Pierrepoint Industries: Difference between revisions
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=== Coalescence === | === Coalescence === | ||
The Great War did not ravage all of Seattle equally. The city's hilly topography meant that the blast waves were deflected in some areas while others bore the brunt. Wide avenues and water acted as natural firebreaks. One of the areas spared was Magnolia, an affluent neighborhood a little to the northwest of downtown forming a natural, somewhat elevated bowl with a 'moat' of railroad tracks and canal. This easily defensible topography, combined with the military fort and a number of open spaces that could be (and were) made arable, meant that Magnolia developed a privileged position in the Wasteland. Survivors in Magnolia easily kept out those they wanted to keep out and let in only a few. Even the largest band of starveling raiders dissolved under withering fire from the 20th Avenue Wall. | |||
Even as central Seattle was resettled some hundred years after the war, Magnolia remained set apart. A dynamic developed in which the families of Magnolia with enough capital to invest founded businesses downtown that would then flourish as new migrants (that is, cheap labor) flocked in. The most prosperous were the Buckinghams, the Szmodises, and the Pierrepoints. | |||
Leonard Pierrepoint, willing to gamble, poured all his capital into restoring the abandoned Yoyodyne factory on the south end of Lake Washington to working order and shipping materials for electrical goods up from New California. It worked. The Renton operation was the most technologically advanced, and thus profitable, on the entire West Coast, with production efficiencies that the NCR could not hope to match. When Leonard handed the reigns to his daughter, Caroline, the Pierrepoints were the richest clan in the entire Emerald Wasteland. Caroline would not leave it at that. | |||
=== Foundation === | === Foundation === | ||
Pierrepoint recognized an opportunity: while civilized, Seattle operated without much of an explicit state, and there were none of any significance in the area outside of the Salish Confederation. | |||
=== Present day === | === Present day === | ||
Revision as of 00:25, 23 November 2025
The Republic of Magnolia, colloquially just Magnolia, is a fiercely independent mercantile city-state encompassing the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle and neighboring Fort Lawton. While territorially small, the Republic of Magnolia is one of the most powerful polities in the Emerald Wasteland by dint of its holdings, wealth, unity, and strategic location.
History
Coalescence
The Great War did not ravage all of Seattle equally. The city's hilly topography meant that the blast waves were deflected in some areas while others bore the brunt. Wide avenues and water acted as natural firebreaks. One of the areas spared was Magnolia, an affluent neighborhood a little to the northwest of downtown forming a natural, somewhat elevated bowl with a 'moat' of railroad tracks and canal. This easily defensible topography, combined with the military fort and a number of open spaces that could be (and were) made arable, meant that Magnolia developed a privileged position in the Wasteland. Survivors in Magnolia easily kept out those they wanted to keep out and let in only a few. Even the largest band of starveling raiders dissolved under withering fire from the 20th Avenue Wall.
Even as central Seattle was resettled some hundred years after the war, Magnolia remained set apart. A dynamic developed in which the families of Magnolia with enough capital to invest founded businesses downtown that would then flourish as new migrants (that is, cheap labor) flocked in. The most prosperous were the Buckinghams, the Szmodises, and the Pierrepoints.
Leonard Pierrepoint, willing to gamble, poured all his capital into restoring the abandoned Yoyodyne factory on the south end of Lake Washington to working order and shipping materials for electrical goods up from New California. It worked. The Renton operation was the most technologically advanced, and thus profitable, on the entire West Coast, with production efficiencies that the NCR could not hope to match. When Leonard handed the reigns to his daughter, Caroline, the Pierrepoints were the richest clan in the entire Emerald Wasteland. Caroline would not leave it at that.
Foundation
Pierrepoint recognized an opportunity: while civilized, Seattle operated without much of an explicit state, and there were none of any significance in the area outside of the Salish Confederation.