North Pennsylvania (1983: Doomsday)

The Commonwealth of North Pennsylvania is an American successor state. Aside from Pennsylvanian lands, it also controls Chautauqua and Cattaraugus Counties, New York, as well as Ashtabula County, Ohio. To the north, it borders London and across Lake Erie, to the north-east it borders  and, to the south-east. Close by are Virginia to the south, Toledo to the west, and Kentucky to the south-west.

History
See main article: History of North Pennsylvania

Government
The government of North Pennsylvania is very similar that of pre-Doomsday Pennsylvania state government. In fact, it only holds de facto independence, as it yet to declare independence from the United States. It is divided into an executive office, a judicial office, and a legislative office.

Executive
The governor heads the executive branch and has considerable control over government budgeting, the power of appointment of many officials, and a considerable role in legislation. The governor holds other roles, such as that of commander-in-chief of the Commonwealth of North Pennsylvania National Guard, the governor has absolute power to commute or pardon a criminal sentence. All governors run for a four-year term. The governor is directly elected and has considerable practical powers, though this may be moderated by the state legislature and in some cases by other elected executive officials.

Governors can veto state bills. In some cases the legislature can override a gubernatorial veto by a two-thirds vote. The governor also gives an bi-annual State of the State address in order to satisfy a constitutional stipulation that a governor must report annually on the state or condition. The governor also performs ceremonial roles, such as greeting dignitaries, conferring state decorations, issuing symbolic proclamations or attending the state fair. The governor official residence-of-work is the Venango House.

The current governor is Oliver Lobauch, 5th Governor of the Commonwealth of North Pennsylvania and the 45th Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. North Pennsylvania honors the governors of the defunct Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as its prior government and refers to its governor as the "Honorary Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Superior Governor of the Commonwealth of North Pennsylvania".

The Lieutenant Governor holds control over the legislative branch. In the case the Governor dies or becomes unable to hold office he is to finish the Governor's term. Should both the Lieutenant Governor and Governor die the Supreme Court creates an interim government made up of members of the state legislature and/or experienced military leaders.

The current Lieutenant Governor is Mary Veon, 4th Lieutenant Governor of North Pennsylvania. Unlike the Governor the LG does not have Honorary Commonwealth status. Currently the title is governor, but starting with the 2010 Constitutional Change the title could possibly become President. The current dwelling of the Governor is the Venango House, but starting March 13th, 2011 the House will become part of the nFederal District of Eriesburg constructed on the coasts of Lake Erie near North East.

Legislative
The Legislative Branch of North Penn is made up of the General Assembly. The General Assembly has 111 members, 50 on the Senate and 61 on the House of Representatives. The Pennsylvania general elections are held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in every even-numbered year. A vacancy for a seat must be filled by special election. The presiding officer of the respective house sets the date for such elections. Senators must be at least 25 years old and Representatives at least 21 years old. They must also be citizens and inhabitants of the state for a minimum of four years, living in their respective districts for at least one year. Individuals who have been convicted of various felonies, including embezzlement, bribery, rape, murder, and perjury, are ineligible for election. Legislative districts are drawn every 5 years following the N.P Census. Districts are drawn by a five-member commission, of which four members are the majority and minority leaders of both houses. The fifth member is appointed by the other four and may not be an elected or appointed official. If the leadership cannot decide upon a fifth member, the State Supreme Court may appoint the chairperson.

Judicial
The North Pennsylvania Supreme Court it modeled after its pre-Doomsday counterpart. It consists of seven justices each elected to life terms. Supreme court judicial candidates may run on party tickets. The justice with the longest continuous service on the supreme court automatically becomes Chief Justice. Justices must step down from the Supreme Court when they reach the age of 70, although they may continue to serve part-time as "senior justices" on panels of the Commonwealth's lower appellate courts until they reach the age of 78, the age of mandatory retirement.

Judicial candidates are prohibited from expressing their views on disputed legal or political issues. Elections for a new justice occur when one resigns, dies, or is impeached. If they win their elections, they are given a ten year term, and can than be reelected for life. After the ten year term expires, a statewide YES/NO vote for retention is conducted. If the judge is retained, he or she serves for life. If the judge is not retained, the governor, subject to the approval of the State Senate, appoints a temporary replacement until a special election can be held.

Political Parties
The Democrat Party has existed since the fight between Andrew Jackson and John Q. Adams over the results of the 1828 American Presidential Election, born from the Jacksonian Democrats. During the 1990-1999 Rule, the Government became increasingly Liberal, especially on the stances of abortion and redistribution of wealth. Today, the Democrat Party's members are primarily in the northern half of North Penn, while everything south of Crawford County has gone under Republican control. Considered to be heavily liberal, the newly founded social-Democratic Lake Party has taken many Democratic voters into its numbers.

The Republican Party has existed since Anti-Slavery and Abolitionist groups in the north, alienated by the Whig party’s failure to take a position on slavery, created it in 1854. Its ideology is considered by some to be heavily conservative, though not to the extent of the minor Pennsylvania Dutch Party.

The Socialist Party is not a relatively new creation, being based off of earlier Socialist parties of the last century. Many former Democrats, upset with the moderate positions in the Democrat Party’s platform, developed the Socialist Party, which was popular among many refugees who had since become citizens. Following American Socialism as its ideology, the Socialist Party is often decried as being no different in its proposed policies than the former Soviet Union, though this has not prevented their rise. The Party is seeing a dangerous rise in local politics, and they are fighting with the Democrats over control of western Erie county.

The Lake Party is a relatively new creation loosely based off of pre-Doomsday Ecological movements such as Greenpeace, the Pro-Choice Movements and beliefs of social democracy. Formed in 2007 by John Evans and other politicians in Crawford and Erie, the party has shown to be a thorn in the Democrats bush.

Minor Political Parties
These are parties which have no representation in the Senate of House of Representatives.

Regions
North Penn exerts its control most in north-west Pennsylvania. However, it has acquired Cattaraugus and Chautaugua Counties, New York, and after Project Road to Ohio, North-east Ohio as well. The Commonwealth of North Pennsylvania is divided into several regions, most of which are known as states.

Demographics
With the Amish being a major presence in the area, the surrounding rural communities benefited off of their way of living, especially after Doomsday. The Old Order Amish, however, have recently been competing with the New Order, with many of those defecting to the more liberal New Order Amish.

The urban Pennsylvanian lands have not seen much immigration in recent times, but the Tionesta County and Forest County or the recently-restored Presque Island have become home to many of those who have left the rest of North Pennsylvania for multiple reasons.

Economy
In the industrial sector, it produces plastic, mining equippment, and nails. Over 30% of the plastic produced in North America is made at Erie Plastics in Corry. There is a set of small steel mills in Franklin that produce much of the nation's steel. Automobiles, guns, radios, and railways are produced in Warren. Tires, explosives, and other accessories are produced in Meadville. Joy Mining Machinery still produces a small amount of mining tools, but due to metal scarcity they are not able to produce much.

Agriculture is one of North Penn's largest markets. Several products that are produced were cattle, corn, milk, layer chickens, and grapes. Welch Grapes grown in North East Township are considered the best of North America. Rather than ship most of their products out, North Penn instead keeps many of their agricultural products in surplus in case a food shortage ever occurs.

One of the largest factors of the economy is the abundance of natural gases. While it is nowhere near the oil boom of old, hundreds of oil and gas fields still exist all over North Penn, making the Commonwealth energy sufficient and local companies such as Quaker State able to make a very, very large profit off of oil. United Refining in Warren allows them to refine their own oil as well. Oils and gases found include petroleum, naptha, and kerosene. However many reserves are off limits in order to keep the prosperity long coming.

Minerals are somewhat abundant as well, such as salt, coal, phosphate, sandstone, clay, and limestone. Gravel and silt are found off the coast of Lake Erie, as well. Most of them are mined with Joy's Mining equippment. Glass making is a popular hobby as well as a large portion of the economy on the Lake Erie Coastline.

The economy was completely government controlled until 1990 when the first private enterprises, mainly farms and light industry reemerged. Until 2000, most other things were at least partially overseen by the government to control spending and make sure the right industries had the right manpower. When the United Communities was founded in 2007, all but several farms, electricity, and ammunition and firearms manufacturing was privatized. Warren is the business capital of North Penn as it is home to the largest abundance of industry in the entire state as well as the nation's only functioning power plant - Seneca Pumped Storage Generating Station. Meadville, however, is more heavily populated than Warren but in recent years has been focusing more on light industry.

Media
The North Pennsylvania government runs two television stations, NPTV 2 in Warren and NPTV 4 in Franklin and Mercer. Both broadcast from 7-midnight weekdays, from 5 p.m -1 a.m. on Saturdays and from 6-11 p.m. on Sundays. Programming includes news, sports and locally produced public affairs, political and entertainment programming, as well as pre-Doomsday movies and television shows and post-DD programming from Superior, Canada, Vermont and the Celtic Alliance's RTE network. The government-controlled North Pennsylvania Radio (NPR) has affiliates in Warren, Franklin and Oil City, with transmitters in Little Valley, Meadville, Tionesta, Forest, and Westfield. Programming includes news, politics, public affairs, classical music, and entertainment produced by North Pennsylvania Radio as well as other networks throughout the United Communities; Vermont Radio; the CBC; Superior's NBN; and the RTE. NPR stations broadcast 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

A privately-owned station in Franklin, WNPJ 99.3, broadcasts post-Doomsday pop and rock music began broadcasting in September 2010. Other privately owned stations in Warren and Meadville broadcast local news and pre-Doomsday pop, rock, urban and country music most notably WARC 90.3 FM and OCFM 98.5 FM.

The Warren Times Observer newspaper publishes six days a week (excluding Mondays) and is the nation's de facto paper of record. The Franklin Times publishes Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and is considered a reliable source for United Communities-related news. The Oil City Derrick; Meadville Tribune; and the Little Valley Express publish once a week.

Road and Rail
On Doomsday, many cars in North America were made obsolete by the EMP's. However, for those older cars that did not need electronics, gasoline is not a problem since the state is home to both abundant oil fields and two refineries. In addition, there is an abundance of natural gas to be utilized as vehicles are converted to use that fuel. Since production of Jeeps began, the Pennsylvanian-native Quaker State company has seen a handsome increase in profits. Paved roads have also been repaired with gravel dredged from Lake Erie. The rail systems have been rebuilt with locomotives from  purchased from London,Ontario.

Jeeps
In 2004, one small vehicle helped revitalize an entire region's transportation. Obviously, not every single car was rendered useless on Doomsday. A handful survived. However most were common go-around cars, However, there was a man in Franklin who was in possession of multiple genuine, working WWII 1942 Jeeps* and had donated several of them to the local police following Doomsday. After the subject was brought up with two businessmen, one a Toledoan and the other a Pennsylvanian on manufacturing the vehicle again, it quickly gained steam. There actually was a Jeep FJ manufacturing plant in Toledo, and all they needed to do is put it back into production. By using parts from dead vehicles, and using the manufacturing plants in Toledo, they successfully created a better-than-original version of a Jeep Willys-Overland. Soon, they began manufacturing around six vehicles a month, an astounding rate for custom made machines in a factory with such limited resources. These two businessmen unknowingly re-started one of the most successful military vehicle manufacturers of all time.

Today, the Jeep is the military's main form of transportation, and since they can be produced quickly, and require only the simplest parts they are cheap to purchase. The average Jeep used by the military is a canvas-door 3-seater with a canvas roof used for transport. This is known as the Raider, because this Jeep is most commonly used for field missions in raider territory. There is a combat version of this vehicle depicted below.


 * AUTHORS NOTE: There actually is a person in Franklin who possesses a whole bunch of old Jeeps.

Airports
Far View Airport is the nation's main airport at this time, although flights mainly go in and out of United Communities member states or Virginia and Kentucky. There are, however, dozens of regional airports in other counties as well. Although both oil and oil refineries are available, almost all of the Commonwealth's planes are propeller-driven due to the extreme difficulty of producing jet fuel.

Maritime
Since after Doomsday, Lake Erie was able to retain much of its natural animal populations and beauty due to the lack of major commercial fishing vessels.

Natural Gases
Pennsylvania is quite an oil rich nation, with hundreds of oil fields and two refineries, Bradford Refinery and Warren Refinery, they are able to produce 80,000 barrels per day, making the country largely energy sufficient. With oil in abundance, it is the main source of heat and energy for the people, and those who own working cars do not have to worry on fuel shortages either since it is all locally based. Most gas stations are owned by "Quaker State," one of oldest oil companies in North America. It's competitors, having relocated to Texas, had been largely destroyed on Doomsday.

Electricity
The sole operating power station in North Pennsylvania is the Kinzua Dam outside of Warren. The third largest dam east of the Mississippi, and at a generating capacity of 400 megawatts, it generates power for 75% of North Penn. Due to prevent energy shortages half of the factories on the Allegheny get their hydropower directly from the Allegheny River.



Culture
Oil City, the "capital of modern oil drilling" is a major tourist spot around the area.

Warren, the largest city in North Pennsylvania has recently become a very active, bustling city once more as more and more residents move in from other areas, sometimes from State College or north-east Ohio.

Lifestyle
Since North Pennsylvania is largely rural over fifty-percent of Pennsylvanians do not have access to large malls and continue living the life of their ancestors.

Due to the large presence of Mennonites and Amish, many Pennsylvanians live a simple life. Excess material possessions are often shunned by the Mennonites. However, after the Amish Schism the New Order Amish faction has risen to prominence, shunning many aspects of the simple life and choosing newer technology.

Demographics
Since after Doomsday, Pennsylvania German, a dying language before Doomsday, has slowly been on the rise. This is because with less English influence the rural communities have taught more of the young to speak this Pennsylvanian dialect of the German language. A 2008 census showed that over 9% of the nation spoke Pennsylvania Dutch, leading it to become a co-official language the year after.

Education
Since the formation of the Community Convention one of the government's greatest concerns was providing even a meager education to the younger generation. Most public schools outside the immediate area of Franklin, Warren, and Meadville were run independently and as a result many became abandoned, lawless, or strict, locked-down school in which the students often were separated from their parents during the school year. The college towns managed to survive differently, as many of the students, especially in Edinboro had used their knowledge of their subjects to serve their community. If one was studying animal husbandry then they would be sent to try to salvage animals from abandoned farms. If one studied any form of medicine they would immediately become a makeshift doctor for the refugee masses outside Edinboro and other towns. With the creation of the 1990 strict Commonwealth of North Pennsylvania government, or "Quaker Regime", the new government slowly took back control of the public schools, by which over half of which had been dissolved due to dropouts or students and families fleeing to the woods or farms in search of food. Those schools that remained were usually home to between one-half or one-fifth of normal pre-Doomsday classes. The government made education of everyone in the towns and cities mandatory from 6 to 14, with high school becoming optional but still payed by the state and college as was pre-Doomsday. With the 2000 Revised Constitution, high schools became mandatory and anyone who had quit classes in the past decade would be forced to take night classes. Furthermore, the 2007 creation of the United Communities had the Great Lakes region's schools unite under basic principals and requirements.

Attendance in school is mandatory between the ages of six to eighteen, and from there can obtain a higher education if price is not an issue. Still, a significant number are homeschooled (7%) due to the secular policies within the schools themselves. According to government laws the government can not control the ideologies of private schools unless in the case of wrongly-taught education, in which the government can strip control of the school. Despite this policy, the government occasionally funds private institutions, in the hope that increased competition for funds between public and private schools might, as a result, have both perform better in their education process. Many private schools are also religious schools, as these have complete independence from the Great Lakes Board of Education.

Colleges
North Pennsylvania is home to a large amount of both public and private colleges. The Edinboro University in Edinboro is the main center of education, and was the de facto county seat in Erie County before Reconstruction began. Clarion University, a public college, is known for being the athletic center for college sports and is home to the Golden Eagles. The University of Titusville (formerly the University of Pennsylvania at Titusville) is currently subidized by the government to be brought up to academic standards of other colleges and has only recently been re-opened.

Crime and Law Enforcement
Crime in North Pennsylvania is taken very seriously. Since the creation of the Community Convention all of the counties operated their own police forces and would often severely beat or even kill those for committing crimes such as stealing from a communities' food or wood supply or robbing others. Since the 1990 Commonwealth of North Pennsylvania was created, however, most of the police forces voluntarily united to form the Northern Pennsylvania Commonwealth Police Force which numbered over 6,000 people and had more rights than even many previous police forces had.

Military
See main article: 

The Commonwealth of North Pennsylvania Grand Military relies heavily upon volunteers, who are often lured by programs which offer large incentives and benefits. Those who sign up are required to serve four years in the armed forces, after which they can be called at any time in the case that an emergency reserve must be formed. Women, however, are given exception from the draft, but are still allowed to voluntarily join at their behest. Unlike before Doomsday's American army, women are allowed full military rights, meaning they may fight on the front lines alongside men. The Air Force, however, discourages women from joining since it is often that women pass out in fighter jets from too much pressure from the G-forces and crash. Until recently, the military was no more than a rump force armed with Jeeps and sub-machine guns, until the rapid militarization that occurred after the end of the Saguenay War which is creating more and more ranks and divisions literally every day

The Military is split up into three different divisions, the the, the  and the. The Army and Air Force are the result of a combination of survivors from the US Army and the Penn National Guard as well as civilian donations. The Navy, however, was made up of entirely civilian vehicles and is no match against the navy of Canada. The Coast Guard, which can almost outmatch the Navy, is made up of United States Coast Guard vehicles donated from Westfield and North East, as well as salvaged vehicles from Erie and donations from Canada. here are currently 20,000 people serving in the armed forces throughout all of North Penn, accounting for about 4.5% of the population, and another 20,000 in reserves.

While since the 2000 reorganization of the National Guard into the Military and the Regional Guard, the North Pennsylvanian military has grown large in numbers, equippment, most commonly automatic firearms and military attire are very scarce, and North Penn has a policy of "Strip and Save", which calls for after a battle that North Pennsylvanian soldiers must strip the dead enemies (and allies) of all of their battle attire and weapons. The policy of stripping allied soldiers, however, is a huge controversy, and is set to be changed in the 2010 Constitutional Convention in December. Another problem is that most all military bases in North Penn were built from scratch, other than a handful which were built from existing foundations and old historic military bases. The National Guard armories in Corry, Oil City, and Meadville are exceptions, as they were proven vital in the early history of North Penn, but nevertheless, North Penn is improvising with their materials available and with the growth of the Great Lakes Compact to include Canada, a powerful trade ally, North Penn hopes to strengthen their forces.

There is also a private protection force, the State Police of Crawford and Erie, which survived in certain parts and reunited two years after Doomsday. The group was rivaled with the Community Convention's Police Forces for jurisdiction of chaotic Erie County, and the group was forcibly disbanded until 1990, when the Community Convention was abolished and the Commonwealth North Pennsylvania was founded. By then, only 90 members were still alive, but they trained locals in Erie and Crawford County and relocated to North East Township. By 2000, the group's numbers had swelled to over 3,000 members throughout all of North Penn. The group evolved in 2005 into an autonomous, private entity within the government of North Penn and was renamed the.

Sports
Clarion and Edinboro University's athletic teams compete mainly against other schools in the region, such as Penn State University in State College and the University of Toledo in the Toledo Confederation, as well as colleges from Superior, Vermont and Aroostook.

Clarion and Edinboro recruit mainly from the North Pennsylvania high school leagues, which are governed by the Lake Erie Interscholastic Athletic Association (LEIAA). Football and basketball games are especially well-attended and the various schools enjoy a high degree of popularity and loyalty from local residents.

Youth sports leagues are generally sparsely attended but have one of the highest participation rates of all nations in the Great Lakes Region and former northeastern United States. These leagues are considered important for player development by the high school leagues, and therefore are supported in numerous ways by the NPIAA. Youth coaches also attempt to instill positive ethics in their players.

The exception to the rule regarding youth sports attendance are the Little League regional playoff games held every other year in Warren, which draw good crowds from across the region. (These Little League teams are not yet affiliated with the Little League Baseball organization based in Mexico)

International Relations
Pennsylvania was a founding member of the in 2007. It is not a member of the League of Nations at the moment, but will consider joining further down the road when international communications are more easy to come by.

The Commonwealth mainly maintains communications with local American and Canadian successor states. Presently they have relations with State College, Toledo, Aroostook, Superior, Thunder Bay, Niagara Falls, London-Ontario,Norfolk-Haldimand, Midland, Sudbury, Ithaca, Binghamton, Canada, and to a certain extent Kentucky and Virginia. They know of the existence of Blue Ridge, Piedmont, Keene, Plymouth, and the North American Union.

Since 2008, they have been in a pleasant relationship with Canada. North Pennsylvanian Coast Guards and occasional heavily-guarded civilian vessels maintain contact with Canada, and before the Saguenay War, the North Pennsylvanians had sent ambassadors to Canada. It had been hoped that via Canada, Pennsylvania could establish diplomatic ties with the larger community of nations. However, the Lawrence Raiders often foiled those visits. Since the end of the war, though, Canada and the United Communities have begun plans to form a small Canadian territorial government along the banks of the St. Lawrence River in places where there is little to no radiation in order to control which vessels go in and out of the River and establish some sort of authority.

Externals

 * Details on Venago County, PA
 * The Corry, PA Website