The Great Church

The Great Church, sometimes shortened to GC or simply "Church," is a religious extremist group operating out of the central and midwest United States. It is largely built on the foundations of right-wing Christianity, leaning more towards fascism in its emphasis on the unflinching hierarchy of its congregation. (This is not to be confused with the Hierarchy of the Occult, which is unrelated.) Followers of the Church are assigned their role in society; their education, job, family role, social identity, and even their romantic partners are personally determined by Church officials in each area. After two generations of followers, this has made the Church a supreme position of power in its own territory.    

Background

  The current territory of the Great Church spans all of what was once South Dakota and North Dakota, and parts of the surrounding areas— Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, and the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan are all partially contained within the GC's "borders." The history of the Church's spread across the continental US began with their recognition as a church from the US government in the year 1988. By adapting the iconography, structure, and overarching ideology of various types of Christianity, the Great Church was able to silently integrate with a wide variety of smaller churches and slowly alter the concepts being taught towards the Great Church's own principles. By the 2000s, the GC had a collection of "core" churches in South Dakota and a huge amount of spread in the surrounding area, nearly as wide as their area in the present day. During this time GC-compatible churches ran extensive propaganda campaigns to pull in more local community members to attend Church programs. But the Great Church took no military actions until 2008, when police officers affiliated with the Church were given orders to seize a particular stretch of land from a private digging operation in the area.   Then, in 2016, a member of the Great Church was elected as the President of the United States. Through political influence, legislature changes, and the cooperation of a full military force, the Great Church carved out their current territory. A combination of propaganda, terror tactics, and police brutality was used to force citizens to either accept the Church's presence or abandon their homes, and local governments were hastily merged into a single GC-ran governmental body during the four year presidency. Three years in, the Church abruptly stopped expanding their territory and established permanent GC-allied police checkpoints along their unsanctioned borders. While the presence of the Church has since expanded beyond that border line, the border itself has not been moved or altered since 2019, and the Church focuses the grand majority of its military might within the border itself.   There have been many attempts to recover either territory or human beings from the Church's influence, but most attempts have failed. Though five more presidential elections have come and gone, none of the elected Presidents have siezed control of the area or undone the lasting damage caused by the Church's time in political office. Those who have tried confess that while it is quite easy to enter the GC's territory by simply not going through one of the police checkpoints, the grand majority of people still living in the area are thoroughly dedicated to the Great Church and are extremely hostile to outsiders. As of 2044, a generation after the Church's takeover, there is still no solution in sight.   Most people consider it to be a lost cause.