United States of America

The United States of America, colloquially referred to as the United States, U.S., or simply America, was a pre-War federal republic, and one of the only two known nuclear superpowers remaining by the end of the Resource Wars in 2077.

## History

The United States aggressively asserted its position as a major global power, competing with China in the mid-21st century, to subsequently become the world's foremost superpower. Intense research into space technologies and funding of the United States Space Agency, resulted in the pioneering flight of *Defiance 7* on May 5, 1961, when Captain Carl Bell became the first known human in space. However, the claim was widely disputed by the Soviet Union and China. By the end of the decade, the United States had achieved victory in the space race, as the *Virgo II* lunar lander touched down on the surface of Earth's Moon on July 16, 1969. *Valiant 11* mission members, Captain Richard Wade, Captain Mark Garris, and Captain Michael Hagen, became the first humans known to have walked on the surface of another celestial body. Another mission followed directly afterward, and on November 14 of that same year, *Virgo III* of *Valiant 12* landed on the Moon. The flag was subsequently retrieved for display in the Museum of Technology. The space exploration program petered out by 2034, when the last known manned mission to the Moon occurred, and remaining crewed rockets, such as the *Delta IX*, were converted into military ordnance as the global situation deteriorated.

### The Resource Wars

The series of conflicts known as the Resource Wars were but one symptom of an increasingly aggressive foreign policy adopted as a result of the increasing shortage of critical resources, including crude oil. One example came in 2051, when the United States began exerting pressure on Mexico, in order to protect their economic interests there, primarily the crude oil supply. The U.S. deliberately destabilized the country using economic sanctions, before invading the country outright. American military units seized oil refineries and infrastructure to ensure that the flow of crude oil did not cease. However, these tactics did little to avert the crisis, and as the Texan oil fields ran dry, their withering husks revealed to the American public just how deep the resource and energy crisis was, in a landmark 2052 television documentary. Not long afterward, rising oil prices worldwide bankrupted smaller nations, which lead to the European Commonwealth declaring war on the Middle East; the United States was also severely affected by the skyrocketing prices of oil, which led to further imperialist aggression. The dissolution of the United Nations in July marked the beginning of the road towards nuclear annihilation.

Another blow was struck in 2053, when the New Plague virus emerged. The virulent nature of the contagion and the speed at which it had spread led to the first-ever national quarantine and the closing of American borders. Tens of thousands died, according to the timeline in *Fallout Bible 0*. In 2055, the government commissioned West Tek to develop a cure for the virus. Though no cure was known to have ever been found, the research into a cure paved the way for subsequent biochemical research efforts.

Nuclear exchanges in the Middle East, along with the devastating Euro-Middle Eastern War and the New Plague's death toll caused the federal government to initiate Project Safehouse in 2054, which created fallout shelters that would protect a percentage of the United State's population in the event of a nuclear war or fatal plague. The Vault-Tec Corporation won the contract, and this massive national defense project was set in motion. Breakthroughs in construction technology allowed for these gargantuan bunkers to be constructed at a rapid pace, although Vault-Tec's status as a critical defense contractor, and the classified nature of its enterprises, lead to many instances of fraud and mismanagement.

By the end of the decade, in 2059, the United States began to prepare for war, as the global situation continued to worsen. The Anchorage front line had been established in Alaska, to protect its oil reserves from foreign invaders. Canada had also begun to feel the pressure exerted by its increasingly hostile neighbor. As a peculiar consolation prize to wrap up the decade, the first artificial intelligence was born in American laboratories. Limited by memory constraints, its expansion was rapidly halted. The discovery paved the way for future research in laboratories throughout the United States.

## Society

While the United States had been founded on the principles of liberty and justice for all, the reality of the 21st-century resource crisis and traumatic experiences, caused the nation to abandon these principles almost entirely. The fear of communism and economic collapse led to the population willingly complying with the gradual abrogation of civil rights; trading liberty for security. While collusion between the executive branch and the corporations dominating the economy of the United States affected constitutional freedoms, the transition towards a totalitarian state began in earnest with the Sino-American War. Wartime censorship enabled the government to confiscate and indiscriminately destroy any material deemed seditious. Such was the fate of the *Patriot's Cookbook*, and many other publications. Many publications became outlets for propaganda, used to mock non-nationalist sentiments and protesters.

Organized labor and unions came under heavy attack from both the government and the corporations. Repression was particularly severe in Appalachia, a strategic region supplying raw materials for the war effort and a crucible of widespread automation. Hornwright Industrial Mining Company, Atomic Mining Services, and RobCo Industries, supported by Appalachia's Governor Evans, pushed for replacing human labor with robotics, leaving thousands of workers out of jobs, fueling widespread social unrest and impoverishing the population, made worse by the Wartime Workers Act. The unrest culminated in the Appalachian mining riots of late 2077, which saw regular combat between workers and government and corporate enforcers. However, even before that explosion, the totalitarian state was abusing and murdering their citizens: The United States Navy facility at Sugar Grove was an example of this tendency, engaging in covert surveillance of U.S. citizens, identifying labor activists and other "traitors", which usually led to abduction, murder without trial, and any surviving children being put up for adoption by loyalist families.

Politics were not the only reason for repression. Under Executive Order 99066, Chinese and Chinese-American citizens and residents were interned and placed in concentration camps without trial, sometimes by private security contractors hired by the military to conduct what were essentially abductions. The Turtledove Detention Camp in Maryland was one such camp, forcing the inmates to live in squalid conditions without access to proper sanitation facilities and its inmates being subjected to abuse, torture, and brutal interrogations. Eventually, the Order was used as grounds for imprisoning any and all dissidents at the military's discretion. Many ended up disappearing in the various research facilities across the United States, used as guinea pigs in various research projects fueling the war effort.

The declaration of martial law nationwide in 2076 marked the completion of this gradual process; the military had finally been given free rein and total control over the state security apparatus and public affairs. Military units were deployed to quell riots and enforce the quarantine, answering only to their own chain of command.

They had practice: the annexation of Canada added a large population of disgruntled residents to the United States, victims of nearly a decade-long abuse by American military and its corporations. Protests and rioting did little to stay the iron hand of their new American masters. Martial law instituted in the wake of the annexation earlier in 2076 allowed the U.S. military to shoot protesters and rioters without consequence. Canada was brought to heel, although the atrocities committed in the name of the American people were leaked stateside, leading to unrest and protests despite the best efforts of American propagandists.