The United States of America has changed significantly from what it once was. Riots spread through the country after the news footage of a November 2011 civilian massacre in Cambridge at the hands of the US military went viral. On that same day, the sitting US president Nathan Petrelli was revealed to have been replaced by the ostensible "Midtown Man" Sylar, throwing into question the legitimacy of the entire Petrelli administration. As chaos churned, the United States turned on itself like a pack of feral dogs. Riots and internecine conflicts turned into outright civil war that raged for years. In the aftermath, the US rose from the ashes as a crumbling nation on the very brink of total collapse.
|
Table of Contents
|
Government
As of 2021, the current seated President of the United States is Joshua Harding, the former Governor of Florida. Harding won the 2020 Presidential Election after the seated president Raymond Praeger dropped out of the elections. Praeger was formerly the Secretary of the Department of Evolved Affairs, but turned on the organization at the onset of the civil war. Praeger became the Resistance's de-facto political figurehead during the crisis, and was interim President until the 2016 Presidential Elections were held in the aftermath of the war, giving way to his first official term as President after a landslide victory.
Washington, D.C. was severely damaged during the civil war and is no longer functional enough to serve as the US Capital. Facilities there are being repaired and maintained, but nothing is structurally sound enough to facilitate the operation of the nation. Some hardened structures, such as the Pentagon, are mostly intact and partially operational. As part of the re-establishment of government continuity after the war, the nation's capital and all government functions have permanently been moved to Kansas City, Missouri in what is now Washington KC. The entire Power & Light district has been subsumed by government functions. The KC Convention Center, City Hall, Spring Center, H&R Block World HQ, and Municipal Auditorium are all operating at stressed capacity trying to host the post-war government.
Economy
The US economy is in a tailspin due to the civil war, and destabilization of the US Dollar has had tremendous negative impacts across the world. The global recession now in place has crushed the lower and middle classes of America. Inflation currently sits near 300%, and due to the devastation caused by the war, shortages of food and other essentials are rampant. Numerous businesses both small and large were physically destroyed by the civil war or financially destroyed by the economic collapse. Only the largest, most resilient corporations survive, and they have begun carving up the remaining economic landscape.
Registration
Under the articles of the Chesterfield Act, registration of SLC-Expressive humans is no longer a mandatory policy, except in the cases of people convicted of crimes relating to or performed while utilizing an SLC-Expressive ability. Voluntary registration of SLC-Expressive individuals is handled by means of a private registry maintained by the SLC-Expressive Services Agency. For more information, see Registration. The United States now has the most relaxed registration policy in the world, putting them in the position of becoming an asylum state for freedom-seeking people across the globe. This has also put the US at odds with the European Union, which has one of the most restrictive registries.
Travel
Travel into the United States has not changed overly much, except that an enormous number of international airports within the country were destroyed during the civil war. As such, entry to the US can be a slow and arduous process. However, exiting the US is far more complicated. Aside from Canada, which shares the US policy of SLC-Expressive registration, other nations have restricted US immigration and travel. US citizens who have not been tested for the Suresh Linkage Complex are not permitted to enter most countries with active Registry programs. Registered SLC-Expressive US citizens are permitted to enter foreign countries under strict scrutiny at customs, including a mandatory demonstration of their ability and at times exposure to extended interrogation. Registered SLC-Expressive US citizens with "dangerous" abilities, which are often arbitrarily designated by foreign customs, are denied entry and sometimes detained indefinitely under the auspices of "suspected terrorism". This is especially common within the European Union.
Firearms & Body Armor
It is worth noting that due to the recent conclusion of the civil war, the destabilization of the American state, and the current status of pockets of fighting still extant in the American West that state and federal laws permitting the display and use of firearms and body armor are relaxed. All states are currently operating under open carry laws, and restrictions around personal body armor use, typically limited to a degree to only law enforcement and military usage, are also relaxed. Additionally, permit searches for open carry firearms are typically not held unless there is due cause. Prosecution for unregistered firearms has only occurred when a suspect is charged with firearms-related violence. The current status-quo is, "don't cause trouble, don't attract attention."
This lax governance will presumably be tightened as America recovers from the war and the country becomes safer and more secure.
Dead Zones
On November 24th, 2013 General Timothy Moritz, a loyalist to then-President Andrew Mitchell, authorized a nuclear strike on American soil. The Mitchell administration attempted to turn America's nuclear arsenal against suspected hotbeds of Evolved activity, while spinning a story of an Evolved technopath hacker as responsible for the strike. However, nearly all of the missiles launched were disarmed in flight thanks to the efforts of a united front of Evolved working in tandem to prevent the catastrophe. Two missiles — one targeting Seattle, Washington and the other Portland, Oregon — were unable to be stopped.
Evolved freedom fighters based out of Seattle, known as the Guardians, were able to force the ICBM over Washington State to detonate at 400km above the surface of the earth. This blast caused a catastrophic EMP magnitudes more powerful than that in Manhattan in 2011. The EMP's effect blacked out the American northwest from as far south as Mexico to north past Vancouver, BC in Canada and east as far as Casper, Wyoming. All unhardened civilian infrastructure collapsed in the EMP, and the majority of military assets in the field fell as well.
Eighteen seconds later a 100 kiloton nuclear warhead struck three miles south of Portland, Oregon in Brentwood-Darlington. The fireball radius spread out to 1,640 ft with an air blast pushing 1.2 miles beyond to the edge of Portland. The devastation, without any fire or rescue personnel or equipment to respond, was unfathomable. Wildfires sparked by the blast raged over the Pacific Northwest and into California.
In the aftermath of these attacks, the regions affected by the EMP have been designated "Dead Zones" are are still without stable infrastructure. The Dead Zone areas are divided into two major groupings: The Pacific Northwest Dead Zone (PNW DZ) which consists of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming. A redevelopment contract for the PNW Dead Zone was awarded to Yamagato Industries. The remaining dead zone is classified as the Pacific Southwest Dead Zone (PSW DZ). The redevelopment contract for the PSW DZ was awarded to Praxis Heavy Industries, and is in the process of being reannexed by the US following Praxis' attack on the US. Collectively, the Dead Zones are sometimes referred to in unison as the PDZ (Pacific Dead Zone).