Cold Fear

== Astoria, Oregon ==
The date is November 17th, 2006. There was a time where Astoria was renowned for a whole host of local charms and amenities calling back to a simpler, more peaceful time━that was until North Watch and its rival U-Genix cast a hungry glare upon the town that was truly lost in its time. Once quiet and peaceful streets have been paved over and replaced with the hustle and bustle of a tourist hotspot with a wide demographic coming to suck whatever it can from the town. Thanks to North Watch, the town has been upgraded with most modern amenities, including the currently in development Rivesea Galleria shopping mall, a state-of-the-art building constructed from the ingenuity and aspirations of one Desmond Parrish, the son of the late great Thomas Parrish, who has long been heralded as the “King” of pharmaceutical and technological developments. Locals have become disgruntled with the rapid and forced development of the town, many picking up stakes and moving elsewhere or succumbing to the corporate wave flooding the town and selling out and finding new, admittedly better-paying jobs with the corporation.
== The World At Large ==
Across the rest of the world, a war has been declared between a plethora of major corporations looking to topple one another, many attempting to climb a mountain built with a framework completely designed by North Watch, a company who has quite literally taken the world into a new era of technological and medical advancements. In every house, you can find a product made by the company, from furniture, to televisions, to computers, to food products while U-Genix, its long-time rival sits in discontent just below it.
There was a time when North Watch and U-Genix showed promise in working with one another with the goal of ushering in a new tomorrow. This was all manned by boyhood best-friends, Siegmund Wagner and Thomas Parrish. It was in the late eighties that the announced a new very public and controversial project known as “Panacea” that was to be headed by the pair. It served the intention of acting as an actual, legitimate cure for cancer, a true passion project for Thomas. Over the years, many developments were made in the field serving as long-term treatments, it wasn’t until the mid-nineties that the project started to really take form and show promise. That was until Siegmund controversially pulled any aid from the project and entered a one-sided legal battle with North Watch that U-Genix fully and totally won.
With his life work being destroyed by U-Genix, Thomas sunk into depression and allowed his company to slowly sink into obscurity until his death in 1997. His son, Desmond then took the reigns, through the years building North Watch back up with many new advancements and products as U-Genix took a steep nose-dive after Siegmund retired and allowed for his son to take control.