Jack of Harts

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.

Official United States of America policy is that all colonies created by American interests are American colonies and therefore subject to colonial tax rates. There have been some disagreements over that policy. There have even been some that elevated to the level of stiff words and bullets. New New York is an interesting case. They were colonized by Old New York City and claimed they should pay only the State tax rates. The Federal Government disagreed and levied colonial taxes. What resulted was a fifteen-year legal battle between the United States of America and Old New York City, which ended when the Federal Government agreed to accept State tax rates from the growing colony world. And though the tax rates are lower, the absolute wealth of that star system has resulted in impressive amounts of money for the Federal Government. Several American battle squadrons have the “Paid For By New New York” stamp on their keel plates.