State of the World: V5 Pregame

[SOTF_Help]

Hello, everyone. It seemed useful, in light of the approach of V5, to give some information on the world of SOTF, specifically on the ongoing continuity, in order to allow greater verisimilitude in posts and profiles. As such, the following is a non-narrative summary of important things in the world that you'll probably want to know:

• The year in V5 is 2012. Pregame spans from near the start of the calendar year (conveniently enough, Seattle public schools start up again January 3rd, so that's the first day of Pregame IC) to the start of summer and the class trip.
• For the most part, SOTF follows along with the real world. Disasters, terrorist attacks, recessions, fashion trends, film releases, etc. are all the same as IRL.
• The president of the United States is the ideological equivalent/fictional stand in of Obama. President Bridges lost the 2008 election (he was on his first term from 2005-2008, replacing President Bush, who did not run for reelection in 2004 and has since faded from the political scene). For all intents and purposes, Bridges served Bush's second term exactly as Bush did, and the current president has followed along exactly in step with Obama.
• SOTF itself did not resurface after 2008. While the broadcast nature had already been seriously limited by the time of V4, where it was aired only on certain obscure foreign channels, it was still widely and easily available online. Recordings of past seasons are still easy to get online from torrent sites and the like, and colleges have archives for research purposes, though the government makes token efforts to stop the distribution, shutting down sources that are found.
• When no kidnapping occurred in 2009, SOTF was officially declared defeated. School security nationwide remains fairly tight, however. In the years since, the government and some families of SOTF victims began lawsuits against companies that profited from merchandise related to SOTF (t-shirts and the like). None of these lawsuits has yet reached its conclusion. SOTF is no longer a presence in merchandising in any form. Wearing an SOTF shirt is roughly equivalent to wearing a shirt mocking 9/11.
• Nothing has been heard of STAR. Conspiracy theories about V4 abound on the parts of the internet that care, but mostly media coverage has dried up, aside from local memorials and a national acknowledgement every year.