Marco made mention that he canned his old writeup of Los Angeles for mine and I know some of you want some details; or at least can't be bothered going to deviantart to see what I wrote up.
Here's a little something to give you an idea on what Los Angeles is like in Coreline today.
A Basic Guide to Los Angeles
1. Operation Winback
Operation Winback was a major undertaking during the 23 Hours performed by the LAPD, LA Fire Department, LA EMTs and pockets of abandoned US military forces ranging from Delta Force to National Guardsmen.
Over the course of the 23 Hours and beyond it the LAPD led a massive ground war and recruited anyone who could wield a gun or drive a vehicle, from gang members all the way to Fictions who wanted to help put an end to the rampages, lock down Los Angeles block by block and establish safe zones for refugees to be evacuated or receive medical treatment, food and water. Often these safe zones would be within a literal stone's throw from the fighting.
Thousands died and after law and order was restored a marble monument was built on the sight of the worst fighting to honor the sacrifices made.
This is Operation Winback, and it is a point of pride and honor to an LA citizen. Mock it at your peril.
2. Zero Tolerance
Zero Tolerance is the name for Special Mandate 12, a controversial document allowing the Los Angeles Police Department the power of summary unilateral usage of lethal force. It gives the LAPD similar right to the likes of Judge Dredd to use their own authority to engage with lethal force and perform a summary execution of criminals.
The mandate was put out for civil input and was modified and in some cases completely rewritten at least twelve times before the version in use by the LAPD came to be approved by the public and the reconstituted Mayor's office.
The change to LA's criminal scene was striking; as officers took to simply removing the problem rather than arresting criminals, crime rates plummeted as the criminals rushed to adapt to an LAPD that was not afraid to kill and was wielding military-grade weapons.
Public support was also extremely high and some gangs chose to collaborate rather than be executed.
Eventually a prison would be built for those who were decided to be better off jailed than dead. But that's a different story.
3. The Silence
Soon after LA was free and clear, they looked out at the rest of America and what they saw did not impress them. Regular police often overwhelmed by Fiction rampages and newly appeared Pre-Vanishing human terrorists, the military rendered impotent against magic and super-technology and a government that was bending over backwards to let mega-corps like Genom and Stingray Industries essentially run roughshod over the nation.
LA went silent almost immediately and looked inwards, studying the technology and materials, investigating the properties of Fictions when compared to humans, anything that would prevent them existing as another battered and partially decayed ruin.
They searched with increasing desperation, the Fictions in particular fearing pogroms and witch-hunts if they didn't try to pull their weight, until a military dive team found it.
Its name was Antaeus, it was the last of the Adaptive Battlecruisers built by a fictional Earth that had given war up. It was still able to float and its nanotech-based Creation Reactor was still operational. The ship was immediately dragged into a drydock and the Reactor studied and in that moment, Los Angeles found its answer.
Over several years LA remained silent even as it began to build outwards at a staggering rate. With the chaos of those early days it was pitifully easy for rail lines to be commandeered, counties and territories to be claimed, cities to be absorbed. By the end of it, Los Angeles had expanded outwards to claim a large chunk of neighbouring Nevada and had set the outer limits of its expansion as far north as Fresno, and as far south as San Diego.
Many things happened during this time; riots, famine, diplomacy and negotiations, new laws and evolutions took place and LA began to grow stronger. People desperate for civilization took the sight of LA's massive super-expansion as a sign of progress and flocked to the city.
LA seemed to be on the right track to crawling out of the rut that the rest of the United States and parts of the world seemed doomed to remain in.
4. Death From Above and the end of the Silence
When you mention 'Death From Above' most people would think of flyers and snipers in tall buildings. In LA, it means the day that the Cylons dropped nukes and asteroids on them and jolted LA out of its reconstructionist navel gazing.
No-one knows why the Cylons targetted LA, no-one knows how many died during that event since LA remained and still remains, stubbornly silent about casualties. What people do know is that the Cylons hit LA three times and every time it rebuilt stronger than ever.
And then they remember the sight of a particle beam without warning wiping out three-quarters of the Cylon fleet, numerous others who had been trying to stop a fourth attack, and carving a molten scar across the surface of Mars.
That was the first firing of the Los Angeles Defense Towers and soon after that people stayed away from LA's skies, not wanting to get vaporized.
But this was just the overt sign that something was changing inside the city. Secret missions were undertaken by the city, performed by LAPD SWAT and a newly raised cadre of people known as the Special Police Taskforce, the predecessors of the infamous Special Investigations Unit, to various places across the world.
A supposedly abandoned base in Kazahkstan is raided and destroyed by a low-yield nuclear device, the government blames fundamentalists to hide the LAPD operatives returning with the formula for the Pariah Toxin in their hands.
A remote region of China is reduced to a molten wasteland and blamed as a tectonic anomaly. The location is also coincedentally the location of the newly arrived Jusenkyo Springs.
A mysterious military force recovers the contents of a crashed military cargo plane in Okinawa on behalf of the Russian government.
German forces receive crucial intelligence that allows them to enforce a much harsher border protection detail against Amestris smugglers.
Oman, the UAE and Kuwait receive designs for cheap, efficient fusion systems in exchange for a covert military alliance.
But most important was an operation to the city of Worcestor, where the main CLULESS anomaly was. LAPD records concerning this operation were to be hidden under the strictest security codes even as the lone survivor, then Captain Hild Morisato, returned in a state of severe mental distress and badly wounded.
After this, the LAPD hijacked the ARMD platform known as the 'Eagle', killing all on board and officially opening up to the outside world.
5. The Golden Bullet
People have been trying to weaponize the Pariah Gene, that gene that allows a normal person to shut down the powers and superhuman abilities of Fictions and certain types of technology used by Fictions.
Los Angeles suceeded. The Pariah Toxin was stolen from a cult in Kazakhstan and the formula gave LA scientists the information they needed to create the Pariah-Gene artificially, but there was no way to project the Pariah field beyond the person.
Finally, the artificial gene was incredibly toxic, meaning that it was impossible to use it for gene-treatments.
Eventually someone combined the toxin with a special nano-chain delivery system modelled after the nematocysts of jellyfish, allowing the toxin to be safely deployed by delivering it as a gel-round.
The round, fitted with a mono-edged safety cutting head, would penetrate armour and clothing and splatter against skin, allowing the nano-chains to fire and deliver their payload of Pariah Toxin, which would use blood cells to multiply and poison the rest of the body, eventually creating an internalized Pariah field, shutting down a person's abilities and rendering them vulnerable to ordinary weapons.
The system also had the advantage of being completely undetectable to systems designed to detect Pariah-gene usage, and the toxin burnt out upon death, leaving no traces of its presence.
It was perfect for the LAPD and its newly formed Office of Special Police Services, in particular the Special Investigations Unit.
6. The Special Investigations Unit
The Special Investigations Unit or SIU are the black office of the Office of Special Police Services, also known as the OSPS; the de-facto intelligence beaureu of the LAPD formed soon after the Silence ended.
The OSPS is the brain-child of Jonathon Grey, who in turn was its first Chief of Special Police Services before he was replaced by Hild Morisato, who rose to power by backing the formation of the Special Investigations Unit as a go-anywhere, do-anything task force that would strike quickly and violently against LA's enemies while disguising themselves as member of various agencies to conceal their true allegiance.
The SIU was approved and from the start they proved their worth a hundred-fold as with the backing of the OSPS they were able to operate in complete invisibility. INTERPOL and the F-SWTI could not trace them, many state intelligence agencies had no idea they were being used to conceal LA operations, and terror cells feared them as their leaders were tracked and hunted down.
The SIU quickly gained a reputation as a group of shadowy trenchcoat wearing people who would appear out of nowhere and then vanish back into oblivion. Various implants and transponders, ensured that their bodies and equipment couldn't be recovered and eventually they became one of the many boogymen of the underworld.
The SIU number 100 active field agents divided into 20 teams of five agents who are commanded by the Agent-Commander and Agent-Lieutenant. They maintain at least 3000 trainees who do most of the day-to-day operations inside LA. They have a fraternal culture, referring to each other as brothers and sisters in arms with the Commander and Lieutenant given the highest levels of respect and obedience.
Ranking goes as follows:
-Recruit: SIU recruits are put through a brutal training course. A training class of a thousand recruits can often expect to see 90-92 percent casualties.
-Trainee Agent: At this rank the agent operates solely in Los Angeles, acting in a role similar to the FBI, and also deals with the day to day running of the organization under the watchful eye of an Agent-Inspector.
-Rookie Agent: The Rookie is the first step into the outside world and the deeper traditions of the SIU. Here the Rookie is introduced to areas such as the Agent Memorial and briefed on Agent code of conduct and basic operating procedures as well as provided a basic field manual. Training with the standard-issue 14mm Desert Eagle takes place here.
-Field Agent: Field Agents are the backbone of SIU operations and are overseen by Senior Agents or the Agent-Commander and Lieutenant. Field Agents are where the black leather trenchcoats, specially modified with ballistic gel, MDC plating, numerous pockets and holsters and a plush velvet lining, are first seen. Each hand-made trenchcoat is comparable to high-level military armour, capable of resisting extreme punishment, and is the main symbol of the SIU, a sign that you have finally been accepted into their ranks.
-Senior Field Agent: This is typically the highest rank most agents will attain since the offices of Agent-Commander and Agent-Lieutenant are often for life and require the Chief of Special Police Service and Chief of Police to approve any replacement. Senior Agents are highly skilled and their long years of fighting horrific opposition and pulling off impossible missions makes them incredibly deadly.
-Agent Lieutenant: Currently held by Anko Mitarashi-Harding, the Agent-Lieutenant is the traditional partner of the Agent-Commander during missions. Often incredibly skilled, experienced and usually possessing abilities gained from long years of operations, the Agent-Lieutenant is often compared to a force of nature when forced to go all out.
-Agent Commander: Currently held by Deunan Knute-Worth, the Agent-Commander is the deadliest operative in the SIU. Able to perform any mission that would require a team of agents single-handedly, the Agent-Commander is typically paired with the Agent-Lieutenant for backup since the Lieutenant is often the only person who can keep up with them. The Agent-Commander is a relentless opponent, brutal and cunning, and utterly unflappable in the face of opposition and can often be impossible to defeat, let alone kill, in combat.
7. GM Ideas
-SIU agents are high-level opponents and when not following the agenda of LA can often be found following the agenda of the Agent-Commander or Chief of Special Police Services. Use this as a means to introduce new twists in your campaign.
-SIU agents can call upon the full resources of not only the LAPD but also the Los Angeles National Guard; the city's self-contained army, navy and air force. This means that not only do SIU agents have access to toys and gear that most PC's would drool at, but they can call in support that the PC's will have a difficult time matching.
-Los Angeles produces 80 percent of MDC materials on Coreline thanks to sabotage, trans-dimensional mining, and other often illegal business methods, which means that SIU agents have unlimited access to these deadly resources.
As a rule of thumb, double or even triple the damage an SIU agent's weapon can deal to a PC and cut any damage the agent receives in half or by three-quarters depending on levels. You can beat an SIU agent, but make such fights one where you need some brains alongside the guns.
-If you have to have your PC's encounter the Agent-Lieutenant and Agent-Commander, give them the chance to split the two up. Alone the Lieutenant and Commander can be beaten with some hard work and quick thinking, but if they stick together then any PC's who try to take them on are as good as dead; years of impossible black-operations together have made these two far superior to any PC party.
When fighting the Agent-Lieutenant and Agent-Commander together, any feats that one possesses can also be performed by the other and depending on the level of the PC's the base stats of the two will often be 12-14 or as high as 18 across the board.
If your PCs want to go to LA, either as part of their investigations or just because they think it will open new paths to the end of the campaign, here's some quick pointers:
-LA is a cashless society, everything is done with the CityCard or in the visitor's case the PassCard.
-LA is two cities in one. On the surface you have kilometers of utopian arcologies, the Los Angeles Border Wall, LAX International Spaceport, and the imposing LA Defence Towers. Underneath is an upside-down geo-front style cityscape that is firmly in the grips of cyberpunk dystopia. If you want to have an adventure in LA, the second LA is where you want to go.
-If you have the money, you can buy it. Weapons, vehicles and equipment that would be illegal or otherwise very difficult to acquire are often sold openly in LA so there are no DC modifiers or checks to get your hands on something special.
The only exception is Pariah Toxin ammo, which is only handled by the LAPD and LA National Guard. If you could secure a supply of this ammo, you could set your own prices and live like a king off the profits. That is if the LAPD doesn't hunt you down and kill you first.
-The LAPD is the law here. LAPD propaganda is everywhere and the cops are well-armed and often willing to put you down rather than slap the cuffs on you. The National Guard are worse, because they like to shoot to wound so that they can 'interrogate' you later.
-DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT TRY AND GO TO THE ISLAND!!!
