Disunited States Setting

[Michael Hopcroft]

I haven;t decided on things like power and technologylevel, whether there will be magic, etc., but I just got a weird idea. Can you imagine a game world in which the USa had been dissolved and each of the 50 states was in indpeendnent country?

 

This would probably only happen if technology, transportation and communications had broken down to the point that such a large country could no lger be held together. And the sytats would not remain independent long if the saem phenomenon had not happened in the rest of the world. Transportation would be animal-profelled, sailing ships, and the like. Weapons might be the remnants of the weapons that exist today utnil the ammunition runs out -- after that, it's back to black powder and cold steel. I suspect one of the circumtances that would bering something like this about is the world running completely out of current energy sources such as oil and coal, making it impossible to do things like power vehicles or generate electricity.

 

The pricniple question is what would keep the large states like California and new york from swallowing the smaller states like Oregon, Nevada and Connecticut.

 

Of course, if magic returns this becomes a humans-only fantasy game (unless magic is used to create monsters).

 

Since books can still be read scientific knowledge, even though it may not always be usable, was not lost. Scholars know how petroleum products were made, for example, but with no petroleum the knl\owledge is useless. less useless is the cultural heritage of the past -- and I can imagine that as 'the end" approached a massive effort was made to convert all the digital and film history into a form that can be disseminated without expending energy. Thus, Casablanca still exists, but instead of watching it on a screen you read it in the form of a comic book. You don't listen to the Beatles, but you read theyr lyrics and play the sheet music on your acoustic instruments. Minstrelry is back, with two hundred years of pop music hisotry to draw on.

 

if everybody is in the same boat, will there be new 'wars between the states" or is there a diferent dynamic going on?

[lemming]

Well, I think different regions would be together.

One resource you might want to hunt down is GURPS Autoduel/Car Wars AADA Road Atlas and Survival Guides. I'm not sure if they covered all the states, but did do the majority (plus Australia Vol 4) in the first six.

 

I did do a FH game that took place in the US.

The Missisipi Valley was the human area, the SE swamps were Lizards/Trolls.

North East was the realm of the Orcs. Mainly so I could have New Orc.

Vegas was controlled by the Halfling Mafia.

California was controlled by Necromancers, but the PCs hadn't gotten that far yet.

I've wanted to start running that game again, but I've got all different players since I moved up North.

[Ghost who Walks]

Have a big enough EMP pulse to fry all the electronics, and the US would pretty much fall apart. Communications hold it together.

 

Or you could go the plague route, like on Jeremiah.

[Spence]

Crimson Skies! The original FASA version. Not the Clicks stuff. If you can find them the novels were pretty good.

[Dauntless]

How about an environmental disaster? Either climatic changes or my own personal favorite, the reversal of the magnetic poles. The magnetic pole shift will release an EMP burst which will fry virtually all electronics in the world, not to mention screw around with many AC devices. This will paradoxically make the most advanced nations the most vulnerable, and many third world nations will be less affected.

 

So more well developed states like California, Florida, New York and Texas will be more damaged than more rural states.

 

A relatively quick climatic change (not the overnight change that seems will happen in the movie The Day After Tomorrow), but one which happens over the span of a few decades is another possibility. If a new ice age occurs within 20-40 years, the resulting impact will probably tear asunder civilization as we know it. Another similar result can be achieved with a meteor impact.

 

As for why less powerful states won't absorb the smaller ones....just take a look at how the United States was before the Civil War. Today, we take it for granted that we are Americans first, and Virginians, New Yorkers, Floridians etc. second. That wasn't always the case. In fact, the major reason the Civil War was fought (despite the myth that it was fought over slavery) was that the south was fearful of a strong centralized government in Washington D.C. telling the local states what to do. Our original government was actually a Confederation...a loose grouping of sovereign states which held to a common cause. In fact, before 1783, each state had it's own currency and its own military.

[ArmlessTigerMan]

This would probably only happen if technology, transportation and communications had broken down to the point that such a large country could no lger be held together.

 

Hmmm... You could go the alternate history route. Someone already mentions Crimson Skies. The New Deal falls flat, or FDR is killed/never elected, and network of highways that ties america together is never built. According to FASA, from there it's just a stone's throw to anarchy, rebellion, and the balkanization of America.

 

Or.. set your way-back machine to the late 1700's. The U.S. never evolves past it's Confederacy days outlined above in Dauntless's post. The states might get together to repel the threat of foreign invaders, but in most other ways are completely separate entities. Fast forward to the 21st century and extrapolate the results.

 

Or... set your game in the 1700's. America declares it's independence, and magick re-emerges in the world.

 

Or... maybe hyper-technology causes the balkanization. In the early 1900's, Henry Ford mass produces Edison's personal teleportation devices. America no longer needs a net of Railroads or highways to connect it, and airplanes are obsolete before they are developed. America's agrarian population can now bulk telelport their crops to market. There's no such thing as Hobos, as you can either afford a teleport device, or a horse, or you stay home.

And then, as per Crimson Skies, the Depression causes anarchy and the states secede from the Union.

 

Anyways, just trying to say that the sudden breakdown of technology, or sudden environmental devastation are not the only ways to go.

[UltraRob]

There's a book kicking around called "1421: The Year China Discovered America" by Gavin Menzies that is about a story I heard long ago. China sent out huge trade fleets that sailed the world, and although they never went to Europe, there is belief they did visit America. (The fleets were eventually scrapped because of a change in leadership in the Empire...)

I have always thought a very cool alternate history scenario would be if China and Europe had started to colonize America at roughly the same time from different shores. (Which very well nearly happened!) How would things have turned out? Especially since it would have been likely the chinese colonists would have been more or less left on their own to develop in the new world due to distance and regular changes in government. You'd end up with Americans (and Canadians) meeting up with a Chinese state (or states) which had been there for hundreds of years by the time they worked their way to the West Coast. And the Chinese had gunpowder too, and would have been more that happy to arm the Natives to keep the Europeans at bay...

 

So many possibilties!

 

Rob

[Blue]

Ever read "Hardwired" by Walter Jon Williams? It's a cyberpunk world setting in which the country is fractured into zones. The main character is a smuggler who specializes in crossing a section that is patrolled by rent-a-cops.

 

I mention it because there's a published supplement for CYBERPUNK based on this setting. It might be useful to you. Also it's the only practical application I can recall of this type of setting.

[Troll]

Back in the day I played in a disunited states setting. The east coast and the midwestern states were called the United States, the Old South along with Cuba and other Carribean Islands were the Confederacy, There was a Republic of Texas, A Mormon Theocracy in Utah, an Indian Nation in the Dakotas, the Costal republic along the west coast, and a Kingdom of Hawaii. Canada was also split into a English speaking country called Canada, Quebec and a large native area taking up most of the north and Alaska, which also had some Russian outposts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Originally posted by Dauntless

In fact, the major reason the Civil War was fought (despite the myth that it was fought over slavery) was that the south was fearful of a strong centralized government in Washington D.C. telling the local states what to do.

 

I would disagree on that. The North fought the civil war to preserve the union and the south fought the war to preserve an economy based on slavery, not a fear of a strong centralized government, unless they feared that the Federal Government was going to outlaw slavery. If that were the case then the south would not have supported the Fugitive Slave Act.

 

"Saying the Civil War was caused by states rights is like saying a barn burned down because it was on fire. The real question is what caused the fire.â€