Tennessee was a state in the former United States of America. It was admitted into the U.S. in 1796 as its 16th state. Its capital was in Nashville, in middle Tennessee. Today, the provisional state government is based out of Murfreesboro.
Much of the region is officially recognized by the League of Nations as unincorporated. The LoN officially recognized the city-state of Portland, in north central Tennessee, and the Provisional Republic of East Tennessee, which had its capital in Morristown and Jackson which was jointly administered by Virginia and Kentucky. A fourth entity, the Provisional State of Tennessee, is located in the south central portion of the former state, with most of the population in the capital of Waynesboro and the town of Adamsville.
Tennessee was hit by several nuclear strikes on Doomsday. Memphis - a key port located along the Mississippi River - and the state capital of Nashville were hit by strikes. The city of Chattanooga in southeastern Tennessee was hit, along with adjacent Signal Mountain.
The other major city in Tennessee, Knoxville, was not hit; however, it took very minor damage from a low-yield strike that destroyed nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory and all but destroyed the adjacent town of Anderson.
Anticipated strikes on Knoxville; nearby Alcoa (home to a large aluminum smelting plant); and the various dams and plants operated throughout the state by the Tennessee Valley Authority never materialized.
Post-Doomsday[]
As of March 25, 2011, the situation regarding the former state of Tennessee is as follows:
Location of Portland.
Portland claims its immediate region and the area of middle Tennessee, including the area belonging to the long-devastated city of Nashville, just south of Portland. The Virginian Republic considers Portland as the de facto capital of the entire former state. On November 18 2009, its offer of military aid to Portland was accepted. Portland worked with Virginia and Kentucky military advisers and LoN peacekeepers to "secure" middle and "unincorporated" portions of western Tennessee. In the past year and a half, the area around Nashville has been secured, along with the portions of former Tennessee north to the Kentucky border; west to former Clarksville and Fort Campbell; and east to former Cookeville and Dale Hollow Lake.
The counties in red belong to the internationally-recognized Provisional Republic of East Tennessee.
Morristown claims the area of eastern Tennessee, including the city of Knoxville, as the territory of East Tennessee. Its leaders have only recently come into contact with the world at large, through League of Nations expeditions, and still has not yet publicly stated its position on the "Tennessee question". It has had good diplomatic relations with the nearby survivor nations of Blue Ridge and Piedmont since the 1980s.
Location of Jackson.
Portland claims to have met scouts from the west Tennessee town of Jackson (which is midway between Nashville and Memphis) in the 1990s. Portland undertook a joint expedition with Virginia military troops and League of Nations peacekeepers to explore the area beginning in December 2009. First contact in March 2010 did not go well, leading Virginia and Kentucky to declare war on the rogue government ruling Jackson; the war finished in a matter of days with Kentucky and Virginia the clear victors.
Location of Waynesboro.
South-central Tennessee, which was a part of the former Confederate States of America revival in the 1980s and 1990s, officially calls itself the Provisional State of Tennessee. Its capital is in the town of Waynesboro and consists primarily of much of the former Fourth and Seventh U.S. Congressional Districts of Tennessee.
Re-Unification[]
Over the decades, sentiment to reunify the state of Tennessee had always been present. Through the first decade of the 21st century, it remained a sentimental idea, with many areas of the state depopulated and travel between the populated areas hampered by severely deteriorated roadways and railways and ever present threats from bandits.
After the East Kentucky Alliance liberated the city state of Jackson in the west, East Tennessee leaders quietly began discussing reunification with leaders in Waynesboro, Portland, the new EAA-backed Jackson government and other surviving towns in west and central Tennessee.
In early August 2011, the East American Alliance agreed to help in restoring railways and roadways connecting the largest towns throughout Tennessee, and sending in Army and Marine groups to provide security. The reunification of Tennessee was formally announced on September 8, with the new state capital to be in the rebuilt town of Murfreesboro in central Tennessee. Murfreesboro is a short distance from the old state capital of Nashville - which, once the city is cleared and is authorized for resettlement, may be where the state government eventually returns to, once the region is declared to be safe.
The process to select representatives from each surviving town and city began in October, for a constitutional convention which was held at the University of Tennessee in April 2012. Elections for governor and the new General Assembly were scheduled for November 2012, and the state to formally become an entity on January 1, 2013.
