Las Vegas (Hihawk)

Las Vegas (Spanish for "The Meadows"), occasionally called the Las Vegas Metroplex and most often simply called Vegas, is an American conurbation in the State of Nevada encompassing the Las Vegas Valley. Nicknamed "Sin City," the metropolitan area is renowned the world over for its nightlife, resorts, and mega-casinos.

In the aftermath of the Collapse, Las Vegas experienced a period of substantial re-development funded by corpo investments; the result was a comprehensively upgraded resort city often compared to locations such as Dubai, Crystal Palace, and pre-earthquake Los Angeles due to its exclusive, upscale atmosphere. While considerable resources are spent in maintaining the city's luxurious and festive veneer, the truth is that the Vegas Metroplex is a dystopia like any other corporate stronghold in the Dark Future. It bears one of the highest rates of income inequality in the United States and has the third largest homeless population in the country as of 2020.

The Collapse
A prominent anchor city of the Southwestern United States, Las Vegas was recognized as the financial, commercial, and cultural heart of Nevada for much of the 20th century. During its "Silver Age," its casinos and resorts frequently drew millions of visitors from across the globe and tens of billions in revenue each year. Despite the apparent prosperity of its local economy and its rapid growth, Las Vegas was also afflicted with a multitude of urgent issues―such as environmental damage and homelessness―that only worsened with each passing year. The bubble inevitably burst in 1996, with the national socio-economic crisis remembered as the Collapse.

Between the the devaluing of the American dollar which destroyed the recreation and tourism industries, the rise of both local gangs and nomadic bandit hordes, and the unprecedented as well as extremely deadly heatwaves and droughts in Nevada that exacerbated the problems, Las Vegas seemed a city destined for annihilation. Not even the federal forces who occupied the Valley in the lead-up to martial law could truly secure it alone. In the end, it required a coalition of Vegas's last remaining megacorps to combine their resources and pull the city back from the brink through the creation of new jobs, injections of cash investments, and distribution of humanitarian aid. Over the course of the next several years, these so-called "Big Four" corporations cooperated with the federal occupation to sustain the state of Nevada and in doing so, became the most prominent power in the Las Vegas Metroplex.

Era of the Big Four
By 1999, the Big Four―Las Vegas Entertainment, Hanlon Resorts, Delta Properties, and Santeau Group―were the de facto authority of the Las Vegas Valley and, consequently, practically the rest of Nevada as well. They took advantage of the goodwill they garnered among Vegas's residents during the Collapse and, once martial law concluded, filled the power vacuum left in the feds' wake, seeping their influence into every governmental and commercial apparatus possible. Before long, the Big Four were a mafia-like syndicate who shared absolute control over the City Council, the Gaming Commission, the Gaming Control Board, and the LVMPD for their mutual unimpeded profit.

Co-operation lasted between these megacorps for a surprsingly lengthy amount of time, well into 2013, mostly as a means of ensuring their shared dominance in Nevada against other corporate or government bodies. Throughout the lifespan of their coalition, the Big Four invested heavily into the infrastructure of Las Vegas, their main stronghold in the state, with Santeau and Vegas Entertainment funding the lion's share of the most costly projects (like the Alexandria Pyramid and Thunderdome, respectively) across the city's various districts and neighborhoods. Their efforts saw the city rapidly modernized and expanded for a post-Collapse world, bringing in an influx of new residents. This period of time, remembered both as the "Big Four Era" and the "First Golden Age," saw Las Vegas reach a level of social and economic stability not seen in decades and its reputation as an entertainment hub soon returned with the opening of new resorts and hotels, as well as the arrival of big mediacorps like Diverse Media Systems and Desnaiworld.

As the economy in Las Vegas rebounded and each member of the Big Four had accumulated its own array of valuable assets, their dependence on one another waned and the corporate alliance began to weaken. Each of the Four had their own diverging agendas and ambitions, which led to increasingly frequent and contentious disputes, ultimately culminating in the fracturing of the Big Four and full-blown outbreak of the Casino Wars.