Hoi chummers, if you’re new to the 'Hub then you might be a bit confused as to what has happened around Seattle. Recent months have seen a huge spike in runner activity thanks to the Almighty Valanthos, your new god away from GOD. See, he had this crazy idea a few months back to boot up a shadowrunner host on the 'trix to help Johnsons, Fixers and Runners get into contact with each other. Ever since then, business has been booming, sometimes literally. It’s my job to teach you young whippersnappers about the history of this joint- because who knows, it may repeat itself.
So, it started as these things usually do: a crime wave across dozens of Stuffer Shacks and McHughes'. No one knows why new runners do this, but they always seem to gravitate towards those kinds of low end jobs. Then all of a sudden, this guy calling himself Mr. Seattle Tonight comes out of nowhere and starts broadcasting pirate radio. This guy was on the ball with shadowruns, managing to shift through the drek to find the fruits of our collective labours. We’re lucky this guy is on our side, because he has a knack for getting to the bottom of things, you know the stuff I’m talking about, right? Those news stories that sound perfectly innocent but there’s this gut feeling behind them. Anyways, I digress; runs were pouring in to the dark underbelly of the Emerald City and the community was thriving. And then suddenly the drek hit the fan.
Mayor Pierce, the former mayor of the Seattle Metroplex was shot by a sniper while giving some speech for some political fundraiser or something. But while he’s not important, the aftermath is. Without a mayor, Seattle plunged into election fever and four candidates stepped up to the plate. There was Mercer, a politician through and through, but I guess his heart was in the right place. Poor guy wanted to help give SINs to SINless. His opposition was a woman named Delacroix, an Ares exec who took a harsh stance on crime (Booo!). Then almost out of the blue, some attention seeking dryad named Mitzy Harlan comes out of the woodwork and claims she’s going to clean up this town. So now we have a Dryad, a Politico and a Corp vying for power when the bombshell hits. A Great MotherFragging Dragon declares he’s also running for office. His name is Melns, and to say things got interesting at that point is an understatement.
Politics start heating up, jobs start flying thick and fast: assassinations, defamations, data steals and bodyguard duty. You name it, we did it. And that’s about the time the madwoman Molly Mayhem decided to go up for election. She had no chance of winning, I doubt she even has a SIN, however she ran a… brutal campaign. And by that, I mean she was bombing coffee shops, killing innocent wageslaves, insulting a great dragon- the works. Eventually some batshit crazy runners started to flock to her as if she was some guiding light of anarchy. That’s when tensions went nuclear.
A group of unidentified runners/terrorist/I don’t even know what to call them, decided to turn it up to 11. They detonated carbombs in suburban areas, created a virus that infected almost all of Seattle and needed GOD to intervene personally, hacked skyscrapers and started a gang war in the middle of Seattle streets. The city went into lockdown, KE patrols increased and life got much harder fo us honest crims.
Then Mercer kicked the bucket. He was found dead with a massive hole in his skull a mere 3 weeks before the election. Panic gripped the city… well not really. A lot of the old hats saw it coming. He was trying to help out the little guy, which was unacceptable! Then what seems to be out of the blue, Mercer’s back! He made a hub post and everything, claiming it was a body double that took the fall and that he would be going into hiding for a few weeks to plan his “Campaign to bring Justice to the Corrupt”, whatever that means. It was about then when Mayhem skipped town. The mounting KE resistance was getting too hot for even her, and it showed no sign of slowing.
A week or so later and our beloved Mr. Seattle Tonight goes missing. That was an omen of bad voodoo, mark my word. And of course, I was right. Horizon started up some Reality Trid called "World of Shadows" that documented runners on a cheesy fake run. There are some that are calling that episode cursed, and I don’t blame ‘em after what happened next. A runner by the name of GODSlayer got recognised at a KE checkpoint- a bad situation to be in, but even worse in this one. The runner team was carrying enough explosives to put them behind bars for life 10 times over. Rather than giving up, they fought back and became a quick smear on the pavement, blowing up an S-K building and causing billions in damages. The police response that followed was predictably harsh.
The election started heating up along with the Knight presence. The civilians started feeling safe under their corporate oppression and Delacroix won in a landslide. Or did she? Mitzy Harlan dropped a bombshell: Delacroix had cheated the system and rigged it. Disgraced and arrested, Delacroix was forced to drop out, leaving Mitzy an easy victory against ol’ Scaley.
So after all that mayoral drek, stuff started becoming... well, normalish. Mitzy ascended to her throne and things started to quiet down, barring a few major plane crashes and all. Suddenly the Salish border got a bit hot after unidentified aircraft plummeted out of the airspace for some unknown reason (we all know the reason, it involves novacoke, alcohol and a few planes). Rumour has it that the incident had something to do with an Ancients vs Cartels turf war- if anyone asks though you didn't hear it from me.
Then there was the whole debacle with the Agatha-Maersk, a massive cargo ship that crashed just outside Seattle waters. It was a gold mine for pirates, scavengers and evidently television hosts. Don't be getting too excited though; corp sec busted up the party and have drekloads of security watching over it. Only the suicidal would ever tangle with those tough as nails motherfraggers at this point.
A string of manastorms came through and really set the outskirts of the Seattle Sprawl back, but corporate money helped some of them rebuild. Just in time for tensions in the Ork Underground to hit a novahot meltdown. There was a three-way throwdown between the Skraa'cha, the True Skraa'cha, and the regular chummers living in the OU. Knight Errant dragged all of Seattle kicking and screaming into the fight, and even those NAN stone-faces on Council Island piped up to negotiate a settlement. It ended with a bang, as riots and looting filled the streets for a while.
Order was restored (or so they tell me), and we were left with a pile of rubble and a lot of grumbles... but no clear resolution on the Underground. Humanis felt they were pushed back into the hole, but rumors circulated that Humanis had been hit hard, too. And Knight Errant was left not just with a black eye, but a bloody nose as Seattle announced a three-way security contract with Knight Errant, Lone Star, and tiny little Winter Security. Now even regular citizens didn't know whether to kneel, genuflect, bow, or run for cover.
Just when we started to straighten this whole mess out, word comes down about a string of kidnappings happens. The heat started getting too much for the college crowd, so both of them shut down. A couple of frat boys went south, and an epic party hit the headlines. Might have been too good, as a few runners started disappearing shortly after. Next thing you know, we've got runners turning on runners, a shadow conspiracy of black-bag lists on Seattle runners from out of town guys, and a paranoia setting of 11.
Now, it wasn't that the heat was that bad, chummer. Between you and I, things could have been handled well if it weren't for the fact that this was Capital-O Organized. Not by the Yaks or the Mob. That would have been simple to deal with. No, this was brought on by that fraggin' wizworm Melns. Turns out he wasn't done sticking his nose into Seattle's biz after all. We might have bloodied him by wiping out the bank that was the payroll for his forces, but you know that aint' the end of it. "Never deal with a dragon" goes both ways, chummer. Sometimes, they gotta know that, too.
And that's the story so far.
Welcome to the Emerald City's Shadows, chummer.