[Raellus]

Any time that there is a vacuum in the power structure, something or someone will eventually fill it. With the near collapse of the American federal government after the TDM, there would dozens of power vacuums from coast to coast. Whether a single entity like the New America of T2K canon would fill all of them is the question. I'm still not sure where I come down on this one. But I'm considering starting a CONUS-based campaign and that started me thinking seriously about this topic for the first time.

I've always liked the clear cut black and white of the Cold War rivals- it made perfect sense to me as a naïve pre-teen/teenager back in the mid-to-late '80s. Since then, I've come to see the world in all of its many shades of grey. Having a domestic enemy that is the same nationality as myself presents an interesting dilemma that I'd like to explore more. Naturally, New America was an immediate candidate to fill that domestic bad guy role. I've been thinking a lot lately about what New America would look like and this old thread provides a lot of good food for thought.

I recently watched a one-hour show on the National Geographic channel that briefly profiled three widespread American militia groups, all operating under the "Watchmen" moniker. One was in Florida, one in Ohio, and the last in Arizona. If they were directly linked in any way other than name, the show didn't say. I was left with the impression, however, that they were largely unaffiliated organizations. On a bit of an aside, they did however display a comically common body type- at least half of the militiamen caught on camera were grossly overweight. Their respective leadership cadres were very careful to be PC in their respective interviews. None of them publicly espoused any anti-government views; they all cited disaster preparedness and self-sufficiency as they raison de etre'. In fact, they all claimed that they existed to supplement existing government agencies in the event of an apocalyptic event. Every militia member across all three groups, aside from one Hispanic-looking man in the Ohio militia, was white. The Arizona group seemed the angriest of the three. Border security was their primary concern- they claimed that they're main quarry were foreign terrorists but their was a distinctly broad xenophobia in their rhetoric. By and large, all three of the Watchmen groups came across as earnest, politically moderate (or at least not quite extreme right leaning), well equipped poseurs.

I don't see something like New America as being far fetched. There's historical precedence in the United States. Buoyed by the Hollywood blockbuster, Birth of a Nation, Ku Klux Membership surged during the 1920s, albeit with a broader scope to its antipathy than its original iteration (Eastern and Southern European immigrants- Jews, and Catholics- as opposed to newly freed African-Americans, although black people weren't off the hook either) . It didn't wane in popularity again until its leader was accused of major sex crimes. To get back to my main point here, as many posters have previously stated, extremists tend to flourish in times of severe socio-economic stress, and political instability. It's no accident that the Russian Revolution happened during WWI, or that Fascism arose in the decades immediately after. A general breakdown in society provides extremists fertile soil in which to plant their seeds of anger and resentment, which often grow into hate.

Given said cataclysm, I can easily see a particularly well funded, supplied, connected extremist bringing together a lot of disparate militia groups under a single unified national organization in the United Sates. How much control at the local level this central figure would have would likely not be that great. Once again, communication, command, and control would be severely hindered by the devastation of multiple nuclear strikes. As a result, you'd see a lot of regional variation in organization, activities, and possibly even doctrine. Some New America cells might be very neo-Nazi in their outlook and activities. Others might not. That said, I still think that there would be more commonalities than differences.

If there was a blueprint for some sort of national militia organization in place before WWIII, then various regional groups would have a similar foundation. If someone wrote a book less radical and more widely distributed than something like the infamous Turner Diaries, then the scores of local and regional groups that would rise to fill the vacuum left in the wake of the TDM would have a popular model for their activities and organization. If the author of that popular book were still alive after the TDM, perhaps he could bring several of those regional organizations together, creating the active core of a more or less national movement. There would still likely be regional variation within this banner organization, but there would be some guiding principles that would link these groups together. To spice it up even more, part of the gameworld setting could be the struggle of the central New America leadership to unify and control these various local chapters.

But here are the features I think that all New America chapters would have in common:

1. Anti-[federal] government: The feds failed to protect the country, the presidential succession was a mess, and now their are two rival claimants to the mantle. Plus, real anti-fed militias really took off during the Clinton years, IRL.
2. Anti-communist: It was the Soviets, after all, that nuked America and created all of the devastation and suffering in the first place.
3. Anti-immigrant: The Mexican military invasion of the U.S. has given ample ammunition for any preexisting xenophobia-based arguments that may have had some traction before WWIII.
4. Religion: This one I'm not as sure about, but after near nuclear Armageddon, there might well be some lingering millennialism in here as well. Plus, since communism is in many ways anti-religion, there's almost a rebellious religiosity that goes hand in hand with anti-communism.

Some regional chapters may be a little more motivated by 1, some by 2, or 3, etc., but the basic framework is the same. I'm sure that not all chapters would get along. Some might fight openly for power.

Crap! It's way past my bedtime and I fear that I'm starting to ramble (heck, I probably started rambling an hour ago!), so I'd better call it a night and revisit this in the morning.

In the meantime, your thoughts and ideas are of course welcome.