| abstract | - Gecko Falls is a small trading post founded in 2242 by the Klamath branch of the Crimson Caravan Company. The previous year had been one of the driest on record, destroying crops in the area, and the company wanted to position themselves to be in control of the water market in northern California should the drought continue. CCC headquarters tasked a handful of members from the Klamath branch to travel up the Klamath River to find what they believed was its headwater, Klamath Falls. The explorers did as they were tasked, but soon discovered that the waterfall that they believed was the headwater of the river were simply some white water rapids. Not wanting to be branded failures, they communicated to their headquarters that Gecko Falls, a small waterfall on the Klamath River, was actually Klamath Falls. A small post on the riverbed near the falls was established, and before anybody back in California was any the wiser, Gecko Falls had already been settled. Over the next few years, Gecko Falls served as the Crimson Caravan Company’s northernmost trading post. Traders and caravans entering California from the north, from places such as the Boise Wasteland, Seattle, Martha’s Gulch, and other points north of California. The permanent residents of the trading post- some 40 members of the company, plus contracted security, comfort men and women, and a handful of others- were occasionally hassled by local tribals, as well as the Purifiers and the Flames, but generally lived safe and somewhat comfortable on the Californian frontier. All of that came to an end in 2259, when the Purifiers and the Flames put aside their ideological differences and attacked the trading post in retaliation for the New California Republic increasing the reach of their military patrols in the area. In 2253, raiders in the Mojave killed 38 NCR citizens living there, prompting the NCR Congress to impeach and vote out President Joanna Tibbett due to her “timid” reaction to the massacre. In her place, Wendell Peterson was installed, and one of his first acts as President of the New California Republic was to dispatch NCR infantry into problematic areas, which included southern Oregon. The increased presence of the NCR military bit into the profits the Purifiers and the Flames were able to net from attacking caravans and traders, enough for the two long-time enemies momentarily put their differences aside. Cutting off the trading post from reinforcements through the use of a controlled forest fire, the two raider groups entered from per-arranged choke points, the Purifiers from the northwest and the Flames from the northeast. Even with a small NCR garrison and private security personnel, Gecko Falls stood little chance. The siege lasted roughly a day, and when the flames died down, the small post was completely decimated. Only a handful of residents and visitors lived through the ordeal. The area was simply too profit rich to be ignored, and though it took a few years thanks to insurance litigation between the Crimson Caravan Company, individual traders, and those that had purchased their goods, and NCR military endeavors in other parts of Cascadia, Gecko Falls was resettled. In 2262, the Crimson Caravan Company leased the land to a third-party operation, the Thirsty Gecko Aqua Trading Company, and they began resettling the town. Concurrently, NCR military brass began Operation: RED TRAIL, a campaign to remove groups antagonistic to the NCR from the area. Fortified by a pair of platoons of NCR soldiers- roughly 50 in total- the Thirsty Gecko Aqua Trading Company successfully resuscitated Gecko Falls. In 2269, Gecko Falls was threatened by the eruption of Mt. McLaughlin during the Purification War, but the flames of the fire it caused petered out before they reached the trading post. The eruption and subsequent forest fore did have an impact on trade, as caravans avoided the area for weeks. Since then, with the creation of the Pure Lands, the leaders of the Thirsty Gecko Aqua Trading Company have begun internal conversations amongst themselves as to whether or not lumber and timber would be a profitable business to get into.
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