Turing Point Rogues Gallery

[johndaw16]

Here's the beginning of the Rogue's Gallery thread for the Turing Point PbP game. This will be the repository for all character information for the players. In addition select NPCs will be put up for general viewing at my discretion and some for the eyes of everyone but my players.

As a bonus I'll post the majority of the world information here as well, so the community can view it without trolling around the Playing the Game forums. The first piece about the world is a rather substantial timeline outlining major events that occur between now and the current world.

So here's the timeline (keep in mind its incomplete as I'm still working on transcribing my sloppy notes from paper to computer). As always all comments are appreciated.

2006
The Mexican cartel crisis and "Drug War"
- rival Mexican drug cartels in the course of a decade old turf war finally drive the US into action; gang violence spills across the Texan border at record rates; while simultaneously thousands of refugees stream across the border; the Fox administration falters as it tries to cope with the elite military trained Zeta gang; Mexican state authority is literally meaningless in the regions bordering the US; a coordinated attack on an FBI post in Brownsville along with 3 Texan police stations drives Texans to take matters into their own hands; rioting, murders, and lynchings flare up in anger at the Zeta gang attacks.

July 2006
The Laredo Massacre
- in the summer heat a band of angry Texans attack and murder nearly 300 Mexican refugees outside of Laredo Texas. A general cry for revenge comes from many Mexicans across the US, reprisal attacks kill at least 7 Americans in other states. The National Guard is called up to put down the rioting, establish order, combat the drug lords, ensure the sovereign borders of the US, and to punish the individuals involved in the massacre

Feb 2007
The Flagstaff Accords
- after what amounts to a small war along the Mexico-US border, a joint national convention is called at Flagstaff, AZ. Canada and Switzerland agree to arbitrate the meeting. The Flagstaff Accords grant the US limited powers of policing in an easement zone stretching across the US-Mexico border. Additionally Federal officers are given universal permission to enter Mexican territory to apprehend suspects involved in any drug related case. In return the US gives monetary aid to Mexico and favorable immigration concessions to Mexican refugees.

Winter 2012
Palestine-Israeli War
-following tenative efforts to form a lasting peace in Israel the second decade of the millenium opens early with renewed hostilities. Radical elements in the Israeli government gain control under suspicious circumstances, just as a bad harvest forces many poor Palestinians to flood Israels borders looking for food and assistance
-tensions rise as the Israeli govt. takes a harsh reactionary response to the influx of Palestinians; thousands starve as winter ends, angry Palestinians lodge formal condemnations against Israel, Israel begins to act against the most outspoken Palestinian elements covertly.
- as the Israeli govts. covert operations begin to become common knowledge, a new campaign of bombings hit Israel hard. by 2013 Israel has invaded much of Palestine and is constantly fighting the Plalestinian Peoples Army (PPA).
by the end of 2013 the PPA is ousted from Palestine and is forced to seek refuge in countries across the Middle East. International pressures finally force Israel to seek a cease-fire. All hopes for a peaceful outcome end as a PPA led military coup takes control of much of Eqypt.
- nearly a third of the Egyptian army joins Syrian and Libyan forces in a joint invasion of Israel on Palestines behalf. General revolt spreads throughout occupied Palestine and Israel is rocked as its over-taxed military begins to falter without Western (mostly US) support.
-following its first major defeat ever to an Islamic military force in the Sinai, the Israeli govt. panics and launches three small tactical nukes striking Cairo, Damascus, and Tripoli.
-In a panic the US/Europe Union/Russia all field a massive military response to end the fighting. A settlement is "negotiated" according to the whims of the intervening powers.

2019
The Dragon of China
-newly ascended Chinese dictator, Hui Huang, quietly begins to stir up the long dormant nationalism of China. With a flair for Western style marketing and a political cunning unrivaled in China Hui Huang is able to gain absolute power over China by the end of 2019.
-2020, the year following Hui Huang's ascent China formally declares its intention to annex Taiwan to the world. Coinciding with this announcement comes a flashy display of Chinese military power, which attempts to overshadow a few more covert operations ordered by Huang.
-in the fall of 2020 China makes its attack, with blitzkrieg like speed, and almost over-runs the entrenched Taiwanese defenses. Tenacity and a good bit of luck helps keep Taiwan in the struggle and the year ends with a long bitter fight for the island coming. Western powers are extremely reluctant to risk further nuclear confrontation over Taiwan. Huang possess a number of functional nukes and will not hesitate to use them in the worlds estimation.
-by the winter of 2021 Taiwan is in a desperate position. With surrender rapidly approaching Taiwan makes appeals to Korea and Japan seeking intervention. These appeals are accompanied by healthy offers of wealth and substantial stakes in the commercial and economic prosperity of Taiwan. These offers and entreaties bring two strange bed-fellows together for one of the most celebrated covert strikes of the modern era. The Japanese yakuza ally with a crack corp of the S. Korean army supplemented by a "rouge" US Seal team and strike at Hui Huang directly.
-the allies meet with spectacular success, kidnap Hui Huang, and in a pell-mell chase across the sea bring him finally to Taiwan itself. In short order the Dragon of China is brought to a screeching halt and a new power in Asian is born.
-in the vacuum left with Huang's kidnapping a devasting power struggle begins between the leaders of China's military. The govt. collapses wholesale in 2024, leaving behind a fractured country. Manchuria formally succedes and becomes a nation under the rule of a wealthy well-connected criminal elite formed from the allies who ended the Taiwan War.
-China reorganizes, and loses the province of Manchuria and largely abandons much of its far flung border territories. This marks a growing trend of the world, as humanity compresses itself into larger denser city centers, leaving vast swaths of remote country uninhabited and uncontrolled. Large portions of "China" lay unclaimed by any nation and become essentially badlands and wilderness.

 

[johndaw16]

Ok here's the second installment of the timeline, forgive the errors I haven't edited it much yet.

PMC
-2025 marks a new high point in American car manufacturing as the ailing GM Corporation finally splits up. One of its progeny the Patriot Motor Company comes out swinging with the first completely fuel-cell powered vehicle for public consumption. Parterned with Shell Corporation and their gas stations as refueling stations, Patriot Motors rockets to a bright future in the world economy.

Summer of 2027 The Big Three
-Mother Nature once more decides to bring disaster to the world in 2027 with the three biggest hurricanes to strike the N. American continent in history. Hurricanes Brea, Kristen, and Lee strike within a two month period between mid-July and early-September. All three were category 5 hurricanes as they made land-fall with devastating results. Hurricane Brea struck first sweeping up the Florida Peninsula and not stopping until it had reached the outskirts of Savannah. Hurricane Kristen came next in August, battering its way across S. Florida before turn north and sweeping across the "Hurricane-Proof Gulf Coast" of the Bush adminstration. Last, came Lee straight up the Chesapeake Bay devasting the Hampton Roads region of VA and reaching the headwaters of the Potomac as a cheeky category 3 raining disaster on the President's head.
-Winter 2027 the US is struggling to get to its feet following the 'canes. While the loss of life is not record breaking, the extent of economic damage IS. Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of damage are dumped upon the weak economies of the S. states. Federal aid falls vastly short, and the US government finds itself facing tough fiscal decisions as it tries to juggle stewardship of US oil interests in the Middle East and domestic needs at home.

Oil Crisis of '29 and the Decay of the US
-2029 sees the US settling into a decline that the rest of the world does not experiance. The global market is large enough to handle a depression in the US economy, a first in modern history. The US's problems stem largely from a decaying economy, careless and bumbling govt. and unscrupulous deregulated private corporations. US oil interests in the ME are slowly gobbled up by other world powers as the US finds itself unable to pay and support the massive military investment needed to maintain a hold in the destabilized region. Asian interests soak up the oil that used to go to the US further fueling their growing economy. The US feels the pinch and is hit hard by a nationwide fuel crisis that paralyzes the economy for nearly a decade.

The AEU
-following the fall of the Dragon of China Hui Huang, and the rise of the Manchurian state, the Asian region begins to take leaps towards becoming the next BIG world player. Reminiscent of early booms in the 1990s Japan, Taiwan, S. Korea, and Hong Kong all enjoy economic growth at an exponential rate. But this time is different, the biggest players in Asian unite under an economic front...the Asian Economic Union (AEU). This union is amazingly effective in large part because of its hands off policy towards politics. The AEU is largely about making money for Asian, and it does its job well. The member nations of the AEU all come out very well in the late 2020's and early '30s, with the second largest world economy, close behind the ailing US economy.

Space For Real this Time
-2031 the AEU launches an ambitious series of missions into space. These missions have the unique goal of being purely commercial endevours designed to make money, exploration has been left by the wayside in favor of wealth. The two grandest schemes are the construction of two human inhabited space stations, on the Moon the second in deep orbit. The moon station is designed to extract any raw materials and ores that can be discovered. While the deep orbit station will handle the "destruction" of nuclear waste, firing it of into the vastness of deep space...somewhere in the vicinity of Jupiter.

Mork and Mindy ?
-2033 a boutique clinic in a chic neighborhood of Buenos Aires announces that it has perfected the "art" of cloning. The cloning business comes out in full force and is the years biggest controversy. Mork and Mindy are the first two public displayed healthy clones. The twins were clones created from the DNA of a wealthy Argentinians toddlers lost in a car accident.

 

[johndaw16]

And here's the third installment of the timeline, should be about 1 or 2 more posts of a similar length and then I'll be done.

The Wars of Religion or WWIII
-By 2035 most of the Middle East is firmly under European, Asian or US control. The entire region serves largely as a vast oil reserve for the "developed" nations of the world. Millions of native Muslims migrate to Europe and farther into Africa. These displaced populations are greeted coldly, and they live on the margins of society in many places. As the 30's come to a close a militaristic pan-Islamic movement is beginning to stir across Europe, Africa, and the ME.
-2040-2045 the restless Muslims begin to be noticed by the rest of the world, Asia is the first to reach out, making large steps in welcoming many Muslims back to their homes in the ME. Most of Iran, and parts of Iraq become home to large numbers of relatively well off Muslim minorities. Meanwhile...Europe and the US fight hard to keep the Muslims far away from any of their global interests.
-2046 well armed bands of European Muslims begin to riot across most of Europe, the devastation of these confrontations leave large swaths of urban Europe virtual war zones. Strangely, the Muslims are well armed and supplied, giving the European police and military forces as good as they take.
-2047 France, Serbia, Bosnia-Herz., Croatia, Macedonia, Hungary, Spain, Portugal, and Bulgaria all essentially descend into civil war. The urban rioting becomes an all out uprising by the displaced Muslim populations. Young fighting age Muslims outnumber the European police and military by a margin of 3 to 1. The Muslims are particularly well armed in the Eastern European countries, while the Muslims in France, Spain, Portugal, and Hungary wage an urban querrilla warfare, turning a number of major cities in each country into war zones.
-2048 the US enters into the conflict offering aid to the scrambling European powers. The US's involvement spawns a literal invasion of Muslims into the US held blocks of the ME from Africa. Once again the Muslims are well armed and make significant gains.
-2049 The US is hit hard once again by the second oil crisis in the past 50 years, the Midwest in particular is hit hard, thousands of people by the years end move to the cities looking for work.

 

[johndaw16]

Just a little bit of background story for Riko Li. I'll post more on the other characters as I get the chance.

Riko Li is a 20 year old mostly Chinese resident of the Stilts. Riko spent her high school years generally disinterested in formal education after realizing the real information was stored all over the net. Attractive and sociable, Riko spent her time after school partying with friends, and most of her time during school skipping class to pursue her own interests on the net. After finishing ahead of her peers she landed a dead-end job running cable and doing diagnostic work for BACA's power management, where she met Truant Constance. Between tension from living at home with her parents, the promise of an entrepreneurial job outside the corridor, and resentment over corporate control of the net nd government policy, at Truant's suggestion Riko left town for the Stilts and is currently working there partially on her own, partially as Truant's "apprentice". She rents a beat up one-room apartment by herself, but it has a decent view, and work is steady enough to keep her well fed and to buy her the hardware she wants off of Truant. The only thing besides hardware she spends money on is her flake habit, but it has yet to become a problem in her life. She's fairly well known around town since Truant sends her to fix most of the regular wear and tear on the infrastructure around the area. Riko carries a pistol during work late at night which she borrows from Truant.