The bit that's in North Carolina, by the way.

The eastern area of the Commune was completely devastated in the war, and is still full of ruins and pockets of radiation. The western part, meanwhile, is generally clean thanks to the protection afforded to it by mountains and the lack of any nuclear targets in the region. The land hasn't changed much, aside from higher radiation levels, North Carolina is much the same as it was before the war.

Military Dictatorship

West Jefferson, a town established as a destination for countless refugees in the early days of the country, the capital of the Commune now supports a rather significant population in its former shops and various makeshift dwellings.

Who the "Head of State" is in the Commune is a rather complicated question. If one is to be technical, it would be Niall Lister-the man who originally founded the state. At the same time, he keeps his two advisers-John Smith and Jessica Ansbach-exceptionally close and while he is supposedly the leader of the country, it is quite clear that he and his advisers are what truly forms the government. They are all in the same party, that party being the American Reclamation Party. (Profiles in the Other Important People section, because this is getting long)

-Niall Lister: Lister's family fled to the mountains when the bombs dropped, and were involved in the founding of the Commune. Thanks to this, he managed to end up in a high administrative position and eventually usurped power in a quiet coup with the people rallying behind him. As far as military dictators go, he's rather easygoing, and has tried his best to cultivate a popular, lovable image for himself rather than use fear to stay in power. At the same time, however, he is not the fluffy teddy bear many jokes make him out to be. Within his journal, one finds dozens of different plans to achieve his goals, and very few of these plans come free of bloodshed. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about his personal beliefs, however, is the fact that he holds a "Forged in flame" philosophy. That is, he believes that the war and it's aftermath were glorious events that weeded out the worst of humanity and let the best prosper.
-Jessica Ansbach: A former Commune Ranger, Ansbach rose through the ranks quickly due to a combination of her ruthlessness in battle and connections to the top brass. She is generally considered Lister's right-hand woman, and is generally the one who appears whenever the military (which encompasses the police, of course) is involved, since she is known for being significantly harsher than her two comrades. She has known Lister for many years, and their closeness was a factor in her quick promotion just as much-and likely more so-than her actual skill.
-John Smith: More commonly known as "Yes, that's his real name", John Smith is the only one of the leaders whom was born before the war. He was, in fact, a genetic engineer whom worked on simple things like cold-resistant crops before the war. This happened to be a significant boon afterwards, since having crops resistant to frost and cold is generally useful after a global temperature drop. At the request of Ansbach, he was set to work on adapting crops to the new, post-war conditions. Far from the grandiose, far-off dreams of the other two founders, John Smith's only higher agenda is to make sure as many people survive as possible. It is worth noting that he has never appeared in public after an expedition in his early days.
-Connor Allen: A Commune ranger famous for supposedly killing a Yeti alone. Though an officer in the military, he was kept from having any political power and instead assigned to escort parties heading into still-irradiated or dangerous parts of the land. He was one of the escorts for Dr. Smith's party, and claims to know the truth of what happened there. However, he has never actually told the story, despite his penchant for good moonshine.
-Norman Elliot: The owner of the Blue Ribbon Diner-a favorite of Ansbach and Lister's-in the capital. His establishment has turned into a community center thanks to the patronage of the founders (which some believe might involve giving him priority on the cleanest rations). Using the profits, he's also opened up a gun shop and a saloon. All of these endeavors are on the same block (another topic which makes many suspect the government intervened to give him a favorable position), which has only increased the number of people who flock to the place to do nothing more than simply socialize.

5.6 Million

After the coup that brought Lister to power, the Commune has stated that while unnatural abominations, Evols are simply sick. The goal, in their opinion, should be to cure them of their sickness, not purge them from the world (as was the opinion of the former government).

The Commune, despite being called a Commune, is actually capitalist. If the words of Ansbach are any indication, though, that's only because it's hard to implement most forms of socialism after a nuclear war.

The Commune produces a significant amount of Tobacco, which is their primary cash crop. Alongside it, they also produce a large amount of corn (though mostly for consumption). One of their signature foods, however, is something common before the war: seafood (Though not in its original state-whale meat is a favorite and an entirely new dish based off of dried seaweed similar to sushi has become a mainstay throughout the Commune). Other products include steel (though not in large quantities) and some of the better automatic weapons in the region. Natural gas is their most prized commodity, though it is still in short supply within the country.

The official Commune currency often changes from leader to leader, but it is currently simply called the Commune Dollar.

The Carolina Commune has done its best to re-industrialize, however, the results have been rather lackluster. There are a few factories, mostly canneries near the coast and an old cigar factory in Durham partially refurbished by an entrepreneur. The only factory dedicated to something else is another refurbished cigar factory in Durham, which is a makeshift steel forge. None of them have any form of automation, and are little more than collections of people and equipment specialized in a certain craft (as such, most people just call them workshops). Most production is still based off of cottage industry. An extremely notable deviation from the norm in the postwar world, however, would be the preservation of prewar scientific equipment used in genetic engineering. Though very much still in use, there is nearly nobody at all qualified to do anything more complicated than polish it, and most of it sits unused. The only benefit ever received from it was a slow end to the famine in the early post-war years.

Perhaps the greatest resource of the Commonwealth, however, is its natural gas reserves. The government invested a major amount of money in revitalizing natural gas refineries and extraction facilities when it became clear that the remaining reserves and home-produced fuel wouldn't be enough to support their growing economy.

The Commune has no official religion, and it is largely non-religious (the end of the world has a way of making people mysteriously stop praying). However, may pre-war religious still exist, but in a different form. Out of these, the remains of various Protestant sects are the largest. Over the years they have simply merged into a single, unified Protestant Church-a development that staunchly Catholic Ansbach despises.

The belief that the apocalypse was a good thing has slowly crept into the minds of the populace through the popularity of Lister, and many sects of various religions consider it to have been a test carried out by God (or the gods, in some cases) to eliminate the unworthy (or let the worthy ascend to heaven-the Unified Protestant Church claims that the end times described in the Bible have come and gone). As a result of these views, the dominant opinion is more or less a watered-down version of Westboro Baptist "Everyone deserves to burn in hell" beliefs. The difference being that they also believe that they are already doing do.

Ansbach is known to never shut up about every tiny little inconsistency in the beliefs of said the UPC.

The Commune found its beginnings aboard the USS Enterprise just after its sea trials, when it was sent to fight the Russian Navy in the war. Most of the combat it saw was at the tail end of the fighting, just before the apocalypse. During a battle with an enemy fleet of destroyers, the bridge was hit-an event shown as a missile strike in Birth of a Nation-and most of its command staff was killed or severely injured. Its new CO was "Captain" MacLean (obviously not actually a Captain beforehand), the highest ranking officer aboard after the battle. A new CO was being brought in from the USA, but a Russian anti-ship ballistic missile came close to destroying the ship in port and it departed with remaining damage in order to avoid further attacks.

Before it could reach the mainland USA, where repairs were planned to be carried out, the entire world suddenly went dark without explanation. Their worst fears were confirmed two days later, when their radio broadcasts were answered by a Chinese nuclear submarine. The ICBMs had been launched. The world had ended. Without any other option, they pressed on, planning to return to the USA. MacLean ordered the ship to divert to Beaufort, North Carolina instead of Norfolk. After all, such an important naval base would have been completely destroyed-a smaller town like Beaufort was more likely to have survived. His gamble paid off, and the ship was welcomed by what was left of the town.

He quickly set people to work collecting survivors and bringing them to the mountains, where they would be safer from the fallout. The town of West Jefferson was set up as the de facto capital, for no reason other than it was a personal favorite of MacLean's. It was there that the roots of the Commune dug into the soil, and it was officially founded a year after the Enterprise's return. During that time, John Smith was recruited as a genetic engineer, in order to secure a viable food source for the starving population.

Under MacLean's leadership, the Commune managed to largely cleanse Beaufort, allowing its use as a seaport to be fully revived. Large-scale agriculture was also reintroduced in the Piedmont, ending the famine. MacLean himself, however, was not as fortunate. He died an early death to cancer, and his successor was simply the next highest ranking officer in the Commune's lands. This cycle continued for decades, until Lister's coup. With every new leader, the country became more and more of a police state, and Lister decided to change that. With the assistance of Ansbach, he killed the legitimate leader and put himself and Ansbach in power. Through appeasing the people and cultivating a friendly, everyman public image, he managed to cement his power in a way drastically different from that of his predecessor.

He has placed an emphasis on rebuilding North Carolina's industrial capabilities, as well as eliminating mutants such as Yetis (the government avoids explicitly culling the populations of human mutants). At the present time, the Commune is in the middle of his first "Five Year Plan", which is far less drastic and famine-inducing than its infamous historical counterpart. A movement towards centralization has slowly begun to erode the rock of cottage industry, and craftsmen are often relocated to newly-opened workshops in an effort to increase production.

The current foreign policy of the Commune is somewhat aggressive, and the threat of the CSS Leviathan is often used to exploit the fears of other, less powerful countries. In particular, they are locked in a kind of Cold War with South Carolina, which they claim would do better under the leadership of the Carolina Commune and is their rightful territory. Despite such assertions, they have yet to take any direct military action. However, the intelligence agency is severely concerned with reports of attempts to restart hydroelectric dams in the country, which would represent a massive jump in living quality and industrial capability for the Republic.

Most of the residents of the Carolina Commune are American pan-nationalists, believing that the former USA should be reunited. At the same time, however, they take it a step further and include Canada, as well as Mexico and much of former Latin America. The reasoning behind this belief, of course, is that all of those cultures were either represented in the USA or so closely intertwined that they might as well be, and thus should be under a single government. There are plenty of theories on just how such a government would be set up, but the most common involves a federal government similar to that of the USA, but with state lines divided according to ethnic and cultural differences.

Another rather prevalent cultural belief is that the apocalypse was inherently a good thing for humanity. The populace follows a similar belief to Lister's, holding the opinion that the war destroyed the unworthy of humanity and gave the survivors a clean slate on which to construct a perfect society and species. As such, marriages and even romantic relationships between mutants (no matter how small the differences) and baseline humans are considered taboo, and even forbidden by law, in the hopes that such mutations can eventually be weeded out. Through a combination of this culture and government propaganda, mutated humans generally grow up with a shattered sense of self-esteem and a deep hatred of their own kind. It is rare to see a mutant that refuses to comply with the law, as they see themselves as an abomination to be removed just like the rest of the nation does.

Music and art are both rather diverse, and one can usually find examples of plenty of different time periods in both. However, some instruments simply can't be found, and others require a government permit to operate (due to electricity restrictions). This generally keeps recent pre-war music completely out of the question, as much of it relied heavily on electronic instruments and often digital editing software. As a result, a revival of older music has occurred, with swing in particular becoming quite popular. Those with permits, however, will often go to great lengths to recreate other pre-war works using electric instruments. This practice has given rise to an entire genre, known as Lazarus for incredibly obviously reasons. In fact, it is often credited with reviving the practice of recording music and playing it privately, since to do otherwise would just be a waste of electricity. The need to conserve electricity has also revived the phonograph, since designs copied from earlier periods don't require electricity like CD players, cassette players, and even recent record players scavenged from pre-war ruins do.

A particularly noteworthy part of Commune culture is the recent revival of the movie industry with the screening of the film Birth of a Nation in the capital city's one movie theater (which had been a museum of pre-war culture beforehand). Bearing no relation to its infamous counterpart of the same name, the film was set in the Third World War and largely aboard the US carrier Enterprise during its campaign in the Northern Sea against Russia. Specifically, the events following the death of Captain John Ring and many other officers up to the founding of the Carolina Commonwealth. It made use of footage from the war, and was filmed on-location aboard the actual Enterprise. Its release gave rise to countless other privately produced films, the creators of which leased the government equipment used in the production. Once again, many of these films are remakes of ones lost in the war. Of particular interest is a group attempting to remake Twelve O'Clock High, which has gathered national interest surrounding their efforts in constructing a functioning replica B-17.

In all branches of the Commune military, there are approximately 45 thousand active duty personnel. The Navy ties up more personnel than most other post-war navies, and it is estimated that it accounts for 30 or so percent of the armed forces. All males above the age of sixteen are required to register with their local militia, though such militias can only be mobilized if the nation is fighting a losing war in their own territory, and it would be impossible to fully mobilize the entire militia due to food concerns. They generally function as nothing more than a part-time police force, and it is not unheard of for some militias to put themselves up for hire as a mercenary group.

The Commune Army continues to maintain multiple pre-war vehicles and weapons, mostly scavenged from the many military bases that formerly inhabited the state. Their motor fleet includes several Abrams tanks, though they have never been deployed on a combat mission due to the extreme scarcity of their fuel. What fuel they have for those remaining monstrous kings of warfare is stockpiled, not allowed to be used for anything unless multiple militias have been mobilized.

In place of such tanks, the Commune designed multiple alternatively-fueled tanks. These generally follow older designs from the first two world wars. Tanks fueled by natural gas are usually based off of WWII tanks, while steam-powered ones follow the infantry tank design philosophy of WWI. Alongside these tanks, the army operates a significant number of wheeled vehicles, which are usually powered by either steam or wood gas (natural gas is considered too valuable for such lightly-armored vehicles). The Army also maintains a small air force, though it is at a level of technology similar to the early days of aerial combat in WWI, and is almost never used to do anything but scout the battlefield.

The Navy is significantly smaller than that of other countries, but it is also notably more advanced. A controversial decision was made to continue to maintain the USS Enterprise, by scavenging nuclear fuel from before the war. It no longer has its original air wing (all the fuel was transferred to the Army to power the far more relevant tanks), but does carry a small complement of primitive torpedo bombers similar to the British Swordfish as well as army fighter designs adapted to launch from the carrier. The immense expense of operating and maintaining such a vessel has left it as the only ship in service aside from militia patrol boats and its own complement of four ironclads. It is estimated that, with current fuel supplies, the Enterprise will be in operation for approximately fifteen more years. After that point, it would either have to undergo a total conversion or be scrapped. There are also concerns over whether it is wise to have the entire effective naval power of the country centered around a single vessel, and it is scheduled for scrapping the moment it's reactor runs dry. However, one can't deny the intimidation value of the silhouette of a fully operational aircraft carrier off in the distance. It's post-war name, the CSS Leviathan, emphasizes the horror that comes with that image.