North America

North America in the 2200s is an apocalyptic wasteland showing only the earliest signs of recovery.   Lead by the United States the continent saw massive economic and technological growth following the Second World War. As China began to follow a similar trajectory competition for resources and influence developed into a bitter rivalry which erupted into open warfare during The Brink (2020-2030). Despite avoiding a full nuclear exchange the battlefield losses were severe for both sides and forced an economic focus on military production over all other concerns. Even after the official end of the conflict the arms race continued through the Deep Freeze (2033-~2086).   In early 2067 someone released a cluster of bioweapons in the American midwest and Rocky Mountains. Targeting a wide range of major agricultural crops and converting them into toxic fields of fungal blooms and carnivorous insects. Containment and suppression efforts repeatedly failed until nearly two million square miles were devoured by weaponized lifeforms. With borders emerging only where less favorable climates helped slow their advance.   With native life virtually eliminated over such a vast area the continent experienced a second, much more severe, Dust Bowl. Massive grey clouds sweet east across the blackened plains. Creating electrical storms strong enough to disable unshielded electronics, dropping visibility to just a few inches, and reducing available oxygen to hazardously low levels.   Initially there was hope the north east could be preserved. Until the surprise opening of the Niagara Gate in 2164. Opening into a void zone the gate released waves of deformed cybernetic creatures and digital viruses which turned enhanced soldiers into raging cannibals. Toronto and Buffalo were destroyed, Philadelphia had to be abandoned, and the Dust Bowl flowed even further east.   Coastal cities were overrun by refugees from inland and famine swept across the continent despite efforts to scale up vertical farming and synthetic foods. By 2100 the population had crashed to ~12M,1/50th of its pre-Brink level.   North America slowly recovered over the next century to once again cross 100M people by 2200 (still only ~1/6 of the pre-Brink total). The coastal cities which had been the final refuges from the Dust Bowl have grown into massive enclosed arcologies connected by intra-continental mag-lev rail lines. These are perhaps the closest thing on Earth to Keltrex's towers and a part of the reason people migrate easily between the two.   Technological advances have allowed explorers to survive crossing the Dust Bowl and begin reclaiming blighted land. Frontier towns have begun to form across the continent. Driven by the promise of a wealth of treasure in the ruined cities and natural resources which have been out of reach for a century. Outlaw bands attempt to prey on these isolated communities and the rail lines connecting them. If they can avoid the military patrols.   Practically the continent is now the Federation of North American Cities. A representative union of allied city-states which each have their own style of democratic or corporate control. On paper the old national borders still exist with multiple competing claims over who should inherit territorial control. United by a common threat and struggling to survive there has not been time for major conflicts to emerge, yet.