The Fallen Continent: Arizona
The fate of the Copper State following the apocalypse.
Population: 600,000
Largest City: Nogales
For thy beauty and thy grandeur,
For thy regal robes so sheen,
We hail thee Arizona:
Our goddess and our queen.
Introduction
The Grand Canyon state was badly scarred by the war. Most of its population died during the nuclear exchange and its farmland was now badly irradiated. Arizona is largely free of the kind of brutish, petty warlords that dot the Californian landscape, but nearly all the present factions engage in plenty of brutality on their own. Most of Arizona quickly coalesced into an “Arizona Emergency Government,” using Prescott as its provisional capital. Anchored around Yavapai County, the AEG worked alongside Gina and Pinal counties, the Arizona National Guard, the 12th Air Force, and the US Border Patrol to fill the power vacuum left behind by the obliterated state government. The hardships brought on by starvation and displaced refugees set in fast, however, and the Emergency Government quickly fractured.
The Arizona Emergency Government split along factional lines as different national claimants vied for power, while the fringes of the state gave way to ethnic violence. Rebellion broke out throughout the Indian reservations, followed by racial violence sparked by discriminate rationing policies and cartel invasion. By the end of the Starving Time, Arizona was mired in America’s first fully-fledged race war and the most brutal conflict in the history of the American Southwest.
Utah Free State
Capital: St. George, Utah
Classification: Religious Faction (Theocratic dictatorship)
The Utah Free State controls a small strip of land in northwest Arizona, connecting their Utahn core with their Nevadan possessions. This notably includes Colorado City, the cradle of the FLDS revival. The initial core of the Utah Free State’s fighting force included officers from the Colorado City/Hilldale Police Department and hundreds of “Lost Boys.” The Lost Boys are made up of the FLDS’ single male population that stands no chance of ever marrying, unless they fight for the Free State and take wives for themselves by conquest. Other Lost Boys are effectively penal soldiers, outcasts who violated Fundamentalist mores and can only achieve redemption through military service. The age of these Lost Boys ranges from 21 to 13.
Twelfth Air Force
Capital: Lake Havasu City
Classification: Military Faction (Military administration)
The Twelfth Air Force was America’s main air force in the southwestern region, and received many aircraft returning from the nuclear war when their original runways were destroyed. They initially followed the Arizona National Guard’s lead by submitting to Yavapai County’s provisional authority and played a leading role in the Arizona Emergency Government.
The cracks in the alliance began to spread as the Starving Time set in, however. Yavapai urged a return to democratic government, while the Air Force championed military rule and a tight rationing policy. After the destruction of Amarillo and the ensuing Dodge City-Midland War, the AEG began to argue over which government to recognize. They settled on the Walla Walla government in a last-ditch effort to avoid partisanship; the compromise lasted no longer than Walla Walla did. The Air Force proclaimed its loyalty to the Kahului government, while Yavapai and the National Guard did not. The Twelfth broke with the AEG as a result, while further defections to the east dissolved the pact entirely.
The Twelfth has remained detached from statewide affairs since then. They cautiously guard their borders and occasionally fight skirmishes with their neighbors in Prescott, as well as the Hells Angels, Fundamentalist Mormons, and the Indians. This may very well change if the US Marine Corps makes a play for national dominance; the Twelfth Air Force is their most vocal supporter, and enthusiastically promises that they will join the pan-military cause if the Marines will act on it.
The Twelfth is also one of the few factions that possesses a nuclear arsenal. It consists of a few standard nuclear warheads that simply weren’t fired during the Great War, as well as a handful of disarmed bombs that were brought back after system malfunctions prevented the aircraft from dropping them. Given what happened to the Kahului Government in the Hawaiian Spring, the Twelfth is very careful to avoid playing the nuclear card and keeps the existence of their atomic hoard secret.
Arizona Democratic Reconstruction Authority
Capital: Prescott
Classification: Military Faction (Reformist military government)
The Arizona Democratic Reconstruction Authority is the husk of what was once the Arizona Emergency Government, before it fractured and disintegrated during the Starving Time. Yavapai County has always maintained local democratic elections, but extension of these principles throughout the rest of the state has only been done at the discretion of the National Guard.
ADRA government officially consists of a legislative council of thirty civilian leaders, who elect an executive chairman. The council seats are all tied to certain districts or prewar local governments; some of these seats are elected, others are not. The decisions of both the chairman and the council are subject to veto by the Adjutant-General of the National Guard, and there is still significant military influence in government, especially near the Authority’s frontiers. Despite the state of military-civilian limbo the ADRA is stuck in, it is the only form of democracy present in the state.
The ADRA has expressed a willingness to cooperate with other democratic states. With what distant news can reach them, they admire both the State of Oregon and the Dodge City-based US government and wish to work with them if ever possible. The ADRA is remote, however. Several powerful factions stand between them and Dodge City, and Oregon has its own powerful opponents to face long before they can ever think of Arizona.
Colorado River Indian Tribes
Capital: Parker
Classification: Native American Faction (Indian reservation)
Four different tribes make up the federation that now dwells on the Colorado River Reservation: Mohave, Chemehuevi, Hopi, and Navajo. They initially recognized the Arizona Emergency Government and are amenable to the Twelfth Air Force, but remain officially neutral and have not backed either side in the dispute between the Twelfth and the ADRA.
Riverside Rangers
Capital: Blythe, California
Classification: Legitimist Warlord (Eclectic local government)
Allegiance: California Republic
Weathering the desert winds from the west bank of the Colorado River, the Riverside Rangers project limited power on the Arizonan side.
Republic of Arizona
Capital: Wellton
Classification: Legitimist Warlord (Refugee militia regime)
In a similar vein as the Riverside Rangers, the Republic of Arizona is a small militia regime that endures a meager existence in the remote southwestern desert. This two-town republic was founded by a militant column of right-leaning white American refugees who moved in from the Phoenix Exclusion Zone. While thousands of locals were headed south for Mexico, the Phoenix warband settled in along a stretch of half-emptied towns across I-8. There is a slight right-libertarian bent to the Republic that they optimistically founded in the town of Wellton, but its character is subdued enough that it really cannot be considered an ideological faction. There is a fairly racially-conscious aspect to the militia government, however, as they’ve firmly taken the side of white Anglo-Americans in the ongoing Southwestern Race War. This could earn the ire of the powerful Republic of Mexico, but the Centralists prefer to keep the Arizonan republic around as a destination to which they can deport troublesome gringos.
162nd Fighter Wing
Capital: Gila Bend
Classification: Military Faction (Military administration)
Allegiance: Twelfth Air Force
The Gila Bend Auxiliary Air Force Field was fortunate to evade nuclear bombardment during the Great War. Not only did it receive returning bomber crews from the nuclear exchange who had nowhere else to land, it also became the headquarters of the relocated 162nd Fighter Wing, whose survivors had to flee from the destroyed Morris Air National Guard Base in Tucson. At the start of the 21st Century, the 162nd was only a training wing for the Arizona Air National Guard, but during the Great 21st Century Crisis it was federalized and called up as a fighter unit, meant to intercept nuclear missiles and bombers. It served as well as could be expected during the Great War, but obviously couldn’t prevent the destruction that fell upon the Copper State.
For the first few years after the war, the 162nd served as a southern outpost of the Arizona Emergency Government, linking the the Border Patrol force in Ajo with the rest of the government in Prescott. After the AEG’s dissolution, the 162nd recognized the Twelfth Air Force in Lake Havasu City. This soured their relationship with the US Border Patrol, who fervently recognized the authority of John Ingersoll’s presidency in Midland, Texas. Neither faction is hostile to one another, but relations have remained icy due to diplomatic conflicts and interpersonal rivalries between factional leadership. The Twelfth Air Force’s aerial resupply missions to reinforce the city against Pinal County have sparked incidents with the ADRA, who cites a violation of their airspace. None of these incidents have yet escalated into war, but if a war ever comes, Gila Bend will likely serve the casus belli.
United States Border Patrol
Capital: Ajo
Classification: Federal Legacy (Federal agency)
Allegiance: Government of National Salvation
At the southern border, the United States Border Patrol does what they can to maintain order. At the outset of the Great War, they found themselves having to not only defend themselves and the US border, but administer territory in the absence of civilian authorities. Cut off from outside aid, the Patrol was left to provide for themselves and their own families. Given all the issues they now had to deal with, actually patrolling the border no longer seemed to be of much importance. They had an immense refugee crisis to handle, but in reverse of what they were used to. Great multitudes of Americans, mostly Hispanic, were now fleeing south into Mexico, destabilizing the already fragile region and plunging the north of the country into anarchy and warlordism. The Patrol had no intention of keeping them in America; it simply needed to defend its own people from the refugee columns as they passed through and possibly skim some food and supplies off the emigrants along the way.
The next challenge the Border Patrol had to face was receiving an influx of refugees not just from Yuma and Phoenix (many of whom were southbound anyway), but of white Americans kicked out of Pinal County by the Public Safety Commission. Some of these white refugees were incorporated into Border Patrol regime, while others were redirected north to Prescott, many of whom died en route.
Previously belonging to the Arizona Emergency Government, the US Border Patrol swore allegiance to John Ingersoll in Midland as soon as they broke off from the shaky confederation. They still lament the loss of what they believed was the rightful US government and stubbornly recognize the Government of National Salvation in Tyler, Texas—an obscure US claimant that is almost universally scored as dictatorial, illegitimate, incompetent, and utterly incapable of uniting its own half of Texas, let alone the nation.
In reality, the Border Patrol is most closely affiliated with the Republic of Mexico in Hermosillo, Sonora. They still maintain the border checkpoint in Lukeville as they did before the War, and appreciate the Centralist republic as a stable, reliable partner in a chaotic region. The Border Patrol has voiced concerns about Hermosillo’s harsh treatment of American refugees, to which Hermosillo has responded by dumping more of them on the northern side of the border. The Border Patrol knows that Hermosillo is propping them up as a buffer state, but they’re at least happy to receive the support.
Tohono O’Odham Nation
Capital: Sells
Classification: Native American Faction (Indian reservation)
The Tohono O’Odham Nation is one of two Arizona native factions (the other being the Colorado River Indian Tribes) that does not belong to the United Indian Nations. They have wisely chosen to avoid fighting their neighbors, preferring to keep themselves isolated from the rest of the world.
Pinal County Public Safety Commission
Capital: Florence
Classification: Legitimist Warlord (Rogue law enforcement regime)
Pinal County came under the control of a body of law enforcement officers following the Great War: the Pinal County Public Safety Commission. Including officers from county and municipal police, the Commission evolved significantly under the pressures of the Starving Time. Facing a terrible situation in terms of food and refugees, the PCPSC resorted to draconian rationing and forced labor to keep people alive. Though members of the Arizona Emergency Government, Prescott did little to help them and only frustrated them with demands for men and food that they were in no position to ask for.
The largely Hispanic law enforcement body developed a ratcheting effect, where more Hispanics were let in and whites and Indians were shut out. Most of the whites were herded west where the US Border Patrol could take them in; the Indians were turned back entirely. The Commission broke with the AEG as soon as Gila County left and thereafter made the full transition into a legitimist dictatorship. Unlike Aztlan, Pinal is not an officially Hispanic state, and the remaining whites are still tolerated and enjoy some token leadership positions.
For all their faults, the Commission can at least say they did everything they could short of cannibalism to keep people alive, and maintained a semblance of law and order. They have kept themselves out of the worst of the Southwestern Race War, fending off the Indians, Legionaries, and cartels.
Gila County Temporary Emergency Executive
Capital: Globe
Classification: Legitimist Warlord (Rogue county regime)
While Yavapai County and the Air Force argued over intellectual pursuits of democracy and the legitimacy of different federal governments, Gila County was under siege. The cartels were pushing north, the Indians were up in arms, and food stocks were running dangerously low. The Prescott government continued to demand heavier contributions from Gila County, which stoked localist sentiments in the region.
The head of Gila County’s rationing board, already the real power in the county, launched a self-coup to solidify his power. The resulting Gila County Temporary Emergency Executive broke off from the Arizona Emergency Government and took matters into its own hands. All Indians were expelled from Gila County without notice and their property confiscated; Hispanics were allowed to remain, but most left due to harsh discrimination by the rationing board. Gila’s draconian system has only been sustained by an influx of white emigres from Pinal County and the United Indian Nations.
Children of the Bomb
Capital: Winona
Classification: Warlord (Raider gang)
No state is complete without at least one, good old-fashioned “classic” warlord. The Children of the Bomb provide just such a service to Arizona. Camping on the outskirts of the Flagstaff NEZ, this raider band semi-facetiously reveres the Great War as a reset for mankind, wiping the slate clean for only the strongest and fittest to endure. There were a lot more bands like this with similar philosophies during the Starving Time, when central authority was weaker and people were far more desperate and thus willing to follow an insane warlord into battle if it meant another meal. Now the Children of the Bomb are the last such faction left in the state. The only reason they’re still around at all is because they make a convenient buffer between the UIN and the ADRA.
United Indian Nations
Capital: Window Rock, or Tségháhoodzání
Classification: Native American Faction (American Indian nationalist state)
The United Indian Nations is sometimes called the White Man’s Scourge. It is the tragic outcome of a once promising project, the confederation of nearly forty different tribes across four states into one union, in order to protect the rights and sovereignty of the Native American people.
The UIN originated as the Confederation of Indigenous Nations, a coalition of rebellious Indian tribes dating back to the days of the Amarillo government. The Confederation arose thanks to charismatic leadership that appealed to both racial and localist principles, arguing that what little the native people had would be taken from them by government demands and a tidal wave of white refugees seeking a new homeland. The nativist militia defended Indian communities of different tribal affiliations from bandits and refugees alike, filling in where the tribal police weren’t present. By the time John Ingersoll became President, tribal leaders began to back the nativist militias wholeheartedly.
Skillful leadership and a good deal of luck helped bring together disparate Indian nations to form the Confederation; their most impressive achievement was reconciliation between the rival Navajo and Hopi nations, kicking the can of disputed land ownership down the road and bringing them to agree that the incoming whites were a more pressing threat. When the Arizona Emergency Government began to fracture, the Confederation was strong enough to go on the offensive, having reached a rough parity with the National Guard’s forces.
What the natives viewed as a resurgence of their people’s self-determination was not received so kindly outside their frontiers, or even within them. Many whites, both Hispanic and not, accused the Indians of committing genocide against their white minority. The Confederation, in turn, argued that the white and Hispanic powers were massacring and displacing Indians within their own territory. The truth is that neither side initially had any intentions or formal policy of displacing anyone, but both sides did manage rationing and resettlement with measured discrimination. Isolated massacres did break out along both sides of the CIN frontier on occasions—not as a matter of state policy, but as a result of hungry, desperate, scared, and ill-disciplined actors overstepping their boundaries.
Neither side proved willing to yield to the other on this issue, however, and both sides were instead galvanized by increasingly radical rhetoric. Hispanics organized around cartels and Hispanic-led law enforcement agencies; whites fell in with the radical George Washington Legion, and the Confederation began to fall apart at the seams. It was only salvaged by a new leader, a dictator who transformed the Confederation into the United Indian Nations: a racialist state that harbors a seething vengeance against the white man. Arizona and New Mexico have since been trapped in the death spiral of a true race war. The once 50% Native territory is now over eighty percent so, partly thanks to targeted massacres against undesirable demographics, but mostly due to white and Hispanic emigration. The remaining whites are mostly involved in some kind of dissent: either the George Washington Legion, the “Cowboys” (a local rebel militia alliance), or plain and simple banditry.
There is hope, however, that cooler heads can still prevail among the UIN and that peace can return to the Southwest. While the UIN claims dominion over the entire North American continent, some of the old guard suggest withdrawing from lands where Indians are in the minority. The Hopi are still wary of the UIN’s Navajo leadership and may find themselves leading the charge if the UIN is to see any internal change.
George Washington Legion
Capital: Truth or Consequences, New Mexico
Classification: Right-wing Ideological Faction (Far-right insurgent movement)
The George Washington Legion is the ghost story of the American Southwest. It is worse, in fact, because it is all too real to its victims. Most of its territory is within the borders of old New Mexico; the Legion was originally the New Mexico Citizens Constitutional Militia, after all. It has, however, expanded west into Arizona, mostly along I-10 and Highway 191.
The NMCCM was a tiny movement when the Great War began, but expanded rapidly throughout the power vacuum of the American Southwest. It appealed to many whites in the region by asserting that they alone could defend the white man from foreign invaders and the “Indian givers” of the CIN. Maybe they would have thought twice if they knew who they were signing up with, as the Legion is among the most bloodthirsty and despotic powers in the continent. Much like the CIN/UIN, the NMCCM didn’t originally intend to descend to the barbarity it now practices, but a series of unfortunate events led to things turning out that way. The UIN can rest somewhat safer for the time being, however, as the Legion’s attention is now focused mostly on their long, tumultuous frontier with Aztlan and the cartels.
Arizona Cartel
Capital: Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico
Classification: Warlord (Drug cartel)
During the Great 21st Century Crisis, some Americans anticipated the rise of vast cartel empires taking over the southern United States in the wake of some kind of societal collapse. That prediction wasn’t entirely off—there are lingering cartel elements in factions like the United States of Aztlan, and many home-grown American warlords subsist off of the drug trade—but a continent-spanning takeover by the Sinaloa Cartel failed to materialize. The unprecedented refugee crisis caused by the mass migrations into Mexico put as much strain on the cartels as it did the government, as new warlords emerged and disrupted the existing balance of power between criminal organizations and the Mexican government.
Semi-independent cells of the Sinaloa Cartel, cut off from national leadership, were left to fend for themselves in the lawless border regions around Arizona, New Mexico, and Sonora. These criminal cells soon turned on each other and strove for dominance over this chaotic, but profitable region. What remained of the Sinaloa Cartel was shattered when Centralist army of Mexico moved in and evicted them from their headquarters in Nogales. The survivors fled east and continued to fight until a new order emerged in the form of the Arizona Cartel.
While the early 21st century saw Mexican drug cartels transform from centralized family operations into a decentralized network of cell-based franchises, the lack of external state pressure has allowed for the criminal family model to return as the dominant form of drug cartel. Of course, even the drug trade isn’t what it used to be, and a remote desert cartel is limited in what it can deal in. The Arizona Cartel’s need to diversify its operations and expand outside of mere drug trafficking has resulted in its becoming a warlord faction much like any other. These days, extortion rackets, cattle rustling, and human trafficking are the Cartel’s bread and butter.
Cochise County Defenders
Capital: Tombstone
Classification: Legitimist Warlord (Rogue militia regime)
From the Apache Wars to its numerous Old West feuds and gang wars, Cochise County has a long history of violent conflict. The violence returned after the Great War in the wake of mass refugee migration, and the county seat of Bisbee fell under the control of Mexican drug cartels. Only Tombstone, famous for its Wild West shootouts, remained secure. Protecting the town was its militia, the Cochise County Defenders, modelled after the posse formed by legendary lawman Wyatt Earp in the 19th Century. Unlike other Arizonan factions that took a harsh stance against tourists, the Defenders took as many tourists under their wing as possible and had them take up arms in defense of the town they were now stranded in. It’s worked out well for Tombstone, which is a stable and secure island among a sea of chaos. Now that the George Washington Legion has moved in, however, whether or not Tombstone’s stability can endure remains to be seen.
Santa Cruz County
Capital: Nogales
Classification: Local Government (County client state)
Allegiance: Republic of Mexico
Being located on the border with the United States, Nogales was a violent city even before the war began, suffering from cartel activities like drug trafficking, human trafficking, and the assassination of public officials. After the bombs fell, the cartels had free reign to govern both sides of Nogales and many of the surrounding towns. A shaky coalition of Sinaloa Cartel, Sureños, and La eMe fighters ended up on top, ruling over the Nogales area as a patchwork of allied fiefdoms. The cartel alliance later took part in the Southwestern Race War as belligerents for the Hispanic side, brutally combatting whites and Indians that crossed their path.
This unhappy arrangement was broken up by the arrival of the centralist Republic of Mexico, who drove out the cartels and gangs and propped up a puppet government in Santa Cruz County to maintain order on their behalf. Now Santa Cruz protects the northern flank of the Mexican Centralists, allowing them to focus on their planned reconquest of Baja California. Santa Cruz also serves as a dumping-off point for the many American refugees that the Hermosillo Government is still deporting from their territory. The continued arrival of American deportees combined with the incoming refugees from the Southwestern Race War has left Santa Cruz County in a state of constant demographic flux, putting strain on the county’s limited infrastructure. If it wasn’t for the aid and “volunteers” provided by the Hermosillo Government, Santa Cruz probably would have fallen apart once again by now.
Index
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