Philadelphia

Philadelphia is a city of roughly one million citizens in the Mid-Atlantic region of North America, Earth. It is locally known as Philly by the citizens, and it is known to be one of the richest sources of history of the region, including standing historical districts, museums and archives. Its citizens have a reputation of fierce pride in their city, so much so that when it was threatened in 2053, roughly 30,000 citizens died of radiation exposure in effort to save the city from fires caused by the terrorist bombing.
==History==
Philadelphia was founded in 1682 by William Penn, an English Quaker and advocate of religious freedom. The city served as the capital of the Pennsylvania Colony during the British colonial era and went on to play a historic and vital role as the central meeting place for the nation's founding fathers whose plans and actions in Philadelphia ultimately inspired the American Revolution and the nation's independence following the Revolutionary War. Philadelphia hosted the First Continental Congress in 1774, preserved the Liberty Bell, and hosted the Second Continental Congress during which the founders signed the Declaration of Independence, which historian Joseph Ellis has described as "the most potent and consequential words in American history". Once the Revolutionary War commenced, the Battle of Germantown and the siege of Fort Mifflin were fought within Philadelphia's city limits. The U.S. Constitution was later ratified in Philadelphia at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. Philadelphia remained the nation's largest city until 1790, when it was surpassed by New York City, and it served as the nation's first capital from May 10, 1775, until December 12, 1776, and on four subsequent occasions during and following the American Revolution, including from 1790 to 1800 during the construction of the new national capital of Washington D.C..
Philadelphia was known as a city of many firsts, including the nations first public library (1731),library (1731), hospital (1751), medical school (1765), national capital (1774), university (by some accounts) (1779), stock exchange (1790), zoo (1874), and business school (1881). Philadelphia contains 67 Surviving Historic Landmarks], including Independence Hall. Philadelphia was home to one of the first well known inventors as well.Benjamin Franklin, a leading citizen, helped improve city services and founded new ones that were among the first in the nation, including a fire company, and the afore mentioned library, and hospital.
See Additional history of the early years of Philadelphia?
== World War III ==
In the year 2050 Philadelphia was a thriving city of 1.87 million citizens and residents. Due to tensions concerning threats from a Sino-Asian Coalition, a new modernized ship building facility would be installed in conjunction with standing facilities at the Philadelphia Naval Yard. Since this construction began, the industrial soul of the city had been reignited by a government contract to build three new nuclear submarines, two air craft carriers (CVN 91, CVN 92) and two dozen support ships. The new contract ensured decades of employment for thousands of welders and technicians. The installation of facilities to construct nuclear powered ships ensured a continuing government contracting in the future. Late in the 1980s, government contracts were shifted more and more to Newport News, but with the ramping up of hostilities and a recognized need for more aircraft carrier battle groups, the shipyards were retooled and upgraded for the new contracts.
In the year 2053, the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard held within her shipbuilding ways three Columbia Class Nuclear Powered Submarines nearing completion. In the two new ways built in 2040-41 were two William Jefferson Clinton Class Aircraft Carriers. CVN-91 was complete and due to launch in June 2053, CVN-92 was in the process of testing the nuclear powerplant. For six years there had been near daily protests and some violent on the part of ecoterrorists declaring that the nuclear facilities were unsafe and would cause much harm. The majority of the city was seeing a financial boom, entire districts that had been in deep disrepair were being gentrified, and businesses interests came for attractive shipyard support contracts. Overwhelmingly positive response to the shipyards caused the ecoterrorists to be mostly ignored.
The arguments were old, worries about a nuclear plant meltdown in Harrisburg roughly seventy five years earlier. Technological advancement as well as safety protocol improvements made such an accident nearly impossible. Assurances were made that a minimum of fuel rods were kept at the facilities, only enough for testing and shake down cruises. As a bonus for the protection of the city a series of ten missile shield batteries were placed to disable and destroy any incoming nuclear missiles with spread of neutron warheads. The design was an updated missile shield based on one decommissioned in 1992, W70 Series. Now, each W136 Force Field series missile contained multiple warheads and was capable of disabling an entire zone of incoming warheads through saturation and yet a small enough blast to not cause the Electromagnetic Pulse to be felt more than a mile away. They were deployed at strategic locations along the coasts to defend military targets. They were declared to be safe, and would be deployed oversees with the allies as well by 2061.
=== Terrorist Action ===
During the mid-morning hours of April 21st, 2053, the defensive batteries all went offline. That is, all of the loaded W136 batteries of the Philadelphia Naval Yard, Camden Steel Yards, and the Port of Philadelphia. Approximately thirty minutes later, a system hack was identified and reported. That report was the last communication from the Naval Shipyard, because at 09:30:00 exactly, all ten loaded missiles went online, armed themselves in the launcher, then detonated their payloads. The resulting neutron blasts destroyed relatively little, as a single conventional warhead would have destroyed the entire city. (See Terrorist Attack Map, this file)
The blast waves were destructive with intense heat and pressure that flattened unreinforced structures for as much as a kilometer. The heat vaporized most structures within half kilometer and started fires for five times that distance from each blast zone. The Gamma Radiation was instantly lethal anyone within a three kilometer radius, and formed a cloud of radioactive particles, mostly ash and water vapor that traveled on the wind, and expanded until it rained two days after the attack. The affected area remained instantly deadly five day, then providing lethal exposure in one hour at 6 days. The half life allowed for a level of exposure about as damaging as an X-ray at twenty days. A short exposure was harmless, while prolonged exposure during the twenty to thirty day period was still lethal. The EMP wave washed over half of the city with enough strength to damage even hardened systems, while unhardened systems were damaged within four miles of the epicenters.
Initial blast deaths were reported as 750,000, and an additional 450,000 dying of radiation exposure in the following eighteen months. In addition, roughly 30,000 first responders and citizen volunteers who were desperately trying to save the city from fires, died within twelve months. The Port of Philadelphia was destroyed, not by the initial blast but by secondary damage from ships in port and the fuel depot. Most of infrastructure of Naval Yard survived, but housing, offices and supply yards were mostly destroyed. Nearly everything south of South Street was lost to fire, as was a large swath of North East section of the city. Volunteers had flooded into the city to try to save the historical sections, which left local crews to battle the residential fires. In the south, fires continued to reignite due to a preponderance of electric vehicles which were very difficult to bring under control and would reignite for days.
Within hours of the detonation of the warheads, a previously unknown ecoterrorist group Gaia Lives, claimed responsibility for the action. The "Force Field" missile defense system was taken offline in order to avoid additional terrorist attacks. The defense department reported to the Whitehouse that they would need at least a week to analyze the software to find the vulnerability and patch it. No members of Gaia Lives have ever been identified. The fires of Philadelphia were under control but not yet all extinguished when the ECON forces launched their attack. With the missile shield offline, the government felt the only option was retaliation. The devastation was such that international conflict came to an end. History recorded it as the final blows of WWIII. 
While no additional attacks were centered on Philadelphia, fires renewed and raged out of control destroying several square miles. Most survivors evacuated the city, leaving it an eradiated wasteland where a full third of the city was in flame and ash. The sections that had yielded the most fires were isolated by bulldozers pushing down homes and structures in a city block wide swath, in order to protect the historical district. Volunteers who did the work, were mostly self described Patriots, who would see the country rise again from the ashes. A common belief of the time was that the city would be deadly radioactive for at least 50 years, when the truth was exposed that the city would be habitable in as little as a year, many of its locations were looted and vandalized by displaced survivors of the larger war.
== 2060 ==
In the 2060, the population of Philadelphia had swollen to 200,000 again, roughly 1/10th of the prewar population. Analysis of the event and the records of the death toll, indicate that if had the greater attack not happened, better than half of those who died from radiation sickness would have been saved with proper medical treatment. Proper medical treatment however, was not available for some time except to the very rich and powerful, or very lucky.
== 2080s ==
Credited as a primary donator of funds and workforce, the DeLancey foundation recovered, restored, and rebuilt more than twenty buildings of the 2000 block of DeLancey Place. Those which they did not already own, were purchased from the city with the sale going through October of 2400, in order to comply with both a squatters rights and eminent domain possession. In addition, the work force was housed in these properties while doing restoration work on more than 60 historic sites of the downtown area and replanting public parks. The DeLancey Foundation was given a favored status both by the city population and the politicians. It should be noted, most cities had rampant violence against those attempting to rebuild, Philadelphia was an outlier. Those who attempted petty fiefdoms tended to be hung by road signs at the center city bridges. Despite these efforts, there were instances of zombie attacks, which were costly but put down in days.
==Notable Locations==
American Philosophical Society Museum
Athenaeum of Philadelphia
Benjamin Franklin Museum
Carpenters Hall
Cathedral Basilica
Christ Church
Delancey Place historical park, museum and music conservatory
Franklin Institute
Franklin Square
Cultural Campus
Independence Hall
Logan Square
Mother Bethel Church
My Thai Restaurant
National Constitution Center
Neo Geno's Steaks
Perelman Medical School
Philadelphia Mint
Philadelphia Stock Exchange
Powel House
Philadelphia Art Museum
Philadelphia Aerodrome
Philadelphia Commerce Tower
Philadelphia Hyperloop Station
Philadelphia Staryard
Philadelphia Embassy Towers
Rittenhouse Square
St Mary's Roman Catholic Church
University of Pennsylvania
Washington Square
=== OOC Information ===
Category:Locations