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[color=gold][b]Mature ✶ Modern Superhumans ✶ Plot-Driven ✶ Sandbox[/b][/color][/center][hr][hr]

[indent][color=dimgray]Enter [i][b]Esperanza, The Golden City[/b][/i]. A city of long nights and bright mornings, of white wine and fish tacos, of wind in your hair and sand in your toes. Nestled a bit north of Santa Barbara in between Los Angeles and San Francisco, the city of six hundred thousand, with a greater metropolis of two and a half million, boasts a bustling nightlife, a distinctive music scene, sandy beaches, and a history tied deeply to the great State of California. This is, of course, in addition to crime, corruption, and a high density of people with superhuman abilities.

Starting in the mid-1940s, governments around the world began using human test subjects for increasingly dangerous and far-fetched experiments in the hopes of swiftly crushing opposing powers in the ongoing second World War. They inevitably found that under controlled conditions, radiation therapy could unlock and enhance certain abilities, allowing people to perform feats otherwise thought to be the stuff of fiction. As if over night, radiation therapy gifted America's complex hierarchy a new social class -- The Superpowered. One such facility where CRT (Controlled Radiative Therapy) was tested during the war was the [i]Los Padres Relocation Camp[/i], an hour or so out of Esperanza. [i]Los Padres[/i] was a Japanese Internment Camp whose leadership was arrested after the war's conclusion, and all of its experimental records classified. CRT research was then picked up by the CRT Lab at the Central California Institute of Technology (CCIT), located within Esperanza. Because of these two events, power-giving mutagens were heavily released around Esperanza between the 40's and 60's, contaminating the local gene pool with mutagens for generations.

While superhuman abilities are often sought to be taken advantage of, their presence is largely kept away from the public eye, or at least made to be seen as less present than they are. Costumed crusaders were all over the newspapers in the 1940's, certainly, but most of them died of radiation poisoning by the 70's. "Superheroes" in the sense you would think of them are increasingly rare in a world that grows increasingly less welcoming to its superpowered denizens. Powers are not something that are flaunted if it can be helped, and for good reason. This is a world where humans have read X-Men. Humans don't hate the superpowered because they're allegories for racists. They hate them because they're dangerous, and their proclivity for danger only worsens the situation by making criminals of today's powered youth.

In this superhero RP, in addition to delving into the lives and struggles of every hero and every villain in the story, I want to make the city of Esperanza come to life. While I'm hoping to possibly make a map at some point, at the very least I will discuss districts and areas of the city, introduce local personalities, and talk about city history. Because of this, I don't want every character to be a superhero or a supervillain; I want nurses, doctors, professors, newscasters, anything to help make the city feel more real. In addition, I don't want characters to simply be classified as heroes and villains; I want to see the lines of morality blurred, the concepts of good and evil to be consistently questioned and appraised. We're not as dark and gritty as Watchmen, but I should certainly hope we can be as dark and gritty as, say, Kick-Ass with actual powers.

As far as rules go, try and post weekly. If you can't, make sure to tell me or the Co-Gm. If you have ideas for powers outside of the radiation therapy line (power suits, drugs), feel free to bring it up. Mature themes are fine, if not encouraged, but try to have some taste. Try and push yourselves, not as much as length per post (though it should be at least a few paragraphs, we're not pussyfooting about in the Casual section here), but to go as deep as you can into your character's development. It's better to have a shorter post with a lot more meat than a long, whispy post that says nothing. Also, while this shouldn't need reminding, be nice to each other? Don't be a dick.[/color][/indent]

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[h3]History of Esperanza[/h3]
[color=dimgray][indent]Esperanza was founded in 1788 as a village populated by Native Americans to support the nearby [i]La Misión de La Purísima Concepción de la Santísima Virgen María[/i] in what is now the district of La Purisima. A small fishing village for the first few decades of its existence, Esperanza received a sizeable population boom during the California Gold Rush, the previous native population being supplanted by white settlers, as well as a major influx of immigrants from East Asia, mainly China, who founded Esperanza's famous Chinatown. As central California developed its agricultural industry, Esperanza became the corporate center of it, where agricultural goods were packaged and then shipped. Also heavily involved in the agricultural industry were another influx of Asian immigrants from Japan, who founded Esperanza's Little Tokyo. During WW2, Esperanza became one of the primary suppliers of rations for the military, and as stated above, the Los Padres Relocation Camp became infamous for its radiation experimentation.

Following WWII, research in CRT was picked up at the CCIT, which openly existed throughout the fifties, when radium therapy was publicly prescribed by doctors, and while the CRT lab was publicly closed, rumors persisted that the CRT lab remained open throughout the Cold War. During the 60's and early 70's Esperanza was a center of hippie culture, due to the natural scenery and the carefree lifestyle provided by economic prosperity. When the nineties tech boom hit and jobs began getting shipped overseas, Esperanza was largely left in the dust, and the city took a turn for the worse, which, while recently has gotten better, led to much of the being gentrified under the current mayor of the last ten years, Adam Gartner, who's running a very successful campaign for governor.[/indent][/color]

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[b]Districts and Notable Locations:[/b] 

[color=EFA739][b]Narlon[/b][/color] - A northern district of Esperanza that's very upper middle class, with a suburban lifestyle, quiet beaches, and the last remnants of an aging hippie culture.

[color=F3F76F][b]Casmalia[/b][/color] - The northernmost suburb of Esperanza which hosts the Esperanza International Airport.

[color=E74246][b]Tortuga[/b][/color] - The center of Esperanza's shipping and fishing industries, it was once much more industrial than it now is, and has since been very gentrified and is now full of hipsters, with the old factories being turned into lofts and breweries. Is also home to Little Tokyo.

[color=EC787B][b]Mission Hills[/b][/color] - Once the center of the city's industry, Mission Hills has been somewhat gentrified, though most of the families of the old factory workers still live there. This is due to Mission Hills being the center of Esperanza's somewhat famous indie music industry.

[color=CBCFFE][b]Downtown[/b][/color] - The heart of Esperanza, Downtown is a commercial district home to a hub of entertainment, museums, the Goldigger Stadium, and City Hall.

[color=D99BCA][b]Lompoc[/b][/color] - Though almost completely surrounded by Esperanza, and under the jurisdiction of the EPD, Lompoc is technically a separate city which elects its own mayor. It's also one of the poorest parts of the area, and is home to many immigrant populations. CCIT, one of the nations top technical schools is contrastingly also in Lompoc.

[color=587AD1][b]Oceano Beach[/b][/color] - Beautiful and historic, Oceano Beach is a landmark of Esperanza, and shares a similar spot in the city's culture as Venice Beach in LA and Coney Island in New York. Aside from its many tourist traps along the boardwalk, Oceano Beach has many nightclubs, bars, chain restaurants, arcades, and a well-known aquarium.

[color=9875B5][b]La Purisima[/b][/color] - The location of the mission Esperanza was founded to serve. Very urban, expensive but not necessarily rich, and the location of Chinatown. Also where UCE (University of California Esperanza) is.

[color=50E77C][b]Arlight[/b][/color] - The wealthiest district in Esperanza, Arlight is home to most of the city's millionaires and billionaires.

[color=4FD840][b]Concepcion[/b][/color] - The southernmost district of Esperanza, and the largest by land mass, largely being very suburban, with the coastal areas being more well-off and the northern areas being more urban. Some of the rich people there have horses.

[color=33FFFE][b]Starlingville[/b][/color] - The strange neighborhood surrounding the Starling Science HQ. Aside from the statues of Seymour Starling that decorate the sidewalks, Starlingville is known for the Starling Blue color scheme for every public utility -- mailboxes, lightpost, and telephone booths -- its many technologically-centered public parks, and every single building displaying an indicator that it can be used as a fallout shelter.