Welcome to my Brainstorming/Development of "Nemo", a post-industrial, non-apocalyptic, slightly hopeful look forward at the world in 500 years. This is imagined as a series, whether it ends up in book or screenplay form depends on the whims of fate. I will say, National Novel Writing Month is starting in a few days, and It may help the process for me to publish the chapters here for a bit to work out the first draft.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIBdpFJyFkc]

A little More on Tillamook:

So, as determined in the last few sessions, the Home Port of the ship "Queen Anne's Revenge" is Tillamook, situated on the west Oregon coast. It's a small trade port, but has some products they sell and transport in small amounts. (Marijuana, Hemp, Cheese, Lumber) There is a very small shipbuilder present, but the Queen Anne's Revenge is by far the largest ship ever built or retrofitted here. The modern Warship present "The Griffon" is over 500 years old, was apparently originally designated the FFG-48, and is in dire need of dry dock and overhaul.

Diversity:

To the northeast lies the Huge Trade Port of Diversity. Diversity is ruled by power blocks, which control various areas of the Portland/Vancouver area, and officially are still an American Democracy. However, Diversity's political system changed in the name of representation, and as a result, began to apportion political power to groups based exclusively on the individual's personal identification. As a result of this, various power blocks began actively courting people to "Identify" as members of their particular faction in order to gain more political power. (No, I'm not saying that's what they do NOW, I'm saying that if identity was tied directly to political power, you KNOW people would start gaming the system)

This resulted in extreme tribalism, but with a membership that was not static from birth. As a result, the various groups have their own uniforms for house police, and retainers, in essence strongly resembling an close grouping of Italian City states from the Late Medieval period, but all united against outside threats. Trading here is tough, because making deals with one group means that other groups will resent you, due to your "enabling" of their enemies.

Diversity maintains private navies, mostly to defend their business interests up and down the Columbia. The Shipyards here rely heavily on timber from the surrounding areas, and the faction that currently controls the shipyards is extremely defensive in orientation. As a result they tend to build ships that resemble Korean "Turtle Ships" in style.

For the foreseeable future, Diversity will not change much, the powers in control squabbling and trying to one up each other. Artist Sponsorship is common, with various Houses trying to show up the others by sponsoring the greatest artists.

Technologically the vast majority of Diversity is at mid 18th Century level, but the high members of the houses have the money to maintain technological advantages and eagerly communicate with all of the other members of the great houses in "From" discussions where they argue over minute points of Diversity Dogma.

Atsixiis:

To the south is one of the largest Native Shipyards in the world. (Historically, Schooners and Smaller ships were built here) After the fall of the state authority, The Coquille Tribe cited the Treaty with the American Government, and took control of a large swath of Southwest Oregon. Due to their history of superior forest management and financial power in the post collapse world, they have played to their strength. The tribe is not the most well equipped militarily, but Atsixiis Rangers are considered some of the most dangerous light infantry in the world, and their defense against the attempted Norcal invasion is still a major part of their legacy. Government is a Tribal Council, and only members of the tribe have any say in the running of the state. While outsiders are occasionally adopted, the entry requirements are quite stringent and relies as much on personal whim of those running things as merit.

Atsixiis also has a major wave energy generator, a wise investment by the tribe, which ensures that they have a decent supply of power for select applications. (The tribe currently uses the power for a hospital, and auxiliary support for light constructions.)

NorCal:

Northern California has always been a bit Redder than the rest of the state, (San Fran Not withstanding) and as a result I envision this as one of our first unpleasant areas. The presence of the Military in the Bay Area ensured that when things fell apart, this area would be placed under martial law.

Norcal is a military dictatorship, but a surprisingly ineffective one. California has always produced a large number of Recruits for the military, but has been obsessed with internal purges and traitor searching. Paranoia is the rule of the day, with lots of suspicion of Russian "Interference" in any activities that go against the ruling Junta's decisions. Their Navy is quite strong, made up mostly of the mothballed fleet that was present as well as a few modern ships. The pride of the Fleet is the U.S.S. Iowa "Executor" (BB-61), A recommissioned Battleship which is considered to be unbeatable and has gained that unofficial Moniker.

However, Norcal has recently suffered several severe military defeats. As allies of Socal during the Mormon/Catholic war 50 years ago, The loss of the port of Vallejo to the Mormons was a nasty surprise to the Californians in general, who thought themselves secure with their Hitek weaponry. The Tech industry supporters of the Military are currently pushing for expansion in order to secure more resources to "innovate" and avenge the defeat with an unbeatable superweapon. (This tends to be the Norcal solution to everything.)

Vallejo:

This is the furthest west that the Mormon Church has expanded. Prior to this, the Church was landlocked, and over the past 500 years their "missions" have faced greater and greater hostility from other communities. As a result the Mormons began expanding west, peacefully at first, but with more and more violence the further they went.

Currently Vallejo feels like occupied territory. The Mormons have built a Mission in the area, and maintain their power from that base. They of course have brought many of their own people in to run various vital infrastructure, and strongly ENCOURAGE conversion to the church. It's been quite some time, and things have settled down a bit. Much of the population doesn't even bother joining the church, since it's currently somewhat similar to becoming a politician in feel.

SoCal:

Southern California has lost its religion. Prior to the last great holy war, SoCal was extremely Catholic, having re-established the Catholic Mission System, and ceding authority to the Church. Great Landowners were already present, but the Missions added the veneer of Religion and Respectability to the Corporate landowners who insisted on their rights to live like kings. With the expansion of the Mormon Church 50 years ago, the local Cardinal declared a Crusade to rid Catholic California of heretics, and managed to ally with Norcal in an attempt to push the Mormons back to Utah.

The war was an unmitigated disaster. Due to extremely poor logistic support, the So/Nor Cal forces were undersupplied, facing an opponent who had prepared for the standard US Imperial tactics of "Shock and Awe" and simply outlasted the initial assault.

As a result, blame for this was not placed on the landowners, but rather the Catholic Church, and clergy have been defrocked, their property seized, and currently, it is the law of the Local Alcalde that runs things. There is substantial jockeying for influence in what used to be the church hierarchy, but now has gone mostly secular. Various titles and rituals remain, but they are mostly empty, done for tradition, and are focused solely on the running of day to day life. (For example, various holidays have been reinstated, mostly as a way to keep the poor from revolting. Since technological solutions to peasant unrest are no longer possible, the old technique of bread and circuses has come into full flower once again. Far cheaper than hunting for rare metals to make TVs for everyone, giving them weekly holidays and entertainment is the norm.)

Ok, this is by no means ALL of the communities up and down the coast, just the ones that came to mind while imagining things. Feel free to criticize, argue, suggest others, etc. This is a shared universe, IMHO, and I am very communist with my ideas. To any who need them.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0HIEJR5BhA]