History

The town of Chicago was incorporated in 1833 with fewer than 100 Inhabitants. A portage site for fur traders, the area developed into a major crossroads for trade during the early years of stealing North America from the lndlans. The city has remained a hub of commerce as well as a cauldron of racial unrest.
Two key events In this century have shaped Chicago. The first was the discovery of ASIST technology by Dr. Hosato Hiklta of ESP Systems, Inc. The second was an act of terrorism unequaled by any that followed.
As soon as ESP Systems "leaked" their ASIST concept, the company was snapped up by maverick financier Dan Truman. Truman had the bucks to back the development of the ASIST technology, turning Chicago Into the capital of ASIST and simsense research. According to Truman, "[Chicago Is] never going to be Hollywood, but by God. those people are going to stop calling us the fly-by city!" Rumor has It that Truman got ESP only after offering Its two founders a "permanent vacation."
ESP became a subsidiary of Truman Technologies, but it was absorbed into the parent company after TT lost the suit it brought against Fuchi on ESP's behalf, charging that Fuchl had stolen ESP's ASIST technology. Truman still wants revenge against Fuchl, which has set up an unhealthy competition between the two companies. They constantly try to steal top scientists away from each other.
Within seven years, Truman Technologies was rich enough from slmsense entertainment profits to begin revitalizing Chicago's south side. Contracts were signed, cheap land bought, and neighborhood folks were tossed Into the streets. The now-homeless were bought off with slmsense prototypes presented as "market surveys".
Chicago, traditionally known as a city of neighborhoods, became a magnet for the Awakened. Many of the metahumans headed for Chicago's Southside, where a strong back often compensated for green skin, especially In the factories. The numerous districts of the city provided conclaves where orks. trolls, dwarfs, and elves could gather together in safety, but It reinforced the old ghetto mentality. Each racial group had a place where they could feel at home, but they were separated from the rest of the city. A corper feels like he's part of Chicago. but a ghetto-dweller identlfles with the six-by-four-block area he is forced to call home. Soon even these areas no longer belonged to the metahumans.
When the Loop expanded, It headed south and west. driving up real estate prices In areas where metahumans had recently settled. Truman's land-development deals displaced much of this working class to the fringes of the city. The situation got worse when office workers from the northern suburbs moved south to avoid a three-and-a-half hour commute to the relocated business district
When the business district moved, metahumans and other racial minorities had to find new places to live. Members of the suburban communities circling the city forced acceptance of the metahumans Into their own neighborhoods for economic and other reasons, creating balanced, racially Integrated areas. Unfortunately, these neighborhoods were also absorbed Into the city, collapsing as the corpo­rations moved south and southwest. Once again the metahumans and their working-ciass neighbors were forced to move
In 2039, the waves of antl-metahuman violence set off by Seattle's Night of Rage swept through the country. It was widely believed that the most radical arm of Alamos 20,000, the Hand of Five, was responsible for the warehouse fires that caused the tragic deaths of hundreds of Seattle's metahumans that night. The terrorism continued all over the world In the days that followed.
Three days after the Night of Rage, members of Alamos 20,000 committed the most outrageous act of terrorism yet, the second major event that affected Chicago. IBM had acquired the Sears Tower years earlier. From the beginning of the Awakening, the computer company supported an equal-opportunity program. Just when It seemed as if people could begin to pick up their lives and go on In the wake of the Night of Rage. the terrorists of Alamos 20K, with a combination of magic and explosives, destroyed the balance of the nine units making up the Sears Tower, sending the building crashing to the street during a weekday lunch hour.
The falling debris destroyed blocks worth of buildings, streets, and sidewalks. Thousands were crushed to death, but It was still not over. When the area's gas lines ruptured from the structural damage, the whole Loop area went up In flames. A second Chicago Fire was narrowly averted by mages who managed to contain the blaze In less than an hour. This additional damage pushed the death toll to nearly 26,000.
The physical damage was not the worst part of the incident. Alamos 20K covered Its tracks by arranging the destruction of the Tower to look like metahuman retaliation for the Night of Rage. The corporations responded Immediately by sealing the metahuman and poor (currently lumped together as one group) out of their respective neighborhoods. City Hall and the corps built projects on the Northslde to house the metahumans and keep them separated from the rest of the city. They also built factories In the same area to serve as work camps, and the official tongue-wagging says the situation Is "under control"
The areas crushed by the Sears Tower are known as the Shattergraves. All forms of human and inhuman creatures, as well as !he ghosts of those killed in the building's fall and the aftermath, are said to roam the mazes of steel and concrete. The rest of the Loop, left to rot by the corporations and government, is under the thumb of Chicago's underworld, which is why its known as the Noose. In the eleven years since the fall of the Tower, the Noose has expanded its boundaries as far as Western Avenue.