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California Republic
Timeline: 1983: Doomsday

OTL equivalent: Gold Country
Flag Seal
Flag Seal
Capital Placerville
Largest city Merced
Other cities San Mateo, Napa, Santa Cruz, Grass Valley, Auburn, Truckee
Language
  official
 
English, Spanish, Native American Languages
  others French, Portuguese, Chinese
Religion Roman Catholicism, Protestant Christianity, Atheism, Judaism, Islam, Other religions
Demonym Californian
Government Constitutional Republic
President
Vice President
Area 29,395 km²
Population 798,119 (2020 Census) 
Established 1997
Currency Gold

California, officially the California Republic is a survivor nation located in the center of the former US state of California. A collection of former satellite cities, agricultural settlements, rag-tag mining prospectors and scavengers, the Californian Republic prides itself on both its Californian independence and ramshackle frontier spirit. With the state having collapsed in what locals call the "Reformation" after Doomsday, it was revived around the same time the Municipal States were created with help from New Zealand.

History[]

Pre-Doomsday[]

Prior to Columbus discovering North America, this region was home to more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans. However, during the 18th century, the Spaniards colonized it, annexing it to the first Spanish Empire. After years of colonial rule, Mexico was eventually granted independence. Shortly after, Americans in the region declared it a free California Republic. After the Mexican-American War, it was ceded to the United States, later to be added to the Union as the 31st state. In the 20th century, it was the most populous state in the United States, as well as the second most populous entity in the Western Hemisphere.

Doomsday[]

On Doomsday, many cities in Northern California were hit. San Francisco, Oakland, the capital of Sacramento, Stockton, San Jose, and others in Nevada. The area received massive fallout in the southern half of the region, but the higher steeped areas of Auburn, Placerville, and Sonora were spared the worst of the nuclear attack. Governor George Deukmejian, who was alerted of the attacks from Hawaii via radio, managed to evacuate from Sacramento with his family and handful of staffers, police, civilians and first responders, fleeing east from the city. With the first EMP blast knocking most of their vehicles out outside of Folsolm, they would be forced to watch the detonations obliterate Sacramento, with many knowing their friends, families, spouses, even children being engulfed in the flames of the nuclear holocaust. Between the trauma, only having a single functioning squad car and fallout, many more would die before reaching Placerville.

After several months, with no word from the federal government, mayors, sheriffs, surviving military, National Guard and state officials from the Placer, El Dorado, Alpine, and Tuolumne Counties met in Placerville to discuss the forming of a provisional government to help distribute needed supplies to the surrounding areas and to stabilize growing problems such as starvation, suicide, radiation and radiation-related sickness. They were soon joined by representatives of several neighboring counties. After nearly a week of nonstop debate, the committee at Placerville agreed in a landslide vote to create the "Provisional State Government of California" centered in Placerville. The reformed state government of California soon began the rationing of food, redirection of food from farms to surviving towns, placement of martial law, rationing of medical supplies, and relocation of refugees.

By 1989, the Provisional State government had stretched too far out, and was teetering on the verge of collapse. Electricity was thing of the past, along with almost all medical supplies. Several counties along the Sierra Nevada mountain range had by then had been annexed by the State of Nevada, now known as "Sierra Nevada".

Post-Doomsday[]

After nearly 13 years with no word from the federal government, After rumors spread within the final months of the provisional administration that an American Provisional Administration had visited the future area of the MSP, many hoped that the APA could take control of the area, as the PSC could only do so much. However, many of these rumors were soon crushed when word came in that the American government had been disbanded, albeit received several years after. Eventually, a second committee was held to discuss the possibility of forming a new nation, being one of the first committees in years. After another episode of intense discussion, a verdict of 7 - 1 resulted in the creation of the California Republic.

Still, forming a new government did not solve all problems. Starvation and famines still regularly occurred, and by 1999 the government had already collapsed again due to several earthquakes which had killed thousands and damaged large amounts of infrastructure. Attacks from slaver settlements from the south of California, namely out of Santa Cruz, would go on for some time, as well. Finding it impossible to govern the state, and with entire settlements being razed by nomadic bands of outsiders, the remaining towns decided to go their separate ways. In a formal address to the California people, the President of the CR during 1999, Micheal Churchill stated, "It is with great sorrow that I announce that the California Republic is no longer an active union. We have faced hardships, we have gotten back up time and time again but there comes a time when we eventually have to give up. May God help us all." This was the last speech given by the president, and two weeks after delivering this address he committed suicide.

During this time the area descended into the anarchy not uncommon on the West Coast at that time. The only town that managed to remain intact was the former capital at Placerville, even itself relegated to various walled-in neighborhoods, vary of the vulnerability of the open roads. Many made their way towards Sierra Nevada, while others attempted to find passage to Mexico, which had already been home to substantially large American communities pre-Doomsday.

Reformation[]

In 2003, false reports had spread that the Soviet Union had launched a mass invasion on North America, which caused a major panic amongst several of the towns within the former Republic, leading the local towns to band together and prepare for war. However, such war never came, but the end result was a rapid organization of what had been a slum of villages into a cooperating unit which created relative stability as many of the towns that had been hostile towards each other quickly forgot their differences to prepare for war. This event would prove to be significant as in the weeks preparing for the "War" the towns had effectively rebounded their economies into functioning wartime ones, paving the groundwork for the reconstitution of the Republic.

Around 2006 the California Republic was reformed around the same time of the Municipal Contract with much help from parts of the ANZC government, with civilian charity organizations from New Zealand being influential in fundraising for the resources needed to clear the debris in the way of transport and donating materials unable to be found in the post-apocalyptic continent. Given that many of those raiders hailed from many of the same settlements that now made up the MSP, pacified as they were now, the Californians were wary to join this Union. In part due to this mistrust and refusal, the Republic has received less international attention than its new Northern neighbor.

In December 2006, California formally absorbed the abandoned ruins of Yuba County. The National Guard has since moved back there, and has managed to salvage most of the supplies left behind when they deserted. A few months later, in April 2007, California began to reclaim Sacramento County. What they found was what was paradoxically dubbed "Lake Sacramento Forest", which was essentially an irradiated crater in what used to be the city of Sacramento in the middle of the American River and the flora that had flourished as a result of both the radiation and the expanded area of the river.

Port of Antioch, Reclaiming the Bay[]

In June 2008, the city of Antioch was reclaimed. Having been equidistant from the San Francisco, Vallejo and Stockton blasts, it was still a somewhat cohesive settlement 25 years on, although the area still lacked basic commodities such as clean water and medical supplies. The city was formally annexed on January 2009. The site was the nexus of shipping coming into the Suisun Bay, satellite of the San Francisco Bay, going eastward to Sacramento and Stockton. With a consistent depth of a minimum of 37 feet, the canal was perfect to plan for the return of freighter ships to the area, some of which were even still active.

On July 12, 2010, President Micheal Weber toured Crescent City, the capital of the Municipal States of the Pacific, and Torrington of the United States as part of a series of attempts to bring a return to normal for the people of the West Coast. The consensus was that while that a "Union with the United States Will Have To Wait", the same Union with their "Pacific brothers" was not out of the question. The idea of a "Union" implied that they intended to merge with the MSP, but it was later disregarded as such and was seen as a reference to the creation of a "Pacific Union", a defense union planned by several citizens from all over the Pacific seen as a way to combat Santa Cruz and lesser known raider state Ventura.

Napa[]

After several years of negotiations, the California Republic annexed Napa in 2013. Famous for its wines, the small city would soon become one of California's most prosperous, being the first to bring its name back into renown. Although its harvests had been ruined for years, recent bottles have been found tasteful for export abroad. The variance in radiation levels by year in the post-Doomsday wines has even been studied by researchers from the ANZC (with the most bold having bottled even as early as 1985).

1983DDNapa

Rolling hills of Napa Valley

StHelenaWinery

Greystone Cellars of St. Helena, State of Napa.

The ghost men of San Rafael[]

Global trade, convoluted as it were in this new world with its delicate supply routes and unpredictable safety, had trickled down many modern military resources to the Californians. Later that year, California established a port in the San Rafael, which was the former site of the fledgling FEMA's attempt to coordinate regional relief, now home to a shadow of 500 sundered souls out of its pre-Doomsday 50,000. Few have shared the tales of how they survived the chaos of the post-Doomsday Bay Area.

San Rafael Improvement Club 1801 5th Ave San Rafael CA 3-21-2010 3-29-02 PM

ANZC Consulate at San Rafael. Formerly the Improvement Club site from the 1923 World's fair

Nevertheless, when the "flag of the Bear" went over the city, newer faces came, and life slowly began returning. Most importantly, the securing of San Rafael now meant that the San Rafael-Richmond bridge could be used to traverse the bay in minutes in automobile. Later that year, the Republic would construct a port authority and radio outpost on the Tiburon Peninsula with hopes to expand trade opportunities with the rest of the Pacific.

GoldenGateBridgeRuin

Ruins of the Golden Gate Bridge

War with Santa Cruz[]

Crcrater

Strike south of San Jose, taken in 2008

With that being said, Santa Cruz had managed to remain standing, to the shock of even the League of Nations, who too had fallen victim to its piracy attacks at sea. After a Californian convoy en route to witness the progress of repair to the Interstate 5 they were ambushed, leading to several civilian casualties and a Californian official taken hostage. In conjunction with its allies in the Chumash Republic, who spared what they could, California launched a military invasion of Santa Cruz in 2016, surprising them by dual invasion from land and sea, and successfully defeating the Fascist reign ended there, as well as eradicating most of the gangs in the city. The remainder of the criminals were rounded up soon after, with most sentenced to decades of hard labour in 2019, with others executed. Perhaps controversially, tens of thousands of non-combatant relatives of the upper "owning" class of Santa Cruz was dispersed into many of the other settlements in the Republic, in part as punishment for their criminal relatives. Those former slaves who were liberated from their tyranny, however, now own many of the estates and locales that their former captors forced them to work, and intend on keeping the home they earned in blood free.

Santa Cruz is quickly becoming a new-found haven in the area, as it is the furthest permanently-occupied settlement in these new southwestern fringes of the Republic. Likewise, the destruction of the raider clan led to the Chumash Republic being finally able to secure the Monterey Lawless Zone. With an influx of refugees from the areas surrounding Oakland and San Jose, as of 2022 nearly 75,000 Californians call the city and adjacent Capitola home, with its pier and environs being coined 'New Long Beach', in honor of the former beachside city that was destroyed on the strikes in LA. With the re-opened University of California - the Santa Cruz campus opened in 2020 fostering hopes in a renewed intellectual and scientific forum.

Today[]

As of 2022, the California Republic military, in conjunction with the North American Union controls all traffic in and out of the San Francisco Bay through several naval bases and look-out posts dotting the Bay. The entire Bay south of Battery Island, surrounding the ruins of San Francisco and Oakland remains under total lockdown, with trespassers subject to arrest. While the waters remain open for merchant navies, foreign travel alike, many outsiders are wary. Its westward borders of the California Republic stretch to Sonoma, the site of the very first California Republic's battle cry against the Mexican army centuries ago.

Religion[]

The religion of the area is a mirror image to that of Pre-Doomsday California. However, it has been noted that there has been an increase of atheism.

Religious Body Estimated Percentage of Population
Protestanism 25.0%
Catholic & Orthodox 36.0%
Atheist 20.0%
Mormonism 5.0%
Judiasm 2.0%
Buddhist 2.5%
Other 3.0%
Hinduism > 0.5%
Islam 2.0%

Military[]

While the region has no true army, it is home to the California National Guard, which is composed of approximately 10,000 members and another 10,000 in reserve, acts as a placeholder for the Army. Most of the troops that were stationed there are National Guardsmen that fled from Yuba County or other counties. Since the absorption of Yuba, the National Guard has since been moved back.

While it acts as a military presence in the area, and has succeeded in stopping countless slave raids on towns from Santa Cruz, and also helped establish order in areas which received minor to moderate amounts of nuclear damage, it has no official ties to the Commonwealth government, and is still officially the National Guard of the State of California.

Other notable organizations are the California Republic Air Search & Rescue, whose name implies its functions, as well as a Republic Coast Guard, which was created to "patrol the American River", and is headed up by Commander John M. Toomer.

Air Force[]

The Air Force division is made out of recently recovered aircraft from the Moffett Federal Airfield. It is at the moment only made up of:

5 F-15's

8 HC - 130's

4 Lockheed Martin C130J's.

It is commanded by Colonel Steven J. Schultze of Placerville.

Army[]

The Army division is made out of these surviving bases, headquarters and garrisons:

Detachment 1, 270th MP Company - Placerville

49th MP Brigade - Fairfield

It is commanded by General Mark G. Wheeldon of Placerville.

Culture[]

Media[]

The main media presence in California consists of two radio stations, CRLT 93.9 FM - News and Government Broadcasts for Alpine, Sierra, Placer, and Nevada Counties and, 92.1 FM - Exclusively Music. Multiple other stations are received from the MSP and Sierra Nevada, with several stations coming as far as Mexico on a good day. 93.9 is a government-owned station, while 92.1 represents "Freedom", donning its nickname "The Freedom Network".

The main newspaper is the Commonwealth of California Mountain Democrat (formerly the Placerville Mountain Democrat). Other media presences include several local newspapers, such as the Sacramento Bee in Marysburg.

In light of the return of electricity, a new site for the future of media has developed in Grass Valley. The Grass Valley Media Group has been revived, most known for helping with the creation of the 1977 film Star Wars and has recently has become researching movie-making and exploring other varieties of mass media such as television stations, one of which is already on the air as Channel 2 CRTV, which broadcasts to public television stations throughout every single settlement on a weekly basis.

Sports[]

California participates in the MSP-Sponsored Pacific Baseball League, and participates in the Pan-American Games. Baseball is California's most popular sport, and high school football games are attended often. Football, however, is the most popular sport for those over 25, mostly those who grew up in the American Football atmosphere. The PCAA, or Pacific Collegiate Athletic Association is the governing body of all college-level sports of the MSP and California. Auto racing is also rather popular, with Sears Point Raceway in the San Pablo Bay serving as the country’s only international-level raceway, hosting NASCAR and Trans Am races.

Daily Life[]

The California Republic is by and large a frontiers' nation. The heartland of the Republic is not what many familiar with the famous state might initially recall from before Doomsday. Formed from the cradle of the first California's life in the region, the Gold Country backwood rugged terrain, sloping fertile hills hotted with towns and farms, winding roads provided a solemn bastion for the citizens and refugees in the region. It can best be described as a conglomeration of hundreds of towns, numbering in the thousands, themselves orbiting around regional hubs of slightly larger size. Placerville, Roseville, Napa and Santa Cruz are the only true "cities" of note, and even then, being the size of most medium-sized pre-Doomsday suburbs. In any case, this has lead to the "Gold Rush" mentality returning across much of the land, as many seasonal-laborers hop from town to town, looking for various gigs or that much-needed breakthrough job.

Safety, Crime and Punishment[]

Unlike many other Post-Doomsday nations, the roads of the California Republic are relatively safe. This is mainly due to the presence of the fully armed Californian National Guard, which takes over many functions of the sherriffs, since a "permanent" martial law has been in effect for over 20 years. Traveling outside of the controlled areas, and into the areas south of the Republic, however, requires either military escort or taking your chances, although Visalia has made strides to patrol their borders better in recent years. Since gasoline is relatively scarce in the region, most people prefer to travel by horse, or in cities, bicycles and the well-appraised public transportation system, largely a result of much of Amtrak California's railways surviving and allowing quick transportation between California and Sierra Nevada in little more than an hour.

Economy[]

With the core of the modern California emerging in its "Gold Country" and "Wine Country", it should come as no surprise that viticulture and mining form up the bulk of the Californian economic efforts. California's saving grace has been its mineral wealth to the east, as well as fertile agricultural fields from Napa to Placerville and Amador County. With the discovery of Rare Earth Minerals across much of the former state, in addition to in neighboring countries such as Visalia, there has been an explosion of prospectors from both California and beyond as this material is crucial in the development of advanced electronics. This has led to many foreign nations competing for access to these resources, which are otherwise extremely difficult to find, with the majority of other deposits being in Tibet, in South America (international exports of REMs being highly restricted) or the swaths of anarchic China.

Several thousand people are employed by Cali Hydro and Petro, which primarily exports to the Municipal States of the Pacific. Another source of income is the timber industry, of which California has vast resources of forests, given its backyard of Stanislaus and Yosemite National Parks, which fueled many through the cold winters following Doomsday. Most complex goods are provided via foreign trade.

Education[]

The myriad of schools dotting the smaller towns in California went untouched by the bombs, of basic education is not a major problem. Schooling is mandatory for all children in the California Republic from the ages of six to 16.

After Doomsday, Sierra College was the only college left in California, which meant that the citizens who could not afford to send their children to the crowded and expensive school had to improvise. Apprenticeship, a long forgotten way of studying has resurfaced as the way most people learned to do their jobs during what would be their "college years". Over two-thirds of the Californian youth since 1987 have learned a craft, such as mining, toolmaking, printing, wine-making, or farming through an apprenticeship program. In return for taking an apprentice, the master receives a tuition. The art of apprenticeship led to the opening of the new Apprentice Collegiate Institution of California in Auburn.

In 2020, the California Republic welcomed its inaugural freshman class to the reopened University of California - Santa Cruz. Initially, the University will only be offering two 2-year degree tracks - an Initiate of Humanities (pre-Doomsday Associate of Arts) and an Initiate of the Sciences, while efforts to develop more in-depth curriculum are underway. As of now, students are given a "free ride" upon completion of their degree, to further their studies in Mexico or New Zealand universities, which remain leagues ahead anything on the North American continent. This is seen as as an investment by the resource-rich, infrastructure-poor nation. While many, especially liberated Santa Cruz residents, decrying the move due to its warlord-era uses for more egregious purposes. That being said, as of 2022, enrollment passed 5,000 students from all over California, even as far away as the Chumash Republic and Visalia.

Government[]

The government of the Commonwealth of the California Republic is closely similar to that of the United States. It consists of an executive branch, a legislative branch, and a judicial branch. Of key difference is its unicameral legislature, with each County sending forth a representative to the Congressional F

Legislative Branch[]

The simplified Senate has one representative per county, at a total of nine representatives, including the recently, as of January 1st 2011, organized Yuba County.

Executive Branch[]

The executive branch is made up of a president and a governor. The president is largely ceremonial, as she is only responsible for seeing through to the passing of laws, foreign affairs, and the military. The governor, however, functions exactly like the pre-Doomsday Governor of California. He is responsible for state affairs, the legislative branch, passing of laws, the national guard, the counties, and other things.

Judicial Branch[]

The Judicial Branch is an exact replica of the pre-Doomsday Judicial Branch. The Supreme Court has nine members, who each serve life terms, and are responsible to see whether a law is constitutional or not. It should be noted, though, that as most criminals are usually dealt with in their regional communities, the branch is effectively responsible for additional duties the other branches may not fulfill.

International Relations[]

The California Republic is a member of the League of Nations. The California Republic has friendly relations with the MSP, Sierra Nevada Union, Chumash, the ANZC, Visalia, the new United States and Mexico. Mexican trade in particular has filled Californian ports in recent years, with Mexican household products being so common in recent years that many Spanish words, such as jabon for dish soap, have creeped into daily Californian vernacular. Many have been in support of joining the Municipal States of the Pacific. There has also been contact with several of the seafaring American survivor states from the east coast, namely Delmarva and the Republic of Florida

California is a member of the North American Union. Being the newest member of the bloc, it has frequently butted heads with the Torrington-based United States on matters of militarization, with vociferous concerns being lodged due to the continuing military occupation of Republic of Jefferson, formerly known as the Municipal States of the Pacific. Its presence in the area is known to most Southern Hemisphere states by 2022, with scientists, cartographers, academics, arbologists, viticulturists and others from Mexico and the ANZC being frequent visitors to the area.

Since shortly after Doomsday, the towns which now comprise the Republics' eastern flank had a series of armed conflicts with the Sierra Nevada Union which had annexed Californian land around Lake Tahoe. Allegations of Californian raiding parties during the 80s are well-attested. Directly after Doomsday, the state government of Nevada seized the entirety of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, which included western half of the counties that now make up the Republic, as many Californian residents were resorting to looting some of the westernmost Nevada towns. However, negotiations condition to their accession to the North American Union have resolved the disagreement to the satisfaction of both parties, with California dropping all ties to land east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

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