In Today's Cyberpunk 2077 & Cyberpunk Lore video we are talking about Night City, how it was founded, the visionary behind it, Coronado City vs Night City, Richard Night, The Mob wars and the downfall of America’s dream city.
Now within the world of Cyberpunk 2020 this was reprinted to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Night City on May 17th 2019. If you take a gander at the calendar that is today in our time atleast in North America it is also May 17th 2019.
Night City was first conceived by Richard Night when he was a young partner in a construction company called Halsey Ferris and Night, which was a firm tackling massive corporate construction projects.
With hard effort and excellent results, the firm prospered and all three partners became very wealthy men. By 1990 however working on office plazas and corporate structures started to not be enough for Richard Night who departed to start his own firm Night International.
An ambitious man Night had a dream of creating a city of the future so grand that all cities build before or after it would pale in comparison. With immense design and visionary aspirations, he drew up plans for Night International to make this city a reality.
His next move would be to secure the unheard of amount of capital needed to finance the gargantuan project.
In Night’s Idealistic city, governments would be run by the corporations allowing optimum zoning and no anti-business elements to interfere with corporate growth. Ideally it would be a capitalist mecca of opportunity.
By 1992 Arasaka, EBM and Petrochem had all signed on with Night and all that was left, was to find the ideal location to build.
From the beginning Night focused on the central Californian coast due to its seaport potential, lush environment and an ideal location for an intercontinental maglev.
Funny enough whilst drafting a buy-in package with Petrochem, it was discovered that the megacorp owned the rights to drilling and most of the land situated around the Del Coronado Bay region. By 1993, Coronado City, Richard Night’s dream city was under construction.
Night’s plan involved a bay which accommodated bulk carriers, a picturesque old downtown and a gigantic corporate plaza, the new heart of the city.
During its construction however, Night International used a large number of advanced building styles and techniques which didn’t include archaic methods being used by older companies. His old associates of Halsey, Ferris and now Skiv were excluded during the building process. Furthermore, they had unwisely joined with a local mob figure who had a domineering presence over the NorCal region.
Via his scorned ex-coleagues, Night received frequent threats to his life within the first 4 years of the construction of Coronado City. A proud and self-reliant man, he typically ignored these threats. When the threats escalated, he called in for backup from his Corporate partners who dealt with the issue swiftly and ruthlessly.
Night’s luck eventually did run out however, and was shot and killed in his penthouse suite in newly constructed Parkview tower on September 10th 1998. The killer was never found, and in his memory the newly appointed city council renamed Coronado City Night City.
The next seven years were bloody as a multitude of different powers and influences battled for control of Richard Night’s vision. Whilst corporations controlled the government and the corporate center, the mob controlled the surrounding businesses and outskirts.
In this time, gangs backed by either the mob or the corporates began their ascent to power, in one of the forgotten areas of the city, known as The Combat Zone. Gangs are so firmly rooted here that only way to scramble them all would be a full on destruction of the zone.
By 2005 the Mob had ousted everyone else and became the ruling force. The next 4 years were the dark ages of night city with the mob ruling with an iron fist killing anything and anyone. In this time notorious gangs like the Blood Razors and Slaughterhouse formed, and Night City soon became the closest thing to hell on earth.
After 4 years and countless blood spilled on the streets, the corporations had enough and thus the Mob war was started between 2009 and 2011. Lagging behind in profits and reach within the city, the corporations took the battle to the streets to destroy anything not aligned with their corporate agenda.
Led by Arasaka trained para-military troops in assault vehicles, tanks and combat aerodynes, a wave of bombings, assassinations and killings descended down to the Mob who in their hubris was ill prepared.
The corporations inevitably succeeded and replaced the Mob as the new rulers of night city.
As it stands in 2020 Night city has just about recovered from its initial rocky stages. Night City is an armed society, and while complete chaos may be over, night city is very much still a dangerous place.