A Guide to New England 2300

New England in Brief

In 1614 AD, the English explorer John Smith and his crew sailed north from Virginia and charted the coast of this region of rocky soil and dense woodland. Their creative spirits sapped by weeks of salted cod and stale biscuits, the most inspired name they could think of was North Virginia. Shortly thereafter the region was renamed "New England" in an equally daring stroke of nomenclature by England’s King James. Native Americans already inhabiting the area had done little better; even colorful sounding names like "Massachusetts" have fairly mundane translations like "Large Hill Place". Had the French had their way, it would have been Acadia, a name still reserved for the easternmost area of New England, but c’est la vie. Since then, the term "New England" has meant the six northeastern states of America; Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. The name has always been in general use, a fact that is enormously frustrating to the head honchos of the United Kingdom’s colonial effort, who deeply regret the fact that the name "New England" is unavailable for use on an off-world territory. (Especially since the Americans hardly seem to appreciate it)

Culturally, the region has (and has always had) two distinct components. In the southern apart of New England, the Urban Strip is part of an uninterrupted, well-populated urban and suburban land stretching from Portland, Maine to Richmond Virginia. On the map, New England’s share of this megacity extends to the New York/Connecticut border, but the southwestern portion of Connecticut has stronger cultural and economic associations with the New York City region than it does with the rest of New England. Elsewhere, the region is rural, with small cities sprinkled across a region of towns and villages. The population becomes sparser further north, and in the northern reaches of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, the latter dominated since 2117 by the Maine Woods National Park, the human influence on nature is remarkably slight. In the northern Maine, this is deceptive. Once, the land belonged exclusively to timber companies, who began selling it back to the government as the profitability of the forestry industry declined after the widespread introduction of vat grown cellulose for the paper industry. The vast tracts of maple and pine forest now hide the scars of intense forestry that denuded the land centuries ago.

There is a strong feeling in New England, even among inhabitants of the Urban Strip, that rural New England is the true keeper of the region’s spirit. Certainly the attitudes and philosopher that dominate the region are those of the calm, conservative small towns, and not the flamboyant big cities. This is a leftover of the post-Twilight "social reassessment" that swept the region. During the worst of the era, much of the urban area was abandoned. The population of Boston, for example, reached a low of about a fifth of its Pre-Twilight size. It was rural New England that preserved civilization in the region. The small towns persevered when the great cities fell, a situation not unfamiliar to human history. Many previous city dwellers resettled in the hinterlands, adopting the values and lifestyles they found there, values and lifestyles which, by virtue of the their survival, seemed to offer much of what life in the cities, for all its glitz and glitter, lacked.

When growth returned to the urban areas, decades later, the returning population brought with it the culture of the rural areas, renewed and reinvigorated.

It is a culture that still recalls a Puritan heritage. Where suburbs have again sprawled, the houses are neat, white boxes with pitched roofs. Respect for an orderly, tranquil and wholesome community is evident. Local decisions are made by town councils. Self discipline and self reliance are values taught to New England children and emphasized throughout life. The environment is stewarded with care, though the reminders of past excesses still evident. New England is not as showy, not as verbose, and not as prone to quickness of judgment as the rest of America. It is still a place where a one word answer constitutes an explanation, where humor is dry and often high brow.

Nor has the natural beauty faded. In fact, many areas have seen improvements since the Twilight Era. The autumn foliage still coats the region in fiery colors, though a few weeks later in the year than it once did. The fish returned in abundance, and the seals as well, after the century or so of rest from intensive commercial fishing. Visitors to the craggy granite peaks of northern New Hampshire can forgive the occasional interruption of space bound catapult containers being flung from the Presidential Range Catapult Launch Facility.

The urban areas of New England suffered great losses in population during the Twilight, but much of that was due to people fleeing the hardships of the cities for the rural areas. Cities are the barometers of civilization. When society is strong, their population swells at the expense of the hinterlands. When civilization is in retreat, cities wither. So it was in New England. But the Twilight was centuries ago, and civilization has again waxed, and the Urban Strip is as healthy as cities are anywhere in America. There are still vast dark and unkempt tracts that inspire more fear than wonder, especially in the urban areas of lower Connecticut and eastern Massachusetts. These attract their own sorts of city life, a population apart from the quiet, pragmatic New Englanders. These neighborhoods are considered aberrations more than anything else, regions that still haven’t emerged from the Twilight. But the New Englanders won’t force civilization on the blighted, fallen parts of their cities. That goes against their way of life. They’ll continue to wait, and offer neighborly support while the city dwellers work out their own solutions.

On the other hand, much of the Urban Strip has been rebuilt, and today offers all the amenities of high technology urban living. The Communications net covers the entire region, many businesses are booming, and the population is growing. New Englanders have a profound respect for their ancient historic sights, and have preserved everything they could. Often, granite markers mourn what is lost and not rebuilt, such as the Mystic Seaport in Connecticut. But Boston has managed to save- despite the traumas the city has been through- such features as Faneuil Hall, the Revere home, the State House, and Old North Church. These successes are offered up by Bostonites as evidence that their city is especially blessed by a higher power and still is, in spite of everything, the "Hub of the Universe", the position claimed by the city in pre-Twilight history.

Customs:

Customs laws in the United States area are Byzantine in nature, and subject to frequent revision. They are often aimed at achieving some remote social or economic purpose, and often require personal import or export limits to be set at very arbitrary points. This results in long, constantly changing lists which travellers should refer to before entering the United States. The following materials generally appear somewhere on the restricted list, and visitors should check to find the exact status of the items they intend to bring into the country before entry: Weapons, Pharmaceuticals, Nano-technology, Copyright infringing data of all sorts, Plants and Animals, Agricultural Produce, Medical Technology, Radioactives, Products made from Wild Animals, Products made by Exploited Labor, and Alcohol.

As a result of negotiations between New England and the reemerging American government at the close of the Twilight Era, most functions performed by the Federal Government prior to the Twilight are performed by state Governments now. This includes border control, and customs and immigration control. The New England borders with Canada are quite porous and poorly monitored. Customs checks here are quick and not too bothersome. The customs officers are notoriously clever and tend to instinctively identify criminal smugglers, while generally nodding through the innocently erring traveller who just didn’t know that the limit on alcoholic beverages of European origin this month was half a liter lower than it was last month. Customs at the air and sea points of entry are a little bit tougher. This is probably due to the fact that New Englanders identify strongly with Canadians, who aren’t mentally classified as "foreigners" here. Air and sea arrivals, on the other hand, are usually coming from Europe, not Canada, and so are looked upon with a lot more suspicion.

Weather:

Weather in New England is still slightly warmer than the 2000AD Mean Recorded Datum. During the period of 1990 through 2220, the region enjoyed elevated temperatures. The legendary New England winters became much less formidable. Summers saw the temperature frequently reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit. This was good for the coastal tourist industry, and bad for the skiing industry inland. Pine forests, losing ground to deciduous forests since the 1980’s, retreats further north. The opossum, a native American marsupial found no further north than Virginia in 1800, and lower New York State in 2000, reached Maine in 2200, its habitat enlarged by the milder climate. The growing season lengthened throughout New England and this was of great benefit to the region during the Twilight. The winter storms, especially the rather savage ocean based phenomena called "Nor’Easters," continued despite the warmer weather, though, and were wetter than before. By 2240, New England’s weather had returned to conditions close to Pre-Twilight, although still slightly warmer. The region has a cool, moist, temperate climate with strong seasonality; hot summers and long, cold winters. Naturally, the winters become stronger and the summers weaker towards the northern and inlandmost extremes of the region. The northern tier of the region is known for unusually large accumulations of snow every winter. The southern area is not too much different from a typical coastal temperate climate. New England is also known for short climate cycles and rapidly fluctuating local weather. Whatever New England is experiencing on a given day, odds are, won’t last long. Visitors planning to spend more than a few days in New England should accept the long range weather forecast as little more than a statistically prudent guess, and pack accordingly.

Assistance

The states of New England have pooled their resources to create the Greater New England Department of Tourism, which provides advice and information for visitors, as well as promotions for hotels, attractions, restaurants, and services. The Department of Tourism also maintains an emergency aid desk to provide help to visitors with serious problems. As a last resort, very needful and cashless travelers can call upon the YMCA for help. They have branches in several major cities in the region which will provide cots and meals to people in a pinch. Startup businesses can benefit by joining one of the myriad local chambers of commerce, many of which are key institutions of their towns. New Englanders as a rule are self reliant folk, but generally open towards helping neighbors or even strangers in need, and the region is known for hospitality.

Money

The United States Dollar is in general use in New England. New Englanders are somewhat hesitant about accepting foreign currency, and there are a few backwoods areas where cash is the regular medium of exchange. Its best to establish a temporary account and convert some electronic Livre (the locals refer to them as "Leevahs") to real money before venturing outside the Urban Strip. Hard currency- paper and coin- is in use as much as the electronic kind, especially in the rural areas. It’s not that the technology is unavailable, it’s just New England stubbornness. If a New Englander drags himself 10 kilometers to a hardware store in the middle of an intense blizzard, with the roads closed and the communications net off line, he expects the store to be open, and he doesn’t want to here that the transaction can’t be processed because the computer’s down.

Language:

New Englanders (New Englandahs) speak American English, with some distinctive local accents, idioms, and vocabulary. Centuries ago it was possible to tell where in New England a person was from, as each sub-region added its own flair to the general New England accent. This is no longer the case. The whole region’s speech has blended together, with only the most perceptive of individuals or trained linguists, able to detect local differences.

Culture:

New Englanders tend towards a form of individualism that is quieter and less obnoxious than the raucous self expression found in most of America. They share many traits with Canadians, such as a spirit of tolerance and a conviction that maple syrup constitutes a food group. They are self reliant and believe in local solutions to problems, rather than relying on strangers. They are notoriously miserly with words, and cautious about where they air their dirty laundry. If something’s bothering a New Englander, odds are he or she won’t let it be known further than it has to. In the Pre-Twilight days of "talk television" there were reasons why the most ludicrous "guests" tended to be from places like New Mexico and Tennessee, not New Hampshire or Maine. Still, when something needs saying, a New Englander will say it, as strongly as necessary, and by then, he or she has thought the matter through and there’s no changing his or her mind.

The Urban Strip tends to be a month or two behind the trends of the rest of America, which puts it a decade or two ahead of the rest of America. Its more tolerant than the rest of the region, and has always supported a more ethnically diverse population. There is a wide range of religions practiced in the region. Though Protestants of various denominations are in the majority, the Archdiocese of New England is based in Boston, and there are scattered Muslim and Jewish populations. Several less mainstream religions have become well established. The Wiccan society of North America is headquartered in Salem, Massachusetts, mocking the city’s pre-colonial infamy. Native American religions are practised in parts of Maine, and various Pagan and Gaian groups are scattered throughout the region.

Government

New England’s strong role in reshaping the American system of government, particularly on the State’s rights issue, is rooted in its early history. New Englanders felt somewhat responsible for America’s first attempt at a workable constitution. After all, the revolution began in New England, New Hampshire being the first colony to declare itself independent of England. Americans quickly forgot, however, the purpose of the original founding documents and the circumstances under which they were written. Those were times during which government abuses of power were foremost in everyone’s mind, and the Constitution, and the first series of amendments (the bill of rights) was written with an eye towards establishing a legal authority which would protect Americans from the abuses of a tyrannical government. In actual working reality, it was clear that only certain Americans would be protected, although in fairness, the rights secured by the constitution grew to encompass more and more Americans as time went on. Nevertheless, by the 21st century, the government found so many ways of working around the original intent of many of the restrictions of the constitution that much of it was rendered meaningless. The Third Amendment, for example, protected Americans from the government "quartering" soldiers in a privately owned house, an offence common to the previous English rulers. It did not, however, protect a homeowner from being taxed to the point where he or she could no longer keep his house, at which point it would usually become the property of a bank, or the government. The government, making money both from the taxes and the seized house, had no problem quartering soldiers in barracks. The end result was the same- quartered soldiers, abused citizens. This was the situation more commonly seen as the United States entered the Twilight Era. Certainly the founders would have written protections against such a travesty had they foreseen it, but being human, they saw only the problems of their own times, and assumed the leaders of the future would operate under the same moral principals as they did.

It was apparent, during the early Twilight Era, that what was needed was not just a piece of paper that stood between a potentially abusive central government and the people, but a force of real power that could keep Washington in check. And the best way to keep Washington DC in check was to seize control of the purse strings. In 2028, the government of Vermont informed the Federal Government that all taxes and remittances due to the Federal Government would no longer be collected by the Federal Government, but by the State of Vermont. Vermont would then forward to the United States government those moneys it found legally due, after deducting the costs of maintaining Federal programs in Vermont. The United States Government promptly took legal action, first against the State of Vermont. Fortunately for the Woodchucks, the United States Supreme Court system was already backlogged to the point where the case’s earliest resolution was expected in several decades. (At this time, America’s political parties were busy issuing legal challenges to literally every action taken by an official of the opposing party, and every election return.) When the feds turned on private citizens and businesses, Vermont intervened, using state police and the national Guard to keep Federal officers from confiscating the property of citizens who hadn’t properly paid their taxes.

A number of states immediately followed Vermont’s strategy. A bandwagon effect was created, and a number of governors added their states to the roster of defiance, against their own personal leanings, to satisfy overwhelming popular demand. All of New England, when the United States government entered default in 2033, declared itself independent not of the United States, but of the United States treasury system. By 2036 many other states had done the same. The region was a de facto independent nation until 2062, when the American government began to reorganize at the national level. New England’s delegates to the American constitutional conventions were particularly hardheaded about revising the constitution to allow more rights to the individual states, with the intent that they would keep the central government in check. Their stubbornness paid off, but only after they threatened to boycott the American government, at one point threatening to appeal to Canada to annex the New England states. The resulting revised American constitution altered the nature of the government forever, making it more of an Confederation of independent states and less a Federal Republic.

All the states of New England have democratic, republican form of governments, still guaranteed by the constitution. The State capitols are Montpelier, Vermont, Concord, New Hampshire, Worcester, Massachusetts (Replacing Boston after the Twilight); West Warwick, Rhode Island (Replacing Providence), Hartford, Connecticut, and Augusta, Maine. Considerable authority is given to local governments in New England, and most local governments rely on "Town Hall" meetings and popular democratic votes to pass laws. New Englanders are suspicious of anything that tends to increase regional or national authority at the expense of local power. Hence, state and national transportation funds are used for the maintenance of only a handful of major infrastructure elements, the local governments taking care of everything they can- and they usually understand their needs better than a distant capitol does, anyway.

Once upon a time, most communities were small enough to crowd the voting population into a single, physical space to debate, discuss, and vote on issues. These days, such an arrangement would be unworkable. Fortunately, New England takes advantage of a system called "electronic democracy"

Diplomatic Representation and Foreign Policy

All foreign relations concerning national policy, defense, etc., are in the hands of the American Department of State. New England does sponsor trade and cultural missions to other nations, but never anything on a permanent basis. There are no foreign representatives stationed in New England, with the exception of several Canadian offices serving as liaison points for joint projects. The most notable of these is the New England-Maritime Provinces Grand Banks Biosphere Preserve Commission, with offices in Portland, Maine, and Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The Canadians, with remarkable foresight, demonstrated as far back as the late 20^th century that they will employ military force in defense of fish. They also advanced the theory that if a fish is spawned in Canadian waters, and does most of its growth there, it does not forfeit its status as a Canadian fish just because it swims across some invisible line in the ocean. These policies resulted in a "border dispute" with Spain in the 1980’s. That was just a foreshadowing. In the mid 21^st century, ecological ignorance and greed had destroyed the fishing grounds of the Mediterranean nations, and they showed up in force to pillage the waters off Canada and New England. During this time, the American government was still almost non-existant, and the military worn down by the war with Mexico. New England placed local elements of the Navy and Coast Guard under its control and assisted Canada in a spirited defense of the fishing grounds. The combined efforts of Spain, Italy, Greece, and Tunisia could not possibly succeed against Canada and New England, operating with local air power. The fish wars ended quickly with little loss of life, after the Mediterranean naval squadron sent to protect the fishing fleet settled comfortably and permanently into the silty bottom the Grand Banks. The entire area was designated a Biosphere Preserve, with New England and Canada being named stewards, thereby giving some legal authority to the enforcement of fishing rights beyond the limits of ordinary maritime sovereignty. Careful management has made the region the world’s most productive marine ecosystem, and the Commission still maintains tight control, even with most of the worlds seafood production now coming from farms.

Another small, generally unnoticed symbol of New England/Canadian friendship has been the status of Machias Seal Island. Off the coast of either Maine or New Brunswick depending on political loyalties, this is a tiny island with no human inhabitants, although it is home to a colony of seals. Still, such an island, anywhere else in the world, would probably have been cause for fighting, or at least, fighting words, until one side or the other gained possession. Certainly the Greeks and Turks have a long running history of coming to blows over less. Machias Seal Island has officially been listed as "undetermined status"for centuries, now, and there is no foreseeable chance of a change in status in the future. Some peace activists have pointed to its status as one that could be copied in hotspots around the world (and offworld). Unfortunately the belligerents in those conflicts usually find some reason why the analogy of Machias Seal Island doesn’t hold for their chunk of rock or soil, no matter how insignificant it may be.

Stah-ship Operations

New England is served by two interface systems. One is Barnstable Regional Starport, a minor facility (in the global scheme of things) which handles space planes and shuttles. The other is the Presidential Range Catapult Launch Facility, which sends a major portion of eastern America’s and eastern Canada’s spacebound cargo into orbit each year.

Barnstable Regional Starport occupies a site once used by Otis Air Force Base, south of Boston, Massachusetts. During the building of the region following the Twilight, this area was chosen to replace Logan International Airport, Boston’s major airport that had been lost beneath the encroaching sea. Like many starports on Earth, Barnstable began as an international airport, and expanded its capabilities as the flight characteristics of long range aircraft and interface capable spacecraft began to overlap each other in the 22^nd century. Barnstable has two runways capable of handling orbital traffic. Flights are directed over Massachusetts Bay and Nantucket Sound, well away from inhabited areas. Barnstable received a refit in 2283, and is a medium sized facility built to reflect local style and old fashioned charm. The main control and antenna tower is a structure designed to look like a large white New England lighthouse complete with rotating beacons. Air film tracks connect Barnstable with Providence and Boston, and link with the Old Post Line. Unlike many starports, Barnstable is not considered a commercial center and destination in its own right. There are restaurants for hungry travellers, and the ubiquitous shops to cater to those waiting for a flight, but its not a "happening" place. The main idea is to leave quickly for one’s destination elsewhere in New England, and not hang around shopping or drinking.

Interface flights from Earth are generally performed by Earth based craft, and only very rarely by starships or starship launched interface craft. This is a function of the quarantine in effect. It is very time consuming to clear and entire starship, just in from the frontier, for landing on Earth. It is much quicker to clear just the passengers and cargo being transferred. Interface flights to and from Barnstable are run on very rigid, New England style schedules: "That’s the six o’clock for L-5. Best be abahd, ah she’s leavin’ withoutcha!" Companies with service to and from Barnstable Regional Starport include:

Bay State Aeropsace: The principal passenger carrier connecting New England with all points orbital and beyond. Bay State Aerospace. Unlike the other interface companies here, all of Bay State’s operations are based at Barnstable. Bay State is a major tenant at Barnstable, with a fleet of 16 spaceplanes here. Bay State also has a maintenance facility that cares for the their own spacecraft and others, and owns half of the Starport’s concessions gallery and food court. Bay State cooperates closely with the various interstellar passenger lines, and often keeps several of its spaceplanes in reserve to meet the requirements of incoming and outgoing liners. They typically run 2 flights a day to orbital habitants and transfer points, with up to 3 additional flights meetign specific connecting starships. Bay State employs 800 people. In 2301, they reported income from space flight operations alone (exluding consession and maintenance service income) of about 90 MLv gross, clearing over 5 MLv in pre-tax profit. Their price for a round trip ticket to orbit average 900 Lv during this period. Their freight prices tend to be high, but their clients tend to be moving light, sensitive, high value cargo. These shippers are generally willing to pay a premium.

Velositant: This European corporation spreads itself thin, and one wonders if there’s a starport left on Earth they don’t serve. They operate 2 flights a day from Barnstable. Barnstable Regional Starport is a fairly recent addition to the Velositant empire. In 2288 they acquired the holdings of the collapsing SilverSparrow, a company that had tried and failed to compete with Bay State solely on its own turf.

Horizon: This company specializes in intercontinental as well as interface transport, and flies both types of flights from Barnstable. They tend to fly the largest, latest passenger craft available.

Burlington Starferight: This freight service, detailed below, operates a pair of multipurpose shuttles in support of its regular activities. Seats and cargo room on the shuttles is sold strictly on a "space available" basis. It’s irregular, but inexpensive.

Presidential Range Catapult Launch Facility

Located mostly in northern New Hampshire, this launch complex consists of two parallel magnetic catapult tubes, 65 km long, starting at Saint Johnsbury, Vermont. At the Burlington Starfreight depot here, cargo pods arrive preloaded, and are put through a brief but thorough load and balance test. Failures are reloaded. From here, the pods travel through tubes east southeast across the Connecticut River, execute a very gradual turn in a tunnel beneath the rolling terrain near Bethlehem, New Hampshire, then head almost due east to Mount Washington. Here the tubes turn upward the steep, granite, western face of the mountain, near the historic Mount Washington Cog Railroad. The exit is visible from the museum at the top of the mountain, the tallest in the Presidential Range. Visitors to the museum increased tremendously after the start of catapult operations. This facility serves the northeastern America/Eastern Canada market. Completed in 2187, at a cost of over a 1.1 billion in current Livres, to serve the growing American colonial effort, the original corporate consortium went into red ink and sold out to one of the principal partners, Burlington Transport Group, in 2202. This was done with the aid of a loan package arranged by the American and Canadian governments. Burlington Transport Group (itself a descendant of the Burlington Northern Railroad) divested itself of the catapult operating subsidiary, Burlington Starfreight, in 2253. Burlington Starfreight eventually turned the dismal financial record around, and by 2268 was able to purchase the freight tracks (conventional rail) connecting the Presidential Range Launch Facility with Sherbrooke, Quebec, northern Vermont and southern New Hampshire, as part of its service streamlining philosophy. Since then, development of efficient procedures has allowed the company to survive competition from the Beanstalk, and even beat the Beanstalks prices. (And in all likelihood, it will continue to do so until the Orbital Elevator’s massive construction bonds are paid off.)

Burlington Starfreight’s corporate philosophy is to separate the customer interface from the surfce to orbit interface. By this, they mean that Burlington Starfreight takes control of a cargo long before it reaches the catapult, and doesn’t return it to the custody of the shipper until long afterwards. Outbound cargos are loaded into launch containers at depots far from the complex, co-located with the Burlington Starfreight Rail depots in Sherbrooke, Burlington, Manchester, and Portsmouth. Truck deliveries are accepted at the launch complex itself, but the company discourages it. Steady customers pack their own (Burlington approved) containers at their own depots, further simplifying the freight transfer routine. The Presidential Range Maglev catapults launch two 40-ton capacity containers almost simultaneously, approximately every 90 minutes. These rockets boosted containers, quite pricey at 78 KLv each and good for only about 80 launches, are custom built by an aerospace company in Quebec with a long term contract. The volume and steady purchases allows Burlington to acquire better containers for the money than the average buyer. Once launched, the containers are collected in low orbit by Burlington Starfreight’s small orbital cargo terminal. Launches are timed to intercept the terminal. From here, with the aid of Bulington’s five tugboats, and three CargoDevil freight handlers, the cargo is sent to more distant points for pickup, typically the L-4 and L-5 habitats. The tugs are inexpensive but dependable workhorse craft produced by the Ronald Reagan Society Shipyard. The rules under which the catapult operates stipulate that major end items purchased in support of catapult operations be bought from American companies. This shipyard is as American as Burlinton Starfreight could find. The tugs, named with the maiden names of wives of presidents represented in the Presidential Range, are the MSS Martha Custis, Abigail Smith, Martha Skelton, Dolly Todd, and Elizabeth Kortright.

The whole operation keeps the customers’ starships well clear of the crowded and busy Earth orbit area. The catapult containers are returned to Barnstable Regional Starport via the company’s two shuttlecraft, which also service and support the orbital facility and spacecraft, and then returned to Burlington Starfreight’s Manchester facility for prepping for the next flight. The company maintains a sizeable workforce, with 490 payroll employees on Earth and 80 more in space. The combination of streamlined operations and the company’s habit of performing a lot of the hard work in-house (and in this area Burlington Starfreight surely had an advantage in its cargo handling heritage, as compared with other operators spring from the aerospace industry) has kept costs down. Cost to from Depot to the L-5 habitat per ton in 2301 was only 480 Lv, with steady customers receiving a discount. In 2301, the company had gross receipts in excess of 150 MLv, (mostly from catapult launches of cargo, but they do collect some money from shuttle operations, rail operation, concessions, and hat and shirt sales) and lifted more than 300,000 tons.

Transportation

Most regional passenger movement in New England is by private car or by Mag-Lev train. The Mag-Lev tracks themselves are all publicly owned. Companies bid for the right to operate the system, winning three year contracts. Ticket prices are part of the bid package, and does not change during the course of a three year operating contract. With each new contract, they may move up or down, in response to the current business climate. Competition keeps the variance to a minimum, but there have been occasional failures in the system, such as the Old Post Scandal of 2296, in which one company conspired with government officials to disqualify all of the competing bids. The Mag-Lev lines all have permanent names, a boon to map makers and travellers, and retain these names regardless of the current operating company. New England Mag-Lev tracks are all heated in the winter to melt snow, but snow accumulations often temporarily overwhelm the system, causing delays. All of the lines have both express and local trains. These lines are:

Old Post Line: Follows the coast from New York City to Boston, then north and east to Eastport, maine, by way of Lowell, Massachusetts, Seabrook and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Portland, Lewiston, Augusta, Waterville and Bangor, Maine. Connects to Canadian lines at Eastbrook. Second busiest line, but the slowest line due to the many turns along the route. The following costs and times, as of 2301, assume departure from New York City’s Grand Central Station. Times reflect local service train, as the express train to Boston on the Nutmeg Line requires only 45 minutes.

Destination Time (minutes) Cost (Lv)

Stamford, Connecticut 10 3.5

New Haven, Connecticut 20 7

New London, Connecticut 30 10

Westerly, Rhode Island 36 12

West Warwick, Rhode Island 42 15

Providence, Rhode Island 48 15.75

Brockton, Massachusetts 56 18.75

Boston, Massachusetts 62 20.5

Nutmeg Line: Also connects New York City and Boston, via and inland route linking Stamford, Bridgeport, Waterbury and Hartford, Connecticut, and Springfield and Worcester, Massachusetts. This is the area’s first and fastest airfilm route.

Granite Line: Connects Portsmouth, New Hampshire with Burlington, Vermont, by way of Manchester, Concord, and Montpelier.

Champlain Line: Links New York City to Burlington, Vermont (with express trains continuing on into Canada) by way of Springfield and Greenfield, Mass, and Brattleboro and Rutland, Vermont. The stretches on these last two lines, such as that between Brattleboro and Rutland on the Champlain Line, encounter some of the steepest grades traversable by Mag-Lev, and the trains are relatively slow. The steepest areas are crossed by way of tunnels. These are the youngest of the Mag-Lev lines in the region.

Cape Cod Line: Connects Boston and Providence with Fall River, New Bedford,, Barnstable Regional Airport, and several points along Cape Cod. The route out to the cape beyond Barnstable Regional Airport is seasonal in nature, with many more trains during the summer than the winter.

Aviation

The speed of airfilm travel has made local aviation close to obsolete, although private and charter aircraft still fly into the smaller airfields throughout the region. The principal regional airline is Pine Tree Air, which serves many smaller destinations the airfilms miss, as well as providing feeder service to the big airports. Pine Tree Air operates direct flights to Bar Harbor, Maine (a popular vacation site) and Bretton Woods, New Hampshire (home of Burlington Starfreight’s main offices and company owned recreation facility and resort motel- once used as a Presidential Retreat). Long range air transport is served by Kadurian International Airport in Portland, Maine, Barnstable Regional Starport, and Bradley International Airport in Connecticut. International airlines serving at least one of these destinations include France Aerovoyages, Horizon, Interair, and Novoflot. One small but aggressive airline, Pondhopper connects New England with the United Kingdom, and Mariner Air links the region with the Canadian Maritime Provinces and Quebec.

Roads: An excellent road net, fully supported by hydrogen fuel and service stations, serves all of New England. Major through highways are "smart" highways, capable of directing properly equipped vehicles without input from the driver. Curiously, although 88 percent of American drivers believe their own driving skills enable safer, quicker, and more efficient travel than the smart highway computer systems, this is actually true for only 4 percent of drivers. In New England, 71 percent of drivers- but only 49 percent of male drivers- use the smart highway system when available. Although better by far than the national average, this seems to indicate that a great many New England drivers, although claiming to be able to handle their vehicles better than the computer, in reality know better. The major highways ar all "pay as you go" highways belonging to the New England Turnpike system. The funds collected go to the general road maintenance fund. The roads linking the smaller towns and villages are all for manual driving only. Many are narrow, steep, and treacherous in the winter.

Marine Transportation

Despite New England’s Long association with the sea, New England has none of America’s major terminals for ocean going traffic. This is surprising, considering it has the closest American harbors to Europe. New York, New Jersey and the mid Atlantic states have harbors with better connections to America’s freight rail network and highways, and the reality is, if a company is willing to haul its stuff all the way to New England just to load a ship closer to Europe, it might as well continue on into Canada and get even closer. There are a number of hovercraft ferry lines, though. One links Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Portland, Maine, with Nova Scotia. Others take travelers to Block and Nantucket Islands.

Law Enforcement

New England relies on the traditional 3-tier American law enforcement system, with Federal, State, and local offices. The regional headquarters for the Federal Bureau of Investigation is in Worcester, Massachusetts, near the state capitol complex. Their functions here are rather limited. Inter-state law enforcement agreements among the New England States makes for tight cooperation amongst the state agencies in dealing with crimes crossing state lines. The Feds are called in when other states are involved (its most usually New York) or when the offense being investigated is national in nature. The FBI also provides certain specialist capabilities not available at the state level. The state police, in turn, provide special services not organic to the local police departments.

New England’s most challenging police work is done by the police departments of the Urban Strip. The highest crime rates there are encountered by the officers of the South Boston Division, as well as the Stamford, Bridgeport, and New Haven Divisions along the southeast coast of Connecticut. Much of the northern tier is close to crime free, with drunkenness and the inevitable "Fluffy is stuck where, Mrs. Haverstraw?" type of calls keeping their much smaller police forces occupied. All the States maintain marine police units, the largest being Maine’s, and the smallest being Vermont’s, which has a Hovercraft unit on Lake Champlain.

The judicial system is also run according to the standard American model, with one exception. It’s generally accepted in New England that a juror can be impartial while not being ignorant. New England juries are therefore not screened, as are juries in many other areas of the country. It’s actually an old tradition in small town New England, where it’s nigh impossible to round up twelve adults without a working knowledge of the goings on in their community. Since the Twilight, no verdict in New England has been successfully appealed on this basis. Each state maintains a Supreme Court. This is the highest law of the land, the exceptions being those few cases that the American Supreme Court deems to be in the national jurisdiction. All the state supreme courts are co-located with state capitols except Rhode Island’s, which is located in the pre-Twilight capitol of Providence. An unusual feature of law in New England is that each state with ocean frontage actively presses its sovereignty out to the limits of American waters. Massachusetts will insist, for example, on the right to put a crime to trial in its courts if that crime occurred on a ship a hundred kilometers off Nantucket, even if the ship at no time came within site of Massachusetts’s land. Most American states maintain the rights to try such cases, only in New England (and a few others) is it actively enforced.

Several private investigative firms are based in New England. These exist primarily to serve the Private investigative companies serving the insurance industry. Fraudulent claims are still one of the greatest expenses faced by the insurance industry, despite advanced fraud detection measures. Some of the activities of the investigators are routine, for example, they will buy tickets on passenger ships to make sure the ship operates how and where the owners reported it would to the insurer. Investigating some of the more involved scams, while rarely physically dangerous, does require particularly tenacious, creative, and clever field agents. Two of the better known agencies are Industrial Data Collection, Inc, a large and conservative company based in New Britain, Connecticut, and Hungry Monkey Investigations and Security, an offbeat upstart competitor based in Providence.

Medical Services

New England has always had a leading role in America’s health care industry. From colonial days, the region has been at the forefront of medical research and medical practice. Some of New England’s landmark institutions were lost during the Twilight years, but enough survived to continue this strong tradition. The New England Medical Journal, for example, never ceased publication, although distribution was limited between 2035 and 2055. Most other medical publications, journals, even those larger than the New England Medical Journal prior to the twilight (although there were arguably none more highly respected), such as the Journal of American Medical Association, were unable to maintain themselves during the Twilight.

Even though it was forced to move twice, lost its Internet capabilities and reverted back to strictly a paper publication and saw it distributing decline dramatically, the New England Medical Journal was to do far more than merely survive the twilight. In 2042, the Journal spun off a daily supplementary issue, the New England Medical Daily. This rapidly became a professional medium of dialogue and exchange for New England’s surviving medical centers (and many of those in surrounding regions, including Canada). By 2050, the New England Medical Association, the body of medical professionals overseeing the Journal and the Daily, were coordinating activities of hospitals, clinics, and laboratories throughout the region. By the end of the century, the New England Medical Association was more than the controlling board of a publishing house; it had become a Foundation in its own right, its chief concern being the rebuilding and advancement of medical capability. With the return of the communications net, the New England Medical Daily lost its reason for existence, but the Journal continues to be published, in paper as well as electronic formats, to this day.

The New England Medical Association, relocated to Keene, New Hampshire, continued to grow. Eventually it became an alliance of most of the medical professionals in the region, promoting research and development, setting standards, and overseeing medical training. Today NEMA also turns its attentions outwards. NEMA assists in the establishment of medical facilities on frontier planets, and conducts operations in the most dangerous inner city environments in the Core. They sponsor all sorts of public education programs, subsidize medical research, and send medical teams to disaster areas everywhere. They are currently outfitting an all-volunteer field hospital to be sent to Aurora. The New England Medical Journal continues to be the organization’s mouthpiece, as well as one of Humanity’s best medical publications, and distribution, even of the paper version, has gone beyond world wide to encompass Tirane and many frontier planets.

Of course, the high cost of health care at the time was one of the factors leading up to the Twilight-era financial collapses. The problem then was that the average individual expected all the best that medical technology could offer, the latest, most expensive treatments that could be brought to bear against any ailment. Of course, the average individual couldn’t afford this. Curiously, Americans expected this out of no other industry! A typical low wage employee would never think to demand the most expensive housing, clothing, food, or entertainment as a right. The Pre-Twilight United States government was so stretched by this dilemma that long before the turn of the 21^st century, the reality of health care in the United States was that the government would pay for anything a person needed, but only if that person was penniless! The middle class was forced to accept either poverty or second rate care! The solution eventually arrived at by the New England States, and formalized by the New England Regional Bloc Medical Act of 2112, was to give each citizen a health care voucher, to be spent on the health care organization or insurance provider of the citizen’s choice. The state governments then divested themselves of any further direct involvement with medicine, or at least the bill paying aspect of it. Although today most New Englanders have reasonable health care plans, (and retain the right of paying for additional care if they so desire) it is worth remembering that this system may not have worked three centuries ago. Today’s health care professionals can accomplish a lot more for the same relative cost than their ancestors did. There is genetic screening, which reduces the incidence of congenital disorders, and tolls, like the automed, which can inexpensively perform procedures once requiring rooms of diverse and expensive equipment, and a large crew of independently trained individuals. (who, due the influence of unions in the old system, were generally available to perform but one task and no other, regardless of their workload.) Today, one can live a healthy, normal life, and expect full recovery from the worst of survivable injuries, even if one cannot afford the best, state of the art health care.

Genetic screening has all but eliminated the most crippling diseases, which once upon a time doomed hapless individuals into becoming lifetime wards of the government. Nowhere is it performed better than it is in New England. In fact, many out of area health providers send samples for analysis to New England laboratories. There are still those individuals who for cultural reasons will not accept screening. In New England, this right exists, but if exercised, the parents to be run the risk that they will unable to afford the lifetime of treatment and special equipment needed for a child with a severe genetic handicap. No medical insurer or group provider will cover the cost of an unscreened, afflicted child. As screening, when it is refused, is usually refused on religious grounds, these individuals generally have their needs provided for by a church based charitable organization.

Another important, New England based medical organization is General Biosecure Underwriting Corporation. This is a non-profit corporation dedicated to protecting humanity from extra-terrestrial pathogens. The "Underwriting" portion of the name comes from the services performed by the Corporation for various insurance companies, which often insist upon biological screening protocols on starships and at young colonies, as a condition of the insurance policy. GBU is headquartered in Worcester, but has offices in many star systems. They prefer to place their offworld facilities at outposts rather than colonies. This is based on the idea that if the company is ever to face one of their doomsday scenarios, it is better to be well removed from major population areas. In the event, for example, that it is necessary to decontaminate a starship infected with a highly survivable, highly pathogenic organism, working at a remote outpost minimizes the risk that a planetary environment might be compromised. General Biosecure Underwriting Corporation scientists designed many of the biosecurity protocols now in use with the Orbital Quarantine Command. Much of the their current research revolves around speeding up the procedures while maintaining effectiveness. Since many commercial space transportation companies lose a lot of money while starships sit around getting inspected, the industry as a whole provides a lot of grant money to GBU, as does the OQC itself. Many observers have noted that despite the high ideals of GBU and their non-profit status, top GBU personnel enjoy a very high standard of living. Corporation spokespersons remind observers, all too often, that this is necessary to retain top talent for work in this vitally important field. GBU Corporation is a major sponsor of the annual Trouvelet Golden Moth Award. This golden replica of a gypsy moth commemorates the introduction, in 1868, of this forest destroying pest to Boston by a french businessman, E. Leopold Trouvelet, who hoped to extract silk from its cocoons. It is given each year to the person or organization that, in the opinion of the judges, has committed the most irresponsible act of eco-contamination. Awardees rarely show up to collect their moth. (Runners up receive the Silver Rabbit, sponsored by Austrailia’s Ministry of Agriculture.)

Springfield, Massachusetts is home to a major producer of home health software, Vigicare. Vigicare advanced home health software well beyond simple home databases and medical advice software. Vigicare software, linked to a set of sensors installed in the home, and programmed with the vital statistics of household residents, keeps constant watch over the household and reports on health conditions with an accuracy equalling a team of experienced physicians. Vigicare can interface with other software on the housecomp, and taken emergency or corrective action if need be. For example, it can perform such tasks as summoning medical aide, even unasked, if it senses a traumatic injury and no one else is taking action. (It can sense such an event, for example, by a sudden change in heart rate, breathing, and skin temperature, along with a cessation of motion. Vigicare would automatically summon an ambulance in this event.) In 2293, Vigicare attempted to upgrade its basic edition’s abilities by giving it the ability to observe and diagnose mental health. This was a disaster of epic proportion for the firm. Vigicare was given the ability to compare a wide range of human behavior against several well-known and authoritative codexes of psychological and psychiatric knowledge. It was expected that the Vigicare system would make its usual polite observations and suggestions. ("You exhibit signs of decreased alertness. Perhaps you should rest.") Instead, among the 3 million plus customers who first received the upgrade series over the communications net, Vigicare identified severe mental disorders in every one, and in every one of their family members, over the course of a weekend. To make matters worse, in setups where Vigicare was able to access security software, the system proceeded to follow its instructions and lock all doors and windows to prevent egress by unescorted mentally incapacitated individuals. Years of investigations and lawsuits followed. Strangely, in not one instance was the Vigicare system shown to exhibit flawed operations, and no errors were ever found in the mental health databases the system used.

New England Military

New Englanders maintain a slight distaste for the regular army, as it represents to them the federal government and a surrendering of local control. On the other hand, New Englanders have always supported their local militia and the National Guard. Some of the National Guard units here have long histories, and most are kept in good fighting trim, even though New England isn’t exactly considered a high threat environment. The region is more historically associated with the United States Navy, which maintains forces in the area. There are also several Air Force facilities, as New England offers a strategic position at the extreme northeast corner of the country, with shorter distances to Europe than anywhere else in America. The most notable units based in New England are:

The 86^th Cavalry Brigade, The Green Mountain Boys.

Vermont’s principal maneuver force dates back to revolutionary times, as do many of New England’s formations (history is considered important, here), and carries the name of the volunteers under Ethan Allen who won early victories against British forces in the Revolutionary War. Headquartered at Rutland, Vermont, with subordinate units scattered across the state, the Green Mountain Boys now have a mixed force of airmobile troops, armor, and mechanized infantry. The 1^st Battalion is and Armored and Air Cavalry unit kept on active status, and is available for deployment with national forces.

The 54^th Infantry Brigade

Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, at the Robert Kennedy Armory, the 54^th’s history goes back to the Civil War, when it consisted of African American soldiers with white officers. The States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut re-established this unit during the closing years of the Twilight Era in order to restore order in the decimated urban area. To this day, the 54^th consists of company sized combat units, and larger support units, dispersed in small posts throughout the urban strip. The Brigade’s aviation assets are deployed at medium sized civilian airports in the area. The 54^th as a whole is not a very deployable unit, but detachments of the Brigade have been called up to serve in a number of crises. Equipment tends to be second line.

The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Regiment

Even the New Englanders aren’t sure what this was designated, centuries ago, when it wasn’t so ancient. Kept around for centuries as a ceremonial and parade unit, equipped with muzzle loading cannon, the Ancient Honorables have acquired a new purpose, although they still keep the old guns as well, dragging them out for parades, celebrations, and ceremonies. In a moment of true Yankee humor, the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Regiment was re-equipped as a missile unit, and now mans batteries of surface to surface and surface to air missiles from Rhode Island to Maine, as well as several field deployable mobile missile batteries. In tribute to their unit’s name and history, the Regiment’s mobile equipment is painted to resemble horse drawn caissons, and the unit’s mascots, four large draft horses, often make public appearances pulling a wooden mockup of a missile launcher.

103^rd Field Artillery Brigade

Based in southern New England, the 103^rd Field artillery is a conventional hover-artillery formation equipped with M386 (rocket artillery). M388 (cannon artillery) hovercraft, and a variety of support equipment, most of which are variants of the above. The 103^rd is kept in good combat readiness, with one battalion plus support elements kept in a "7 day readiness" status. One battalion was detached to provide heavy fire support for American Army units operating in the French Arm, and one battalion was recently divided in two provide cadre for the creation of a fourth battalion. Each of the line battalions consists of two firing batteries of rocket launchers, and two of automatic cannons. The Brigade also has a headquarters and service battalion, and a reconnaissance and targeting battalion, one company of which was detached to operate in the French Arm.

Independent Maine Scouts Battalion

This is a second line infantry battalion with its headquarters in Old Towne, Maine, and having as its primary responsibility the security of the extremely placid northeastern frontier of America. There is a running joke that the mission of the Independent Scouts is to control the border with Canada, so that in the event of an invasion of New England by American troops, the scouts can direct the Canadian forces arriving to defend New England. The tale goes back to the hard line tactics employed by New England statesmen during negotiations with the newly reconstituted American federal government at the close of the twilight era. The New Englanders threatened to walk out the talks, and have their states secede from the Union permanently, and join Canada. This surprised the Canadians greatly, who had not yet been consulted on the issue of acquiring additional Maritime Provinces. The Independent Maine Scouts are trained and equipped as light infantry. They are particularly adept at cold weather operations.

Air Force Units:

The 24^th Interceptor Squadron is based at McIntyre Air Force Base at the eastern extremity of Maine, and the 26^th at Barnstable Regional Starport in Massachusetts. Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire is home to the 112^th and 119^th Tactical Air Squadrons, and several support squadrons. All the New England states maintain Air Guards, mostly flying support aircraft, although the Massachusetts air guard fields the very capable 109^th Intelligence and Reconnaissance Wing. The Maine Air guard contributes units to this wing as well, and a reconnaissance detachment usually operates out of McIntyre.

Navy Units:

There are several Naval Stations in New England, which has a long Naval tradition. Vermont, a landlocked state, has the distinction of being the birthplace of the United States navy, as the first vessels authorized b the Continental Congress were built here for action on Lake Champlain. Surface action squadrons operate from Naval Stations at Eastport and Bath, Maine, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Newport, Rhode Island. Submarines operate from the restored base at New London, Connecticut. Coast Guard Squadrons (operating under the command of the Navy since the Twilight) operate out of all of the above stations, as well as Boston Harbor and a number of smaller posts. Naval surveillance aircraft operate out of McIntyre Air Force Base near Eastport, alongside their Air Force colleagues.

The USS Constitution

In 2197, the USS Constitution was returned to Boston, to its new home on the Anthony Cafiero Harbor Promenade, on the occasion of the ship’s 400^th birthday. The ship was rescued from the ravages of the Twilight by the tugboat captain for whom the promenade, now a fashionable harborside retail and restaurant area, was named. The ancient frigate was cared for over a century in Bath, Maine, in tribute to their town’s long association with the United States Navy, even though the town’s shipyard was closed in 2031. The USS Constitution is now preserved with the latest high technology materials, her venerable timbers encased and infused with strong, transparent pseudo-epoxies. Even during the long years in Bath, virtually forgotten by the rest of the United States, she was never stricken form the US Navy list. The ship has recently passed its 500^th birthday, an occasion for which the city of Boston provided a public gala bigger than the city had seen in centuries. Halfway to the millennium mark, the frigate is still, and always has been, on the roster of active duty commissioned warships in the United States Navy. It is now the world’s oldest active warship, although its duties, as they have been for centuries, are mostly related to historical preservation and tourism. The ship is a popular site for United States Navy ceremonies, such as the issuing of significant awards. For their role in the ship’s history, the people of Bath were rewarded when the Navy reopened the shipyard and the Naval Station as well.

There is some sort of strategic defense associated with the Presidential Range Catapult. The American government keeps a tight lid on it, but there are several nearby military reserves under extreme security, with no official function of any importance. Intelligence agencies have also reported that the American military has some contingency plan for rapidly converting the catapult into a weapon of some kind. As usual, the American government has nothing to say about this.

Education and Research

New England, primarily in the southern tier states (Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts,) has occupied a leading position in America’s academic life since the colonial era. New England campuses are filled with historic buildings, many going back to the 18^th century, and the hallowed sites of many "firsts".

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, of course, has always been in a class, almost, unto itself. Based on mathematical papers published in the mid-twentyfirst century, MIT claims to be the birthplace of stutterwarp. And it was in MIT where methods were developed to induce a coherent jump without the prior solution of the quantum wave equation of the entire jumping mass, which made it possible for a stutterwarping device to be self contained. (Prior to this, jumps could only be made for masses after precise calculation of the quantum wave equation. This can be done in a self contained system, as the quantum state of the computer doing the calculating would have to be calculated, and naturally this cannot be known until the calculation is complete. This paradox was resolved in MIT in 2091.) MIT has and will continue to be the premier technological research center in eastern America.

MIT shares historic Cambridge with Harvard University, one of America’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning and the oldest, having been founded in 1636 by the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Harvard exists in close cooperation with MIT, to which it lost the Harvard College Observatory during the Twilight. This event, along with the loss of their Fort Davis facilities, now owned by the Texans, put Harvard out of the astronomy business. The two universities share certain facilities and coordinate their programs, allowing each to concetrate on its specialties. Now, while MIT takes the cutting edge of science, Harvard is content with the soft middle of law, philosophy, history, and the liberal arts. Of course, in these areas, Harvard is second to none. Any Harvard grad will tell you so.

Of course, any Yale grad will tell you otherwise. Harvard’s slightly younger arch-rival has had a more difficult history, having been closed for some years during the Twilight. With Connecticut no longer able to provide security for the school in its traditional home in New Haven, Yale eventually re-opened in Old Saybrook, a more rural and more secure small town, that had once briefly been Yale’s home centuries before (It was just Saybrook, then, not Old Saybrook). The university flourished there, and attempts to return Yale to New Haven have not been successful.

New England is just crawling with ancient centers of learning. Aside from the State Universities maintained in each state of New England, many of which have multiple campuses, there are Wesleyan and Pequot Universities in Connecticut, Brandeis and Wellesly in Massachusetts, Brown University in Rhode Island, Taconic Agricultural University in Vermont, (with many campuses in several states) and Dartmouth in New Hampshire. The United States Coast Guard Academy was relocated from New London, Connecticut to Newport, Rhode Island, where it operated for some years before the Navy permanently annexed the Coast Guard. The facility is now the Rhode Island Maritime Academy, a civilian institution devoted to marine engineering, oceanography, aquaculture, and related disciplines. Most of the above mentioned are pre-Twilight in origin, and those are just the major institutions. Smaller ones are everywhere.

New England is also home to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Research Society. This research organization lost its original home on Cape Cod during the Twilight, but now has facilities scattered across the New England coast. Woods Hole is finding it harder and harder to gather financial support for its work. With more offworld research efforts going on every year, its getting difficult to convince sponsors to support scientific endeavors in Earth’s familiar oceans. The Woods Hole scientists stay afloat, if the pun maybe excused, on grants from the New England-Maritime Provinces Grand Banks Biosphere Preserve Commission and the fishing industry.

Agriculture

Only briefly in its history has New England been a net agricultural exporter. Farms here tend to be small (The exception being the potato fields of northern Maine) and not well suited for large scale, mechanized production. The very factors that make agriculture unprofitable in the technological age, however, allowed it to continue and even expand during the Twilight. After more than two centuries, this fact is not forgotten by the states, nor have they overlooked the Twilight Era ecological damage caused by industrial scale farming- the Pfisteria Plagues of the southern east coast waters, for example, having been brought on by massive hog production in huge factory farms. The New England governments, with strong popular support, back their small farms with a wide variety of assistance programs. This is looked at in two ways; keeping an important part of local heritage alive, and maintaining a sort of insurance policy, should civilization on Earth ever stumble again.

New England is a strong exporter of seafood, producing both fish and shellfish. Most of the catch is produced in marine farms, aquaculture being locally important since pre-Twilight days. Connoisseurs of seafood still insist that the best flavor comes from wild catches. Ocean fishing and shellfish collecting is an important industry, and carefully controlled. Foreign fishing ships are excluded from New England’s waters, except for Canadian vessels. Under the oversight of the New England-Maritime Provinces Grand Banks Biosphere Preserve Commission, each nation’s ships are permitted to fish the other’s waters. Lobsters, of course, are the most famous products of New England’s waters, and again, though farms produce the bulk of the harvest, there are those willing to pay extra for wild lobster. Other than advances to the boats themselves, now largely hydrogen powered, water jet engined craft, and the fact that New England’s lobstermen now have a union, little has changed in the collection of wild lobsters since pre-Twilight days.

Potatoes are a regionally important crop, although on the national scale larger producers eclipse New England. Yankee Kitchen Foods operates a number of large farms in upper Maine, as well as producing the most famous brand of Potato Chip in America, Yankee Hearth (marketed as Aristook Hearth Crisps in Europe). Years ago, attempts to export the chips offworld, using the Presidential Range Catapult to get the product to orbit proved a dismal failure. Potato chips are among the foods least suited to freefall, and the catapult launches consistently reduced the chips to crumbs. Yankee Kitchen Foods then developed Potato-Foam, a product more able to tolerate the rigors of space travel, while preserving some of the more important attributes of the chip. It is still the most popular potato based snack food exported off world. High value to mass ratio makes the stuff a reasonably economic candidate for space export.

New England is also humanities leading producer of cranberries, although the market is very small. Vegetables and grains are farmed, although New England is a net importer of both. The region is a net exporter of dairy products, and a strong exporter of maple syrup.

In Rutland, Vermont, there is a large white granite statue of a dog, specifically, a Border Collie. This statue has graced the front lawn of the Northeastern Border Collie Owner’s Cooperative since 2099. The Border Collie is, of course, the true gift of the British Isles to dogdom, and it was with the aid of these remarkable animals that productive and efficient herding of sheep and other animals was to remain feasible in New England and the surrounding areas through the twilight years. Raised in the area since long before the twilight, in the closing years of the twentieth century small-scale farming had become increasingly unprofitable. Shepherding was increasingly done as a hobby, with the sheep raised essentially to keep the Border Collies occupied with their hereditary task, rather than to provide income. When large scale mechanized farming fell down, small-scale operations, slowed but never abandoned in the years prior, quickly took up the slack, aided by a human population that had never truly given up on the old, pre-industrial ways of doing things. Hunger struck many areas of America in those lean years, but not often in New England. Lamb and mutton kept New Englanders fed; wool kept them warm. The Cooperative coordinated the efforts of sheepherders throughout the region, and eventually grew in the manner of their model, the Alberta Farmers’ Cooperative. Today they support small, independent farms throughout the region, again threatened by large, high tech operations. The Cooperative acts as central buyer and distributor, and has engulfed a number of related craft industries in New England. They mass market the output of the region’s farms, globally and offworld.

Insurance

New England, particularly the southern tier states, is home to many insurers and underwriters. Once concentrated in the Hartford, Connecticut area, these companies have maintained their offices here over the years because of the availability of local talent. This is an example of an economic positive feedback loop. Because many insurance companies were based here, people in the area developed skills pertinent to that sector of the economy, and others with the appropriate skills moved in. As new firms established themselves, especially after the Twilight, they put down roots in the area to take advantage of the already existing educated workforce. The Communications Net (then called the internet) was shut down for decades during the Twilight, and it was no longer feasible for many businesses to spread their main operations around the world, or even around the country. They regrouped where they could. None of the firms now present date back to pre-Twilight times, (the losses suffered by the Twilight put a good many firms out of business) but a few come close. Today, the insurance industry has spread out between Hartford, Springfield, and Providence, but it still forms a very strong regional concentration. Some of the better known insurance firms in the area are:

Equitrust; Based in Hartford, Connecticut. This is a big, general coverage type of company insuring the health and well being of private citizens, their possessions, and the companies they work for. Equitrust has offices nationwide and offworld.

Tranquility, Based in Hartford, Connecticut, is a competitor in the general market to Equitrust- the Intercorporate Badminton League of New England reports particularly high levels of tension and animosity when teams from these two insurance giants face off.

Old Hartford, Based in Hartford, Connecticut, is one of the broadest scope insurance companies in existence. They have low end minimal health maintenance polices, and umbrella coverage for the largest corporations, and special policies customized to specific individuals. They are well known for superior service, and higher than average rates.

Solidarity Mutual, Based in Providence, Rhode Island, markets policies towards middle and upper class individual policyholders, rather than corporations, but it does take on a lot of small business accounts. It also insures many non profit organizations and foundations.

Providential, Based in Providence, Rhode Island, is a big general insurance provider with a lot of assets that now makes more money on investments than it does from clients.

Journeyer’s Medical and Industrial Insurance Company provides employers’ coverage to companies throughout America and Canada. The also provide vehicle insurance, and cover some transportation and starship companies.

Halo Indemnity handles big corporate and shipping accounts, and has many starship operators as clients. Its competition tends to be more foreign than local.

Butterfly, Based in Webster, Massachusetts, is a small and aggressive newer company that markets a wide range of polices to younger generation clients.

Asylum Hill Citizen’s Mutual, based in Hartford, Connecticut, provides low cost limited liability medical coverage. It licenses its own clinics and is particularly strong in middle and lower class urban areas.

Insurance companies dealing with space operations have lobbied strongly and successfully for international standards in liability and insurance coverage laws. Liability limits have now been established, as per the Honolulu convention of 2288, at Lv 500,000 maximum in the case of death or injury to a crewmember, or Lv 1,000,000 for a passenger. Possessions, unless separately declared and insured, are covered to a maximum of Lv 5,500 for crew and Lv 11,000 for passengers. Cargo insurance is the responsibility of the owner, not the shipper, and coverage is therefore variable. All rates are determined by actuarial tables, and depend on the insurance ratings of the ship and the destinations it intends to visit. Ratings A, AA, and AAA are given to normally insurable ships and locations, with AAA earning the lowest rates. Ellis’s Boise terminal, for example, is considered an AAA location. Ships never approach the planet itself, and docking is handled in a very professional and safe manner. B rated ships and destinations are insurable with restrictions. An Asterix following the B indicates more severe restrictions, while "BB" indicates a spaceport or ship that would have an AA or AAA rating but for one significant problem. Hochbaden, for example, rated a BB before the Kafer war. Great place for starship operations, with one problem. C means a condition exists prohibiting coverage under the Honolulu convention, but one that is considered correctable. D reflects a condition considered uncorrectable, ie, a ship good for nothing but scrap. Insurance agencies hand out ratings in regular inspections of their clients, and the companies are loath to alter a rating given by another company. If one company has given your ship an A rating, don’t expect another to give it a different one unless you’ve made some real improvements. Because the insurance companies are driven by the bottom line rather than politics, their inspection ratings can be more accurate guides to a starhip or starport’s safety than any national organization. No matter how bad the indictments made by the French of a British or German ship’s record, for example, if Halo Indemnity grants it the Triple A, rest assured that it is one safe ship, and that the French report can be passed off as mere propaganda.

The formulas weighing the various destinations along a route, and the rating of the starship itself, to arrive at an overall policy rating, are company secrets of the highest order, and are continuously recalculated by advanced computers. As of 2301, the owners of a starship with an overall policy rating of A could expect to be charged around the following (actual rates vary):

General Comprehensive Coverage: insures against damage to the starship and damage caused by the starship: 3% of starship’s value, annually.

Passenger Coverage: 4.8 Lv per passenger per light year travelled.

Crew Coverage: 3.1 Lv per crewmember except freight handlers and engineers per light year travelled. Engineers are 3.4 Lv per crewmember, and cargo handlers are 3.1 Lv plus 3 Lv per shift unloading in an atmosphere, 7 Lv per shift unloading in pressure suit conditions.

Commerce

The commercial areas of interest in New England are all found within the Urban Strip, although items of local farms, craftsmen, and artists can often be found in the small shops of the rural area.

Several of the more interesting commercial areas include:

Harvard Square, Cambridge: This trendy area outside the main entrance of Harvard preserves a number of ancient structures, although not in the original condition. It’s an area of bright colors, bright lights, loud music, chain restaurants, and pricey boutiques that cater to the fashionable young with access to their parent’s accounts. The bright spot in this monument to commercialism is MIT’s Lab Store. The Lab Store sells the strange and unusual efforts of MIT’s brightest, or possibly second brightest students. It’s full of whimsical technological devices that perform a wide variety of functions none of them necessary enough to ever create a viable market for the machines. For example, there’s a intricate array of tweezer-equipped mechanical fingers. This is a fly tying robot. It’s capable of tying over 800 different flies, in about two thirds of the time of an average trout fisherman. There’s the amazing variable painting. Able to mimic literally any painting (the versions sold here are programmed for a few dozen) the variable painting is not a light source, so it can accurately recreate the shadings and textures of paintings. The secret is a skin composed of millions of almost microscopic spheres, each with color spots around its surface that can be individually maneuvered into new configurations by way of micro-magnets. The Holographic Offspringer compares DNA samples of two individuals- a swab of loose skin cells or a strand of hair will do- and creates a holographic rendering of what the hypothetical child of the two subjects would look like at various stages of growth. Great fun at parties. The inertially guided billiard balls need no further description.

Other major retail areas include Old Boston, (especially the Historic District, and the Anthony Cafiero Harbor Promenade), the Symphony Village in the Bershires, and the Freeport Commercial District in Maine, long a center for mass marketed clothing and high quality outdoorswear, as well as a bizarre "we never close, ever," t

Although not as impressive as the above, each of the other major cities and towns of New England has a commercial center, such as those found in Mariner Mall and Old Town in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the Roger Williams Arcology in Providence, and the Frog Hollow District of Hartford, an importer’s center with a cosmopolitan, international atmosphere.

Power

Power production in New England, in 2301, averaged 124,000 Megawatts. Consumption was about 89,000 Megawatts, including 1100 Megawatts for the Presidential Range Catapult. This is over twice the figures of Pre-twilight New England. The region was a net power exporter then and remains so today. New Englanders have exploited almost all of their economically feasible sources of hydroelectric power, and have installed a tidal energy collection system along sections of the Maine Coast. Both of these elements of New England’s power supply are owned and operated by Housatonic/Longellow Utility. The tidal project has yet to show a profit, and is subsidized by the company’s other facilities. The tidal generators, rather simplistically designed devices deployed in mass to convert wave action into electric power, are notoriously difficult to protect from damage caused by sea life. Currently, HLU is investigating a new advanced polymeroid coating that offers barnacles and other marine organisms no purchase on which to establish themselves. Stockholders wait with baited breath.

Almost all of the other power is produced by fusion plants, scattered across New England, owned by half a dozen operating companies and cooperating under the New England Power Agency.

Industry and Mining

New England has little in the way of mineral resources, excepting those located offshore, and those the New Englanders are loath to touch. What it does have is construction grade stone, marble, granite, and slate, and lots of it. The Granite quarry in Barre, Vermont, for example, has been mined since the 19^th century and will be producing for many centuries to come, at current rates of production.

Forestry has changed dramatically in the last few centuries. Loggers no longer strip forests bare. (Mankind actually learned something from the Twilight Era!) Genetic engineering has produced trees that can be grown to harvestable size in one decade instead of six to ten, and trees need no longer be cut for the paper industry, as vat grown cellulose has become the standard source of paper pulp. (Some specialty papers do require the inclusion of natural wood fibers, but this is a small demand easily supplied without significant damage to forests) Tree farms are located throughout Maine. They have the look of brush free, geometrically perfect forests, with the trees in precise rows. Natural trees still provide some features that farm grown trees just can’t match, and Maine licenses forestry companies to harvest limited numbers of trees annually, and never through clear-cutting. The two biggest forestry companies are Nairung Lumber, headquartered in Bangor, Maine, and Penobscot Lumber of Old Towne. The two are roughly matched in size, each having thousands of employees, and are perennial competitors.

Heavy shipbuilding declined prior to the Twilight, vanished entirely during, and never recovered. Light shipbuilding, on the other hand, experienced a resurgence, partly because wood was again a logical material from which to build boats and small ships. Local demand later sparked the marine technology industry, and a string of companies in coastal cities now manufacture fishing gear, salvage equipment, specialized ship systems, yachts, personal watercraft, fishing boats, air compressors, sonars- a wide range of equipment to support the ocean going market.

Luggage and knitwear are two of the major exported products of the northern tier states, the latter manufactured by countless small "cottage factories" and marketed globally and offworld by the Northeastern Border Collie Owner’s Cooperative. Evolass, the internationally known manufacturer of high quality leather goods, luggage, and travel accessories is headquartered in Kennebunk, Maine.

Southeastern Connecticut has a strong chemical industry, producing insulation, paints and coatings, and other products. Bridgeport is home to Coordinated Chemical, which produces sprayable ablative coatings for the space industry. Massachusetts is home to Bergini and Goldstein, a producer of fine musical instruments in the classical styles, while Rhode Island boasts a number of firms turning out crystal, silver, and ceramic housewares.

Recreation, Entertainment and the Arts

New England has never been on the cutting edge. If its new here, its been played to death elsewhere. On the other hand, they consider themselves the stewards of quality, classic culture. They maintain many pre-Twilight institutions, such as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, established in Boston in 1780 and still there, although the city’s Museum of Fine Arts, founded in 1870, was lost.

Other pre-Twilight survivors include the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester (A foundation actually revitalized by the Twilight), the Mark Twain estate in Hartford, and the Manchester Institute of Arts and Sciences. This just scratches the surface. Cultural institutions run as thick as educational centers here, and in fact Harvard alone owns several museums and a pair of historical libraries.

During the Twilight, as civil insurrection raved the Urban Strip, the Boston Symphony Orchestra retreated to its summer home, Tanglewood, in the scenic Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts. They stayed, and are now the well known Massachusetts Symphony Orchestra.

New England has professional sports teams participating in most of the more popular sports, Soccer, Baseball, Hockey, and others. MIT sponsors the region’s bucketball team, with transport of the team to orbital matches provided by Burlington Starfreight- it’s a way to call a shuttle flight a tax write-off. MIT’s team, the Massachusetts Tensors, has a particularly strong but friendly rivalry with their counterparts in based in Cambridge, England, the Cambridge Singularities. The fans of both teams tend to cheer their teams on not with the traditional chants of other fans at athletic events, but with arcane mathematical equations, often summing up questionable mathematical proofs showing that their team, and not the opponents, will prevail.

Recreation in the region tends to divide people into two camps- those who hit the beaches and those who prefer the mountains. Both natural features are present in ample proportions, with excellent access. Although long settled, New England has plenty of parks and natural preserves. Many, if examined closely enough, reveal mankind’s past abuses upon the land, but nature here is vibrant and has recovered much of what was lost. Hunting and fishing are still popular in the northern tier states, although New England’s wildlife, even before mankind reached the stars, was never considered exceptionably challenging. And that brings us to, at last: