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AMERICAN WARLORDS : STORY OF THE SURVIVORS
In the year 2045, almost 100 years to the date since Hiroshima, the seeds of destruction that had been planted in that moment finally bloomed.
It was a clear early-spring night when the sirens went off. International tensions had been rising for decades as nation-states collapsed under the compounding strains of economic, ecological, governmental and social failure. Still, when the first missiles arced across the Pacific, across Europe, and over the Arctic, it seemed to catch everyone by surprise: panic reigned, vast cities and important hubs of science and industry went up in smoke, and governments lost control within days as their citizens revolted and defected, taking matters of survival into their own hands. At the end of it all, only the quick and the dead were left behind.
It is now 2074, twenty-nine years since the war began. In North America, the radiation and climatic shifts caused by World War 3 finally are beginning to abate. However, the United States is not there to declare victory or defeat: wildly unpopular for starting the nuclear war, the old federal government is reduced to holding a few small rump states in Alaska, Buffalo, and the Florida panhandle. Instead, stepping into the space left behind by the shattered USA are new players: communities and proto-nations rising from the ashes of nuclear war like new shoots after a forest fire.
You are one of the people caught in the midst of this new world, fighting to survive. You find yourself surrounded by others, familiar yet alien, all vying for dominance over the ruins of the murdered world. Dangers and opportunities abound, as rich resources and incredible technologies ripe for exploitation rest among hordes of marauding Shooters, disasters man made and natural, and the ravages of a new and strange ecosystem of mutants.
How will you move forward, survivor? Will you shape the world with violence or with peace, with your ideals or with harsh pragmatism? Will you embrace or reject the legacies of the past? Will you continue to survive?
Only you can tell this story. Now begins the next chapter of history: the American Warlords Era.
Welcome to American Warlords - a grand-scale, Fallout-esque, post-apocalyptic roleplay and group story project! This RP is run by yours truly, and is always open. Feel free to check us out and join if you want!
NAME: (Include any titles or aliases.)
SPECIES: (Human, Post-Human, Mutant, Android, Robot, AI, or Animal are options.)
AGE: (For reference, the apocalypse began 29 years ago, so whether your character is younger or older than that will impact them.)
WEIGHT & HEIGHT: (Just what it says—it's important for combat considerations.)
GENDER: (If applicable.)
APPEARANCE: (Description or spoilered picture will be fine.)
ABILITIES & SKILLS: (What is your character good at? Can be as broad or specific as you want. If you are anything other than a basic model human, please include any special abilities. Everything is subject to approval.)
ALLEGIANCES: (If applicable—are you a part of a faction or creed that's worth noting? Please describe.)
BIOGRAPHY: (A brief summary of how your character got to where they were upon your first post.)
SPECIES: (Human, Post-Human, Mutant, Android, Robot, AI, or Animal are options.)
AGE: (For reference, the apocalypse began 29 years ago, so whether your character is younger or older than that will impact them.)
WEIGHT & HEIGHT: (Just what it says—it's important for combat considerations.)
GENDER: (If applicable.)
APPEARANCE: (Description or spoilered picture will be fine.)
ABILITIES & SKILLS: (What is your character good at? Can be as broad or specific as you want. If you are anything other than a basic model human, please include any special abilities. Everything is subject to approval.)
ALLEGIANCES: (If applicable—are you a part of a faction or creed that's worth noting? Please describe.)
BIOGRAPHY: (A brief summary of how your character got to where they were upon your first post.)
TECHNOLOGY
The intervening twenty-two years between the present day and the start of World War III saw a wide variety of new technologies released. Unfortunately, with only a few exceptions, most of these technologies were military in nature, only compounding the issues of violence and warfare that plagued both pre-war and post-war America. Necessity is the mother of invention, and the numerous civil and foreign conflicts that broke out worldwide as things began to spin out of control forced the best and brightest globally to work in developing weapons systems in a desperate attempt to assist the powers that be in restoring peace and order. Obviously, their efforts failed, but as their creations are now scattered across the ruins of the civilization they worked in vain to preserve, now you get to reap the benefits. Below, in alphabetical order, are some notable developments:
Artificial Intelligence - A technological craze that began in the mid-2020s and continued right up until the missiles were launched, artificial intelligence became ubiquitous in both civilian and military applications. In the ruins of even modest pre-war homes, at least one or two appliances or devices with a helpful general-purpose AI guide could be found, and organizations of all stripes found it useful to have access to a quick-thinking, analytical personality to handle difficult or tedious issues. While much better than today's primitive AI, the artificial intelligences of 2045 are still imperfect, and thanks to electromagnetic pulse damage, frequent cyberattacks, and the ravages of years of chaos and neglect, they've become even less perfect where they even work at all. Still, if you can find a functional device with an onboard AI, anyone with even mild computer skills can get some use out of having it around, especially when attached to a robotic or VR interface.
Better Body Armor And Beyond - In the lead-up to WW3, many conflicts broke out, facilitating a heavy government and consumer demand for better ways of protecting yourself from being injured or killed in an increasingly violent and unpredictable world. One of the many results of this drive was the proliferation of new and improved personal body armor: cheap, durable, and relatively reliable means to protect yourself in the event of a gunfight or other disaster. These range from your typical basic plate-carriers and helmets with material improvements that allow them to withstand more damage, to heavy-duty EOD wear capable of dealing with large explosions at point-blank range, to teched-out full body suits with integrated sensors, medical equipment, AI and robotics, to even bulletproof fashion items as wearing armor became more socially acceptable. Plenty of these armor groups also have a hazmat component, with gas masks, rebreathers, or other protective measures included against chemical, biological, or radioactive threats. Vehicles were impacted by this as well, developing along similar lines: however, only those with some means could afford a properly reinforced vehicle. Regardless, all of these protective measures are out there in stores and on corpses, ready to be donned if needed.
Chemical Weapons - The breakdown of societal order meant that the old moral restraints on using gas and other chemical weapons became eroded until such an attitude was a quaint memory, held only by the old and the naive. Weapons manufacturers began to release a wide range of novel chemical weapons in gasses and powders and liquids, ranging from relatively innocuous chemicals that cause the onset of gentle sleep or painless eye-watering, to horrifying paralytics, neurotoxins, and flesh-melting acids, to agents with bizarre effects like mutagens, hallucinogens, anti-electronic damage, disorienting drugs, even pheromones meant to adjust moods. Fortunately, most of these weapons are limited in their effective zones and are easily defeated with water, wind, chemical antidotes, or the proper hazmat precautions. Still, they represent a harsh threat to the unwary survivor.
Direct Energy Weaponry - Problems with manufacturing heavy ammunition in the early 2030s, as well as a desire for novel lethal and less-than-lethal weapons that could work on both humans and robots, caused a large burst of interest and investment into the applications of laser weapons on vehicles and personal systems. Prior to the war, such direct energy weapons (called "DEWies" in slang) had become not uncommon, used by the military, police, and corporations to control crowds and disable hostile electronics by frying their critical sensors and causing them to overheat. Most of these systems have an adjustable output, allowing an attacker to scale the intended damage on the target from temporary blindness to immediate ablation. However, don't get too excited: even the personal, portable versions of these weapons are heavy and energy-intensive if you want to cause anything more than minor burns, and like a lot of advanced technology from before the war, these systems are often broken and are very difficult to repair. Even if you get a powerful working DEWie, it can take a moment of focus on the target to get the desired damage effect, and unlike typical lead bullets, the path of the beam can reveal the shooter's location to the target or their allies. Still, being able to ignore ammunition constraints and having a versatile, flashy piece of pre-war tech definitely has it's advantages, and if you can get a hold of one of the big mothers on a ship or airplane that are attached to a nuclear generator, watch out.
Hypersonics - Hypersonic vehicles, defined as vehicles capable of traveling at Mach 5 (3900 MPH / 6200 KPH) or faster, were the chief weapons used by the major global powers in WW3, since they were nearly impossible to intercept with normal missile defense technology: fighter jets and missiles screamed across oceans and continents, flying on the edge of space at these incredible speeds as they went on their missions. Because of this, most of the world's hypersonic fleet was used up in the war, and even those that were not destroyed were kept track of and held under a supremely tight guard by remaining state security forces for years after the bombs fell, even to the present. Still, if you are determined or lucky, there may be a few missiles or drones or even manned aircraft with hypersonic capabilities left out there, abandoned or just vulnerable enough to be taken by force, still able to be used with the right resources and know-how...
Improved Drugs - Despite regular political persecution and general unpopularity, America's powerful pharmaceutical industry worked at full speed right up until the very end, providing the people with ever-better medicine and ever-better recreational drugs, for a price of course. A wide range of steroids, appetite suppressants, hormonal treatments, nootropics (brain-enhancers), aphrodisiacs, libido suppressants, emotional regulators, hallucinogens, stimulants, depressants, pain-killers (opiates and others), antibiotics and antivirals and others were all available to the pre-war population both through legitimate and illegal means. Of course, these were one of the first things to fly off the shelves in the wartime panic, but they can still be found in fridges, medicine cabinets, abandoned store shelves, and hidden drug stashes throughout the country.
Robotics - In conjunction with artificial intelligence, robotics were also an area of great improvement during the pre-war era. Autonomous drones whirred and chittered all over in both urban and rural environments, performing a wide range of civilian and military purposes. These could range from simple electronic butlers little more complicated than a contemporary Roomba, to powerful construction and industrial machines capable of impressive feats of craftsmanship and engineering, to sophisticated androids made for luxury or medical or therapeutic purposes, to strange and to fearsome police and military drones capable of levelling city blocks or executing complicated assassinations with their weapon suites. Many of these systems can both be set to an automatic mode, but many can also be controlled manually with the proper skills. Although a lot of these robots (especially the military ones) were damaged or destroyed in the war and post-war collapse, plenty still remain that can be used or repaired, sitting idle or still performing their pre-programmed functions. Be careful though: just because a robot is still working, does not mean it is necessarily friendly, and some robots that suffered from system damage or cyberattacks may behave unpredictably...
Sensors - American pre-war society developed an impressive and varied array of electronic sensors, capable of quickly and non-invasively assessing medical problems, potential threats, environmental conditions, and other information, often at range. These can be used on their own, or in conjunction with AI, armor, vehicles, or robotic systems to provide a great degree of situational awareness and can make or break a survivor's success in certain situations.
The intervening twenty-two years between the present day and the start of World War III saw a wide variety of new technologies released. Unfortunately, with only a few exceptions, most of these technologies were military in nature, only compounding the issues of violence and warfare that plagued both pre-war and post-war America. Necessity is the mother of invention, and the numerous civil and foreign conflicts that broke out worldwide as things began to spin out of control forced the best and brightest globally to work in developing weapons systems in a desperate attempt to assist the powers that be in restoring peace and order. Obviously, their efforts failed, but as their creations are now scattered across the ruins of the civilization they worked in vain to preserve, now you get to reap the benefits. Below, in alphabetical order, are some notable developments:
Artificial Intelligence - A technological craze that began in the mid-2020s and continued right up until the missiles were launched, artificial intelligence became ubiquitous in both civilian and military applications. In the ruins of even modest pre-war homes, at least one or two appliances or devices with a helpful general-purpose AI guide could be found, and organizations of all stripes found it useful to have access to a quick-thinking, analytical personality to handle difficult or tedious issues. While much better than today's primitive AI, the artificial intelligences of 2045 are still imperfect, and thanks to electromagnetic pulse damage, frequent cyberattacks, and the ravages of years of chaos and neglect, they've become even less perfect where they even work at all. Still, if you can find a functional device with an onboard AI, anyone with even mild computer skills can get some use out of having it around, especially when attached to a robotic or VR interface.
Better Body Armor And Beyond - In the lead-up to WW3, many conflicts broke out, facilitating a heavy government and consumer demand for better ways of protecting yourself from being injured or killed in an increasingly violent and unpredictable world. One of the many results of this drive was the proliferation of new and improved personal body armor: cheap, durable, and relatively reliable means to protect yourself in the event of a gunfight or other disaster. These range from your typical basic plate-carriers and helmets with material improvements that allow them to withstand more damage, to heavy-duty EOD wear capable of dealing with large explosions at point-blank range, to teched-out full body suits with integrated sensors, medical equipment, AI and robotics, to even bulletproof fashion items as wearing armor became more socially acceptable. Plenty of these armor groups also have a hazmat component, with gas masks, rebreathers, or other protective measures included against chemical, biological, or radioactive threats. Vehicles were impacted by this as well, developing along similar lines: however, only those with some means could afford a properly reinforced vehicle. Regardless, all of these protective measures are out there in stores and on corpses, ready to be donned if needed.
Chemical Weapons - The breakdown of societal order meant that the old moral restraints on using gas and other chemical weapons became eroded until such an attitude was a quaint memory, held only by the old and the naive. Weapons manufacturers began to release a wide range of novel chemical weapons in gasses and powders and liquids, ranging from relatively innocuous chemicals that cause the onset of gentle sleep or painless eye-watering, to horrifying paralytics, neurotoxins, and flesh-melting acids, to agents with bizarre effects like mutagens, hallucinogens, anti-electronic damage, disorienting drugs, even pheromones meant to adjust moods. Fortunately, most of these weapons are limited in their effective zones and are easily defeated with water, wind, chemical antidotes, or the proper hazmat precautions. Still, they represent a harsh threat to the unwary survivor.
Direct Energy Weaponry - Problems with manufacturing heavy ammunition in the early 2030s, as well as a desire for novel lethal and less-than-lethal weapons that could work on both humans and robots, caused a large burst of interest and investment into the applications of laser weapons on vehicles and personal systems. Prior to the war, such direct energy weapons (called "DEWies" in slang) had become not uncommon, used by the military, police, and corporations to control crowds and disable hostile electronics by frying their critical sensors and causing them to overheat. Most of these systems have an adjustable output, allowing an attacker to scale the intended damage on the target from temporary blindness to immediate ablation. However, don't get too excited: even the personal, portable versions of these weapons are heavy and energy-intensive if you want to cause anything more than minor burns, and like a lot of advanced technology from before the war, these systems are often broken and are very difficult to repair. Even if you get a powerful working DEWie, it can take a moment of focus on the target to get the desired damage effect, and unlike typical lead bullets, the path of the beam can reveal the shooter's location to the target or their allies. Still, being able to ignore ammunition constraints and having a versatile, flashy piece of pre-war tech definitely has it's advantages, and if you can get a hold of one of the big mothers on a ship or airplane that are attached to a nuclear generator, watch out.
Hypersonics - Hypersonic vehicles, defined as vehicles capable of traveling at Mach 5 (3900 MPH / 6200 KPH) or faster, were the chief weapons used by the major global powers in WW3, since they were nearly impossible to intercept with normal missile defense technology: fighter jets and missiles screamed across oceans and continents, flying on the edge of space at these incredible speeds as they went on their missions. Because of this, most of the world's hypersonic fleet was used up in the war, and even those that were not destroyed were kept track of and held under a supremely tight guard by remaining state security forces for years after the bombs fell, even to the present. Still, if you are determined or lucky, there may be a few missiles or drones or even manned aircraft with hypersonic capabilities left out there, abandoned or just vulnerable enough to be taken by force, still able to be used with the right resources and know-how...
Improved Drugs - Despite regular political persecution and general unpopularity, America's powerful pharmaceutical industry worked at full speed right up until the very end, providing the people with ever-better medicine and ever-better recreational drugs, for a price of course. A wide range of steroids, appetite suppressants, hormonal treatments, nootropics (brain-enhancers), aphrodisiacs, libido suppressants, emotional regulators, hallucinogens, stimulants, depressants, pain-killers (opiates and others), antibiotics and antivirals and others were all available to the pre-war population both through legitimate and illegal means. Of course, these were one of the first things to fly off the shelves in the wartime panic, but they can still be found in fridges, medicine cabinets, abandoned store shelves, and hidden drug stashes throughout the country.
Robotics - In conjunction with artificial intelligence, robotics were also an area of great improvement during the pre-war era. Autonomous drones whirred and chittered all over in both urban and rural environments, performing a wide range of civilian and military purposes. These could range from simple electronic butlers little more complicated than a contemporary Roomba, to powerful construction and industrial machines capable of impressive feats of craftsmanship and engineering, to sophisticated androids made for luxury or medical or therapeutic purposes, to strange and to fearsome police and military drones capable of levelling city blocks or executing complicated assassinations with their weapon suites. Many of these systems can both be set to an automatic mode, but many can also be controlled manually with the proper skills. Although a lot of these robots (especially the military ones) were damaged or destroyed in the war and post-war collapse, plenty still remain that can be used or repaired, sitting idle or still performing their pre-programmed functions. Be careful though: just because a robot is still working, does not mean it is necessarily friendly, and some robots that suffered from system damage or cyberattacks may behave unpredictably...
Sensors - American pre-war society developed an impressive and varied array of electronic sensors, capable of quickly and non-invasively assessing medical problems, potential threats, environmental conditions, and other information, often at range. These can be used on their own, or in conjunction with AI, armor, vehicles, or robotic systems to provide a great degree of situational awareness and can make or break a survivor's success in certain situations.
MUTANTS
As far as we can tell, humans have always been obsessed with their form, and with their blood. In ancient days, this took the form of care and concern of their lineages, with lords and kings falsely claiming that their descent from "the gods" or by clinging to ancient patriarchal leaders, which gave them supposed superhuman status and the right to rule over all those whose ancestors were nameless. In more modern times, this obsession had taken the nefarious form of racism and genetic discrimination, as tyrants and criminals sought cover for violence and oppression, and corporations sought cover for exploitation of the vulnerable. All the while, the irrational terror of "impurity" provided an excuse for those allegedly "pure" to step on those who were allegedly not—an irrational, but tragically powerful path of motivation and group unity that has indirectly and directly cost many lives and made the world a worse place to live.
While humankind struggled with this evil instinct, science continued to advance its understanding of life. Farmers had been making improvements to their crops and animals by selective breeding for thousands of years, although this was a slow and imprecise affair. Charles Darwin was the first to understand—albeit dimly—the process of evolution, the means by which life changes and develops over generations: this opened the door to the ideas of changing the nature of life itself by applying scientific reasoning. Other scientists made other breakthroughs of human knowledge in the same area: the full process of reproduction, the nature of viruses, the workings of RNA, mRNA, and DNA, genetic modification, the production and folding of proteins: all parts of the process were open to examination and development. Genetically modified crops and farm animals became commonplace, improving conditions in places where traditional crops failed, and even the modification of pets became a fad. In 2003, the Human Genome Project was completed, providing mankind with a blueprint for their own hereditary genetic nature—their blood, if you will. It all could be viewed and, with the advances of CRISPR and other techniques, the map itself could be edited. Hospitals and medical facilities created a wide variety of genetic scans and therapy meant to help treat diseases that had their roots in DNA. Interest and investment in these technologies brought down the cost of genetic engineering: what once had taken a multinational team billions of dollars and decades of work could now be accomplished in weeks, using a kit no more expensive than a used car.
These discoveries and technologies changed everything. The effects were as dramatic as they were controversial: environmentalists, activists, religious leaders, and politicians of all stripes took issue with uses of the technology and aspects of its use, particularly in the realm of human genetic modification where national and international laws banned and restricted their use. People rejected treatments and vaccines produced by these startling advances in genetic engineering, often turning to quackery rather than to trust the scientists accused of "playing God", even as the dead from novel epidemics (which were also suspected by some of being genetically engineered bioweapons) crowded hospitals. Leaders of poor countries went as far as to reject shipments of genetically modified food despite ongoing deadly famines, rejecting scientific consensus about the safety and utility of engineered food and keeping GMO corn locked in warehouses even as their people starved to death outside. Yet despite the technology being roundly rejected by the chauvinist politicians that gained power in the early-middle twenty-first century, experiments and research into genetic modification continued: it was simply too good to give up, or at the very least it was seen as important not to be left in the dust behind one's enemies, which were surely using the same "inhuman" methods to get a leg up. Research continued even on modifying the human species beyond repairing genetic defects, causing periodic scandals when these human-based non-medical projects were revealed to the public. By the 2040s, the term "mutant" had left the pages of science fiction and research and entered the realm of life and politics, where it was often used as a dehumanizing pejorative—first by the conspiratorial far-right, but then by the general population as a whole, as everyone was always looking for a accusatory stick to beat their enemies with. Accusations against politicians and celebrities of genetically engineering people against their will, or having "designer babies" tailored by genetic engineering, or of being genetically engineered themselves, all made occasional rounds in the world of tabloid media, with pictures of newborn babies having "MUTANT?" plastered in bold red above them.
Compounding these fears was the realization that the human genome, as well as the genes in other species across the planet, were being faced with an accelerated rate of mutation from exposure to increased radiation from a weakened ozone layer, as well as the flood of new chemicals released into the environment from regular human economic activity—it turns out that, in a million small ways, we were all becoming mutants, and had been for decades. People wanted life to remain normal, recognizable, fixed: yet beneath their very noses, it was already changing regardless of their efforts. Those who feared the random, potentially harmful genetic impacts of increasing pollution were then forced to turn to gene therapies and treatments to reverse the damage, adding to the fractured cerebration around the whole science. Indeed, it would not be at all an exaggeration to say that the contradiction—an existential fear of the changes to the most basic parts of life, combined with a strong desire and imperative to use the knowledge for gain—it had driven humankind mad.
When the Third World War broke out, the Pandora's Box of genetic science was fully wedged open, once and for all. Bioweapons that had been in secret development across the world were unleashed in the general conflict, adding to the devastation. Mutagens and modified organisms escaped their destroyed or abandoned labs, and with no stable government to launch containment efforts, organisms that were able to survive outside the lab spread unchecked across ecosystems worldwide. Radiation from nuclear fallout accelerated the random ambient changes much, much further than even the pollution had, adding a greater degree of uncertainty and variety to life itself and introducing new mutations that previous engineering efforts could not—or would not—permit.
Now, in the devastated society of the post-nuclear war world, "mutant" is simply a fact of life. Mutated animals, with new and odd features of varying utility, now roam across the blasted countryside, munching on similarly mutated plants and fungus, or preying on other animals that were some form of mutant themselves: forests of gnarled, glowing trees are full of two-headed deer, which are hunted by striped hairless coyotes with too many teeth. A number of humans were also mutated and have developed a startling array of changes. Some are detrimental, forcing their bearers to contend with incurable illnesses, terrible tumors, useless limbs, and other painful diseases and harmful conditions—even to the loss of human intelligence or empathy. Some are benign, with a wide variety of strange yet occasionally beautiful new types of hair, eye colors, and skin patterns emerging from their battered genes. Some are even beneficial: certain lucky mutations can improve cardiovascular health, or boost natural strength, increase intelligence and empathy, or improve other physical aspects like the senses or immune systems: not every extra limb, to give an extreme example, is totally useless—it could be just strong enough to hold a flashlight or a gun, or even stronger than that. Life is nothing if not ever-changing and resilient, and although there are many growing pains and things to fear from mutation, the ecosystem is slowly beginning to adjust to the presence of these radical changes.
To some, however, this is unacceptable. Plenty of "normal" humans (especially those born before WW3) view all kinds of mutants, particularly those that were once "normal" like themselves, as an affront to nature and as an inherent existential threat. Discrimination against mutants is widespread and vicious, with "Purists", as those who hold such beliefs are called, attacking mutants simply for the crime of being different—the old obsession with purity and bloodlines coming back with a new, twisted vengeance. The United States Emergency Government, for example, recommends that all human mutants should be sterilized regardless of consent to protect the human genome: this is considered a tame, even weak position by those who don't even consider such mutants to be human anymore. Many Purists feel no compunction about shooting mutants on sight, or working them to death in camps, or even with burning them alive or dousing them with chemical weapons. Neither age nor sex nor anything else stops some Purists from their cruel work: by getting rid of these twisted editions of humanity, they believe, they are not committing genocide but are doing the world a favor akin to medicine or to pest control. To back their claims, they use the undeniable examples of mutants that have become violent or useless or feral, claiming that this is the inevitable result of the process and that it needs to be stopped—while ignoring the equally undeniable examples of mutants that are benign, even helpful to societies that accommodate or at least tolerate them. A few Purists even carry this ideal towards non-human mutations, taking the torch to ecosystems that have become too twisted in their view—an extreme position, to be sure, but not an unheard-of one.
But mutants do undeniably share one thing with humans: agency. Those mutants who are still able to think and act for themselves, of which there are many, are not content with being wiped from the map and instead fight for their survival and their freedom. Some will simply look out for themselves, some seek sanctuary with accepting humans, and still others band together with each other—sometimes even claiming that mutants represent a new and superior human species: a reaction that turns the violent prejudices of many Purists on its head, in a way that encourages their own xenophobic bloodlust.
Mutants represent about 5-10% of the human population, and although this number varies widely in time and space, they are not going anywhere soon.
As far as we can tell, humans have always been obsessed with their form, and with their blood. In ancient days, this took the form of care and concern of their lineages, with lords and kings falsely claiming that their descent from "the gods" or by clinging to ancient patriarchal leaders, which gave them supposed superhuman status and the right to rule over all those whose ancestors were nameless. In more modern times, this obsession had taken the nefarious form of racism and genetic discrimination, as tyrants and criminals sought cover for violence and oppression, and corporations sought cover for exploitation of the vulnerable. All the while, the irrational terror of "impurity" provided an excuse for those allegedly "pure" to step on those who were allegedly not—an irrational, but tragically powerful path of motivation and group unity that has indirectly and directly cost many lives and made the world a worse place to live.
While humankind struggled with this evil instinct, science continued to advance its understanding of life. Farmers had been making improvements to their crops and animals by selective breeding for thousands of years, although this was a slow and imprecise affair. Charles Darwin was the first to understand—albeit dimly—the process of evolution, the means by which life changes and develops over generations: this opened the door to the ideas of changing the nature of life itself by applying scientific reasoning. Other scientists made other breakthroughs of human knowledge in the same area: the full process of reproduction, the nature of viruses, the workings of RNA, mRNA, and DNA, genetic modification, the production and folding of proteins: all parts of the process were open to examination and development. Genetically modified crops and farm animals became commonplace, improving conditions in places where traditional crops failed, and even the modification of pets became a fad. In 2003, the Human Genome Project was completed, providing mankind with a blueprint for their own hereditary genetic nature—their blood, if you will. It all could be viewed and, with the advances of CRISPR and other techniques, the map itself could be edited. Hospitals and medical facilities created a wide variety of genetic scans and therapy meant to help treat diseases that had their roots in DNA. Interest and investment in these technologies brought down the cost of genetic engineering: what once had taken a multinational team billions of dollars and decades of work could now be accomplished in weeks, using a kit no more expensive than a used car.
These discoveries and technologies changed everything. The effects were as dramatic as they were controversial: environmentalists, activists, religious leaders, and politicians of all stripes took issue with uses of the technology and aspects of its use, particularly in the realm of human genetic modification where national and international laws banned and restricted their use. People rejected treatments and vaccines produced by these startling advances in genetic engineering, often turning to quackery rather than to trust the scientists accused of "playing God", even as the dead from novel epidemics (which were also suspected by some of being genetically engineered bioweapons) crowded hospitals. Leaders of poor countries went as far as to reject shipments of genetically modified food despite ongoing deadly famines, rejecting scientific consensus about the safety and utility of engineered food and keeping GMO corn locked in warehouses even as their people starved to death outside. Yet despite the technology being roundly rejected by the chauvinist politicians that gained power in the early-middle twenty-first century, experiments and research into genetic modification continued: it was simply too good to give up, or at the very least it was seen as important not to be left in the dust behind one's enemies, which were surely using the same "inhuman" methods to get a leg up. Research continued even on modifying the human species beyond repairing genetic defects, causing periodic scandals when these human-based non-medical projects were revealed to the public. By the 2040s, the term "mutant" had left the pages of science fiction and research and entered the realm of life and politics, where it was often used as a dehumanizing pejorative—first by the conspiratorial far-right, but then by the general population as a whole, as everyone was always looking for a accusatory stick to beat their enemies with. Accusations against politicians and celebrities of genetically engineering people against their will, or having "designer babies" tailored by genetic engineering, or of being genetically engineered themselves, all made occasional rounds in the world of tabloid media, with pictures of newborn babies having "MUTANT?" plastered in bold red above them.
Compounding these fears was the realization that the human genome, as well as the genes in other species across the planet, were being faced with an accelerated rate of mutation from exposure to increased radiation from a weakened ozone layer, as well as the flood of new chemicals released into the environment from regular human economic activity—it turns out that, in a million small ways, we were all becoming mutants, and had been for decades. People wanted life to remain normal, recognizable, fixed: yet beneath their very noses, it was already changing regardless of their efforts. Those who feared the random, potentially harmful genetic impacts of increasing pollution were then forced to turn to gene therapies and treatments to reverse the damage, adding to the fractured cerebration around the whole science. Indeed, it would not be at all an exaggeration to say that the contradiction—an existential fear of the changes to the most basic parts of life, combined with a strong desire and imperative to use the knowledge for gain—it had driven humankind mad.
When the Third World War broke out, the Pandora's Box of genetic science was fully wedged open, once and for all. Bioweapons that had been in secret development across the world were unleashed in the general conflict, adding to the devastation. Mutagens and modified organisms escaped their destroyed or abandoned labs, and with no stable government to launch containment efforts, organisms that were able to survive outside the lab spread unchecked across ecosystems worldwide. Radiation from nuclear fallout accelerated the random ambient changes much, much further than even the pollution had, adding a greater degree of uncertainty and variety to life itself and introducing new mutations that previous engineering efforts could not—or would not—permit.
Now, in the devastated society of the post-nuclear war world, "mutant" is simply a fact of life. Mutated animals, with new and odd features of varying utility, now roam across the blasted countryside, munching on similarly mutated plants and fungus, or preying on other animals that were some form of mutant themselves: forests of gnarled, glowing trees are full of two-headed deer, which are hunted by striped hairless coyotes with too many teeth. A number of humans were also mutated and have developed a startling array of changes. Some are detrimental, forcing their bearers to contend with incurable illnesses, terrible tumors, useless limbs, and other painful diseases and harmful conditions—even to the loss of human intelligence or empathy. Some are benign, with a wide variety of strange yet occasionally beautiful new types of hair, eye colors, and skin patterns emerging from their battered genes. Some are even beneficial: certain lucky mutations can improve cardiovascular health, or boost natural strength, increase intelligence and empathy, or improve other physical aspects like the senses or immune systems: not every extra limb, to give an extreme example, is totally useless—it could be just strong enough to hold a flashlight or a gun, or even stronger than that. Life is nothing if not ever-changing and resilient, and although there are many growing pains and things to fear from mutation, the ecosystem is slowly beginning to adjust to the presence of these radical changes.
To some, however, this is unacceptable. Plenty of "normal" humans (especially those born before WW3) view all kinds of mutants, particularly those that were once "normal" like themselves, as an affront to nature and as an inherent existential threat. Discrimination against mutants is widespread and vicious, with "Purists", as those who hold such beliefs are called, attacking mutants simply for the crime of being different—the old obsession with purity and bloodlines coming back with a new, twisted vengeance. The United States Emergency Government, for example, recommends that all human mutants should be sterilized regardless of consent to protect the human genome: this is considered a tame, even weak position by those who don't even consider such mutants to be human anymore. Many Purists feel no compunction about shooting mutants on sight, or working them to death in camps, or even with burning them alive or dousing them with chemical weapons. Neither age nor sex nor anything else stops some Purists from their cruel work: by getting rid of these twisted editions of humanity, they believe, they are not committing genocide but are doing the world a favor akin to medicine or to pest control. To back their claims, they use the undeniable examples of mutants that have become violent or useless or feral, claiming that this is the inevitable result of the process and that it needs to be stopped—while ignoring the equally undeniable examples of mutants that are benign, even helpful to societies that accommodate or at least tolerate them. A few Purists even carry this ideal towards non-human mutations, taking the torch to ecosystems that have become too twisted in their view—an extreme position, to be sure, but not an unheard-of one.
But mutants do undeniably share one thing with humans: agency. Those mutants who are still able to think and act for themselves, of which there are many, are not content with being wiped from the map and instead fight for their survival and their freedom. Some will simply look out for themselves, some seek sanctuary with accepting humans, and still others band together with each other—sometimes even claiming that mutants represent a new and superior human species: a reaction that turns the violent prejudices of many Purists on its head, in a way that encourages their own xenophobic bloodlust.
Mutants represent about 5-10% of the human population, and although this number varies widely in time and space, they are not going anywhere soon.
Battle of NoVA - June 21 to August 7 2047
Part of the Second American Civil War, American Warlords Era. Northern Virginia, United States of America.
Belligerents:
-United States Emergency Government (USEG).
-American Redemption Union (ARU) and allied rebel forces.
-Local police forces and paramilitaries.
-Various civilian militias and individual fighters.
Strength:
-USEG: 34,000 soldiers, 7,500 ground vehicles, 9,800 drones, 23 helicopters, 162 combat aircraft, 48 tactical nuclear devices.
-ARU: approx. 52,000 soldiers, 24,500 ground vehicles, 2,400 drones, 63 helicopters, 18 combat aircraft, no nuclear weapons.
-Local police: 8,000 personnel, 3,750 ground vehicles, 750 drones, 6 helicopters.
-Militia: approx. 43,000 armed, <1,000 civilian ground vehicles.
Results: Pyrrhic USEG victory. ARU forces in Northern Virginia decisively defeated. Popular unrest and the destruction of infrastructure in the fighting leaves USEG position untenable in the entire southeast, forcing a northern retreat to Buffalo, NY while ARU remnants scattered and fragmented. Militia and police unable to maintain order or establish a coherent structure, leaving the area in chaos.
Background
Prior to the Battle of NOVA, ARU successes in the southern part of the country and an increasingly desperate situation for the Emergency Government encouraged both belligerents to seek a decisive battle: both had ideological, political, and strategic imperatives to eliminate the other as soon as possible.
After losing the Carolinas to the ARU, the USEG forces on the eastern seaboard could not afford to wait on the dubious prospect of support from out west or further south: most of the USEG forces east of the Mississippi and north of the Appalachians that could be spared were already consolidated in the Boston-Washington Corridor, while the Floridian exclave of USEG forces would have to somehow punch their way thousands of miles north through ARU core territory to reach their allies—an impossible challenge. Difficulties on the west coast, total command and control failure in Texas, isolation in the Rockies, and general devastation in the Great Plains meant that support from those areas would not be forthcoming. Alaska, as always, remained aloof—not that them marching across the continent through Canada or sailing across the Arctic Ocean was a realistic prospect anyways. Continuous pleas and demands from USEG leadership to do SOMETHING did eventually produce two transport planes full of volunteers and weapons as well as five fighter jets, but that would be it. Nothing would be forthcoming from overseas forces, as if they even still existed they were ignoring command back home to focus on their own survival.
Meanwhile, while the ARU had major encouraging successes in the south, their positions in the north remained weak and isolated, unable to gin up the support or gain the major defections that they had in the south: it seemed that the people of the north were much more concerned about their immediate position and less willing to join some grand crusade than the people of the south were, as even strong independent military forces up north were not keen to subsume themselves under a distant and suspect leadership just to challenge the still powerful federal government. Relatedly, pointed and serious questions about the nature of the Union and their policies were also beginning to sow discontent among the leadership as well as the rank-and-file, raising the real possibility of an internal schism: a hard-fought yet spectacular victory against their common enemy in the USEG would help cohesion in the short term, in the medium term it would take the urgency out of resolving the numerous differences among their component forces, allowing for a more careful and deliberate settlement for the long term. When the USEG goaded them into an attack with repeated unreasonable demands for peace—immediate full disarmament, unconditional return of all defected territory, the arrest of all "terrorist ringleaders" (i.e. their beloved leadership), significant restrictions on self government—the ARU happily took the bait and pressed north towards the USEG's main centers.
Equipment and Manpower
The ARU held an advantage in numbers, both of men and of vehicles, including a large albeit mostly unarmed helicopter fleet. Most (~75%) of the independent militias were also on the side of the ARU, inflating their numbers further to more than double what the USEG could muster and giving them a guerrilla force's advantage. However, the USEG was well-entrenched in their main southern positions surrounding the ruins of Washington DC and Baltimore (having their fair share of local allies), and had a significant material and technological advantage over the ARU, with more than triple the number of drones and nearly ten times the number of available combat aircraft that the ARU had. In addition, while very much numerically inferior, what vehicles the USEG did have were almost all powerful armored personnel carriers and tanks well-organized into divisions with perfectly maintained weapons systems, while the ARU used a mix of light civilian vehicles and captured military hardware of varying quality from the ad-hoc defections.
The Battle
The Battle of NoVA commenced just north of Ashland, as a dug-in infantry regiment of the USEG attempted to stop an armored column of advance ARU troops from moving north along the highway on their approach to DC. The line of battle ballooned outward, aided by superior ARU mobility and USEG air power, eventually spreading from Richmond in the east to Harrisonburg in the west as independent militias joined the fray on either side and the local police attempted to maintain order. After a few initial USEG successes from well-positioned units poised to intercept, the ARU's superior numbers and maneuverability began to overwhelm the spread-out defenders, forcing them back in order to prevent being surrounded and cut off. The USEG's air superiority, while critical for their whole strategy, was not as strong as expected: the ARU possessed few combat aircraft but had advanced SAM and CIWS vehicles from the south, parrying the near constant aerial assaults and forcing the USEG to rely more and more on their dwindling fleet of combat drones—powerful, easily countering whatever the ARU could throw at them, but also easily surrounded and not easily replaced once damaged or lost.
As the fight began to turn against the Emergency Government days of fierce debate in the USEG leadership ended in a bloodless coup. Not long after, the fateful decision was made by the ascendant factions to launch a large portion of the remaining tactical nuclear stockpile available to the federal government on the east coast in a last-ditch effort to stop the ARU advance. Ultimatums were rejected by ARU leadership, dismissed as either bluffs or disinformation. On the night of August 2, 2047, a date that became known as "Black Friday," the hand was dealt. ARU strongholds in Harrisonburg and Charlottesville were wiped off the map along with the cities that held them, along with numerous strategically important strongpoints and ARU-held towns across the land. The main ARU "anvil" driving up from Fredericksburg was stopped in its track by a simultaneous salvo of seven missiles launched from a loyal submarine, while the "hammer" coming up from the west was shattered by a constellation of nuclear airstrikes along the course of their advance. Those ARU forces that survived the attack were driven into a panicked retreat in all directions as the allied local militias scattered and vanished: most simply deserted and went home, but some defected or even turned on fleeing ARU units, which they blamed for provoking the renewed devastation. All of them were faced with a coordinated USEG counterattack, their hardened drones bursting through the smoke and ashes to pick off remaining rebel units. The battle officially ended on August 7, with the withdrawal back south of the remaining organized ARU units, though scattered fighting would continue in the region until winter.
Results and Aftermath
Accurate numbers are impossible to ascertain, but between 80-90% of all ARU forces were lost, along with virtually all of their senior leadership. Black Friday and the subsequent military disaster immediately precipitated the crisis of confidence that the ARU leadership had so feared and had launched the battle in part to stave off: demoralized and leaderless, the ARU forces turned on each other and, realizing that their ultimate aims were not shared or were even contradicted by their comrades, splintered off and deserted. It goes without saying that this did not recommend northern allies to the cause, and fragile talks collapsed and vanished as did the ARU outposts north of Appalachia. The Battle of NOVA spelled the end for the American Restoration Union as a coherent, unified force: ARU remnants exist to this day as the Union never technically surrendered (a claim frequently "debunked" by costumed men in USEG propaganda broadcasts purporting to be ARU leaders), but they are scattered across the American south and are frequently little better than bandits.
The Emergency Government did not have long to celebrate their victory, however. Civil unrest caused by popular anger at the Black Friday nuclear strikes made the USEG position in the whole Atlantic region untenable—even refugee camps and surviving towns that didn't rebel outright still held sizable contingents of often-armed anti-government agitators, and USEG forces frequently found that roads and important installations were booby-trapped or sabotaged by furious civilians, determined to resist a government willing to nuke its own people at a time when the horrors of such tactics were still fresh in everyone's minds. Local police and other officials were either unable or unwilling to help, lacking the resources and manpower as well as the motivation to suppress the growing uprising. Many police departments and militias that had once been on decent terms with the USEG now became neutral, unresponsive, or even outright hostile: outside Philadelphia, to give one typical example, local authorities stepped aside in to let angry mobs attack USEG officials, forcing the lucky to run for their lives and lynching the rest. After a moment's delay to capture surviving ARU materiel abandoned in the retreat—in some cases spraying out the irradiated remains of ARU crews from still operational vehicles with fire hoses—the USEG packed their bags, blew up or dismantled their strongholds, disabled what military tech they couldn't take with them, and headed north together and in force. In a movement known to history as "the Hard Walk", the USEG wound up moving into the relative safety of Buffalo by mid-April, where the region was still comparatively friendly (or at least not outright hostile), and where the lakes and mountains of upstate New York provided some much needed geographical protection and natural resources. Desertions were rampant, and despite "winning" in the Battle of NOVA, the USEG had lost more than half of their starting forces by the time they entered the city, rendering them able to do little more than to hold on to their base of power in Buffalo and maintain a few paltry bases in DC, New York City and Boston—a situation that remains more or less to this day.
Conclusions
The Battle of NOVA was bloodiest single battle fought on American soil with overall casualties exceeding Gettysburg by far (not counting the nuclear engagements of WW3, of course, which in most cases could hardly be described as "battle" anyways). The battle was, and remains, an important event of post-WW3 American history, and aside from WW3 is virtually the only historical event most people in the country under the age of thirty are aware of. Many people say they are veterans of NOVA, have claimed they've witnessed or participated in key moments, and some of them are even telling the truth. The stories of the battle—the Union's righteous crusade against authoritarian injustice, the dogged determination of the Emergency Government in the face of the rebel horde, the vast scale of the fighting that stretched across so many hills and vales, the evil brutality and terror of Black Friday, the multifaceted despair of the ARU collapse, and the grim endurance of the Hard Walk—all of these events are well known to even the most ignorant survivors. Stories and debates over the battle are discussed over campfires, in canteens and bars, in songs and ballads, even in broadcasts and videos, thus these stories color the entire culture of postwar America even beyond the Rockies. What you think about the Battle of NOVA and what it means says a lot about who you are in this world, more reliably than any profession of faith or allegiance. In a strange way the Battle of NOVA, the fight that wound up shattering any hope of widespread unity in the continent for generations, gave those generations a common touchstone of history and culture for all time.
Part of the Second American Civil War, American Warlords Era. Northern Virginia, United States of America.
Belligerents:
-United States Emergency Government (USEG).
-American Redemption Union (ARU) and allied rebel forces.
-Local police forces and paramilitaries.
-Various civilian militias and individual fighters.
Strength:
-USEG: 34,000 soldiers, 7,500 ground vehicles, 9,800 drones, 23 helicopters, 162 combat aircraft, 48 tactical nuclear devices.
-ARU: approx. 52,000 soldiers, 24,500 ground vehicles, 2,400 drones, 63 helicopters, 18 combat aircraft, no nuclear weapons.
-Local police: 8,000 personnel, 3,750 ground vehicles, 750 drones, 6 helicopters.
-Militia: approx. 43,000 armed, <1,000 civilian ground vehicles.
Results: Pyrrhic USEG victory. ARU forces in Northern Virginia decisively defeated. Popular unrest and the destruction of infrastructure in the fighting leaves USEG position untenable in the entire southeast, forcing a northern retreat to Buffalo, NY while ARU remnants scattered and fragmented. Militia and police unable to maintain order or establish a coherent structure, leaving the area in chaos.
Background
Prior to the Battle of NOVA, ARU successes in the southern part of the country and an increasingly desperate situation for the Emergency Government encouraged both belligerents to seek a decisive battle: both had ideological, political, and strategic imperatives to eliminate the other as soon as possible.
After losing the Carolinas to the ARU, the USEG forces on the eastern seaboard could not afford to wait on the dubious prospect of support from out west or further south: most of the USEG forces east of the Mississippi and north of the Appalachians that could be spared were already consolidated in the Boston-Washington Corridor, while the Floridian exclave of USEG forces would have to somehow punch their way thousands of miles north through ARU core territory to reach their allies—an impossible challenge. Difficulties on the west coast, total command and control failure in Texas, isolation in the Rockies, and general devastation in the Great Plains meant that support from those areas would not be forthcoming. Alaska, as always, remained aloof—not that them marching across the continent through Canada or sailing across the Arctic Ocean was a realistic prospect anyways. Continuous pleas and demands from USEG leadership to do SOMETHING did eventually produce two transport planes full of volunteers and weapons as well as five fighter jets, but that would be it. Nothing would be forthcoming from overseas forces, as if they even still existed they were ignoring command back home to focus on their own survival.
Meanwhile, while the ARU had major encouraging successes in the south, their positions in the north remained weak and isolated, unable to gin up the support or gain the major defections that they had in the south: it seemed that the people of the north were much more concerned about their immediate position and less willing to join some grand crusade than the people of the south were, as even strong independent military forces up north were not keen to subsume themselves under a distant and suspect leadership just to challenge the still powerful federal government. Relatedly, pointed and serious questions about the nature of the Union and their policies were also beginning to sow discontent among the leadership as well as the rank-and-file, raising the real possibility of an internal schism: a hard-fought yet spectacular victory against their common enemy in the USEG would help cohesion in the short term, in the medium term it would take the urgency out of resolving the numerous differences among their component forces, allowing for a more careful and deliberate settlement for the long term. When the USEG goaded them into an attack with repeated unreasonable demands for peace—immediate full disarmament, unconditional return of all defected territory, the arrest of all "terrorist ringleaders" (i.e. their beloved leadership), significant restrictions on self government—the ARU happily took the bait and pressed north towards the USEG's main centers.
Equipment and Manpower
The ARU held an advantage in numbers, both of men and of vehicles, including a large albeit mostly unarmed helicopter fleet. Most (~75%) of the independent militias were also on the side of the ARU, inflating their numbers further to more than double what the USEG could muster and giving them a guerrilla force's advantage. However, the USEG was well-entrenched in their main southern positions surrounding the ruins of Washington DC and Baltimore (having their fair share of local allies), and had a significant material and technological advantage over the ARU, with more than triple the number of drones and nearly ten times the number of available combat aircraft that the ARU had. In addition, while very much numerically inferior, what vehicles the USEG did have were almost all powerful armored personnel carriers and tanks well-organized into divisions with perfectly maintained weapons systems, while the ARU used a mix of light civilian vehicles and captured military hardware of varying quality from the ad-hoc defections.
The Battle
The Battle of NoVA commenced just north of Ashland, as a dug-in infantry regiment of the USEG attempted to stop an armored column of advance ARU troops from moving north along the highway on their approach to DC. The line of battle ballooned outward, aided by superior ARU mobility and USEG air power, eventually spreading from Richmond in the east to Harrisonburg in the west as independent militias joined the fray on either side and the local police attempted to maintain order. After a few initial USEG successes from well-positioned units poised to intercept, the ARU's superior numbers and maneuverability began to overwhelm the spread-out defenders, forcing them back in order to prevent being surrounded and cut off. The USEG's air superiority, while critical for their whole strategy, was not as strong as expected: the ARU possessed few combat aircraft but had advanced SAM and CIWS vehicles from the south, parrying the near constant aerial assaults and forcing the USEG to rely more and more on their dwindling fleet of combat drones—powerful, easily countering whatever the ARU could throw at them, but also easily surrounded and not easily replaced once damaged or lost.
As the fight began to turn against the Emergency Government days of fierce debate in the USEG leadership ended in a bloodless coup. Not long after, the fateful decision was made by the ascendant factions to launch a large portion of the remaining tactical nuclear stockpile available to the federal government on the east coast in a last-ditch effort to stop the ARU advance. Ultimatums were rejected by ARU leadership, dismissed as either bluffs or disinformation. On the night of August 2, 2047, a date that became known as "Black Friday," the hand was dealt. ARU strongholds in Harrisonburg and Charlottesville were wiped off the map along with the cities that held them, along with numerous strategically important strongpoints and ARU-held towns across the land. The main ARU "anvil" driving up from Fredericksburg was stopped in its track by a simultaneous salvo of seven missiles launched from a loyal submarine, while the "hammer" coming up from the west was shattered by a constellation of nuclear airstrikes along the course of their advance. Those ARU forces that survived the attack were driven into a panicked retreat in all directions as the allied local militias scattered and vanished: most simply deserted and went home, but some defected or even turned on fleeing ARU units, which they blamed for provoking the renewed devastation. All of them were faced with a coordinated USEG counterattack, their hardened drones bursting through the smoke and ashes to pick off remaining rebel units. The battle officially ended on August 7, with the withdrawal back south of the remaining organized ARU units, though scattered fighting would continue in the region until winter.
Results and Aftermath
Accurate numbers are impossible to ascertain, but between 80-90% of all ARU forces were lost, along with virtually all of their senior leadership. Black Friday and the subsequent military disaster immediately precipitated the crisis of confidence that the ARU leadership had so feared and had launched the battle in part to stave off: demoralized and leaderless, the ARU forces turned on each other and, realizing that their ultimate aims were not shared or were even contradicted by their comrades, splintered off and deserted. It goes without saying that this did not recommend northern allies to the cause, and fragile talks collapsed and vanished as did the ARU outposts north of Appalachia. The Battle of NOVA spelled the end for the American Restoration Union as a coherent, unified force: ARU remnants exist to this day as the Union never technically surrendered (a claim frequently "debunked" by costumed men in USEG propaganda broadcasts purporting to be ARU leaders), but they are scattered across the American south and are frequently little better than bandits.
The Emergency Government did not have long to celebrate their victory, however. Civil unrest caused by popular anger at the Black Friday nuclear strikes made the USEG position in the whole Atlantic region untenable—even refugee camps and surviving towns that didn't rebel outright still held sizable contingents of often-armed anti-government agitators, and USEG forces frequently found that roads and important installations were booby-trapped or sabotaged by furious civilians, determined to resist a government willing to nuke its own people at a time when the horrors of such tactics were still fresh in everyone's minds. Local police and other officials were either unable or unwilling to help, lacking the resources and manpower as well as the motivation to suppress the growing uprising. Many police departments and militias that had once been on decent terms with the USEG now became neutral, unresponsive, or even outright hostile: outside Philadelphia, to give one typical example, local authorities stepped aside in to let angry mobs attack USEG officials, forcing the lucky to run for their lives and lynching the rest. After a moment's delay to capture surviving ARU materiel abandoned in the retreat—in some cases spraying out the irradiated remains of ARU crews from still operational vehicles with fire hoses—the USEG packed their bags, blew up or dismantled their strongholds, disabled what military tech they couldn't take with them, and headed north together and in force. In a movement known to history as "the Hard Walk", the USEG wound up moving into the relative safety of Buffalo by mid-April, where the region was still comparatively friendly (or at least not outright hostile), and where the lakes and mountains of upstate New York provided some much needed geographical protection and natural resources. Desertions were rampant, and despite "winning" in the Battle of NOVA, the USEG had lost more than half of their starting forces by the time they entered the city, rendering them able to do little more than to hold on to their base of power in Buffalo and maintain a few paltry bases in DC, New York City and Boston—a situation that remains more or less to this day.
Conclusions
The Battle of NOVA was bloodiest single battle fought on American soil with overall casualties exceeding Gettysburg by far (not counting the nuclear engagements of WW3, of course, which in most cases could hardly be described as "battle" anyways). The battle was, and remains, an important event of post-WW3 American history, and aside from WW3 is virtually the only historical event most people in the country under the age of thirty are aware of. Many people say they are veterans of NOVA, have claimed they've witnessed or participated in key moments, and some of them are even telling the truth. The stories of the battle—the Union's righteous crusade against authoritarian injustice, the dogged determination of the Emergency Government in the face of the rebel horde, the vast scale of the fighting that stretched across so many hills and vales, the evil brutality and terror of Black Friday, the multifaceted despair of the ARU collapse, and the grim endurance of the Hard Walk—all of these events are well known to even the most ignorant survivors. Stories and debates over the battle are discussed over campfires, in canteens and bars, in songs and ballads, even in broadcasts and videos, thus these stories color the entire culture of postwar America even beyond the Rockies. What you think about the Battle of NOVA and what it means says a lot about who you are in this world, more reliably than any profession of faith or allegiance. In a strange way the Battle of NOVA, the fight that wound up shattering any hope of widespread unity in the continent for generations, gave those generations a common touchstone of history and culture for all time.
+Added "TECHNOLOGY"
+Added "History and Lore - Battle of NoVa"
+Added "MUTANTS"
~Changed the time between WW3 and the first in-character post from nine to twenty-nine years.
+Added flavor quote for "TECHNOLOGY".
+ADDED IN-CHARACTER THREAD LINK - https://writerssanctum.com/threads/...-american-warlords-in-character-thread.35337/
-Removed pre-interest niceties (lol).
+ADDED CHARACTER APPLICATION SAMPLE
~Updated title and intro formatting
+Added "History and Lore - Battle of NoVa"
+Added "MUTANTS"
~Changed the time between WW3 and the first in-character post from nine to twenty-nine years.
+Added flavor quote for "TECHNOLOGY".
+ADDED IN-CHARACTER THREAD LINK - https://writerssanctum.com/threads/...-american-warlords-in-character-thread.35337/
-Removed pre-interest niceties (lol).
+ADDED CHARACTER APPLICATION SAMPLE
~Updated title and intro formatting
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