Post-Change North America
After the Change, millions of North Americans were denied the technology upon which they had been dependent. The Eastern United States and California were some of the worst hit, as starving urbanites ate the remaining food in the area before resorting to cannibalism. Pockets of civilization, mostly around the Great Plains, survived where there were no large cities around. Several new nations sprang up to keep order in the changed world.
The new governments were organized along a feudal structure, with American terms adapting to describe medieval concepts. Memory of the United States continues to affect the culture of these nations. Many of these nations fly the US flag, and several leaders take the term "President of the United States" along with their other titles.
The Sioux and Haida also carved out sizable nations in North America. The Haida returned to the practice of slavery, raiding the Oregon coast for new slaves. The Sioux live a nomadic lifestyle, taking care of their herds and hunting buffalo, though also raiding their neighbors unless they are paid protection money. The Sioux made an unsuccessful attempt to conquer Fargo and Marshall, and fought a war with the Church Universal and Triumphant that led to a peace treaty seen as somewhat unfavorable to the Sioux.
In Hawaiʻi, the population of Oʻahu wiped itself out, but civilization still exists on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi. The island produces coffee, a rare commodity in post-Change North America. Prince Edward Island also survived relatively intact, becoming a part of the British Empire. Mexico and Central America, including the Caribbean, were almost completely depopulated by overlapping Death Zones. South America adapted to post-Change life much as North America did, with rural areas far from large cities maintaining much of their population and adapting to the new laws of nature. Chocolate was imported from the Caribbean Sea, but only after trade routes were reestablished by settler populations from the south and from the British Empire. By 2050, Britain laid claim to the east coast of North America and Jamaican merchants traded in British ports.
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“The great social adventure of America is no longer the conquest of the wilderness but the absorption of fifty different peoples.”
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