By the year 2023, the world was already two horsemen deep. With pre-existing conflicts intensifying, attacks against states from an amorphous and asymmetric foe had blanketed the western world in a near state of war, while the same enemies perpetuated heated war across the Middle East, attracting the attention of the world's great power who in swallowing their prides and willingly turning their back on the old lessons learned put boots on the ground. It was a move that wouldn't lead to the victory they sought to have, and the presence of the foreign enemy at arm's reach galvanized the enemy. In the end, the enraged conflict grew beyond its borders. This was the first Horseman.

Somehow by a miracle and in the tense atmosphere the war never saw the launch of missiles. But it saw the outbreak of something else. While it may have been directed by the invisible hand of the invisible enemy, or simply found the new capability to spread and to do so rapidly familiar diseases that had taken on an unfamiliar and dangerous new trait found its way across the world. Like an influenza, contagious diseases thought exterminated swept the western nations of the world. It could not be stopped with the old antibiotic medicines so often employed. Long incubated in parts of the world where the medicines have been abused beyond the breaking point the world was ravaged. This was the Second.

The Third Horseman though was already there, twisting the strings of trade and cheating the scales of weights. But as his brothers worked with loud and heavy-handed might the roads were opened for new opportunities of disaster. With the costs of war and defense sapping funding of the developed world into defense, and the rising price-tag of dealing with the biological disaster the banks and economy started to cough sputter. Turning anemic as it caught second hand the plague of human discontent. The line was drawn tight, and set ready for the final cut by the Third Horseman.

And the fourth came. Not in nuclear fire. Not from above. But a monster from within. With a great explosion, the sleeping cauldera of Yellowstone erupted in 2023 spewing ash and smoke into the atmosphere. The toxic ash the poured forth from the Earth's mantle spread like a heavy blanket over the United States showing the country the true form of black terror. In a force not since seen since the Black Blizzards of the thirties, and never before exceeded ash fell and blanketed large swathes of the North American continent and completely covering the United States.

This was the ax that fell, the knife that cut the string of sickly economy. The collapse of the United States sent more than ripples through the world's affairs and the nations that rose upon the terrifying crests of the waves formed by its banks falling Europe and Asia so too did fall. The world economy which had so long provided peace let loose unrestrained war and the rest of the world crumbled in the last desperate gasp of man.

But if the Fourth Horseman had intended it, he had failed. Or perhaps it was enough to swing the hammer of justice one time and strike out man's knees for now. Or they wanted to keep them for their own continuing games. For humanity did not die out. And while the US and Canada lay buried under thick ash, with the world smoldering from conflict around it man survived. Man survived to recollect, to rebuild.

This was the wake of the Four Horsemen.

---

This is the base map:


Black is the American wasteland beyond the Mississippi, this is land that's so buried under ash it has not returned as everything east of the Mississippi has. Living is harsh and wild there, if not downright deadly yet in fear of breathing in lethal volcanic glass. I don't want anyone claiming land in the black, at least not yet. But it's not off-limits to play in for story purposes. Just no territorial expansion that way and no claiming to have settlements over there. Find an excuse.

The maps are broken down by their Municipalities and counties in Canada, Cuba, and the United States (though in the case of Canada it may be census areas).

And here's the territory map:




Name:

Location:

History:

On playing just as single individuals:
If for whatever reason you want to join this RP as a single character and not a country as a whole the above application can be recycled for that. For location simply say where your character's going to be entering the story at; basically where the first post(s) will be, as opposed to posting a map of territory like for a nation. I also ask if you're applying as a single individual to say "INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER" at the top of the application as a formality.

Post unapproved apps in the OOC tab, and once approved repost them in the characters tab.

Name: The Outer Banks Republic

Location:



History: The Outer Banks formed through a loose confederation of inhabitants on the islands and lands around the North Carolina coast. In the aftermath of the collapse of civilization, raiders and pirates preyed upon the ships and farmers on the islands. Eventually communities united together to put down a threat. At a meeting on Roanoke Island, a quorum of ship captains met to form a posse. This makeshift fleet of fishing vessels set sail and laid waste to the predators in the area. It was known as the First Quorum and broke up soon after the threat passed.

Five years later, more threats required the meeting of the Second Quorum. This time, after the pirate menace was put down the ship captains returned to Roanoke and set up a provisional government. With each island represented by its ship captains, the charter for the Outer Banks Republic was created. Very little has changed since then. Life goes on, the navy repels threats of pirates, and the people of Outer Banks do their best to live in harmony.

The Outer Banks culture is one of Republican ideals, a mostly agrarian society that sprung up in the years since the collapse of the world. In the Outer Banks a man is free to be left alone and live in peace from interference from outside forces. An ideal Jeffersonian Democracy where the power is invested in the people of the countryside. Although a now growing class of wealthy merchants are attempting to change the shape and form of the Republic. As wealth floods into the nation, there are those who are prepared to fight for the very soul of the Republic.

The great divide does not lie in race, religion, or sex, but in seagoing and land lovers. Those that have no taste for the waters are looked down upon by the sailors who earn their living in the ocean. The merchants are viewed with contempt by the fisherman due to their large accumulation of wealth and ownership of many ships, giving them a seemingly unfair advantage in the Captain's Quorum.

@Byrd Man

yer good

@Wernher

You weren't supposed to post in the character tab first. And I skimmed over your app and I'm not sure you changed anything about the hydro power.

Name: The Free Republic of Northern New England

Location: Maine, New Hampshire and most of Vermont
History:

New England and her people have always had a separate culture from the rest of the United States. Here, as the birthplace of the American Revolution, many of the old democratic values of the birth of the nation still hold strongly. It is a beautiful land, especially during the fall, when the vasts forests covering the land begin turn to all sorts of majestic reds and yellows and oranges. However, it is also a harsh and unforgiving land, especially during the winters. As a result, it has bred a tough and hardy people.

That is why when the Yellowstone erupted and society collapsed, those living in northern New England seemed to do fairly well. There were hundreds of deaths, of course, as food supplies suddenly disappeared and the weather began to change for the worst and neighbors began to fight amongst one another. Yet they still did much better than many of their neighbors. Towns were largely spread out in those northern states, so the sudden vacancy of civilization was not that life-changing of an occurrence. Also, the states’ populations were not as densely populated in metropolitan areas such as New York or Washington D.C., so there was not as much of a demand for the same supplies and thus fighting over them.

In the first years, survivors banded together in small groups. They survived mostly by hunting, as in the furthest reaches from the Yellowstone, there was the least harmful effects on the land, thus allowing there to be a large population of game for the now much smaller amount of humans. These groups of survivors eventually formed small townships all across New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont. They operated independently, like autonomous nations who were the sole rulers over the land surrounding their towns. At first, these city-states worked out well, as they were largely spread out from one another and so there was not much conflict. However, as time went on and the city-states began to expand, claiming more and more land to provide for their growing size, there began to be tension between the townships as areas of land were claimed by different groups. And that was when the wars began.

This period of time is known as the Great Land Wars in the Free Republic. It was not one war fought between two sides, but rather a series of skirmishes and battles fought between different towns and cities over food supplies and land. Some of the battle were fought between “good” groups and “bad” groups or “bad” groups against other “bad” groups. Yet mostly it was just fighting between groups who were neither good nor bad, just people trying to provide for their own.

The Land Wars was nearly catastrophic to the land that would eventually become the Free Republic. Many different townships were completely destroyed, their citizens slaughtered, enslaved, or assimilated into other groups. Yet the worst part was that much of the land’s food supplies were being destroyed, either used up to feed armies or burnt to the ground by rival forces. As more and more food began to be consumed and destroyed, the fighting grew even fiercer as people fought desperately for what little food there remained. It seemed as if the survivors within the northern states would tear themselves apart.

That is, until a man named Finn O’Niel appeared. O’Niel was the leader of a small township in New Hampshire, in the middle of the White Mountains. Due to the town’s secluded location, it had not been swept up in the Great Land Wars and so had prospered. However, it had been able to develop a sizable and efficient military, which was known as the Militia. O’Niel and his people enjoyed their peace, protected by the Militia. Yet one day, a messenger from another town came to O’Niel pleading for help. A number of small towns, who had also been peaceful and kept neutral during the Land Wars were facing an invasion from a host of Raiders, a nomadic group of criminals, murderers, and rapists moving north from Western Massachusetts and Conneticutt. A number of other towns who had been jealous of the neutral towns had sided with the Raiders, in return for a sizable amount land.

After much moral battling, O’Niel decided to take his people and aid the towns in need. He knew that it would cost the lives of many of his people, but he also knew that if he did not, then the Raiders would eventually turn on his own people. Thus, this alliance became known as the League. O’Niel and the Militia marched south to fight what became known as the League War. It took three years, but eventually O’Niel was victorious, after routing the Raiders and their allies at the Battle of Kancamagus Pass.

Yet O’Niel could not stop there. During his time fighting, he had seen the chaos that had swept through the land, as everybody seemed to fight each other. He knew that something had to be done, or else one by one they would kill one another. And so O’Niel, along with the rest of the League, who were fiercely loyal to him as their leader, marched off to a new war, one to unite the survivors of the Yellowstone.

The War of Unification, as it would begin to be known as, would last another twenty years, consuming the rest of Finn O”Niel’s lifetime. First, the entirety of New Hampshire was added to the League, either joining of their own free will or conquered by the elite forces of the Militia. Then the League marched on Maine, where there was little resistance. Finally, the League descended upon Vermont. There, the fighting was vicious, as the war was fought between the League, independent cities, remnants of the Raiders, refugees from New York, and the advance forces of the Republic of New York. It was in one of the numerous battles in Vermont that O’Niel’s life was claimed. However, he was succeeded by his son, who proved to be just as capable a leader as his father.

Eventually, the majority of Vermont was conquered, excluding the land claimed by the Republic of New York. With that, the War of Unification was declared over and the Free Republic of Northern New England was created. It was modeled after the original United States of America, as there were still democratic values deeply instilled within the people of New England. There was still Congress, however instead of having two bodies, it had just one, comprised of two representatives from each city-state. The city-state became the foundation upon which the Republic was built. Each state operated with its own autonomy, creating its own laws and forms of government. It’s only condition was that each city-state was required to send two representatives to Congress, who served for life, every male and female were required to serve five years within the Militia upon reaching the age of eighteen, and each city-state was required to pay taxes to the federal government. While each city-state could have its own laws and forms of government, it must still administer to the federal laws of the Free Republic, which was taken from the United States of America’s Bill of Rights. The only difference was that it created a monarchy, with Finn O’Niel the Second as the King. While he has complete control over the New Republic, he is a benevolent dictator, and ensures that his newly created nation follows the laws and freedoms created by his ancestors.

I'mma edit my app into this post.

Name: New England Republic

Did I tell you that I took a trip to the Boston area this summer? My fiancee is from there so I spent a week meeting her family. It's nice. Outside of the winters, I would be all for living up there.

<Snipped quote by Pepperm1nts>

Did I tell you that I took a trip to the Boston area this summer? My fiancee is from there so I spent a week meeting her family. It's nice. Outside of the winters, I would be all for living up there.

Nah, you stopped talking to me after I made one too many dick jokes on Steam. But yeah, Boston is great. I'm from Rhode Island but I've been to Boston.

<Snipped quote by Byrd Man>

Nah, you stopped talking to me after I made one too many dick jokes on Steam. But yeah, Boston is great. I'm from Rhode Island but I've spent a decent amount of time in Boston.

Went through Rhode Island on the drive to and from there. It's seventeen hours non-stop one way from South Carolina. That was... so fun.

-Ignore this-

@chayden13

My first complaint is that you seem to confuse what would otherwise prevent a major epidemic with a way to escape food shortages. In short, low population density would be more preventative in avoiding large-scale plague that it would in avoiding a food shortage. And people dying "in the hundreds" for lack of it would be low.

And based on what I know about agriculture in the region there wouldn't be much to support large populations anyways, or probably not as you seem to be claiming initially. The only real "farmed" staple foods would be beef and potatoes, and good luck getting the former around without refrigeration. Hunting itself doesn't sustain large populations and is too inconsistent a food source for society that looks and acts like modern society. At best or worse, if hunting and foraging the wilderness for deer and berries is going to be the main food source besides lobsters in coastal Maine then your nation is probably going to look more like Native American society than a centralized constitutional monarchy.

@Pepperm1nts

I know we discussed it on Steam, but for everyone else could you add disclaimers about the tanks and choppers being short lived as they were?

-Ignore this-

Name:
The American Empire

Location:
In gold.


History:
Following the fall of the union, the remaining Midwestern States banded together under the name of the Great Lakes Commonwealth, consisting of Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. The goal of the Commonwealth was to keep the American spirit alive, while also trying to support the border states of Wisconsin and Illinois. These two states had fallen on hard times due to the influx of Western refugees, and when the union died, it seemed like they would follow. Under the Commonwealth, however, they managed to hold on, and maintain order by the skin of their teeth.

However, a vote passes in Ohio. The people voted nearly unanimously to pull out of the Commonwealth, taking the path of independence. With Ohio's population and resources made unavailable, the border states soon fell into anarchy, the government's unable to support the people any longer. Fearing for their own well being, Michigan and Indiana agreed that the Commonwealth had failed, and the union was broken.

Once on its own, Michigan was left to solve the crisis of sharing a border with a state in anarchy. It quickly militarized, securing control of lake Michigan, as well as creating a control point on () bridge. While the northern peninsula eventually fell to raiders, Michigan was able to keep them from crossing the bridge, ensuring the southern peninsulas stability.

Some years after the dissolution of the Commonwealth, Michigan launched the Frontier Initiative; a plan to retake control of the Northern Peninsula, Wisconsin, and Illinois. To this end, Michigan also declared a brief war on Indiana, taking their coastline, and the lands surrounding it. Unwilling to risk collapse, Indiana quickly surrendered, having had problems of its own to deal with in the southern half of the state.

With a land connection to Illinois secured, Michigan began a long and brutal mission to retake Chicago. While not great for resources, restoring order to Chicago was a great morale boost, and provided a port from which supplies could be transported for future excursions.

Emboldened by the reclamation of Chicago, Michigan's soldiers made a determined push in the North, taking back the Northern Peninsula in a blitz.

Feeling more confident than ever, the people of Michigan are now ready to continue the Frontier Initiative, already claiming Illinois and Wisconsin as their own. They also do this flying under a new flag, heralding themselves as "The American Empire".

"The government in Washington is dead. We will rebuild what they allowed to be destroyed. Long live the Empire!"

where the fuc u all go?

I'm still around.

And just so everyone's aware, I removed my app's history again. I saved what I had in case I change my mind, but I think I'm just going to do a super simple history like Byrd did. That way I can make things up along the way that make sense, instead of having to stick by a long history that I keep second guessing myself about.

Nobody has claimed the precious Florida? Well time to go make the free Republic of la Florida then, if you will have me ^^

@Vilageidiotx

Christmas shopping, work.

@Lauder

Do up an app, post it, and then watch as I say I'll get to it but spend three days not doing it.

@Dinh AaronMk

Only down side is, I have no way of marking the map .-.

@Dinh AaronMk

Only down side is, I have no way of marking the map .-.

You don't have MSPaint? Gimp?