Coronado City/Night City

The dream child of Richard Night, Coronado City was to be the ideal city, the city of the future, so grand that all other cities built before or after would be compared to it. After the collapse, many corporations were starting to look at establishing their own urban areas, free of crime, poverty and debt. By 1992, Arasaka, EBM and Petrochem had thrown their hats into the ring.

The use of innovative building styles and techniques resulted in the exclusion of many "old boy" companies, and there were daily threats on Night's life. Ultimately, he was shot and killed in his penthouse in 1998. In his memory, the newly appointed City Council officially renamed Coronado City as Night City.

Then the scramble for power began.

The next 7 years were chaotic as the powers that were battled for control of the city. The corporations controlled the civic government and the Corporate Centre; the Mob controlled almost all service-related businesses. The City Police, forced to kowtow to both Mob and Corporate interests became totally ineffective. During this time, the gangs, backed by Mob and Corporate Sponsors, established themselves in the remaining suburbs of the old city; the one area that had never had the chance to be added to Night's urban plan. The result is the infamous Combat Zone of today, with gangs to firmly rooted that the only way to remove them now would be to demolish the entire area.

By 2005, the Mob had become top of the pile, and the next four years were the "dark ages" of Night City with more murders in that four year span that there were for most cities in 10. The Mob ruled with an iron first killing anything in it's way. Gang activity was at an all time high and Night City soon became the closest thing to hell on earth, a war zone where you were just as likely to have your car blown up as the radio stolen. The number of unsolved murders documented by the police rose into the thousands.

Eventually, the corporations had had enough, and the two years from 2009-2011 have now become known as the Mob War. Led by Arasaka trained paramilitary troops in assault vehicles, fan tanks and AV combat aerodynes, a wave of bombings, assassinations and outright street battles descended upon the Mob. When the smoke cleared, the corporations had utterly destroyed the Mob's power base in Night City.

At the end of the Mob War, the corporations placed a puppet mayor in power and started cleaning up the city. These draconian policies contributed to the city's now chronic homeless problem - if you didn't have the money to pay for the renovated version of the place you were living in, you were kicked out by force. This ultimately put hundreds on the street, as affordable housing was upgraded and used to house the troops the Corporations needed to maintain order. In recent years, this situation has eased, as fewer enforcers and security teams are needed to keep the streets safe.

Night City has mostly healed from the ravages of it's rocky birth. The Corporate Plaza is always beautiful, and the police force has enough power to keep the downtown streets fairly safe during the day. But it should never be forgotten that Night City, like most of America, has devolved into an armed society. It is far from uncommon to see as many guns as briefcases on the crowded city streets, and the while the days of chaos may be over, the danger remains. Society's rule collapsed before, and may do so again. History can repeat itself, and there is always another gang just around the corner, waiting for its chance to come out on top, no matter what the cost.