Charlotte, SS-N-8
Greensboro, SS-19
Winston-Salem, SS-N-8
Raleigh, SS-N-8
Fort Bragg, Fayetteville, SS-N-8
Charlotte Army Missile Plant, Charlotte,
SS-N-17
Seymour Johnson AFB, SS-17
Discretionary Nuclear Targets:
Camp LeJeune, SS-N-17
Cherry Point MCAS, SS-18M2
Brunswick nuclear reactor, Southport,
SS-N-8
Situation, pre-war: North Carolina was one of the first areas settled during colonial times. Although famous for its swamps and marshes, most of the state has a very productive agriculture region, producing tobacco, corn, soybeans, cotton, wheat, and peanuts. Besides agriculture the states other major industries included textiles, lumber and paper products, and a small amount of mining. Most industries were located in the crescent formed by Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Raleigh-Durham. The state was home to a large military presence, more then 110,000 Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, and Coast Guard personnel. There was also a large Amerind population, particularly Cherokee and Lumbee.
Situation, the war: North Carolina was hit hard in the War. All of the cities in the industrial crescent were destroyed. Fort Bragg, Cherry Point Air Station, and Seymour Johnson Air Force Base were also hit, as was the missile plant near Charlotte. All of the strikes completely disrupted major communication and travel arteries. Shocks from the Charlotte and Winston-Salem bombs cracked the dams along the Catawba River, sending a flood down the river into South Carolina. Although not a nuclear target, the city of Burlington was destroyed when fighting erupted around the Army ordinance depot there. The depot itself was blown up and a good deal of the city went with it. The military survivors from Ft. Bragg, Camp Mackall, and Camp LeJeune spread out and declared martial law. The soldiers who moved out were very capable and led by professionals. Civil order was quickly reestablished.
Situation, post-war: Dependent on external sources for 99% of its energy needs, the economy of North Carolina ground to a halt almost immediately. Although the soldiers kept the peace and distributed supplies as well as can be expected, starvation was common. With the loss of power, the water treatment plants shut down and water supplies quickly became contaminated. Medical supplies were quickly consumed, and diseases of epidemic proportions appeared. The winter of 1989, the harshest on record, killed hundreds of thousands of people. Ten years after the War, only 100,000 people remained alive in the entire state. By the mid-22nd century the population has increased to 300,000.
General: Localities are frequently independent. Governments are usually democratic, and are rarely any larger then countywide. A few areas are controlled by an Overlord of some sort, and even elected governments are corrupt in some places. Most towns have a mayor and sheriff, elected at a town meeting. Town Sheriffs are in charge of the militia, when it is called up. This is infrequent, and is usually done only for escaped murderers and other large scale threats to the peace. There is still a fair amount of military hardware in private hands, salvaged from the many military bases in the state. A large number of people own an M16 assault rifle, though ammunition is scarce. Nearly everyone owns a flintlock. Trade goes on frequently throughout the state, and gold and silver are welcomed as standard currency. Technology is set somewhere in the late 18th century. Water-powered mills process cotton into textiles, timber into lumber, and grain into flour. There is no major steel mill or metal works, but most communities have a blacksmith. Most crafts practiced in the late 18th century can be found in a number of places in the state. Education is not very common and 80% of the population is illiterate. The only surviving college is the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with an enrollment of less then 200 students per year. The education is a liberal arts one with a medical school as well. Technical and vocational education is usually done by apprenticeship. Traveling peddlers are very common. All carry a staff, to fend off dogs and highwaymen. Most sell simple household supplies like needles, thread, pots and pans, linens, buttons, simple spices, knifes, pins, beads, and laces. There are a few knife sharpeners, with a grindstone mounted in a one-horse wagon. Traveling cobblers and tinkers make regular circuits. Trappers are also widespread, and many areas offer a bounty for wolf, panther, and wildcat kills.
Groupings: For simplicity, the people of 22nd century North Carolina can be divided roughly into three groups; descendents of Africans, descendents of Native Americans (American Indians), and descendents of Europeans and Asians. While there is some mixing, these three groups are sufficiently distinct to require listing them as separate cultural groups.
Africans: In some parts of the Coastal Plain, people of African descent outnumbered people of European or Amerind descent. Over the years after the war, there have been times when non-Africans were made to feel uncomfortable and encouraged to move. Today, the Coastal Plain is largely populated by these people, and most are essentially similar to Europeans.
Amerinds: At the time of the war, there were more then 65,000 Amerinds in North Carolina. The largest and most visible groups were the Cherokee and the Lumbee. After the war and the general depopulation, all of the Amerind groups began to expand, retaking the land and lifestyle that had once been theirs. Nearly all Cherokee have flintlock rifles or Trade Rifles from Kentucky. 10-20% of any band is composed of men of fighting age and health. The Amerinds of North Carolina take their rights and lands very seriously, and are quick to use force to defend themselves. After the war, the Lumbee began to return to parts of their traditional hunter/gatherer lifestyle. Today, half the Lumbee farm, and half hunt. The Lumbee have blended the traditional and the European. Other tribes in the Coastal Plain and the Piedmont frequently roam all over the state. Hunting in the woods in winter, when deer hides are thickest, turning to the coast in spring and summer to fish and gather shellfish, returning to tribal plots to harvest crops during the late summer. The tribes are always on the move. The Waccamaw tribe now hold several tens of thousands of acres in the Coastal Plain which they jealously defend.
Europeans: These people live throughout the Piedmont and Mountains, living in small towns and on farmland. Farms are usually 15-20 acres at a minimum, and may be as large as 100 acres. Families are large. A family with fewer than 5 children is unusual, while a family with 10 children is not. Illiteracy is nearly universal, and there are few schools. In the mountains especially, the lifestyle is relaxed, as though there was a law against hurrying.
Mutants: North Carolina was hit by a number of warheads, and fallout spread over large areas of the state. Maggots or Children of the Night may be found in some abandoned cities. Giant wolverines, bats, mink, mosquitoes, porcupines, skunks, slashers, snappers, and giant rattlers might be found in some areas of North Carolina.
Asheville: The center of a very fertile valley in the mountains. Asheville was spared most of the insanity associated with refugees. Even the destruction of Knoxville didn�t produce many people willing to try to cross the Great Smokey Mountains. Although the east side of the city was abandoned, the rest of the city continued its existence.
Hickory: A trade town along the Catawba River, Hickory also relies on the roads and railroads connecting Winston-Salem, Asheville, and parts of South Carolina. Many of the pre-war industrial plants were abandoned, but a few survived or were modified. Today, wagons, barrels, and railcars are made in town. The rail cars are pulled by oxen, but they are otherwise superb in all respects. The town has almost 600 residents within 5 miles, and another 4,000 within twenty miles.
Lincolnton: In the center of one of the most productive wine areas west of the Catawba River, the town also has a large woolen mill and several mines and quarries. A good deal of lime is mined here, and transported to the neighboring counties. Almost 2,000 people live within the county.
Gasionia: Once a home of dozens of textile mills, Gasionia was hit hard by the war. Refugees from Charlotte ransacked the town, and loss of electricity and consumer demand shut down most of the mills. Today there are three textile mills in the area, all water-powered. There are also iron mines and iron works in town. The nearest thing North Carolina has to a steel mill may be found in Gaston County. Most of the trade that goes on between the interior of the "Catawba Pocket" and Carolina Confederacy passes through town.
Lenoir: A small town, Lenoir has less then 100 residents, and only 1,000 farmers and lumbermen within 20 miles. The town is run by an Overlord, Arthur Jackson, a man whose great-grandfather took control of the town using captured National Guard weapons. His troops patrolled the town and prevented any looting and fires. Today, Arthur Jackson is the government; collecting taxes maintaining the peace, and trying court cases. He has a half dozen "deputies" armed with M16s. For the most part, the Jackson�s have been tolerable rulers, no worse then any other elected governments have been.
Morganton: A small town on the Upper Catawba River, Morganton is a major trading post for the mountains. The Catawba is not navigable above Morganton, so river traders often trade with local men in town, who then carry the goods into the mountains. These traders then load their boats with fine furniture, tanned hides, lumber, and gold. The actual pre-war urban center of town has been abandoned, and most of the locals have relocated to the east. There are two lumber mills, a hospital, and a number of furniture makers and wood carvers. The town boasts nearly 400 residents, but the surrounding area has only a few farmers, no more then 2,000 within 20 miles. Another 1,000 local residents are lumbermen and gold miners. A good deal of the gold in circulation in North Carolina was mined here.
Shelby: A small, agricultural trading post, Shelby�s only other industry of note is a small tin mine. The region produces a lot of wheat, some cotton, a small amount of tin and very little else. What little trade the town conducts, is concerned with the export of tin to the east and wheat to the west.
Canton: Home of the Morrow Operations Rework Facility Bravo. North Carolina facility was also a vehicle and light equipment rework factory disguised as the former Blue Ridge Paper Mill (one off the oldest paper mills in the US) and under scrutiny for pollutions issues. The Project bought the facility in 1972 and continued producing paper on a small scale using green technology and cleaned up the surrounding area. They also created the Power System Integration Program on site. The town of Canton was dependent on the mill for jobs, and although the production decreased by half, the payroll expanded and overtime was guaranteed. The population was ecstatic and loyal. High paying specialist positions were created and training was done on-site. The townsfolk were slowly and carefully trained to work within the secret side of the plant, and although everyone suspected the plant was no longer primarily producing paper, they did not care. Prosperity and job security caused the town to became a fiercely loyal supporter of the Project, even though few, if any of the townspeople had any idea what the project really was. All they knew for sure was that the air was cleaner, the water was safe to drink again, everyone who wanted a job had one and their standard of living was improving steadily. So loyal were the townspeople that they would turn in any visitors who looked at the plant too long, asked too many questions or acted suspicious. They felt they had a great friend in management and did not want anything to jeopardize it. The Canton MORF produced turrets, reworked chassis, and integrated the fusion plants from the Eudora MORF until 1985, when fusion production moved here. The Canton MORF trans-shipped the finished vehicles and equipment from the factory floor to bolthole locations around the nation (mostly by truck). The factories also turned out (in small amounts over a long period of time) Air Scouts, FAVs, SPADs, Gamma Goats, Powered Armor, and the high-tech Resist Weave armor for all the Morrow Teams. The facility shut down on Warday and the remaining stocks of materials were shipped to area boltholes or bunkered in a custom built cave near West Canton. The Fusion Production Power Plant facility was shipped in its entirety to Prime Base Beta in Missouri. The townspeople helped the factory staff into their cryo bunkers in the cave complex to sleep until needed and promised to wake them when the time was right. They then sealed the cave face and went about the business of survival. Unfortunately, a plague of unknown origin wiped out the entire town that first winter and the secret of Facility Bravo was lost to time. Within the cave complex are 44 cryo tubes with the sleeping engineers and technicians of Facility Bravo, as well as three Airscouts, four FAVs, three SPADs, four Gamma Goats and six sets of Powered Armor. There is also a small arsenal of Project weapons and 313 sets of Resist Weave in various sizes.
Albermarle: A small town with only one cotton mill, Albermarle is dependent on trade along the Yadkin River, which is not very navigable to the south. All the railroad lines are damaged and unusable. The town's population is only 74, but there are nearly 3,000 people within 20 miles. Something that might catch the attention of a Project member is that Morrow Mountain is less then 10 miles from town.
Kannapolis: Burned to the ground by refugees from Charlotte, Kannapolis is nearly empty today. It is rumored that a group of Cannibals live here, leaving to attack local farmers at night. A few people have gone into the town to search for useful salvage. Few have returned alive.
Statesville: Home of several important industries, including a large flour mill, a gunpowder mill, and a cotton mill, Statesville sees a lot of traffic along its roads and railroad. There is a large rural population, and there are more than 6,000 residents with 20 miles, in addition to the 750 people in the town proper. Although the government is elected, Iredell County today is notorious for corrupt politics. In one election, nearly 3,000 votes were cast for one candidate, despite there only being 2,000 registered voters. Most of the local mayors, county supervisors, sheriffs, and judges are competing to see who can skim the most money from taxes, bribes, and patronage. Anyone who tries to disrupt the system can find himself in jail at the whim of the sheriff.
Salisbury: Between the Catawba and Yadkin Rivers, Salisbury is an overland route between the two water highways of the Piedmont. Salisbury also has a number of granite quarries nearby, and produces a large amount of dressed stone. There is also a rope plant in the town, and these ropes are traded throughout the Piedmont. Almost 600 people live in town, and 20,000 live within a 20 mile radius. The militia of the town is most often called out to protect the local farmers from attacks from Cannibals from Kannapolis.
Asheboro: A small trading post exists here and a few families have homesteaded near the town. They scratch out a meager existence farming, and occasionally they will supplement their income looking for salvage in the ruins of the old town. The population of the surrounding area is less than 4,000, all living a rural lifestyle.
Chapel Hill: The home of higher learning in North Carolina, Chapel Hill has a number of other industries, including iron mines and soapstone quarries. If any place in North Carolina would lead the unification of the state, it would be Chapel Hill. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has an enrollment of less then 200 students per year. The education is a liberal arts one with a medical school as well. Most of the important books and papers that could be salvaged were turned over to the University. Orange County has nearly 10,000 people, but the militia is not well organized.
Reldsville and Eden: A lot of tobacco is grown in Rockingham County, but the biggest post-war industry has become the mining of coal. There is actually a small coal-fired electric generator. The output of this power plant is rationed by the county board, but some places have electric lights, running water, and even refrigeration. One of the largest gunpowder mills in the state is here. The railroad, which used to run through Greensboro, is being rebuilt towards Chapel Hill. There are 7,500 people in the county.
The ruins of Greensboro/Winston-Salem/Raleigh: All nuked badly during the war, this strip of ruins are mostly avoided, though brave salvage parties still pick through the ruins of the suburbs. This whole area has been termed "The Dead Zone," by the locals. 150 years of reports of strange lights and sounds mixed with strange odors have served to build a paranoia about this area. Maggots, Blue Undead and mutant animals are said to be in the ruins, but few people want to find out for sure.
Durham: The largest city in North Carolina that avoided being bombed, Durham did not survive the loss of electricity. With water, electricity, and sewer services gone, the town became a deathtrap of disease. Today, the outskirts of the town have been re-populated, forming a ring around the ruins. Local farms produce the finest tobacco for an hundred miles. The 4,000 residents of the county are all connected with the tobacco trade.
Vicker's Freefolk: The "Freefolk" are a fairly well-equipped and extremely well-organized isolationist community, made up of gleaners and salvagers. The singular is "Freeman" or "Freewoman." They hide themselves about 5 miles southeast of Durham, beneath what was once the 7,000 acre Research Triangle Park. Before the war, this largest industrial research park in the world had over 20 million square feet of developed space. Despite horrendous damage and destruction above ground, there remained more than enough basements, garages, and other subterranean areas to hold what would eventually become the intricate warrens of the Freefolk. The "Seven Progenitors" of the Freefolk were led by a charismatic black man named Roger Anton Vickers--an Army Reservist, a dental X-ray technician, and a mean hand with a shotgun. Vickers cemented the new underground community together until it was strong enough to endure. They survived by scavenging, and by bartering dental X-ray film, useful for providing early warning of radioactive hotspots. Their home in the first years after the War was in the bowels of what had once been the large and well-appointed main bus station of the Triangle Transit Authority, in the midst of the research park. The Progenitors were afterwards mummified, and have since been revered as cultural heroes. In remembrance of Vickers, the Freefolk decided to take his name for themselves.
The Freefolk today: Since that time, the Freefolk have greatly expanded their dwellings into sewer areas, and have installed water wheels in some of the gravity-fed pipes, providing electric power. They drink filtered rainwater, grow algae for food, and supplement their diet with certain stocks of fish. They are literate, and have a radio, but it cannot be moved. Their weapons are mostly spears, as well as sawed-off shotguns crudely made from pipes. They have one oberable Stoner rifle, with 71 rounds in case of emergency. The rifle serial number traces back to Morrow Recon Team F-22, but the explanation is completely unknown. Even today, the Freefolk have not migrated back to the surface, but have instead become habituated to what is underground. The surface is a place of fear and danger for them, compounded by their culturally ingrained (and justifiable) paranoia about being raided and enslaved. Any kind of surface tasking has to be something essential, and the Freefolk will dispatch the absolute minimum number of people needed to do it. These always come from the warrior caste, the "Black Knives". Other than children born to Freefolk, the Freefolk add to their numbers by adopting those whom they rescue from enslavement. By now, there may be several hundred Freefolk, but no one knows for sure. Because the Teachings handed down from the Progenitors specify that "all human beings must work together cooperatively and anything else is an outrage", Freefolk despise prejudice and slavery. Therefore, there can be surface missions to rescue slaves from Slaver coffles that are being marched over territory "belonging" to Freefolk--if the safety margin for the Freefolk is high enough. In doing so, they have become very skilled at covering up the evidence of what has happened. Even though the local surface is populated again, almost no one in Durham has any idea that Freefolk exist.
Lexington: The center of a wheat growing region, Lexington is also one of the mints of North Carolina. Nearly all of the silver coins in the state are mined and minted here. The population of the area is nearly 5,000, and the militia is very well-organized, especially around the mines. The sheriffs and deputies have fully automatic M16s and a lot of ammunition.
The ruins of Fayetteville: Abandoned when Fort Bragg was destroyed. The fallout that spread across the town has ruined agriculture in the region. Even people making their living on salvage will stay away from this place. This town has "that curse of the radiation".
Greenville: A large farming town with a problem. Swept by an epidemic of anthrax this summer, the rat population has blossomed and typhus is certainly coming soon. Many of the people have fled north and east, out to the countryside. The hope is that the winter will help kill off the rats enough to allow the town to be repopulated.
Kinston: A few hundred Black Muslims are now living in the old town of Kinston. They are led by a man named Abraham, and despite being heavily-armed and strongly Islamic, they have given the other local farmers in the county no trouble and even try to help them out on occasion. This Islamic community has its roots in a band of travelers from New England whose boat was shipwrecked off Morehead City in a squall. After spending several years in Morehead City, they were obliged to move further inland to find a place where people were more accepting of them. The small farming settlement of Kinston was happy to accept this influx of people to help with the farms and fields.
The ruins of Camp Lejeune: Back in the war, the submarine-launched missile targeted on Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base suffered a propellant malfunction in the atmosphere. The warheads scattered about 50 miles to the northwest. The base's reprieve was short-lived, however, as the base took a nuclear cruise missile the next day, destroying much of the infrastructure. At the time of the war, the base's resident division was spread across the planet, leaving only support and training staff to try and survive the war�s aftermath. The nuke hit, plus the raging riots and epidemics doomed the survivors and the base was abandoned by the end of the year. Today, little remains that hasn't been looted or battered to pieces by summer storms.
The Dead Zone: The informal name given to the area around Clinton and Warsaw, where the errant nuclear warheads fell in 1989. While radiation counts have fallen to a point where travel through the area is possible, few people have the desire to do so. Wild reports of mutant wildlife also serves as a deterrent to wanderers and travelers.
Morehead City: This port town is a minor trade center, serving as a companion port to Wilmington. Ships come and go regularly and the residents have grown fairly rich on the business of serving the traders and sailors. Much trade is done both with the Carolina Confederacy and with the USA in Virginia. As the Carolina Confederacy has difficult relations with the Wilmington community, nearly all that empire's seacoast trade stops here exclusively. There about 1,800 people living here now, many of them the families of traders who have decided to base their operations out of here. There is an old Coast Guard station at Fort Macon offshore, and a single cannon-armed sailing cutter assists incoming tradeships, as well as patrolling the Intracoastal Waterway for pirates and smugglers. Home to the "Morehead Militia", a unit raised from local residents. Manpower is 200 men divided into four companies. Each company serves for one week each month (so approximately one fourth of the unit's manpower is available at any time), unless the entire unit is called up for some reason. The militia is relatively well-equipped, with about half armed with pre-war military weapons and the rest with an assortment of black powder rifles and melee weapons. The Militia is headquartered in the old police station. Over the decades, the Militia has had a working relationship with the Marines down in Wilmington. The Marines have trained a number of Militia commanders, as well as providing some weapons and ammunition, in exchange for favorable trade concessions for Wilmington fishermen.
Wilmington: With its docks and infrastructure intact untouched by the bombs and the majority of the chaos, Wilmington has retained a relatively comfortable life over the last 150 years. Many of the people here are the descendents of the 8th Regiment, a US Marine unit that made its way to Wilmington in the aftermath of the war. Settling down here, the Marines set about securing the port from outside forces and maintaining internal stability. Very soon, the Marines realized that they were alone in this new world, the last organized US military unit left in this part of the nation. The nuclear impact zones to the north of the port ruined a great amount of once-productive farmland, and killed off thousands of people in small towns in the area. However, the misses also served to steer most of the refugee streams from the cities away from Wilmington, which turned out to be the single most important reason that the town survived those first few years.
The Marine staff worked with the community leaders in Wilmington to meet the citizens� needs, distributing food and supplies as best they could, and helping to control the fear and desperation that was commonplace in people. Things were going fairly well until the newly-resurgent Carolina Confederacy movement took an interest in Wilmington. A CC force marched up from South Carolina and attempted to take the town. The Marines still retained much of their pre-war weaponry, and with their training and defensive positions, the CC force was soundly beaten. The Carolina Confederacy pulled back immediately and has never tried to interfere with Wilmington since.
Wilmington then settled down into a century of farming, fishing and making babies. The Marines have always remained an important part of the community, though over the decades of relative inactivity they have become more of a militia. The still-hot wastelands to the north have served to isolate Wilmington from the rest of the state, allowing it to grow and prosper without too much outside stress.
Trade is conducted up the coast with Morehead City and coastal communities around the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. Relations with the Carolina Confederacy have been cool but cordial for the last century, with very little trade and contact taking place. Long-range Marine patrols occasionally penetrate into CC territory looking for loot or chasing bandits, but neither side has the heart to challenge the order of things. The Carolina Confederacy has its own, much bigger, problems with the Kentucky Free State looming over its northern border.
There are rumors that across the Atlantic in West Africa there exists a large empire, based on the ideas and organization of the old USA. This empire was founded by US Marines and sailors who gathered there after the war. It is thought that when (if) these people venture back to America, a sense of military heritage might bring them to the old ruins of Camp Lejeune, and by default into contact with the Marine descendents here.
People who have contributed to this entry:
John Raner
Michael Cessna
Julian G.
Karl Zohler