History of NUSA

Fear of Y2K lead to the formation of Millennium Cults, resulting in mass orgies of suicide and violence on Jan 1, 2000. Later that year, massive firestorms raged over the northwestern United States, destroying millions of acres of farm and grassland. Simultaneously, the Wasting Plague that hit America and Europe, kill an estimate of 14 million people before a vaccine was finally created in Japan. 2001 saw the creation of WorldSat and the Net, radically altering both American and global communications, business, and culture for decades to come. In 2002, Mr. Seward was killed in a riot (in reality an operative in a joint CIA/NSA op). General William Newell, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, took his place. Tensions rose between the USSR and the United States after a mutated plant virus wiped out Canadian and Soviet crops. U.S. agribusiness crops survived due to a new biological counter-agent. The USSR accused the United States of biological warfare. This, coupled with the continuation of the "Evil Empire" policies of the Cold War ultimately lead to the U.S. assault on the Soviet weapons platform MIR XIII in 2008. The European Space Agency intervened resulting in a six-hour orbital war between the "Euros" and the "Yanks." Colorado Springs is destroyed when a rock from the Tycho Massdriver lands on the city; ultimately resulting in the establishment of an uneasy peace.   During 2000s, the Arasaka Corporation, the large Japanese conglomerate, was buying out many small bankrupting companies as well as offering thousands of Americans jobs within the United States. Arasaka invested heavily into it's American branch, and was also one of the leading Megacorps to invest into Richard Night's dream of the perfect city. Saburo Arasaka became known as a man of the people, someone who stood up for the American people when the government failed them. Many factories and American cities were visited by Saburo himself to congratulate and meet with the American public, helping them gain a sense of former prosperity.   By 2003, the Second Central American War began and quickly devolved into a a complete disaster for the United States, resulting in major reform and the ouster of the Gang of Four in an Army/CIA counter-coup. Washington D.C. was encircled by military troops fighting remnants of the Gang. However, elements of the Gang were not fully eliminated until four years afterwards, although by that point large parts of the Gang had already sold out to the corporations.   Efforts at restoring democratic rule were halted when on November 5, 2005, presidential appointee Henry Jacobi was assassinated. Evidence strongly pointed to Mantoga, Inc. involvement and instigation. On November 17, 2005, the corporation was given four hours to completely leave the United States, and was ultimately destroyed by the United States military in Operation Big Stick after they refused. The event later came to be known as the Mantoga Incident.   In 2009, an abortive takeover attempt by U.S.-backed terrorists of the Crystal Palace space station is detected and thwarted by the ESA after it drops another orbital rock off the coast of Washington as a warning. In 2012, a bioplague killed over 1700 in Chicago, the city was left in ruins.   During this time individual states began to break away from the main body of the country. Local state governments were fed up with the ineffectual and dictatorial actions of the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. as well as the exposed machinations of the Gang of Four. The first was California, north and later south, then Texas, Oregon, Washington and then North and South Dakota. These new "Free States" set their own laws, trade arrangements, and no longer sent their collected taxes back to Washington, D.C.

Life in America during martial law was one of the bloodiest periods in human history. Stalin's purges in the late 1940's pale by comparison. Over 100,000,000 Americans died in only fifteen years. The Vietnam War only cost 3,000,000 lives, and that took over thirty years. Americans died from violence, pestilence, or starvation. Most of those deaths could have been avoided, had the states cooperated with each other. The country still had sufficient resources to feed itself, though not in the style to which it was accustomed. The individual states, scared and foolishly confident due to their new military strength, hoarded their own resources. Strict border policy and huge tariffs all led to disaster. Other problems made things even worse.   Many states were home to large numbers of nonproductive citizens at the beginning of the Collapse. Florida and New York were two of the worst hit. The welfare system quickly reached a state of attrition. States that instituted stringent controls in the beginning, like California, Texas, Utah and Nevada were much more prepared to deal with an extended crisis. But many states simply tried to bury their heads in the sand. Many felt the crisis would end quickly; it did not. Although many other states soon instituted systems similar to the standard NorCal Citizen Identification process by 1998, it was far too late. By the year 2000 over 150,000,000 were disenfranchised. Probably 75% of these died.