This is a project started and restarted several times since 2020. I think this is my 6th attempt at doing it now.
Anyways, the premise is that 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident escalates into Nuclear War. The timeline will mainly focus on post-apocalyptic America but I'd like to cover other areas as well.
September 26th, a bit after midnight Moscow time, a Soviet missile detection system on the outside of the city malfunctioned, showing that apparently that the US had launched a large scale missile attack [1]. The system automatically reported that to officials in Moscow. There were concerns on how exactly accurate the Oko detection system was, but tensions had been high recently between the US and the USSR. If Soviet leadership had been calmer and more sensible that day they would've realized that it was a false alarm, but their response was disorganized, panicked and rushed. By the time they realized their mistake it was too late to stop, the Americans were going to retaliate no matter what.
It was 12:18 am on the 26th in Moscow and 4:18 pm on the 25th in Washington when the first missiles launched.
It was 4:30 pm when NORAD first detected the missiles.
It was 4:31 pm when US president Ronald Reagan was informed of the news.
Ronald Reagan speaking with Samuel Doe, leader of Liberia, a few seconds before being informed that the Soviet Union had launched a nuclear attack on the U.S. [2]
Reagan was in New York for a UN meeting the next day but also had spoken with several foreign leaders on the 25th as well. When the President was alerted of the news he was talking with the leader of Liberia, Samuel Doe, at Waldorf Astoria, the hotel where he was staying at. Abruptly a member of the Secret Service alerted him and he got up immediately, to the confusion of Doe.
Reagan was reluctant about leaving so abruptly, worried that NORAD's systems might have had a technical error. That cost him three valuable minutes.
It was 4:34 pm when Reagan got on board Air Force One. While flying, he cracked open "the biscuit" and gave the order to launch back at the Soviet Union in retaliation.
It was 4:38 when a nuclear bomb hit the city of New York. Reagan's plane, still near the city, was blown away by the blast, and knocked out of the sky. It fell, landing in flames somewhere in suburban New Jersey.
The last president of the United States was dead. [3]
Luckily, for situations like this, the American government had a line of succession, a descending list of people who would take charge if the president dies. Slight issue though, most of the line of succession was in Washington at the time.
The first strikes hit New York and Washington, but in the following minutes other large cities like Chicago and Los Angeles alongside the most important military bases were targeted. In the following hours everything from minor military bases to large towns across the country were destroyed.
So who survived? Well lets run down the list.
Vice President George H. W. Bush was in Washington at the time. A few days earlier he was in Vienna and could've survived, but he had returned to America on the 22nd. Like Reagan the government officials in Washington failed to evacuate in time.
Speaker of the House Tip O'Neal was also killed. Congress was in session so he was in Washington when the bombs fell.
President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Storm Thurmond, was in a similar situation.
Secretary of State George Shultz was with Reagan on his trip to New York and died alongside him.
Secretary of the Treasury Donald Reagan was in Washington too and died.
Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, was in China for a diplomatic mission. He died when a nuke hit Beijing 30 minutes after it hit Washington. While he was asleep for part of it (it was around 5 am in China), Weinberger was technically Acting President during that half hour. [4]
Attorney General William Smith was in Washington and died.
Secretary of the Interior James Watt was the only person in the line of succession who survived the first attacks. Four days before he had started controversy when during a meeting with a coal leasing panel he'd said to them "I have a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple. And we have talent." Already a controversial figure, there were calls for his resignation because of the comments. A few hours before the bombs fell, his spokesman told Journalists that Watt was at home today and he had no plans to resign. [4] The exact comments that could've caused his resignation if the bombs hadn't fallen would lead to him becoming Acting President.
Watt, having taken the day off, decided to drive out of the city with his wife to take his mind off of politics. He was headed to a beach along the Chesapeake Bay when the first bombs fell. While by midnight almost everything from a 50 mile radius around D.C would be destroyed, the first strikes only hit major targets. So Watt was able to be picked up by the Air Force and be flown to Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center in Virginia.
With all the people above (and below) him in the line of succession dead, he declared himself acting president and was recognized by the state governments that were starting to restore themselves.
A week later, he left Mount Weather and landed at Midland International Air & Space Port, a few miles from the surviving city of Odessa, Texas.
Why didn't Watt stay longer in the safety of Mount Weather? Well, while the base was meant to be able to survive a nuclear attack, it was partially damaged. Also, it's difficult to run a country from a bunker surrounded by radiation. Some wanted to try to repair the facility and stay longer, but Watt was adamant that for the United States to survive they couldn't rule from a bunker.
Thirty-Eight years after building the first Nuclear Weapons, the United States had been destroyed by them, and now Watt was left to rebuild it.
His rule would last 23 days.
[1] The POD, OTL the radar detected five missiles.
[2] Because there was a UN meeting the next day, quite a few world leaders were in New York and were killed. Not just Liberia, but also the King of Morocco, the President of Lebanon, and UN General Secretary.
[3] The warlord controlling the town of Lakeview, Oregon claims that actually, he is Reagan and he wasn't in the plane. He claims he instead travelled to Oregon via a secret tunnel crossing the U.S. Most people consider him to be insane but to be fair Fake-Reagan does look a lot like Real-Reagan.
[4] I wasn't sure about it but I decided to have the Soviets preemptively attack China as well because the United States and China were somewhat allied at this point and China itself has nukes.
[5] You could not imagine how difficult it was to track down the locations of everyone on the day the bombs fell. For some (like Reagan) I knew exactly where they were. For others I knew where they were a few days before or after and extrapolated from there. And a few I just gave up trying and said "they'd probably be in Washington and die." For Watt in particular, the part about his spokesman saying he was home is true, but I couldn't find out where he lived. Because I wanted at least someone to survive, I decided to make up the story about him going to the beach. As far as I know what he was up to that day is unknown. I would ask him but he died this May.
Working on the next chapter, but in the meantime...
Initial Nuclear Targets in the U.S
Notes:
- This was based off of FEMA's nuclear target maps, note that most places targeted have a military base, if you're wondering how some small town was hit while a city survived, it was likely because the small one had a military base of some kind. Also targets survived by being missed or shot down.
- Blast Radius varies depending on the target, the red circles aren't exact.
- Also they're ovals because of the projection they're circles on a globe.
- This does not include secondary strikes.
- Canadian targets aren't final.
The term "First Great Crisis'' wasn't used until after it ended. It was first coined in 2002 during the start of the Second Great Crisis. While it was happening it didn't have a single name, called "The War" "The Apocalypse" "The Dying" "The End Times" by different groups.
It was caused by several thousand nuclear weapons being detonated across North America, Europe, Siberia and China, and in some areas of Oceania and South America. At ground zero, there was a 0% survival rate, but further out from the blast radius of the bombs there was an increasing survival rate, reaching 75% towards the edges. This meant that in cities some of the suburban population was able to survive and fled into the countryside. However, even after surviving initially many of these refugees ended up dying, as governments often couldn't feed their populations.
The issue was, the ecosystem was severely damaged in several ways. The aftermath of the attacks caused firestorms, leading to massive amounts of soot entering the atmosphere. The soot limited the sunlight and heat hitting the Earth in the Northern Hemisphere, causing a period of cooling known as Nuclear Twilight [1]. Of course, it wasn't an apocalyptic decades long winter. It reached its peak in about a year and then temperatures slowly returned to pre-war levels. Combined with radiation led to a year of failed harvest, and diminished harvests for the next few years.
[1] What Nuclear Winter was originally called. It's important to note that nuclear winter was only starting to be considered an idea at this time and there wasn't much research on it
The twilight caused crop failures in much of the Northern Hemisphere.
Radiation was also a major concern, but less so. The fact was that radiation killed slowly. It caused cancer, birth defects, but in most cases didn't kill you immediately. Of course there were exceptions, but generally starvation killed quicker than radiation. Even still, it's important to note that because of radiation acid rain fell from the sky, bodies of water everywhere were contaminated. Fishing communities suffered from mercury poisoning issues but again, starving would've killed them faster. The ozone layer was also weakened by the war which increased cancer cases even more.
With surviving governments in chaos and unable to feed their population, the refugees were often rejected. Political instability was widespread in nuked countries. In some cases surviving governments were overthrown by refugees from cities that they refused to feed, in other cases they fractured as local governments focused on feeding their region, outsiders be damned. Other times they were forced out en masse, other times they became an underclass in exchange for being let in.
New or previously minor religious movements and ideologies grew massively in the face of complete chaos. The worst part for the surviving governments was that the nukes weren't over. Surviving nuclear submarines fired at centres of government remnants, destabilising things further. Of course the nuclear powers knew about these secondary strikes, they were launching their own secondary strikes against their enemies. They tried to spread out their leadership but that often was at odds with an organised response. In some areas, the national government survived, being recognized by surviving local governments but having limited power.
Children of the Atom graffiti somewhere in the ruins of the bay area. [2]
[2] I've been told that a lot of the stuff in this world reminds people of the Fallout games, and while looking for images I learned that the Children of the Atom is also a thing in it. I haven't played Fallout though.
Outside of the nuked countries things were better, but still not ideal. There was still a spike of cancer cases and failed harvests, but governments weren't in chaos and were able to deal with the crisis better. In some places like South Africa and India, the twilight worsened divisions that had already existed in the country and caused civil wars. Dictatorships were common as leaders took emergency powers during the crisis and never gave them up.
Generally, it sucked.
But still, it wasn't a complete collapse of civilization. Places like Brazil and Australia emerged as the new great powers. Even in the countries nuked, authorities survived the nuclear twilight in regions with stable food sources or good leadership. The most brutal warlords collapsed into themselves and those that survived tried to put on a veneer of legitimacy. The largest factions restored order in the worse-off areas, defeating small warlords and bandits. In some cases they were supported by governments of neutral nations who wanted to expand their influence. Local regions grew into their own distinct cultures. Slowly but surely, allied local governments began to unify under the name and symbolism of the old dead nations. While many of the old powers would never reunify, the world began to recover from the First Great Crisis.
At least, until the Second Great Crisis.
But that's quite a general summary, so let's look at the specifics, at least in America.
It is a debate among historians on when the United States fell. The most common date given is September 25th, 1983, when the first nukes hit the U.S. That gives the U.S a lifespan of 207 years, 2 months, and 21 days.
However, others say it ended on April 21st with the Grand Rapids coup, as that's when there stopped being a universally recognized Federal Government. Others go for an in between-date like October 16th. Either way, the point is that the Federal Government didn't collapse immediately, it slowly disintegrated. There was a few months between September 1983 and the start of the American Warlord Period.
Of course, there are countries still claiming to be the rightful U.S government, even if they still make the distinction on when "Old America" ended (usually September 25th). These successor states differ on how exactly legitimate their claim to being the American government is. Some warlords have used the banner of American reunification as justifications for conquest while in other cases new federal governments have formed from alliances between surviving state governments. Legally, it's not that difficult to create a new federal government claimant. A state governor can appoint the Senators for their state, and those Senators can elect a President Pro Tempore amongst themselves who is then in the line of succession.
Of course, none of these successor states are fully-recognized. Many surviving state governments believe that there is no rightful successor to the federal government. This is essentially declaring independence, although officially they recognize themselves as a state government still legally part of the U.S. The American idea is still very strong.
Having that many nations all calling themselves the United States of America causes some confusion. So other than the first two who are named after their leaders, the successor states unofficially are called the United States of America, except United is replaced by whatever region they control. For example, the successor state with its capital in Hilo that controls regions around the Pacific is commonly called the Pacific States of America.
For how briefly it lasted, the Watt administration impacted quite a lot and set massive legal precedents for future leaders in America. As the pre-war Secretary of the Interior, he was the only survivor in the presidential line of succession. Acting President James Watt had chosen Odessa, Texas as a spot to relocate for several reasons. Texas had a large agricultural base, and was coastal. It also had a separate electric grid making it easier to restore electricity in the future. Not that Odessa would survive long enough for that to happen, though.
Odessa, Texas, the capital of the US for 16 days.
One of Watt's first actions was to declare a state of emergency and that Congress and the Supreme Court was dissolved temporarily in the meantime. It was an unprecedented action; essentially removing checks and balances on the President's power, but it was an unprecedented time. There were minor grumblings, but the few congress members who survived were scattered across the country so it wasn't feasible. Either way, it was what allowed Watt to create the ANSAR Plan
The ANSAR or American Nuclear Survival and Recovery Plan was a set of guidelines for surviving state and local governments. Watt couldn't effectively control the entire country, but he did have universal recognition, so he could create a general plan for surviving governments to follow. Part of the ANSAR Plan was creating the Nuclear Exclusion Zones - A 25 Mile circle following the blast radius of a nuclear weapon. Of course, this wasn't entirely accurate. Different types of missiles and local geography affect how large the blast radius was, not to mention it didn't consider radiation. But there wasn't time for those details.
The ANSAR plan also advised surviving state governments about the dangers of secondary strikes - attacks from surviving Soviet submarines. It recommended having at least one person in the line of succession stay away from the capital in case of an attack. However, this ended up causing hostility between governments and the residents of the small cities they relocated to. Some felt that a state government relocating to their city was going to make it a target and doom them. Largely though - with the exception of the Federal Government that broadcasted their location to a large area - the Soviet submarines didn't know where new state governments were headquartered, they were just guessing.
The rest of the ANSAR plan were some very optimistic guidelines for feeding refugee populations. The plan didn't take the Twilight into account much, as the concept was only just starting to be considered by the scientific community before the war. Instead, it focused more on dealing with radiation and political instability. It incorporated elements from old FEMA plans, but they were built around having time to prepare before a nuclear attack, so weren't that applicable.
His other main actions were coordinating the war against the Soviets with what little American military assets remained. Watt was unsuccessful at convincing Australia and New Zealand to change their neutrality policy and rejected an offer from a Soviet military commander for a ceasefire due to said commander not having the authority to agree to one. His most notable military action was declaring war on Cuba when the Cuban navy attacked American ships.
But back to secondary strikes, Watt was very much aware he was about to be on the receiving end of one. While broadcasting his actions across the country he knew he would alert surviving Soviet submarines as well. Watt's plan was to relocate the Federal Government somewhere else in Texas and shift every few weeks. This way, he believed, he could avoid secondary strikes while also strengthening the power of the Federal Government by travelling to several states.
Could Watt's plan have worked? There were several issues with it, namely that secondary strikes would likely follow Watt's relocations. Considering what happened in Grand Rapids, his plan might've been seen as a man running around trying to save himself but leaving a path of destruction behind him. The opposite of the unity he hoped. And of course, relocating a government constantly is a difficult task, and that's why his plan remains theoretical.
Watt wanted to leave Odessa but he faced several delays. Of course, Watt had created a plan in case he died, appointing several cabinet members and flying some of them away in case Odessa was struck. Largely though this was a way of exiling the advisors he didn't like. Watt was an… arrogant person. Even in his time as Secretary of the Interior he made several controversial comments. A notable one being when he compared the environmental movement (who criticized his actions) to the Nazis. He didn't take kindly to criticism of his actions and generally wasn't that smart of a leader. By appointing his critics to cabinet positions and sending them away, it essentially meant he didn't have to deal with them anymore. If Watt was killed, they would gain power, but he didn't plan on staying in Odessa much longer. However he faced significant delays in doing so. 16 days after first arriving in Odessa, a secondary strike from a surviving Soviet submarine hit the city and killed him. [1]
[1] Funnily enough, the Nuclear war made his career last exactly a week longer. OTL he resigned on October 9 due to controversial comments.
Three of Watt's appointed cabinet members had been flown outside of Odessa when it was destroyed. The new Secretary of State was in Dodge City, Kansas, the new Secretary of the Treasury was in Eugene, Oregon, and the new Secretary of Defense was in Grand Rapids, Michigan. On October 27th, Dodge City was hit by a secondary strike, and 3 days after Eugene was also hit. This left Secretary of Defense Robert Taylor in Grand Rapids as the highest surviving person in the line of Succession. Because of them not really doing much, the Dodge City and Eugene governments are usually ignored.
The one thing to note is that the brief government of Dodge City appointed Robert Shoemaker as Secretary of Transportation and sent him out of the city in case of a secondary strike. As the Secretary of Defense was higher on the line of succession Shoemaker made no claim to the presidency at the moment, but he would later become the founder of the Central States of America.
Robert Taylor was the last universally recognized Acting President of the United States.
Before the war, he was Deputy Commander of the United States Central Command, headquartered at McDill Airforce Base in Florida. When the bombs fell the personnel there attempted to evacuate, but most of them including the Commander didn't make it out in time, making Taylor the new commander. Like other high-ranking surviving generals he made his way to Odessa to support the remnants of the Federal Government. However, Taylor was very critical of Watt, so Watt appointed him Secretary of Defense and sent him away as he did two other times.
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids wasn't the best choice for a remnant government, as the Eastern U.S was struck the worst, but Watt never intended for Taylor to ever gain power. After hearing news of the destruction of the other secretaries, he declared himself Acting President and was recognized by the surviving authorities.
Taylor's government in Grand Rapids failed largely because of infighting with Michigan's state government, which had also reformed itself in Grand Rapids. After seeing what happened in Eugene and Dodge City the population of the city was terrified of being killed by a secondary strike and were hostile to Taylor.
Also, Michigan, like many states, had been facing a refugee crisis. Survivors from suburban Detroit and Chicago fled into the surviving parts of the state and it was uncertain if the state could even support that many people. Poor coordination between the state and federal government prevented an actual response to the crisis. The emergency powers Watt had first declared were ambiguous and there was confusion on what powers the federal and state government had. County governments were confused by being given different orders from two different governments, unsure of what to follow. So through the Winter of 1983-1984, most of the counties further from Grand Rapids became de-facto independent.
This factor is a large part of why the Grand Rapids government collapsed. With help from more rural agricultural regions, the city might've been able to feed itself and some of the refugees. Attempts for a compromise failed due to both sides' worries. The State government was worried about a secondary strike, and Taylor was worried about being kicked out of the city. Taylor generally had the support of surviving National Guard units and the state government generally had the support of the refugees and the population of Grand Rapids.
As the spring months began the weather refused to get warmer. Farmers had to delay planting due to the cold and food scarcity was starting to become an issue. And then, on April 8th, Taylor was assassinated by a member of a recently formed doomsday cult called the Church of Eternal Prosperity.
Taylor's Vice President, a previously unknown member of the Michigan National Guard named Arnold Rowden was left as acting president. [1]. Rowden blamed the state government for the assassination and with emergency powers dissolved it, but they ignored his decree. On April 21st the acting governor and surviving legislators met to decide on how to respond to Rowden's actions. Rowden sent troops to break up the meeting.
The Grand Rapids coup, as it became known as, was a total mess. Rowden was just trying to prevent the legislature from possibly declaring his presidency illegitimate and hoped for some type of compromise after he had the upper hand. However, the state government thought that Rowden was going to arrest or even kill them in the name of keeping order.
They barricaded themselves in the building and Rowden's troops broke in anyway. What followed was a confusing mess that resulted in the death of the acting governor and three legislators. The population of Grand Rapids rioted, surviving legislators fled to Muskegon and declared Rowden illegitimate, and a rebellion of hungry refugees took control of South Haven.
As the Nuclear Twilight reached its apex, the final remnant of the United States government was in complete chaos. Rowden was horrified by what had happened and resigned the next day, but it was too late to undo the damage he had done. Especially because a week later on the 28th a secondary strike destroyed Grand Rapids. Even by the furthest definitions, the original United States of America was dead.
Of course, there were still people that had a claim for acting president. There were remnants of the brief Dodge City and Eugene governments, surviving members of Congress, and surviving lower-ranking officials of the legislative branch. However, after what happened in Grand Rapids they laid low for a bit to avoid secondary strikes. The result of this was several different people claiming to be acting president, the country no longer had one government.
This had consequences not just for Michigan but for the entire country. While Taylor and Rowden mostly dealt with local affairs they also legitimized other state governments. The gubernatorial lines of succession were generally much shorter, so in several cases, there was no one left to be Acting Governor. In those cases, new governments were declared national guard units, local governments, or others with dubious legality. Taylor and Rowden helped legitimize them by recognizing them and dealing with issues where there were competing state governments. Now there was no one left to do that.
More symbolically, the destruction of the Grand Rapids government represented the end of pre-war America and its institutions. It popularized the idea that the old way of running things was doomed to fail in the post-war world and that the state remnants were weak. New ideologies grew that claimed to be able to solve the issues of this new world: Rationalism, Neo-McCarthyism, Millenarianism, Fascism, Atomism [2]. As state governments weakened because of famine, opportunistic leaders filled the power vacuum. The American warlord period had begun.
[1] A fancy way of saying I couldn't find which high-ranking member of the Michigan National Guard would survive the nukes so I'm just making up a person.
[2] Okay not all of those are new but you get what I mean.
10 years and 3 months after the war, the former Western United States remains shattered and divided.
In the the dryer areas and deserts in the south, authority collapsed in most places under pressure from refugees, famine and infighting. Warlords and new cults emerged from the mess. A few agricultural regions managed to survive the worst of the 1st Great Crisis and are now filling in the power vacuum in the region.
The North had a higher survival rate from the Twilight thanks to a smaller population and better geography, yet poor leadership led to autocrats and radicals seizing control of many regions. The few democracies that remain are low in population and struggle to exert control of their sparsely populated regions.
The region is slowly recovering however. It seems unlikely that America might ever fully reunify, but the more stable factions are consolidating and expanding as others collapse. Foreign powers increasingly influence the region, for economic reasons and for enforcing the Santiago Accords.
All the leaves are brown
And the sky is gray
I went for a walk
On a winter's day
I'd be safe and warm
If I was in LA
California dreamin'
On such a winter's day
The State of California was one of the states that faced division between surviving state authorities after the collapse of the Taylor Administration. A decade after the war, there are different major factions claiming to be the rightful Californian government.
Before the 1st Great Crisis, California was the most populated and largest economy of the U.S states, which led it to being nuked very heavily. The L.A and Bay areas were destroyed, along with the state's military bases in other areas. The state lost a bit under 3/4s of its population in the initial attacks. Most of the state government died in the nuking of Sacramento and the Lt. Governor died in the nuking of San Diego.
Ironically, California was one of the few states to have a plan in case of a nuclear war. Its division instead was due to political instability. The State Constitution declared that if the rest of the line of succession was killed in some disaster, then a disaster acting governor who had been previously appointed by the governor would take power. With Fresno surviving the initial attacks through a miss, Earl Smittcamp would become Acting Governor. Smittcamp's government didn't last long before Fresno was hit in a secondary strike, but he appointed local politicians in other surviving cities to fill in the disaster acting governor list.
When he died, Bakersfield mayor Mary Shell became acting governor. Her Bakersfield government was in a good position to survive the Twilight, being in the agricultural Kern County and controlling neighboring Tulare and King Counties.
A map for reference, because I don't expect anyone to know California county names off the top of their head.
However the Bakersfield government couldn't effectively control outside of that. Due to the decentralized nature of 1st Great Crisis governments [1], the other surviving counties either recognized Bakersfield but mostly ran themselves or fell to warlords or Medford. And unlike Bakersfield, the Twilight hit these areas much harder.
A nuke struck the Hoover Dam, causing flooding from Lake Mead down the Colorado River, destroying several towns on the Arizona border down to the already destroyed city of Yuma. The people living in the towns along the region and the Colorado River Reservation would be left scattered, those that survived at least.
It was incredibly fortunate that the flooding didn't overflow into the Coachella Valley. There lay several large surviving cities; Indio, Palm Springs, and Palm Desert. But flooding of the Colorado still doomed the region. The Coachella Valley had farms but it was reliant on California's large irrigation system, the California Aqueducts. The water from Lake Mead flowed down and also destroyed the Imperial Dam downriver, which prevented the All-American Canal and the Coachella Canal from bringing water to the Coachella Valley. While damage to the California Aqueducts also affected Bakersfield, it was less reliant on them.
Another map for reference.
National Guard units and soldiers from Fort Irwin created a military government in the region. The military was able to stockpile food from the pre-war harvest, which helped keep a large part of the population from starvation during the first winter. But the region had a large influx of refugees from the coast, which the military struggled to feed. As the Twilight began the harvest failed in the Coachella Valley worse than in many other places.
Starvation began, and unrest grew. In response the Military government began to become increasingly authoritarian, using the rationing system to control its population and prioritizing rations for the soldiers. This clashed with Bakersfield's attempts to reassert control in the region. Bakersfield sent some famine relief in the first few months but this was lessened when the Twilight began to intensify. Still, the Bakersfield government retained a large amount of influence in the region due to proximity.
The military began to suggest draconian measures to make it through the Twilight, which Bakersfield pushed back on. As famine intensified the military went with their plans anyway, expelling thousands of people from the region, an action which was condemned by Bakersfield. It's unknown what Bakersfield planned to do, if they even could do anything, but the military government felt like they had no choice but to act.
On October 30th, 1984, there was a large-scale mutiny of troops in the Inland Empire region. Colonel William L. Shackelford [2] declared that the Bakersfield government was out of touch, unfit to handle the crisis, and that he was now Adjutants-General of the California Military Administration. His forces almost took Bakersfield but were pushed back.
The CMA, despite having failed to overthrow the government, remained a major power in the region for a few years due to their professional army. At their peak, they controlled a region stretching from Nevada, to Baja California where they resettled refugee populations and people they couldn't feed. But over the years being stuck in the desert and as their military equipment broke down they slowly declined into a raiding army. The "State of Baja" declared independence in 1989 and in 1990 they lost control of their core territories in the Coachella Valley, forced to retreat to Fort Irwin. Since then they've forced a large gang that took over the region to pay tribute, but failed to reassert control. Nowadays they rely on launching raids from a strip of land along the Mojave to other factions. Because of this they're now more commonly known as the Mojave Army. As they weaken and factions around them get tired of their raids, Bakersfield plans to end the remnants of the mutiny for good.
Bakersfield, meanwhile, had a much more fortunate situation. The Southern San Joaquin Valley had a large agricultural base, a supply of oil, and were fortunate enough that most radiation was blown to the North or East of them. Still, there was a massive influx of refugees from the suburbs of L.A that strained the region's ability to feed. This wasn't helped by the damage to the California Aqueducts. Rations kept the population fed through the first winter, but by the 2nd winter of the Twilight after a crop failure rations became harder to maintain. There were several Neo-McCarthyist protests at this time, in response to which Governor Shell made the controversial decision to prioritize rations for non-refugees. This caused a short-lived rebellion in January of 1985.
Many of the people arrested in the rebellion and related riots were used as forced labor to rebuild the California irrigation system. The process had started in the previous year, with quite brutal working conditions and many people dying due to exposure or disease worsened by starvation. Sections of damaged canals were rebuilt, contaminated water was redirected and partial stretches of new canals were built. While the rebuilding wouldn't be completed entirely until later, it was still significant.
I feel like it isn't discussed enough how the United States built a massive canal system just to sustain cities of millions in the desert. There's stuff like this in Arizona for Phoenix too.
Because fall of that year the harvest was under pre-war levels but much larger than the previous year; the Twilight was coming to an end. With food diminishing as an issue, Bakersfield was in a good position to expand into the rest of California. They defeated a small warlord in Coalinga and linked up with a government in Merced that had recognized their rule.
The San Joaquin Intercounty Authority, (more commonly known as San Joaquin or The Intercounty) was an emergency government that under skilled leadership managed to keep a large amount of the population in the Northern San Joaquin valley fed through the Twilight. It's also an example of where the line between surviving government and warlord gets blurred.
San Joaquin started out as an emergency government for Merced County under the leadership of Fredrick Wack, Chair of the County Board of Supervisors. The region faced a massive influx of refugees and radiation from the Bay Area alongside the typical effects of the Twilight, which the multiple disunified county governments could not handle. Authority collapsed or weakened in the region as militias and gangs formed began fighting each other over food.
In this situation, Frederick Wack launched a soft-coup, arresting the other members of the board and reasserting control of the region. He allied with Merced's sizable Hmong population, around 6% of the city. The Hmong were refugees from war in Southeast Asia and so they were quite well prepared to handle internal conflict. [3] Facing racial violence as the conditions worsened they had formed their own militia, under the leadership of exiled general Vang Pao. With a capable army Wack was able to restore order to Merced, and parts of Fresno and Madera County, creating the Intercounty.
Here's the controversy with Wack. He arrested his political opponents and overthrew the mayors of several towns simply for refusing to recognize his authority, replacing them with his allies. Wack claimed it was necessary for the time and that democracy would return later. While this promise was made in many places thousands of times this was one of the rare times that it was fulfilled. Wack was quite competent, kept rationing uncorrupt and managed to feed the population equally through the Nuclear Twilight. And when Bakersfield held its first elections he did too and stepped down, refusing to support either party.
But Wack ended up creating an authoritarian political structure in the region. setting a precedent for using force to stop political opponents. While it was more subtle now, democracy in the region is quite flawed, and many of the leaders' allies during the dictatorship still control local government in the region. The Intercounty rejoined Bakersfield which moderated this but remains de-facto quite autonomous.
San Joaquin isn't the only part of the Bakersfield government that remains autonomous. The rural Inyo County, to the east of Bakersfield never stopped recognizing it's authority but distance and a lack of roads across the Sierra Nevadas has made it so they mostly run themselves. California isn't able to do much about the conflict with Bridgeport, but they've arranged a deal about water use and the Los Angeles Aqueduct.
In 1992, After 9 years of emergency rule Mary Shell officially stepped down and held elections for governor and the State Senate. Shell over the years had regretted many of her decisions during the Twilight. Politically was a fan of Reagan and supporter of smaller government, and disliked how powerful the government had become. So she significantly lessened the power of the position of governor, assigning more powers to the Senate (which also included the powers of the State Assembly that hadn't been restored yet).
The result of this was that California accidentally created a parliamentary system. While the Republican candidate Joseph Shell (yes, her husband) was elected governor in a near landslide, the Senate elections were the more important ones and quite different.
While the region had been quite Republican pre-war the political parties had shifted a lot in the past few years even if they kept their names.
The Democrats won 14 out of 40 seats, despite being the party of the now destroyed cities. They had shifted into a party for military expansion. They supported a stronger focus on the reunification of California, a more centralized government, and the proto-forms of Californian nationalism. This won them seats in the north and the regions in the east that still faced raids from the Mojave Army. Republicans won 13 seats, while still in favor of reunification they were more in favor of diplomatic means, believing that the petty dictatorships of America will collapse by themselves. The emerging Rationalist movement won quite a few seats, others were won by independents and a few by the Christian Farmers Party which is a minor local party led by a self-declared prophet.
The Democrats entered a coalition with the Rationalists and some of the Independents to elect Cal Dooley as President of the California Senate. Often shortened to "President of California" it is now a much stronger position, de-facto the leader of the Bakersfield government.
A few months after the election Bakersfield launched an invasion of the State Transitional Authority. The Warlord centered in Sonora - which had formed in the same chaos in the region as San Joaquin - had declined significantly. At one point it threatened Merced and controlled South Lake Tahoe, but after the death of the first warlord his successor Cary Stayner was incredibly brutal even for warlord standards and caused several parts of the state to break off. As of now, Californian troops have easily taken Mariposa and have stopped at the Merced River momentarily. Two minor factions, a sheriff in charge of a petty dictatorship in Hollister and a Vigilante gang in Gilroy have recently agreed to hold local elections and join Bakersfield instead of inevitably being conquered.
The State of California (Bakersfield) is emerging as a powerful faction in the former United States. Its population of over a million makes it the most populous faction on the West Coast. As outside powers like the Pacific States of America and Mexico begin to exert influence in the region, the early stages of the California nationalist movement have emerged.
This isn't unique to California, because of a complete shattering of political authority, division, conflict and wars between Americans, regional identities have become much more important.
For California, the proto-nationalist movement uses as a symbol not the bear of the old flag, but a cornucopia.
Unofficial flag of the State of California (Bakersfield), and increasingly a symbol of the proto-Californian nationalist movement.
The Cornucopia is a symbol that's on the Bakersfield flag itself, and it fits the idea of Bakersfield surviving the apocalypse through its agriculture to expand into other regions, saving them with the light of the cornucopia which will feed their families and end the tyrants. Which the proto-Californian nationalists and the California Democratic Party promoting Californian expansion support.
As of now the Bakersfield government does not recognize any Federal Government claimant. They are openly hostile with the Medford States of America and unfriendly with the Rio Grande States of America. They have considered the idea of recognizing the Rocky Mountain States of America. Relations with the Pacific States of America are more complex, especially after the start of the Restoration.
There are some that see the government in Hawaii as a puppet of the Commonwealth, others hope that an alliance would connect California to outside trade. Both governments have communicated, the PSA has said that they'd hand over their holdings in Southern California if Bakersfield recognizes them, but the PSA's negotiations with the Federation of Three Counties has caused concerns that they will split North California as a a separate state. Right now, the PSA is operating as a Federal Government with one state, and how a Federal government where one state has 5 times the population of the other would function is uncertain. The California Senate recently passed a bill that would require a plebiscite for recognizing a Federal Government, so it will be interesting how the future holds. [4]
On the Southern Coast of California are two areas controlled by the PSA. The Channel Islands came under the control of the Navy and was a spot where many surviving U.S ships arrived at. The Naval Government took a relatively small amount of refugees from L.A but even that was too much for the lightly-populated region to handle, and in desperation they began to attack Mexican coastal towns for food.
There was a period in time where there was a mini US navy pirate empire fighting Mexican communists, but it was pretty short lived, and the naval government collapsed. In its place were three petty dictatorships that lasted until the Restoration.
The Pacific States of America was one of many factions claiming to be the real US government. While the Hawaii based faction had a large navy until recently they controlled none of the mainland US and were only recognized by East and West Alaska. So, the PSA launched what they ambitiously called "The Restoration".
The PSA navy easily conquered the three factions in the Channel Islands and also defeated a minor warlord in San Simeon. Now the PSA hopes to expand further diplomatically, seeking alliances with Bakersfield, the Federation of Three Counties, and local governments in Oregon.
Other than those three there are also several minor factions.
In the power vacuum caused by the decline of the Mojave Army a familiarly named warlord took control of parts of the Imperial Valley. There's also the "King Division", a faction in the Salinas Valley founded by soldiers from Fort Hunter Liggett that overthrew their Commander when the Mojave mutiny occurred. The minor warlord in San Simeon that the PSA conquered used to be a tributary of them.
North of Inyo there's the U.S Marines Bridgeport, formed by the Marines at the Mountain Warfare Training Center who essentially replaced the county government. They have a territorial dispute with Inyo County, who ended up administrating southern parts of Mono County during the Twilight. While the dispute hasn't been violent yet it's uncertain how it will play out in the future. Bridgeport is a pretty minor faction but it doesn't recognize the Bakersfield government and has recently arranged a diplomatic meeting with Medford. To their East is a minor government founded by park rangers in Yosemite National Park. Finally, the Ta'hoes are a gang from Reno that took over South Lake Tahoe, had been conquered by the Transitional State Authority and then broke off.
[1] I meant to cover how warlords and surviving governments (they aren't that different in their structure) worked but I kinda got demotivated with that update and wanted to start on more specific updates already.
[2] I feel like I'm slandering random old people because I like to use real people for leaders of factions and warlords in this scenario, but it adds a fun bit of detail. This guy specifically was Chief of Operations of Fort Irwin in 1983.
[3] While looking into this I came across this section from a NYT interview He added that many of the Hmong had moved to Merced for ''survival reasons.'' ''We never know about war,'' he said in English. ''Many Hmong thought that if they were in the East or the North and there was a war, the freeways might fold. They wanted to move to an area where the crops are.''
This was four months before the war happened, quite prophetic.
[4] I will say other factions probably won't be covered in as much detail as the State of California. I kinda went down a rabbit hole here because well, I do have a bit of a hometown bias.
The American Warlord Period was doomed to happen, but the lack of a centralized American government sped up the process. Remnants of American state governments had been clinging on barely, struggling to house and feed the refugee populations from cities. They issued rationing efforts, taking control of food supplies and working with farmers to try to scrape by. This worked in some cases; states like Nebraska or Hawaii made it through the Nuclear Twilight hungry but with little starvation.
But these were the exceptions. Some states faced mismanagement and corruption, others faced internal division, and most commonly a lot just didn't have enough agriculture or other food sources. Even for those that were successful, most state governments couldn't control the entirety of their state which left a power vacuum in the rest. As starvation hit people lost faith in their leaders and became desperate. Opportunistic leaders took advantage of the situation promising people that they could feed everyone. The first warlords.
In the rest of the world, the warlords of the First Great Crisis were thought of as barbaric cannibal gangs roving around in bikes, killing and eating anyone they saw and raiding surviving remnants of civilization. [1] While partially accurate for the Early Warlord Period, this image was false in several ways.
Even in the more unstable regions where the most powerful authorities were gangs, this wasn't the case. Cannibalism isn't a stable food source long term and most gangs stopped when the Twilight ended. After the first few years supplies of fuel became rare which limited vehicle use significantly.
The line between "emergency government" and "warlord" was not exact, and more of a blurred line. The structure and often actions of emergency governments weren't that different from warlords. Despite being the rightful governor of Wisconsin according to the state constitution [2], Wisconsin Acting Governor Terry Kohler created a brutal class system where refugee populations were used as forced labor. Often for smaller governments, it was hard to tell how someone came into power. Is that an emergency leader elected by the county board or someone who marched into city hall and seized power forcefully? Is the opposing faction claiming the latter telling the truth or a warlord state themselves who just wants to delegitimize a surviving government? And the decentralized system of government was common in almost all large factions.
Most warlords were originally well meaning individuals who wanted to help people. Circumstances, however, would make that difficult. Even if they managed to seize control of a region, these proto-warlords faced the realization that in many cases, they simply couldn't feed their population. Political upheaval only worsened the situation.
Now, warlords formed originally as political authority fractured. Many state governments collapsed and the federal government no longer existed. Of course, there were also surviving state governments but they had difficulty exerting control over distant areas.
Highways and most large roads passed through the now-destroyed cities so transportation was difficult and often took winding paths, not to mention the danger of bandits. This made, say, transporting food supplies across distant regions difficult and not worth it. You would need an armed patrol to prevent them from being stolen and use up quite a bit of fuel taking an indirect route. Certainly not impossible, but why do that when there are people starving in your core territories too?
As a result, many state governments focused on feeding the region around their new capital and planning taking back the rest of the state after the crisis ended. In cases where the government tried to keep control of the entire state it often collapsed, like in Oregon. And of course, there were also plenty of states where there was no state government or competing state governments.
Either way, the end result was that outside of some regions, government was reduced to the county/city level. But county governments were inexperienced for a crisis and had low legitimacy in the eyes of their people. While they were elected officials pre-war, local elections had had low turnout rates as people cared more about state and federal elections. So most people didn't know who the Chair of their County Board of Supervisors was and were unlikely to listen to their orders if they didn't want to, especially when the County Government often had no way of enforcing their orders. When food began to run out, people were a lot more willing and able to overthrow local governments.
Where state authority was weak there were various police departments, farmers militias, refuge groups, gangs, religious cults, national guard units, surviving county governments and others that controlled minor factions and refused to work with each other. In such a situation, warfare was inevitable.
For the first few years warfare was a conflict almost entirely over food supplies. Conflict centered around the mass use of resources like fuel, vehicles, guns and manpower which there were a surplus of. There were often too many people for one faction to feed, so losing manpower wasn't a concern. Fuel, vehicles, and guns were things that were difficult to produce post-war but were quite common in pre-war America. Some people realized that these resources were limited, but conserving them wasn't an option if the army attacking you was going all in. This didn't result in some factions growing more influential and creating a tributary system like the Late Warlord Period. Instead of convincing a town to send some supplies in exchange for not attacking, it was easier and incentivized to just fight and take all their supplies.
This period of warfare was incredibly destructive, with large armies of mobile, previously civilian trucks that were modified to mount heavy weaponry [3]. They focused not on taking land but seizing supplies from other factions in raids that would bring resources to support the core of the faction. For factions that were agricultural and had stockpiles of food from the previous year's harvest, it was focused on defending their stockpiles from said raids.
So this may look a lot like the outside stereotype of warlords, minus the cannibalism and blurred line between warlords and emergency governments, but it was a short lived period.
When the weapons, fuel, and manpower that were necessary for this type of warfare to function ran out, things shifted rapidly. This was also when the effects of the Twilight began to recede, and agriculture became significantly more important [4]. Agriculture - with limited fertilizer and tractors - that was very labor intensive. What in the Early Warlord Period were the most common resources were now severely limited, and farming made controlling land important. With manpower becoming an important and rare resource, slavery became common. It was almost never officially slavery, but the 13th Amendment allowed forced labor as a punishment for a crime and many factions interpreted that broadly.
Starting in 1985 this shift - the Late Warlord Period - made warfare too costly to be worth it. Many factions that were in less agriculturally viable regions but had able to survive through raiding collapsed. The few like the Mojave Army or the State of Estacado that survived only did so due to specific circumstances and are in decline.
The factions that survived the shift maintained control of a core region, the land they annexed when another warlord collapsed that they were able to take over without losing much and sometimes important agricultural land. But other stable factions or minor towns remained more loosely controlled, sending in taxes/tribute but mostly running themselves. A faction could pressure a smaller faction to recognize it without using force, but actually conquering wasn't worth it for the larger faction.
This system of indirect control is sometimes compared to feudalism, but a more accurate historical comparison would be the Mandala system of Southeast Asia or the Moroccan idea of Bled es-Siba. There was a large area of direct control and an outer region of smaller factions that recognized the central government that expanded and shrunk depending on how powerful the larger faction was. These relationships were often based on personal connections, and a warlord's successor often couldn't command the same loyalty from its tributaries as their predecessor.
A good example of how this works is the Free States of America (another Federal government claimant btw)
Most surviving state governments also ended up following this pattern with the local governments that still recognized them. However it's not universal, while the State of California (Bakersfield) is decentralized in some ways it's in an oil-rich region and has a large population allowing it to maintain the mobile style of warfare of the Early Warlord Period. Many factions like the State of Wisconsin (Green Bay), the Central States of America retained a relatively high population to make warfare still cost effective.
Underpopulation still remains a significant concern, and many wonder how this system will change in the coming years. Factions growing more powerful seems like it would end the decentralized system of government, but also, people have noticed…
There seems to be barely any children under the age of 10.
[1] This image is partially due to the Mad Max movies, as Mad Max 1 and 2 were released before the war. The franchise would become massively popular, getting 3 more follow up movies and creating a whole genre in the growing Australian film industry.
[2] Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette was injured but survived the nuking of Madison, declared himself Acting Governor and then appointed Kohler Lt. Governor, which was approved by a rump State Legislature. When La Follette died of radiation poisoning in December Kohler became Acting Governor.
[3] The word technical originated from the Somali Civil War, so they're not called that in universe. Haven't decided what in-universe name I'll choose, maybe Portée.
[4] I don't think I've specifically mentioned this, but in my interpretation of nuclear winter (there's quite a bit of debate on how major the Nuclear Winter would be) the return to normal temperatures happens gradually, it peaks in around August of 1984 before dropping slowly. Another thing I haven't been able to mention cause of the in-universe style of updates but this is pre-GMO's
Ronald Reagan speaking with Samuel Doe, leader of Liberia, a few seconds before being informed that the Soviet Union had launched a nuclear attack on the U.S. [2]
