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State of Santa Cruz
Timeline: 1983: Doomsday

OTL equivalent: Santa Cruz
Flag Coat of Arms
Flag Coat of Arms
Location of Santa Cruz
Location of Santa Cruz
Capital Santa Cruz
Largest city Santa Cruz
Language
  official
 
English (official)
  others Spanish
Mayor Michael Wang
Area 607 sq mi km²
Population est. 130,000 est. 
Independence 1983
Currency Californian Dollar

Santa Cruz, was a nation located along the Pacific Ocean in former Northern California, along the northern edge of Monterey Bay. The state starts just south of the former site of the destroyed city of San Jose. Today, it is a State of the California Republic.

In the post-Doomsday fallout, Santa Cruz buckled under the pressure of refugees, starvation and fuel exhaustion Its renown college would become host to one of the most vicious gangs of slavers and raiders in the former United States. In 2016, the state of Santa Cruz fell to a Californian Republic led collation. After 33 long years, it was absorbed into the California Republic, who has begun the slow healing process.

History[]

Pre-Doomsday[]

During the 1980s the city of Santa Cruz was classified by the United States as the most dangerous city in America. When most people would enter the area it was hard not to see a gang member of some kind on the streets. The gangs were violent and it was almost impossible to go a day without hearing someone was gunned down in the news.

Doomsday[]

San Jose, a city just north of Santa Cruz, was hit, and when this happened the area went from the chaos it was already in into total and complete anarchy. With no government at all, the gangs controlled the county. The police forces slowly dissolved, with officers either being killed or joining a gang. Gang wars were frequent, and by at least 1990 all citizens were reported to be members of, or affiliated with, one of the gangs.

Establishment of an Empire[]

In the year 1996, a bold and brash gang leader named Villeado Scolari, the leader of an Italian gang, came to power, ruthlessly expanding his lower minions and conquering all of the county. Scholairi was greatly inspired by Benito Mussolini, and so he greatly admired Mussolini and his Fascist ideology. In the year 1998 he established Santa Cruz as an empire, and legalized slavery.

The Reign of Villeado Scolari[]

Contact was made with the Chumash Republic in 2002 when the raiders moved southward, kidnapping nomads and travelers for civilian displacement, they saw the country they immediately attacked them capturing about 20 civilians and injuring the military police. They later moved north to the MSP at night, first sweeping through the California Republic. They would stage secret raids and capture people without alerting any authorities. In 2009, with the discovery of Santa Cruz, the MSP announced Santa Cruz to the world. With their incredibly terrible humanitarian crisis, the country was denied permission into the League of Nations. They did not seem to care and in fact they protested against the League of Nations.

The Fall of the Empire[]

During a July 2016 raid of the California Republic resulted in the kidnapping a Californian senator. The Californian Republic already had very bad relations with the Santa Cruz (by this point for at least two decades) but the kidnapping of one of their senators was the last straw. The nation of California sent messengers to several neighboring states asking to form a coalition to declare war on Santa Cruz. As a result the nations of Visalia, Chumash Republic, and Sierra Nevada agreed to form a short-lived coalition feeling that they themselves have grown tired of Santa Cruz's existence by this point. The Coalition arrived in Santa Cruz in June 2017. After many victories and the Coalition being aided by a slave uprising. Santa Cruz would face severe causalities and seeing it did not have a unified military force made it more difficult as many raiders and bandit leaders were now disserting, fighting each other, or surrendering. As a result in early November 2017, the "nation" of Santa Cruz was defeated and then completely annexed into the California Republic. Meanwhile Villeado Scolari and four of his loyal followers were able to avoid capture and flee to the nation of Ventura.

Government[]

Santa Cruz was a military dictatorship. Most power was held by Commander Scolari, but some of his most very trusted loyal high ranked men did have some authority over maintaining order.

When it came to laws there was not many laws in Santa Cruz, at least in the sense you would see in a civilized society. Santa Cruz did in fact have something called the "8 Rules", which all civilians and gang members had to obey. Which are as followed.

  1. All slaves and servants must respect and obey the authority of the gang leader that rules over you. Disobedience of any sort is to be dealt with severe punishment (which the gang leader can choose whatever punishment they want to act upon).
  2. Running away is automatic treason, if any gang member or slave is caught trying to flee Santa Cruz they are to be put to death via hanging for everyone to see. Afterwards their corpse is to be left hanging to rot for 7 days, after which they are to be then burnt into a fire pit.
  3. A gang leader can have up to 10 wives or husbands. However a gang member can only have 1 spouse, if he or she wants another spouse they must commit their first raid in which they will be proven "worthy" of having another spouse. If a gang member wishes to have 3 spouses then he or she must kill a slave in order to prove they are "worthy" of power.
  4. A slave or servant is to never be treated as "human", they are the lowest of nature and can be easily replaced at any given time.
  5. Furthermore a slave or servant is to be renamed in which their first name will be first and then fit with "of" and then the gang member or gang leader that owns them. (For example Ben of Raulo)
  6. A gang leader or gang member can be allowed to murder a slave for any reason they wish, provided the slave is not under 5 years old. Underage slaves are valuable and can be very important in use, unless they are disabled.
  7. If two gang members have a dispute, it must be settled by a duel in which the two of them must fight each other with only their fists. Whoever cries to mercy or unable to continue the fight automatically becomes a new slave to the victor.
  8. Slaves cannot be allowed to leave Santa Cruz, there is no exceptions whatsoever.

Economy[]

During the reign of Villeado Scolari, Santa Cruz's economy was based on slaving and raiding. Now after being annexed into the California Republic, the economy is now being based around agriculture and there are plans to send settlers from Placerville to help set up a more better place of living in the area. There is also plans to rebuild the Santa Cruz Harbor which was mostly destroyed in 2011 by a tidal wave during the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake.

Armed Groups[]

Santa Cruz never had a genuine military as the nation only heavily relied on gang leaders, bandits, and raiders for defense and protection. When did came to "protection" a person who didn't want his/her family to be enslaved, they would have to give something up to Santa Cruz gang leaders or raiders (in most cases usually giving up your youngest child to life of slavery) in order to be given "protection". However when it came to military equipment like firearms, the bandits and raiders were equipped with basically anything they could find that was useful for combat.

Some bandits and gangsters were armed with assault rifles stolen from veterans, police stations, or former military compounds in the areas near Santa Cruz. But they were limited in numbers as most would run out of ammo and once ammo for a specific rifle became scarce it either meant that Santa Cruz raiders had to raid neighboring areas in search for the said ammo, or just get rid of the rifle altogether seeing it was now useless.

A lot of bandits also used various things as weapons from knives, wooden carved sticks, metal pipes, and so on. They even would craft weapons from spare parts they found during raids, that even some were able to create firearms from scratch. Albeit those guns were poorly well made and often would fail when being used.

When the Coalition invaded Santa Cruz in 2017, they quickly banded together several battalions of raiders, bandits, and gangsters armed with anything they could find. Even some slaves were forced into fighting for Santa Cruz as they were promised freedom if Santa Cruz won the war.

Today, several hundred Californian military peacekeepers remained stationed in Santa Cruz County. Considering many of the former slavers have slipped into the general population, there has been little incentive to build a resident police force as of yet.

Culture[]

Flag[]

The flag of Santa Cruz under the slavers took clear inspirations from Benito Mussolini's Italy, combining the Italian flag "il Tricolore" and the fasces, the premier symbol of the National Fascist Party and the Republican Fascist Party, the two Fascist parties Benito Mussolini was a member of in Italy, and where the word "Fascism" derives from. Today, they fly the Bear of the California Republic.

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