic, Caribbean League, the government begins a slow collapse.
• August 10: In Seattle Metroplex, the Yakuza sends Japanese assassins to purge all Koreans from their organization. Most are killed but some escape. One of these, Pak Jai Kyu, begins to form the Seoulpa Rings with the help of his remaining followers. The concept catches on around the Metroplex and throughout the rest of North America.
• August 22: In the Tsimshian Nation, public executions begin to be held at yearly potlatch ceremonies.
• August 30: In the Upper Rhine, Germany, a series of powerful earthquakes occur. In the city of Karlsruhe, 10,000 people are killed, and the city suffers billions of Deutschemarks in damages.
• In Australia, the inaugural train through the new Melbourne to Canberra high-speed rail link crashes into a road train that had stopped on a track crossing. Most of the people on board, including several politicians, corporate figures, and media celebrities, are killed.
• September 1: In Indochina, Cambodia has taken so much damage that Vietnam eventually withdraws.
• September 9: The first freely available Talentsoft technology is launched in Japan.
• September 14: In Prague, Professor Marius Kochik of the University of Prague presents the Unified Magical Theory.
• September 17: In France, facing crippling reconstruction costs, all of the independence-oriented city-states return to France except Marseille, Nice and Monaco.
• October 5: In Berne, Switzerland, the government moves the bulk of its bureaucracy to the Matrix, relinquishing the majority of its physical assets. Many of the physical government buildings are completely abandoned.
• November 10: In Vladivostok, Russia, the government opens the city once again to commercial traffic.
• November 25: In Tir Tairngire, Ehran the Scribe publishes Mankind Ascendant, where he first mentions his controversial “Sixth World” theory.

2044

• January 25: Economic problems cause maintenance of the Panama Canal to be suspended.
• February: The Kampfgruppe Pfeiffer-a mysterious, ghostly armored formation supposedly made up of former members of the Waffen SS- joins the fight against the Swabians on the side of the trolls.
• May 10: In the South German League, Chancellor Hunggarten attempts to break the monopoly of foreign corporations. As a result, all South German datagrids turn off for 72 hours, causing massive economic problems and causing the Association of German Unions (AGV) to call for a strike.
• May 11:A flight of dragons flies in formation over Munich and Stuttgart, which many residents see as a bad omen.
• May 16: On the sixth day of the crisis, foreign governments worldwide freeze all assets of the South German Federation held in their banks.
• May 17: MET2000 ends its contract with the South German government, depriving it of an army. On the eighth day of the crisis, Chancellor Hunggarten is forced to resign. Not long after, the South German League dissolves.
  • The battles of the Troll Wars end after the collapse of the Southern German Confederation.
• May 19: The Confederation of American States is admitted to the United Nations.
• May 31: In Aztlan, the government nationalises all foreign-owned businesses, under heavy pressure from Aztechnology. In response to the business nationalization, semi-open warfare breaks out as some corporations attempt to hold on to their properties.
• In Tír na nÓg, the country suffers from a massive heatwave induced by chemical pollution in the air from Great Britain.
• September 1: The International Olympic Committee is revived in Greece, with the last 12 years of unofficial Olympic games stricken from the record. From now on, the Olympic Games are also open to multinational corporate teams.
• September 20: As the Nationalist War draws to a close, the Cantonese Confederation retakes Fujian while Zhejiang is splintered and becomes part of China's Coastal Provinces.
• October 11: The various states and city-states of the Italian peninsula, including the Canton of Ticino, band together in a loose alliance called the Italian Confederation.
• November 9: Joseph Alexander is re-elected President of the CAS.
  • Carl Preston is re-elected President of the UCAS.
• November 15: The legitimate government of Iraq is deposed by the Technocratic Dictatorship of President Sharl'atis.
• December 8: Using the corporate war as a screen, Aztlan annexes most of what is left of Mexico. The exception is the Yucatan, where rebel forces foil all takeover attempts. CAS trade sanctions are initiated in protest.

2045

• By this year Renraku Computer Systems has transformed from a corporation on the brink of ruin to one that is more or-less stable.
• February 23: Aztlan begins a two-year-long campaign of annexation by absorbing Guatemala.
• April 1: The first chapter of the Universal Brotherhood opens in Seattle Metroplex.
• May 8: In response to a call for a constitutional congress to establish new rules for cooperation between the Lander and after a year of deliberation, a new German constitution establishes the Allied German States (Allianz Deutscher Lander or ADL) as the successor of the old Federal Republic of Germany. Several disputed areas are given special associate status, including the Troll Kingdom, the dwarf Duchy of Westrhine-Luxembourg, the elven Duchy of Pomorya, the individual states of the Upper Palatinate Forest, the Saarland Special Legislative Zone (SOX), and the Free City of Berlin. The entire Spreewald hill country is given to the neighboring state of Brandenburg.
• May 15: Wuxing Incorporated is granted extraterritoriality by the Corporate Court.
• May 24: The United Nations moves into new headquarters in Switzerland, the Palais des Nations. At a conference in Prague, the organization signs the Second Charter.
• June 2: The final phase of the Manhattan reconstruction project is completed, ending forty years of work following the devastating 2005 earthquake.
• June 6: Belize is absorbed into Aztlan.
• In Xpujil, Aztlan, rioting engulfs the city. The military quickly ends the riots.
• June 19: In Los Angeles, CFS, the outdated fusion generator of an offshore oilrig being used as a research facility by Aztechnology explodes, creating a massive radioactive tidal wave. Nicknamed the Green Tide, the resulting flood devastates communities from Ventura to Oceanside. Bel Air and the Palisades are destroyed by the wave, and polluted by nuclear material. They are later rebuilt on higher ground.
• June 22: In Hawai’i, King Kamehameha IV dies. He is succeeded by his son Gordon Ho who takes the title King Kamehameha V.
• July 12: In the UCAS, the commission on physical adepts in pro-sports rules that physical adepts can compete in professional sports as long as they have absolutely no cybernetic modifications.
• July 13: In the CAS, President Alexander dies in office. Though some believe he is assassinated, no conclusive proof emerges. Vice President Newstrom assumes the presidency, becoming little more than a puppet for the cabinet members.
• The city of Franconia declares its independence from Bavaria. At the same time however, the city of Aschaffenburg secedes from Franconia to become part of Greater Frankfurt. This serves to worsen Greater Frankfurt's terrible longshoreman strike, escalating it into a more violent protest.
• The UN passes a decision making the construction and production of robots for use in military combat a violation of international law.
• August 7: The city of Constantinople is badly damaged by a powerful earthquake.
• September 8: In Atlanta, Georgia, the inhabitants of the Ted Turner Stadium pour out in a mass exodus, taking refuge around the coliseum and building crude shelters in the parking lots. Media teams who investigate the scene report that the membrane has gradually deteriorated to where it no longer allows enough food to be produced for the masses living inside the dome. The former leaders have remained inside with their families, taking what food the dome membrane produces. A ritual is created where an outside "domer" can earn a position inside the dome by dethroning an inside "domer" in a gladiatorial battle.
• September 12: Honduras is annexed by Aztlan.
• October 1: In Seattle Metroplex, UCAS, Charles Gates, CEO of the Microdeck Corporation and The Gates Casino disappears leaving his son, Brian W. Gates III in charge of his financial empire.
• October 13: In the Algonkian Council, NAN, Elven shaman Adrienne Silvermoon leads a successful campaign to establish the elven Manitou tribe as a political and social force by advocating low-impact sustainable technology. As a result, the nation is renamed the Algonkian-Manitou Council.
• October 21: Portland's Tír Tairngire Museum of Science and Industry adds a SimSinn theme park to its complex.
• November 3: In Sydney, Australia, the Tanamyre Corporation buys the World Square building and begins a project to eventually turn it into a self-sufficient arcology.
• December 31: Shamanistic husband of Universal Brotherhood founder Paul Grigg commits suicide. This death is later believed to have summoned the first insect spirts into the physical plane.

2046

• January 15: In the Libyan Desert, Egypt, two corporations get wind of a top-secret weapons lab that managed to avoid detection by both Israel and the United Nations. Both corporations send in strike teams to acquire the base and end up in conflict with each other. The conflict turns into an all-out battle that is covered by the media. The broadcast receives worldwide interest and the Corporate Court, realising that they have a potentially lucrative product in broadcasting wars between corporate forces, cuts a deal with the Egyptian Government for long-term use of the Libyan Desert as a training ground for corporate security personnel. The broadcast becomes an annual event called Desert Wars with "skirmishes" staged at other times of the year and training exercises going on almost all the time.
• January 23: In Southern Aztlan, a landslide in the Gaillard Cut closes the Panama Canal to all but smallest ships able to pass through the bottleneck. The Panama Canal authority asks Aztlan for help in maintaining and repairing the Canal. Aztlan troops invade the south of the country and begin repair work.
• January 30: The Alta Commissione of the European Mafia, chaired by the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and organized by Don Lucio Feretti, is formed to rebuild their businesses after they were almost crushed in the wake of the Euro Wars and the Great Jihad. The body includes the Camorra, the N'drangheta, the Sacra Corona Unita and the Vásquez syndicate in Spain, in addition to the Sicilian Mafia. Later, the Marseillais milieu, the Corsican mafia, the Turkish Gray Wolf Maffiya and the Albanian Fares join.
• In Asturias, Spain, Community President Xavier Callas embezzles money slated for social welfare and reconstruction projects and flees the country. The region descends into anarchy. The army fails to stop the riots and Asturias is abandoned to the encroaching forests.
• February 12: Aztlan absorbs the region around the Panama Canal.
• April 18: The Asturian forests in Spain show amazingly rapid growth and overgrow the region of Asturias .
• April 24: In the Dominican Republic, Caribbean League, President Anita Chavez dies. This results in the final collapse of the government of that nation. Many different pirate interests begin fighting over control of the country.
• Three megacorporations, Aztechnology, Shiawase, and Universal Omnitech, announce publicly that they have fully decoded the mundane segments of the human/metahuman genome.
• May 16: In the UCAS, the first simsense megahit, "Free Fall”, starring Honey Brighton, is released.
• May 19: Dr. Robert Kortmann is elected Federal President of the ADL.
• June 2: In Israel, a massive mana warp forces the abandonment of Jerusalem.
• June 4: In Detroit , Michigan, UCAS, Ares Macrotechnology sponsors a large, citywide festival to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Henry Ford 's completion of the first automobile.
• July 8: The first biannual international Urban Brawl World Cup is held in Flint, Michigan
• July 23: The United Nations takes control of Jerusalem and establishes the Ecumenical Council to administer the city. The UN Mission in Jerusalem (UNMIJ) is also set up, and the Ecumenical Council allows 10,000 UN blue helmets to be stationed in the city.
• July 29: In the UCAS, the rock group Shield Wall releases their first album.
• August 2: Austrian scientists Richard Bruckner and Günther Langer in Austria isolate the MMVV-Ia strain of the HMHVV, also known as the Brucker-Lagner Strain, which transforms infected humans into Nosferatu.
• August 14: In Austria, the effect of HMHVV I infection on dwarves, transformation into a goblin, is documented for the first time.
• August 23: Administration of the Suez Canal falls to the United Nations.
• September 10: The Lost Election Scandal occurs when the Magestone decker group erases the results of the California Free State gubernatorial election. Rumor has it they got help from a gang based in El Infierno, Los Angeles.
  • In response to rumors of an El Infierno gang's election interference, the Free State government dispatches California State Guard troops, Lone Star officers from the UCAS, and corporate mercenaries to Los Angeles to inspect the El Infierno neighborhood and remove the gangs. Heavy street fighting occurs and high numbers of civilian deaths demoralize many of the troops. Many begin deserting.
• September 12:' After two days of combat in the streets, Sacramento orders the withdrawal of troops from El Infierno and declares the whole of Los Angeles to be a Free City.
• October 5: In Scotland, UK, researchers discover a freshwater serpent living in Loch Ness.
• October 31: Rocker Jetblack draws attention in Seattle . His "Angstrock" style makes him a megastar.
• December 21: Aztlan incorporates El Salvador and Nicaragua as states.

2047

• February 21: Maria Mercurial performs her first concert at Underworld 93 in Seattle.
• March 6: The Sons of the Alamo policlub is formed in Texas, dedicated to reclaiming the land taken from Texas by Aztlan.
• March 15: In the CAS, a massive crackdown on Better Than Life-SimSense (BTL) is launched following the death of Senator James Wheeler’s daughter from BTL use.
• In Provo, Ute Nation, NAN, a large shipment of Pueblo Corporate Council-imported computer equipment is stolen from a warehouse. The entire supply is dumped into Utah Lake.
• April 18: In the UCAS, the Blut und Ehre policlub launches a string of chopper raids in the DeeCee sprawl.
• April 23: In Greece, the fishing village of Agnondas on the isle of Skopelos is destroyed by a gorgon. Eleven people are discovered petrified, fourteen ripped apart, and another ten are found dead of no visible causes.
• June 18: The North American Basketball Association allows cyber implants in professional basketball after bitter negotiations.
• June 19: London Bridge Station is the target of a bombing by an unknown terrorist group. The station is declared irreparable and closed down.
• June 22: In Tir Tairngire, an assassination attempt is directed at

High Prince Lugh Surehand as he tours a municipal building in the city of Eugene. The attempt fails due to magical intervention.

• July 11: in England, a para-VITAS outbreak kills 120,000 people in Newcastle, Tynesprawl. The outbreak is believed to be the work of an unknown eco-terrorist group.
• July 19: In China, most of Guizhou and parts of Yunnan are annexed by Sichuan.
• August 4: The Islamic Republic of Pattani gains independence from Thailand
• August 22: In Poland, Malopolska is declared a Free City and its government is subcontracted to Saeder-Krupp.
• September 10: in Karlsruhe, AGS, Hedwig Gabler, a known racist against metahumans, is elected Lord Mayoress. She immediately begins a program of building an army to attack the ork and troll kingdom in the Black Forest.
• September 26: In Saudi Arabia, the Aleppo citadel madrassa graduates their first class of magicians and adepts.
• October 13: In Osthofen, AGS, The Scherist-Manngold AG Arkologie is opened despite numerous accidents and problems during its construction. Soon after the grand opening, the main building suffers an explosion and catches fire. The building collapses in on itself and the fire spreads to the other buildings. Hundreds are killed and the buildings are eventually abandoned.
• November 15: In Seattle Metroplex, a terrorist bomb destroys much of Everett Beacon Mall. 180 are killed.
• November 23: Just days later, Sea-Tac Mall in Seattle is bombed in another terrorist attack that leaves 5 people dead.

2048

• January 9: The conspirators named as the founders behind Proteus AG - supported by the Frankfurter Bankenverein - take over the ruins of the Arkobau project by means of front companies at a ridiculous price. After misappropriating the last remaining capital, the Prometheus Foundation is dissolved as having no assets.
• February 13: The Spindle space station is inaugurated by Aztechnology.
• February 20: Riots break out city-wide in Toronto due to food shortages.
• March 26: In response to the forced nationalization of 2044, the megacorporations, with the support of the Corporate Court, launch Operation Reciprocity, a military strike against Aztechnology's facilities and also on Aztlan itself. A military strike is launched against a military facility in Ensenada. Although the facility is only mildly damaged, the attack is meant as a warning to Aztechnology to back off on the nationalization issue.
  • In Puerto Rico, Caribbean League, the island is used as a staging ground for a false attack against Aztechnology interests in order to divert them from a larger target.
• March 29: Aztlan and Aztechnology surrender in the face of Operation Reciprocity and bow to the Corporate Court. The Veracruz Accords are signed, which stipulates that reparations will be paid and grants megacorporations permission to operate indirectly in Aztlan.
• In the CAS, Secretary of State Douglas Bennett is discovered dead with his elven mistress. Innuendos of policlub involvement fill the press.
• May 1: After the local government collapses, Aztlan annexes Panama.
• May 14: In San Francisco, CFS, an earthquake strikes the bay area. Although damage from the quake is not as bad as predicted the Caldecott Tunnel connecting Diablo Valley and San Francisco is destroyed.
  • While the government is trying to allocate funds, the East Bay Dwarves, repair the Caldecott Tunnel. In lieu of payment, all mineral, access and other rights to former national and state parklands are ceded to the dwarves. The dwarves maintain the tunnel and pay a modest mineral tax in return.
• June 1: In the FRFZ, the Humanis Policlub initiates a series of riots and attacks in Chinatown.
• June 6: In Finland, Erika has acquired every other significantly sized Finnish corporation, allowing it to achieve AA status.
• June 18: In the Athabaskan Council, the Trans-AthabaskanPipeline (T-AP), formerly the Alaskan Pipeline, is reopened after more than a year of repairs. Other pipelines follow.
• June 24: In the UCAS, the United Oil Corporation hires Haesslich, a western dragon as their new head of security.
• July 8: Who Weeps for the children?', the first single from Maria Mercurial, reaches number one on the charts.
• July 28: In the UCAS, fashion designer Zoé makes a name designing one-of-a-kind clothing for exclusive clients.
• Doctors Eileen Van Buren and Peter Carmine publish their highly controversial book, Studies in Awakened Biology.
• August 4: The sasquatch musician Frumious joins the Seattle rock band, Shield Wall.
• September 23: In India, the Indian Unity Coalition takes power and the country rejoins the United Nations. The party also renamed the country from "India" to "Indian Union" to reflect changes to the 1950 constitution.
• October 10: In the UCAS, rock megastar Jetblack is killed on his way home from a concert in Seattle.
• November 3: Democrat Alan Adams is elected to his first term as President of the United Canadian and American States. He appoints the technocrat Thomas Steele as vice president.
• November 26: Edna Wallace is elected President of the Confederation of American States.
• December 8: Daniel Feddersen, Mayor of Snohomish in Seattle, is assassinated by the Humanis Policlub.
• December 18: Shotgun Blue, Queen Euphoria's first simsense flick, appears on the market.
• December 29: The city of Izmir, Turkey, is leveled by an earthquake.

2049

• January 1: Proteus AG is officially founded and its headquarters are moved to Heligoland.
  • As of this year, the Asante nation's borders encompass the mouth of the Volta River, west through Greater Accra, and north almost to the Suyani region.
• January 3: In the AGS, Proteus AG officially continues the construction of their headquarters in Helgoland, taking over from their shell company who had started construction the year before.
• February 17: In Aztlan, Thomas Roxborough, one of the board of directors of Aztechnology, announces he is dying of an autoimmune disease that causes his body to metabolize its own tissue. As a result, he partakes in an experiment with Universal Omnitech to keep him alive through an experimental treatment. The procedure keeps him alive, although he cannot leave the biotank his body was placed in. His mind is kept intact but his body is somehow altered.
• February 18: In the UCAS, the “street mercenary” style gains popularity among fashion leaders.
• March 4: In the UCAS, Leonard Aurelius, through a cunning proxy campaign, ousts Damien Knight as chairman of the board of Ares Macrotechnology.
• March 26: In Amazonia, the great dragon Arleesh awakens and makes her first appearance
• April 11: In England, UK, 31 members of the British nobility are killed in Dartmoor forest by the group Deep Green while on a hunt.
• In Seattle Metroplex, UCAS, William Louden is named head of Lone Star Seattle.
• In the CAS, the "Racial Revenge" trial of Douglas Bennett's accused murderer begins. Despite President Wallace's gag order, several facts important to the defense are aired on Atlanta's evening news. Hostile witnesses from both sides confuse the issue with dogma and political slogans.
• April 23: The Bundeswehr puts an end to the fascist dream of the Greater Baden crusade movement as, when it moves into Karlsruhe, Dr. Hedwig Gabler is arrested and the militias and mercenaries with whom Mrs. Gabler was about to attack the Swabians and the trolls in the Black Forest are disarmed.
• May 14: Puta, Maria Mercurial 's second album, is released.
• May 28: Aztechnology Corporate Security takes over border control in Aztlan .
• In the AGS, the Dissemination of Personality-Enhancing Substances and Instruments Act is passed. This act divides addictive and personality- enhancing substances into several classes with different legal penalties for violation of each class.
• June 12: In the Ute Nation, the Wasatch Awakened, a tribe of metahumans, file a petition for tribal recognition. It is tabled for further consideration.
• June 17: Aztlan establishes an embassy in Denver.
• July 13: Aztlan and Amazonia begin conquering large parts of Colombia and Venezuela, each justifying this act of war with the threat of annexation by the other. Only the capital, Caracas, remains independent of Venezuela as a free city under the rule of oligarchs and ghost cartels.
• July 29: Arkady Korolenko takes office as Secretary General of the Russian Republic, succeeding Viktor Kantemir.
• August 20: At Club Penumbra, Seattle, Warren Cartwright, the guitarist for the band Concrete Dreams, holds an acoustic jam session. Maria Mercurial joins spontaneously.
• September 2: Axe Slayer, an up and coming neo-metal revivalist rock star, is killed during a performance when his exploding codpiece detonates prematurely. Sales of the video of this performance make millions.
• September 10: In Seattle Metroplex, Mayor Michael Alvarado of Tacoma is murdered in front of the Tacoma Sheraton. While leaving his limousine he is accosted by a woman who claims he is the father of her child. She then pulls out a knife and stabs Alvarado twice in the chest. After whispering something in his ear, the woman runs off. She is never apprehended.
• September 18: Renraku Computer Systems develops the first semi-autonomous Knowbot , an advanced expert system using a holographic neural network.
• October 4: Saeder-Krupp and a corporate-led consortium completes several railroads between St. Petersburg, Russia and Tsingtao in the Chinese Coastal Provinces, dubbed the New Silk Road.
• November 2: In Texas, CAS, the government, seeing that the former Mexico territories are prospering under Aztlan rule, lifts the trade sanctions against Aztlan.
• December 10: In Sweden, the first Nobel Prize for magic is awarded to a group of mages from Germany and the Czech Republic.
• December 13: Tír na nÓg recognizes the Church of Ireland as the official church of the nation, as well as implicitly excluding the Catholic Church.
• Late December: In the Racial Revenge trial, a mistrial is declared near years end. The suspect is moved to Texas' new maximum-security facility to await a change of venue. Texas Ranger Units replace the National Guardsmen outside the prison.

2050- 2060

2050

• January 3: Honey Brighton's SimSense blockbuster Free Fall sells 50 million copies. Scott Mislan, image coordinator for the MegaMedia Corporation also announces that the next Honey Brighton simsense, "Rock Solid" is currently in post-production at MegaMedia's Seattle studios, under the hand of Free Fall's famed director, Wilt Lipton.
• February 17: Faux-armoured clothing gains popularity among the fashion elite within the UCAS and the CAS, after a highly effective advertising campaign.
• February 19: The Groß-Baden Crusade Movement (GBK) carries out a bomb attack on the Freiburg police station south.
• March 19: In Aztlan, Aztechnology Corporate Security kills hundreds of unarmed protesters in Campeche, after a riot breaks out just outside the city. The government responds with military intervention. Hundreds of unarmed civilians are killed. This sparks a rebellion against the Aztlan government.
  • Randall Grant, one of the first theoretical thaumaturges, is killed in a freak accident. Rumours spread that he was actually murdered by Alamos 20,000 to keep him from revealing their connection to Dr. Armand Duplessis, a leading member of the Materialists, a group that claims magic is nothing more than a combination of hysteria, psionics, and other natural forces.
• April 7: Various corruption scandals in the ADL ensure comprehensive government reform.
• May 1: In Tir Tairngire, the third Rite of Progression is held. Several high-ranking participants mysteriously vanish over the next few months.
• May 6: In the Salish-Shidhe Council, a ferry en route to Vancouver is sunk by a Kraken. All passengers are killed.
• May 22: In Aztlan, government forces seize a portion of Venezuela from Amazonia. Although they succeed in taking a small portion, a full re-conquest is deemed impossible.
• May 30: In the CAS, thousands of metahumans march on Atlanta, calling for increased awareness of the metahuman plight. Members of the militant Metahuman Organized Rebellion (MOR) accuse the CAS of encouraging genocide.
• June 5: In London, Tong lord Kung Soo gives an interview to the London Times. He declares that the Tong's future lies in control of the Matrix rather than local business owners.
• June 30: In the UK, the Revenants policlub bombs a Werner-Vosscorporate shuttle en route for London, killing 175.
• July 16: In the UCAS, Seattle urban brawl star Carter “Mauler” Tate is publicly fired for refusing to take anabolic steroids.
• August 8: In the AGS, the seventh generation cyberdeck is introduced, now down to keyboard size.
• August 28: The Algonkian-Manitou Council's genetically-engineered crops suffer drastic failure. Immediately after the failure, and facing a devastated economy and starvation, the government brings in Aztechnology to re-engineer genetic supplements and anti-viral strains for the croplands. In exchange, the corporation gains several exclusive contracts, which gives it a virtual stranglehold on the nation's main export.
• In Seattle Metroplex, Maple Valley Mall is closed as a result of a series of unexplained bizarre and violent magical manifestations.
  • Dr. Vanessa Sanderson of Maple Valley Hospital is discovered to be running an illegal body shop but disappears before she can be arrested.
  • Governor Schultz appoints Judge Evan Gooch to her Seattle Crime Commission Select Panel on Containment.
  • Sea-Tac Mall president Nicanor Rodriguez receives a warning from the Black February terrorist group that another bombing will occur "that will rock that den of human overlords and their metahuman lackeys".
• September 13: In the AGS, the first closed-circuit simsense systems allow security deckers to rig an entire building.
• September 22: The remaining independent part of Colombia becomes a state of Aztlan at its own request.
• September 28: In Aztlan, Morituri te salutant debuted as a game show focused on a gladiatorial amateur contest where citizens, condemned criminals, and other such people fight contract fighters for a 100,000 nuyen purse. It scores the highest ratings for a trid debut in the history of Aztlanar broadcasting.
• October 4: In France, after decades of terrorism and pressure from various lobbying groups, the government eventually grants independence to Corsica. The new nation is re-named "Free Corsica." Guillaume Bonaparte, direct heir of Napoleon Bonaparte, is named president-for-life.
• October 31: In Tír na nÓg, four unknown elven mages gather at the Knockeen Dolmen site and raze it to the ground in a ceremony lasting hours.
• In CAS, Oklahoma City is named as the new trial site for the Bennett murder trial. Each side prepares new expert witnesses, cautioned that inflammatory remarks will be punished by stiff jail sentences. Evidence linking the defendant to a brutal policlub surfaces, further injuring the defense case.
• November 9: In Japan, Yamatetsu board member Ms. Buttercup reveals she is not a young girl. She is in fact a free spirit. Rumors state she first revealed her true identity to the Yamatetsu board of directors during an argument about the megacorporation’s metahuman friendly policy during which she floated up over the table and changed shape before the eyes of Hideo Yoshida and cowing him into submission. The revelation harms the corporation in the eyes of the anti-metahuman Japanese Imperial State.
• November 24: In Japan, Proteus AG wins bids to build offshore arcologies in Japan.
• December 14: The Trans-Polar Aleut nation withdraws from active government participation. Although still members in name, the no longer send representatives to the Sovereign Tribal Council.

2051

• January 31: In the AGS, the Proteus AG Corporation qualifies for extraterritoriality.
• February 17: In the NAN, anthropologist Helen Rainwater, in a study of ancient ninja clans, brings forth the theory of the physical mage. These individuals supposedly combine the abilities of mages and physical adepts.
• March 12: In the Yucatan, Aztlan, rebel forces initiate commando raids against government facilities. These attacks mark the beginning of a full-scale civil war over the next four years.
• March 27: In San Francisco, CFS, several tracks of the BART line are destroyed by explosives set by the anti- Japanese underground.
• April 7: In CFS, inhabitants of the towns of Gilroy and San Martin seemingly go mad and start a war between each other. By the time the police step in and control the situation both are almost empty of people. 10% of both towns’ populations are dead. The rest have fled to safer areas.
• In Tir na nÓg, a terrorist bomb explodes, killing over one hundred innocent people.
• April 28: In the AGS, the Hanover government normalizes relations with Russia, signing a treaty allowing cultural and economic exchanges. They also make the first attempts at détente with the nations that once composed the Alliance for Allah.
• In the Algonkian-Manitou Council, NAN, an anti-industrial terrorist group called the Manitou Brotherhood bombs a GMC plant. Fifteen workers are killed.
• April 30: In Roanoke, Virginia, CAS, Mary-Beth Tyre is kidnapped from her home by unknown parties.
• May 19: Queen Euphoria 's simsense film Final Fling is released.
• May 21: In Furth-im-Wald, AGS, a western dragon named Schwarzkopf flies into the town at the base of the Schwarzkoppe Mountain, and declares itself the new ruler. The Weise Duchess of Furth tries to fight but she is unsuccessful.
• In the UK, the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment is assassinated by a radical environmental group.
• May 29: In the Pueblo Corporate Council, NAN, an Airlink Transit plane collides with a dragon. Two passengers on the plane are killed.
• June 3: In the Algonkian-Manitou Council, NAN, Derek Highsun leads a coup against Adrienne Silvermoon. The coup is successful and Silvermoon is supposedly killed when she loses control of a summoned spirit.
  • In Seattle Metroplex, Gloria Yu, a grocery store owner, is assaulted by an Ork street gang. Baily Security Control Systems uses the incident as an extremely successful marketing gimmick for their products.
• June 23: In Seattle Metroplex, Haesslich, a great Western Dragon and chief of security of United Oil's Seattle branch, vanishes near Puget Sound in Seattle. Rumours state that he was killed by a rocket fired by unknown parties and that United Oil took his body for study.
• June 24: In London, Princess Caroline of Great Britain marries Swiss banking magnate Jürgen Meier, further strengthening links between their two nations.
• In Seattle Metroplex, a number of bodies later identified to be a number of ghouls, a vampire, a dzoo-noo-qua, four banshees and several dismembered bodies of the Church of the Whole Earth Inc are discovered near an open crypt in Brando Memorial Cemetery.
• July 20: In Marseilles, France, a series of illegal experiments is uncovered by media personality Madeleine Muller. Muller is almost killed investigating this story. As a result, Spinrad Industries is slapped with massive fines by the French government and loses its AA rating to sanctions imposed by the Corporate Court.
• August 10: In New Orleans, Louisiana, CAS, terrorist Julio "Chico" Hernandez blows up a steamship on the Mississippi River filled with officials from Aztechnology.
• September 15: In the UCAS, clothing fashions trend towards an exaggerated heavy armor look.
• October 9: In Lisbon, Portugal, Johnny Spinrad, owner of Spinrad industries, announces the planned acquisition of the Principality of Monaco with the signing of a 100 -year lease from France and an ambitious reconstruction project.
• October 26: In Seattle Metroplex, five people are killed when a bomb goes off at the Universal Brotherhood Chapterhouse in Tacoma, Seattle.
  • The entire San Francisco Bay area is rocked by an earthquake 5.5 on the Richter scale.
• November 3: Sasquatch vocalist Frumious leaves the band Shield Wall.
• November 15: In the UCAS, during a debate between corporate security officers and shadowrunners on the show Heavy Hitters, the show descends in violence. The host Jermaine Jerard is injured when a street shaman's conjured spirit shoves Jerard's head into a holocam.
• November 17: In Las Vegas, Ute Nation, the Flamingo Casino group opens its fi rst casino on the ground of the site where Bugsy Seagal opened the Flamingo Casino.

2052

• January 2: In Aztlan, Aztechnology begins a slash-and-burn program in an area of the Yucatan. A radical environmental group responds by attacking the Aztechnology facility in the area. Public opinion turns against the group and Aztechnology effectively destroys it. It is later rumored that the group, which until the attack was using legal means to block Aztechnology, was not involved in the attack at all. The rumors say that Aztechnology staged the attack to sway public opinion. The Yucatan conflict immediately escalates.
• January 6: In the UCAS, a new type of BTL chip called 2XS enters the black market. This chip is more potent and addictive than regular BTL chips and it works on the physiological system of the human body.
• March 14: Cross Applied Technologies group achieves A status.
• April 3: Insurance costs force University of Seattle to remove fire elemental summoning from its practical exam.
• May 18: In New York City, a group of militant homeless people living under Manhattan Bridge take over the struts beneath it. Lone Star Security introduces a Department of Shore and Water Patrol on the trid-magazine show Manuel Jardine Tonight, which puts down the uprising
• June 24: In Greece, the Athens Intelligencer documents the first footage of the petrifaction powers of gorgons.
• July 2: In Tokyo, Japan wins the bid for the Olympics of 2056. They immediately announce that, in keeping with the Yamato ideal, metahumans will not be permitted to compete with humans in the Tokyo Olympics, but will be scheduled in special "exhibition" contests. Tir Tairngire and Tir nanÓg respond furiously with UN resolutions
• July 19: UCAS Data Systems pulls funding from Dr. Ronald Halberstam after they discover he is trying to isolate children’s’ brains from their bodies to raise them completely in the Matrix, in his Matrix Born Project.
• July 21: Derek Highsun disappears. His body is later found inside his barn.
• September 13: In the UCAS, the street mercenary style loses favor among fashion moguls.
• September 23: In Tir Tairngire, Willamette Compustat is contracted for all major Tir government data backups, including Council records and some private royal systems.
• October 4: The Spanish Sol Media Group manages to establish itself successfully in the Aztlan media market.
• November 5: UCAS president Alan Adams and CAS President Edna Wallace are both re-elected.
• November 11: In the UCAS, famed ecologist and lawyer Arthur Vogel forms the One World Association, a Democratic Party affiliate devoted to ecological issues.
• December 5: Breakthroughs in cybertechnology and the release of bioware, tailored organic implants, to the public market, lead to worldwide increases in human augmentation.
• Toronto is voted "cleanest and safest city in the UCAS" for the second year in a row.
• December 13: In Chiba, Japan, the Chiba Virtual Stock Exchange crashes in the middle of trading. This prevents the Yamana takeover attempt from succeeding.

2053

• January 21: The day after his inauguration, UCAS President Adams dies of a massive stroke. His vice president, Thomas Steele, replaces him.
• February 12: The Treaty of Karlsruhe is signed. Control of the SOX is handed over to a corporate-led Control Council, which leases the SOX from Germany and France for 100 years. The MET2000 is also tasked with securing the area.
• February 20: In Aztlan, Flavia de la Rosa defeats Francisco Gortari in the presidential elections.
• March 12: The Proteus arcology off the coast of Okinawa is completed.
• March 24: Dr. John Clark and Dr. Terri-Anne Clybourne publish their Essence-Integrity Theory in the April Journal of Metaphysical Proceedings. Their theory basically states that the reason for cyberware related essence drain fatality has nothing to do with bodily rejection. Instead it is caused by a dysfunction in the subject's astral template. When the body is altered in any way, such as by the addition of cyberware, the astral template of that deviates from that person and prevents the transfer of mana. Too much of a deviation will kill the person by preventing it from adapting.
• May 6: In Boston, a United Oil tanker ruptures its hull resulting in millions of gallons of petrochemicals being dumped into Boston Harbor. Much of the marine life in the Harbor is killed and what remains is severely mutated. The event becomes known as the Toxic Tea Party.
• May 28: In CFS, a Tir Tairngire strike team attempts to take over Shasta Dam. Before they can establish themselves however, a previously unknown great dragon appears and chases them off. The dragon, later identified as Hestaby, takes control of the dam and a forty-mile surrounding area.
• May 30: A UCAStrak express train derailed. 157 people die and the company's stock plummets 32%. UCAStrak blames Tir Tairngire-based ecoterrorists.
• June 7: In San Francisco, the Underground issues a statement disassociating itself from a splinter group called the Burakumin.
• June 25: The redwood forest near Mount Shasta in the California Free State is expanding at an unnatural rate.
• June 28: In Quebec, having achieved A status in 2052, Cross Applied Technologies now attains AA status and thus extraterritoriality.
• July 16: In the UCAS, University of Michigan researchers publish new magical theorems detailing a new skill; anchoring. This ability allows one to cast a spell but not have it go off until a specific circumstance triggers it.
• August 15: The Proteus arcology off the coast of Osaka is completed.
• August 24: In the Tsimshian Nation, the borders are opened to international corporations. MCT purchases exclusive rights to mining lands in exchange for aid, business and investments.
  • The Moolah Temple in St. Louis, home to a Universal Brotherhood soup kitchen, burns down. An explosion also levels a portion of the University of Seattle's science building.
• September 10: Hurricane Ethelbert strikes the east coast of North America. In the UCAS, Washington FDC and New York City suffer extensive damage, and many areas are placed under martial law.
• September 18: In the AGS, anti-tamper technology is added to credstick verification readers and security is added to their Matrix nodes. The technology soon goes global.
• October 20: In Poland, unrest over the Russian occupation increases. Strikes and riots leave the economy in shambles. As a result, President Rybiński's grip on power begins to weaken.
• October 23: The Plymouth embezzlement Scandal occurs. The exposure of the Plymouth embezzlement breaks the neck of the British Socialist Labor Party politically. Some SAP idealists, untainted by this scandal, later found the People's Party.
• November 10: In Cape Town, Azanian Confederation, the crime rate soars to unmanageable levels. Police presence becomes non-existent in much of the city and inter-tribal violence reaches an all-time high.
• November 11: "Special Ordinance 162" grants legal protection to ghouls in Chicago and leads to the establishment of the Cabrini Refuge.
• December 4: Less than a month after its opening, a group of Humanis Policlub members attack the Cabrini Refuge with automatic weapons. The ghouls, apparently having prepared for such an event, move underground. When the Humanis soldiers step onto Cabrini Refuge territory, the Ghouls attack in force. 100 Humanis members are killed and eaten. Lawyers for the Cabrini Refuge point out that under Article 16 of Special Order 162, Cabrini Refuge inhabitants have the right to eat anyone found on their property. This as well as rumours of a government plan to exterminate the ghouls of Cabrini Refuge bring tensions between the ghouls and humans to an all-time high.

2054

• January: In London, England, UK, a rash of murders break out. The victims are all women with names identical to the victims of the 1888 "Jack the Ripper" slayings. All are prostitutes and all are found horribly mutilated. The media all but ignores these killings.
• January 1: The New Years Eve Accident occurs near Magdeburg, AGS, supposedly when an oil pipeline is hit by a firecracker and ignites. This results in significant environmental damage and enormous monetary losses for the oil industry. Rumors have it that patriotic residents of the former Saxony-Anhalt actually made a rather interesting "firecracker" to express their displeasure at the dissolution of the federal state.
• January 3: In Chicago, Knight-Errant, hired to provide security to Cabrini Refuge, fulfils its contract but refuses to renew it. The day of the end of Knight-Errant's contract, Humanis Policlub tries to frame the ghouls for a massacre by attaching nerve gas canisters to ghoul children. A riot breaks out and many people and ghouls are killed. As a result the UCAS government repeals Special Order 162 and contains the entire Cabrini Refuge in a prefab wall.
• In Tir Tairngire, a molecular biologist flees the country supposedly because he was ordered to create a weapon using HMHVV virus strains that affect only humans. The Tir Tairngire authorities claim that he is wanted on seventeen counts of murder. Because of the resulting tensions between Tir Tairngire and neighboring countries due to the rumours of the weapon, the Tir Tairngire Peace Force goes on full alert.
• February 16: In Chicago, the Chancellor of Germany is assassinated at O'Hare Airport.
• April 28: Lacrima, a self-styled "mage-historian", declares that the exact date of the volcanic eruption that formed Crater Lake in Tir Tairngire is 3454 B.C., July 22, 09:35 hours. The scientific community, known for denouncing Lacrima's theories, responds with total silence.
• May 2: In Tir Tairngire, the military seals off Crater Lake for unrevealed reasons. Access is completely restricted and secured by land vehicles, combat drones, jet patrols, and magical security.
• May 8: A Sioux military scout is shot down and killed after passing too close to Crater Lake.
• May 11: In London, England, after the fourth London Ripper murder, the killer is revealed by Lord Geraint of Wales to be a BTL addict who used a “Jack the Ripper” personafix chip. Transys Neuronet is connected to the killings and their stock plummets as a result. Hildebrandt-Kleinfort-Bernal (HKB) is able to take advantage of the stock drop to buy a majority share of the company, taking control of the board.
• May 12: In the Yucatan, Aztlan, Rebel forces blow up an oil refinery killing 127 technicians. The government promises swift and brutal retribution.
• May 17: In Africa, Reverend Jack Bayone establishes the Seventh Church of the Guiding Hand
• May 24: In Japan, a semi-ballistic flight to Tokyo crashes just short of Narita Airport. All 109 passengers plus a flight and cabin crew of ten are killed. Among the passengers are Martha S. Grimes, chairman of the Board of the Highstar Corporation, and seventeen members of her personal security party.
• June 4: In Seattle Metroplex, radical ork activist Preacher holds a rally attended by seven thousand orks and trolls. Preacher encourages all listeners to "take up the torch" and fight back against metahuman racism "at all times, and with due force”. Soon after the rally, supporters of Preacher begin a policy of active resistance against Lone Star Security.
• June 10: In Boston, a team of scholars and archaeologists report a major archaeological find 130 miles off the coast of Crete, Greece. The expedition, funded by the Atlantean Foundation, discovers a major treasure trove of artefacts in an area reported by historical records to be the former location of an island called Thera, known as a possible location of the legendary lost city of Atlantis.
• June 24: In the AGS, Proteus AG announces that construction on its Emden arkoblock has been completed.
• July 1: The Dunkelzahn-affiliated shadowrunner group known as the D-Team makes its first appearance.
• August: The experimental mega freighter Pluto sinks off the Norwegian coast. The ship, which is operated with a fusion reactor, causes- according to company information- only a minimal environmental impact, but the event temporarily puts a damper on the use of nuclear fusion as a drive for mega freighters.
• Tensions begin to die down in the Indochinese region after decades of conflict. Over the next decade, rebuilding on a massive scale gains momentum whilst relying heavily on corporate support.
• August 30: rumors begin to spread of a new matrix utility called Black Hammer. This program is alleged to mimic the lethal properties of black IC.
• September 7: In the UCAS, the Endangered Species Act is passed. This act declares several species, including the Blackberry Cat, threatened.
• October 26: Numerous Latin American media and telecommunications companies are bought out by Spain's Sol Media Group.
• December 16: In the Matrix, theories of a scientist known as Doc are posted concerning the "Stopwatch Complex”. According to Doc's theories, elves are possessed of a specific gene sequence that prevents the decay of cells, rendering Elves effectively ageless.

2055

• January 17: In Aztlan, fighting in Yucatan escalates to full scale civil war.
• In Seattle Metroplex Carlos Rivera, Vice President of Northern Hemisphere Operations for Aztechnology is killed in a chopper crash.
• In Hawaii, the military cemetery in Punchbowl crater is converted to a national park. The bodies buried there are exhumed and returned to the UCAS.
• February 13: The Japanese corporation Fuchi begins constructing Darkside Junction at Lagrange Point 2 on the far side of the moon as a deep space outpost.
• In Babenhausen, AGS, an EBM2 mage is killed fighting a wraith at the Babenhausen railroad yards.
• In Chicago, Gery Alexander, a lawyer disbarred and convicted of taking bribes from Humanis Policlub to add Article 16 to Special Order 162, commits suicide.
• In the United Netherlands, construction of Proteus AG's Groningen arkoblock is completed.
• In Korea, the Church of Unification (the Moonies) is banned by the government after being exposed as a bug spirit front. Many high-ranking officers who backed the group are purged from the military.
• March 11: Project Hope is founded in Seattle, a joint venture between the Universal Brotherhood and Renraku.
• April: An anarcho-syndicalist group called "Liberty of Body and Soul" (LBS) formed an alliance with anti-anarchist groups in Berlin. The group is actually a tool of AG Chemie, a AA corporation seeking to end Berlin's status as an anarchic free city. The Berlin Council responds with a temporary alliance of the Autonomous Front to quash the threat to their way of life.
• April 24: In DeeCee Sprawl, UCAS, a group calling itself the Compensation Expedition Force or Compensation Army sets up squatter camps all across the city. The group states that they are people promised compensation for land lost to the NAN through the Treaty of Denver. They immediately begin picketing most major government offices.
• May 31: The number of missing persons worldwide increases dramatically. The security forces are desperately looking for a cause.
• July 9: The Universal Brotherhood's "Project Hope" camps in the Redmond Barrens are closed due to health reasons.
• In the UCAS, the Universal Brotherhood comes under investigation by the federal government under charges of illegal medical experiments on homeless people. As a result, all Universal Brotherhood chapterhouses are closed down.
• In Chicago, Illinois, UCAS, terrorist attacks on a former Universal Brotherhood chapterhouse leave hundreds dead, both Eagle Security and civilians.
• August 14: In DeeCee Sprawl, two new bills are introduced to the House of Representatives. On is a bill apportioning voting areas in the former North Virginia counties of Arlington, Fairfax, and Alexandria. The second is a bill granting immediate repayment to all people displaced by the Treaty of Denver.
• August 15: A coalition of megacorporations including Telestrian Industries, Saeder-Krupp, and Renraku announces that all of their formerly public facilities in the DeeCee Sprawl will be restricted to corp personnel only for the duration of the Compensation Army crisis.
• The senate pledges to support all political groups in the UCAS and Caribbean League that have coincidental interests in the Confederation.
• In DeeCee Sprawl, UCAS, a new group appears within the encampments of the Compensation Army, now in its third month. This group, calling itself the Conscience of the Country, is seen wearing blue berets. They travel within the camps giving aid wherever necessary, although Compensation Army leader Christian Randolph claims that they are not part of the group. They also protest alongside the Compensation Army, although their stand seems more militant. As a result, tensions within the camps rise and fights break out between the protestors and the police.
• August 21: North Virginia State Senator Wendell North introduces a bill calling for a referendum concerning the secession of North Virginia from the UCAS.
• August 22: In Chicago, Eagle Security offices are flooded with reports of "giant insects" attacking people, as a mega-hive of insect spirits, a previously unknown form of spirit, swarms the city. The UCAS government immediately establishes a quarantine area on the city from Lake Michigan to the Des Plaines River. All houses along that line are destroyed and formed into a wall. Along this wall, now called the Chicago Containment Zone, are stationed soldiers from Eagle Security, the Illinois National Guard, and the UCAS Army. Nobody is allowed in or out of the Zone.
• August 23: Official reports state that the Chicago Containment Zone is to contain a new strain of VITAS and the entire area is under military quarantine. Intelligence Agents shut down all communication to the city, destroying Matrix hubs and censoring news stories. Establishment of the Zone is protested by Ares Macrotechnology, Federated Boeing, Fuchi America, and Truman Technologies. Later that evening, rioting breaks out in the entire zone. The UCAS troops fire upon the rioters and kill 50 of them. Construction of a real wall begins in earnest.
• August 24: In DeeCee Sprawl, tensions between the Compensation Army and the federal government escalate when fedpol troops are sent in to contain the violence. The Compensation Army takes over the Metro stations in Metro Centre, Gallery Place, Smithsonian, L'Enfant Plaza, Federal Triangle, Waterfront, and Rosslyn. As a result, the government sends in the remaining battalions not currently in Chicago of the Army’s 101st Air Insertion Division under the title Task Force Kemper to control the violence. However instead of ending the violence, it escalates into other districts. Firefighters are prevented from entering the city, supposedly to protect them. Rumors begin to spread about army execution squads killing any Compensation Army members whether they surrender or not. Further rumors spread that the Conscience of the Country is in actuality a group funded by the CAS to destabilize North Virginia enough to allow it to secede from the UCAS.
  • The violence ends when it is discovered that General Trahn, the officer in charge of the federal troops, has been plotting against the government in an attempt to initiate a coup. His plan is discovered when his transmission to his fellow conspirators is monitored on a presidential frequency. He is killed by his hostage, Captain Rita Furlann of the Army's Thaumaturgical Corps. Once this revelation is discovered most of the fighting dies down and the army returns to more conventional means of ending it. None of Trahn's other conspirators are discovered.
• The UCAS FBI and Ares' Firewatch teams begin cleaning out and closing down the insect hives hidden within Universal Brotherhood chapters.
• In Europe, Euro Force troops, combined with corporate military units, Sylvestrine priests and Orthodox exorcists, go on a major offensive against the insect spirits. Major hives are wiped out in Constantinople, Athens, GeMITo, Merseysprawl and London.
• August 25: Fredericksburg, North Virginia, UCAS, Governor Jefferson, on his way to high-level meetings involving the status of North Virginia, is killed when his plane crashes and explodes.
• August 26: The UCAS government begins dropping supply packages over Chicago.
  • Irregularities are noticed in the stories about the Chicago Containment Zone. This leads many to believe that the stories of a VITAS plague are some sort of cover-up for a much larger problem.
  • The Don of Chicago, believed dead in the Chicago Containment Zone, is replaced by Don Leo McCaskill of Milwaukee.
• August 27: AG Chemie, LBS and a collective of corporate military forces launch a military invasion of Berlin, seeking to "liberate" the city and legitimize the corporate claims to the metropolitan region. The people of Berlin, armed with weapons from the Euro Wars and hardened by years of anarchic rule, take up armed resistance. The invaders, particularly LBS, are almost completely wiped out and the corporate forces only manage to control the western half of the city. The Berlin Treaty is drawn up, legitimizing their claim to only the corporate-controlled half of the city, while the eastern half remains in the hands of the anarchists.
• September 16: In DeeCee Sprawl, UCAS, unconfirmed reports state that a joint delegation from Tir Tairngire, led by Prince Ehran the Scribe, and Tir na nÓg, led by Caoimhe O'Dunn, daughter of the High Steward, meets with Lofwyr and President Steele at the White House. Supposedly, the six-hour meeting concerns the events in the Chicago Containment Zone.
• In Atlanta, Georgia, CAS, a minor insect spirit outbreak occurs in Ted Turner Stadium, though the outbreak never spreads into the rest of the city.
• In FRFZ, the Universal Brotherhood's Denver chapterhouse is shut down and destroyed with a fuel-air explosive device. The explosion destroys over a third of the Aurora Warrens slums due to collateral damage.
• September 29: In the AGS, in the Rhein-Ruhr-Megaplex, Operation Zebra begins- a large-scale, nation-wide police action by state and corporate police forces against the Universal Brotherhood and the insect spirits.
• October 1: Ares Firewatch teams identify Chicago as host to the largest multispecies insect hive on the North American continent. After an initial raid to destroy the Hive fails and spills insect spirits into the surrounding city, a small tactical nuclear weapon is detonated within the Hive complex at the Chicago power plant at Cermak and Racine, just after a powerful magical ward/barrier was finished being erected over the Hive by the shamans and/or Queen Spirits within to contain the radiation. Roughly a thousand new insect spirits were being invested within the Hive when the nuke is detonated. A mana warp is created at the site of the blast.
• In the Sioux Nation, NAN, a large number of insect spirit hives are uncovered and destroyed. As a result, bug paranoia skyrockets and several people are shot accidentally.
• October 4: Construction of a line of walls around the Chicago Containment Zone is completed.
• Insect spirits in Chicago are noted to be using more "good merges," and perhaps having developed a power to influence people's thoughts, described as a buzzing in the head. Rumours of insect spirits mutated by contact with radiation after the bombing likewise abound.
• In Tir Tairngire, Ehran the Scribe is officially granted a seat on the Council of Princes. thought he has secretly held one for years.
• Under the guidance of the Islamic Unity Movement, led by spiritual leader Badr al Din Ibn Eisa, the nations of Bahrain, Yemen, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates band together as the country of Arabia. Badr al Din Ibn Eisa names King Kalim Sa'ud as the nation's first Caliph.
• October 21: Hamburg is struck by severe rainstorms, resulting in a massive, heavily polluted flood. Large areas of the city are rendered uninhabitable and evacuated as a result.
• November: After the rain disaster, the Gera-Bautech group announces an ambitious plan to make the flooded areas habitable again: the so-called "cloud city", which would consist of three raised platforms in the South Elbe region. It was to rest on pillars made of solid BetonaPlast™ and be 40 to 60 meters above the flooded area.
• November 24: In Tir Tairngire, the government relaxes the cordon around Crater Lake and allows a small number of tourists in the area.
• December 13: In Lake Michigan, the Bennet-class light aircraft carrier Wolverine and two Richard A. Dean-class guided missile frigates– the Lucan and the Voight–are stationed offshore of the Chicago Containment Zone.
• December 29: In the FRFZ, a file is downloaded into the Nexus concerning the Chicago Containment Zone. The information in the file states that the Zone is not suffering from a VITAS plague. The real disaster is that the zone has been infested by huge insect spirits that use humans and metahumans for food and reproduction. The Zone has actually been constructed to keep the insect spirits from escaping into the rest of the world. After verifying the contents, the Nexus sysops broadcast the file to all Shadowland computer nodes. The information is distributed to the general public.
• December 31: Worldwide reports of children calling themselves "otaku" abound. These children talk of an experience in the matrix they call the Deep Resonance. Apparently, the otaku are capable of using the Matrix without the need of a cyberdeck.

2056

• January 12: In the UCAS, Dr. Michael Nickson founds the Aleph Society. This group claims that Dr. Nickson has discovered an "artefact of Atlantis" called "the Book of Gaf" which has inspired him to create several theories concerning "the innate magical potential inherent in every person”. The Aleph Society is his vehicle for bringing this knowledge to everyone.
• Early April: In Hamburg, the first platform of Cloud City is inaugurated two months ahead of schedule.
• April 28: In the AGS, AG Chemie Europa attempts a hostile takeover of Proteus AG. Brief hostilities erupt into all-out war at Proteus’ Helgoland facility. The conflict climaxes when the great dragon Nachtmeister sides with Proteus, leading to their victory.
• May 5: The dragon Chong Chao attacks the Proteus HQ on Heligoland together with AG Chemie . The Great Dragon Nightmaster intervenes in the conflict and repels the attack, killing Chong Chao. Both AG Chemie and Proteus then try to de-escalate.
• In Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, Yakuza Oyabun Ekei Tokudaiji is assassinated by a radical faction of Na Kama'aina and ALOHA in an attempt to purge Hawaii of corporate interests.
• In Corporate Sector, Hawaii, riots break out in protest to corporate influence over Hawaiian sovereignty. Corporate security fires on the protesters killing many of them. In retaliation the protesters detonate explosive devices in the Renraku and Monobe facilities resulting in massive fatalities. The riots eventually spread to the royal palace and protesters call out against Ali'i Kamehameha V.
  • Using the riots as a catalyst, the Na Kama'aina party and A.L.O.H.A. stage a coup against Ali'i Kamehameha V. They install his distant cousin in his place.
• Early June: Rumors circulate that Cloud City would only be a home for the rich. From the ranks of the extreme left, neo-communist circles and Neo-Anarachists initiate protests, demonstrations and acts of sabotage at the construction site.
• June 8: In India, insect spirits break out from hives in several cities. Brahmin mages and Kshatriya authorities lead a gruelling fight to clear out the hives, reinforcing their varnas’ (caste) status.
• In Hawaii, the corporate council, responding to the growing violence against corporate interests, fires a group of Thor projectiles into the ocean as a warning. The Hawaiian dissidents respond by shooting down a Saeder-Krupp helicopter. Open violence rages throughout the Islands. Witnesses claim that in the midst of the violence, massive storms and aurora-like lights can be seen on Mt. Haleakala.
• June 22: In the UCAS, Dunkelzahn is awarded UCAS citizenship by a special Congressional act. At his swearing-in ceremony, President Steele personally shakes his hand. This famous "handshake" sends the Technocrat ticket to the top of the polls. His official home is changed from Lake Louise to Prince Edward Island.
• A month after the Na Kama'aina/ALOHA coup, Ali'i Kamehameha V stages a countercoup. Na Kama'aina is put back in their place and A.L.O.H.A. is almost destroyed as a group.
• July 3: Truman Technologies moves its headquarters from bug-ridden Chicago to Los Angeles
• July 5: Yucatán rebels accidentally destroy a ferry running from Cancun to Cozumel carrying more than 200 passengers.
• July 9: The neo-communist movement takes hold in Malaysia’s urban centers, including Kuala Lumpur. The movement begins gaining ground, especially amongst the poorest sections of the population. Official investigation of these groups reveals insect spirits at the root of the movement, sparking a panic and causing riot in the most heavily affected neighborhoods.
• July 19: Ares supplements its own forces with Kurdish mercenaries to clean out a second smaller hive in Constantinople.
• July 24: In Japan, Renraku launches Locus Elementum, an interdisciplinary magical organization.
• August 9: In Tokyo, Japan, the Olympic Games are held. Due to the Japanese government’s refusal to allow metahumans to compete with humans, 60% of the nations invited refuse to attend. Furthermore, no nation boycotting the games televise them. In response, the IOC forms a “World” team for athletes from the boycotting nations to compete in as independents. Still, the 2056 Olympics have the lowest attendance record in Olympic history. To deal with this problem the IOC cancels the 2060 Olympics until the metahuman question is dealt with.
• In Portland, Tir Tairngire, a forensic mage is killed by a specter while investigating a murder.
• In Tir Tairngire, three youths undergoing the Rite of Passage are mauled by an unknown paranormal animal in the wilderness. Their bodies are found partially eaten.
• In the CFS, a shipping boycott is enacted against Tir Tairngire.
• September 13: UCAS Army SAD, under the control of Brigadier General Lucius Harding, tracks down eight of Winternight's smuggled nuclear weapons covered with magical inscriptions lined with orichalcum. They are neutralised in a deep blow to Winternight’s assets, but Winternight manages to remain relatively unknown.
• September 18: A Fuchi internal document for dealing with shadowrunners, written by William T. Ager, is released as part of a Shadow File of Captain Chaos in the Shadow Matrix.
• October 25: In San Francisco, CFS, a bomb goes off during the Liberation Day parade killing fifteen Fuchi executives and Imperial marines.
• October 28: A strange aurora appears over Crater Lake in Tír Tairngire. Then magical phenomena occur all over the country.
• November 7: In the UCAS, President Thomas Steele and Vice President James Booth are re-elected in an uninspiring campaign.
  • Oliver Jackson becomes the new President of the Confederation of American States.
• December 17: In the AGS, Proteus AG announces plans for a fully submerged arkoblock near Romo Island.

2057

• January 9: After an extremely bitter election campaign, reminiscent of the Weimar Republic with its marches and street battles, many voters in the federal election in the ADL opted for the radical ends of the party spectrum:

(the ASU achieved 10.9%, the USPD 22 .8 %, the ESP 12.2%, the LDFP 9.1%, the CVP 26.7%, the DNP 8.1% and the even further right PNE 5.2%). The turnout was relatively high at 71% and the CVP-LDFP-ESP coalition was on the votes of the delegates from West Rhine-Luxembourg instructed to continue governing.

• January 15: The damage to Proteus' arcology on Helgoland, which was caused in the course of the military attack by AG Chemie troops, is repaired, and the arcology is completed.
• January 19: The UCAS 2056 Election Scandal occurs as Thomas Steele is accused of rigging the 2056 election. Speaker of the House Betty Jo Pritchard declares the election invalid and a new election is to be scheduled.
• January 26: President Steele and Vice President Booth are impeached, and Pritchard becomes President by default, ironically making her the first woman to hold office in the UCAS.
• January 29: The UCAS Congress announces a new election on August 7. Soon after, Democratic "One World" party member Arthur Vogel, New Century Party member Dr. Rozilyn Hernandez, Technocratic Party member and former Vice-President James Booth and Republican Party member General Franklin Yeats declare their candidacies.
• February 1: Archconservative Party member Kenneth Brackhaven, a Seattle businessman with ties to the Humanis Policlub, declares his candidacy for the 2057 election.
• In Illinois, the diaries of Tamir Grey, an influential ghoul trapped within the Chicago Containment Zone, are smuggled out and distributed to the outside world. They portray the life of the refuge worker who became a ghoul as a noble creature who has suffered great hardship in his life . These diaries spark nationwide public sympathy for ghouls as a race.
• February 28: In Claremont, New Hampshire, presidential candidates James Booth and Franklin Yeats hold a nationally televised debate.
• March 15: On his show Wyrm Talk,' Dunkelzahn stuns the world by announcing his intention to run for UCAS President as an Independent.
• April 10: In Venice, Italian Confederation, using a secret technique, the Doge of Venice purifies the canals. The government announces that, due to an ongoing project, the amount of toxins in the surrounding water has decreased dramatically.
• April 20/21: At 00:00 JST, the immortal elf Leonardo simultaneously invades the mainframes of the Great Eight and disables them for 15 seconds. Exactly two hours later, the process is repeated. Leonardo demands 20 billion nuyen and otherwise threatens to destroy the corporate systems.
• May 2: Worldwide, four executives among the eight major megacorporations suffer heart attacks at midnight.
• May 21: President-General Liang Hong of Sichuan prepares his forces for an invasion of the Canton Confederation. Just before he is ready to attack however, he falls violently ill and has to be taken back to Chengdu where he is bedridden for two weeks. All plans for invasion are halted.
• July 10: In Seattle Metroplex, UCAS, Republican Presidential candidate General Franklin Yeats, later found to be a “good merge” by examination of his diaries, is murdered by a wasp spirit who possessed one of his FBI guards.
• July 12: In Switzerland, the federal district of the capital of the SEg- Bern -experiences a veritable invasion of devil rats, which leads to a large police action, the interruption of the session of the Council of States and considerable damage to property and people. Some suspect the work of toxic shamans behind it .
• July 18: In the UCAS, Franklin Yeats’ running mate, Anne Penchyk, declares her intention to run for president in Yeats’ place.
• July 22: An attack destroys two pillars of the Cloud City under construction and severely damages five others, causing parts of the construction to sag. The damage amounts to ECU 2.5 million. In the days that follow, around 300 squatters occupied the damaged platforms, and Hanse Security and security forces from Gera-Bautech are unable to drive them away, even with massive violence. Finally, the group gives up the Cloud City project. The Hamburg Senate tries- unsuccessfully- to sue Gera-Bautech for "breach of contract".
• July 23: In the UK, Parliament establishes the Northern Habitable Zone after several uninspired detoxification programs fail.
• August 1: In the UCAS, the deadline for receipt of absentee election ballots is reached.
• In Australia, the nation suffers through its worst period of drought ever, severely draining the country's water supplies. Although the rainfall does eventually resume, water levels still remain far below average. Much of the nation faces severe water shortages and the government institutes strict water control laws in all major cities, limiting the amount each household can use. Water smuggling becomes a major enterprise in Australia.
• August 7: At 11:23:34 pm EST, it's announced that Dunkelzahn has won the 2057 election by a narrow margin of votes. He is the first nonhuman elected to the office in US, Canadian, or UCAS history.
  • The Ohio chapter of the New Century Party files a lawsuit against the main branch on allegations of violating the party chapter and mismanagement of funds.
  • In DeeCee Sprawl former presidential candidate Anne Penchyk forms the Empowerment Coalition, a group intended to raising funds for female candidates in all branches of government.
• August 8: In the UCAS, metahumans and their supporters around the country celebrate the victory of Dunkelzahn
• August 9: At noon, Dunkelzahn and his VP Kyle Haeffner are sworn into office.
  • The night of his inauguration, President Dunkelzahn attends the Mrs Grundland’s Peanut Butter Cookie Inaugural Ball at the Watergate Hotel. The event is a huge success and many influential people in the political, industrial, and entertainment fields attend. While at the ball, he receives a phone call that apparently disturbs him. He leaves the ball twenty-one minutes earlier than he had planned. He enters his limousine, which begins to drive away. Witnesses claim that he is talking to someone they can’t see.
  • Seconds after the limousine leaves, at 10:23:08 pm EST, an explosion erupts from the street and completely destroys the limousine. One witness claims that there are actually two explosions: One which simply threw the heavily armored limousine in the air, and another which originated inside the car and exploded outward in a dark cloud of worm-like creatures. Although the bodies of the five-man security detail escorting him are found, neither President Dunkelzahn’s body nor that of the driver is recovered from the blast site.
  • At 10:24:08 PM, a huge rift in astral space opens over the site of the blast. A witness claims she sees President Dunkelzahn's astral form fly into the rift.
• August 10: At 02:32:37 am EST, Kyle Haeffner is sworn in as President of the UCAS.
  • 07:35:12 am EST: President Kyle Haeffner meets with Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Richard Scott to form the Commission on the Assassination of President Dunkelzahn.
  • Riots begin and gather momentum in most major UCAS cities. Rumors of a second Night of Rage are quickly squelched as the UCAS military, local police and rumored support from Ares Macrotechnology Security Forces quell the heavy violence.
  • In Tir Tairngire, the Council of Princes, in response to the assassination of President Dunkelzahn, tightens border security and begins censoring incoming and outgoing news broadcasts for content that could be “threatening to the security of Tir Tairngire”.
• August 11: In DeeCee Sprawl, witnesses report seeing a flight of at least a dozen dragons (one of which tentatively is identified as Lofwyr) performing a complicated aerial dance over the site of former President Dunkelzahn’s assassination. This performance lasts for about an hour and has security agents in near panic. Many news reporters attempt to film the event but no sign of the dragons appear on any video shot.
• At Lake Louise, Athabaskan Council, President Dunkelzahn’s funeral is held. Hundreds of people of all types attend. Each person is given a chance to speak about President Dunkelzahn and what he meant to them. Holly Brighton sings “Ave Maria” while Nadja Daviar plays the harp. The pinnacle event is when a group of centaurs, long thought to be non-sentient, sings a beautiful version of “Amazing Grace”.
• August 12: UCAS President Haeffner goes before Congress and names Nadja Daviar as his Vice Presidential nominee. This is a great shock to the nation due to Daviar’s status as former President Dunkelzahn’s interpreter. President Haeffner responds by saying, “Daviar was the voice of Dunkelzahn, and now must serve to speak to us of his heart and soul". Congress decides to delay the vote on Daviar’s appointment until the Scott Commission can begin hearings.
• August 15: Nadja Daviar reads former President Dunkelzahn’s will at the Watergate Hotel. The 12-page document bequeaths inheritances to 216 different parties; some are specific people of varying social classes, while others are entire groups. The will indicates that former President Dunkelzahn’s financial holdings reached trillions of nuyen and only covers a portion of what he owned. In the will Daviar herself is named as the executor of former President Dunkelzahn’s estate and head of the Draco Foundation, an organisation to be established to help oversee the last wishes of former President Dunkelzahn and to finance exploration in the fields of technology, science, magic, and social enterprises for the betterment of all races. Although some parties receive their inheritances immediately, the majority will receive their bequests beginning in September.

2060

• October 3: Exactly as detailed in Dunkelzahn's will, a volcanic island erupts from the Pacific Ocean 301 kilometers off the coast of Petrolia, CFS. In accordance to his will, the island and all its mineral resources are left to Federated Boeing and the company investigates the island.

2061: The Year of the Comet

• January 1:The UN, in order to commemorate the impending arrival of Halley's Comet, declares 2061 to be "The Year of the Comet”. Cometmania spreads across the globe and massive celebrations are planned to celebrate the event worldwide. Speculation as to the effects that the comet will have on the Awakened world runs rampant
  • In Quebec, in response to the popularity of the Democrates Mondains party for their advocacy of opening their borders to international trade and loosening the business language restrictions, the Parti Quebecois triggers elections a year early. As a result, the Democrates Mondains sweep the polls and are elected the majority party by a single seat
• January 2: Justin Rochefort is killed while en route to DeeCee Sprawl, UCAS, to collect the talon clippings from the Draco Foundation. Marcus Cross is named interim head in his place.
• On Prince Edward Island, UCAS, a radical Native American group declare the island to be the sovereign nation of Abegweit (the original name of the island). They threaten magical retaliation on the scale of the Great Ghost Dance if their demands are not met.
• In Halifax, Nova Scotia, a megalodon shark rips the bottom out of a freighter in Halifax Harbour. It then devours the crew as they try to escape in lifeboats.
• February 2: The Wuxing cargo-freighter Jade Petal sinks 150 kilometres due east of Western Samoa with all hands aboard lost. The suspected cause of the sinking is a hull breach of unknown cause. The ship was carrying a load of light mining equipment on behalf of DeBeers-Omnitech. Wuxing asks the Corporate Court to investigate claiming that a flight of Aztechnology Aguilar attack copters were spotted in the vicinity.
• February 7: In Quebec, French is declared the only legal business language.
• In Halifax, a new drug, known on the streets as Halo, results in at least ten deaths by overdose. The corpses all have the look of extreme pleasure on their faces and are called “grinning corpses” by Lone Star. The phenomenon soon spreads to other cities. The “drug” is soon revealed to be corpselights bound in cages by magical wards.
  • A blackberry cat escapes into a dockyard and causes several boat crews to jump overboard and a wedding party to jump off their yacht before it is caught by Lone Star.
  • At Prince Edward Island, a massive hurricane, supposedly caused by magicians working for the Abegweit radicals, lays waste to the island. The military effort to crush the rebels is severely hampered.
• March 21: in the UCAS, the CCMA creates a new Matrix policing agency in response to the Renraku Arcology situation and grid shutdowns called the Grid Overwatch Division (GOD).
• Late one evening in Seattle Metroplex, a system failure at a Gaeatronics substation initiates a citywide blackout. Riots, many of them race related, and looting erupt and send the entire metroplex into chaos. Citizens blame Gaeatronics for deliberately sabotaging the city. Twenty-four hours after the start of the blackout, the Metroplex Guard announces an after dark curfew and arrests anyone violating it. Most power is restored forty-eight hours after the start of the blackout. The end result is hundreds of millions of nuyen in damages, dozens of citizens dead, and hundreds more wounded.
• April 5: Colonel Keiji Saito acts against the new Orc language Or'zet in San Francisco.
  • The Orkland Community Center in San Francisco begins teaching Or'zet, but is quickly prevented from doing so by raids by General Saito's men. Supposedly, Or'zet is used for communication by resistance groups. Robert Page disappears and has not been seen since.
• Worldwide, reports start to circulate of buildings and other structures spontaneously appearing out of thin air.
• In Tir Tairngire, a number of citizens requests permission from the government to hold observances of the passing of Haley's Comet from Tesetelinestea, the island in the centre of Crater Lake. Their requests are refused.
• May 2: The Tsimshian Border War breaks out between the Tsimshian Nation and the Salish-Shidhe Council over unknown reasons. Some claim that it is over possession of a recently discovered ley line. Others state that the ley line is toxic and the Salish-Shidhe Council is trying to destroy it. The Tsimshian Nation strikes first and pushesdown into the area of Okanagan Lake and the city of Kelowna. The Salish-Shidhe forces rally and force the Tsimshian back after the Battle of Revelstoke.
• May 4: The Salish-Shidhe forces push back into Tsimshian territory.
• May 5: The Salish-Shidhe Council drafts a ceasefire accord for the Tsimshian Nation.
• May 6: The Tsimshian Border War ends when thousands of Salish-Shidhe soldiers and civilians as well as some Tsimshian soldiers are killed by unknown causes. Some claim that a biowarfare agent was used. Others state that Tsimshian mages have harnessed the ley lines supercharged by Halley's Comet and use them to create ultra-powerful stunballs. Many of those who survive the battle suffer massive, irreparable neurological damage.
• May 11: In Seattle Metroplex, with the help of a second AI called Magaera, Renraku believes it has destroyed Deus, the AI in control of the Renraku Arcology in Seattle. In fact, it has escaped by secretly uploading itself into a system of a thousand unwitting human and metahuman vessels called the Network. Unbeknownst to Deus, Magaera was transferred to the Network as well.
• May 13: The Renraku Corporation announces that the Renraku Arcology situation has been “resolved”. Renraku America division manager Dr. Sherman Huang is given direct responsibility and credit for resolving the crisis. Renraku programmers Cham Lam Won and Vanessa Cliber are given secondary credit. Huang becomes a primary contender for the CEO position at Renraku.
  • The Arcology itself is still monitored by the UCAS Army as thousands of refugees flow out of the massive building. Most are put in camps around the Arcology itself. Of the 100,000 people initially trapped in the Arcology, less than 10,000 are found alive. 63% of those survivors suffer from some sort of disability. Former Governor Schultz remains missing.
• In Antarctica, Japanese scientists discover an orichalcum vein running beneath the Transantarctic Mountains. Before Imperial Marines can be sent to fortify the site, a massive blizzard blankets the area and indefinitely cuts off communication with the team.
• In the Sioux Nation, it is discovered that Devil's Tower has grown from 262 meters to 356 despite the lack of any recorded seismic activity.
• In the UK, several ley lines mysteriously lengthen. In Glastonbury, UK, astral shallows are discovered.
• June 20: In the UK, Stonehenge is mysteriously restored during a Summer Solstice ceremony at dawn. The Place of Power at the site amplifies the power of the mana line running beneath it.
• July 12, Ares Macrotechnology announces that the Gigas probe was struck by a meteorite and almost destroyed. The probe's guidance systems are damaged and the probe itself is knocked of course. Ares officials say that they are adjusting the probe's trajectory to account for the accident and will be on track to intercept Halley's Comet later in the year. Ares attributes the probe's survival to two inches of polyamide armor in the front dust shield.
• July 21: Berthold I, the king of Black Forest Troll Kingdom, is reported missing after failing to appear at any of his scheduled meetings. Investigations come to nothing and there is no report of abduction or assassination. His chancellor, Hugo von Hasslach, becomes interim ruler shortly afterward.
• August: Typhoons batter several Philippine islands.
• August 9: At Prince Edward Island, the Abegweit radicals blow up Confederation Bridge which is the most efficient means of reaching the island from the mainland. As a result, President Haeffner sends in the army and the Magical Task Force to restore order. Things quickly get tense as tourists are evacuated from the island. The rebels occupy Providence House in Charlottetown and broadcast their manifesto using pirated satellite channels. Out of respect for the historic building, the UCAS army pulls back from Providence House.
• Orichalcum is discovered in Asamando.
• August 11: Novatech confirms that the Whipple probe veered completely off course due to a programming error that occurred during telemetry and will miss its rendezvous with Halley's Comet. Unconfirmed rumors state that the course change was the result of sabotage. Novatech denies this and attributes the accident to a "glitch”. The probe's new course cannot be corrected, and it is set to collide with Mars in 2064.
• August 14: In New Orleans, eleven adults and two children are found murdered in their apartment by pizza delivery person Chad Earl. Earl describes the apartment as covered in blood and the bodies all having their throats slit. He also describes black handprints and other strange symbols on the floor and walls.
• August 15: In the CAS, the Aleph Society makes global headlines with its promise to restore magical ability to any awakened individual who has burned out. Dr. Michael Nickson, the founder, states the fundamental mission of the Aleph Society is to raise the innate magical potential inherent in every person.
• August 30: Just moments before intercepting Halley's Comet, Yamatetsu telemetry specialists lose contact with the Gagarin probe. People around the world who subscribed to Yamatetsu's "live" Matrix feeds of the event are offered discounted rates on other Matrix feeds and Yamatetsu's MetaMatrix service as compensation, but the event is still a public relations disaster for the corporation. Yamatetsu announces however, that they remain hopeful that the communication break is temporary and that contact will be re-established.
• September 2: In Portland, Tír Tairngire, at least six freshly amputated metahuman tongues are found drilled into signposts surrounding a small city park. The police cordon off the park and refuse to answer allegations that some sort of ritual was conducted.
• September 4: Scattered stories of what can only be described as a form of goblinization are reported in the medical community. Patients, including some metahumans who were born orks or trolls, start to physically change in various ways. Unlike the first Goblinization, this one does not seem to create a specific race. Rather, it causes a series of non-specific mutations, such as manifesting animal traits or oddly-colored skin. Scientists name the phenomenon Sudden Recessive Genetic Expression, or SURGE.
  • In Mecca, Arabia, Badr al Din Ibn Eisa, while performing Umrah in the midst of the Rite of Twaf at the Ka'bah, is gunned down by unknown assailants. His guards react quickly but are unable to prevent his assailants from shooting him in the head. One witness reports hearing someone cry "Il Allah Akhbar!" Others report that the assailants are all killed. Several others are injured in the attack.
• September 5: Halley's Comet first becomes visible to the naked eye. Mana storms and other magical disturbances become more common and potent across the globe. SURGE cases skyrocket in number.
  • In DeeCee Sprawl, the guards at the Watergate rift report a "shimmering" in the rift itself. Some report a sensation of "nausea and homesickness.”
  • In Hong Kong, a stable astral shallow forms around Wuxing Skytower on Aberdeen Island. All astral space for one kilometer becomes visible to mundane individuals.
• September 9: In Mecca, Badr al Din Ibn Eisa appears, apparently unharmed, outside his mausoleum. After embracing other Islamic Unity Movement leaders, he makes the following statement. "I have much work yet to do for Allah. In my time of absence, I was granted a vision of a new path to take. The Islamic Unity Movement has served its purpose. Our people will soon be as one. Now it is time to look towards our enemies, those who would strike us down. I declare a new movement to carry forth Allah's will. I declare a New Islamic Jihad!"
• September 10: The SURGE phenomenon has spread around the globe. People who experience the SURGE become known as changelings.
• September 12: Fueled by fear of the SURGE phenomenon, riots and civil unrest spread across the world from megaplexes to small towns. Only a small number of cities and nations are untouched by the violence.
  • In Munich, Bavaria, in response to SURGE fears, the National Aktion policlub bombs the city's Bureau of Metahuman Affairs and releases an airborne strain of VITAS-1 in the ruined Olympian Park Stadium, a metahuman neighbourhood. Nearly ten thousand homeless metahumans and aid workers are killed in the attack. Renraku forces are called in to aid authorities. Renraku shock troops surround Olympian Park and launch a massive and brutal roundup of everyone in the district. No distinction is made between rioters and the innocent. After the incident, Renraku's PR department manages to clean up all media coverage of their involvement. Renraku Europe CEO Karl Stadt then announces a bounty on members of the Nationale Aktion at a public funeral service for the victims.
• September 13: In India, hundreds of saddhu and regular Hindus bathing in the Ganges SURGE as an astral flash flood courses down from the source in the Himalayas. The phenomenon repeats later at Varanasi andrecurs at irregular intervals. Those affected develop elephant and monkey traits or blue and gold skin.
• September 14: Ehran the Scribe issues a statement on the Matrix calling for calm in the face of the SURGE.
• September 15: Rohit Talwar, one of the more outspoken leaders of the ORC, is killed while trying to peacefully protect a SURGE changeling from a street gang. The changeling is also killed.
  • In DeeCee Sprawl, UCAS, guards and civilian witnesses alike report an unusual rippling in the Watergate rift. The rippling is followed by three unusual spirit entities emerging from the rift. The spirits appear to be nebulous and amoeboid. They quickly move into astral space and break through the Army's spirit patrol perimeter.
• September 17: The SURGE phenomenon occurs in Big Willi prison in Hamburg, triggering mass panic among the inmates. Using all means, they try to leave the island at any price, which the prison authorities interpret as an escape. She reacts briskly while the prisoners barricade themselves, which helps to clarify the situation. In the end, however, several hundred prisoners die due to the panic and the measures taken by HanSec.
• September 19: in Quebec, the Harmful Paranimals Act is amended to include SURGE'd non-human/metahuman species and to exclude dragons.
• September 23: In Tir Tairngire, those who observe the Haley's Comet near Crater Lake report seeing a brilliant aurora above the lake for nearly an hour.
  • In Seattle Metroplex, UCAS, Lone Star announces that it has obtained evidence linking a rash of mass murders across the globe to the Bridging the Void cult. Although it is unclear whether those killed in six separate cases in Tenochtitlan, Ankara, Seattle Metroplex, Pusan, Tunis, and Samarkand were members of the cult or simply victims. Lone Star further declares that the cult should be considered armed, magically skilled, and extremely dangerous.
• In Munich, Bavaria, further riots break out over the appearance of the SURGE phenomena.
• In Finland, dozens of new SURGE variants of paranormal creatures are spotted in the awakened forest on the northern shore of the Gulf of Bothina. The creatures are unusually hostile and there is also a sharp spike in the local astral background count.
• In Tír na nÓg, a series of small magic storms hit Connaught and Meath and the Doineann Draoidheil (magical storms) move far inland of counties Kerry, Sligo, Derry and Antrim. Other magical phenomena are report ed up and down the Great Cairn Line. Finally, the Veil warps and solidifies, preventing travel in or out of Tír na nÓg for a week
• In the Philippines, changelings are treated like lepers and deported to Yomi Island. A large number of Japanese changelings commit suicide because of their “impurity”
• In Württemberg, AGS, the provincial government rounds up all SURGE changelings and imprisons them in quarantine camps.
• Late September: In Chaco Canyon, Pueblo Corporate Council, people at the Anasazi ruins begin reporting visions, seeing images, and hearing sounds with no visible source. Shamans at the site also report astral changes. The government closes off the site and sends in scientists and shamans to study the phenomenon. Almost immediately after the Ute Nation offers to assist the Pueblo Corporate Council in their investigations. Their offer is turned down. The Ute Nation offers again more forcefully, stating that they are concerned with events that occur on their borders. The Pueblo Corporate Council again refuses.
• In the Bermuda Triangle, the number of disappearances skyrockets. Nine planes and ships, including a cruise liner, a flight of CAS military planes, the Aztlan ship Tlaloc, and a rescue ship sent out to find the vanished cruise liner all disappear. Some of the ships report a "strange, luminous fog" before disappearing.
• October 2: In DeeCee Sprawl, a Humanis Policlub demonstration calling for the detention and segregation of SURGE changelings escalates into a full-scale riot. The crowd attempts to penetrate the cordon around the Watergate rift. Army mages on duty report that the background count heightens to dangerous levels, spells seem to have a much higher drain rate, and elementals and spirits refuse orders and simply hover near the rift until the riot is quelled.
• In the UK the Lord Protector's Office enacts legislation requiring all SURGE changelings register with the government. Many refuse and vanish into the fringes of society.
• October 13: In DeeCee Sprawl, members of the Dunkelzahn Institute of Magic Research investigating the Watergate rift witness a dozen or more spirit entities identical to the ones who escaped the

rift on September 15, along with another unidentified type of spirit resembling incandescent balls of light numbering approximately twenty, spontaneously appearing through the rift. Many of them manifest on the physical plane where they draw the attention of a large crowd of onlookers gathered just outside the Army cordon. The spirits seem to rush the crowd which sparks a panic that quickly develops into a riot. Eleven people, including First Lt. James Two- Hats, a military Bear shaman, are killed and six are seriously wounded. A few of the spirits are destroyed, but the rest escape. The military extends the safety cordon another 50 meters.

• October 17: Novatech begins construction of the Olympia Lunar Base.
• In the Athabaskan Council, astral space around the Harding Icefield becomes visible in the physical realm.
• October 27: The Ring of Fire Disaster occurs. Mana lines across the Pacific are destabilized by the close approach of Halley's Comet, causing earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis across the region.
  • In the CFS, the entire Bay Area is struck by a massive earthquake. The city of San Francisco, built to withstand tremors and quakes, comes out mostly unharmed, but the Berkeley/Oakland sprawl suffers massive damage.
  • In Iwo Jima, Japan, Mt. Suribachi erupts, covering large portions of the island and forcing a full evacuation.
  • In New Zealand, Mt. Ngauruhoe erupts, shooting hot ash and cinders and starting several uncontrolled fires.
  • In the Aleutian Islands, volcanic vents spew debris into the air, smashing cars and property. 14 people are injured.
  • In Aztlan, the Santa Maria Quezaltenango volcano scours the countryside with lava and ash as well as emitting toxic fumes near the city of Concepcion. Over 50 people are killed in the eruption
  • The Sunda Trench of the Ring of Fire erupts, leading to sea-quakes and volcanic eruptions on Java and Sumatra. Tidal waves and tectonic plate movements strip away whole sections of the Indonesian coastline. Thousands are missing and believed dead.
  • In the Philippines, Mt. Canlaon on the island of Negros, Mt. Manyon, Mt. Pinatubo, and Mt. Taal on the island of Luzon, Mt. Mantalingajan on the island of Palawan, and Mt. Apo on the island of Mindanao simultaneously erupt causing widespread destruction throughout the islands. The Japanese megacorporations hole up in their enclaves, dealing brutally with any native who tries to breach their security
  • In Japan, a series of small tremors cause minor structural damage in Yokohama and Nagoya. Later that afternoon, the Unzen Volcano, which covers much of the Shimabara Peninsula, erupts without warning. The main centre of the eruption focuses on Mount Fugendake, but there are several other eruptions in other areas of the volcano as well. Another earthquake, this one measuring 7.2 on the scale, devastates Yokohama and another one occurs in the Sea of Japan. The city of Shimabara is nearly obliterated in the blast and several other cities and towns suffer terrible damage and loss of life from tsunami, hot ash rains, rock falls, and toxic gas clouds caused by the eruption. The entire island of Honshu is covered in black ash. The damage is estimated in the range of tens of billions of nuyen. The death toll is estimated in the hundreds of thousands including the Japanese Emperor and most of the Royal Family.
• October 29: In Japan, the Diet convenes in an emergency session. All suborbital flights are cancelled and ports on the island of Kyushu are closed for safety reasons. Prime Minister Shobo Kazama calls for an official investigation into the Shiawase Envirotech geological monitoring and risk management of Unzen and why the monitoring systems did not give an early warning of the eruption. Shiawase Envirotech gives no comment. The Diet also orders all Imperial Marines on foreign soil to return to Japan to help deal with the crisis, including troops in San Francisco, CAS, the Philippines, Peru, and Northern Australia.
• October 31: In DeeCee Sprawl, an Asian wujen reports to the military units at the Watergate rift that his ancestor spirit told him that the "dead" are returning.
• November 1: Ancestor spirits from all cultures warn of the "return of the dead".
• In the Algonkian-Manitou Council, the surviving leaders of the Manitou tribe gather together in their Great Lodge at Lynn Lake to discuss the tragedy. They invite all sympathizers to attend. They also issue a press release "inviting War Chief Longmiles' Long Arms and any representative of Aztechnology to attend. All refuse. After the third day of meeting, the Manitou politely expels all members of the press and non-elves from the area and enforces a perimeter around the Lynn Lake Lodge. After a week, the leaders leave without comment.
• In Pomorya, rumors start spreading that SURGE is spread by humans. In response, most humans leave Pomorya in fear of persecution.
• November 4: Colonel Keiji Saito refuses orders to withdraw Japanese troops from the California Free State and proclaims himself general. Instead, he embarks on a military coup, backed by loyal troops and Japanokons. His forces quickly move into the Central Valley area, taking the city of Sacramento, McClellan Air Force Base, Beale Air Force Base in Marysville, and Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, naming the entire area the California Protectorate. Ares Macrotechnology troops led by General Torres and Lieutenant Colonel L. Ritter halt the general's advance before he can take Silicon Valley. He also leaves the dwarven community of Halferville alone when they threaten to destroy the Caldecott tunnel at the first sign of invasion. The General places most of the Sacramento government under house arrest and starts placing the city's metahumans in internment camps outside the city.
• November 10: The volcanoes in the French Auvergne erupt on the astral plane. While nothing can be seen on the physical plane, the astral space is flooded with magma. Most individuals have nothing to fear, but the astral bodies of Thirteen Awakened Individuals are annihilated, resulting in their deaths.
• November 20: In Gallup, PCC, during a Kachina Society ceremony, four masked dancers draw automatic weapons and shoot several other dancers. One of the victims is Board Chairman Carlos Estefan. The Board appoints Miguel Lusie'dzil as acting chairman.
• November 27: The Dunkelzahn Institute for Magical Research (DIMF) announces the discovery of naturally occurring Orichalcum in Azania. The find triggers the so-called orichalcum rush and demands a fundamentally different view of orichalcum from parageologists, which had previously been believed to be non-natural in origin. Deposits are now being found and mined around the world, including on Dunkelzahns Insel, which was first inherited and neglected by Federated-Boeing, and in the Eifel, where Lofwyr had bought up seemingly worthless lands years before.
  • In Tír na nÓg, conflict breaks out among the Danaan families over orichalcum rights found in the Tara zinc mine in County Meath and Ross Island copper mine in County Kerry.
  • In Marienbad, AGS, the great dragon Schwartzkopf thwarts AGChemie and Eastern Star Pharmaceutical’s orichalcum mining operations and forces them out of the area. He then proceeds to unite the numerous baronies and duchies in the area with himself as “protector.”
• December 2: In the California Free State, an earthquake rating 8.5 on the Richter scale devastates the city of Los Angeles. It is the most violent earthquake in California history. Over 10,000 people are killed. Also, the walls separating Studio City and Fun City from neighborhoods like El Inferno are destroyed. Refugees flood over the walls into the wealthier neighborhoods, looting and killing at will. The wealthy neighborhoods quickly become armed camps under the onslaught of refugees. The studio and aerospace executives beg the CFS government for help but receive none due to the invasion of General Saito. The City Authority is also unable or unwilling to provide aid. Desperate, the studio and aerospace heads ask the Ute Nation, UCAS, and Pueblo Corporate Council for assistance
• December 8: PCC military forces enter Los Angeles and quell the riots. Soon after, they claim the city and all of Southern California as Pueblo Corporate Council territory. This move is decried by the Ute Nation as "a hostile military venture."
• December 17: Unidentified spirits emerge from the main stupa of the Borobudur Temple in the Javanese Republic. Both the Javanese military and the Astral Space Preservation Society work together to identify and capture the spirits, but many of the spirits manage to escape. It is later discovered that it is not Shedim. However, they possess the ability to induce possession against their will, which is why they are classified as a major threat to metahumanity.
• December 19: The Pueblo-Corporate Council issues conditional shares to Los Angeles and southern California residents, making them probationary citizens of the Pueblo-Corporate Council for one year. During this time they can either apply for formal citizenship or make preparations to leave.
• December 21: In Peru, a group of people hold a ritual at the Nazca Lines to "honor the ancestors”. Suddenly, the Nazca Lines light up with a brilliant glow that can be seen miles away. When dawn comes over the mountains the glow fades. But shamans report that the Lines still glow brightly in astral space. People begin to converge on the site in such numbers that the government cordons off the area.
• December 22: In Scotland, the day after the Winter Solstice ritual at the Callanish stone circle on the Isle of Lewis, the local druids discover that the site has been desecrated. The standing stones are covered in symbols painted with blood. More blood is painted around the circle itself. In front of the central stone monolith is a slaughtered Black Angus bull. The hide of the bull has been stripped off and wrapped in a bundle in the center of the circle. Symbols are also painted on the central monolith. The Lord Protector's office sends an investigation team of druids who discover that the wards around the circle are undisturbed. They do not discover the perpetrators of the crime, although rumours of a group called the Holy Circle of Alba, which performs ancient rituals to make the king more beholden to the priesthood, circulate in the area.
• December 24: In DeeCee Sprawl, a localized manastorm manifests around the Watergate rift, after which the rift emits a massive surge of energy. Many who witness it on the physical plane are temporarily blinded. Those perceiving astrally describe the emotional sensation in astral space as a combination of sexual release, giving birth, and death. Some perceiving astrally are stunned by the effect. The rift then bulges and ripples, glowing with a bluish-white light. A massive hoard of unknown spirits then erupts from the rift and flies off in all directions. The Army spirits do nothing to stop them. Witnesses describe the spirits as extremely disturbing in appearance and aura. Soon after, the rift starts to bulge again and witnesses describe a tearing sensation within it. A large western dragon's head then emerges from the rift, apparently in great pain. The rift then gives completely and the dragon's full form emerges. It is in astral form and ghostly white, its bluish-silver scales shimmering. Behind the dragon, another massive rush of spirits emerges from the rift, some of known types, others unknown. A few Army mages in astral form approach the dragon and are apparently devoured by the creature. The dragon then roars with such volume that many in the crowd gasp in pain and then flies off to the west at incredible speed.
  • Joshua Morningstar collapses during a board meeting. Medical and magical efforts to wake him are unsuccessful.
  • in Chicago, Illinois Jason Two-Spirits, whose sanctum in the Containment Zone was found empty, reappears, walks through the Ares security cordon as if it did not exist, looks around, and just as quickly vanishes again.
  • Reports of zombie attacks increase.
  • In the Free State of Westphalia, the renegade theurge and founder of the midnight circle- Markus Stein- organizes a ritual at the Externsteine, which is broken up by the bishop's guard. In the process, creatures appear, occupying victims of both sides, and the whole thing turns into a massacre.
• December 25: The recent zombie attacks are attributed to a new type of highly aggressive spirit that escaped from the Watergate rift, which possess the bodies of the dead to use as hosts. They are soon dubbed the shedim.
  • In the Aztlan Sector, FRFZ, the dragon who manifested from the Watergate rift an hour earlier, now apparently with a ghostly white physical body, attacks an Aztechnology teocalli. Using a combination of magic and summoned spirits of immense power, the dragon completely obliterates the teocalli despite its magical and physical defences. The nearby Aztechnology building is damaged in the attack. A KSAF news crew led by reporter Summer Crosbie manages to catch the attack on vid before her chopper collides with the dragon and crashes. The dragon then moves to the CAS sector and engages CAS border security, but then it breaks off and disappears. The media, because of its coloration and affinity with spirits, names the dragon "Ghostwalker". Summer Crosbie survives the crash but requires massive reconstructive surgery.
  • In the UCAS sector, FRFZ, Vice President Nadia Daviar, SilveryK of the Nexus, Aina Dupree of the Draco Foundation, and Ryan Mercury of Assets Inc. are spotted at the Brown Palace Hotel. Rumors have them secretly meeting with Ghostwalker. Aztlan accuses the UCAS of being responsible for Ghostwalker's attack on their territory.
  • Cross Applied Technologies announces the establishment of a special fund to assist in the rehabilitation of any Cross Applied Technologies employee suffering from simsense addiction.
• December 27: oshua Morningstar abruptly wakes up in his hospital bed and calls for his clothes. He quickly calls David Dragonson and the rest of the board of the Children of the Dragon for an emergency meeting. He declares that it was revealed to him that Ghostwalker is the saviour of mankind. The most of the rest of the board, including Dragonson, refute this claim on the grounds that they believe all dragons, not just one, should be worshiped. The meeting soon becomes heated and ends with Joshua Morningstar storming off.
• December 28: In FRFZ, Ghostwalker resurfaces and firebombs a high-rise residence. Half a dozen residents are killed, their bodies reduced to ash in the blaze, including Glennis Shand, leader of the CAS Sector's Unity Policlub. Witnesses report that they saw the dragon battle some sort of powerful sprit that was deep black with pinpoints of light. They report that the sprit radiated a sense of coldness and inhumanity before Ghostwalker destroyed it. Immediately after, he flies into the CAS sector and attacks the Unity Policlub's headquarters. The dragon pauses just long to cause confusion, resulting in several crashed vehicles, and then vanishes again
• December 29: Word spreads of Morningstar's claim, and he himself attempts to draw power and followers to himself. He uses his media contacts to put together a tridstatement of his revelation, which Dragonson calmly refutes in his own tridstatement. Morningstar then issues a press release calling for all "true" members of the church to march on the temple in DeeCee Sprawl and wrest control of it from the temple leaders. About four hundred of his supporters converge on the temple, but are stopped at the property line by security. David Dragonson tries to address the crowd to calm them down, but someone casts a confusion spell at him. It is quickly dispelled, but not before a riot is sparked leaving one person dead and fifteen injured. Crèches across the nation respond to the incident and polarize into camps supporting either Dragonson or Morningstar. The separation is violent and bloody. In the end, all but one member of the board throws their support with Dragonson, leaving him in control of the temples. Dragonson capitalizes on this by banishing all of Morningstar's followers until they return to the church. Many of the crèches, however, throw their support in with Morningstar, leaving the Children of the Dragon in a state of holy war, with both sides trying to gain control of the entire organization.

2062- 2069

2069

• March 8: Two major earthquakes from the San Andreas and San Pedro Shelf fault lines hit the West Coast. Centered in Los Angeles, the quakes rock the entire planet; people as far away as Africa report seeing well water rippling. Parts of Southern California and Central Valley fall below sea level, and after being hit by a tsunami, Los Angeles and many other coastal cities are flooded, effectively becoming islands. Some of the parts of the region that were 100 meters above sea level nevertheless end up underwater. Though whole parts of the city are submerged or swallowed by sinkholes, the arcologies still stand and so do the freeways; magic is suspected to be behind the geological discrepancies. Nevertheless, much of L.A. is a disaster zone, over 100,000 are dead from the earthquakes and tsunami, and the entire NAN pitches in for rescue and recovery operations.
  • Mount Rainier erupts as a result of the earthquakes, blanketing Seattle in ash.

2070- 2079

2080- 2082