“The Third Civil War had split the Kingdom of America into multiple parts following the socialist uprisings, and what had been known as Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa joined into Northern Mississippi following the war. The remnants of the American monarchy ended up with varying amounts of power throughout the multiple newly created countries, despite losing the war overall.” – From The Fractured Prism
What used to be known as the Midwest within the old Kingdom of America fractured along with the rest of the country following the Third Civil War. While the People’s Democratic Republic of Northern Mississippi allowed the monarchy to remain in a limited form, the other countries within the region were not so kind to their defeated enemies. In the end, the Great Plains Collective and the People’s Republic of Huron established totalitarian socialist governments modeled after the Soviet Union while the Chicago Union formed an anarcho-syndacalist state run by a unified worker’s union.
Two countries in the Midwest, though, resisted the control of the socialists: the Dakota Republic and the Appalachian Confederacy. Neither country has managed to challenge the socialists’ control over most of what used to be America in the ninety-nine years since the war, but they have worked behind the scenes to assist rebel factions.
Tensions in the region are high, within the socialist Fifth International alliance and beyond. Ambitious leaders have begun to eye their neighbors, whether socialist or not, in an effort to fuel their struggling economies. Some wish to reunite America, others wish for power, and more still want nothing more than something to distract their people from their own problems. As a major force in the region, Northern Mississippi sits at the heart of this tension. If the country were to destabilize, the whole Midwest could fall with it.
Read more about the world of The Prism Files, starting with The Fractured Prism.