Western States Collation Casement
The holocaust erupted on October 31st, 1963. The Cubans opted to attack instead of backing off when president John F. Kennedy had ordered them to.
The Eastern part of the states suffered massively from the holocaust. Washington, New York city had both been obliterated. The Great Lakes had been ripped apart by the earthquakes triggered by the massive bombings, had become one large entity. It had spilled down into the Ohio River Valley and left those areas forever under the flood waters after the Nuclear Winter had ended. The western side of the country, with the exception of California, Oregon and Washington, faired far better.
The Department of Extraterrestrial Investigations, or DEI. had been set up over two hundred years before, after the Cuban missile crises escalated into nuclear conflagration. It was the job of the DEI to disapprove all claims that Aliens had actually been responsible for the nuclear holocaust.
Part of the training of being a member of the DEI was never to actually look at any items confiscated during duty. Reasoning is that if an agent had knowledge of something, even if it wasn't an alien artifact, it was difficult to disavow knowledge of it. In the early days, DEI agents had been captured by ROAMers and tortured for information. It was designed more to protect the agent than anything else.
The ROAMer, or Recorders of Alien Manipulation. underground tried to create and give such information to the media. The reporters of Alien Manipulation had been a fist in the face of the Western States Collation or the WSC since the remnants of Congress had migrated to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and set up the provisional Government after the nuclear weapons ceased detonating.
The survivors went underground to survive. For the first years they scavenged what they could, built downwards, to escape the hellish cyclic winds that scoured the ruins above. The survivors scavenged what they could during the calm times. Once the winds diminished and the conditions on the surface were livable once again, the ville inhabitants built upwards once again. The aliens had arrived, in the guise of other human survivors, shaping and guiding the ville to the head of the WSC.
Over the years, after the populace returned, the underground warrens eventually grew into the Tartarus pits. Here wastes and sewage is dumped from the ville above into the pits where criminals and slaves dispose of it. No one would want to live in it, so Lakesh and the ROAMers claimed it for their own, making it the base of their operations. They were never found because the ROAMers were very careful to hide their passages and keep their base secret.
The war that decimated the states also affected Santa Fe. But the various governments hadn't known about the secret facilities that had been springing up under White Sands, New Mexico. By that time Joe McCarthy and his communist hunters had ferreted out most of the Communists Sympathizers and spies from Hollywood and Washington. It was an wasted effort as neither of those places survived.
During the initial years, the surviving Military had been responsible for dolling out salvaged supplies to the survivors and attracting people to the ville. But as the years past, that job had been taken over by traders who ran the supply routes and made a profit that was plowed back into getting more vehicles into the supply routes.
Most weapons, equipment and vehicles were left over from world war two and up until the late fifties. Very few new products were produced. It was still common for people to be armed, but a lot of weapons, particularly knives, were considered uncivilized. They were not outlawed outright, but they were frowned upon, to the point that agents of the DEI were not allowed to carry them.
The buildings of around Santa Fe were squats, structures that had been damaged but not destroyed by the quakes that rocked the western half of the United States. They had taken too much of an investment once the survivors began to get organized, and too much time to tear down. These buildings served as way stations for the Transients to stay while they were being absorbed into the ville. Or turned away. Life in those years had been hard and only those who could contribute were allowed to stay.
The new government, including the congress and the president were segregated from the rest of the population. It didn't stop at that, they frowned upon genetic mixing that occurred with other races, due to the inherit anomalies that came with mixed blood. The sections of the city were also segregated by race. The blacks occupying one section, the Asians another, and so forth.
Equal rights never had a chance to exist in this casement as Martin Luther King had been executed by the pre-holocaust government for fomenting rebellion among the nation's black population. King had been closely tied to the ROAMers, publicly stating that the worlds governments were hand in hand with the Aliens, being controlled by them.
As with the villes of the main casement in Outlanders, the villes were built around a central administrative monolith.
Santa Fe, over the years, had built up limited manufacturing facilities.
ROAMers maintained that they had contact with an alien race called the Archons, and maintained that the Archons had been the ones that started the nuclear war. ROAMer propaganda stipulated that the Archons had secretly allied themselves with major governments of the world, that they had been at work for hundreds of years, influencing the future of mankind.
The ROAMers had been organizing strikes into the WSC in order to prove what they know about the aliens. They stormed Roswell and AREA 51 looking for the downed alien craft that was supposed to have been kept there since as early as 1947. Their latest tactic is to say that the alien craft had been moved down into the crypts under the installation. They knew that the DEI couldn't show them such installations as they don't exist.
They are hoping to infect the rest of the Collation with their Paranoia, the administrators diplomatic relationships with the other world powers, as well within the regions within the WSC, hoping to cause it to fall apart.
It turns out that the ROAMers are not the only problem facing the WSC and DEI. The disenfranchised black nomad gangs of the EA. Due to stopping their sedition behavior in the WSC, it has strengthened the gang numbers in the EA. One particular band, the Panthers, had actually set up a network of supply caches, and the leaders have began to negotiate with the other bands, as well as the EA powers to unite even more of them to a common purpose. If left unchecked, the united bands could become a huge military force that even the WSC military might may not be able to deal with, without incurring huge losses as well.
The mutants that had sprung up in the Eastern Alliance were proof of the genetic tampering that the Archons had been involved in.
In this casement the Archons are the enemy. They promulgated the race wars that followed immediately after the war, that ripped the tattered remains of the united states apart.
Besides the Western States Collation and the Eastern Alliance of Former United States, a handful of other empires had sprung up over the years, rising and falling as prosperity and a strong hand took them over. Some of them in the worst areas had even gone back to a type of feudalism, swearing fealty to barons that ruled by gun and sword.
There is a massive wall separating the two governments, set up along the Mississippi river delta. The wall was ten feet thick and forty feet high. Vulcan-Phalanx were mounted every thousand yards, offering overlapping fields of fire. Deathbirds also made scouting runs, but mainly during the day time when they would be most effective and less vulnerable. The Deathbirds IR systems could be fooled.
There were massive, impenetrable gates built along the walls at intervals, allowing the trader consortiums to pass through into the Eastern Alliance.
Over the years WSC scientists introduced plague virus's and diseases into the black communities roving the Eastern Alliance territory. Gene Splicers from Overproject Excalibur had created the bugs in labs and moved them into the eastern lands. In the beginning, and sometimes still, Deathbirds had flown into the Eastern Alliance Territory and dropped cultures onto the migratory bands. At other times they placed cultures in food products and passed them out in the winter time. One variant had been a particularly virulent pseudopodia that lived dormant in blankets that had been passed out, then became active from the salts excreted from the human body. The Eastern Alliance government occasionally handed out antidotes from the diseases under duress. Full blown epidemics had also adversely affected the EA, which suited the WSC just fine. They only offered the technology out of self preservation. At other times entire villes of men, women and children had been put to death to prevent the spread of particularly nasty diseases.
There are other ways to get into EA or WSC though. There are series of hidden tunnels that allow passage under the wall. It is one way many of the prisoners and persecuted minorities use to get out of the Tartarus pits in Santa Fe into the EA Outlands. But it worked both ways. Many people from the EA used the tunnel systems to get into the WSC in hopes of a better life.
The Western States Collation had the most weapons had the most tactical advantages, but the Russians People Protectorate was gaining Rapidly. The ROAMers postulated that the Archons were deliberately building up arms, getting ready for more Nuclear strikes against the Eastern Alliance as well as the European survivors.
The Embassy in Santa Fe, the Russians People Protectorate, was staffed by Hybrids. These hybrids are much the same as those in the original Outlanders casement. In this Casement, Cobalt is also present and is the ambassador. He is also a hybrid. The hybrids were a number of replacements that had taken place around the globe, getting the hybrids into power. Business conducted between the civilized nations of the world were conducted and guided by the Archons.
As with the Nazi Casement, this casement had a Gene purity control board, where people were to register, in order to prevent inter-racial breeding, weeding out those with de-habilitating mutations or other undesirable traits. But with the number of mutants and freaks that lived in the wilderness and homeless in the streets, proves that people being slaves to their passions do not always do as the government wishes.
Sex was the coin of the realm for those who didn't have government jobs. Other jobs were provided by the Trader Consortiums that had grown out of the initial traders who plied their trade just after the war. They provided jobs, security and food for those that no longer held government jobs. The traders always had the best vehicles and equipment. They operated by that precedent as the governments started coming into power again, and the first lobbying movement they had muscled into the government docket had to have been written into law. There had been little opposition.
People brought what they scavenged, created or grown. In exchange they received letters of credit to be used when the pack wags returned with goods from elsewhere.
The traders used tattoo's and camouflage, much like the major city gangs. They are all heavily armed and quite capable of handling themselves in a fight.
Some compared the trader Consortiums to the Barons that ruled in the wilds, and talked of them in much the same ill light. The warehouses are kept about five minutes out of Santa Fe. Only a handful of the buildings are permanent. The rest have to be easy to tear down because the Traders nomadic life. New markets often opened up when scavengers made fresh strikes, digging through the rubble to the predark villes, and the supplies had to be gotten into the other scavengers that joined them, as well as transport arranged for all the things they found. A permanent location would have been detrimental. According to law, the trader consortiums had to formally register their locations when they moved.
The trader consortiums have been working for the EA government as well as the black gangs. The reason is that if the ROAMers are successful in undermining the authority of the present administration, the Trader Consortiums would become the strongest force west of the Mississippi wall.
To fight this, the WSC scientists came up with the Genesis project. A tailored disease that would wipe out 83% of all life in the EA territory. 17% of human life would survive but there wouldn't be enough animal life to feed the survivors. It would destroy any organization on the other side of the Wall.
Amazingly enough, the technology for cybernetic implants and prosthetics actually exists in this world. Many agents for the DEI had communication gear directly implanted into their skulls to eliminate the need for hand held equipment.
The current president of the Western States Collation is a man named Foggherty.
Thirty years before the WSC and the other nations of the world that managed to reform the governments began to exchange ambassadors. That is why there are Ambassadors in Santa Fe. Embassy row in the Alpha district occupied the center of Santa Fe ville near the top of the top of the Administrative monolith. As well as the representatives of the two Russian nations, there were twenty seven other embassies.
The Danaan, and the Archons had warred behind the scenes for the united states because it had the most potential out of all the nations. The Danaan had established weapons and technology caches in the Eastern part of the states, intending to strike against the Archons. Only the Cuban missile crises took place and decimated their ranks. The information was lost for almost two hundred years. This is part of the information that Brigid was to discover (below).
In this Casement, Kane is an agent for the DEI, and has been partnered with Beth Li Rouch for three years. He and Beth Li were investigating three week old data regarding a ROAMer named Sheenan. He was supposed to have an alien artifact that he was going to courier to the media for national exposure. Kane sees the item and learns it is part of the Genesis project, and has something to do with the Russian Embassy.
Over the past three years the Roamers began to feed false data to the DEI, and during that period of time, the number of casualties began to grow from 3 in the first year, up to twenty one.
Kane is horrified to learn that he is a cyborg, his right arm is a prosthetic limb. The limb looked and felt like a real limb, the flesh warm to the touch and malleable, even had hair follicles. He is also married to Brigid. He had lost his arm to a ROAMer ax years before. The ax had destroyed his shoulder and arm, forcing it to be amputated. The director had arranged for his bionic replacements.
Kane had been part of the defense teams that had turned back the final assault by the ROAMers two years ago. They had again tried to get into Roswell to prove the existence of the Aliens.
Grant, in this casement, is the leader of one of the biggest Panther gangs in the Eastern Alliance. The WSC placed a massive bounty on his head. He was, as in the real casement, thick and massive. His body was crisscrossed with scars, from the near constant battles against the WSC and also the time he spent in the Tartarus pits in Santa Fe. His personal gang has two thousand members in it.
Grant's mentor is an old warrior named Hooker. He had lost his legs seven years before after being run over by a war wag in the Shens. The man had continued to lead the Panthers for two years afterwards before finally passing leadership onto Grant.
Over the years, Grant had also personally ordered the destruction of entire villes in the EA that had been affected by gene spliced diseases spread by the WSC. It was distasteful but to ensure survival, he would do it again.
The Panthers are the descendents of the Black Panthers, the warriors who fought for equal rights before the nuclear war. The predark government had linked them to the Russian communist of the old world, then the ROAMers made them out to be nothing more than Bandit Prince's that practiced only sedition. Talk got them nothing, only fighting gained them anything. Over the years they had gotten far better at fighting against those who would deny them their freedom. They had also added equipment, better weapons and wags to their arsenal.
It is common practice for the Panthers to take scalps from the enemies they dispatch. They also tend to carve chunks of flesh off the dead in order to propagate the rumor that they are cannibals. They are not, but it adds an air of fear to their name, sometimes occasionally helping demoralize the people they fight against.
Brigid, in this casement, is married to Kane and she wears her hair short. She is an Archavist here as well. It was part of her job to help rebuild the history from the scattered records that they salvage, the few that remained after the war. Theft of data from the archives was dealt with harshly. The offenders were executed. For several weeks she had been living in fear. She had picked up rumors of Overproject Excalibur having developed mutants that could use psionic abilities. She meets with division master Fraiser, and is asked to translate diaries and documents that reveal the location of hidden caches on the East Coast.
She is attacked by one man who she finds out that the Director sent to take care of her. It is because of Genesis.
Lakesh is the head of the resistance here. He had been part of the totality concept for five years before the nuclear holocaust. His education had been completed in a brain trust bunker beneath Boston, overseen by the Archon directive. Due to his exceptional intelligence, the Archons had ordered replacement organs and prosthesis for Lakesh in order to prolong his lifespan, thus his usefulness to them. His vocal cords wore out three decades before.
Seventy years before Lakesh faked his own death and disappeared into the Tartarus pits to wage his own struggle against the Archons. Over the years he built up the ROAMer movement and set up ties in the EA, the nomad gangs and the Trader Consortium. All he needed was proof that the Archons existed. Brigid had the information he had been seeking.
According the the Intel gathered by Lakesh's agents, approximately a third of the ambassadors had been replaced by hybrids. This was due to Thrush's direct involvement. He was eventually going to replace all of the ambassadors with Hybrids. A special hospital had been set up where the Hybrids were grown and altered to appear human. Lakesh had tried to track the facility using the power consumption but was unable to pinpoint its location.
Kane, Grant and members of Grants Panthers storm the embassy and show to the ville citizens the hybrids and the proof the ROAMers were trying to expose, the existence of Aliens. This undermines all of Thrush's work in the Casement.
Map of the United States, Circa 2198