The Fallen Continent: Minnesota

The seat of America's most austere military government, locked in the mortal struggle of the Red-White War.

Oct 16, 2024

Population: 550,000
Largest City: St. Cloud

Thy sons and daughters true
Will proclaim Thee near and far.
They shall guard Thy fame and adore Thy name;
Thou shalt be their Northern Star!

Introduction

Though thirty years have passed, Minnesota has not yet made it out of the crisis that’s gripped the Upper Midwest since the Starving Time. Having received the worst of America’s nuclear winter, the shaky St. Cloud government has lived under three governments, from the provisional state, to a short-lived US federal government, to the military dictatorship that now sits there. Preoccupied with matters to the south and east, they’ve paid little attention to the north of the state, where warlord regimes and rebel armies have emerged to rule in their absence. This delicate balance of power has reached a tipping point thanks to the war between the militaristic PAAG and the socialist ASFR in Wisconsin, and the winner will leave behind a very different region than the one in which it emerged.

The St. Cloud Government and the Cold Summer Mutiny

The land of ten thousand lakes lost the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul during the Great War, as well as Duluth, Moorhead, and several military bases. The provisional capital of Rochester was later lost in a secondary strike. Minnesota endured, however, as a bastion of federal authority thanks to the survival of Congresswoman Martha Hunding. The cities of St. Cloud and Mankato served as prominent rendezvous points for surviving state, federal, and military authorities. Throughout the early years of the post-nuclear age, the Minnesota rump government recognized the federal governments in Twin Falls and Amarillo, and then Ingersoll’s government before switching to Walla Walla and, finally, Bozeman. By the time they came around to Bozeman, however, the Starving Time had set in and St. Cloud had more immediately pressing problems than far-off federal claimants vying for power.

When the incompetence of the St. Cloud state government became clear, two rival authorities stepped in to govern on their behalf: Martha Hunding’s federal remnants, and Adjutant–General Blake Carlton’s military remnants from the National Guard and Army Reserve. Localism became a popular sentiment for local authorities throughout the state, while the State Highway Patrol under Superintendent Emerick Rogers emerged as a rival faction in its own right. Everyone resented having to share their (incompetently managed) rations with anyone else, while morale reached an all-time low within the ranks of St. Cloud’s various military and law enforcement formations.

The tipping point came during the Cold Summer which followed the longest and coldest winter in American history, when snow black with soot piled up throughout the state year-round. When St. Cloud ordered the requisition of food stockpiles in Mankato—a stronghold of Highway Patrol authority—riots broke out throughout southern Minnesota. Rather than crush the rioters, the Highway Patrol mutinied and joined their ranks, sparking a Minnesotan civil war.

Congresswoman Hunding responded by launching a coup against the ineffective state government (the move was more of a self-coup, as she was already running the show by that point) and proclaimed her own United States government. It had been months since anyone had gotten word from Bozeman; nobody ever considered what Montana had to say about the affair. Hunding justified her claim by arguing that she was at least a democratically elected official with more legitimacy than Deacon, Ingersoll, or Brannigan, among other claimants. In order to achieve her coup, however, Hunding made considerable concessions to the National Guard, who initially responded with a mutiny of their own. The most important concessions were increased rations for the military and a power-sharing agreement with General Carlton.

After months of bloody fighting, Mankato was captured by St. Cloud forces: National Guardsmen who were loyal not to Hunding but to Carlton. The Highway Patrol was beaten, but not eliminated, and retreated to Winona on the Mississippi River to lick its wounds. A ceasefire was signed as the Starving Time came to a close, as the USA-St. Cloud lacked the resources for a protracted siege, and the shifting frontline had dangerously overextended their supply lines. They allowed Rogers’ police regime to survive, but only as a greatly-reduced rump state that would not be able to threaten St. Cloud again.

Despite chilly relations between the St. Cloud government and its military, things were steadily progressing across Minnesota towards reconstruction and reunification. Temperatures were rising and agriculture finally returned to the frosty state. Morale was increasing and civil unrest simmering down; it was only a matter of time until Hunding could take an outward focus on restoring control to the warlord-stricken north and even beyond. Then the neighboring United States of America in Green Bay, Wisconsin was overthrown in a communist revolution.

Blake Carlton, by then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, urged an immediate intervention in Wisconsin to contain the threat. Only after the right-wing militia regime in Wausau, Wisconsin was destroyed did Hunding respond by sending token forces to bolster the anti-revolutionary National Guard holdouts in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. After Eau Claire fell, the military lost all faith in Hunding’s will or ability to stop the communists. Carlton staged a coup against Hunding and installed himself as the Supreme Leader of the Provisional All–American Government.

Provisional All-American Government

Capital: St. Cloud
Classification: Military Faction (Military dictatorship)

North Minnesota Military District
Capital: St. Cloud
Classification: Military Faction (Military administration)
Allegiance: Provisional All-American Government

South Minnesota Military District
Capital: Mankato
Classification: Military Faction (Military administration)
Allegiance: Provisional All-American Government

The Provisional All-American Government is different from most other military governments in America, in that it has elevated military rule from something temporarily necessary into a state ideology. Blake Carlton rose to power with the support of discontented soldiers and reservists who found comfort in their camaraderie and blamed Martha Hunding for trying to resurrect the same corrupt system that led to the Great War in the first place. The failure of the USA-St. Cloud, combined with the violent excess of the Green Bay revolution, stoked the flames of militarism in Minnesota and convinced many that a military dictatorship was the best remaining solution.

PAAG ideology, though rough around the edges and poorly-defined, includes fervent pan-American nationalism and a firm desire to reunite the country through military force. It is fiercely opposed to separatism, ethnic particularism, feminism, and leftism in any and all forms. It is often called the “White Movement” in reference to its opposition to the red communists of Wisconsin. The White Movement is pro-Christian, but officially secular; a disproportionate number of its leading members are Missouri-Synod Lutherans. The Whites have also been charged with antisemitism; while high command never instructs or endorses it, they’ve never denounced the anti-Semitic actions of lower-level commanders. Central to the White Movement is the celebration of the masculine ideal of cold, bitter men hardened by nuclear winter and years of warfare. To this end, “Cold Summer” has become a byword in Minnesota for toughness, hardness, and stoicism.

The Red-White War

Shortly after seizing power, Supreme Leader Carlton rapidly mobilized Minnesota’s forces for a total war against the communists. In order to streamline the military administration in a state that was nearly bifurcated by a large NEZ, he also split Minnesota into two military districts, the North Minnesota Military District and the South Minnesota Military District. The new military government transitioned into a fully-mobilized military economy, seizing control of all agriculture and heavy industry. Following a brief period of rearmament, he led a full-scale invasion of Wisconsin, quickly capturing Eau Claire.

Carlton, already an old man by this point, passed away soon after the start of the invasion. He carefully chose a young officer, the fanatic and devoted Earl Sommers (a JROTC recruit in high school on the eve of the Great War), to carry on his crusade against communism after his death. Sommers, who had first won his fame in the war against the Minnesota Highway Patrol, was well–respected by the military; Carlton made it clear enough that he wanted Sommers to succeed him, so the transition of power following his death was peaceful and undisputed.

Supreme Leader Sommers initially strove to campaign along I-94 and Highway 29 straight to Green Bay, but was blocked by stubborn Red Army resistance. Instead of facing the meat grinder, he focused on creating a wide northern front that could envelop the communists by linking up with sympathetic factions in northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula. He took a more passive, defensive approach in the south, initially sacrificing the Highway Patrol regime in Winona as a buffer to buy him time in the north.

The offensive began as planned, and White Army forces successfully reached the Upper Peninsula and incorporated local elements into their army. Sommers neglected to consider how greatly this overextended his forces, however; just as the White Army was ready to advance south on Green Bay, the communists launched a surprise counteroffensive. Eau Claire fell once again in a catastrophic defeat, leaving much of Sommers’ army trapped in Wisconsin and Upper Michigan.

Now, Sommers is marshalling all his strength for one last desperate offensive, with the aim of striking through the Minneapolis wasteland to hit the communists in the rear and relieve his northern armies. It’s a huge gamble, but it’s the only hope Sommers has left for victory. His offensive will either save the Upper Midwest, or doom it to years of chaos and anarchy until it can be subjugated by the Red Army.

Constitutional Protection Authority

Capital: Bemidji
Classification: Legitimist Warlord (Oligarchic republic)

The Constitutional Protection Authority (Capital: Bemidji) has long been a thorn in the side of the PAAG. Northern Minnesota was originally under the loose control of Army Reserve and law enforcement units who recruited and trained civilians to bring themselves up to strength. If southern Minnesota received ill treatment from St. Cloud, then northern Minnesota received only neglect. Though few nuclear weapons struck this region, most of the population fled anyway to escape the pangs of starvation and extreme cold. Those who remained had little love for St. Cloud.

The overstretched patchwork of military formations and local governments could not withstand the pressures of the Starving Time. As they fell, the region came under the neo-feudal rule of Ralph Sloan, a legitimist warlord who pledged nominal fealty to St. Cloud. As St. Cloud really didn’t care about the north, they tolerated Sloan’s regime in exchange for a meager tribute in raw materials, mostly wood and minerals.

When Hunding launched her self-coup on St. Cloud and became President, Sloan’s Constitutional Protection Authority broke all ties with the regime and transitioned into a fully independent neo-feudal state. Open warfare seldom occurred between the CPA and USA-St. Cloud, but this didn’t stop the Bemidji warlord from using the pretense of a St. Cloud invasion as a justification for his rule.

By the time Blake Carlton established the PAAG, Sloan was murdered by one of the women in his own dictatorial harem. With the loss of their dictator and the main force holding their association together, the CPA transitioned into an alliance of oligarchs bound together by common interest. Democratic elements have returned to the CPA political scene and there are talks of changing the regime’s name to something less warlord-sounding, like the State of North Star.

Unlike most neo-feudal regimes, which fall apart after the death of their leader, the CPA has fared relatively well and is now a functioning oligarchic state. They’ve even captured the city of Brainerd at the expense of the ailing PAAG, giving them a potential shot at capturing St. Cloud itself. One can’t help but wonder, however, how much time they have left. The communists have ambitions to conquer the entire state and more, while the PAAG will certainly strike back if they ever get the chance to do so.

White Earth Band of Chippewa

Capital: Mahnomen
Classification: Native American Faction (Indian reservation)

The White Earth Band of Chippewa is one of Minnesota’s four native American factions. Like the Red Lake Band further north, they are an Ojibwe Indian nation that was previously a neo-feudal vassal of the Constitutional Protection Authority under Ralph Sloan’s rule. After Sloan’s death, both nations broke free. The White Earth Band has since made rapprochement with the CPA and is now allied with them against the PAAG.

Native Mob

Capital: Halstad
Classification: Native American Faction (Native American warlord gang)

The Native Mob is a prewar organized crime group originating in late 20th Century Minneapolis. At its height, the notoriously violent street gang controlled much of the drug trade in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas. Being a mostly urban organization, the Native Mob largely perished in the Great War. The new Native Mob in its current configuration began with a handful of Ojibwe gangsters from the Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota, who recruited a new following of discontented Indians living under the neo-feudal CPA. Rather than submit to the Bemidji dictator or seek haven among the other Minnesota tribes, they took the warlord path and fought their way to the Red River of the North

They now rule over the small and isolated town of Halstad, on the North Dakota border. The town’s almost entirely-white population was subjugated by the conquering band; some were slain, some were captured and enslaved, but most were simply driven out into the desolate Badlands, where they had to fall in with other gangs or perish. To fill the vacancies in Halstad, the Native Mob called on Indians from across Minnesota and the Dakotas to join their settlement. Most of those who answered the call were misfits, criminals, and outcasts who were expelled from the reservations. Halstad, though small, remains a notable center for the drug trade in the region and is a gateway town for traders coming to and from the Badlands.

Red Lake Band of Chippewa

Capital: Red Lake
Classification: Native American Faction (Indian reservation)

The Red Lake Band of Chippewa is the second Ojibwe faction that previously belonged to the CPA before Ralph Sloan’s death. Unlike the White Earth Band to the south, the Red Lake Chippewa remain wary of the CPA and have not renewed ties with them. They frequently find themselves at odds with the various warlord factions to the north and stage raids against each other.

The Hangmen

Capital: Hallock
Classification: Warlord (Semi-nomadic vigilante gang)

The Hangmen are another gang that has been cast to the very fringes of the Badlands, wintering in Hallock. They like to think of themselves not so much as warlords, but as travelling vigilantes who clean up the towns they pass through. The people of Hallock don’t quite see it that way, but they can’t do anything about it right now.

Metal Men

Capital: Roseau
Classification: Warlord (Local warlord gang)

The Metal Men sit at the very edge of what can potentially be called the Badlands. As their name implies, they are renowned for their metal suits of armor that protect them from light small arms fire. Their leader was inspired by old stories of Ned Kelly, the heroic Australian outlaw, and wishes to emulate his exploits. Though the Metal Men can be raucous and brutish, they are actually very well-behaved for Badlands standards and are usually well-received by the towns they pass through, thanks to their reputation for defending innocents against the Badlands’ worst injustices.

New Manitoba

Capital: Warroad
Classification: Warlord (Canadian settler warlord)

New Manitoba is, as one would assume, a statelet carved out by a Canadian warlord. While most Canadian gangs and warlords are the weakest runts who were kicked out of Canada and sent scurrying south with their tails between their legs, New Manitoba’s leader really believes that America is a land ripe for conquest. As far as small-time, pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps warlords go, New Manitoba is an impressive accomplishment.

Northwest Angle

Capital: Angle Inlet
Classification: Local Government (Frontier settlement)

The Northwest Angle is a small border irregularity from prewar times, a piece of Minnesota isolated from the rest of the state by the Canadian border and the Lake of the Woods. The Angle couldn’t count on any help from the government, and had to hunker down and survive the Starving Time on its own. Local inhabitants, joined by previous residents of the southern end of Lake of the Woods County who were displaced by the Canadian invasion, chartered the growing settlement as city, making it the seat of its own new county.

Since the inception of the “Northwest Angle County,” Angle Inlet has received a slow yet steady influx of misfits and outcasts fleeing Canada and the rest of Minnesota. It’s since been built up as a rough-and-tumble place for people who have nowhere else to go, yet still maintains a functioning local democracy.

International Zone

Capital: International Falls, Minnesota & Fort Frances, Ontario
Classification: Warlord (Warlord bartertown)

The International Zone is a dual-city state consisting of International Falls, Minnesota and Fort Frances, Ontario. The cities were initially administered by the border protection agencies of the United States and Canada, respectively, until the US Border Patrol regime was overthrown by a popular revolution during the Starving Time. The populist demagogue behind the uprising armed his followers with Border Patrol gear and staged a successful invasion of Fort Frances. Upon conquering the northern settlement, he merged the two towns into one and declared his new city-state to be an international zone free from US or Canadian control.

International Falls’ enterprising warlord likes to advertise the Zone as a place for business and traffic of all kinds. The Zone has popped up as a hub for smuggling and trafficking of all kinds of illicit goods, including weapons, ammunition, fuel, alcohol, fenced items, and human beings. They are despised by the socialist MPRA, who cites them as an example of “capitalist decadence and disdain for humanity.” The Zone knows that the Reds are mounting a punitive expedition against them, and is calling on all the mercenaries and outlaws it can find to defend the twin cities in the impending struggle.

Men of the Thick Woods

Capital: Nett Lake
Classification: Native American Faction (Indian reservation)

The Men of the Thick Woods are the third Ojibwe Indian band in Minnesota. After the Miccosukee and Seminole Indians of Florida, they are the easternmost Indian faction in the United States. They were never a part of the CPA, and have tried to survive by sheer isolationism. While the CPA pays some consideration to the other two Chippewa tribes, they do not pay any heed towards the Men of the Thick Woods, who are remote and hard to reach.

The rise of the MPRA has disrupted the Men’s hitherto tranquil, albeit rugged existence with calls for them to issue a charter of worker’s rights and accept the movement of socialist troops through their territory. The Men of the Thick Woods are loth to accept these one-sided terms, but isn’t in much of a position to fight back against them, either.

Minnesota People’s Revolutionary Army

Capital: Hibbing
Classification: Left-Wing Ideological Faction (Militant labor union)
Allegiance: American Socialist Federative Republic

The Minnesota People’s Revolutionary Army is led by the United Mine Workers of America labor union, which remained a very strong institution in a region economically dominated by iron mining even after the Great War (though a part of the AFL–CIO, the UMWA are unaffiliated with the labor union factions that govern certain Promethean Energy towns in the badlands). A union strongman used the organization as his vehicle to power following the War, recruiting followers with leftist rhetoric and taking control over the sparse, lawless north of Minnesota. Economic activity is heavily regulated by the union, which also administers towns and provides defense.

The UMWA organized the MPRA following the Green Bay Revolution and swears allegiance to the ASFR in Wisconsin. Their contributions to the war are limited; their main enemies are the pagans of New Vinland and the neo-feudal constituents of the CPA, not the PAAG. Still, in recent months, their proximity to the Red Army salient along I-35 has allowed them to send men and materiel to the front.

New Vinland

Capital: Grand Marais
Classification: Religious Faction (Neo-pagan theocracy)

New Vinland is one of the most alien and intriguing places in America. After the destruction of Duluth, Minnesota’s Lake Superior coast became lawless and anarchic. Sigurd Loken (birth name: Christian Loken) was a Norwegian-American refugee from Duluth who ended up in the lakeshore town of Two Harbors. Where the Texan mystic Martin Haggman found his answer to the questions of the Starving Time in Neo-Satanism, Loken found his in neo-paganism.

The Great War, he argued, was Götterdämmerung, or Ragnarök: the end times of Germanic pagan belief. This catastrophe happened because mankind had abandoned the Old Gods in favor of weak, effeminate, and sinister Christianity, which weakened the gods such that they could no longer stem the tide of the apocalypse. Mankind’s only salvation, Loken continued, was Thor, who sacrificed himself to save a portion of humankind, and was miraculously resurrected to become the new King of the Gods in Valhalla. The other gods have since been reborn and have taken back their place in the Germanic pantheon, save for Odin, who has forever passed away into whatever fate awaits the gods forever.

High Priest Sigurd recruited a cultish following of disaffected refugees and wayward warriors, as well as genuine neopagans, forging them into a powerful and formidable force: the Great Heathen Army. Their drive and ferocity empowered them to overthrow Two Harbors’ tyrannical legitimist leader and carve out an empire along the western coast of Lake Superior. After defeating the coast’s strongest power, Cook County, Loken established his realm of New Vinland and moved his capital to Grand Marais.

Loken is now a very old man, incapacitated by age and stowed away in his room, leaving his subordinates to rule his domain for him. His generals lead the Great Heathen Army in his stead, which harassess northern Minnesota and the coasts of Lake Superior alike with brutal precision raids along all the arteries of trade and industry. As much of Loken’s ideology is stooped in fascistic rhetoric and the anti-semitism it entails, the Great Heathen Army is a bitter opponent of the MPRA and the ASFR, though it lacks the brute logistical strength for a conventional war.

Although Loken is the master of the second-largest neopagan movement in America (the largest being the Old Believers Association of the Northwest American Republic), he’s an incredibly controversial figure within the wider neopagan world due to accusations of Christian syncretism and universalism. Nevertheless, New Vinland Heathenry is the most centralized and organized pagan movement in America today.

Minnesota Autonomous Socialist Republic

Capital: Winona
Classification: Left-Wing Ideological Faction (Socialist military governate)
Allegiance: American Socialist Federative Republic

Advancing up the Mississippi River and capturing the strategic junction of Moose Lake, the American Socialist Federative Republic threatens the heart of Supreme Leader Sommers’ reactionary regime. When Blanchard’s communist regime in Louisiana waged war against its neighbors, it did so out of a need to cull the population and cow those who survived into subservience. Things have occurred differently for the ASFR, who was at first fighting a defensive war against the PAAG. This put the population behind Chairman Dillard’s back in a more genuine and enthusiastic manner than some other leftist factions (which is not to say that the ASFR is free from any Red Terror), and now they are pushing back against the PAAG in what they believe is a war of liberation against Sommers’ reactionary, quasi-fascist government.

Located within the southern portion of the ASFR’s Minnesota territory is the Minnesota Autonomous Socialist Republic. Like the Iowa ASR, the MASR is little more than a name on a map for as long as the Red Army occupies and administers the territory. This territory previously belonged to Emerick Rogers’ rump Highway Patrol regime, which was thoroughly crushed by the arrival of the Red Army. A handful of troopers have joined the Reds, while others have swallowed their pride and sided with the Whites; most simply perished or melted into the countryside, leaving their past affiliations forgotten.

Index

Click here to read the master post of the series, with links at the bottom of the page to all other Fallen Continent entries.

Previous Article: Iowa
Next Article: Weapons and Vehicles

Writings by Wolliver

Discussion about this post