 Reclamation in progress
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| |||||
| Capital (and largest city) |
Canterbury (de facto) | ||||
| Language | English | ||||
| Religion main |
Anglicanism | ||||
| others | Atheism | ||||
| Ethnic Group | Englishmen | ||||
| Demonym | Kentish | ||||
| Government | Defunct administrative county | ||||
| Area | 1,442 sq mi km² | ||||
| Population | ~714,460 | ||||
| Currency | New Pound, Isle of Wight Pound | ||||
Kent is an historical county of south-eastern England, which existed as an administrative unit until Doomsday. As of August 2021 the former territory of Kent is divided between Essex and Southern England. Kent consists of two major sub-regions: West Kent, which lies to the west of the River Medway; and East Kent, which extends from the river to the eastern coast of the county. Before Doomsday Kent enjoyed relative prosperity and held particular cultural and religious significance within England and the broader United Kingdom, notably as the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the principal leader of the Church of England and broader Anglican Communion. The rural character of the county allowed several local communities to survive the nuclear war, although these entities have since been subsumed into Kent's more politically centralised neighbours.
History[]
Pre-Doomsday[]
Pre-war Kent was a relatively prosperous Home County, benefiting from its position as the part of the United Kingdom closest to continental Europe. The ports at Dover, Folkestone and other points on the East Kent coast served as key economic arteries for the whole of south-eastern England. The M2 and M20 motorways through the county connected these harbour-towns to London and the rest of the country, as did key sections of the British railway network. As suggested by its title, the 'Garden of England', agriculture was the principal industry of Kent, although the county enjoyed a significant degree of economic diversity.
The administrative centre of pre-Doomsday Kent lay at the county town of Maidstone, spanning both banks of the River Medway. Kent hosted no large settlements but rather a number of modestly-sized towns - even the county's two cathedral cities, Canterbury and Rochester, were themselves smaller than Maidstone. Kentish politics tended to favour the Conservative and Unionist Party, and most Kentish constituencies were considered Conservative 'safe seats' in Westminster and Whitehall.
Doomsday[]
Kent experienced a number of nuclear strikes during the events of the 26th of September 1983. The exact number of strikes has been lost to history, but identified targets include:
- Maidstone - 20kt
- Gillingham - 10kt
- Dartford - 20kt
- Ashford - 20kt
- Dover - 20kt
- RAF Manston, Ramsgate - 10kt
- Gravesend - 20kt
- Sheerness - 50kt (failed to detonate)
Post-Doomsday[]
1980s[]
Like much of the developed world, the period immediately subsequent to Doomsday brought great suffering and hardship to Kent. The county's centres of rail transportation at Maidstone and Ashford had sustained severe damage, and the local civil authorities essentially ceased to exist in the chaos. London's proximity meant that much of West Kent was quickly overwhelmed by droves of refugees, as well as the debilitating effects of radioactive fallout. Any semblance of orderly government fell apart in that region within a matter of weeks. Contrastingly, East Kent was afforded some degree of protection by the River Medway, which served as an obstacle to refugees - as did the irradiated ruins of Maidstone and Gillingham. Even there, however, the collapse of the food supply chain, the breakdown of law and order and the cessation of health services led to enormous loss of life, especially amongst the very old and very young. Unlike Essex, Kent did not host any key continuity-of-government facilities and thus fell into a general state of anarchy.
In the absence of any centralised authority, surviving groups formed localised communes and communities in order to secure essential supplies. These frequently consisted of little more than several villages at most, but within a few years there was reasonable success in the cultivation of staple crops and the establishment of subsistence agriculture. Competition for resources resulted in the raising of militia groups, frequently just a few hundred strong, to defend the communes and their farmland. Rural areas had to contend with the encroachment of bands of desperate refugees fleeing urban areas - even those not targeted during the war found themselves totally unable to support their existing populations without reliable access to food. West Kent was particularly vulnerable to this type of threat, quickly lapsing into what was essentially a tribal society.
In East Kent the commune of Canterbury ascended to a place of particular prominence amongst the splinter-states of the county. Although ravaged by famine and disease in the early years after Doomsday, the surviving population managed to retain a degree of coherence. Taking advantage of its geographic position in the valley of the River Stour, the militia of Canterbury secured control over several nearby villages along the river, providing enough arable land to precariously sustain itself. Despite localised success stories, the technological and social state of Kent temporarily reverted to an almost mediaeval level.
As the 1980s drew on, gradual changes to the structure of Kentish society began to return a semblance of order to the county. With many urban areas all but abandoned, banditry and violence declined in many areas as survivors were either dealt with by the militias or integrated into the rural agricultural lifestyle. The desperate struggle for survival gave way to a sustainable, if precarious existence, and communities began to engage in friendlier relations with one another. Trade networks began to coalesce, particularly as the breeding and use of horses became feasible on a larger scale.
Notwithstanding advances like these, the picture was far from universally rosy. A small community centred on what had once been Maidstone Hospital - a rare island of order in the anarchic West Kent - was ravaged and destroyed by a raiding party of nomadic Londoners in the late 1980s. In 1987 a coalition of London exiles and homegrown urbanites established a police state in the town of Chatham after a local turf war, which imposed its authority with brutal effectiveness over the surviving towns at the mouth of the River Medway. Elsewhere in Kent such excesses were largely avoided, but the population remained stagnant or in decline and bereft of almost all modern comforts. Electricity was a rare luxury, particularly as surviving fuel supplied began to run out or spoil with age.
In 1988 Jim Barker-McCardle, a former Kent Police officer from Southend in Essex, revolted against the Chatham commune and led a part of the population north onto the Isle of Grain. There the community survived, constantly skirmishing with the Chatham authorities, until a firefight in early 1990 drove the survivors across the Thames Estuary into the Interim Nation of Essex. This small Kentish community would shortly thereafter participate in the Revolution of 1990 in opposition to the Essaxon government. These events increased awareness in Essex of the situation in Kent and indirectly led to the 2006 and 2008 Essaxon expeditions to Sheppey, the establishment of the Chartered Company of Sheppey in 2010 and the 2011 Invasion of Kent. Barker-McCardle went on to become High Minister of Essex.
1990s[]
The 1990s saw a further consolidation of political power in Kent by several key statelets. Canterbury continued its relative success, bringing the townships of Whitstable and Herne Bay into a tributary relationship in 1992 and extending its direct rule to the coast around Sandwich by 1995. A short conflict between the communes of Sittingbourne and Faversham in 1993 resulted in the latter allying with Canterbury, which brought an uneasy peace to northern Kent. There was even some success in resuming certain localised services, with health clinics reopening in a limited capacity in Canterbury and Faversham by the middle of the decade.
South of the Kentish Downs the political map remained fractured between village communes and small townships. Wye, Lenham, Orlestone and Tenterden were the most prominent surviving settlements between the Downs and the Weald, whilst Romney Marsh remained a patchwork of fortified homesteads. In some areas progress was made towards restoring order: in 1993 colonists from Wye, predominantly exiles from Ashford and their descendants, established a tentative settlement at Kennington on the edge of the ruins of Ashford; and in 1996 Lenham, Wye and Tenterden agreed to found a joint garrison and settlement at Aylesford to guard the passage of the Medway.
Even in West Kent the situation was becoming less bleak. Although the entire region had been devastated by nomadic raiders from London after Doomsday, after ten years an organised community coalesced in the Wealden hills around Royal Tunbridge Wells. The population of this refuge was largely composed of local Kentish residents, as opposed to the rest of West Kent which had been largely depopulated and settled by Londoners. The emerging township adopted a 'Reconquista' mentality, launching regular campaigns northwards towards the Downs. 1997 saw the recapture of the town of Tonbridge, the community's first major military success,
In 1998 a bloody revolution broke out in the Chatham commune against the police state in power. The new oligarchy, composed of the town's prominent residents, was quick to reach out diplomatically to other Kentish survivors. Friendly relations were quickly established with Sittingbourne, which hoped to use Chatham as a counterweight to the alliance between Faversham and Canterbury, although the new government also entered cordial relations with the other communities of north Kent.