Omaha in the Shadows - Part One of Several

Omaha, NE UCAS - An Overview
By Big Red
Hoi, chummers, and welcome to Omaha. It’s not what you expected, right? I’ll bet you were expecting cornfields and cowboys, not skyscrapers and industrial parks, right? Bet you didn’t know that every megacorp has a presence here, especially the ones that focus on Matrix or military hardware? You see, chummer, Omaha hasn’t been a podunk town since the 1950s. 

Just south of Old Omaha was a little US Air Force Base called Offutt, which during the Cold War became the home of Strategic Air Command (SAC), later U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), and finally, after the formation of the UCAS, UCAS Strategic Command (UCASSTRATCOM) . This was the home of the 55th Wing, as well as numerous other projects. This brought in a ton of military contractors, from Raytheon and Northrop Grumman to Boeing, all wanting to be close to the decision makers.

From its inception Omaha proper was a bustling midwestern city focused mostly on meat production and as a distribution hub for the railroad. Its centralized location was perfect for taking east-west cargo and sending it north-south, and vice versa. And where the railroads went, so did telegraph lines, and later telephone lines, and even later fiber optic cable. This made Omaha a central hub for phone, and later internet switching.

While this was all going on there was also a little known local boy by the name of Warren Buffett buying up shares of a little known textile company know as Berkshire Hathaway, eventually gaining majority control. Local legend says that occasionally Mr. Buffett would run out of money, or need a favor, and would offer locals a few shares of what, at the time, was worthless stock. Later, this stock would become the most valuable stock in the world, leading to Omaha having one of the highest number millionaires per capita.

Life went on as normal in Omaha, up until the late 80s and early 90s. As a communications hub, Omaha started seeing a boom to its tech sector with the growth the internet (that is the prehistoric Matrix for all you script kiddies), and a decline in its manufacturing and rail business. This led to the tearing down of much of the old warehouse district and the creation of the ConAgra Campus and the Old Market District.

It the early 2000s Omaha became a serious hub for financial data, with FDR and First National Bank, as well as Mutual of Omaha, Ameritrade, and PayPal all taking up residence in the Metro. Add into that the increasing additional infrastructure as other old world matrix companies such as Google and Yahoo, HP, eBay, and others opened data centers and call centers. Omaha was set to become the next Silicon Valley.

>>>>>[Not to rain on Big Red's parade, but for anybody who's interested, you can find more about the history of our fair city here, or here, or here (if you're wanting info on the history of the Barrens...)]<<<<<
 - Darksylvre, Sysadmin (05:41:45/10-07-77)

>>>>>[If you're willing to trust in that pre-Crash 2.0 drek.]<<<<<

 - Big Red, Sysadmin (05:41:46/10-07-77) 

Dragons, Indians, VITAS, and the Crash
By Big Red
The early 21st century was a whirlwind of growth and change for the Big O. Tech companies expanded into every section of the city; Berkshire Hathaway continued to grow; and the city continued to expand West at a massive rate, and the NAN happened.

Omaha sits in an interesting place when it comes to Native America, with four large reservations all within a hour or two of the city, but no real resources. Many of the tribes in the area, specifically the Omaha and the Winnebago, had no real stake in the NAN until the NAN forced the Lone Eagle Incident. Omaha was spared the worst of the Ghost Dance, being that we are nowhere near any volcanoes, but Offutt saw a marked increase in population as it was used as a staging ground for troops being trained to run the concentration camps.

VITAS also mostly passed us by, probably because for a city of over a million, Omaha was incredibly spread out and has more hospital rooms per capita than most cities. (This probably comes from the fact that Omaha is the largest city for almost 200 miles in any direction.) This lead Omaha to overtake Kansas City and Des Moines as the largest city in the region. This also led to further expansion westward, as people wanted more and more of a buffer between themselves and their neighbors.

Once the Treaty of Denver was signed Omaha started to take on a new prominence as refugees from the newly formed Native American Nations relocated by the hundreds of thousands. For a city not used to massive poverty or homeless, Omaha did a good job taking care of the issue of the massive influx of people.

The poor and refugees were herded into increasingly more crowded slums in North and South Omaha. The Red Cross tried to house as many as possible, building tent cities at the edges of the city, with FEMA buying out every hotel room and arena space in the Omaha area, but the truth is the Big O couldn’t just absorb 800,000 new people in six months. Utilities broke down; electricity, water, and sewer services were all overworked – and then winter hit.

Winter in Omaha is never easy, but the winter of 2019 was one of the worst. Combine already overtaxed utilities with extreme cold and inadequate shelter, record low temperatures, and record snowfall, and you have a recipe for disaster. Thousands died of exposure. Thousands more died of diseases borne of overcrowding. It wasn’t until the Emergency Act of 2019 was signed and the federal government declared Omaha a disaster area and sent gave federal aid offering zero percent loans for 10 years to build new multi-unit housing.

Local hero Warren Buffett, in partnership with Kiewit Construction, built the first of the Omaha Towers to help house these refugees. Five of these structures were built in total, each containing 10,000 units. These mixed-use buildings were supposed to be micro cities in their own right. Each included shopping, office space, parking and apartments. The first of these was built on land just south of Omaha in what use to be called Papillion, at 72nd and Giles. Replacing a boarded up Wal-Mart and surrounding strip mall, it took two years to build and supplied thousands of jobs. Buffett was hailed as the savior of the city.

Smelling the federal money, other companies got into the act. One tower went up at the old Crossroads Mall site at 72nd and Dodge, another took the place of the dying Oak View Mall at 144th and Center, the fourth was built in Elkhorn on 209th and Dodge, and the fifth was built in South Omaha in the old stockyards.

In a coup, Kiewit was able to snag all five contracts. That is not to say they were the only ones to cash in as large housing projects went in all over the city,. Most were mixed-use, as the builders would be able to cash in on prime commercial space – all on the government's dime. As long as at least 75% of the tower's units were for residential housing, it was a go This also led to skyrocketing property values east of 72nd, and the wholesale demolition of some of Omaha’s oldest neighborhoods.

Along with the refugees also came the businesses that didn’t want to be part of NAN. Omaha became heir to many of Denver’s larger companies, such as Lockheed-Martin, Wells Fargo, and Oracle, further cementing the city's tech and financial cred.

But, it seemed that every time Omaha was just about to pull itself back from the edge, something else happened.

By 2021, Omaha was just starting to come together, the new Omaha Towers were starting to open, more than 50,000 new housing units had been built. The refugees were finding work and housing, and the city was starting to feel better. And then Goblinization struck. Overnight, 10 percent of the population just changed, often in frightening ways. Orks and trolls were suddenly a reality, just like the elf and dwarf children of the twenty teens. And just like everywhere else, the citizens were less than thrilled.

In 2022 the second round of VITAS struck and this time Omaha was not spared. With the city crammed to the gills with NAN refugees and, building up instead of out, Omaha was hit hard. Some of the Omaha Towers took a chance and closed to the public, sparing their occupants. Over the next two years many projects that had started were abandoned, leaving ghost towns of skeletal buildings, now open for squatters. Some of these are still around today, built up by their less than legal tenants and often nowhere close to code.

In 2029 it was the Crash. Omaha being heavily reliant on communications, Internet, and finance business, was hit hard. A city that rarely ever saw six percent unemployment was now topping 30 percent as businesses closed, merged or restructured in the wake of the Crash of ‘29.

Out of the Ashes
By Big Red 

With the Crash of ‘29, and federal aid running out, Omaha stopped growing and land prices plummeted. Eventually the new megacorps started moving in, seeing opportunity in the heartland of America. Slowly at first, and then more rapidly, Omaha started to recover.

One of the first things that the megacorps did when moving in was to buy up the downtown area and install their own police. Lone Star got the contract for most of Omaha, but Knight Errant got it for Downtown. During the rough years many of the subdivisions out west became small walled enclaves, and the poor were pushed further north, south, and east across the river. Offutt Air Force Base grew in size and scope, taking up many of the functions of Colorado’s Cheyenne Mountain.

By 2050, Omaha was once again a bustling city and a center of Matrix, biotech, and transportation services. The downtown area was remade again, this time instead of demolishing everything that came before the megacorps decided to leave the Old Market mostly intact, but building over it. Most of the undesirables have been moved out of the city to Council Bluffs, North Omaha, or South Omaha.

What we ended up with is the very segregated community we have today. 

>>>>>[I remember great grandaddy Sylvre talking about how it used to be in the "twenty and sixteen" as he called it. He said people out west thought everything east of 72nd was an unsafe ghetto... Of course, South O wasn't as rough and tumble then as it is now. Nowadays you take your life in your own hands crossing the street there - day or night.]<<<<<

 - Darksylvre, Sysadmin (02:10:45/10-08-77)

>>>>>['Nowadays'? 'Rough and tumble'? Who talks like that? Who taught you to talk, Dorksylvre, your grandmother?]<<<<

 - Kuroneko (02:12:21/10-08-77)

>>>>>[Dorksylvre... Hurr hurr hurr - you're soooo original... Keep recycling those jokes. They'll be funny again... someday...]<<<<<

 - Darksylvre, Sysadmin (02:20:12/10-08-77)

Bugs, Halley's Comet, SURGE, and a Dragon
by Darksylvre
Omaha got a new surge of refugees when Chicago turned into Bug City back in 2055. This time, the city was ready and absorbed a good number of the refugees. Despite the city's readiness and the media's “effort” to get people to “pull together” and help their “fellow man”, the segregated nature of the city remained intact. The rich moved out west, and everybody else moved (or was relegated to) the outskirts in the north, south, and eastern portions of the sprawl.

The OU grew quite a bit as some of the city's have-nots spilled over into Market Rat turf. At first the Market Rats weren't too keen on sharing with “breeders and trogs” at first, but after Knight Errant stepped up patrols to quell any “rioting”, everybody worked together to see to it the OU was left in peace – at least for a little while. Of course, the way KE and the media like to portray it, the heat backed off because of what was going on topside.

After Omaha's first big wave of Chicago refugees, there were whispers and rumors that the Universal Brotherhood was in town. After the Awakening, Omaha loosened up its conservative image a bit. Magic was studied at UNO, Bellevue University, and even most of the high schools. We even got our own local celebrity mage (more on him below). Still, Omaha's conservative image wasn't so loose as to allow bugs in. Overnight people were seeing insect spirits in darkened alleyways, in the storm sewers, even in the toilet.

The madness lasted for three years and became so bad that Knight Errant and Lone Star started scanning people at public venues. Religious events even had to have special permits from the city and the heat's paranormal squads to come to town. After a while the fever broke. The Universal Brotherhood, despite its insidious nature, never came to Omaha, but the paranoia and fear did leave a lasting impression – or perhaps even a scar – on the religious community.

Things went back to normal for a couple of years, and then true to form, life in Omaha got interesting again. In 2061, Halley's Comet came roaring through our neighborhood and the mana levels spiked. The SURGE (Sudden Unexpected Recessive Genetic Expression) brought a new round of changes to society. Without warning, we were no longer just dealing with orks, elves, and trolls. Now we had oni, minotaurs, pixies, and changelings to boot!

Humanis and Alamos 20,000 had a field day with this new wave of metatype diversity. But, not being ones to set on the laurels of their acceptance, some elements took things into their own hands. A fledgling movement started in Omaha, calling itself the Metahuman League. The group's goal was to combat the hate with education and understanding. It didn't take long for the idiots in Humanis to mistake that stance for weakness.

In 2063, a group of “concerned” citizens marched on a Metahuman League town hall event with blood on their minuscule minds. Surprisingly, nothing happened, especially after two attendees led a handful of mages in bringing their own magic abilities to bear on the troublemakers. A Native American shaman named Talks-With-Thunder and another individual who calls himself Wakinyan not only helped to erect a barrier, but also sent the cowards running – straight into the hands of Knight Errant.

The news reports and Knight Errant both reported that the drekheads were scared so bad some of them actually turned their blue jeans brown. After the air cleared and Knight Errant released an “official” report, the public learned Omaha had a new resident – a dragon. Wakinyan, as he prefers to be called (his real name is Sturmschwinge or Stormwing), was apparently awakened by the tearing open of the Watergate Rift when Dunkelzahn was killed in 2057.

This revelation generated a lot of talk. The city council and military officials were conflicted. Some saw the dragon's presence as a threat, considering the shakeup Ghostwalker's appearance caused. Other groups saw the dragon's presence as a boon to Omaha's cultural and economic sectors, considering the wealth dragons command in modern society and the curiosity some (like Dunkelzahn and Perianwyr) have exhibited in the same.

In the end, the city, the military, and Wakinyan came to an understanding. Having made lucrative investments in several companies, including the startup Halifax Protein Products, he currently resides in an undisclosed location south of Omaha.

Of course, not everybody was on the same page. Some Native Americans protested Stormwing's naming himself after the Lakota thunderbird. The Skinwalkers, a local Native American gang (or “extremist group”, as the media call them) even vowed to destroy him for his “crass cultural appropriation” of a sacred name. Needless to say, Wakinyan isn't losing any sleep over the debate.

The biggest mystery of all is Wakinyan's origin. When asked if he had followed Ghostwalker through the rift, he simply claimed that he woke up when he felt Dunkelzahn's death, assumed human form, and came to Omaha to hang out and watch things unfold. When asked how he met Talks-With-Thunder, Wakinyan simply replied, “We're old friends.” Naturally, this has led many to believe that either Wakinyan was in Omaha in human form long before the Big D died, or that Talks-With-Thunder is immortal, like the legendary Harlequin. Whichever story is true, neither one is budging from their original story.

>>>>>[You don't know half of their backstory, kiddies. If you even knew a quarter of what I know about those two, the hair on your hair would turn gray. But enough about what I know. Carry on, young runners, carry on!]<<<<<
 - -H- (??:??:??/10-11-77)

>>>>>[Ooookay...]<<<<<

 - Darksylvre (00:16:34/10-11-77)

>>>>>[Oh, come now, young one. Don't be so stiff and boring! You live in interesting times! Don't just chronicle them, enjoy them. Live them by making your own history! Sow the wind! Reap the whirlwind! Spit in the Man's eye! Just be sure you're not spitting into the wind, else you'll get blindsided.]<<<<<

 - -H- (??:??:??/10-11-77)

 >>>>>[Don't mind him. Darksylvre comes by it naturally. If he wasn't stiff and boring, we'd have no benchmark to measure the meaning of our lives against.]<<<<<

- Big Red (00:46:20/10-11-77)