http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/26/suicide.b...e.ap/index.html

I'll let the story and the pictures speak for themselves, but I can only imagine this getting worse in the 2060s and 2070s.

Not to mention how much it'll ruin your day if a troll falls on your hood.

Who needs to commit suicide in the sixth world, you're likely to be geeked before you even make it to the bridge.

Flash forward 2077. The bridge is still a hot-spot, and the rate of deaths has increased dramatically. Magicians avoid the area. Boats passing beneath speed up. Traffic accidents (some fatal) are common as drivers attempt to cross as quickly as they can.
In early 2076 a non-profit organization began stationing 3 suicide counselors on the bridge. They saved many lives, but didn't reach everyone that came there in time. Eight months into the project, one of the counselors jumped. Morale plummeted and the counselors vanished.
The office-park below one side of the span has it's windows blocked. It's janitors have the morgue on speed dial.
Rumor has it that the office park on the other side has been converted into low-rent housing. Others have seen trucks bringing supplies into the compound, so there must be some businesses operating within. City records indicate that the officials have never been called to this address, despite the fact that many jumpers are believed to have landed within.

--------------------
`Shedim are appearing downstream of the bridge with alarming frequency. The runners are tasked with hunting down and 'cleaning up' a particularly bothersome corpse.
`Mr. Johnson's daughter took the plunge. The official line is that she hit water, but dredging/diving for her is out of the question (for legal reasons, it's a commercial channel). This grieving father just wants to bury her properly. But something strange is discovered when the runner's investigate.
`Strange, and disturbing spirits are drawn to this place. Some of them are taking an active hand in enhancing the sites macabre reputation.

"Hello welcome to the suicide hotline. Please enter your name, SIN, and hold on the line for one of our suicide assistants to get to you."

*bad 20's muzak*

"Thank you for holding, one of our operators is available and will be with you momentarily."

*bang*

"Thank you for calling the suicide hotline, our operator will be over to confirm the kill and retrieve any and all useful identification."

I think the real Aurora bridge has a house under it that has a smilie face painted on its roof. What happened was that somebody jumped on his house, and smashed his roof, but survived. He painted a smilie face on top of his house to possibly dissuage people from jumping on his house.

Flash forward to 2070; a former combat shaman from the Desert Wars has bought out the house and turned it into a bar. Every night, there is an auction for the privilege of jumping from the bridge through his rooftop, all with the benefit of an armor spell sustained on him. He also gets fully healed afterwards by the owner. The bar is called the Happy Jumper.

But the 2080's haven't happened yet.

Some well-meaning fool whistled up a spirit and bound it to the task of preventing people from jumping to their deaths. There were a few 'miraculous' survivals, but the spirit was eventually corrupted by the place.
Now it is using it's powers to subtly steer people toward ending it all, then making sure they barely survive the experience. Sometimes they survive for days down there, too weak to cry out for help, or beneath the waves as an Oxygenate spell courses through their veins...

They have. They were a century early.

~J

Wow, I read that article earlier today and didn't even think about all the srun world goodness that can be implemented on it. Very awesome, thanks for the great ideas.

The bridge is also a great place for shadowy meetings, as no-one in their right mind goes there for walks.

Oh well, the witnesses aren't alive for long.

Took the words right out of my head

One of the significant points about so many of these landmarks (including the Space Needle) is that by 2070 they would be pretty old, and possibly replaced. Would that bridge be there when it was 140 years old?

If it qualifies for a historical landmark site it might. They'll do the renovations to keep it up longer and such.

I can see the administration putting a bunch of AR ads/messages around that bridge, telling you to please contact for help, trying to put uplifting messages to people's PAN, telling them that people care, etc...

And some crazy guys hacking the RFIDs or just slapping up their own with trids of umbrella-wielding clowns jumping off before splattering on the ground below.

Sounds like a job for Giggles and the Scatterbrains.

There could be a variant to this. That would be a place where something terrible happened in the past and nothing built on that site will thrive. There are a couple of places like that in this city and all of those places are between Federal and Confederate earthworks that were once all over the place here. Two of these places are along a creek that crosses under a main city road, one on either side of the road but same side of the creek. For ages no business would stay in either building for more than a few months, though that seems to have broken since the latest ones have been there for some time. There are a couple of other places too.

In this world I'd just chalk it up to bad business planning of the business owners, though some of us do joke about the curse. In SR, it could actually be cursed ground.

Anyone reminded of the Shattergraves from 2050s Chicago? Here be ghosts, methinks.

My husband told me about this, and he doesn't play Sr. I think you might actually get a group running a pool- 'how long until the next jumper" or maybe you off someoen by throwing them off the bridge.

I think it'd be pretty easy to pick someone up by their hands and feet and throw them off the bridge.

I mean, really, who's going to pick it out as murder? They'll just be like "Oh well barney, 6 suicides tonight!" (when there was really only 5!)

Dastardly devilish!

If I were the city authorities I'd place a sniper there somewhere ordered to shoot anybody looking suicidal.
That'll teach them!


SCNR

my question is what kind of screwy stuff would be going on in astral space at this bridge. By 2070 I'm thinking like 200 people have all commited suicide at the exact same spot, thats got to leave a mark of some kind.

Kinda implied in Moto42 Again's posts above and subsequent posts about the bad mojo from all the deaths in a location like shattergraves, the civil war camp, etc.

Oh man, look at the Wikipedia entries for it!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_Bridge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fremont_Troll

That's it, this place is making an appearance in my SR4 game

As long as a Mega owns the bridge then yes its perfectly legal. *winks*