When the American Crisis hit the East Coast in the mid-21st century, New York City saw a collapse into ruin as buildings and infrastructure fell to the decline plaguing the continent. In the years to come, the city rebuilt itself as Liberty, the supposed ‘symbol of a new democracy’ complete with skyscrapers of metal and glass shining beams of neon advertising for companies across a new sky above fancy infrastructure built to accommodate the greater number of people moving into the nations new capital and a 10-metre-high sea wall preventing the rising tide from penetrating Manhattan. But under the dust-free sleek surface of Liberty was still the former city of New York, with its pros and cons never to fade away considering the new age. Larger, warmer, taller, grander.



It is fitting that Liberty is Panamerica’s Capital, because of how alike their stories are. The old system of the United States became brittle and shattered under the weight of overpopulation into a decade long ruin. When rebuilt from the ground up Panamerica remained fundamentally like its predecessor, only under the shiny coat of clean cities, hyperloop transport and an annexed Canada. Politics drives a wedge through the nation, futuristic military race against oversea competition, poverty is on the rise or fall depending which online newspaper you ask (and day of the week it is), and people find any reason, from state, background, religion, or class, to form factions within the greater nation.



But under the flaws of a new-old nation lay the people that support and endure the a government of austerity, taxes, laws, and occasional blatant rights violations; through the optimism of the New Yorker, the politeness of the Ontarian, the cleverness of the Californian, and the hardiness of the Texan, North America remains the same melting pot of culture that made it beautifully and chaotically grow into the superpower of centuries. A superpower not grown by force, but by a history of democracy and freedoms first ratified in the US Constitution in 1788. 300 years later, the new Panamerican Constitution followed in the classic footsteps of colonial liberation to bring two nations, Canada and the United States, forward into a system practically identical to the old.

Despite the similarities to the old states, the presence of two presidents sets the nation apart from other democracies, regardless of how different the system is. The ‘Duo’ System, proposed during Panamerica’s conception at the eve of the American Crisis, promised unity yet opposition: executive orders, foreign policy, economic policy, all must be signed off by two presidents, muting the hypothetical situation of a radical or extreme leader taking supreme control over the nation. In practice however, this creates a system identical to the politics of the old days, Both candidates typically hail from the same party, one of two, and often support each other’s policies. At the end of the day, Panamerica remains not dissimilar to its parent nations. What has changed is the feeling of national identity. People are no longer just American or Canadian, they are Panamerican, and work to grow the relatively young democracy into a trade empire that spans the globe.



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This scenario is a simple future scenario based off of the results of a civil war in North America, in both the US and Canada, sometime in the 21st century. As a result, a political party set on rebuilding the nations gains support, and eventually the two are merged together in an attempt to regain their former superpower status.



It's not an overly complicated scenario, I mostly wrote it to fit the map projection, which is based off of a cold-war era map published by the US government showing all states in the Union without putting Alaska and Hawaii in a box. I figured it would look nice if Canada was also included in this projection. Furthermore, I am also working through styles of maps, so I wanted the practice to develop what maps look best etc etc.



So, let me know if you have any feedback!