The People's Republic of California

==History==
===Pre-war===
Originally a Spanish colony, the territory of California went to Mexico in 1812 following the Mexican War of Independence, but was in turn ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican-American War. Substantial economic development brought on by World War II saw California become a significant manufacturer of warships, and after the war this expanded into aerospace and defense. After the end of the Cold War, this too fell by the wayside, and economic focus instead shifted to entertainment and technology, with Silicon Valley becoming the home of many of the world's largest high-tech corporations. Coupled with this, however, came significant strain from a comparatively massive population and routine economic mismanagement, and in the later years before the war California became known for an obscenely high cost of living, a consistent net domestic migration loss, urban congestion, aging and poorly maintained infrastructure, drought, and massive yearly wildfires.
===Human-Vannai War===
California was subject to extensive VP attack throughout the war due to its rather large and technologically integrated population. The Rocky Mountains formed a substantial natural barrier throughout this period that made contact by land with the rest of the continent difficult, and very soon a feeling of isolation set in with the remaining population. After the destruction of the initial invasion passed, survivors regrouped and began to coordinate recovery. Resources were tightly controlled by the provisional government - a control enforced by arms and violence when necessary. Certain individuals and idealogues saw this as a long awaited opportunity to forcibly change the nature of the society they lived in, and disagreements began to crop up on when exactly the economy should switch from controlled, command style to a free market, capitalist one. Both sides quickly radicalized against one another, provoked by friction of ideology already present before the war, and the population naturally began to split along ideological lines. Those in favor of a less pervasive government moved north, founding the country of Jefferson, while those who aspired for greater control moved south, forming the People’s Republic of California. 
Under the new government, private land and assets were abolished, taken by force and consolidated by the National Council. Unfortunately, ignorance of how exactly these newly-appropriated assets worked led to massive failings of agriculture, causing mass famine and amplifying the increasing desertification of the region. With thousands dying every week to starvation, raiders and internal strife, the PRC project would have likely been abandoned were it not for Kantoku Corp's intervention. KTK provided advanced agricultural technology to the PRC free of charge, as well as a legion of KTK employees willing to work for nothing more than the bare essentials. Thanks to KTK’s aid, the PRC gradually recovered and began to flourish as agricultural infrastructure was restored or improved. Coupled with this came a miraculous transformation in the character of the average worker, as more and more Californians adopted a similar work ethic of selfless labour exhibited by the Kantoku employees. Accusations that the corporation was actually made up mostly of gene-programmed pod-people and actively replacing local populations with more of their kind were written off as slander from outsiders jealous of the success born of the humble clone slave worker. Despite being a privately-owned corporation and the antithesis of everything the People’s Republic of California claims to believe in, the relationship between the PRC and Kantoku became a deeply intertwined one.
===Post-war===
The end of the war in 2017 was the start of an interesting epoch for the PRC. Now with the full backing of Kantoku Corp, the PRC rebounded strongly, recovering the dense southern California metropolis and reestablishing itself as a tremendous supplier of unskilled labor and agriculture. Claiming success of the first Five Year Plan that had begun in 2014, the PRC began to set its sights on reclaiming the entirety of the US west coast, dreaming of eventually becoming a nation with international presence and influence that could spread its success to the rest of the world. In May 2019, the PRC became the permanent home of their local Kantoku branch. It was one of the few countries that contested Japan's claims of "bodysnatchers" and population infiltration and replacement programs, instead offering support for the corporation in light of all the good they had done for the population of the southern region of the west coast. 
==Government==
The PRC government consists of a series of democratic councils. At the lowest level, a local councilor or representative is elected directly by popular vote. They also serve as voters to the next higher council, the regional level. Regional councilors vote on membership into the national council, which is the highest governing authority of this system. Councilors hold absolute legislative and executive authority relative to the position they are elected to hold; city councilors have absolute control of their cities, but the national council overrides any motion made by a lower council. The national council writes and enacts all laws and policies. The national council elects one of their members to act as the Chairman of the National Council, who acts as the council's speaker and representative. Each councilor is able to establish a small executive committee which assists with administration. Councilors may be recalled and/or relieved from their positions by majority vote at the appropriate council level. Under this system, all political parties are banned. 
==Policies==
===Military===
The PRC’s military forces are made of the finest, bravest volunteers, and also those determined to not yet be ready to embrace a progressive society of equality free of hatred. Company overseers ensure that morale remains high, and fresh volunteers are always arriving from the southern border or signing up from the cities by the traincar-full.
Thanks to extremely strict gun laws, few firearm and ammunition manufacturers remained in California by the time of the invasion, and the number of distributors was also limited. Most guns in the state belonged to private owners that had taken them with them when they moved to found Jefferson. Police armories were likewise split between the two populations, though few departments were sympathetic to the southern Californians to leave arms behind for them. This left only criminals with easy access to firearms, and the PRCs early history is marred by struggles against crime groups flexing their power over an unprotected populace.
Repeated failures to consistently manufacture even basic cased cartridge ammunition and automatic firearms caused tremendous issues for the PRC in its early days. AR-15s and similar weapons raided from abandoned police armories were jealously hoarded by the National Council guards, along with their ammunition. The need for increasingly simpler, easier to produce arms led to a rapid regression in local firearms technology. Cased cartridges gave way to the Minié ball, while difficulties in producing rifled barrels saw a resurgence of smoothbore weaponry. The first successful mass-produced firearm used by the PRC military, the "Sloan", was quite literally a lever-action musket. Although primitive, the Sloan achieved the PRC's goal of providing a standard firearm to issue its military and secure its holdings. Once Kantoku Corp approached the PRC, acquisition of superior firearms was another top priority of theirs, and KTK Arms became the sole supplier of PRC armaments, since then stepping up production and diversifying into a breadth of military industrial fields to ensure California maintains a level of military parity with other nations in North America. 
===Economic===
From its onset the PRC has striven to utilize the five year planning method to recover from the destruction of the Human-Vannai War through centralized economic planning and state ownership of all sectors. After several years of famine and strife, California is once again a net-exporter of agricultural products, with its primary trade partners being Cascadia, Jefferson, Deseret, and the Arizona and Mexican territories. Lumber is in particular shortage in the PRC due to the arid environment of the south. As California controls the only Rare Earth Metal mine in North America from before the war, extraction of these critical minerals is one of California's most lucrative markets and ensures California's ability to handle the otherwise intractable attitudes of the Republic of Texas and American Coalition towards it.
===Diplomacy===
The PRC and Jefferson both experienced constant small skirmishes along their shared borders. This conflict stems from the PRC’s desire to expand up the west coast, reclaiming a population that migrated north to escape a government that they considered asinine, controlling and backwards.
Category:PACYOA: TE
Category:TE Nations
Category:North America
Category:California