SOUTH CAROLINA

South Carolina is the heart of the Carolina Confederacy, one of the few threats to the power of the KFS.

1) NUCLEAR TARGETS

COLUMBIA (State Capital): SS-19 (MIRV: 6x 300 Kt warheads); Near Miss, 22km (10mi) NW; High Air Burst.
CHARLESTON (Nuclear Submarine Base): SS-N-17 (MIRV: 3x 500 Kt warheads); On Target; Low Air Burst.
CHARLESTON ARMY DEPOT (North Charleston): SS-N-17 (MIRV: 3x 500 Kt warheads); On Target; Low Air Burst
FORT JACKSON ARMY BASE (outside Columbia): SS-18M1b (Bio-warhead: September Fever); On Target; Low Air Burst.
OCONEE NUCLEAR POWER STATION, REACTORS 1-2-3 (Old Pickens, Lake Keowee): SS-19 (MIRV: 6x 300 Kt warheads); On Target; Low Air Burst

Discretionary nuclear targets:

CATAWBA NUCLEAR POWER STATION, REACTORS 1-2 (Concord): SS-N-17 (MIRV: 3x 500 Kt warheads); On Target; Low Air Burst
PARRIS ISLAND MARINE CORPS BASE (Port Royal): SS-N-8 (single 2 Mt warhead); On Target; Low Air Burst
CHARLESTON AFB (Charleston): SS-N-17 (MIRV: 3x 500 Kt warheads); On Target; Low Air Burst

2) MORROW PROJECT ASSETS

Unnamed MP bolthole: Near the town of Gaffney east of Spartansburg.

3) THE CAROLINA CONFEDERACY

This regional empire controls nearly all of South Carolina, and parts of Georgia, with influence tendrils extending throughout the Deep South and Appalachia. Formed in the first generation after the war, the Carolina Confederacy seeks to establish a strong, safe society based upon the classic concepts and ideals of Southern Gentility. This is a grand idea, but it is more of a dream than a reality. Despite its heritage, slavery is not condoned in the Carolina Confederacy, and generally speaking all peoples are welcome as long as they are productive and peaceful. The capitol of the Carolina Confederacy is in Columbia, the old State Capital; spared by the war due to a stroke of luck.

The Carolina Confederacy Army: The Confederate Army is large and powerful, though rarely used to expand the borders anymore. They are well armed and units are raised in the areas they protect, allowing them defensive familiarity of the territory. Bandits and marauders keep the Army busy in the border regions, but internally there are few causes to mobilize a unit. In a common practice, units are named for the town they are garrisoned in. Rank and file soldiers wear uniforms of dark Butternut-brown with black caps, though in the hotter summer months troopers often just tie their uniform tunics around their waist and wear white undershirts. The Confederate Army is armed with locally made carbine rifles, while Militia support units often have muskets. The Flag of the old State of South Carolina--a field of dark blue with a white Palmetto Palm in the center, and a white Crescent Moon in the upper left corner--is the Standard under which the Carolina Confederacy marches.

Relations with neighbors: The Carolina Confederacy has cordial relations with the USA in Virginia (see that state), and not-so-cordial relations with the huge Free State empire in Kentucky (see that state). There is real fear in the Confederacy that the Kentucky Free State hopes to take over their lands, and is worming its way into the Confederate political machine to accomplish this with minimal bloodshed. This is the root of much of the distrust of the Kentucky Free State, though there is a limited amount of trade and travel between the two areas. The Albany Presidency to the south and west has never been a serious military threat, and is actually a good trading partner, though it has long limited the western expansion of the Carolina Confederacy. Traders from both empires share the border region in eastern Georgia. Being a coastal power, ships from the Carolina Confederacy have been known to visit places as far away as Europe and western Africa, and relations with these places are light, but generally good. Only the various Pirate bands in the Gulf of Mexico pose any serious naval threat to the Confederate Navy.

Freedom Fighters: The Carolina Confederacy is also home to a number of groups of anti-Free State "freedom fighters". These groups operate from remote camps in the Tennessee border area, usually in isolated valleys and towns. They conduct raids across the border, into Free State controlled areas of Tennessee, striking as far north as Kentucky itself on occasion. Groups such as these have freed numerous slaves and plundered loot. The Carolina Confederacy government officially is unaware of these groups, and even publicly denounces their "campaign of destabilizing violence and banditry". In reality, the Confederate government often actively funds and arms these rebels, using them as foils to the growing Free State power in the region. The Carolina Confederacy is also certain that the Rich Five know that the Confederates are backing and protecting the rebels, and that the Masters of the KFS do not forget...

3) COASTAL SOUTH CAROLINA

The further northeast you go, say past the Great Pee Dee River towards the border with North Carolina, the less direct influence the New Confederacy has. Control of this area has long been contested between the Confederacy and the Waccamaw Indian Tribe, who control Columbus & Brunswick counties, in North Carolina, as well as most of Horry County, here in South Carolina. Towns are still nominally a part of the Confederacy, and trade and travel is regular, but a degree of self-governance is seen here that is not common in other areas of the state.

Myrtle Beach: A fishing and trade center of 2,000 people, most living in the southern suburbs along the Golden Strand, supplementing their catch from their fishing fleet with inland farms. Their fleet consists of a couple dozen well-maintained sailboats of various sizes.

Georgetown: With the destruction of Beaufort and Charleston, Georgetown in the center of the coast is now the state's major port. It is a large city of 3,000 residents. Much infrastructure has been restored and there is now running water in most areas and electricity for the common citizen -- if they pay their "power taxes". Numerous people work at the docks, which have been expanded tenfold since the war, producing a variety of wooden hulled ships--everything from deep water fishing schooners to steam-powered freighters can be built here (although the hulls for steamships have to be towed down to Savannah, for fitting of their steam engines). The total number of trained police--called "Coppers" for the copper badges they all wear--under uniform in the city is around 100, counting auxiliaries, and they are very well armed, with every Copper carrying a Columbia Armory-made Browning automatic pistol. There is still a uniformed fire department with one steam-powered pumper truck as well as several horse-drawn fire wagons.

Moncks Corner: A large farming town of around 4,200 people. Thanks to the presence of the Santee Cooper hydroelectric station--meticulously maintained and operated over the decades--electrical power is provided to much of the region. The town center has been built up into a virtual fortress over the decades, to protect the valuable industrial factories located there. Besides textile mills, Monck's Corner is the center for Canning and Preserving foodstuffs in the Confederacy. The factories of Monck's Corner produce everything from Canned Milk to Canned Beans, Tinned Meat to Tinned Bread, Boxed Flour to Boxed Crackers. There is much trade with the regional communities and the soldiers of the local Moncks Brigade garrison are very well thought of in the area. The Monck's Brigade is also tasked with assisting in securing the Ruins of Charleston.

The Ruins of Charleston: The nuclear war was not kind to Charleston, as nine separate warheads smashed into the city. Virtually the entire metro area north of the Stono River and Wappoo Creek was leveled, though a few large concrete and steel structures remain standing on the partially flooded peninsula. The levels of Cobalt 90 are extremely high in places and reports of Blue Undead are not uncommon. Despite these dangers, rumors of Pre-War weapons and treasures, hidden away in bunkers under the military reserves--including tales of bunkers deep under the old Navy Yard that contain stores of nuclear fuel for submarine reactors--Salvagers and Scavengers constantly sneak past Army and Navy patrols, in search of these valuables.

Charleston Harbor: Charleston's harbor, once one of the busiest on the East Coast, is littered with sunken ships and nearly completely blocked off from the Atlantic. The numerous nuke effects and uncounted hurricanes have filled in the ship channel and shifted the sandy bars around to the point where today anything with a draft over three feet can't get in or out. The relatively narrow deep shipping channel is also hopelessly blocked with several dozen sunken ships, some of them huge oil tankers still seeping oil in rough weather. Was anyone ever able to clear the channel (an engineering feat that probably won't be possible for another century at least) there are still a number of relatively intact vessels at the various docks to be salvaged. These include a US Navy destroyer and a British Royal Navy frigate that was here on a port visit when the nukes fell. These two ships were pushed up on the beach by tidal waves, but are now about half in the water. Their hulls are rusted out but they still would be goldmines of engineering information.

Sullivan's Island: Like Folly Island below, this barrier island is a slightly wider, sandy strip of land, north of the opening to Charleston Bay, and is home to a Confederate Navy Station--Fort Moultrie, on the western end of the island. This Naval Station is tasked with patrolling Charleston harbor, and is also detailed with watching traffic along the coast from several tall, wood-frame watchtowers built along the island, which can see several dozen miles out to sea on clear days. The Naval Station maintains a temperamental crystal AM radio transceiver--to keep in contact with another monitoring station on Folly Island, as well as passing Confederate Navy vessels--and also maintains a telephone landline to Monck's Corner. The old seacoast fort now supports a small local population of 300 fisherfolk, as well as the Naval Station.

Folly Island: This barrier island, just a narrow sandy strip some seven miles long, south of the opening to Charleston Bay is home to a Confederate Navy garrison--a detachment from the Fort Moultrie Naval Station--numbers only ten men most days, and stays in touch with their HQ via a temperamental crystal AM transceiver and a small steamlaunch. They are detailed with watching traffic along the coast from several tall, wood-frame watchtowers built along the island, which can see several dozen miles out to sea on clear days.

Walterboro: Before the War, Walterboro, and surrounding Colleton County, was one of the leading areas for the production of rice in America, yielding golden harvests of Carolina Gold rice in vast quantities. Over a century after the Bombs fell, Walterboro, and surrounding Colleton County, remains a thriving town of 3,500 people. Many skilled craftsman and laborers live and work here, making all manner of goods out of the stocks of oak and pine.

Parris Island USMC Recruit Depot: Nuked during the war, this base has been picked through by the Confederates over the years. A small Confederate Army garrison of 2 Companies from the Walterboro Brigade--some 125 men with some armored steamcars and trucks--man a log and earth fort north of the old Marine base at Gardens Corner, patrolling the Savannah-Walterboro highway and watching over local farms and fields.

4) THE SAVANNAH RIVER VALLEY

Covered in the Georgia listing.

5) CENTRAL SOUTH CAROLINA

Never rich in mineral wealth, this area of the Carolina Confederacy has always been agricultural. Vast tracts of land have been farmed for centuries here, and the rivers and creeks are filled with edible fish. This is the "breadbasket" of the Carolina Confederacy, though the population is not as high as other areas.

Broad River: A trade route to and from Columbia. The river is full of mutated fish, including huge haploid catfish that often attack boaters.

Fort Jackson: Hit by a biowar strike during the war, the September Fever killed off thousands of people to the east and northeast as a strong wind carried them away from Columbia proper. Enough of the fort's infrastructure remained for it to now serve as the main base for the Confederate Army.

Columbia: This former State Capitol is now the capitol of the Carolina Confederacy. In 1989, the SS-19 targeted here malfunctioned, and not only missed the city, but detonated early, in a High Air Blast over the Sumter National Forest north of the city. The ElectroMagnetic Pulse from this blast washed over Columbia, taking out power, lights, communications, and anything else electronic. The resultant panic-inspired riots and chaos wreaked havoc in the city's urban core, but a semblance of organization and order from the State Government did manage to survive in Columbia. This is the center from which the Carolina Confederacy grew. Some 22,000 people now live and work in the city and the surrounding counties. Known as a center of textile production, the area still produces textiles, though neither in the quantity nor in the variety of former days. Some heavier industries exist here, producing weapons and efficient steam-powered vehicles for the Army and Public Transport. Columbia is also the location of the University of South Carolina (USC), which not survived War Day relatively unscathed, it is the intellectual powerhouse behind the technical advancement of the Carolina Confederacy.

President Jonas Ingram: The current president of the Carolina Confederacy and a man determined to see his people thrive and prosper. The Presidential Mansion is the former Governor's Residence, atop Arsenal Hill, much remodeled over the years.

General John "Smoke" Lovell: Lovell is the Commanding General of the Confederate Army--and is secretly plotting to depose President Ingram. The General is in love with his niece Caroline Davis, who is 40-years his junior, and she is the reason he is considering this drastic action. Lovell lives in a fortified compound in the northeast grounds of Fort Jackson, where he is training his personal security detachment for a possible assassination attempt on the President. Should he choose to go through with it, Lovell would probably have the support of the Army, but not as much with the traders and farmers that make up the middle class of the Confederacy.

Caroline Davis: General Lovell's niece, and his lover, is a tall and sexy girl just 20 years old. She gives her Uncle the impression that his love is shared, but she is really just using her feminine charms to get close to him. Caroline is secretly a member of a radical group of rich, pampered children of the Confederate ruling class who have begun to worship "Satan". The Satan they bow to is more of a cross between a manifestation of the atomic war and a water monster that supposedly lives offshore. They believe that if they can take control of the military, then they can usher their monster god ashore to rule. To this end, young Caroline is willing to use her body to gain influence over the General. In the comfort of her arms late at night, the General is listening more and more to Caroline's urgings to depose the President.

John Thomas: The young scion of a prosperous Columbia merchant family, John Thomas founded the Satan worship cult five years ago, basing it on writings he found in some ancient books while on a day trip to the old ruins of west Columbia. At first it was just his circle of friends, but the Cult has grown to include several dozen young and (most importantly) idle members of some of Columbia's wealthiest and most powerful Families. John Thomas is more than a little envious of Caroline's growing position of power within the group. John Thomas' father, Senator Carter Thomas, is not only one of the leading merchants in Columbia, dealing extensively in tobacco and cotton, but he is also a powerful ex-Assemblyman with extensive political clout. The Senator has no idea of what his son is up to and certainly would not approve.

6) NORTHERN SOUTH CAROLINA

For the first few years after the collapse of authority, frenzied refugees and marauding bands stripped this area of small cities and farms clean of food, vehicles, technology, and other equipment. Disease and starvation claimed lives by the truckload in smaller communities and riots wracked the smoking ruins of the larger cities. When the Carolina Confederacy rose up, this area was reclaimed for its tillable fields and waterways. The bandits have now been largely run out, the crops replanted and life has moved on.

Greenville: With nukes seemingly landing all over the region, the citizens of Greenville panicked and ran. On the way out they managed to burn and loot most of the city, leaving large areas of it charred ruins. The city basically sat empty and rusting for nearly twenty years until people started to come back to the area. Today, the old city of Greenville is home to about 3,000 people.

Spartanburg: Spartanburg has survived fairly well, certainly when compared to other cities in the nation. Though locals espouse a proud history of "local autonomy", the Confederacy has almost total control over the city's management and Army patrols are seen on the streets daily. Spartanburg is now home to around 20,000 people, a growing number that worries the city's leaders. The Confederate Army garrison is the "Spartanburg Brigade". The Brigade has been able to maintain peace and defend the city, itself, as well as outlaying communities from attacks by marauders for decades now, and the people rarely complain about the tax burden imposed to support the garrison. The Spartanburg Brigade is well armed and actually do try to serve and protect the citizens. They are sometimes blind to goings on in the slums of east Spartanburg, however.

Rock Hill: Being just south of Charlotte, this city was severely damaged by refugees and epidemics following the war. Rock Hill is now the home of the "Carolinas for Christ", a fundamentalist Christian group that has taken over an abandoned shopping mall in the south of the city. The Reverend Johnny Graham, a descendant of the famous Billy Graham, TV Evangelist and Bible-Thumper, leads this movement. Graham gives almost daily sermons to anyone who comes, usually filling up the parking lot--often to numbers in the hundreds--where his podium is set up. He has become a sort of symbol for the Carolina Confederacy's increasing Christianization. Tracts written by Graham are passed out to traders and farmers throughout the Confederacy, stamped with the official Seal of the Government.

Oakway: The Elders of this small farming town of 100 people have instituted a strict fundamentalist version of the Christian religion as a means of controlling the population. They have cut off the trade of tobacco and alcohol as a violation of the Bible. The Elders have taken careful precautions when dealing with Confederate officials because, while the Carolina Confederacy is a Christian nation, many of the Edicts laid down by the Oakway Elders would count as violations of Confederate Civil Rights.

Longcreek: A little trapping settlement up in the mountains, near the Georgia border, is now home to the most feared marauder band in South Carolina. This group, known as the "Hillbillies", was formed two years ago from the core of a recon company of the Confederate Army's Seneca Battalion that went rogue. The Hillbillies leader is a charismatic man named Alan Treherne--formerly Sgt. Treherne of the Carolina Confederate Army--with bigger plans for his future than sitting in the backwoods of the Carolina Confederacy, robbing traveling salesmen. Several of Treherne's followers, who came from Georgia, started calling him "Colonel", and Treherne decided he liked the sound of that. "Colonel" Treherne has fought several sharp engagements with his former battalion from Seneca, usually coming out on top. His band has swelled as bandits and people disaffected by the Carolina Confederacy's policies of taxation and services have flocked to him. The Hillbillies fighting force is organized into two platoons, with a total of 48 men. The group is highly mobile and vehicle assets include an incredibly old M3 Stuart light tank, a big, steam-powered military truck, and a steamjeep. The wheeled transports were stolen from the Seneca Battalion in a daring nighttime raid over a year ago; the tank was bought from a traveling arms merchant just 3 months ago. As it is virtually unthinkable that an arms merchant operating 150 years after a World War would have operational tanks, this is a great mystery. Rumors of this tank, and the merchant who sold it, have filtered into both the Carolina Confederacy and Free State intelligence communities, and both nations are currently investigating the claims.

Seneca: This garrison town of 800 people is the "county seat" for the several small fishing and trapping communities (none larger than 40-50 people) that can be found up and down the shores of Lake Keowee, in northwestern South Carolina. The Carolina Confederate Army unit based here, the Seneca Battalion, has suffered extensive combat losses in the last few years, against a marauder group called "The Hillbillies". What remains of the battalion is now a hardened, veteran anti-guerilla force. The Battalion Commander is waiting for Columbia to reinforce his unit before going back out into the hills.

People who have contributed to this entry:
John Raner
Vince Tognarelli