Shadowrun - 2089

In the year 2089, much of the world has changed…and not necessarily for the better. While there’s less war, hunger, and disease; poverty, classism, and oppression are more dominant than ever before.   The profound changes at the turn of the century made your childhood much different than your parents and grandparents. The Awakening gave us the random genetic expression that transformed people into meta humans such as orcs and trolls and brought us Magic and Dragons. The HMVV virus rewrote the humanoid genome bringing about werewolves, banshees, vampires, and ghouls. Then there were the technological changes such as cybernetic implants, nano molecular computing, and of course, The Awakening 2.0…which brought us artificial general intelligence with the rebirth of Deus Ex and the Global Artificial Intelligence Aggregate (GAIA).   San Francisco has seen enormous changes.   Most of the former SF shoreline is gone…now under about 3 meters of water that extends about 50 meters into the peninsula itself. A large 30’ seawall forms a break against the ravages of ever increasing tidal levels. The average temperature in California has increased 18F from their early 21st century levels from 74F to 92F on the coast, 112F in the Central Valley, with heat waves in the hotest areas reaching into the 130s.   Urban density has forced much of the population into taller and taller (air conditioned) buildings, pushed so close that one can barely pilot a jumpboard without running it the sides. Most buildings rise 500m (1400ft, 120 floors) into the sky and are made of ceremetal and plasteel and powered by self-contained mini-fusion powerplants that are linked by a corporate energy grid owned by Renraku.   The air in the city is always damp with a low lying smog constantly hanging about the dirty, wet and mostly useless solar streets. Scientists have remarked that the population of SF is so great (5.76M, or twice that of 2022) that human emissions have brought about a London Fog similar to that of the 18th century Britain.   One district in the city still retains it’s former character…that being the Castro. Several entrepreneurs from Novatech, including VP Brian Jenkins, established a trust in order to renovate and preserve the flour block (1/4th mile) radius around the historic area. While the buildings are taller and more modern now with synthetic materials; much of the street fronts and facades were kept to retain their 19th century character.   The rest of California has less "investment" from the Japanese and as such, is a dry, lawless wasteland populated by large factories connected to the occassional corporate walled-enclave via the hypertram that runs a complete circuit from Seattle to Mexico City.