Berlin History
- Covers an idealized diameter of 65 km, surrounded by a wall
- No spot within the city lies more than two hundred meters away from a U-Bahn entrance.
The star-shaped U-Bahn network created more than one hundred years ago still operates, supplemented by a second network constructed in 2009, fifty meters below the first one.
- After the reunification in 2075, Berlin was given a federal government-like city council and all of the districts were given semi-autonomous powers and selects a representative for the council.
The districts are split between so-called alternative districts, mostly eastern districts that used to belong to anarchists and western district previously mostly controlled by the corporations.
Berlin Fan Map
Berlin German Wiki-esque pages
Timeline
2033
- The Nightwraith incident of January 2033 brought an end to the Euro-wars.
Berlin was occupied largely with German, Polish and Russian forces who throughout the year left to reinforce borders in the Balkans and the border with Turkey.
Amidst the chaos many minorities and metahumans settled in Berlin, the Rhine-Ruhr Megaplex and Hamburg.
2038
- Berlin was largely left neglected by wider German state and social and political war raged within the streets.
Secession of German Lander in 2038 amplified this.
- Early in 2038, a few radical, left-wing student organizations at the three Berlin universities organized massive strikes and protests to demand immediate improvement of teaching conditions and an end to exams they deemed unfair.
- The university president tried to sit out the strike, but was forced to resort to tougher measures when his office received a package containing the severed ears of several professors who had earned the radical students’ ire.
He hired private security forces to clear occupied campus buildings, but these forces retreated after meeting defeat in several bloody skirmishes.
- The escalating conflict in Berlin drew scores of political deviants to the city.
Law abiding citizens reacted by moving out of Berlin to surrounding towns – an area known as the Downlands.
2039
- Urban warfare becomes the normal state of affairs.
Following the ‘Night of Rage’ February 2039 (https://shadowrun.fandom.com/wiki/Night_of_Rage) metahuman rebels allied with the cities anarchists move to form the Berlin Anarchist Movement (Anarchistische Sewegung Berlin, ABB), clashing with the racist groups in a five day civil war, forcing both Humanis Polyclub and the acting mayor to abdicate.
Rote Rathaus, the Berlin town hall, was burnt to the ground.
- 23 days of internal negotiations later the Berlin Flux State was created – all democratic laws were rescinded and anarchism made the basis of public life.
- City services were handled by the newly formed, privitised Devoted Trust (Treusorgende Hand)
- PdRA (The Partei der Radikalen Anarchie, or Party of Radical Anarchy) – most radical part of the ABB permitted no government structure of any kind.
Such radical thoughts led to split within the ABB and developed them into the Neo-Anarchist Policlub (NAP)
- New morals and dependencies developed alongside rejuvenated fashion trends and popular culture.
Attracted by this new vitality, corporations began to invest in the city again, enlarging enclaves already present and founding new ones.
2054
- Berlin 2054 is influenced by megacorporate business but maintains political freedom.
- Berlin’s anarchist groups work to keep the power structure in a constant state of change.
Whenever a shift in the power structure seems likely to establish a status quo, the rest of Berlin’s powers that be spring into action to eliminate the threat.
- Any individual or group recognized as Bedrohung des Status F (BSF), or a threat to the F-State, immediately attracts the efforts of all other groups in Berlin to strip it of its power
2055
- The anarchist rule lasted until 2055 when joint corporate forces, acting on orders of the German government (AGS), invaded the city and, after weeks of fighting, forced the surviving anarchists to retreat to the eastern part of the city that was later walled off.
2060
- Anarchists and corporations signed a truce in 2060 and Berlin was separated into the small anarchist east (surrounded by walls and heavily guarded by corporate forces) and the large corporate west (divided into sectors each controlled by a corporation).
2072
- An attack occurs on the European Motor Company (EMC) in Berlin’s Köbenick district on April 14, 2072.
A sprawl guerilla cell called UV-X detonated the Surtr nano-weapon (full notes at end of document).
- This provided casus belli to the corporations for finally ending the anarchist rule in Berlin.
Corporate forces quickly captured the anarchist-ruled part of Berlin with relatively few casualties.
- After the liberation of the eastern sectors, the Berlin contract with the AGS of 2055 was fundamentally revised.
In the course of this drastic transformation, Königs Wusterhausen was returned to Brandenburg, while others were incorporated to Brandenburg parts of the Berlin countryside.
- The number of districts in Berlin was reduced to 21 as part of a new draw of the district boundaries.
The group council was transformed into a constitutional body of district representatives as the "Berlin Council", while the administration of the city is the responsibility of Berlin Verwaltungs AG (BERVAG).
The district autonomy or autocracy represents a core of the new order of Berlin.
- For example, in the new "Berlin Council" representatives of the extraterritorial corporate districts sit nominally on an equal footing with the democratically elected district representatives of the Freie Bezirke and the representatives of the alternative districts whose forms of government are anarchist and communist rich to meritocratic cityscape.
Appendix
Berlin under the Anarchists
- The Berlin Council (Berliner Rat) was the city’s only conventional political body, reduced by the Final Law to providing a platform for open dialogue between Berlin's various interest groups.
To ensure that this political platform does not become a new government, all council functions are redistributed among its members every six months.
- Because anarchist philosophy refuses to acknowledge the council as a permanent organization, it cannot use the trappings of an established government.
No government security force surrounds the council’s small administrative building or giant congress centre, nor do council members rate special security.
Theoretically, every council member may draw funds for private bodyguards from the council bank Berliner Kasse.
But because it has no internal revenue service to generate operating funds through taxes, the council depends on donations from Berlin residents.
In practice, this means the council marks it as a red-letter day when money actually appears.
- ALLGEMEINERSTUDENTEN-AUSSCHUSS
- These General Student Committees, composed of Berlin university students, play only a minor political role focused on advancing narrowly defined student interests.
Though they enthusiastically enforce anarchist ideals among their supporters, they also run student cafes, organize rallies, debate such social questions as student housing, and so on.
Many AST A members learn to value the principles of anarchy as Committee members, and join the Nappies upon graduation.
- NEO-ANARCHIST POLICLUB BERLIN (NAP)
- The NAP, nicknamed the Nappies, is the largest policlub, and in part created the success of anarchy in Berlin.
Along with other anarchist groups, they have grown steadily in membership since anarchy replaced the regular government, and despite a change of officials every four months, have remained a surprisingly effective organization.
Recruited largely from university graduates, NAP members uphold a high intellectual standard and defend Berlin’s anarchist power structure with tremendous energy.
As Berlin’s most important political faction, every interest group that wants to cut a rival down to size courts the Nappie’s support.
UV-X and Surtr
- UV-X is a matrix-based European anarchist grouping that has anti-corporate activism and close ties to Attack!
- Attack! is a worldwide network of neo-anarchists which was established by the remnants of the anti-corporation activists who had gone underground in the mid-2030s after seeing the mega-corporations ascend to global primacy.
They armed themselves and began to fight the corporations using whatever methods were necessary.
- It serves as an umbrella organization for activists to meet and work with each other no matter their political leanings.
Which results in the organization having neo-communists, religious fanatics, radical eco-guerillas, and fascists.
It has a high turnover and only one goal, to hurt the corporations.
Most of the organization’s recruits are young, the average age being below 25.
- Powerful factions have emerged within the organization including the Communist Legions operating in the mountains and jungles of South America, the Matrix anarchists of UV-X in Europe who coordinate strikes and disseminate the data they steal, and the Islamic Freedom radicals in Africa.
It inflicts mostly economic damage on the corporations or publicly reveals their illegal schemes, though sometimes they will target upper-tier corporate executives with harassment campaigns or worse.
- Surtr is a Zeta-ImpChem developed nanotechnological weapon, that was used by Winternight terrorists during the Crash of 2064.
When released, Surtr nanites appear as airborne clouds of reddish dust that cause spontaneous self-ignition upon contact.
- The actions of Winternight and their allies, the Otaku tribe known as Ex Pacis, led to Matrix Crash 2.0 in 2064.
Winternight ceased to exist in 2064 when the leaders were either captured or killed and a nuclear initiation destroyed the group’s HQ, an old submarine base in Sweden called Valhalla.
- The name of the weapon comes from Norse mythology and designates the fire giant Surt, who destroys all life in the conflagration at Ragnarok.
- Surtr is usually an aerosol of hard nanites.
When deployed, they can self-hold for up to 30 minutes using micro-propellers.
When in contact with organic material, the membranes of the nanites break open and release a mixture of toxic chemicals that react with the water molecules in the cells of the affected tissue and cause extreme heating.
After one minute at the latest, the reaction reaches its full strength, which allows the victim to burn at temperatures of up to 500°C.
- The original design for the weapon came from the KI DEUS.
Using reverse engineering, the chemical company Zeta-ImpChem, which had acquired these nanites, was able to develop its own prototypes of the system.
However, at the end of 2063, Jørgen Masterson, Director of Research and Development, was extracted including the nano-weapon.
Masterson was a sleeper of the apocalyptic Nordic cult Winternight, who gave the stolen nanites the codename Surtr.
As part of Operation Jormungand, Surtr was used by the organization to protect the physical eggs of the Jormungand computer virus, which ultimately led to the 2064 crash.