Recent History

The United States has been experiencing a tumultuous period in its short history – with its rapid fall from grace as a superpower coinciding with an unprecedented string of disasters that left millions dead. Infighting has rocked its political system to the very core, and with its failing economy it has been forced to withdraw its military presence across the globe. Despite their demoted status on the world stage, the United States remains committed to maintaining its independence.

The disasters of the 2020’s

The impact of the disasters of the 2020’s was horrific for the United States. Almost every part of the east and west coasts were affected somehow. Fault lines long thought to be dormant awoke. Key infrastructure crashed into massive sinkholes. Rivers flooded and enormous wildfires threatened the nation. Even lightning seemed to strike out of no where.

In California, the ports of San Diego suffered the worst destruction. Most of the city along the coast was destroyed in tsunami, and the rest crumbled in earthquakes. The highlands fared no better. Landslides swept away wide swaths of land and wildfires raged out of control. Notably, even part of San Quentin prison was crumbled and was never rebuilt. The remainder of the affluence of the Californian coastlines were flooded, burned or crushed as far north as Fort Bragg. Oregon and Washington were not immune: Mt. St. Helens erupted for the first time in forty years. Mr. Rainer spewed ash for the first time in 500 years.

Wildfires spread across many states, particularly during the storm season of 2022-2023. They were particularly devastating in the eastern United States, including throughout coal mining country of Eastern Appalachia. The fires threatened many mining operations in the area.

Oil rigs, timber, seafood and other valuable resources that originated from Alaska was destroyed in follow up natural disasters.

The Gulf of Mexico was an important source of trade, particularly to the ports of Houston and New Orleans, but also a primary source of crude oil. A strong earthquake of 7.2 magnitude originated from the Gulf of Mexico, sending tsunami toward Houston and New Orleans. The earthquake was so powerful, it was felt as far away as North Carolina. Not only were the ports and associated industries destroyed by flooding, but almost all the oil rigs were lost. New Orleans was never quite the same following the Hurricanes of the 2000’s, and it was all but given up on after the 2020’s. The tourist industry of formerly pristine beaches along the Gulf States was gone as well.

The Eastern Seaboard fared no better. Any city along the coast was impacted. Not even Washington DC itself was spared. Chesapeake Bay flooded the streets of the capital. Little was permanently damaged, but the flood levels scoured many monuments throughout the city as a visible reminder to this day.

The infrastructure of New York City was rocked, but the city did not fall into the sea as many feared. In fact, the terror was so profound, many fled inland. Water treatment plants that supplied New York was damaged, and the people had to make due for two weeks without running water. However, Long Beach, Bay Shore, and the the retreat of the mega-wealthy, the Hamptons, remain underwater to this day.

Dayton, Ohio was the epicenter of the famous Dayton Disaster. Almost everyone with a hundred mile radius suffered from radiation sickness and died within months. This includes the populous of Cincinnati, Columbus, and Indianapolis, or the equivalent of about 2.5 million souls. Everyone within the entire state of Ohio has been forced to evacuate. The Dayton Disaster is the only recent natural disaster, occurring in 2044, more than 20 years since the last string of horrors. National fear and trauma of returning to this world of horror broke into the streets nationwide for weeks afterward.

Altogether, the reaction to the untold devastation sparked riots, the masses were traumatized with grief, public health was endangered and religious groups warned of armageddon.

Cultural Exportation

Hollywood was once the center of the motion-picture industry of the world. Following the Disasters of the 2020’s, not only was the infrastructure of Hollywood destroyed, the economics of motion-pictures was not the viable profit-making machine it once was. Much of the industry retreated into its roots as the cultural epicenter shifted to Moscow. Independent films focused on violence or horror-slashers were the only genres to flourish.

Economy

The United States has suffered economic collapse in recent years, with output shrinking by nearly three-quarters and rampant hyperinflation contributing to a scarcity of basic goods and services. Meanwhile, government mismanagement has led to a drastic decline in export production and severe underinvestment in the private sector. The economy was physically destroyed by the 2020’s, and what lasted fell soon after. Businesses were irreparably broken, employment opportunities terminally destroyed, and investment was totally written off.

The United States Gross Domestic Product shank nearly three-quarters from 2020 to 2045. The nation has been in Depression state for the last fifteen years.

The US Dollar was once the most valuable currency in the world. It has been relegated to nearly third-world status. The CC Dollar has eclipsed it. The Federal Bank has become nearly defunct, and restoring a strong National Bank has been one of the primary agendas for the current presidential administration. In the meantime, personal and home loans are nearly impossible to acquire without substantial collateral. The predatory loan business previously deemed illegal has become one of the last ways for the common person to acquire financing.

Even prior to 2020, the rise of homeless tent cities was becoming a growing problem all across the nation. Over the last twenty-five years, temporary tent cities have become the residence of nearly 100 million people. A citizen can even have mail delivered using their innovative marking systems. The shift from permanent to temporary residence was originated by the refugees and survivors of the disasters, and the rest are made up of the impoverished. In 2020, nearly 40% of the United States population lived within a hundred mile distance of one of the coasts. This accounted for nearly 127 million people. While not so many people were killed by the disasters, a number nearly that large were impacted (at best), displaced, or killed (at worst), and those who survived often fled inland with no belongings. Of the remaining national cities, their failing urban cores fell into extreme forms of poverty. Basic infrastructure is almost impossible to maintain there. Modern shantytowns and dystopian living has become the norm in places such as inner Chicago, Dallas, and Pittsburgh.

Energy Crisis

With much of the domestic supply of crude oil, its extraction, shipping and processing destroyed, the nation was forced to rely primarily on foreign imports from Central America for energy. However, even nations such as Venezuela were suffering and they hoarded their own supply for their people. As as result, President Clinton enacted an emergency executive order to seize all remaining oil fields in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas to be Federally operated. This response was met with swift popular opposition, although some of the domestic supply of crude oil was conserved. Energy costs skyrocketed in the United States, and despite the many offerings of the CCD, the untarnished Custody energy resources were consistently declined. Nuclear power became the back upon which the nation relied. Yet their systems were old and nearly failing. By 2044, the nuclear power oversight commission was defunded. The Dayton Disaster has sparked a resurged controversy about relying on the old generation power source.

Notable Organizations

Carlyle Group is a diversified holdings group with hands in industries ranging from weapons, energies, computer, mobile communications, space, and investment management having bought out Microsoft, Pratt and Whitney. By 2038, the Carlyle group was the nation’s largest multinational conglomerate, employing more than 800,000 people within the United States. The median income of a Carlyle employee is 24% above the median income workers in similar companies. The Carlyle group helped finance and equip the Minutemen, helping the minutemen’s initiatives win combat situations abroad. Carlyle Group is owned by Senator John Carlyle, although he is not involved in managing the organization due to his current term as a Senator.

Orion Pharmaceuticals was a front organization backed by the now disbanded Armengual Cartel. They were conducting illegal and unethical experiments on channelers to determine a method to control their powers. They developed an injectable serum that rendered the channeler unable to use their power, but the side effect was massive and irreversible sedation. They were in the process of creating a deployment device called the Oculus that could control the dosage and minimize side-effects. They are headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Their leadership has ties to the Di Inferi.

The Council of Native Americans is a political organization convened by individual Native American tribes in the United States and Canada for the purpose of consolidating political power into one voice.

Political Climate

The United States is one of very few notable nations still remaining outside Custody control (the others being China and Australia). A fallen superpower, the position of the United States on the world stage in 2046 somewhat represents that of Russia itself in the early 2000’s. With essentially no strong allies, and a non-dominant economy, the next president of the United States will be hard pressed to stand against the Custody.

Parties

Three major parties are locked in a power struggle on the national level, the Republicans, Libertarians and Democrats, with no one party strong enough to dominate Congress over the other two, and divisions within each party play to further complicate the issue. However, a fourth party is on the verge of emerging from a split within the Republicans.

Libertarian Party

Following Rand Paul’s failed 2016 bid for president – and the subsequent election of Hillary Clinton – the Republican Party split in two. The new Libertarian Party is built up of primarily Tea Party conservatives, and was assembled by Paul and his allies. The Libertarians had startling if short-lived success in 2024, were nearly destroyed within four years, and are still recuperating from the Paul administration’s actions today as a growing number of academics exonerate his administration. They are the second largest political party comprising 20 percent of the electorate.

The Libertarian Party opposes annexation by the CCD on principle. The Libertarian Party platform includes nonintervention in foreign affairs but stops short of isolationism, small and limited federal government with the bulk of taxation at the state and local levels, wants to see control of the national guard revert to state governors, supports a military of sufficient size to deter invasion, supports deregulation, opposes entitlement programs, advocates literal interpretation of the Constitution and a restrained judiciary, supports term limits and opposes affirmative action and special treatment for special interest groups. It is interesting that, although they do support tribal independence and respect private property rights of the Native American tribes, they do not support federal tax dollars being spent to enforce these rights, instead expecting state, local and tribal governments to enforce their own laws — which in practice they often lack the resources to do so.

Republican Party

The Party of Lincoln is the smallest of the three major political parties but currently holds the most power. Fifteen percent of the population identify as Republican. The 2036 election of Track Palin and succession of Frederick Dawson have kept the Oval Office in Republican hands for the past ten years. This is a huge advantage in the current U.S. atmosphere of three-party split in Congress. The Republicans have managed to use the executive branch to appoint four justices onto the Supreme Court and will likely get the opportunity to name the replacement to Chief Justice John Roberts, who has had the longest tenure as Chief Justice in history of the court.

The Republicans are vehemently anti-CCD. They favor strong federal support of American business interests and a hefty national defense to back it up, especially where American business interests run up against CCD friends. They support a platform of positioning the United States as the only alternative to the CCD. They are strong advocates of support of the Monroe Doctrine and foreign intervention. Domestically they support using public funds to further domestic infrastructure and economic interests of private business. They support quasi-privatization of entitlement spending.

The Republicans weathered a party split with the Libertarians and have largely enjoyed the Libertarian support versus the Democrats since the Libertarians lost control of the Presidency in 2028, but there is a growing concern in the party that the Democrat party itself will soon itself divide, where those who are anti Republican but not pro-CCD might align with the Libertarians, making them strong enough to dominate. Additionally the Minutemen are concerned over the tactics and ultimate goals of the Republican’s strong anti-CCD stance and may either run their own candidate or split and throw their support behind another.

The Liberty First Super PAC has been strongly critical of Republican behavior in recent years.

Democratic Party

The Party of Andrew Jackson, FDR, Kennedy and the Clintons still remains the largest single party in the United States by a hair, with approximately 23 percent of the electorate identifying as Democrat. The party appears to be in a state of decline, as they continue to lose ground against the Republicans and the Libertarians with each election cycle. They have not held the Presidency since the 2036 election, have not had an opportunity to pick a Supreme Court Justice since 2023, and only hold a plurality in the House and Senate. They took terrible political losses under the Bullock Presidency and have not recovered, and are rarely successful in seeing legislation it introduces pass that does not have the support of either the Libertarians and the Republicans. According to Harris, Zoygby and Gallup, as of 2045, a majority of Americans (58-62%) hold either a “somewhat unfavorable,” “unfavorable,” or “strongly unfavorable” opinion of the Democrat Party.

The Democrat Party of 2045 embraces Socialist principles, most conservative Democrats having left to join other movements. However there are two separate factions in the Party. The further left faction, which is the most vocal, favors annexation by the CCD, believing one-world government to be the culmination of modern liberal principles, and see it as inevitable and that it is better to accept annexation on favorable terms that preserves federal power. The other faction supports limited nationalization of the economy (with exceptions) as a way forward but believes independence from the CCD can be maintained with dialogue and improved trade relations. It is believed that a number of power players in the Democrat Party see annexation as an opportunity to crush rivals and re-emerge as the dominant political party, and that it is better to strive under the thumb of the CCD than to whither and die alone.

Minutemen

More a political movement than a party, the Minutemen are still a strong deciding factor in many elections across the country. Minuteman support can and often does give an otherwise equally matched candidate the last few percentage points he needs to win an election. They have been funded and equipped by the Carlyle Group.

Texas Secession Bill

The young governor of Texas is Jessika Thrice. She was a popular and beloved conservative Christian religious leader married to the megachurch pastor, Jensen James. She masterfully used the controversy surrounding her husband’s fall from grace to garner public sympathy and initiate her own political career, calling for return to traditional values. What really garnered her support was the ongoing theme of Texas-level nationalism. Her campaign indicated she would propose an independent Texas if the Federal Government could not improve their lives.

She has been entangled in plots involving Scion Marveet, the Amengual Cartel, Orion Pharmaceuticals and Damien Oakland that culminated in the introduction of formal legislation to the Federal Congress that Texas would cede from the Union. This legislation was introduced within the hour following Evelyn Avalon’s legislation being submitted that the United States join the CCD. These series of events snowballed quickly. Within the day, the Union of South American Nations petitioned to join the CCD on fear that their remaining ally, the United States, was crumbling. On a journey from Quito, Ecuador to Tokyo, the Ascendancy’s plane detoured over the South Pacific. A record-breaking earthquake struck the South Pacific. The natural disaster almost immediately claimed a million lives across Indonesia, and shortly after, Australia and the remaining South Pacific nations petitioned to join the CCD. All of this was initiated by Jessika’s legislation.

Presidents (2016-current)

Year	President	Vice-President	Party	Notes
2016-2024	Hillary Clinton	Heath Shuler	Democrat	Was in office when Nikolai Brandon became President of Russian Federation
2024-2028	Rand Paul	Ted Cruz	Libertarian	Downsized government drastically. CCD was formed during this time.
2028-2036	Steve Bullock	Ana Hernandez Luna	Democrat	USA defaulted on debt to China. Economy continues to crash. Social programs fail.
2036-2044	Track Palin	Frederick Dawson	Republican	Increasing tensions with China culminate in hostilities in Taiwan. Anti-social programs gain traction.
2044-current	Frederick Dawson	VP deceased. Replaced with Track Palin	Republican	Energy crisis emerges following nuclear power controversy due to Dayton Disaster.

Hillary Rodham Clinton (2016-2024)

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Vice-President Heath Shuler held office from 2016 to 2024, defeating Rand Paul/Susana Martinez in 2016 and Scott Brown/Chris Christie in 2020. Shuler – a conservative Blue Dog Democrat, former lobbyist, and strong advocate for the free market – was chosen to allay any fears that her presidency would stray too far to the left, after Obama’s far-left ideology paralyzed government for eight years. Those fears were unnecessary, however, as the Democrats took control of the house and senate in 2016, giving her unprecedented political breathing room. Empowered by a no-longer-gridlocked Congress, and with Shuler’s conservative leanings opening up new avenues of negotiation with the Republicans, she was successful in repairing the disastrous Affordable Care Act instated by her predecessor, President Barack Obama.

With great success in her first term, winning the 2020 election was no great challenge. No strong Republican candidates materialized, and she took seventy percent of the popular vote. Outside Republican bastions such as Texas, the political map of the United States was almost completely blue. That same year, Nikolai Brandon – then a political unknown – took the presidency in Russia. Renaming it the Ascendant Soviet Union, he went on a series of diplomatic visits around the world. At that same time, an unprecedented series of natural disasters rocked the globe.

With much of the middle east’s supply of oil suddenly drained through fractures in the earth’s crust, and millions on both the east and west coast dead, the United States economy was in ruins. While corporations were frantically restructuring and manufacturing was experiencing a renaissance in states further inland, Clinton was forced to make a series of tough choices. Food was in short supply, and fuel to transport it even shorter. Historians would later point to her abuse of eminent domain – which resulted in the seizure of thousands of square miles of oil fields – and her failure to successfully organize the transportation food to starving refugees in the northern coastal states as the dual death knells of her political career.

Rand Paul (2024-2028)

Campaigning on the slogan “There is a solution,” Libertarian Party candidate Rand Paul and his running mate Ted Cruz won the presidency in the 2024 election after a long and brutal campaign against Heath Schuler. Paul inherited a crushing national debt, crumbling infrastructure and an economy hopelessly dependent on an overgrown government. Unemployment was through the roof and Clinton’s abuse of eminent domain had exacerbated the nation’s energy crisis. On the global level America had been out-postured by the rising ASU which was offering once-allies a new, more promising solution to dependence on America.

Paul forced Congress to finally stop kicking the nation’s problems down the road and start enacting real solutions, starting with finally passing and ratifying the Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This amendment, which became the 28th Amendment, forced government to rapidly downsize. Land was returned to corporations and wide swaths of the public sector reverted to private — or closed doors entirely. Foreign aid was drastically reduced and U.S. military funding was severely cut. During this phase of restructuring the active duty component of the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force effectively ceased to exist, as their components were restructured into the National Guard and the Navy, with expanded special forces. Defense focused more on its own borders rather than international interests.

Domestically, the nation no longer had the means to support what was left of its own population. Economic activity, energy production and even food production had practically ground to a halt. No one was working and no one was producing. Paul saw the private sector as the vehicle to restart the national economy. It could, and would, pick up and do what big government could not. “We Must All Do Our Part” was his slogan. Social Security, unemployment and welfare funding was cut to the able-bodied. No one who could work, would avoid it. Paul created the Work Education Program for former recipients of these benefits. It was essentially an expanded Job Corps program where people enlisted and worked for private business in exchange for food, education and a small stipend, for a promised period of time. While harshly criticized as legitimized indentured servitude, akin to slavery for for-profit business, it provided a work force for the economy while solving the unemployment problem.

Paul’s policies were a domestic success and an international failure. The ASU became emboldend by the United States’ retreat into itself. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization fell apart and most of its member states were annexed into what became the CCD. American economy and industry did eventually restart and some sense of normalcy returned. As one historian would later say, “Paul abandoned the empire to save the republic.”

Domestic success also came at a price. There was a darker side to a smaller federal government that included less regulatory oversight. One noteworthy example was the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ inability to protect many Native American reservations from encroachment, squatters and swindlers, particularly in the energy and minerals industries.

During Paul’s inaugural address he uttered the prophetic statement, “I will make the tough decisions necessary to save this country even if it costs me my second term.” This was quite prophetic. By the end of 2026, Paul, Cruz and anyone associated with their policies were politically toxic. The Libertarians and the Republicans were both soundly thrashed in the midterms, and the remainder of his first term was spent in gridlock with a Democrat congress.

Steve Bullock (2028-2036)

The former governor of Montana turned US Senator, Steve Bullock and running mate Rep. Ana Hernandez Luna (TX) took the White House back for the Democrat party in 2028, crushing Paul and Cruz 445 to 93 in the electoral college. Their message of a return to income equality and economic fairness for the many resonated strongly with minority – turned – majority voters and the working class, many of whom had borne the brunt of recovery on their shoulders.

A scandal broke following the election that the Bullock-Luna campaign accepted Custody-originating funds. U.S. law banned foreign nationals from donating to political campaigns, but circumventing the restrictions by routing financial support through anonymous bank accounts, shell corporations, front companies, and other opaque transaction vehicles was an easy move. Foreign adversaries can then use these companies to execute anonymous financial transactions that facilitate attacks on free and fair democratic elections. The scandal around the Bullock-Luna campaign alleged that a network of shell corporations hid the origin of Custody funds pumped through a series political action committees (PAC) and social media political ad campaigns. The Kremlin has long had expertise in this area. During the Soviet Union’s heyday, the KGB perfected the craft of anonymously moving funds to seed foreign political campaigns around the world. The allegations were not far-fetched. No doubt, a democratic administration, who even among their most conservative are pro-Custody, was immensely favorable to CCD interests.

With tension rising in the Strait of Taiwan, including the resource-rich oceans there, China-USA tensions escalated. With war on the horizon, China attempted to sell its sovereign holdings of the US Treasury to other nations to raise funds; however, the only country even capable of purchasing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of treasuries at the time was the CCD, and they declined the offering.

Track Palin (2036-2044)

The general election of 2036 saw the presidency change hands again, this time back to control of the Republican party. Definite dark horse candidate retired Col. Track Palin and running mate Frederick Dawson came up seemingly from nowhere to take the prize on election night away from Luna and Juan Castro in an electoral college nail-biter that came down to the absentee military vote swinging California into Republican hands for the first time since Ronald Reagan was in office.

In another interesting turn reflective of the country’s shifting demographic landscape, Texas, the home state of Luna and Castro, which had gone to the Democrat party in 2028 and 2032 absent a strong Republican candidate, remained Blue even with a relatively solid Republican candidate and a scandal-plagued Democrat party. This remains the case on the national level even though within Texas more right-wing candidates persist, and the Texas secession movement gains traction.

Palin was deputy commander of the U.S. Army National Guard Arctic Command before he resigned his commission in 2035. It is said that he resigned as a result of being denied his general’s stars because of his family’s status as outspoken political enemies to the Bullock administration. At the age of 46, with no funding or former political experience, he secured the Republican nomination due to a weak field, his family’s name recognition and a generally likable character.

He and his running mate campaigned on taking a tough military stance against China. Palin promised to not allow China to use its economic posturing as a pretext for assuming military dominance in the Pacific. China called Palin’s bluff. One month before Palin took office, China launched a major military offensive against the island of Taiwan.

The Taiwan Strait war was a short-lived but intense series of naval and land conflicts between China and Taiwan, who was allied with the United States support. When the conflict ended, Taiwan, its resources and water-space was under Chinese control. President Palin was lauded for his international maneuverings during the war even though China ultimately won the territory.

The remainder of President Palin’s administration was clouded by the emergence of the Sickness. As the World Health Organization declared the Sickness a new form of infectious disease, the tentative calm from post-war cease fires was eroded again. Fear and panic over an emerging pandemic rocked President Palin’s administration. In an effort to show support of Sickness control, the President authorized an emergency budget allocation increase to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH). He also named a new Director of the NIH, Dr. Roswell Jenkins. However, even this decision was controversial given that many other vital Federal programs, departments, and projects were eliminated.

It was during President Palin’s second term that the Liberty First Super PAC was formed.

Current Administration (2044-current)

President Fredrick James Dawson

After serving 8 years as the Vice President of the previous administration, Dawson successfully won the White House. A few weeks prior to swearing the oath of office, his running mate died of an apparent heart attack. Without a Vice President, Dawson appointed the previous President Palin to the office of Vice President. No one was even sure that it was even Constitutional since Palin had already been elected to two terms in office. Dawson said he’d done it (much to the chagrin of his own Party) to ensure someone didn’t become President without going through an election, and that come 2048 he’d pick a new running mate. No doubt the Democrats didn’t bother to challenge the appointment because they controlled the House. If Dawson somehow died, they would challenge the appointment and throw the Presidency to the third-in-line Speaker of the House, Oliver Holden.

The first controversy to darken the Dawson Administration came on the heels of an International Energy Summit. Speakers from all over the world, including the burgeoning renewable resource industry, convened in Dayton, Ohio. The events that came to be known as the Dayton Disaster riled up the traumas of the decades prior. The administration had to enact a massive-scale evacuation of more than a million people, including organizing medical treatment and displaced refugees in the short term. Over the following two years, public outcry over nuclear energy has forced the government to again reassess their energy strategy. The administration determined that they were going to be forced to continue to rely on nuclear power despite the risks.

In the weeks after the Dayton Disaster, a live conversation was broadcast online between President Dawson and the Ascendancy. The conversation was tense but diplomatic. Both sides were showing their nations that they were attempting to be civil, but their tension was thinly veiled. After the transmission was ended, a private call continued between the two heads of state. That conversation was intentionally leaked by the Custody. In it, President Dawson was shown to be immature, disrupted, unprofessional and power-hungry. The Ascendancy, on the other hand positioned himself as a potential hero of the United States demonstrated the logical fallacies that Dawson clung to for the sake of his own power.

In 2045, President Dawson sent a panel of delegates to the CCD. It was the first state visit in years and the first of the Dawson administration. It was led by Secretary of State Francis and in his company were Senator Castilla and Congresswoman Avalon. Fearing a new type of arms race, their objective was to reach an agreement with the CCD that both nations would commit to not use channelers in armed conflicts. Both sides were aware that arming channelers was inevitable, but the public perception was important to Dawson. An ulterior motive for sending the delegates was for Congresswoman Avalon, a channeler herself, to meet Ascendancy, and show that channelers in government were not the domain of the CCD alone.

Notable persons

• Vice President Col. Track Palin
• Chief of Staff, Lacey Freiburg
• Speaker of the House, Oliver Holden
• Secretary of State, Arnold Francis
• Secretary of Human Powers, Nicholas Trano
• Congresswoman, Evelyn Avalon
• Senator Sofia Castilla, Ranking Member of Senate Foreign Relations Committee
• Senator John Carlyle, Chairperson of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
• Governor Jessika Thrice (Texas)
• Dr. Roswell Jenkins, Director of the National Institutes of Health

Military

The United States military in 2046 has been largely downsized. No longer possessing a technological edge, they have long since substituted brute force for guile. The Army and Air Force are little more than ceremonial at this point – with all non-essential soldiers and airmen slowly phased out and assets moved to the Navy and Marines. Special Operations are a huge focus in this newer, leaner US military – with a proportionately huge percentage of the budget devoted to the training and equipment of thousands of special operators.

Noted members

• Nicholas Trano (Navy, veteran)
• Antonia Perez (Army, current)
• Jay Carpenter (Marines Special Forces MARSOC, former)
• Andrew Koehler (Navy SEALs SUBGRU, current)
• Anne Lowe (Marines Special Forces MARSOC, deceased)