Changes: Lexington, Kentucky (1983: Doomsday)

Revision as of 00:35, 6 November 2010

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Lexington, Commonwealth of Kentucky, is one of the largest cities in North America. With a metro-area population of 405,922 as of 2009, Lexington is an important economic, cultural and political hub not just for the Commonwealth of Kentucky but also for the various survivor states that comprise the eastern half of the former U.S.

LexingtonDowntown — Downtown Lexington, Kentucky, with the recently built Commonwealth Financial Tower in the forefront

History

Lexington was the second-largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky pre-Doomsday, after Louisville. Lexington was not targeted on Doomsday, but had to deal with a large number of refugees from areas east and south of Louisville, which was struck by three missiles; from Richmond, which was wiped out by a smaller bomb that took out the Bluegrass Army Depot; and from the state capitol, Frankfort, which fell into a total state of chaos mere weeks after Doomsday.

Governor Martha Layne Collins and about 50 legislators, cabinet members and staffers slipped out of Frankfort in October 1983, guarded by state troopers and National Guardsmen. Collins and her advisors decided to relocate the state government in Lexington and were welcomed by city leaders concerned over the mayor's inability to handle the situation in Lexington and Fayette County.

Collins ordered a series of directives, including the authorization of civilian militias to work with state and local police and the Kentucky National Guard to form a ring around Lexington, to keep out the flood of refugees that threatened to overwhelm Lexington's food and medicine supplies. She also authorized sending sentries to investigate the rest of the region; Richmond, of course, was a radioactive mess but local officials had managed to regroup in nearby Berea.

Other nearby areas - most notably Walton, Carrollton, and Maysville in northern Kentucky; Winchester, Georgetown and Mount Sterling in the central Kentucky/Lexington area; Danville, Harrodsburg and Somerset south of Lexington; and Manchester, Williamsburg and Harlan in southeastern Kentucky were doing as well as could be expected, given the effects of the electromagnetic pulse explosion over the eastern United States and loss of contact with Frankfort and Washington.

By April 1984, the state had reasserted its authority over most of central and eastern Kentucky, while trying to learn what happened to the rest of the state; a provisional legislature, consisting of surviving and appointed senators and representatives, was seated at the University of Kentucky.

Food and medicine became an issue in the minds of civilians, threatening to undermine the state's authority over the region. The Lexington city government and the Kentucky state government became more and more at odds with each other; seven times the Kentucky state government postponed gubernatorial and legislative elections, citing very general "emergency situations" and "provisional powers granted to the Governor". Discontent over politics grew throughout the region; only a commitment on the part of citizens to grow and distribute food, independent of state control, kept civilization in the area from falling apart like Frankfort did.

Contact finally was made with Fort Knox, located west of Louisville, and where another government had been established. Also calling itself the Commonwealth of Kentucky, it considered itself more of an independent nation than a U.S. state. Its President, U.S. Army Major-General Donald Campbell, was appalled at how the state government had devolved. News of his arrival in Lexington quickly spread and he was supported by city leaders.

Governor Collins ordered the State Police and National Guard to "carefully contain" Campbell, but it came down to who had the biggest and most guns. Campbell had arrived with more than enough ammunition to fight the locals if necessary. Somewhat surprisingly to Campbell, he never had to use his weapons: people, aware of his military power, saw that the Fort Knox forces came as fellow Americans and Kentuckians and not as conquerors, and were already disenchanted with the state government and its growing inability to provide even the most basic of necessities.

Much of the state of Kentucky's problems came from poor organization, and Campbell appeared to people as someone who would quickly rectify that issue.

Despite the Governor's misgivings, Campbell peacefully went around the region, speaking in town-hall meetings on the University of Kentucky campus and at local high schools. Campbell made the case to reunite the two halves of Kentucky as a sovereign nation until the United States reasserted itself, and to allow Collins to run as a Presidential candidate if she so wished.

Collins bit on the offer, running initially as an independent and later accepting the nomination of the eastern and western halves of the Democratic Party. Collins lost to her Republican opponent, Mitch McConnell (a refugee from Louisville) in large part because McConnell was more able to address long-term concerns of central Kentucky voters on the issues that concerned them the most: food, health and survival.

In a special referendum held on the day of the Presidential election, voters in all 44 of the counties that Collins' government presided over voted to formally join the Fort Knox-based Commonwealth.

The national capital would remain in Fort Knox, given the state of the former capital of Frankfort, and that the Fort Knox government did not wish to move to a more central (and less secure) location.

Lexington soon underwent some changes of its own, as a new mayor - endorsed by Campbell and now-President McConnell - presided over sweeping changes in city government, helping position Lexington as a major economic and educational hub for the new Commonwealth.

After contact was made with the Republic of Virginia, Lexington would become a vital trade and transportation hub. The University of Kentucky, at the behest of the national and local governments, embarked on an ambitious expansion program, seeking to become an important research university in the tradition of such pre-Doomsday universities as Stanford, Michigan, California and Harvard.

At present, Lexington is one of the largest cities in all of North America. Observers project its population to grow to over a million by 2030, as businesses relocate to the region.

Government and politics

More to come

Economy

More to come

The Commonwealth Financial Tower was completed in 2009. The xx-story, all-glass tower is one of the largest skyscrapers in North America and is the home to the Lexington-based Fifth Third Bank. Some observers criticized it as a "testimony to excess"; Commonwealth and Lexington political leaders rejected the criticism, hailing the tower as an important landmark for the entire Commonwealth.

Education

The University of Kentucky is the preeminent institution of higher learning in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Its main campus is located in Lexington (there also are auxiliary campuses in Elizabethtown, Murray, Manchester and Owensboro).

Transylvania University is a small college located in Lexington.

There are four public high schools - Bryan Station, Henry Clay, Lafayette and Tates Creek - along with six public middle schools and 10 elementary schools in the Lexington-Fayette County Public Schools system. Two K-12 private schools - Lexington Catholic and Sayre - also serve the region.

Culture

More to come

Sports

The University of Kentucky's athletic teams are followed as enthusiastically in Lexington (and throughout the entire Commonwealth) as any college or professional team was pre-Doomsday. UK competes in the Southeastern Conference and in non-conference competition against schools from Virginia and Superior.

The American football team plays its home games in 57,000-seat Commonwealth Stadium. Men's basketball plays in 23,000-seat Rupp Arena, women's basketball and volleyball in 9,000-seat Memorial Coliseum, and baseball at 4,000-seat Cliff Hagan Stadium.

High school football and basketball are also very popular. Not only are the area high school games well-attended, but fans also pack Commonwealth Stadium for the Kentucky High School Athletic Association state finals each November and Rupp Arena for the KHSAA boys' and girls' Sweet 16 state basketball tournament each March.

Keeneland Race Course is one of two race tracks in North America that holds regular horse racing cards, from April through June and again from September through November. Beginning in 2011, Keeneland will host the Kentucky Derby horse race, which traditionally was held on the first Saturday of May in Louisville pre-Doomsday (the 2010 race was held at Ellis Park in Henderson).

Media

The Lexington Herald-Leader, established in 1985, is the city's newspaper of record. It publishes daily and has extensive readership throughout the Commonwealth and also in portions of Virginia.

Television, radio...more to come

Transportation

More to come

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 {{ddprop}}
-Lexington, Kentucky is one of the largest cities in North America. With a metro-area population of 405,922 as of 2009, Lexington is an important economic, cultural and political hub not just for the Commonwealth of Kentucky but also for the various survivor states that comprise the eastern half of the former U.S.
+Lexington, [[Commonwealth of Kentucky (1983: Doomsday)|Commonwealth of Kentucky]], is one of the largest cities in North America. With a metro-area population of 405,922 as of 2009, Lexington is an important economic, cultural and political hub not just for the Commonwealth of Kentucky but also for the various survivor states that comprise the eastern half of the former U.S.
 [[File:LexingtonDowntown.jpg|thumb|Downtown Lexington, Kentucky, with the recently built Commonwealth Financial Tower in the forefront]]
@@ Line 20: / Line 20: @@
 Contact finally was made with Fort Knox, located west of Louisville, and where another government had been established. Also calling itself the Commonwealth of Kentucky, it considered itself more of an independent nation than a U.S. state. Its President, U.S. Army Major-General Donald Campbell, was appalled at how the state government had devolved. News of his arrival in Lexington quickly spread and he was supported by city leaders.
-Governor Collins ordered the State Police and National Guard to "carefully contain" Campbell, but it came down to who had the biggest and most guns. Campbell had arrived with more than enough ammunition to fight the locals if necessary. Campbell never had to use his weapons, however, as he peacefully went around the region, speaking in town-hall meetings on the University of Kentucky campus and at local high schools. Campbell's case was to reunite the two halves of Kentucky, and to allow the Governor to run as a Presidential candidate if she so wished.
+Governor Collins ordered the State Police and National Guard to "carefully contain" Campbell, but it came down to who had the biggest and most guns. Campbell had arrived with more than enough ammunition to fight the locals if necessary. Somewhat surprisingly to Campbell, he never had to use his weapons: people, aware of his military power, saw that the Fort Knox forces came as fellow Americans and Kentuckians and not as conquerors, and were already disenchanted with the state government and its growing inability to provide even the most basic of necessities.
+Much of the state of Kentucky's problems came from poor organization, and Campbell appeared to people as someone who would quickly rectify that issue.
-Collins bit on the offer, running initially as an independent but accepting the nomination of the eastern and western halves of the Democratic Party. Collins lost to her Republican opponent, Mitch McConnell (a refugee from Louisville) in large part because McConnell was able and Collins was unable to address long-term concerns of central Kentucky voters on the issues that concerned them the most: food, health and survival.
+Despite the Governor's misgivings, Campbell peacefully went around the region, speaking in town-hall meetings on the University of Kentucky campus and at local high schools. Campbell made the case to reunite the two halves of Kentucky as a sovereign nation until the United States reasserted itself, and to allow Collins to run as a Presidential candidate if she so wished.
-The 44 counties that Collins' government presided over formally joined the Elizabethtown-based Commonwealth. Given the state of Frankfort, and that the E'town government did not wish to move from its still-provisional headquarters in Fort Knox, central Kentucky voters also agreed to table for the time being a proposal to relocate the capital to Lexington or a rebuilt Frankfort.
+Collins bit on the offer, running initially as an independent and later accepting the nomination of the eastern and western halves of the Democratic Party. Collins lost to her Republican opponent, Mitch McConnell (a refugee from Louisville) in large part because McConnell was more able to address long-term concerns of central Kentucky voters on the issues that concerned them the most: food, health and survival.
+In a special referendum held on the day of the Presidential election, voters in all 44 of the counties that Collins' government presided over voted to formally join the Fort Knox-based Commonwealth.
+The national capital would remain in Fort Knox, given the state of the former capital of Frankfort, and that the Fort Knox government did not wish to move to a more central (and less secure) location.
 Lexington soon underwent some changes of its own, as a new mayor - endorsed by Campbell and now-President McConnell - presided over sweeping changes in city government, helping position Lexington as a major economic and educational hub for the new Commonwealth.