Welcome to Daughters of Columbia.
On April 17, 2015, without any warning, the United States of...
On April 17, 2015, without any warning, the United States of...
Daughters of Columbia
- Thread starter EBR
- Start date
- Original Supernatural
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- original isot (isekai) america
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EBR
Self-Requested Ban
- Location
- Khazaria
Welcome to Daughters of Columbia.
On April 17, 2015, without any warning, the United States of America, including all fifty-states, five self-governing territories, assorted minor possessions, the District of Columbia, and its three Freely Associated States (which aren't actually part of the USA but were included anyway) were ISOTed to a Virgin Earth.
The hunting is amazing, the Ameriwank even more amazing, but that's not really the focus of this scenario.
You see, the United States was not transported to this new world entirely alone (even discounting Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands). It brought along 22.6 million residents without American citizenship (13.7 million lawful permanent residents, 11.1 million undocumented, and 1.7 million with temporary visas), roughly 8 million tourists and business travelers, and a not-insubstantial number of foreign diplomats and embassy personnel. A dissident member of the Russian parliament was living in California and the Italian Prime Minister was present for a working visit. That such stranded persons (to make no mention of the many Americans either born outside of the country or with a strong national identity other than being American) should seek to rebuild their homelands in the Virgin Earth is a popular ISOT trope and that, brothers and sisters, is the focus of this scenario.
You are invited to contribute write-ups describing the countries founded by stranded peoples and ethnic minorities (or occasionally ideological or religious groups) in this new world. Your write-ups should describe state of these countries as of 100 years after the ISOT occurred, @ScottishMongol and I will jointly determine what is and what isn't canon, with veto powers over each other's work. We are also open to allowing 72-hour reservations from people who have a solid idea for a particular country or region and don't want to risk someone else nabbing it first.
Be wary of restricted and off-limits places to settle!
The United States government will not permit private colonial ventures to claim places that are already under settlement by itself or someone else, and there are regions of strategic, economic, and cultural importance that it will be very leery of letting people other than itself settle. Think Panama, Suez, the Lithium Triangle, certain important straits, Australia, China, and Great Britain, various holy cities, locations with important biodiversity, and the like. This doesn't mean that it's impossible to convince Washington to let you settle in a restricted area, but it's going to be extra challenging to get approval.
Under lobbying pressure from a variety of groups such as pre-ISOT embassies and advocacy groups (including but not limited to AIPAC, the Irish National Caucus, the National Council of Iran and the Pahlavi Dynasty, and the South Vietnamese Government-in-exile) and wanting to provide a legal route for people seeking to create independent colonies (because otherwise they were going to go out and create illegal ones), the United States government created a process that groups seeking to go out and found/refound countries must observe.
@ScottishMongol and I will post one contribution each and then you can start sending us your ideas.
On April 17, 2015, without any warning, the United States of America, including all fifty-states, five self-governing territories, assorted minor possessions, the District of Columbia, and its three Freely Associated States (which aren't actually part of the USA but were included anyway) were ISOTed to a Virgin Earth.
The hunting is amazing, the Ameriwank even more amazing, but that's not really the focus of this scenario.
You see, the United States was not transported to this new world entirely alone (even discounting Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands). It brought along 22.6 million residents without American citizenship (13.7 million lawful permanent residents, 11.1 million undocumented, and 1.7 million with temporary visas), roughly 8 million tourists and business travelers, and a not-insubstantial number of foreign diplomats and embassy personnel. A dissident member of the Russian parliament was living in California and the Italian Prime Minister was present for a working visit. That such stranded persons (to make no mention of the many Americans either born outside of the country or with a strong national identity other than being American) should seek to rebuild their homelands in the Virgin Earth is a popular ISOT trope and that, brothers and sisters, is the focus of this scenario.
You are invited to contribute write-ups describing the countries founded by stranded peoples and ethnic minorities (or occasionally ideological or religious groups) in this new world. Your write-ups should describe state of these countries as of 100 years after the ISOT occurred, @ScottishMongol and I will jointly determine what is and what isn't canon, with veto powers over each other's work. We are also open to allowing 72-hour reservations from people who have a solid idea for a particular country or region and don't want to risk someone else nabbing it first.
Be wary of restricted and off-limits places to settle!
The United States government will not permit private colonial ventures to claim places that are already under settlement by itself or someone else, and there are regions of strategic, economic, and cultural importance that it will be very leery of letting people other than itself settle. Think Panama, Suez, the Lithium Triangle, certain important straits, Australia, China, and Great Britain, various holy cities, locations with important biodiversity, and the like. This doesn't mean that it's impossible to convince Washington to let you settle in a restricted area, but it's going to be extra challenging to get approval.
Under lobbying pressure from a variety of groups such as pre-ISOT embassies and advocacy groups (including but not limited to AIPAC, the Irish National Caucus, the National Council of Iran and the Pahlavi Dynasty, and the South Vietnamese Government-in-exile) and wanting to provide a legal route for people seeking to create independent colonies (because otherwise they were going to go out and create illegal ones), the United States government created a process that groups seeking to go out and found/refound countries must observe.
1. Before a private colonial effort can be launched it must receive a charter from the USDI.
2. Charters will only be issued for organizations whose goals in founding their colony are non-profit in nature (corporations will of course play a role in America's settlement of the Virgin Earth, but they can't have their own countries)
3. This means that in addition to national projects by ethnic minorities/stranded people you can have colonies founded for ideological or even (controversially) religious reasons
4. To qualify for a charter a private colonial effort must first raise at least $20,000,000 and recruit at least 20,000 individuals who have signed a letter of intent to actually emigrate to the colony once it's founded
5. Private colonies must submit a written constitution to the USDI for approval before a charter will be granted, the USDI rejects any constitutions that provide insufficient protections for the human rights of their citizens or are otherwise undemocratic in character. Constitutional monarchies are okay, democratic socialism/libertarianism/etc. is okay, Communism/Neo-Fascism is not.
6. Private colonial efforts can claim no more than 5,000 square miles of territory (roughly the size of Connecticut) with the USDI's approval, the USDI reserves the right to reject claims for a variety of reasons (the area has already or is already being settled, there are essential resources in the region, it's a location of strategic importance, etc.).
7. Once a colony is at least 10 years old and has at least 20,000 inhabitants it can apply to the Department for an additional 5,000 square miles that may or may not be granted at the discretion of the US Secretary of the Interior. Any requests for territory beyond that can only be approved by the US Congress.
8. Because private colonies are regarded as Domestic Dependent Nations of the United States (similar to Indian tribes) and not sovereign nations (at least initially) they are subject to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and prohibited from discriminating against potential colonists on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The colonies can promote their own specific culture and encourage people of certain backgrounds and beliefs to join them, but they cannot issue a blanket ban on, say, African-Americans or Catholics from moving to their colony. (This was the result of the Supreme Court Case Palestine v. Israel)
9. Private colonies may restrict immigration on grounds other than race, color, religion, sex, or national origin and many do- prior convictions for instance, or the ability to speak a specific language (which is often used to get around the Civil Rights Act).
10. Once a private colony has at least 100,000 inhabitants and is at least 15 years old it may hold a plebiscite on independence, if its inhabitants vote in favor then it will transition over a three-year period to becoming an independent State in Free Association with the United States of America. States in Free Association are sovereign but participate in a Compact of Free Association with certain economic provisions (use of the US dollar as its official currency, banking transparency to prevent tax evasion or money laundering), certain military provisions(the United States can station troops there on request, there is a mutual defense treaty in effect, the state in question cannot pursue nuclear, chemical, biological, or space-borne weapons, etc.), and an extradition agreement. There are also a variety of benefits to Free Association that can be found here.
11. A State in Free Association can withdraw from its Compact of Free Association if it wants to, but the United States has no compunctions about bringing economic pressure to bear on a non-Freely Associated State that engages in practices that would allow money laundering, tax evasion, sex tourism, etc. or other, sharper forms of pressure to bear on states that try to develop nuclear weapons or start fights with their neighbors.
2. Charters will only be issued for organizations whose goals in founding their colony are non-profit in nature (corporations will of course play a role in America's settlement of the Virgin Earth, but they can't have their own countries)
3. This means that in addition to national projects by ethnic minorities/stranded people you can have colonies founded for ideological or even (controversially) religious reasons
4. To qualify for a charter a private colonial effort must first raise at least $20,000,000 and recruit at least 20,000 individuals who have signed a letter of intent to actually emigrate to the colony once it's founded
5. Private colonies must submit a written constitution to the USDI for approval before a charter will be granted, the USDI rejects any constitutions that provide insufficient protections for the human rights of their citizens or are otherwise undemocratic in character. Constitutional monarchies are okay, democratic socialism/libertarianism/etc. is okay, Communism/Neo-Fascism is not.
6. Private colonial efforts can claim no more than 5,000 square miles of territory (roughly the size of Connecticut) with the USDI's approval, the USDI reserves the right to reject claims for a variety of reasons (the area has already or is already being settled, there are essential resources in the region, it's a location of strategic importance, etc.).
7. Once a colony is at least 10 years old and has at least 20,000 inhabitants it can apply to the Department for an additional 5,000 square miles that may or may not be granted at the discretion of the US Secretary of the Interior. Any requests for territory beyond that can only be approved by the US Congress.
8. Because private colonies are regarded as Domestic Dependent Nations of the United States (similar to Indian tribes) and not sovereign nations (at least initially) they are subject to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and prohibited from discriminating against potential colonists on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The colonies can promote their own specific culture and encourage people of certain backgrounds and beliefs to join them, but they cannot issue a blanket ban on, say, African-Americans or Catholics from moving to their colony. (This was the result of the Supreme Court Case Palestine v. Israel)
9. Private colonies may restrict immigration on grounds other than race, color, religion, sex, or national origin and many do- prior convictions for instance, or the ability to speak a specific language (which is often used to get around the Civil Rights Act).
10. Once a private colony has at least 100,000 inhabitants and is at least 15 years old it may hold a plebiscite on independence, if its inhabitants vote in favor then it will transition over a three-year period to becoming an independent State in Free Association with the United States of America. States in Free Association are sovereign but participate in a Compact of Free Association with certain economic provisions (use of the US dollar as its official currency, banking transparency to prevent tax evasion or money laundering), certain military provisions(the United States can station troops there on request, there is a mutual defense treaty in effect, the state in question cannot pursue nuclear, chemical, biological, or space-borne weapons, etc.), and an extradition agreement. There are also a variety of benefits to Free Association that can be found here.
11. A State in Free Association can withdraw from its Compact of Free Association if it wants to, but the United States has no compunctions about bringing economic pressure to bear on a non-Freely Associated State that engages in practices that would allow money laundering, tax evasion, sex tourism, etc. or other, sharper forms of pressure to bear on states that try to develop nuclear weapons or start fights with their neighbors.
@ScottishMongol and I will post one contribution each and then you can start sending us your ideas.
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Official Name: República de Patria Grande
Common Name: Patria Grande
Government Type: Parliamentary Republic
Politics: Social democracy, Christian Socialism, Left-nationalism, Bolivarianism, Left-Peronism, Pan-Hispanism
Located within the borders of OTL Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, San Salvador, and even parts of Mexico, Patria Grande was founded as the result of a merger of the Guatemalan and Honduran national projects. There were over 1 million Guatemalans and 900,000 Hondurans living in the US at the time of the ISOT, many of them Undocumented. Directed by these country's embassies and funded by wealthy American citizens of Guatemalan and Honduran descent, the two countries were granted charters to refound their home countries. Despite the Lifeboat Doctrine making everyone in the US at the time of the ISOT an American citizen, the large numbers of poor immigrants made a rich recruiting ground (not only for their countries of origin, but for other projects looking for a cheap labor pool; competition could be fierce).
The two countries grew swiftly and seemed both stable and successful, but saw rapid political upheaval in the first decade after their founding.
The founding political elites, after enjoying a brief period of growth and popular support, found themselves a political minority, unable to entrench their position among the large working class, who rallied behind left-wing politicians which had proliferated in the effective power vacuum created by the ISOT's leveling of the field. The rising tide of leftist support swept the liberal parties from power in Guatemala (in Year 13) and Honduras (first from Congress in Year 14 and then from the Presidency in Year 16).
These "electoral revolutions" were viewed with skepticism by the US, but independent observers found no evidence of foul play. Some right-wing analysts still believe that the rise of leftism was due to the pernicious work of socialist "infiltrators". The social democratic and Christian socialist parties largely sidelined the more radical Marxist parties, and the two countries became close diplomatically and economically, promoting a shared identity and working to increase ties with one another.
Both nations, in addition to seeking immigration from Guatemalans and Hondurans, also found themselves receiving large numbers of immigrants from the two million-strong Salvadorean community, significant numbers of Mexicans dissatisfied with the Mexican national project's domination by the center and center-right, and lesser amounts of immigration from numerous other Latin-American communities. The two nations soon developed a shared pan-Hispanic identity and actively encouraged all immigrants of Latin American heritage as well as Hispanophones of any background. The nation also attracted immigration from American leftists interested in participating in a fully-realized social democracy.
After a series of referendums gave support for the move, followed by economic and political integration, Honduras and Guatemala finally unified in Year 25, not as a federal state but as a unitary one; the two governments decreed an interest in eliminating previous national identities and embracing a leftist, Pan-Hispanic one in its place.
Patria Grande was born at last.
Since its founding the country has absorbed the San Salvadorean project and extended its territorial claims into OTL Mexico; some have accused them of "cheating" the system, by advancing multiple territorial claims at once, citing their status as a successor state to multiple other nations. The recognition for and realization of these claims is an ongoing diplomatic dispute with the US. Patria Grande has good relations with other nations in Central and South America and the Caribbean, especially with its close neighbors in Southern Mexico and the Yucatan, who are majority-Indigenous and left-leaning in their politics. American analysts believe Patria Grande has designs on regional power status, and it is possible that they have eyes bigger than their stomach. The nation is sometimes mocked (good-naturedly) as "several smaller countries in a trenchcoat".
Patria Grande is home to communities with ancestries all over the Americas, from Argentines to Chicanos. While many of these communities remain distinct in what is a largely pluralistic culture, the Patria Grandean vision of a Pan-Latin identity is coming to fruition as intermarriage blurs the lines between Guatemalans, Salvadoreans, Mexicans, and Hondurans. Indigenous Latin Americans remain distinct and have significant powers of autonomy, while Hispanic whites are among the most likely to assimilate into the new culture. There is a large mixed-race population from urban areas such as Miami or Los Angeles who can claim at least partial Latin American descent but who view cultural identity as more important than ethnic identity. Indeed, while American culture has heavily influenced Patria Grande, for many the Pan-Latin identity incorporates American culture rather than rejects it.
The country even has a significant ethnic Korean population - descended from refugees from the Korean War who settled first in Argentina, then re-immigrated to America, where they largely blended into the Latin American community, before settling once more in Patria Grande.
Politically, Patria Grande is dominated by social democratic or Christian socialist parties, all of whom hold to some form of Pan-Hispanism. More radical Marxist or left-nationalist parties frequently win elections and contest major policy decisions - and then there are the left-Peronists, drawn from the left-wing Argentine community, who are largely making things up as they go along. Patria Grande is a cooperative state in Free Association with the US, but this has been contested by many within the country who are opposed to America's economic influence. The country has also been criticized by more radical leftists who consider it a bourgeoisie social democratic project rather than a true experiment with communism, or for being statist. The country does have a decently-sized and politically active anarcho-socialist community, who work towards self-sufficiency and autonomy in rural communes (though urban "neighborhood communes" also exist), living within Patria Grande but not exactly considering themselves part of it. This has sometimes led to tensions with the central government, but Patria Grande is more permissive of such homesteaders than some other settler states.
Patria Grande is overall permissive of LGBT people; despite opposition from more socially conservative Christian socialists and even socially conservative Marxists, rights remain decent and there is no official discrimination. Indeed, some parts of Patria Grande, such as major municipal areas and LGBT-affirming communes are considered to be some of the best places in the world for LGBT people. All of Patria Grande's major cities have large and thriving gay communities. While Patria Grande is not the only settler state to appeal to LGBT people, it remains one of the favored destinations for LGBT migrants.
The country is largely rural, emphasizing self-sufficiency and the communal agrarian ideal (an ideal that not always realized), while what industry does exist is either worker-owned or nationalized. While it is by no means an economic powerhouse, Patria Grande has a decent standard of living and continues to grow both in terms of immigration and in birth rates. Of course, it is not perfect; organized crime established a foothold early on, so gang violence is not unknown, and the nation has connections to the international black market. In addition, state-run industries produce graft, a major ongoing political issue.
In the meantime, predictions by leftists of an impending CIA-backed coup have not yet materialized.
Common Name: Patria Grande
Government Type: Parliamentary Republic
Politics: Social democracy, Christian Socialism, Left-nationalism, Bolivarianism, Left-Peronism, Pan-Hispanism
Located within the borders of OTL Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, San Salvador, and even parts of Mexico, Patria Grande was founded as the result of a merger of the Guatemalan and Honduran national projects. There were over 1 million Guatemalans and 900,000 Hondurans living in the US at the time of the ISOT, many of them Undocumented. Directed by these country's embassies and funded by wealthy American citizens of Guatemalan and Honduran descent, the two countries were granted charters to refound their home countries. Despite the Lifeboat Doctrine making everyone in the US at the time of the ISOT an American citizen, the large numbers of poor immigrants made a rich recruiting ground (not only for their countries of origin, but for other projects looking for a cheap labor pool; competition could be fierce).
The two countries grew swiftly and seemed both stable and successful, but saw rapid political upheaval in the first decade after their founding.
The founding political elites, after enjoying a brief period of growth and popular support, found themselves a political minority, unable to entrench their position among the large working class, who rallied behind left-wing politicians which had proliferated in the effective power vacuum created by the ISOT's leveling of the field. The rising tide of leftist support swept the liberal parties from power in Guatemala (in Year 13) and Honduras (first from Congress in Year 14 and then from the Presidency in Year 16).
These "electoral revolutions" were viewed with skepticism by the US, but independent observers found no evidence of foul play. Some right-wing analysts still believe that the rise of leftism was due to the pernicious work of socialist "infiltrators". The social democratic and Christian socialist parties largely sidelined the more radical Marxist parties, and the two countries became close diplomatically and economically, promoting a shared identity and working to increase ties with one another.
Both nations, in addition to seeking immigration from Guatemalans and Hondurans, also found themselves receiving large numbers of immigrants from the two million-strong Salvadorean community, significant numbers of Mexicans dissatisfied with the Mexican national project's domination by the center and center-right, and lesser amounts of immigration from numerous other Latin-American communities. The two nations soon developed a shared pan-Hispanic identity and actively encouraged all immigrants of Latin American heritage as well as Hispanophones of any background. The nation also attracted immigration from American leftists interested in participating in a fully-realized social democracy.
After a series of referendums gave support for the move, followed by economic and political integration, Honduras and Guatemala finally unified in Year 25, not as a federal state but as a unitary one; the two governments decreed an interest in eliminating previous national identities and embracing a leftist, Pan-Hispanic one in its place.
Patria Grande was born at last.
Since its founding the country has absorbed the San Salvadorean project and extended its territorial claims into OTL Mexico; some have accused them of "cheating" the system, by advancing multiple territorial claims at once, citing their status as a successor state to multiple other nations. The recognition for and realization of these claims is an ongoing diplomatic dispute with the US. Patria Grande has good relations with other nations in Central and South America and the Caribbean, especially with its close neighbors in Southern Mexico and the Yucatan, who are majority-Indigenous and left-leaning in their politics. American analysts believe Patria Grande has designs on regional power status, and it is possible that they have eyes bigger than their stomach. The nation is sometimes mocked (good-naturedly) as "several smaller countries in a trenchcoat".
Patria Grande is home to communities with ancestries all over the Americas, from Argentines to Chicanos. While many of these communities remain distinct in what is a largely pluralistic culture, the Patria Grandean vision of a Pan-Latin identity is coming to fruition as intermarriage blurs the lines between Guatemalans, Salvadoreans, Mexicans, and Hondurans. Indigenous Latin Americans remain distinct and have significant powers of autonomy, while Hispanic whites are among the most likely to assimilate into the new culture. There is a large mixed-race population from urban areas such as Miami or Los Angeles who can claim at least partial Latin American descent but who view cultural identity as more important than ethnic identity. Indeed, while American culture has heavily influenced Patria Grande, for many the Pan-Latin identity incorporates American culture rather than rejects it.
The country even has a significant ethnic Korean population - descended from refugees from the Korean War who settled first in Argentina, then re-immigrated to America, where they largely blended into the Latin American community, before settling once more in Patria Grande.
Politically, Patria Grande is dominated by social democratic or Christian socialist parties, all of whom hold to some form of Pan-Hispanism. More radical Marxist or left-nationalist parties frequently win elections and contest major policy decisions - and then there are the left-Peronists, drawn from the left-wing Argentine community, who are largely making things up as they go along. Patria Grande is a cooperative state in Free Association with the US, but this has been contested by many within the country who are opposed to America's economic influence. The country has also been criticized by more radical leftists who consider it a bourgeoisie social democratic project rather than a true experiment with communism, or for being statist. The country does have a decently-sized and politically active anarcho-socialist community, who work towards self-sufficiency and autonomy in rural communes (though urban "neighborhood communes" also exist), living within Patria Grande but not exactly considering themselves part of it. This has sometimes led to tensions with the central government, but Patria Grande is more permissive of such homesteaders than some other settler states.
Patria Grande is overall permissive of LGBT people; despite opposition from more socially conservative Christian socialists and even socially conservative Marxists, rights remain decent and there is no official discrimination. Indeed, some parts of Patria Grande, such as major municipal areas and LGBT-affirming communes are considered to be some of the best places in the world for LGBT people. All of Patria Grande's major cities have large and thriving gay communities. While Patria Grande is not the only settler state to appeal to LGBT people, it remains one of the favored destinations for LGBT migrants.
The country is largely rural, emphasizing self-sufficiency and the communal agrarian ideal (an ideal that not always realized), while what industry does exist is either worker-owned or nationalized. While it is by no means an economic powerhouse, Patria Grande has a decent standard of living and continues to grow both in terms of immigration and in birth rates. Of course, it is not perfect; organized crime established a foothold early on, so gang violence is not unknown, and the nation has connections to the international black market. In addition, state-run industries produce graft, a major ongoing political issue.
In the meantime, predictions by leftists of an impending CIA-backed coup have not yet materialized.
Last edited:
EBR
Self-Requested Ban
- Location
- Khazaria
Official Name: Medinat Yisra'el
Common Name: The State of Israel, Israel
Government Type: Parliamentary Democracy
Politics: Oh boy. You want a list?
It should come as no surprise that the Israeli National Project was fraught with controversy, political conflict, and lawsuits.
In the middling aftermath of the ISOT, when things had calmed down enough that money had value again and people were actually making future plans, calls for various countries to be restored began to crystalize and the movement for a new Israel emerged as one of the most significant of the early national projects. This was to be expected; Israel had one of the largest and best organized lobbies in the United States prior to the ISOT, it enjoyed general bipartisan support for its existence, and there was a large and active segment of the American electorate willing to cast their votes on the basis of support for Israel. The movement calling for the State of Israel to be re-established was not a totally united one- there were a multitude of different perspective on how to make the new government better than the old one from all of the different flavors of Zionism- but it was able to make the Federal Government take it seriously and it played a key role in persuading Washington to create a pathway for private colonies to seek independence.
When the US Department of the Interior first announced its guidelines at the end of Year 2 it received literally thousands of colonial proposals involving the traditional Abrahamic holy land (filing to create a private colony is like filing to run for POTUS- anyone can do it and it's super easy, but few rise to the level of public notice). Only four of those actually met the basic requirements of raising 20 million dollars and recruiting 20,000 potential colonists by the end of the initial filing period;
Disinclined to build a state out of either malarial swamps, the least appetizing parts of the Negev, or territory outside of their traditional homeland, the Palestinians instead opted to challenge the USDI's decision in the American courts on a variety of different grounds. This was the beginning of a series of major lawsuits that would dog the new Israeli colony during the early years of its existence.
When the Supreme Court finally decided on the case of Association for the Restoration of Palestine versus the United States Department of the Interior it determined that the original decision of the USDI to award the land in question to the Acharii Coalition had been constitutional and in line with the USDI's own guidelines. The court declined to rule on the validity of the pre-ISOT Israeli and Palestinian territorial dispute that had been the basis of the Palestinian legal argument that the USD0I's decision had been prejudiced and not based on who actually had the most legitimate claim to the land. According to the justices the Department of the Interior was empowered to make such decisions on the basis of which proposal was the best prepared to establish a successful colony, making the legitimacy or illegitimacy of old land claims irrelevant. The subsequent case of Association for the Restoration of Palestine versus the Autonomous Insular Area of Israel (most commonly cited as simply Palestine v. Israel) was a Palestinian victory however. The ARP's lawyers had made the case that as Israel was not yet an independent country the colonial government there was bound by the United States Constitution and that Israeli immigration law- limiting immigration to persons with at least one Jewish grandparent espousing no religion other than Judaism- violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Israel could not limit immigration on the basis of either religion, ancestry, or ethnicity.
The Israeli authorities countered by instituting a language test for immigration- anyone could immigrate to Israel, but they had to speak Hebrew (or less commonly Yiddish or Ladino) first. To prove that one was Hebrew fluent one could complete a program in Hebrew at any accredited university, graduate a high school that with Hebrew as your foreign language (which most Jewish high schools in America required), or complete one of a number of 8-week Hebrew courses that Jewish communities organized around the country. Alternatively you could also take and pass a fluency test.
The Palestinians launched another lawsuit, this one comparing the fluency test to the poll tests of Jim Crow, and arguing that a language barrier for immigration requiring one to speak the liturgical language of Judaism was de facto discrimination on the basis of religion. The result of the lawsuit was mixed, a federal judge (a Jewish one, ironically) noted that Modern Hebrew was not a liturgical language and that Israel had the right to take language ability into account when considering candidates for immigration- after all the United States had long used English-fluency as requirement for immigrants to become naturalized. She also agreed that the defense had successfully demonstrated that the fluency test it used was a fair one, and that anyone with moderate fluency in Hebrew could pass it. The problem was that Israel was using multiple standards other than just the test, and that not everyone who had successfully completed high school Hebrew classes or graduated an 8-week course had the same level of language mastery as someone who had passed the test. The judge ordered Israeli authorities to come up with a single standard measure for potential immigrants, and the Israelis complied with a language test that required only partial fluency in Hebrew to pass for everyone.
The Association for the Restoration of Palestine organized free Hebrew classes for anyone who was interested, and grudgingly attempted to work with the situation as it stood.
*phew*
The best part of course, was that it didn't really matter.
There were millions of Jews or people of partial Jewish ancestry in the United States but under ninety-thousand Palestinian Americans, many of whom had little interest in living in a Jewish state that they had moved to America to get away from. Most Arab Americans were Christians and more likely to be interested in the Lebanese or Assyrian National Projects, most Arab American Muslims supported the Palestinian cause but had their own strong national identities and their own national projects if they didn't get involved in the Pan-Arab or the Pan-Muslim projects in Arabia. Despite the fears of some Zionists, the Palestinian community simply didn't have the numbers to somehow take over Israel via immigration, and modern-day Israel is about 10% Muslim, a majority of whom have at least partial Palestinian descent.
The real demographic problem, when it manifested, came from the Evangelicals.
Religion became a little weird in America in the years after the ISOT, with religiosity intensifying in multiple directions and different denominations presenting different interpretations of the cosmic event whose most commonly used name ended up being inspired by the title of a late '90s sci-fi novel. The Evangelical Christian community was no less divided on it's significance than anyone else, but a sizeable percentage regarded it as eschatological in nature and many of those ascribed great importance to a holy land now apparently cleansed of human presence- particularly the Temple Mount- and anticipated that certain prophesied events would soon be occurring there. Individuals who held these views, wanted to emigrate, and either spoke Hebrew or were sufficiently motivated to learn were a very small minority, but there are between 90 and 100 million Evangelical Christians in the United States compared to 6 to 10 million Jews, and while the Acharii Coalition had been more successful at getting Jews to sign up than the Association for the Restoration of Palestine had been at recruiting Palestinians, most American Jews were middle class and more likely to donate money than actually move to the wilderness for the back-breaking work of building a country. When Israel gained official independence in Year 27 (it had successfully requested an additional 5,000 square miles of territory back in Year 18, and was one of the only private colonies to convince Congress to authorize a small amount of extra territory on top of that, ultimately leaving Israel with roughly 11,500~ square miles of land comprising all of OTL Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and a strip of good farming land in OTL Jordan) it went back to an immigration system based on the pre-ISOT Law of Return, but it was too late.
Israel as of Year 100 is about 52% Jewish, 11% Muslim, and a whopping 37% Christian, almost all of whom practice different flavors of Evangelical Christianity- usually the more extreme flavors.
Much to the chagrin of Jewish Israelis this new community has a very different concept of what Israel is or should be- most of the Jews who immigrated to re-establish Israel were from either Reform or Secular backgrounds (as is the case with most American Zionists and most American Jews in general) and as a result they built the new Israel much to be much less religious than the old one. For instance it has civil marriage, the Rabbinate wields purely spiritual authority, and the Israeli government decided not to build the Third Temple on the now empty Temple Mount, opting instead to wait for the Messiah to return first and (with Washington's approval) forbidding any construction of any kind in or around the mount in they waited (over the protests of some Jews who wanted to go ahead anyway, and some Muslims who wanted to rebuild the Dome of the Rock). This tends to conflict with the goals held by Israel's Evangelical community, the majority of whom want to see the Third Temple constructed as a necessary prelude to the mass-conversion of the Jews to Christianity, the Second Coming, and the establishment of the Kingdom of God, albeit not necessarily in that order and with some variations between churches. More prosaically, even the non-apocalyptic Evangelical churches are generally opposed to Israeli government policies protecting LGBT rights, legalizing abortion, and teaching topics such as evolution in public schools. A political culture of high voter participation and loyalty to a single party led to the rise of the United Crusade, a big tent for most of the Evangelical congregations in Israel, with a platform based on fundamentalist Christian values, non-explicit Islamophobia, and building the Third Temple.
When the Crusaders captured a plurality of 41 seats in the Knesset in the Year 87 elections and briefly seemed like it might form a government in alliance with the main Haredi Jewish party and the Kahanists, it inspired a general panic that resulted in what is likely the most ironic political development in the history of Herzl's dream.
Since Year 87 the Israeli government has been controlled by a fractious Grand Alliance of every Jewish party, left, right, center, or religious (except for the Kahanist assholes) and a small nonsectarian liberal party, with confidence and supply from both Muslim parties. The price for Muslim votes was to pass a Law of Return for Palestinians and their descendants, but there weren't that many Palestinians left who wanted to immigrate anyway, and this was seen as a lesser evil than allowing the Crusaders to take control of the Jewish State and risk them turning it into… something. It wasn't clear how far the United Crusade would or could actually go once in power (the United States would always intervene if things got too crazy) but whatever they created was unlikely to be particularly Jewish in any case. The Muslim parties have made concessions of their own- such as adopting platforms accepting Israel's right to exist in some form- but like the Jews they consider this to be better than the alternative.
Welcome to the Middle East!
Common Name: The State of Israel, Israel
Government Type: Parliamentary Democracy
Politics: Oh boy. You want a list?
It should come as no surprise that the Israeli National Project was fraught with controversy, political conflict, and lawsuits.
In the middling aftermath of the ISOT, when things had calmed down enough that money had value again and people were actually making future plans, calls for various countries to be restored began to crystalize and the movement for a new Israel emerged as one of the most significant of the early national projects. This was to be expected; Israel had one of the largest and best organized lobbies in the United States prior to the ISOT, it enjoyed general bipartisan support for its existence, and there was a large and active segment of the American electorate willing to cast their votes on the basis of support for Israel. The movement calling for the State of Israel to be re-established was not a totally united one- there were a multitude of different perspective on how to make the new government better than the old one from all of the different flavors of Zionism- but it was able to make the Federal Government take it seriously and it played a key role in persuading Washington to create a pathway for private colonies to seek independence.
When the US Department of the Interior first announced its guidelines at the end of Year 2 it received literally thousands of colonial proposals involving the traditional Abrahamic holy land (filing to create a private colony is like filing to run for POTUS- anyone can do it and it's super easy, but few rise to the level of public notice). Only four of those actually met the basic requirements of raising 20 million dollars and recruiting 20,000 potential colonists by the end of the initial filing period;
- A proposal by a Texan megachurch that regarded the ISOT in highly millenarian terms
- A proposal by a collection of Haredi Zionist groups led by Chabad-Lubavitch who had split from the Acharii Coalition over its decision that adherence to the rulings of the religious courts in the new Israel would be voluntary and wanted a Halachic (religious law) state
- A proposal from an alliance of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian groups called the Association for the Restoration of Palestine led by Riyad Mansour who had crowd-sourced the $20 million
- A proposal from the Acharii Coalition, a coalition of mainstream Zionist organizations including the ZOA, the ARZA, AIPAC, the Christian Zionist ACLI, and the rump-Israeli diplomatic corps, under the leadership of Ron Dermer
Disinclined to build a state out of either malarial swamps, the least appetizing parts of the Negev, or territory outside of their traditional homeland, the Palestinians instead opted to challenge the USDI's decision in the American courts on a variety of different grounds. This was the beginning of a series of major lawsuits that would dog the new Israeli colony during the early years of its existence.
When the Supreme Court finally decided on the case of Association for the Restoration of Palestine versus the United States Department of the Interior it determined that the original decision of the USDI to award the land in question to the Acharii Coalition had been constitutional and in line with the USDI's own guidelines. The court declined to rule on the validity of the pre-ISOT Israeli and Palestinian territorial dispute that had been the basis of the Palestinian legal argument that the USD0I's decision had been prejudiced and not based on who actually had the most legitimate claim to the land. According to the justices the Department of the Interior was empowered to make such decisions on the basis of which proposal was the best prepared to establish a successful colony, making the legitimacy or illegitimacy of old land claims irrelevant. The subsequent case of Association for the Restoration of Palestine versus the Autonomous Insular Area of Israel (most commonly cited as simply Palestine v. Israel) was a Palestinian victory however. The ARP's lawyers had made the case that as Israel was not yet an independent country the colonial government there was bound by the United States Constitution and that Israeli immigration law- limiting immigration to persons with at least one Jewish grandparent espousing no religion other than Judaism- violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Israel could not limit immigration on the basis of either religion, ancestry, or ethnicity.
The Israeli authorities countered by instituting a language test for immigration- anyone could immigrate to Israel, but they had to speak Hebrew (or less commonly Yiddish or Ladino) first. To prove that one was Hebrew fluent one could complete a program in Hebrew at any accredited university, graduate a high school that with Hebrew as your foreign language (which most Jewish high schools in America required), or complete one of a number of 8-week Hebrew courses that Jewish communities organized around the country. Alternatively you could also take and pass a fluency test.
The Palestinians launched another lawsuit, this one comparing the fluency test to the poll tests of Jim Crow, and arguing that a language barrier for immigration requiring one to speak the liturgical language of Judaism was de facto discrimination on the basis of religion. The result of the lawsuit was mixed, a federal judge (a Jewish one, ironically) noted that Modern Hebrew was not a liturgical language and that Israel had the right to take language ability into account when considering candidates for immigration- after all the United States had long used English-fluency as requirement for immigrants to become naturalized. She also agreed that the defense had successfully demonstrated that the fluency test it used was a fair one, and that anyone with moderate fluency in Hebrew could pass it. The problem was that Israel was using multiple standards other than just the test, and that not everyone who had successfully completed high school Hebrew classes or graduated an 8-week course had the same level of language mastery as someone who had passed the test. The judge ordered Israeli authorities to come up with a single standard measure for potential immigrants, and the Israelis complied with a language test that required only partial fluency in Hebrew to pass for everyone.
The Association for the Restoration of Palestine organized free Hebrew classes for anyone who was interested, and grudgingly attempted to work with the situation as it stood.
*phew*
The best part of course, was that it didn't really matter.
There were millions of Jews or people of partial Jewish ancestry in the United States but under ninety-thousand Palestinian Americans, many of whom had little interest in living in a Jewish state that they had moved to America to get away from. Most Arab Americans were Christians and more likely to be interested in the Lebanese or Assyrian National Projects, most Arab American Muslims supported the Palestinian cause but had their own strong national identities and their own national projects if they didn't get involved in the Pan-Arab or the Pan-Muslim projects in Arabia. Despite the fears of some Zionists, the Palestinian community simply didn't have the numbers to somehow take over Israel via immigration, and modern-day Israel is about 10% Muslim, a majority of whom have at least partial Palestinian descent.
The real demographic problem, when it manifested, came from the Evangelicals.
Religion became a little weird in America in the years after the ISOT, with religiosity intensifying in multiple directions and different denominations presenting different interpretations of the cosmic event whose most commonly used name ended up being inspired by the title of a late '90s sci-fi novel. The Evangelical Christian community was no less divided on it's significance than anyone else, but a sizeable percentage regarded it as eschatological in nature and many of those ascribed great importance to a holy land now apparently cleansed of human presence- particularly the Temple Mount- and anticipated that certain prophesied events would soon be occurring there. Individuals who held these views, wanted to emigrate, and either spoke Hebrew or were sufficiently motivated to learn were a very small minority, but there are between 90 and 100 million Evangelical Christians in the United States compared to 6 to 10 million Jews, and while the Acharii Coalition had been more successful at getting Jews to sign up than the Association for the Restoration of Palestine had been at recruiting Palestinians, most American Jews were middle class and more likely to donate money than actually move to the wilderness for the back-breaking work of building a country. When Israel gained official independence in Year 27 (it had successfully requested an additional 5,000 square miles of territory back in Year 18, and was one of the only private colonies to convince Congress to authorize a small amount of extra territory on top of that, ultimately leaving Israel with roughly 11,500~ square miles of land comprising all of OTL Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and a strip of good farming land in OTL Jordan) it went back to an immigration system based on the pre-ISOT Law of Return, but it was too late.
Israel as of Year 100 is about 52% Jewish, 11% Muslim, and a whopping 37% Christian, almost all of whom practice different flavors of Evangelical Christianity- usually the more extreme flavors.
Much to the chagrin of Jewish Israelis this new community has a very different concept of what Israel is or should be- most of the Jews who immigrated to re-establish Israel were from either Reform or Secular backgrounds (as is the case with most American Zionists and most American Jews in general) and as a result they built the new Israel much to be much less religious than the old one. For instance it has civil marriage, the Rabbinate wields purely spiritual authority, and the Israeli government decided not to build the Third Temple on the now empty Temple Mount, opting instead to wait for the Messiah to return first and (with Washington's approval) forbidding any construction of any kind in or around the mount in they waited (over the protests of some Jews who wanted to go ahead anyway, and some Muslims who wanted to rebuild the Dome of the Rock). This tends to conflict with the goals held by Israel's Evangelical community, the majority of whom want to see the Third Temple constructed as a necessary prelude to the mass-conversion of the Jews to Christianity, the Second Coming, and the establishment of the Kingdom of God, albeit not necessarily in that order and with some variations between churches. More prosaically, even the non-apocalyptic Evangelical churches are generally opposed to Israeli government policies protecting LGBT rights, legalizing abortion, and teaching topics such as evolution in public schools. A political culture of high voter participation and loyalty to a single party led to the rise of the United Crusade, a big tent for most of the Evangelical congregations in Israel, with a platform based on fundamentalist Christian values, non-explicit Islamophobia, and building the Third Temple.
When the Crusaders captured a plurality of 41 seats in the Knesset in the Year 87 elections and briefly seemed like it might form a government in alliance with the main Haredi Jewish party and the Kahanists, it inspired a general panic that resulted in what is likely the most ironic political development in the history of Herzl's dream.
Since Year 87 the Israeli government has been controlled by a fractious Grand Alliance of every Jewish party, left, right, center, or religious (except for the Kahanist assholes) and a small nonsectarian liberal party, with confidence and supply from both Muslim parties. The price for Muslim votes was to pass a Law of Return for Palestinians and their descendants, but there weren't that many Palestinians left who wanted to immigrate anyway, and this was seen as a lesser evil than allowing the Crusaders to take control of the Jewish State and risk them turning it into… something. It wasn't clear how far the United Crusade would or could actually go once in power (the United States would always intervene if things got too crazy) but whatever they created was unlikely to be particularly Jewish in any case. The Muslim parties have made concessions of their own- such as adopting platforms accepting Israel's right to exist in some form- but like the Jews they consider this to be better than the alternative.
Welcome to the Middle East!
- Location
- United States
Now this looks like a really interesting scenario! I'll admit the sheer quality evident in the duel posts is somewhat intimidating, but I'll do my best to put up something acceptable - perhaps something along the lines of a "Pan-Asian" colonial effort that goes about as well as you'd expect, but the setting isn't cursed enough for things to completely devolve.
Can I ask questions and/or speculate on the two example countries you guys posted, as well as the general state of this universe?
Can I ask questions and/or speculate on the two example countries you guys posted, as well as the general state of this universe?
- Location
- Derna
ooh, this looks very interesting, watching. You want write-ups PMed, right?
Quick question: how are waters divided up with regards to colonies, etc.? Do colonies have rights and EEZs tied to their claimed land or is everything held in some kind of common under the U.S. or what? I'm thinking of doing something for Norway, which would depend a lot on the laws of the sea.
Quick question: how are waters divided up with regards to colonies, etc.? Do colonies have rights and EEZs tied to their claimed land or is everything held in some kind of common under the U.S. or what? I'm thinking of doing something for Norway, which would depend a lot on the laws of the sea.
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
You definitely can!
You can workshop ideas in the thread but yeah, ideally you might want to DM one of us for approval of the draft.
I might have to confer with my colleague @EBR but my thinking is that colonies can claim territorial waters under the Laws of the Sea.
EBR
Self-Requested Ban
- Location
- Khazaria
Thanks on behalf of the both of us! Please ask any questions that happen to come to mind.
PM both of us write up, but please feel free to post any ideas you have in the thread.
Ooh, good question. I'm thinking that- seeing as the international community at the time of the ISOT consisted of the USA and a trio of tiny states in free association- that formerly international waters are administered as territorial waters of the United States, with colonies acquiring their own territorial waters when they gain independence but not before.
What do you say, SM?
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That works really well, especially since it allows the US to control shipping and prevent piracy.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
So as not to crowd this thread too much and to provide a convient place for brainstorming, here's a google doc for throwing ideas around in. Feel free to expand what's already there or add in your own ideas!
Here's a mockup of the two nations so far:
Here's a mockup of the two nations so far:
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh very interesting. A stable of the ISOT suggestion but I've never seen it handled well or with much thought. So seeing you two tackle it has me excited.
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EBR
Self-Requested Ban
- Location
- Khazaria
So as not to crowd this thread too much and to provide a convient place for brainstorming, here's a google doc for throwing ideas around in. Feel free to expand what's already there or add in your own ideas!
Here's a mockup of the two nations so far:
You're not crowding the thread at all.
Now I'm going to have to actually follow through on writing good updates!
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I've done some digging to try and find some numbers for tourists and other foreign visitors at the time of the ISOT. We probably won't find statistics that explicitly say exactly how many foreign visitors (and from what countries) were within US borders on 17/4/2015 - but we might find some that shed a light on what sorts of numbers we're dealing with.
So far I've been able to find the numbers for how many people from what countries have entered the US each month this year[1] - this gives some insight, but this years visitation numbers are obviously pretty abnormal.
It doesn't help much with what we're looking for, but this sure is a striking portrait of 2020.
This[2] monthly summary gives us statistics for all of 2015. It does so with a broader brush - sorting the numbers into Mexican, Canadian, European and Other - but that's still pretty good!
So, in April 2015; 1.9 million Canadians, 1.5 million Mexicans, 1.4 million Europeans and 1.6 million people from elsewhere entered the US. That being said, how many of those would actually be in the US on the 17th? Do we have any way of guessing?
[1] https://travel.trade.gov/view/m-2017-I-001/index.asp
[2] https://travel.trade.gov/view/m-2015-I-001/table1.html
Bonus: DHS numbers on lawful permanent residents by country of birth: https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/lpr_population_estimates_january_2015.pdf
So far I've been able to find the numbers for how many people from what countries have entered the US each month this year[1] - this gives some insight, but this years visitation numbers are obviously pretty abnormal.
It doesn't help much with what we're looking for, but this sure is a striking portrait of 2020.
This[2] monthly summary gives us statistics for all of 2015. It does so with a broader brush - sorting the numbers into Mexican, Canadian, European and Other - but that's still pretty good!
So, in April 2015; 1.9 million Canadians, 1.5 million Mexicans, 1.4 million Europeans and 1.6 million people from elsewhere entered the US. That being said, how many of those would actually be in the US on the 17th? Do we have any way of guessing?
[1] https://travel.trade.gov/view/m-2017-I-001/index.asp
[2] https://travel.trade.gov/view/m-2015-I-001/table1.html
Bonus: DHS numbers on lawful permanent residents by country of birth: https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/lpr_population_estimates_january_2015.pdf
EBR
Self-Requested Ban
- Location
- Khazaria
Some good research. I estimated the presence of roughly 8 million foreign tourists, visitors, and business travelers in the US on the day of the ISOT, given that a standard tourist visa is for 3 months and while most people don't stay that long, some do, and you add them to the ones already present. I'm curious as to what the breakdown is for the 1.4 million Europeans and the 1.6 million others- I'd expect the UK, France, and Germany would rank high for the first, and Japan, China, and maybe ANZAC and India for the second.
- Pronouns
- Yes
1. LOL!
2. Yes. I definitely want a list
This doesn't fit with the numbers of Palestinian community and you stating the Acharai movement was fairly successful in getting Jewish kids to move to Israel. You have the pool of potential Jewish immigrants be at least 6 Million, the pool of Palestinian ones 90,000 or around 1.5% of the pool of Jewish immigrants, and that's before counting the christian ones. Even if the Palestinians were 5 times as likely to move they aren't going to reach 10% of the total population.
10% or more of the population being moslem I can see, but Palestinians should be a minority, most likely a SMALL minority of the Moslem immigrants, especially as many Palestinians are christian, not Moslem and their numbers will be dis-proportionally high among Palestinians in the US.
Incidentally a couple of items you did not note, which will affect the way the new Israel will form:
1)Every year there are ~3000 Israeli students studying in US universities, most of whom return to Israel after getting their degree
2)Some secular (especially LGBT) Jews find themselvs moving to US or western Europe due to the persecution by the religious nuts in Israel.
These groups would, I believe be quite active in at least the early stages of the movement to re-establish Israel.