The United States Exclusion Zone

**The United States Exclusion Zone** or **The Ashlands**, is a large region of The Western Federation that takes up a sizeable portion of Canada and the West Coast of The United States. It is one of the two regions that make up the Abandoned States of America. It consists of parts of Alaska, British Columbia, Alberta, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada. Gates to the Federated States are located In Yuma, Grand Junction and Cheyenne.

## Pre-Seperation

What would eventually become The United States Exclusion Zone was initially the region that was evacuated preceding the meteorite impact. Those that were evacuated were told that they would be able to return to their homes after the impact, although when a relatively small eruption from the Yellowstone Supervolcano, triggered by the impact of the meteorite, occurred in the days following the eruption - many of these homes were destroyed or otherwise rendered impossible to live in.

This empty area was soon dubbed **The United States Exclusion Zone.** It was initially designed to designate which areas were unsafe following the impact and eruption, although after excavation of the meteorite and the discovery of Carbon9 , it was instead marketed to the public as a region of the country with rich resources and ample jobs - with potential residents only further enticed by the promise of Government assisted housing. The primary reason for this was to attract workers to the The Ashlands to work as either miners, scavengers - or to bring order to the states. Many left their homes and sold everything to take the Government's offer - although upon arriving discovered that the housing consisted of generally small and shoddily made apartments. Many of these families had multiple children. This system was eventually established all over The Federated States in the B.L.O.C. programme twenty years later as an attempt to bring jobs into failing cities.

In 2037 - following an investigation in the wake of the Sacramento Bombings, revealing that the Exclusion Zone had become a breeding ground for terrorist activity, a border wall was constructed to separate The United States Exclusion Zone and The Federated States. This made it substantially harder to cross between the two regions, the experience becoming comparable to travelling to another country. Passports became mandatory. This was the event that begun the separation of The United States Exclusion Zone from The Federated States.

The main effect of these policies was the construction of a wall, stretching from Yakutat in Alaska to the Northern border of California. This essentially sealed the fates of the 90 million United States citizens from returning to their homes. This wall was the first industrial level construction project carried out by a team composed of a majority of robots.

## Post-Separation

   The wall was completed in 2042 - and with the last brick symbolically in place the fate of the residents of The United States Exclusion Zone was sealed. As The United States Exclusion Zone was officially and legally United States territory, anyone that could prove that they were born in United States territory, i.e. The Federated States or The US Exclusion Zone retained their citizenship.

Unfortunately, as the infrastructure of the US Exclusion Zone seldom supported birth records and with a record of home births being reported in 2030, these pregnancies and subsequent children were rarely reported. Thus, when the wall was completed in 2042, many of these children were unable to return to The Federated States - and with their parents almost always declining to abandon their child(ren), over 70 million people remained in The US Exclusion Zone - trapped.

## Today

   Today, there is an overwhelming feeling of abandonment amongst the people of the US Exclusion Zone. While technically being American citizens, the vast majority of those in the present day do not have the official documentation to cross into the Federated States, and the process of applying for citizenship is open only to those with certain skills or abilities.

Society has largely collapsed in the US Exclusion Zone. The Western Federation Dollar has no value, and the economy is largely barter based. An overwhelming lack of basic supplies from the rest of the United States has rendered the US Exclusion Zone lacking in essential items such as food, water and medicine, which has seen a tremendous rise in cases of cannibalism, disease and premature death.