Best Places For Biz (and eats) in Seattle
March 7, 2057

Alright chummers and morsels, I've been getting requests for good places in SEA-town to close deals and eat meals. I'll give you some info on the obvious ones (for the NS3s and out-of-owners), then I'll open up the forums so you can throw your own recommendations out. Ghost knows, we all could all use some good safe places to relax (or encourage a Johnson to pay without a doublecross).

* Club Penumbra is a long-established, famous nightclub in Seattle. It is located in Central Downtown, right next to the Renraku Arcology, on the northwestern border of the International District. The retro interior style of the club with its moon surface floor and trideo laser effects may not meet everyone's tastes, but it attracts a large mixed crowd of regulars, including shadowrunners, who seem to like it just the way it is, so it still remains to be one of the major hotspots in the city. The music is pretty loud and includes popular dance music and hard rock. The club is still famous for a live gigs of the Concrete Dreams years ago; they held their first concert there.
* Matchsticks is a nightclub and bar in the older sense; more of a club, less of a dancehall. Near the Space Needle, the interior resembles a jazz-joint from the early 1930s. Music is all authentic live jazz, and drinks are good but expensive. Private rooms with jammers are available (for a price). Your classier runners and more upscale Johnsons frequent the place. As do the occasional wannabes named "renegade" trying to look flash in an ill-fitting Ares-Wal Mart suit.
* Underworld 93 is where the action is for live entertainment. Deceptively located on the outskirts of the Puyallup Barrens, this converted warehouse is now a first rate concert hall that plays the hotest acts in NorAm. Great place to meet, drink, conduct a little biz. The sheer energy of the place can be amazing.
* Bellevue Pour House is another pseudo-dive bar that tends to be a major shadowrunner hangout. Good place for decent beer and rubbing elbows with colleagues and contacts.
* Tacoma Purple Haze is a real first class restaurant serving Texan, Aztlan and Puelblo cuisine. Runners with money tend to frequent the Haze, and you can make some good connections there.
* Dante's Inferno is in a class by itself. Nine huge glass dance floors pulsate with energy while four ramps spiral downward toward the bottom level, an area of private rooms called "hell." This place is the place to see and be seen in Seattle. Private rooms in Hell are highly secured with jammers and white noise generators; perfect for that super-secret meeting. The rooms run about 1000Y for a few hours, though, so bring your big credstick.

Corp. Spotlight: Fuchi

March 6, 2057

All this craziness with the elections (vote early! vote often!) seems to have caused a media circus distracting enough for tensions at Fuchi to ramp back into the high strats. Seems that Nakatomis are buying up small companies in the Seattle area, backing them with support from San Fransisco, and using them to frak with Villiers' NorAm division. All this means much work for us shadowfolks, running for Fuchi, against Fuchi. For those of you not familiar with the pain and profit involved with internal corporateruns, I decided to put some background on the whole twisted Fuchi family (or families), so you can at least know who's fraking who, and whom you need to watch your back around. Scan the file, watch your hoop, and keep a daddy on the roof; Fuchi runs are business AND personal.

Rating	AAA
World Headquarters	Tokyo, Japan
President/CEO	Richard Villiers
Chairman of the Board	NA
Corporate Status	Private
Major Shareholders	before the megacorp was officially dissolved: Richard Villiers: 35% Shikei Nakatomi: 32% Korin Yamana: 30% Samantha Villiers: 2%

The beginnings of Fuchi Industrial Electronics were in the merger between Dekita Industries (owned by Nakatomi) and Yamana Electronics (founded by Korin Yamana). Yamana Electronics acted as a white knight on the behalf of Dekita Industries to prevent a hostile takeover by the Pacific Rim Bank in 2011, shortly after the Awakening. When Nakatomi tried to buy back the Dekita stock from Yamana, Yamana refused and suggested an alliance for mutual protection and benefit. Despite the conflict and friction between the two companies and their owners, the alliance proved to be fruitful as both companies played to each others' strengths and weaknesses. In 2017, the company formally merged into Fuchi Industrial Electronics, while spreading out into North America, Hawai'i, Australia, and Hong Kong.

In the late 2020s, Fuchi's focus turned toward cyberterminals. Before the Crash Virus hit, Fuchi developed, with aid from Chobetsu Japanese Intelligence, one of the first privately designed cyberterminals. After the Crash Virus and the demonstration of the power of cyberterminals by Echo Mirage, Fuchi executives were determined to perfect and exploit this cutting edge technology.

Along comes Richard Villiers, a corporate raider who had recently acquired desk-sized cyberterminal technology from Ken Roper and Michael Eld, two of the deckers from Echo Mirage. When Roper and Eld both died under mysterious circumstances in 2034 shortly after the development of the Portal, Villiers became the sole owner of Matrix Systems. All of the associated assets and research behind the Portal disappeared, apparently in the hands of Richard Villiers.

A month after the closure of Matrix Systems, Villiers approached Fuchi Industrial Electronics, then the world's foremost computer research corporation. He offered the Portal technology for one third ownership of Fuchi, and control of all North and South American Fuchi operations. He also offered his considerable corporate assets along with the deal. Korin Yamana was all for the deal, but Kiyoshi Nakatomi vetoed the arrangement, remembering the Dekita buyout and betrayal. Three days after the proposition, Nakatomi was murdered by his limo driver, and Shikei Nakatomi inherited the Nakatomi portion of Fuchi. Villiers repeated his offer, and it was accepted, giving each family, Yamana, Nakatomi, and Villiers, roughly one-third control of Fuchi.

In 2036, Fuchi releases its first cyberterminal, the CDT-1000. It was widely successful, and vaulted Fuchi to dominance of the computer market and toward Megacorporation status. In 2038, Richard Villiers purchased a majority of JRJ International stock and thus purchased a seat in the Corporate Court, making Fuchi a Triple-A Megacorporation.

For twenty years, Fuchi maintained dominance as one of the largest and most powerful megacorporations of the world, through a careful and uneasy balance of power between the rival families.

Stay safe out there. This seems to have been building for a bit.

Corp. Spotlight: Ares
April 27, 2057

So, it seems the big boys are choosing sides. Damien Knight, head mucky-muck at Ares has publicly thrown his support (and copious wealth) behind the great dragon Dunkelzahn's presidential run.
Now, before you start yammering about skeletons being buried and never dealing with dragons, I thought it might be time to review the "happy family" that is the great UCAS mega. Remember that, for all of his "man in charge" drek, Knight only controls so much of the corp. A fact of which that Aurelius and the other board members have recently started reminding him. Remember, when folks like Aurelius and Knight fight it out, it's scammers and jammers like us that take home cred. Add a powerful, ancient wizwyrm, and a UCAS presidential race into the mix, and someone's going to make a killing. Thus, without further ado, here's the lowdown on the infighting at the corp where they make all the guns.

Rating	AAA
World Headquarters	Detroit, Michigan (UCAS)
President/CEO	Damien Knight
Chairman of the Board	Leonard Aurelius
Corporate Status	Public

Ares Macrotechnology, run by Damien Knight and headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, UCAS, is the seventh largest corporation in the world, the largest in the UCAS, and is the current leader in the defense and aerospace industries. Its five main divisions are AresSpace, Ares Global Entertainment, Ares Arms, Knight Errant Security Services and General Motors.

Ares was founded shortly after the turn of the century by Nicholas Aurelius under the name Ares Industries. Being a major American megacorp, the old United States granted special benefits to Ares. Taking advantage of this and the near-collapse of the country, Aurelius managed to purchase NASA (including all its facilities, vehicles and equipment) from the US in 2016, with the agreement that portions of it would be returned to the country in 2055. Of course, the United States had collapsed by that point.

Around 2030, Leonard Aurelius had control of Ares passed to him by his father.

In 2033, Damien Knight pulled off the Nanosecond Buyout. In about a minute, he managed to acquire 22% of Ares stock. The Board, stunned by the performance, gave him the CEO position.

Ares has a long-standing history of battling Insect Spirits. In 2055, the Ares subsidiary Knight Errant launched multiple attacks on Insect Spirit hives, culminating in the disaster that turned Chicago into Bug City. They were responsible for launching a tactical nuclear weapon at the Cermak Power Plant which wiped out the majority of the bug spirits.

Dramatis Personae

Damien Knight is the President/CEO and Chairman of the Board of Ares Macrotechnology. He is currently the second largest shareholder with about 23.7% of all shares. He has a long-standing rivalry with Leonard Aurelius.

His first public appearance was on the 24 January 2033, as the Nanosecond Buyout made him the biggest shareholder of Ares Macrotechnology. It is rumoured that "Damien Knight" isn't his true name and he has maintained a veil of secrecy about his origins.

He is believed to be (or to have been) a certain Major David Gavilan of the US Air Force.

It is more or less known for sure that he is about sixty-five years old, having undergone through several treatments of Leonization.

A close friend of Dunkelzahn, he recently began supporting the Dragon's candidacy in the UCAS Presidential election.

Leonard Aurelius is the son of Ares Macrotechnology's founder Nicholas Aurelius. He inherited from him a major stake in Ares' capital, and took the position of CEO and Chairman of the Board of the corporation after his father's final retirement in 2030. The board replaced Leonard Aurelius by Damien Knight in 2033, the same year Nicholas Aurelius died. The relations between Leonard Aurelius and Knight were stormy ever since the Knight's takeover. Leonard Aurelius returned to the position of chairman of the board between 2049.