EMPIRE STATE
Mankind did not step lightly into the twenty-second century. Even behind them the immense scale of its achievements to light the long passage of history with its turning corners, many rooms, and uncountable side passages those; fearfully pragmatic men with blooded knives at the belt of their waste coats did not step forth into the forever darkness of history ahead expecting the dream world utopia ahead. While the technocrats and the intelligentsia of the world continued to lawd the end of history in every new decade even as now and then a simmering spark of resentment came to light somewhere in the world the men who could not be fooled looked ahead and saw a future that is always a mystery and things were just plastered over. It is never the end of history, there never would be. And we of today have not forgotten. The follies and the achievements are still spoken of and in the cavernous bones of the old world these lessons and histories were put back to paper in the end of the old times.
We still remember how in the year of our lord 2151 a colony beyond our Earth, Mars had a skirmish. That the resentments ignored arose and the insurrection was responded to. Which itself prompted an answer to that by another old-nation-now-dead. Their fight in the stars was cataclysmic and rallied their allies to each other's sides over the following years. And from the moon that orbits the Earth, whose lights of its old colonies still glow cold in the night sky, refusing to confirm the life or death of its inhabitants. But to us mighty survivors on Earth, great in number as we were: our suffering in the world became immense as the debris of the War in Heaven crashed down upon us. So we became shielded, but that only deflected. The bays and waters to this day are still filled with the wrecks of the great fortresses that once loomed high in the sky. But it was not this rain that our people were forced to suffer through: for there were other weapons and war returned to the surface, a great cataclysmic affair reborn for all to see and reached countries that had not seen a foreign army in centuries.
And as the old nations fought, their armies ground to a standstill. The fighting around the Earth withdrew, because in ironic mercy all sides agreed to not threaten the world with their wreckage. Who knows where a wayward missile might land: it might land on your head.
This war would be an end of an era, but not the end of the world. In its last acts everything was forced to shut down. Who knows who did it. It may have been Divine Providence. In the chaos it is written no one found the Plague that was planted into society until it was too late and the entire country, from the southern most tip of the southern continent to the furthest most reaches of Canada fell ill with some vile pestilence that for once crippled everything. We here in the Empire State do not know what the response was, but we are confident as we are breathing that the war ended soon after.
In the aftermath none knew who was in control any longer. An era of despondency reigned, and the old world so removed from the one that was blooming from the graves of our sick-dead had little to do with it. And so men did as men do: they organized, rebuilt, and in a generation the first new flags were unfurled. Old military men assembled their units, crowned themselves commanders; as did the Sheriffs and the security men. But so too did the elite, who picking up what still worked organized into guilds and associations and their property became the communities, and the communities became their property. Or tired of it all, common men simply took up arms and drove either out and made their stake. These innumerable mothers and fathers became the parents for the new world who nurtured that blossom and raised it from the ruin and the filth of primitive filth.
And so in 2276 was born our first great society since the fall of the old ones! Foisted up by Adam Covanney, posthumous first emperor of the Empire State the lands around The Point Castle was brought to his heel, and from whence a kingdom was launched. On his death, his sons took control and they expanded the empire further, founding new houses and new crises. When the old Hudson metropolis of New York was brought to submission and incoporated, his ruined splendor was made a capital in 2295 and the growing imperial court was moved there to preside in the shadows of its monoliths and within the Empire State Building made a palace. And when the second Emperor, the first proclaimed Carl Covanney passed and the realm passed to his young son, the council of regents took control as the threadbare relationships of the Empire began to wear thin and threaten to crash it all while it was still in the cradle. Enacting swift reforms, and some might say usurping the regents sealed the laws for succession by election, and to finish usurped the young Covanney from the throne to give life to the last great society.
And now, in our present year 2390, just over a century of beleaguered existence we are again tried. While the Empire has grown steadily to be mighty, the elected Emperor is young, a child of mischief elected by mischief. And the regents that govern hold no good word between one another. The Empire State is threatened from within. From without: who knows but Providence.
Long live the Empire!
OOC Banter
The year is 2390, centuries after inter-planetary war reached a scale so fierce it plunged Earth back into the dark ages. Those colonies that sparked the war, now long adrift on their own in Space; no one knowing if they are alive or dead. But now, they make up only legend. Forthright among all are the ruins of the vast cities and life of the old world and the consummation of renewed civilization. Set in the American North-East and Eastern Canada, Empire State seeks to cooperatively tell the story of not just these post-apocalyptic communities on the rebuild, but the inter-related politics within the Empire State, an self-proclaimed empire from out of New York State.
The Empire State, composed of a multitude of families or larger institutions or autonomous communities annexed into it operates in a way similar to that of the Holy Roman Empire. To placate powerful political figures within the Empire, the option to elect new emperors is given when the old emperor dies. Electorship is a complicated thing, handled by a mixture of census counts and economic strength. It is a title most often determined in wars between electors, or even in moments of civil war and has become a position often times bestowed upon favorable dynasties or organizations within the Empire State.
But it's not entirely limited to that either. Since there are lands outside of its borders. Independent states with their own ambitions who might look on with concern or seeing opportunity.
But what of the world?
Functionally, think of this world as being technically equivalent to the 1600's. Fire arms never died, but because it became fiscally unfeasible to keep up pretenses with automatic weapons and expenses in post-apocalyptia the nature of fire-arms has retreated back into a comparable state. Having to hand load rounds and using more primitive powder it's become far safer from a user perspective to fire single-shot. Early style rifles or muskets are a thing, as has metal armor and swords. No one has dared Trans-Atlantic travel again, and it's not possible or desirable at the given moment.
RULES
Really, just respect one another here. That means by reasonable with each other and have respect towards them and the premise of the RP. If anyone tries anything crazy, I expect to come down on them. Likewise if anyone does anything that disrupts another I'll take action on that. Let's be nice.
I also don't run these things as a stat game. I want to see writing, not accounting. So I'll do no dice game stuff here. But that doesn't mean you're free to pull shit out of your ass.
WORLD AND MAP
On New York City: New York City is an incredibly important location for the Empire State. As such, most major electors get a stake in the city in one of its boroughs or the outlying counties outside the old city. As such, while most boroughs or counties in the old greater NYC area are held by electors, not all them can be held by electors and there may even be one or two minor political arrangements in the city owning their slice of its, while still being imperial subjects as residents of the imperial city.
ELECTORS
Electors are an important institution in the Empire State and represent the leading families or groups in it. For their patronage and peerage they are given the political power to elect a new emperor should the old one die. This title is often bestowed upon groups in association with the primary political title of that organization, the president of major guild, mayor of an important free city, or major self-styled duke or monarch within the Empire.
Total number of electors will be determined in the formal thread. But in general it'll be a first come first serve situation if I like you and you're in the purple borders.
APPLICATION
Name: <If in the Empire State, this would be a dynastic or organizational/merchant guild name>
Location:
History:
PLAYER MAP
GM's staked his claims lmao by