The United States

Population: 219 million (Search +3)

Environment

Terrain: Varied, mostly urban.
Appearance: Normal
Hygiene: +1

Culture And Economy

Language: English, Spanish, Arabic
Literacy: Native
TL: 9
Wealth: Average
Status: -2 to 8

Political Environment

Government: Representative Democracy
CR: 3 (Corruption -1)
Military Resources: $131 Billion
Defense Bonus: +4

History

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The Collapse did what no invader had ever been able to do – it humbled the mighty USA. Over-burdened by debt and politically locked in to continuing a half trillion dollars a year on a huge military machine, it’s economy went into freefall. Criminality and the abuses of proliferating armed militant splinter groups of all flavors spiralled upwards quickly, and that military saw use in keeping the populace in line – Posse Commitatus be damned. At the same time, climate change and other fall-out from the runaway consumption of the last century were making it’s bread basket an untenable and arid wasteland, its cities almost-unliveable sprawling slums.

When Northern California (NORCAL) and Texas seceeded from the Union in 2018, the U.S. government was already too split, too broke and too busy to mount a military mission to reclaim them – although by then, not that many of the soldiers would have obeyed any such order in any case. When Southern California (SOCAL) and Alaska followed the following year, the final nails were driven into the coffin of the old United States. By 2027, a bare decade later, the newly fomed states of Cascade and Deseret would follow and the Washington D.C. government would find it’s hold in the great Midwest slipping fast as the land was abandoned to duststorms.

While the U.S. is left the most powerful political unit on the continent, and still the most militarily powerful in the world, it now occupies roughly half of what it once did – the Eastern half, with a bunch of new Free States and Free Cities, along with the unclaimed and ungovernable Badlands, occupying what remains of the Western U.S.

Today

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Today the United States of America has as its eastern border a line from the Canadian border in Minnesota to the Gulf where the state of Louisiana and the Republic of Texas meet. The remaining thirty-one states have become historical anachronisms, their powers to legislate separately or to seceed swept away by the PATRIOT IV Act in 2037.

About the only thing the old state boundaries are still used for is electing members to the US Congress and to the Electoral College. Even the old state legislatures have been disbanded and their powers handed to megacity and city-sector councils roughly comparable to the old cities which combined make up the great conurbations. Thus Atlanta Sector or Detroit Sector remain governmental divisions with some meaning, while ‘Georgia" doesn’t.

The nation has a population of close to 220 million, most concentrated in the two massive megacities – Chi-Pitts and the Sprawl, with populations of around 80 million each – which to all intents and purposes have usurped the governmental functions of individual states. Demographically, it is around 47% non-hispanic white, 29% hispanic white, 13% black and 9% asian. The predominant religions are Catholic Christianity and Reformed Islam, about a quarter of the populace each, with various Protestant Christian groups, non-standard religions and non-believers making up the rest.

Politically, the U.S. is still nominally a representative democracy which pays lip service to individual liberties and due process. However, since the PATRIOT IV Act was passed, precipitating the multi-party insurrectionist movement and attendant terrosim known as the “Militia Wars”, further legislation and presidentail orders have severely curtailled democratic expression. The current party in power, the centrist-right Unity Party formed from the merger of the old Democratic Party’s right with the mainstream Republican Party in the immdediate post-Collapse years, has now controlled both Houses and the White House for the last two terms and looks set to gain all three in the next elections too. Their main opposition are the Technocrats, a new party of the centrist-left formed in 2024, which appeals mainly to scientists, engineers and advocates of a strict meritocracy. There are also lesser parties, including the democratic-socialist Populist Party formed from the old Democrat left and the rump Republican party of social and religious conservatives.

Locations

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Chi-Pits
The Sprawl