Cascadia

Summary

Cascadia is a country within North America, which used to be most of the North American West Coast. Formation Day marks it's annual anniversary of the formation of Cascadia, and the introduction of The Triumvirate to the planet.

Cascadia is currently a country that is controlled completely by The Triumvirate, and acts as it's original base, for the Sprawl System.

Chromed Out 1 took place in PACIFICA-2, within Cascadia.

The Zones

Cascadia is split up into four zones, which are populated by individuals based on wealth, employ status, criminal record, income, and general usefulness to anything happening within the scope of The Triumvirate.

ZONE-1: Primarily a large slum, incorporates most of what used to be Los Angeles, which is now LA-1, and everything below it, which used to be Southern Californa and Baja California, all the way up to The Firewall, which was put in place to attempt to fight [[The Blaze]. ZONE-1 is also home to Z1DF, a massive detainment facility that functions as a mega-prison, and an enormous datacenter which runs The Sprawls, and SprawlNET. Most people within ZONE-1 are very poor, and crime runs rampant in this area.

ZONE-2: What used to be middle to northern California. Most people in Cascadia live in this zone. Home to PACIFICA-2, a very overcrowded, and incredibly expansive megacity, on top of what used to be San Francisco. ZONE-2 also houses the RootSHARD, a Shard, or the central control facility of The Triumvirate, placed where Palo Alto within Silicon Valley used to be. ZONE-2 also houses the SPRAWLROOT, a massive towering datacenter that handles everything happening within the SprawlNET.

ZONE-3: What used to be Washington and Oregon, centric to ROSE-3, or what was once Portland. A much more wealthier area, this is the third most populated Zone within Cascadia. Primarily houses wealthy corporate excutives of the industrial sector.

ZONE-4: A barely recognizable area that houses the ultra-wealthy, and Triumvirate-adjacent executives and corporates, and their families. Not much is known about this place purely on the basis that people aren't allowed to enter Zone's that are higher than the Zone that they currently live in, except under certain special circumstances. Most people don't ever make it here, but it is largely rumored to be along the lines of a "City of Glass," rather utopian and beautiful.

Culture

Cascadian culture can be defined as "post-American." At it's fundamentals, most citizens of Cascadia tend to focus on non-tradition, as well as near-libertarian policies - though at times, formally aware of the complete control that the many MegaCorps hold, over the country itself. One tends to describe a Cascadian as an "American non-American."

Simply defined - typical individuals that either paid their way to become Cascadian, and have an Arch installed, are usually seen as a different type of person - one who takes great interest in technology, believes in the concept of transhumanism, and had become tired of their lives, as the rest of the world struggles with what could be defined as petty squabbles, over race, creed, religion, or national origin.

These sentiments are not usually reflected in those who were born in Cascadia, as Cascadia is all that they've ever known.

There is no national language, in Cascadia - English is the most commonly spoken, with Japanese, and Korean, competing for second place.

Typical political sentiment in Cascadia is largely complacent, for the most part, with the idea of living under a technocratic corporatocracy. Universal Basic Income pays a barely living wage, and automation has nearly completely wiped out a majority of jobs - this is why UBI exists. People that still hand-produce products, or customized versions of existing products, are considered artisans, and are highly sought-after by MegaCorps, for designer positions.

There has been a considerable amount of Asian influence in modern Cascadian culture, purely due to mass immigration.

Cascadians value the idea of self-governance, and due to automation, enjoy a large degree of self-autonomy. This is why when it comes to aesthetics, there seems to be a large focus on your typical hard-rock/punk/metal aesthetic, mixed in with your standard tech-obsessed society. On the off-hand, counter-culture is usually that of opulence, wealth, and materialism, though these sentiments flow through most groups, anyways.

The idea of a self-made businessman is typically rather attractive to the normal Cascadian. Whether or not the Corpo lifestyle is right for them, is a choice that many typically make, purely through their upbringing.

There seems to be little disregard for what the Police force, CSEC, thinks of them. Seeing CSEC purely as heavily militarized mallcops, at the end of the day - there isn't much regard for the law. CorpoCops, however, are another story. People always respect the MegaCorps, before they respect the actual police force.

In terms of sentiment about the government, most people simply see them as an automated annoyance - with most individuals not exactly having much of an insight into what goes on within their immediate political situations.

History

(Still WIP, currently just a copy-paste from something I'm working on.)

After experiencing substantial growth in the 1950s as Japanese immigrants and returning American expats decided to settle on the west coast, the Pacific Northwest experienced meteoric growth as displaced residents of the East Coast metropolises moved west before and during the First Anglo-American War. The Northwest was a secondary site for the Californian Cultural Revolution, but not as strongly as it hit the coastal megacities of San Francisco and LA.

As the 2010s continued, the Cascadia movement gained traction, seeing the Anglo-American War as a symptom of old-world grudges held for far too long. With it being the first war fought on indisputably American soil since 1865, people were outraged, and the Cascadia movement got in bed with the Anti-War movement to further its reach. Eventually, in 2055, after decades of fruitless firefighting in the Southwest, and a crash from superpower status, Cascadia handed in their metaphorical two-weeks notice to the United States, and they had no choice but to oblige.

Only 3 years later, the Symposium on Secession would be held, and California became independent. However, due to massive droughts, and rapid desertification, they were all but bankrupt, and Cascadia was in a position to recover them. The California government, little more than three years after their creation, signed away their independence.