Editing Rust City (section)

== Events ==
===Daedalus Project===
* '''The Promise of a Better Tomorrow''' ''(1981-1986)'' <br> Charles Whitman wowed the world with the promise of free unlimited power for the entire [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puget_Sound Puget Sound region].  The technology showed great promise to change the world for the better.  One of several proposed, the site south of the center of the Emerald City was enormous, measuring almost 3 miles across.  When the time came for opening ceremonies, the city united in celebration, marveling at what they were about to achieve.  In the minutes before the switch was thrown there was an earthquake, but the charismatic Whitman calmed the crowd and they pressed forward with the startup sequence.  In the blink of an eye, the entire complex interior imploded, crushing inward into a singular white point and stripping most of the technology from the mammoth complex.  It was gone.
* '''The Trinity Wave''' ''(1986)'' <br>   Moments after the destruction of the Daedalus Project, people began to see a wave of energy as it slowly swept across surface of the planet.  The disturbance was dubbed the "Trinity Wave" by the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN media outlets] who were covering the large religious response to the event.  Appearing to be a cohesive [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_%28astronomy%29 Aurora Borealis], it was an event that could have been witnessed by nearly every human on the planet.  Scientists have theorized that the effect of the wave was mutation and possibly fortification of human genetics, respectively allowing for the arrival of mutants and mutates.  Mutants a result of evolution.  Mutates being those that somehow survived a near death event by physiological adaptation.  Still others have credited the wave with other metahuman classes, but the scientific community considers this to be unfounded extrapolation.

===Needle Disaster===
* '''The Space Needle''' ''(1976-1991)'' <br> The Space Tether is the brainchild of Randal Cross, of Cross World Technologies. Cross creates a high-tech consortium that plans, funds, and builds the revolutionary [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator elevator] that literally connects the earth with space. Much of the old Seattle Center is cleared to clear the way for the Anchor Complex. The tether at the top of the re-fit [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_needle Space Needle] is connected to a captured asteroid. Mostly used for freight, thousands of tons of cargo make the trip in an elevator, called a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator#Climbers climber], to orbit cheaper and with less pollution than with traditional launch-based technologies. During construction the Tether brings in enormous amounts of investment and creates whole new industries in and around the Puget Sound area. (The facilities built for the fabrication of the ultra-thin Tether make Seattle the world center of carbon nanotube technology.) Once completed, Seattle becomes the only place on earth capable transporting goods from the land, sea, and air, into space. Earth orbit sees it's first building boom. With goods so much easier to move up the gravity well companies began to construct speculative communities in space.
* '''The Fall''' ''(1991)'' <br>  And then it all, quite literally, falls apart. In the winter of 2006 the end comes with little warning. Deep within the earth rock shifts against rock, a low-frequency wave sets up inside the tether at just the wrong frequency, and the impossibly strong filament [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator#Vibrational_harmonics snaps] like an old shoe lace. The upper reaches of the carbon strand burn up in the atmosphere, but closer to the ground, angular momentum rips the Tether to the east with devastating results. Acting as a super-strong monofilament, the Tether whips through buildings, the busy I-5 corridor, and a few unfortunate and unsuspecting people. But the real damage, as it almost always is, is economic...
* '''Aftermath''' (1991-2012)<br> With no way to move goods and people into orbit, the building speculators (most of them Seattle-based) go bankrupt.  Steep rebuilding costs, lawsuits, and the loss of the area's biggest economic engine force Seattle into a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_depression recession] with depression-like unemployment. Major companies leave town, dock work migrates south to an increasingly vibrant Tacoma, and for the first time in history City Hall is forced to deal with smaller coffers, defaulted bonds, and a shrinking population. Those that are left flock to Rust City to carve out a place for themselves in the one place that's free to all who come.