A New Antebellum: 2011

Here it is, as promised: North America's turn in the Domes-verse.

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While Europe continued to cope with the Dome-collapse, as the Event came to be called across the Atlantic, the nations of North America braced themselves for similar disturbances on their doorstep. That moment came at 7:33 PM Eastern, 2 January 2011. The Dome, designated "Southern US," collapsed just as National Guard patrols were returning from New Year's stupor. From the fog emerged a haunting legacy of the US Civil War.

The Dome first went up just as the Confederate States of America reached a stalemate with their Union adversaries on 3 April 1863. As the US soon learned, however, the American Confederacy (referring to themselves as Southrons) had not only survived but also made themselves masters of their domain. Officially a Federal Republic with its own "Rights of Persons," little else is reliably known about the country. Slavery has long been abolished, although various forms of indenture and pseudo-slavery are suspected to exist.

To the south lies the staunchly independent Florida Free State, formed from escaped slaves, Union sympathizers and other dissidents; many of their descendants are either Black or of Mixed background. Not long after contact was formalized in March 2011, it quickly became the source of anti-Southron propaganda and news leakage for the outside world.

Socio-culturally, the denizens of the Dome are a mix of various 20th Century influences (mainly mid-20th), crossed with what can only be described as "Dixie-Americana" taken to its logical conclusion. The same can be said of it technology-wise, though there seems to be a conscious effort to mask it in 19th Century or Dixie style facades.

Politically, however, tensions are rising. This is especially true between the US and AC, where Southron sympathizers across the former Dome threaten to destabilize the border States. A near shooting incident on 11 May threatened to escalate the matter into a Second Civil War, if not an eleventh-hour meeting that helped diffuse the situation somewhat. Nonetheless, there are calls to establish a DMZ until the issue could be solved.