Jack of Harts

The United States of America as it existed in Jack’s childhood had a relatively weak Federal government compared to the various State governments that selected its Senators. But the Western Alliance had colonized nearly two dozen star systems before Contact, and America tried to place at least small colonies in each of them. Add in the many, many more colonies started once cheaper and more efficient gravitic hyperspace engines came out, and the federal government had an impressive amount of taxes coming in. Far more than they needed for their regular operations. And the States denied them the option of funding Federal social programs in order to control the population. So the Feds built big beautiful buildings in the District of Columbia, big beautiful buildings in the colonies and territories to administer them, and a big beautiful black navy fleet to fly between every rock that carried an American flag anywhere on it. And that is why the American Federal Navy was one of the largest navies in existence when The War began.

The United States of America that stood back up to fight the Islamic Jihad and the Cybernetic Wars was greatly different from the one that fell into the Second Great Depression. The State governments were firmly in control of national policy, and they had started a new wave of expansion. The Mexican Drug Lords and the Islamic States had bought control of most of Mexico and tried to expand that control into America during the chaos. The Republic of Texas and other States responded by rolling over the old border and striking them where they lived. The Mexican military didn’t fight them very hard. Or at all. Oh the parts of it bought by the Drug Lords or the Islamic States fought to the death. The rest…didn’t. It was a strange alliance of invader and defender where each recognized that the Drug Lords and Islamic States were the real threat. And when it was done, the American States held defacto control of Mexico with a military that liked them better than their own political leaders. Then the American States helped them rebuild. That is the very brief background on how the Mexican States joined the United States of America.

The Second Great Depression devastated America’s economic power. Most of the Western Powers took it on the chin at that time. The Chinese sugarcoated their conquests as securing the debts that America and other nations owed them. The Russians were far less concerned with saving face. They smiled as they reinstated their control over Eastern Europe and the various Stans on the southern border. It was their right to defend the Rodina, you know. The West was too busy trying to survive to do anything about the nations either one was gobbling up. By the time the surviving American States put the Federal government back in order and started looking outside again, there was no way they were going to roll any of the new borders back. America became home to a new wave of political refugees looking for freedom in a much darker world.