[b]Name[/b]: 
Republic of New York

[b]Location[/b]:
[img]http://orig12.deviantart.net/5073/f/2016/349/8/5/fourth_horseman_map_territories_by_aaronmk-daronir.png[/img]

[b]History[/b]:
The fall of the US financial institutions following the eruption of Yellowstone and the straining of public and private equity came as precursors to the wider systematic collapse that followed. When the final deed was done the scope and severity of the rippling disaster meant that not even the best assurances and insurances by the government and other groups could hold up society. And when the ash fell over New York and the power shut down a rush to consolidate swept the nation as much as the area.

While it was not violent, the people recognizing the danger and actively trying to help one another get through the darkened and colder days the crippling end brought a slow march to the precipice. With the end of mass modern transport of goods and services fresh food in the major urban centers such as New York City began to fall violently short and the major metropolitan jewel of the United States buckeled and heaved from the stress. The failure of local health services to keep up with the sick and injured broke finally when medications and the advanced modern means to  treat people failed to work through lack of resources of ultimate lack of power when all things ran out.

The effect on the city was like that of a plague sweeping over that no amount of shelter could soothe. With food having ran out local solidarity fell in to desperation and the city of New York fell to crippling gang-based violence as local war erupted over meager resources and the access  to the pantries and storage for the few unspoiled caches of food. For the city, those who held the food held the power and people starved on the whims of man.

Outside, things were rough, but did not necessarily reach such crisis proportions. While crop failures in New Yorks agricultural areas failed due to ash-related damages and live-stock was crippled or itself succumbed the small size of small towns created stronger solidarity among themselves and they held on together. It could have been if the crisis carried on under this state, then things would have worked out alright. But the continuing crisis in New York City boiled over well beyond the metropolitan area and soon threatened the country-side when armed raiders sought to side-step the new inner-city barons by seeking stocks and farms outside.

The response to this sudden new threat came in the form and voice of strongmen from New York's other major – albeit small in comparison to New  York – cities and towns who promised protection from New York's fiery invaders if they paid. But the US dollar was dead, the material commodities were sparse among the people. And so they paid with what they had: land. In quick response land-barons emerged from the ash and consolidated themselves in an informal alliance in response to the wild and disorganized threat posed by New York. Following them were the more rural land-barons who had began to consolidate their own power in much the same way and on the same pretenses. Some small, some large.

The war that followed was not so much one in a formal right, but vigilante skirmishes by upstate New Yorkers against the low-state ex-urbanites raiding inland. Large-scale engagements never happened, and the war – as it had become known – was more a series of skirmishes that chased the urbanites back to the shadowy towers in New York were they stay, afraid of the deer rifles and shotguns of the levees the land-barons raised.

The threat of urban raiders was not over permanent, and many of this new aristocracy recognized that. And so they saw to a second consolidation of power, and meeting in Albany, New York formed a congress in which the men met, discussed, and drew up plans for an active and powerful force against the powers that be in New  York City.

Some eight years after the eruption of Yellowstone, the Federal State of Albany was declared in response to the continued threat of New York. Its influence spanning from the edge of the New York metro area to Buffalo and Niagra the Albany state was formed on the pretenses of:

That every male owning land, collecting rent in some manner from another – whether in agricultural surplus or commodities – was entitled to membership of a Grand Assembly.
Membership to the Assembly was hereditary, passing down from father to sons provided these sons held rentable land and had tenants.
The Assembly met four times yearly to build and pass upwards a federal plan if otherwise local issues were deemed among them to be a broader state-wide issue.
The permanent House of Landholders formed an upper house, elected from members of the Grand Assembly to replace a member of the House should he pass.
The House of Landholders is the legislative decider for federal plans.
Membership on – like in the Grand Assembly – is for life, and is only given access to by men elected to the position by the Grand Assembly.
A chief executive is additionally elected to rule for life as military chief and to enforce the laws of the realm.
A bench of life-long elected judges from the Grand Assembly is to also be formed.

The hope in the Congress' plan was to form a government of stability and permanence to counteract the perceived anarchy of New  York City. And in its way the Albany government worked that way and performed its job well. The situation in New York City eventually resolved itself when an urban warlord assumed power, christening himself as “The State-Emperor”, after the tower he housed himself in.

The consolidation of power in New York sparked heated rivalry between the two as both believed they laid claim to the former state of New York. The rivalry spurred an active hot war that lasted some five years, ending in Albany's favor; but were incapable of annexing New  York City itself.

In time, the first State-Emperor died twenty-three years after the eruption of Yellowstone. The second assumed power and staked his power on the claimed discovery of the old US Federal Reserve of gold under the city. While he refused to show anyone from the outside this gold, he acted through his agents to extend lines of credit to the broader world and to the State of Albany, in exchange for agricultural surplus.

By this time, Albany was producing an abundance of food surplus from the soils richly infused with volcanic ash and life was moving along in comfort and conservative predictability. A real economy was developing and the Albany state needed assistance and credit to operate on its grand schemes. Forays into Vermont were being made by the military on insistence from the Grand Assembly to broaden the base of the land-barons and their children, and the military expeditions needed to be paid for.

While cynical of the sudden discovery and what he saw as an unstable time for New York City, then-president Chuck Vanderman complied with the offer on insistence from the House of Landlords and they applied for credit with New York City.

The situation became suspicious for President Vanderman who saw what he believed was an almost infinite extension of credit by the city and he ordered the situation investigated. It took five years for fruits of the espionage work to bare fruit, but it was inevitably revealed that the State-Emperor held no such reserves. Or not at least to the degree he claimed to have been holding.

Breaking the news sent New York City into a panic and it descended into chaos as the State-Emperor was stripped of his title and civil war erupted. Deploying the Albany's military, Vanderman sent the state into war again and this time they occupied the entire city, seizing what small supply of gold the State-Emperor actually had.

The theft of the meager reserves of New York and the deposition of the meager government of the city proved a fatal blow, and after Vanderman was able to seize total control of New York City, but not without a near total purge of much of it, crippling its ability to raise arms. New York City, Manhatten island, and Long Island all fell into the hands of Albany. The seizure of New York was soon followed by the seizure of northern New Jersey for much the same reasons as parts of Vermont.

The holding of Albany called for a re-branding of the state, the Grand Assembly met and proposed to the House of Landlords a proposal to rename the Federal State of Albany to  The Republic of New  York. The proposal passed and was signed off by Vanderman.

Despite New York City now again being a part of New York State, the city itself was something of a blight on the whole. The ravages of disaster had not weathered it well and despite the blockade by land by the Albany state droves of the population had disappeared to either death or migration by sea to richer land. The Republic of New York found itself owning a large population in a large desolate geographical area impoverished, undernourished, and under-educated. An entire generation had grown up in a city marred by pseudo-tribal conflict between the Burroughs.

And like many things, the Grand Assembly ignored it. Overlooking the people they saw instead the benefits of effectively mining the city to cut it down to a size more in proportion to its population and to use the abundant second-hand resources for its own ends. In the case of this dream, the old citizens of New York City were human resources to acquire, move, and refine the recycled materials to use elsewhere. Socially, the people of New York were considered, “a worse sort than unproductive tenants”. The cosmopolitan nature of New York had moved upstate and into Albany in full.

Still, New York gave the Republic a port from which to operate a navy and designs were proposed for a merchant elite to begin moving mercantile business back to NYC. In the generation after this slowly gave rise to a new class of member to the Grand Assembly, the urban land-lord merchant who counted as his rentors the subsidiary merchants renting space in the factories that became the new centers of the old Burroughs.

To raise the value of an importance of New York as well as extend the markets of all involved designs were proposed and met to rebuild and refurbish the Eerie Canal for trade purposes west-ward. With its completion, the New York Republic was able to win the influence of and dependency of upriver, Great Lake societies through ownership - and the Republic's discretion in its use - of the Eerie Canal.