Free States

For the Fallout Faction, see Free States (fallout).

## The Free States

The Free States star logo

**The Free States** is a Fallout 76 Player Faction and later reformed friend group.

## Background

The Free States initially was a reformation of the Confederate States of Appalachia. After the Confederacy began to dwindle in membership and activity, an executive decision was made to reform the group into the Free States, modeled after the in-game Free States, in order to profit from the Free States bundle that was released in-game. The reformation was a success and led to a massive uptick in membership and activity.

### Foundation Period

During the initial phases of the Free States, the structure followed closely to the previous military governance of the Confederate predecessors. Ranks were renamed, however, to match the style of the Marines as a way of distinguishing the Free States from other military factions using simple army ranks.

Rankings and activity were mainly based on a point system, where members were rewarded with points for completing in-game tasks related to the Free States or by participating in faction events and activities. After a certain threshold of points were achieved, members were to be promoted to the subsequent military rank.

In order to manage this new ranking system, Breakfast Break, the figurehead of the Free States at the time, delineated power to a new tank known as Watchmen, meant to be separate from the military order and instead overwatch the server, acting both as the role of moderator, promoter, and liaison to other factions. In order to assemble a team, breakfast deferred to the judgement of his secondary, Cranberry Coyote, to assemble the team. Cranberry came back with two suggestions; Cheems and Gray Menace. Both members were then decided by a group vote, with both being promoted to the rank of Watchman. In order to moderate these members, Breakfast assigned himself the role of “Head Watchman” but was nominally equal in powers to the other Watchmen.

The faction continued to grow in membership and activity, spurred on by the in-game activity, in-game updates, and assimilation of other smaller groups, mainly other Free States model factions that were smaller in number. Moreover, following controversy pertaining to their rival, the West Virginia Republic, The Free States claimed victory in the Appalachian Cold War against the WVR, who had a massive drop in membership to the point where the group transferred activity to Elder Scrolls Online instead of Fallout 76, leaving a wave of refugees flooding the Free States. At this point, the Free States became the largest active Fallout 76 Player Faction and a restructuring was required to adapt to the extreme membership.

### Senatorial Period

To adapt to the growing number of members, Breakfast deployed a new system of governance focusing on democracy to adapt and further delineate responsibilities. The system that was created was an electoral system, where the in-game map was divided between 5 free states. Each state would have an elected Senator who would act as leadership. Furthermore, watchmen responsibilities would be reduced to that of moderation, unable to enact new binding policy in the Free States. Such actions were seen as an affront to the “Old Order” and set forth the events leading to the Free States Civil War.

prior to the Civil War, however, this period was seen as an era of prosperity and progress, with all-time highs in in-game activity and server-side activity. Many of the famous propaganda posters came from this era, and it saw the largest level of participation ever seen.

Conflict soon began between members in the unit. As a result, two factions began to form in governance, one with the “conservatives” made up of the watchmen and members who missed the days of the Confederacy, and the “progressives” made up of the senators and members who were attracted to the charm of the anarchist Free States ideology. While the divide was initially caused due to balance of powers, ideological reasoning soon defined the borders, as many of the watchmen and old members joined due to the ideology of the Confederacy and became disgusted with the senatorial reforms that pushed the group to a more genuine anarchist communal society.

The divides in the group were expanded upon after the implementation of the Fireteam System in the Free States. The Fireteam System sought to divide members between “fireteams” to try and invite in-game camaraderie between smaller groups and to simulate some of the successes of the previous Confederate unit system. However, many of the fireteams failed to rank popularity, and instead became systems of division between the two sides, as many of the progressives joined Fireteam Phoenix while the conservatives joined Fireteam Corsair.

Following the fireteam system and further division, Fireteam Phoenix created a private server to organize against conservative activités and to avoid oversight from Head Watchman Breakfast. This period is known as the Free States Civil War, and it ended with the complete collapse of the Free States government. This collapse was caused by the leave of Senator Winged Liner, an extremely popular senator and influential in the community. Following this event, Head Watchman Breakfast expelled the Watchmen from the group. The expelled watchmen would go on to create the Free States Outcasts.

These actions were too little too late, as Senator Winged refused to return to her post, and soon caused a divide in the group. Facing imminent secession from Fireteam Phoenix, Breakfast capitulated and created the new position of “Governor” as the new server figurehead and leader. Following that, Breakfast granted the position to Baty in an attempt to appease Fireteam Phoenix and bring back their activity. This too was a failure, however, as Baty quickly collapsed under the responsibilities of leadership leading to a massive power vacuum in the group and the final secession of Fireteam Phoenix.

### PC Period

Following the leave of Fireteam Phoenix, online activity from Xbox had all but disappeared. However, a small group of PC players remained active on the unit. Due to both leadership exhaustion and lack of console activity, Breakfast transferred ownership of the group to the small PC structure left in the Free States. The PC players, led by Last Man Gaming, continued to keep the faction on life support but failed to take steps to adapt, and soon dwindled into lesser and lesser activity until finally fading from any semblance of activity after numerous attempts.

### Contemporary Period

After the complete collapse of the server-side faction, Breakfast reconnected with the Free States Outcasts to try and rekindle friendship. After bids were made on Breakfast’s behalf by Cranberry Coyote, the rest of the Outcasts agreed to Breakfast’s introduction to the outcasts. After this, it was decided that the old server was dead and therefore the Outcasts were the sole successors to the Free States, declaring themselves as the Free States. This period only saw three core friends, that being Breakfast Break, Cranberry Coyote, and Gray Menace, with numerous reoccurring characters or limited main characters, such as Cheems, Beezle, or SirMustMan.

During this period, the group shifted from a strictly Fallout 76 group to a tankless fraternal order governed by unregulated Democratic voting and discussion between any active members at the time. The group continued to hop from game to game during this period, maintaining only an online presence.

the group was made up of Breakfast, Cranberry Coyote, Gray Menace, and Cheems, later readopting SirMustMan as a temporary member. After a few months of online activity, the group began to plan the first physical meeting of the Free States. This eventually decided to occur during the summer of 2021, and was planned to take place between the cities of Cleveland, Erie, and Buffalo. This event would eventually be labeled as Free States Fest 2021 and would become an annual meeting of active Free States members. The only member to not in attendance was SirMustMan, due in part both to mental health concerns as well as long-standing hostilities with Cheems.

The Fest went off without a hitch, and created many Free States Fest traditions what would be carried on during the subsequent fests, such as the annual rewatching of the film series, “Fred”.

Following the event, the group continued to function as per normal. The only notable events to of occurred between 2021 and the subsequent Free States Fest was the SirMustMan Excommunication and the introduction of Beezle to the Free States.

Based off the success of the previous Free States Fest, the group planned for a subsequent event for the summer of 2022. The group decided upon the city of Boston in Massachusetts, choosing this location due to its history with Fallout. This, of course, led to Free States 2022. This event suffered greatly due to time constraints, the towing incident, as well as heightened conflict with Cheems against every other member. This eventually culminated into the Cheems Excommunication, removing him from the group.

Following the events of Free States Fest ‘22, the group continued to operate as per usual, though Beezle became the spiritual successor to Cheems in the group dynamic. A few months later, Cranberry and Breakfast agreed to reproach cheems separate from the group to keep him semi-connected to the organization, though the other members refused to interact with him. Currently, the group is in the planning phase for Free States Fest 2023, expected to take place in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia.

## Members

### Current

* Breakfast Break
* Cranberry Coyote
* Beezle
* Gray Menace

### Former

* Baty
* Winged Liner
* Night Devil
* Last Man Gaming
* SirMustMan
* Cheems

### Honorary

* Frank Lima
* Shinzo Abe

## Related Events

* Appalachian Cold War - successors to the Confederacy
* Free States Civil War - infighting between Corsairs (Confederates) and Phoenix (Senate) led to the division of leadership and collapse of the Free States, as Well as the expulsion of Corsairs (see Free States Outcasts).
* Free States Fest 2021 - physical meeting of members during the summer of 2021. Took place in Cleveland, Erie, and Buffalo.
* Free States Fest 2022 - physical meeting taking place in Boston and visiting other nearby locations.
* Free States Fest 2023 - upcoming physical meeting, likely to take place in West Virginia.