Setting:The Post-Apocalyptic Roadmap/Modified Background Idea

Part of the Post-Apocalyptic Roadmap Project.

In 2009, the addition of Georgia and the Ukraine to NATO along with the operational activation of a U.S. missile defense station in Poland ignited post-Cold War tensions between the United States and the Russian Federation, at the same time that both nations further development of Anti-Ballistic Missile programs was causing alarm in the government of the People's Republic of China. As a show of force against NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, the Russian Federation redeployed troops into the unrecognized Georgian autonomous region of South Ossetia, while at the same time completing the restoration of some of it's Cold War era peripheral missile platforms. This situation quickly became a standoff between the United States and Russia, with the European members of NATO and the government of the PRC, rattled in the wake of an assassination attempt on a party official by a Taiwanese radical, along for the ride. In the midst of this crisis the American SHAPE commander ordered NATO forces to move on a Georgian train station occupied by Russian soldiers, causing the first direct firefight between the peacekeepers and Russians in the conflict. Attempts at the usual inconclusive diplomatic solution were immediately cut off by this turn of events and the Russian Federation went on full alert, with the United States matching it's pace.

This would of probably only been a tense, temporary moment leading to a gradual staging down of defense alert levels if it hadn't been during that time that a radar malfunction in outdated Russian equipment caused a false missile detection. With all the submarines and bombers readied, the nuclear exchange (or, The Exchange) crossed over the world like a swift sword. Both the United States and Russia had two-tiered strategic objectives with their attacks, not intending total devastation of the other country. On the part of Russia this was primarily because it had NATO facilities all over Europe to target as well as worrying about America itself. However China entered in the fray, wiping out the American leadership, and provoking retaliations all around. When the dust cleared, NATO nations and the the PRC had weathered attacks on primary and secondary targets, while the Russian Federation had endured missiles from both sides adding up to primary, secondary, and tertiary destruction. During the Exchange other nuclear powers around the world had taken the opportunity to fire off against each other, with an exchange between Iran and Israel, Pakistan and India, and an attack on Japan by North Korea; before the effect of China's nuclear weapons on South Korea effectively rained chaos down upon that nation.

Primary targets were missile bases, submarine ports, strategic communications centers, and strategic air command bases. In North America not only were the NORAD facilities in Colorado and Ontario destroyed, but an unexpected Chinese entry right at the beginning of the Exchange effectively destroyed the American leadership with D.C., Camp David, and the alternate Pentagon site at Raven Rock in Pennsylvania as well. An aerial detonation of missiles was also used to cause an EMP to knock out major power grids, severely complicating evacuations. After those first 24 hours, the Secondary targets in the United States were struck: major metropolitan areas (to further disrupt communications) and major military bases. The Exchange petered off after that and is thought to have fully ended on all sides 60 hours in.

In the United States, the shadow government of the American Program Office arose in Virginia, while units from the many surviving lesser military bases (it was after all, a limited exchange done with the intent of knocking out strategic nuclear capabilities, not all military capacities or industrial infrastructure) responded to NORAD command, which had evacuated Cheyenne Mountain in time in a aerial command center. That was the beginning of the division, as the civilian government of the United States of America officially rebuilt itself under the succeeding president, former attorney general John Aberdine; while the surviving Joint Combat Command of the continental U.S. military set down in an unknown location and reformed the military chain of command completely separate from the new government.

Three months after the Exchange, National Guard units were called on by one government or another and the remnant state governments they were serving in the capacity of disaster relief were allowed to collapse. By the first year after the Exchange 35% of America's population had died from combined nuclear effects (blast, radiation, fallout). 18 months in and the civil war between Aberdine's APO backed CGUS (Civilian Government of the United States) and the MGUS (Military Government of the United States) became official, although largely a cold war ever since. At the current point, three years after the Exchange, roughly 48% of the original population has died from direct and indirect war damages, and no one is eager for the current civil war to turn into outright fighting yet. The MGUS, despite the destruction of major military installations, was able to call upon a larger and better trained force than the National Guard units summoned by Aberdine's presidential powers. However once regular and Guard units departed, most of those remaining bases were occupied by locals and have been ever since, and the APO has the definite advantage of position both in it's control of Virginia and it's APO reconstruction efforts throughout the nation. The MGUS is similarly scattered, though presumably it's leaders are commanding from a hidden base somewhere in the country, and has a much less solid position in most cases, establishing forts where it can and in some cases taking military governance of communities by force. What's preventing a CGUS power play against the military government forces at this point is MGUS' control of tactical (battlefield) nuclear weapons and the threat of their use, though in reality the MGUS commanders are unwilling to unleash more nuclear havoc on American soil. Instead both sides are attempting to seize separate areas across the nation, to reconstruct and build up their infrastructure and forces before they ultimately have to wage war against another on the battlefield.

Codename: Pegasus The APO was set up in the 1980's by the President as a COG (Continuity Of Government) shadow government to supplant the Executive branch and function with a Congress or Supreme Court in the event of nuclear war. Their only oversight is a committee of acting and former officials of great wealth and influence, who are replaced with handpicked apprentices after their deaths. Top secret, the program was codenamed Pegasus.

When the red alert came on the committee sequestered themselves in the secret facility on Mount Pony. They rode out the Exchange just like the ultra-wealthy Trustees did in private bunkers all across the country. When it was over they activated the APO and it's subordinate federal facilities such as the FEMA base on Mount Weather, and the contracted civilian facilities set up by the Trustees through a network dummy corporations.

The American Program Office is staffed by former military personnel and civilian specialists and is partnered with the massive defense contractor Arken Inc. and it's subsidiaries, the PMC (Private Military Contractor) Sutherland and the domestic security company Wasatch Security. It's reorganized the military forces at it's disposal into new units and restructured it's CIA, FBI, FEMA, and Customs/Immigration assets as Homeland Security agents. The APO is also employing the Germany mercenary company Polemarch Operations, known for it's work in Africa and deployed from their headquarters just prior to the crisis going nuclear; and Shadow Company, a unit of contracted ex-Special Forces sent to apply their skills to win the hearts and minds of American communities struggling in the aftermath of nuclear war.

With a small fleet of mobile command vehicles and corporate bases that could be anywhere, the new Civilian Government of the United States can pop up where you would least expect them, trying to reconstruct industry/trade-routes and reprogram the populace with Arken relief programs and Shadow Company operations ("win the hearts and minds of the locals and train them to fight other locals who resist against the CGUS agenda"). The communities and resources they do control, whether directly through the APO or indirectly through the wealthy Trustees, may be defended by the reorganized Civilian Government army, by Wasatch Security officers (who did such work at corporate mines here in the States prior to the Exchange), by Sutherland PMC's (who have not previously been unleashed on American soil), or even by now stranded Polemarch mercenaries (who are working for land concessions). And even well organized communities can be encouraged to cooperate, with Mount Pony housing the remaining US Treasury and Federal Reserves in gold and the financial electronics mother lode of the Fedwire system. Despite it's creeping influence, the base of the CGUS' power is still in Virginia, as that's where their new federal government formed because that's the home of the Mount Pony and Mount Weather facilities.

Notable persons of the Civilian Government and American Program Office are...

• -President John Aberdine: Formerly the acting Attorney General, sworn into the Presidency as the Constitutional successor.
• -General Bertram Wayne, retired: The man who organized the APO two decades ago and is now supervising the Mount Pony facility.
• -Marine Colonel Terry Everett: With a background as a CIA contracted military officer and the student of the now deceased Marine Colonel Martin Cafferty of the National Security Council, Everett is the APO's action officer. In effect this means that he's the committee's watchdog, he hunts down trouble and shoots it. At any given time he may be leading a group of CGUS soldiers, Sutherland PMC's, or Homeland Security agents and has one of the mobile command centers solely at his disposal.
• -The unknown other members of the Pegasus Committee
• -The Trustees
• -The Congress: Several Congressmen were "rescued" by APO personnel from the alternate Congressional site hidden beneath the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia and now serve the Civilian Government as powerless figureheads.

Project: Looking Glass USSTRATCOM and the other Unified Combat Commands of the continental United States were destroyed in the Exchange, including the NORAD bases in Colorado (the Cheyenne Mountain facility) and Ontario. However, the USSTRATCOM command structure was able to escape this destruction by a timely escape in their aerial command center, the Looking Glass (so named because it mirrors all the operations of a SAC base and a NORAD communications hub). In the wake of the exchange the Looking Glass patrolled the American skies, hailing down to the surviving bases and units of all the branches of the United States military. The chain of command was reformed and units moved out in convoys before organized resistance to order and authority could form. New strong-points and caches were established throughout the nation, fortresses from which the Military Government could build up a base of power and then command large regions from. For now a scattered number of communities are controlled by military governors and military operations are under way in various areas to try to rebuild lines of communication, trade, and travel; as well as secure strategic resources and manufacturing capabilities that will be vital in the inevitable shooting war with their Civilian Government rivals.

The most remarkable thing about the MGUS is that no one is for sure where it's leaders or home base is. The orders are hopped via radio from one base to another and then relayed to their units in the field when possible. The encrypted messages, consisting of shifting codewords known only to the base officers of the Military Government, are said to come from an unknown location dubbed "Siege Perilous", which is thought by the Civilian Government to be the facility where the Looking Glass' command capacities were transferred to. This hidden redoubt of the MGUS has become a legend among survivors and is referred to in MGUS soldier slang simply as SP.

MGUS units are known for their ability to resupply and recruit replacements in the field, through varying methods, and operate with differing degrees of leeway in how they complete their objectives.