A timeline for the City of Austin


2010 - The VITAS Plague. A new virus appeared out of nowhere in the year 2010. The first cases of a new plague, similar to SARS in symptoms, but much more deadly, first appears in New Delhi. Given the interconnected world of the early 21st century, the plague spread like wildfire. Before the end of the year the plague appeared to have burned itself out, but not before killing 25% of the world's population. Austin took its share of the plague, having nearly 20% of its population extinguished in less than a year.

2011 - Governments Come and Go, but Magic Lives Forever. Throughout 2010 the government of Mexico was in peril. Decades of corruption, money-laundering, and rigged elections had finally taken its toll on the Mexican people and in January of 2011 the government of the country formerly known as Mexico collapsed. Tens of thousands of refugees fled to Texas, a great many of them landing in the Austin area. This influx of Mexicans set off a huge racial war in which no part of the state was left unaffected. Just when it seemed that things could get no worse, it seemed that all parents, regardless of race or heritage, started to bear "mutant" children - elves and dwarves, the first metahumans. Scientists called this frightening phenomenon Unexplained Genetic Expression, or UGE. Some suspect this scientific classification was a tactic intended to reassure people about their newborn "mutant" children, while in truth the scientific community had no idea what was causing the mutations. They would soon learn that this was just the first manifestion of magic in the modern world. Various unexplained phenomena continued to happen all around the world, such as dragons reappearing, violent storms causing massive changes to landscapes, forests coming alive and retaking their natural states from the manufactured world, and a shaman known as Daniel Howling Coyote led a guerilla war against a Native American Re-Education Center in Abilene, Texas and sparked was to become the formation of the Native American Nations. For most people the massive changes taking place in the world were not explained until the dragon Dunkelzahn made his first appearance and gave an interview to reporter Holly Brighton. In this landmark interview, which lasted 12 hours and 16 minutes, the dragon explained to the world that all these changes had meant that magic had returned to world, coined the Re-Awakening.

2014-2018 - The World Keeps Changing. The world kept changing at a drastic rate. In 2014 the shaman Daniel Howling Coyote announced the formation of the Native American Nations and outlined territory that was a part of both the United States and Canada. The governments of those two countries were worried, but they didn't take any action against this new threat.

In 2015 the newly elected President of Mexico announced that the country had been formally renamed as Aztlan, and called for all people of Hispanic heritage to "join in reclaiming our glorious cultural heritage." Not surprisingly, not many fled back over the Texas border to join the new country, which many saw as merely a toy for the ORO corporation, which was said to have the government and the president in its pocket. The ORO Corporation would later be known as Aztechnology, with the entire country of Aztlan as its wholly owned subsidiary.
That same year the NAN guerilla war had begun with magic being the main weapon of the NAN people. Howling Coyote laid claim to all of the United States as Tribal land and ordered all "Anglos" out of Amerindian territory. By Anglos he meant anyone of non-native american heritage, including blacks, asians, and europeans. The war turned into a horrible debacle for the United States, which, after numerous losses of military bases and troops to the magical threat, quickly passed legislation, known as the Resolution Act, to officially exterminate all Native American tribes on its soil.

Howling Coyote responded with the most effective weapon in his arsenal: magic. Over the following year, Coyote and his people - and later, Native Americans all across the continent - began the magical ritual known as the Great Ghost Dance. The Dance raised vast amounts of magical power, which the Native Americans turned against their enemies. As the U.S. government moved to implement the Resolution Act, freak weather and other uncanny disturbances disrupted military bases and supply dumps assigned to the operation. The havoc reached its height on August 17, 2017, when Mount Hood, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams all erupted in cataclysmic fury. The suddenness and extent of the devastation finally convinced even the most skeptical of people that the magic was real and that the Native Americans were serious. As one oft-quoted wit from the tome put it, "Mother Earth Let us know whose side she was on and it wasn't ours."

In 2018, after three months of negotiation, the Treaty of Denver was signed. This treaty included the participation of the NAN, the United States, Canada, and Aztlan. As a result all non Native American inhabitants of the newly formed Native American Nations had to relocate to either United States or Canadian land. This resulted in another rush of refugees to Texas, landing thousands more in Austin.

2021 - Goblinization and the University Dead Land. Numerous humans began transforming into Orks and Trolls when Goblinization began taking place on April 30th, 2021. The new change appeared to affect one out of every 10 humans. It was a time of high fear, anger, and violence.

During the first few days of goblinization a group of magical researchers at the University of Texas summoned a highly powerful magical being. No one is quite sure how or why they summoned it, but this being quickly grew out of the control of the summoning group, which was comprised of various magically active faculty and students. The being committed massive violence, including killing every member of the group that summoned it. The being called forth other beings and they took over a section of the city immediately surrounding the University of Texas. The beings created impromptu walls around their newly conquered territory using extemporaneous objects and debris. To this day no one knows who or what the being was and if it is still there. The area, now termed the University Dead Land, is still under unknown magical control and still has the walls surrounding it. All attempts to penetrate the area through magic have failed, typically with disastrous results to the magician attempting the feat. Mundane people can still enter the area, but in nearly every known case the person hasn't returned. There are various rumors and tales of the inhabitants of the University Dead Land and what they're up to, but no one knows what truth, if any, the rumors hold. There is a constant low cloud cover over the area, no matter what the weather is like outside the walls. The University of Texas Tower is typically visible above the cloud cover, sometimes with strange lights emanating from the top of the tower after nightfall.

After the incident both the University of Texas and the threatened Texas State Capitol moved further north up the I-35 corridor out of the downtown area, laying the seeds for the new downtown area of the future Austin.

2030-2033 - Secession Fever. After the great computer crash of 2029 the economic states of both the United States and Canada were in ruin. As a result both countries agreed to join and create the United Canadian American States, or UCAS. The only opponent to this merger that was allowed to be heard was California, which ratified an act of secession, which was not opposed by the still forming UCAS. This was just the first of the secessions to take place. Two years later the representatives of ten Southern states walked out of Congressional Legislation and met to discuss secession. They ultimately decided against it, but the seeds had been sown. A year later, to protest what they saw as preferential treatment for northern sprawl zones, these states broke away to form the Confederated American States (CAS), which included the State of Texas.

2035 - Aztlan Invasion. In 2035 the nation of Aztlan invaded Texas, with the intent to take back the land lost when Texas declared and won its independence nearly 200 years before. The fast moving Aztlan military razed the entire southwest region of Texas including all of San Antonio and half of Austin. The Aztlan military was poised to take the rest of Austin and continue its northward march but it was stopped dead in its tracks when General Travis McPheed, of the Texas State Guard, destroyed two dams just to the north east of Austin. The ensuing flood of water washed away a great deal of the Aztlan military that was crossing the bridges of the Colorado River. Tens of thousands of civilians died downstream from the dams, but McPheed was honored by the State of Texas and the government of the CAS for stopping the massive Aztlan push which had the potential to take the entire state of Texas. As a result of having lost so much of its city to an invading country and that invader still knocking on the door, the Texas government made the decision to move the base of their democratic power to Dallas. Refugee traffic from the lost portion of Texas increased Austin's and Dallas' size dramatically. Various refugee camps still exist today, having changed from temporary camps to permanent shanty towns.

2036 - Texas Secession. In just a few months after the Aztlan invasion the Texas government, angry over the lack of military support from the CAS, exercised its right to secede, and became its own country once again after 200 years. The independence didn't even last a year, though, when the military and monetary help Texas asked for from the UCAS fell through. Humbled and fearful of another Aztlan invasion the Texas government petitioned to join the CAS once again and was quickly welcomed back.

2047 - The Continuing Reconstruction. After many years of strict sanctions the State of Texas finally reopened its borders to Aztlan trade after major peace talks and negotiations. Despite not trading with the neighbor a stone's throw away Austin had continued to grow economically at a brisk pace. Along with the agreement to trade again both the Austin and Aztlan government reached an agreement to rebuild the two destroyed dams in a joint effort to provide the region with some much needed electricity to help relieve the stress placed on the nuclear reactor in Temple. The dams were reconstructed in less than two years and turned the parts of Austin closest to the banks of the Colorado River into a stable place to live again. The regained control over the river's currents didn't change the lifestyles in those areas, despite Austin's best efforts. Those areas are still filled with lower income, lower lifestyle inhabitants, and are a haven for smugglers, gangs, and organized crime.

2061 - Haley's Comet. Just when things had seemed to have quieted down and the world had returned to a semi-normal pace, in the year 2061 Haley's Comet made a return to Earth. As it moved past Earth it caused many, many magical upheavals, both on an individual scale and a large one. The largest effect Haley's Comet had on the Austin area was the reawakening of a strip forest south east of Austin, known as the Lost Pines. This is a strip of pine forest is surrounded by deciduous oak with the nearest pine forest hundreds of miles to the east. The Lost Pines are a remnant leftover from the rich pines forests from 5,000 years ago. Constant urbanization and human occupation had been reducing the forest and thinning it slowly, but when Haley's Comet returned the forest became magically active and started to reclaim its land in a rather violent manner. Many of the local creatures quickly transformed into paranormal animals and began to reclaim their lost territory. The trees themselves broke up the sprawl that had begun to take over the area by demolishing homes, fracturing roadways, and destroying all artificial constructs, including most of the city of Bastrop, the entire Camp Swift military area, and the man made Lake Bastrop and its power plant. The only area that seems to have been left as it was is the area once part of Camp Swift in the 1940s that was used as a Japanese internment camp. Some believe the background count stemming from the massive negative emotion of the area kept the forest from trying to reclaim it. Rumors persist that some magical entity is in charge of keeping the forest safe. Some say it will descend upon interlopers with great ferocity, especially those who are only there in the forest to cultivate its rich magical resources for talismans or those who try to mine its rich orichalcum deposits.

An Aztlan corporation once tried to mine a large orichalcum vein located within the forest's boundaries. They arrived with many large, powerful machines and began moving through the forest to get to the orichalcum. Before they even arrived at the deposit area they were ambushed by numerous nature spirits, awakened creatures, and a few eye witnesses even claimed they saw what they would describe as a "Man-of-the-Woods." Rumors also persist that a dragon and/or a feathered serpent has been spotted in the area.

An interesting side effect of the massive power of the awakened pine forest is the quality of the water downstream from the forest. When the heavily polluted water washes downstream from Austin and comes in contact with the area inhabited by the forest, it comes out clean and clear on the other side of the forest. The water is not magically active and tests have shown it to extraordinarily clean. Some small corporations have since attempted to cash in on the "free" water filtration taking place by building small dams or diverting the river downstream from the forest. In the middle of construction various nature spirits have demolished the progress of the corporations each and every time it is attempted. To this day only those who use the water for home use can easily and freely collect it. So far no ill effects have been reported from the downstream inhabitants that drink the water.

Austin today: While the modern day version of Austin is much, much larger than its old size at the turn of the century, the growth hasn't been without pain. The City of Austin has faced many major setbacks since magic returned to the world, but it remains a shining example of progress despite the hardships the city has had to endure. The Austin of today is a mecca of trade, technology, art, fashion, music, academics, and crime. Both official and unofficial trade make Austin the place to be when trading with Aztlan and Aztechnology goods. The heavy technology industry is the other main staple of the Austin economy, where virtually every kind of electronics available today can be found at typically better than average prices. The art, fashion, and music scene in Austin is alive and well. The city is always within these creative industries’ top ten list, and typically will hold a top three spot in the music surveys for the most influential cities in North America. The current University of Texas is considered an upper level university in North America for most technological, artistic, and business programs. After rising from the ashes of the old University site the new University worked diligently to place itself in the upper echelon of schools. The University of Texas at Austin is an academic as well as sports powerhouse, often considered to be one of the best school in all of the CAS. But oddly, ever since the University Dead Land incident there is no magical studies program at the University of Texas at Austin. Most Texan students looking for a degree in magical practices go to the Texas A&M&M University in College Station.

Despite basing their worldwide operations there the Lone Star Security Corporation still has been unable to extinguish the massive criminal underworld that exists in Austin. The smuggling trade is very big business in Austin. The various products and information being traded with Aztlan has definitely caught the eye of some organized crime groups. Currently the typical big players in other major cities, the Mafia and Yakuza, play a lesser role in the Austin's darker side. The Chinese Triads, Korean Seoulpa Rings, and the regional Hispanic crime group known as La Raza (The Race) hold sway over much of Austin's dark underbelly. But for every bit of organized crime being committed there is twice as much "independent" crime happening. The areas closest to the Colorado River border are filled with low lifestyle inhabitants and crime is a fact of life for them. The lack of law enforcement in those areas only perpetuates the cycle, but some believe this is by design and not because the Lone Star couldn't handle the challenge. It is often rumored that much of the money generated by the criminal underworld goes to the Lone Star Corporation in one way or another to keep their focus on the other areas of the city and not directly on the Aztlan/CAS border.

On the other side of the Colorado River, in the Aztlan portion of the old Austin, crime is more than just a way of life or a by product of lifestyle, it is a full fledged industry. The lack of Aztlan governmental control makes the city of South Austin a major mecca for illegality. The continued pull out of the Aztlan and Aztechnology forces in the area to help quell the Yucatan rebellion has only left South Austin even more free from law enforcement.