I think the US might get more unified than it currently is, but no: I don’t think the former USA will entirely reunify, and certainly not in this “we’re gonna go back to having the same 50 states and the same political system” that the USA factions like to claim. USA-Midland already disbanded and joined Aztlan because the federal government moniker outlived its usefulness. The USA-Kahului is gone, replaced by a secessionist Hawaiian Republic.
In the distant future, these USA factions will have to reform into something else. They might still claim to be the USA on the side, but accept the reality of the situation. It’s like how a lot of post-Roman kings made some kind of attempt to claim they were the successor of the Roman Empire, in addition to their normal title as King of Whatever. Other factions already call the USA-Dodge City “the Dodge City Convention,” for instance. I could see some really snooty federal bureaucrat saying “okay, we recognize all these factions as Domestic Dependent Nations and give them full autonomy to run their affairs,” exploiting the Indian Treaties to save face while admitting they can’t govern the rest of the country.
It might not be total balkanization, and a lot of the little tiny factions will get mopped up by bigger ones, but America will reach some kind of equilibrium of regional factions that rule a part of the former USA. Some of the tiny factions might still survive; there are plenty of tiny countries that endured in real life and are doing quite well for themselves.
The Ozarks kind of like to tout themselves as a defender of small factions, like Austria and Russia did in the Napoleonic Wars; defending some small one-county regime in another state is a frequent casus belli for them to declare war on a rival power. The main narrative loop of a good deal of the novel involves the protagonists trying to round up the various small factions of Oklahoma to get them to join an Ozark-led alliance against the Road Warriors and their Aztlan patrons.
Seems like that ceasefire between Ozarks and ALEC is carrying a bit more weight than your average cessation-of-conflict agreement. With all the dysfunction in Louisiana, ALEC is probably glad to have an essentially ignorable border, and the Ozarks come across as less hungry-for-power/land/stuff than other factions. Between the Mississippi and the various NEZs surrounding, plus that ceasefire, the Ozarks can afford to shore up their borders (and maybe clear out those minor factions in southern MO).
One question I’m curious about - Blytheville is a NEZ. Is the 1991 BRAC a point of divergence that I’ve missed thus far, or is there something simpler there?
Also sometimes the research I did to make the map is just outdated. I nuked Blytheville for a deliberate reason, I wanted an NEZ in that part of the map, but sometimes stuff just slips through. Some of these NEZs are defunct power plants and military bases that made for potential targets in the 1980s, which is when the government was making lots of maps and running simulations about a potential nuclear war. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina is an example of a former target city that I had to take off and let survive because there’s nothing there worth nuking anymore.
But in general, it’s a very messy conflict, and there are some cities that survived that realistically shouldn’t have, and there are a few cities that got destroyed and didn’t deserve it. Nuclear submarines can follow up on some of the cities you failed to destroy at first, but they still can’t get all of them. And you definitely can’t un-nuke a city once it’s been hit!
That’s perfectly fine anyway. In the end, I think exercises like this are about coming up with enough plausibility for what the story demands, and doing it on Substack allows for essentially an open beta-read for the worldbuilding. A healthy dose of suspension-of-disbelief should cover any gaps as long as the story itself is immersive enough. But it’s fun to ask these questions. Thanks for being game to give answers!
Ozarks being less power hungry depends on who you ask; there are people in Missouri who’d beg to differ. They make good neighbors if you already like them, but they consider themselves the star that the Mississippi River factions orbit around. I haven’t worked this in just yet because it technically takes like a year for it to happen, but in the novel the Ozarks eventually create a Mississippi River trade bloc called MROS: Mississippi River Organization of States. Some of the factions that join include the MRATC and the Tennessee Patriotic Congress, and ALEC joins as an observer member. The main consequence is that they start a gunboat river war against Acadia, which draws a lot of state resources away from their ongoing project to build a sphere of influence in Oklahoma.
Several military bases that were closed IRL were re-opened during the period of rapid remilitarization that preceded the Great War. Blytheville was re-activated and became a target. KI Sawyer AFB in Michigan is another example.
I think it just gets enabled once you are big enough, but it doesnt retroactively apply to pyblished stuff. Idk prob gonna copy paste into a tts for drives cause i am interested
Yeah I feel bad about how long some of these articles turn out because nobody has time to read it all. But I don't want to leave a ton of stuff out, either. Some places just have too much going on, and I want to be able to tell an interesting story with these factions and countries.
Of course, I am super interested in it but yeah when I have time to read I usually reserve it for my paper books, substacks get put on for yardwork or drives, so its a bit of a bummer when I can't deep dive even though you've put out hrs of material
Do you see any faction as being able to 'reunify' the USA in the long term?
Permanent balkanization into states like the Ozarks and NAR seems like the more likely outcome to me.
I think the US might get more unified than it currently is, but no: I don’t think the former USA will entirely reunify, and certainly not in this “we’re gonna go back to having the same 50 states and the same political system” that the USA factions like to claim. USA-Midland already disbanded and joined Aztlan because the federal government moniker outlived its usefulness. The USA-Kahului is gone, replaced by a secessionist Hawaiian Republic.
In the distant future, these USA factions will have to reform into something else. They might still claim to be the USA on the side, but accept the reality of the situation. It’s like how a lot of post-Roman kings made some kind of attempt to claim they were the successor of the Roman Empire, in addition to their normal title as King of Whatever. Other factions already call the USA-Dodge City “the Dodge City Convention,” for instance. I could see some really snooty federal bureaucrat saying “okay, we recognize all these factions as Domestic Dependent Nations and give them full autonomy to run their affairs,” exploiting the Indian Treaties to save face while admitting they can’t govern the rest of the country.
It might not be total balkanization, and a lot of the little tiny factions will get mopped up by bigger ones, but America will reach some kind of equilibrium of regional factions that rule a part of the former USA. Some of the tiny factions might still survive; there are plenty of tiny countries that endured in real life and are doing quite well for themselves.
The Ozarks kind of like to tout themselves as a defender of small factions, like Austria and Russia did in the Napoleonic Wars; defending some small one-county regime in another state is a frequent casus belli for them to declare war on a rival power. The main narrative loop of a good deal of the novel involves the protagonists trying to round up the various small factions of Oklahoma to get them to join an Ozark-led alliance against the Road Warriors and their Aztlan patrons.
Seems like that ceasefire between Ozarks and ALEC is carrying a bit more weight than your average cessation-of-conflict agreement. With all the dysfunction in Louisiana, ALEC is probably glad to have an essentially ignorable border, and the Ozarks come across as less hungry-for-power/land/stuff than other factions. Between the Mississippi and the various NEZs surrounding, plus that ceasefire, the Ozarks can afford to shore up their borders (and maybe clear out those minor factions in southern MO).
One question I’m curious about - Blytheville is a NEZ. Is the 1991 BRAC a point of divergence that I’ve missed thus far, or is there something simpler there?
Also sometimes the research I did to make the map is just outdated. I nuked Blytheville for a deliberate reason, I wanted an NEZ in that part of the map, but sometimes stuff just slips through. Some of these NEZs are defunct power plants and military bases that made for potential targets in the 1980s, which is when the government was making lots of maps and running simulations about a potential nuclear war. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina is an example of a former target city that I had to take off and let survive because there’s nothing there worth nuking anymore.
But in general, it’s a very messy conflict, and there are some cities that survived that realistically shouldn’t have, and there are a few cities that got destroyed and didn’t deserve it. Nuclear submarines can follow up on some of the cities you failed to destroy at first, but they still can’t get all of them. And you definitely can’t un-nuke a city once it’s been hit!
That’s perfectly fine anyway. In the end, I think exercises like this are about coming up with enough plausibility for what the story demands, and doing it on Substack allows for essentially an open beta-read for the worldbuilding. A healthy dose of suspension-of-disbelief should cover any gaps as long as the story itself is immersive enough. But it’s fun to ask these questions. Thanks for being game to give answers!
You're welcome, and thanks for asking them. I enjoy being able to answer questions and flesh out the lore of this setting.
Ozarks being less power hungry depends on who you ask; there are people in Missouri who’d beg to differ. They make good neighbors if you already like them, but they consider themselves the star that the Mississippi River factions orbit around. I haven’t worked this in just yet because it technically takes like a year for it to happen, but in the novel the Ozarks eventually create a Mississippi River trade bloc called MROS: Mississippi River Organization of States. Some of the factions that join include the MRATC and the Tennessee Patriotic Congress, and ALEC joins as an observer member. The main consequence is that they start a gunboat river war against Acadia, which draws a lot of state resources away from their ongoing project to build a sphere of influence in Oklahoma.
Several military bases that were closed IRL were re-opened during the period of rapid remilitarization that preceded the Great War. Blytheville was re-activated and became a target. KI Sawyer AFB in Michigan is another example.
I wish this series had tts cause i'd love to listen to these on long drives
I have no clue how to enable TTS
I think it just gets enabled once you are big enough, but it doesnt retroactively apply to pyblished stuff. Idk prob gonna copy paste into a tts for drives cause i am interested
Yeah I feel bad about how long some of these articles turn out because nobody has time to read it all. But I don't want to leave a ton of stuff out, either. Some places just have too much going on, and I want to be able to tell an interesting story with these factions and countries.
Of course, I am super interested in it but yeah when I have time to read I usually reserve it for my paper books, substacks get put on for yardwork or drives, so its a bit of a bummer when I can't deep dive even though you've put out hrs of material
What the hell did I just stumble upon? Pretty cool.
Just found out there's a liberian named butt naked LMFAO