Question about setting, What kind of city would it be? Options

[gamergurl23]

Good afternoon, all.

I'm working on a fan fiction and want to set it in Omaha, NE. The question becomes, what kind of city would it be? Feral city is definitely out, unless we want to add some misfortune to it. I'm leaning towards a corporate enclave, but am just not certain. Suggestions?

[Belvidere]

If I'm correct (I can't access my books at work). I believe Omaha is in N.A.N Territory, which can leave it open for ALOT of things.

[gamergurl23]

It's not. The western most portion of Nebraska is Sioux territory, but Omaha is on the eastern border, right across the Missouri from Iowa. It's still firmly in UCAS.

[Fortinbras]

Well, the Omaha metropolitan area is currently sitting in 59th place in terms of population(according to the always accurate Wikipedia) in between Albany and New Haven, so I might keep the scale of the place smaller than the usual sprawl.
Mutual of Omaha could be a neat entity to fight. As I understand it they are one of the biggest contributors to the Omaha economy outside of agg business.

Frankly, if you want to put your city on the border between where the east meets the west, I'd keep that type of theme. Cowboys and Indians with assault rifles and fire spirits keeping an uneasy truce along a shady frontier of smugglers and ner-do-wels.

I don't know much about Omaha's flavor other than it's full of white people, by like 3 to 1. I've never been there and I've never read or seen anything about the city with a modern backdrop. I might be able to give more insight if you can tell me why, exactly, you want to run a Shadowrun game in the middle of Nebraska?

[ggodo]

Maybe she lives there? That's one of the draws for my players is that we've all been to Seattle a few times and know our way around.

[Warlordtheft]

Good afternoon, all.

I'm working on a fan fiction and want to set it in Omaha, NE. The question becomes, what kind of city would it be? Feral city is definitely out, unless we want to add some misfortune to it. I'm leaning towards a corporate enclave, but am just not certain. Suggestions?

I'd go with a border town with a mix of corrupt politicians, smugglers, trigger happy neighbors (Sioux). Add corporate reasearch centers in rural areas for spice and a massively displaced rural workforce that eeks out a living in trailer parks working part time on the corporate farms (All of the family farms are gone--and the area still has not adjusted to it). You'd also have those displaced by the Treaty of Denver. Its population could be 5 to 6 times what it is now.

[scarius]

Maybe she lives there?

This is why me and a couple of mates are updating some stuff from the "Australia" sauce book to 4A stats and stuff.

But I agree that a east meets west would be pretty cool

[gamergurl23]

I do live in Omaha. I know the city fairly well and prefer to stick with what I know so I'm not messing stuff up and pissing of locals. Never a good way to make friends.

Mutual of Omaha is a big contributor. We're also the home of Warren Buffet, who basically owns and runs Berkshire Hathaway. That company also has their fingers in several pots around the Midwest. Less related to Shadowrun, kind of, is that this town has a very active music, art, and theater scene, though American Idol decided to just show corn fields when they came. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[ggodo]

American Idol is also poop. So don't worry about that.

[gamergurl23]

Agreed. I only watched that episode because some friends of mine auditioned. None made it, though.

[gamergurl23]

I do like the idea of a 'Western' setting. Gods only know we have enough rodeo buffs around here. We also have a surprising amount of gang activity for a city this size. As Warlordtheft suggested, with the displacement of the Denver treaty and former family farmers, it would increase the city size and possibly lead to more gangs and violent gang wars. Thanks for the help, guys.

[Doc Chase]

There isn't much of anything on Omaha in the Sixth World, but if I had to guess...

...Omaha would be a staging ground / trading post for goods coming out of Sioux territory. The city would be shuttling supplies to UCAS military bases on the border, and would likely have aerospace and agribusiness assets in and around the 'plex. Banking and finance activities would likely be more outsourced towards NYC and Boston than stay there. It's no Seattle, no St. Louis, no Boston, but one could find enough shadow business amongst the big corp subsidiaries to meet a payday, or by running goods back and forth across the Sioux border. Expect the black market there to be incredibly expensive due to heavy security on the Sioux/UCAS border.

Now that I think of it, I believe it was SOTA'64 that mentioned in passing that the UCAS and Sioux liked to hire runners to probe the defenses on either side of the border. Anything to give them an edge over the next week or two (or much like the border between the Koreas, it's something to do, like driving golf balls onto North Korean observation posts).

[Chance359]

Omaha gets a quick mentions in Target Smuggler's Havens. Basically NORAD gets moved to Offutt and theres more ECM/ECCM in the air at any given moment than God has on hand.

[Angelone]

Chance359 beat me to it. Omaha is home to NORAD and SAC, it's locked down tight militarywise. Omaha is a diverse city with lots of interesting culture. There's also some parts you want to stay away from, but overall is not too bad. I remember someone was working on something simular a while back I'll have to look it up and see if anything became of it.

Off topic but there's a ton of Omahans on this board it's pretty cool.