HOME | DD

Description

The Sacramento Government and its peripheries represent a live study in both the nature of quasi-conflict areas still nominally under the control of a state, and the principles of internal occupation, refined by pre-war America during the “War on Terror” and now today at home. The Seattle Uprising and its aftermath in fact give us pointed examples of both in the fall of the Seattle provisional government and the now ongoing pacification mission.

For context’s sake, the Seattle Uprising, the name of which is still somewhat controversial given the nature of the events often tied to the name, started roughly 3 years into the outbreak of hostilities within the former United States. The city, which was under loose federal control, was struck by one of the most powerful earthquakes to hit the area in over 200 years. The city proper and much of the Puget Sound was devastated first by the earthquake itself, but then also by the runaway fires caused by the ignition of broken gas mains. However, instead of heralding the breakdown of civil order, the following weeks saw the organic coming together of the community and a spontaneous and eclectic system of allocating resources and ensuring the health, housing, and wellbeing of the many survivors of the quake. To be sure, there was a breakdown of authority in the sense that the federal and state government had effectively nothing to do with the initial recovery, but a sort of local authority managed to hold on and persevere until federal assistance could arrive.

The intervention of the federal government would however actually be the beginning of the city’s troubles, as an attempt to force a rationalization of the relief program through the military and state government saw the disruption of an already working system of support and its replacement by a largely out of touch and sluggish administration that was unable to adequately replace the very services it had torn down upon entering. The federal relief program instead saw homelessness, hunger, and mass illness return to the city in waves, and tensions soon arose between much of the local population and the relief mission. Although records are contradictory, the general consensus is that a military police officer shot a local grocer during an altercation, which escalated into an all-out battle for the streets. The initial federal mission would be pushed out of the city, not equipped to handle a populace in revolt.

An impromptu provisional government of the Puget Sound would be established, mostly as a reflexive measure following the unexpected defeat of the federals. The ideological makeup of the government was highly eclectic and arguably incoherent, owing to its spontaneous nature, and while no clear group managed to establish control over the movement the provisional government as a whole held onto the area for roughly four months until a newer, better armed federal mission came to take the city back.

And so, the Seattle Uprising was put down with overwhelming force.

Five years later and Seattle is currently run by the federal pacification mission, headed by the US Army. Taking inspiration from the subjugation of Iraq, the Seattle mission is dominated by strategically placed “Green Zones”, walled compounds sealed off from the rest of the former city, which is itself divided into four mission areas for the government and private contractors to oversee. Furthermore, modeled after programs in Anbar and Fallujah, the pacification mission uses both a complex system of material incentives (bribes) and work camps to both encourage the populace to cooperate and to dissuade them from continuing armed resistance. In the latter case, the local Marine mission oversees a biometric identification system for both work camp detainees and for locals who seek to move into either the green zones or specially cleared federal resettlement communities carved out of the old city.

This has had mixed results.

While much of the sound remains in federal hands, the area is littered with various groups opposed to the local mission, ranging from remnants of the provisional government, to ideologically left and right extremist groups, to organized criminal movements, to even a failed refugee mission similar to the uprising in Kansas. Many of these can be easily picked out in the above map, with groups like the Shoreline Militia and the Republican Army stemming from different tendencies in the old provisional government, the latter of which has pretensions of being a future federal pretender in its own right. Various leftist groups can be picked out such as the Seattle Democratic Society, which are the remnants of a student resistance movement against the federal occupation, whereas the Proletarian Revolutionary Army is a Maoist guerilla group that is attempting to encircle the city. Groups such as Rutger’s Reavers and the Westpoint Warriors are non-ideological opportunist criminal movements. Meanwhile groups such as the Seven Stars and Darqness are eclectic in their origins, the former belonging to a mixed martial arts community that had been visiting Vashon Island at the outbreak of hostilities and the latter apparently being descended from the local party scene. Groups such as the National Socialist Movement of the Northwest and the Society for the Preservation of the White Race are rather obvious in their origins. The Freewheelers and Termagants are of unknown origin, though the latter is supposedly descended from a local hacker collective, and the name is borrowed from the tabletop game Warhammer 40K. Camp St. Cabrini is rather expectedly a refugee camp that rose up in revolt. Lastly, turning to the southeast of the map we can see that moving in from Idaho is a local contingent of the Sabaothic religious movement, whose entrance into Sacramento’s territory is a recent development.

While it seems unlikely that any one of these groups will be able to remove federal forces from Seattle, and it is questionable if they could even do so together, the mission in Seattle has placed considerable strain on Sacramento’s already overextended position. Further to the east and south the government is currently busy handling an eco-fascist insurgency that has spiraled out of control, requiring the assistance of the United Nations. What regional forces in the area that should be assisting are currently themselves held up in Seattle, though one could conversely argue that what forces in the area that should be in Seattle are currently held up with the eastern insurgency. Either way it means the same thing, Sacramento will continue to juggle far too many eggs at once and hope none of them hit the ground. Though at this point for the administration that’s just more of the same.

- Andrew Wright’s “A Hell Made From Heaven”, July 22nd, 2033

Description

The Sacramento Government and its peripheries represent a live study in both the nature of quasi-conflict areas still nominally under the control of a state, and the principles of internal occupation, refined by pre-war America during the “War on Terror” and now today at home. The Seattle Uprising and its aftermath in fact give us pointed examples of both in the fall of the Seattle provisional government and the now ongoing pacification mission.

For context’s sake, the Seattle Uprising, the name of which is still somewhat controversial given the nature of the events often tied to the name, started roughly 3 years into the outbreak of hostilities within the former United States. The city, which was under loose federal control, was struck by one of the most powerful earthquakes to hit the area in over 200 years. The city proper and much of the Puget Sound was devastated first by the earthquake itself, but then also by the runaway fires caused by the ignition of broken gas mains. However, instead of heralding the breakdown of civil order, the following weeks saw the organic coming together of the community and a spontaneous and eclectic system of allocating resources and ensuring the health, housing, and wellbeing of the many survivors of the quake. To be sure, there was a breakdown of authority in the sense that the federal and state government had effectively nothing to do with the initial recovery, but a sort of local authority managed to hold on and persevere until federal assistance could arrive.

The intervention of the federal government would however actually be the beginning of the city’s troubles, as an attempt to force a rationalization of the relief program through the military and state government saw the disruption of an already working system of support and its replacement by a largely out of touch and sluggish administration that was unable to adequately replace the very services it had torn down upon entering. The federal relief program instead saw homelessness, hunger, and mass illness return to the city in waves, and tensions soon arose between much of the local population and the relief mission. Although records are contradictory, the general consensus is that a military police officer shot a local grocer during an altercation, which escalated into an all-out battle for the streets. The initial federal mission would be pushed out of the city, not equipped to handle a populace in revolt.

An impromptu provisional government of the Puget Sound would be established, mostly as a reflexive measure following the unexpected defeat of the federals. The ideological makeup of the government was highly eclectic and arguably incoherent, owing to its spontaneous nature, and while no clear group managed to establish control over the movement the provisional government as a whole held onto the area for roughly four months until a newer, better armed federal mission came to take the city back.

And so, the Seattle Uprising was put down with overwhelming force.

Five years later and Seattle is currently run by the federal pacification mission, headed by the US Army. Taking inspiration from the subjugation of Iraq, the Seattle mission is dominated by strategically placed “Green Zones”, walled compounds sealed off from the rest of the former city, which is itself divided into four mission areas for the government and private contractors to oversee. Furthermore, modeled after programs in Anbar and Fallujah, the pacification mission uses both a complex system of material incentives (bribes) and work camps to both encourage the populace to cooperate and to dissuade them from continuing armed resistance. In the latter case, the local Marine mission oversees a biometric identification system for both work camp detainees and for locals who seek to move into either the green zones or specially cleared federal resettlement communities carved out of the old city.

This has had mixed results.

While much of the sound remains in federal hands, the area is littered with various groups opposed to the local mission, ranging from remnants of the provisional government, to ideologically left and right extremist groups, to organized criminal movements, to even a failed refugee mission similar to the uprising in Kansas. Many of these can be easily picked out in the above map, with groups like the Shoreline Militia and the Republican Army stemming from different tendencies in the old provisional government, the latter of which has pretensions of being a future federal pretender in its own right. Various leftist groups can be picked out such as the Seattle Democratic Society, which are the remnants of a student resistance movement against the federal occupation, whereas the Proletarian Revolutionary Army is a Maoist guerilla group that is attempting to encircle the city. Groups such as Rutger’s Reavers and the Westpoint Warriors are non-ideological opportunist criminal movements. Meanwhile groups such as the Seven Stars and Darqness are eclectic in their origins, the former belonging to a mixed martial arts community that had been visiting Vashon Island at the outbreak of hostilities and the latter apparently being descended from the local party scene. Groups such as the National Socialist Movement of the Northwest and the Society for the Preservation of the White Race are rather obvious in their origins. The Freewheelers and Termagants are of unknown origin, though the latter is supposedly descended from a local hacker collective, and the name is borrowed from the tabletop game Warhammer 40K. Camp St. Cabrini is rather expectedly a refugee camp that rose up in revolt. Lastly, turning to the southeast of the map we can see that moving in from Idaho is a local contingent of the Sabaothic religious movement, whose entrance into Sacramento’s territory is a recent development.

While it seems unlikely that any one of these groups will be able to remove federal forces from Seattle, and it is questionable if they could even do so together, the mission in Seattle has placed considerable strain on Sacramento’s already overextended position. Further to the east and south the government is currently busy handling an eco-fascist insurgency that has spiraled out of control, requiring the assistance of the United Nations. What regional forces in the area that should be assisting are currently themselves held up in Seattle, though one could conversely argue that what forces in the area that should be in Seattle are currently held up with the eastern insurgency. Either way it means the same thing, Sacramento will continue to juggle far too many eggs at once and hope none of them hit the ground. Though at this point for the administration that’s just more of the same.

- Andrew Wright’s “A Hell Made From Heaven”, July 22nd, 2033