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War and Chaos in California – (2020-2055)
The Third World War was devastating to the region that would become Southowilson. The city of San Francisco and the huge megalopolis around it were primary targets of the nuclear attacks of late summer of 2020. The immediate postwar years nearly spelled the end of world civilization. In addition to the devastation caused by bombs, deliberate manipulation of the Earth's upper atmosphere led to a global inability to communicate via radio transmission over long distances. Central California held together longer than most regions thanks to the heavy federal presence in the San Joaquin Valley, but eventually even that failed. The United States essentially withdrew to strongholds east of the Rockies, leaving California to go its own way completely by 2028. For nearly a decade, the entire state was wracked by disorder, warfare, and starvation. Factional fighting ebbed and flowed in the north, while the Mexican Army dug in and stayed in southern California. All in all, conditions were not too different from post-Roman Europe, with the weak ruled by the strong. In some parts of the San Joaquin valley, an actual feudal order took root, with powerful landowners and the bands of fighters loyal to them ruling over tenant farmers, exchanging food for security. Over time, such loose arrangements evolved into the proto-states that would survive today.
In 2042, General Anthony Salazar, a prominent SoCali warlord and former officer in the United States Army, managed over the course of a year to unify all of Southern California under his rule, adding Baja California to his territory. In 2044, General Salazar named himself as president of the Constitutional Republic of Southern California, and reinstated a written constitution based on the now defunct US Constitution. President Salazar made diplomatic and military overtures to surrounding regions. SoCal's government was heavily centralized and based around the military, almost Latin American in nature, but it was stable and successful enough to bring peace to the region and drive back marauders.
In response to this perceived threat to their autonomy, several political entities in the San Joaquin Valley and around the bay area decided to attempt unification. Negotiations took nearly two years, but in 2037 the Republic of Northern California, sometimes called the Bear Republic or just NorCal, issued a proclamation of its own existence. In 2038, the government of NorCal built a military base on Suisun Bay, intended to control the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento River regions. Named Fort Wilson after a famous war hero of WWIII, it soon became a nucleus of local commerce and industry. Located in a convenient place for trade, fishing, and settlement, the small town that grew up in the shadow of the fortress came to be known simply as Southowilson. Despite efforts to give it a different name, Southowilson stuck and was adopted officially in 2052. Over the next decades, the two states consolidated their own power internally, bringing a modicum of stability to California, and even managed to bring back prosperity. A series of wars were fought in the 2050's resulted in the current borders agreed to by treaty (a line running roughly northeast from Morrow Bay through Fresno on out to Mono Lake), and both states fought against the American Federal Republic in 2061 as it attempted for the last time to reassert control of California.
The Recovery and the Golden Years (2065-2075)
By the 2060's California had stabilized, and the region slowly rejoined the booming postwar global economy. Southowilson became a popular stop for ships making the trading circuit around the Pacific, and it's rough harbor slowly expanded. NorCal developed its industrial capacity, while its southern neighbor expanded agricultural production as it grappled with a variety of Mexican successor states. Southowilson grew almost overnight into a very important industrial center, achieving the place once held by San Francisco. Over the next several decades, large numbers of people emigrated from all over the hemisphere, joining in the rapid expansion of the city. Southowilson was transformed from a military town to North America's gateway to the Pacific. The harbor grew to accommodate the enormous bulk submarine transports in use by the 2070's. Southowilson's prosperity continued for many decades to come, almost single-handedly propelling NorCal into the ranks of the global economic powers. By 2070, NorCal's economic heart was the Southowilson Metroplex, though the national capital remains in Redding.
The Era of Ikebara (2075-2090)
In 2063, the Ikebara Foundation, an international consortium devoted to the idea of creating urban arcologies as a unique solution to the increasing population and urbanization of the 2060's, set forth on it's plan to build one of three prototype arcologies in the Southowilson area. This ambition plan aimed to create a thousand story tower, one of the largest engineering feats ever attempted. Previously impossible, new materials developed in the 2060's made such a structure plausible. The government of NorCal, which had been seeking some means of attaining international prestige, gave the Ikebara Foundation the go-ahead. Construction began in 2075 after years of ground clearing and preparatory construction. Almost overnight the city of Southowilson increased in sized by a quarter. Entire new districts of town were created to house the tens of thousands of workers and millions of tons of machinery and materials needed to construct the leviathan Ikebara Tower. The tower was completed in nine years, with the crowning ceremony performed on New Years Day, 2084. Tenants began moving in overnight; early arrivals faced the inevitable teething pains of a new and complex construction, but by and large Ikebara Tower was a success. Construction started on similar towers in Singapore, Rio De Janeiro, and Pretoria.
The Big One (2086)
Disaster struck in 2086, when the long awaited "Big One" struck California. First predicted in the 1940's, this earthquake devastated much of the Pacific coast of North America. San Angeles (LA/San Diego Sprawl) was decimated, and SoCal was thrust into martial law, undoing generations of relatively stable and enlightened politics in the chaos. NorCal's sporadic efforts to rebuild the San Francisco Bay area were smashed and finally were given up for good in 2087. Southowilson suffered moderate damage; South Harbor residential districts subsided suddenly, and the Southern Industriplex suffered a huge chemical leak, killing thousands and spurring the creation of the Northern Industriplex. The biggest fear was that Ikebara Tower would collapse, which in itself would have been the death knell for the city of Southowilson. Defying even its designer’s expectations, the mile high tower withstood the shock of the quake. It suffered enough structural damage that the NorCal government officially condemned it, but it did not fall. This left Southowilson with a damaged megastructure that would require a nuclear weapon to demolish. Unfortunately, the loss of the Ikebara Tower weakened the Ikebara Foundation financially, and the outbreak of war doomed the organization. A large part of Southowilson’s economy dried up overnight.
NorCal and the Fourth World War (2085-2095)
During the 2080's and 2090's, the three great southern superstates (SACPA, Oceania, and the SAR) clashed repeatedly over resources in a series of conflicts later collectively named the "Fourth World War". During the Fourth World War, NorCal was a noncombatant that traded freely with all of the rival factions at one point or another. No open fighting occurred in or around NorCal's territory, though numerous instances of small covert actions did happen. In 2094, the Fourth World War ended with a series of epochal summits in Stockholm, Skandia. NorCal participated to the extent that a minor regional power could, and parleyed its highly literate population into an industrial boom. NorCal rode the postwar global wave of prosperity, revitalizing the high tech industry destroyed in the earthquakes, and building the Montezuma Fusion Plant with corporate assistance.
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