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America
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Industrial/Atomic/Information/early Interplanetary age polity and superpower, also known as "USA". Note that the term America was the most commonly used term for the USA, even though it was not strictly the correct name for that country. Other countries, such as Mexico, Canada and the seceded nation states of Cascadia and California were also located in the continent of North America.
A very powerful nation state with a mighty military and highly developed capitalist economy, America gave the world a number of lasting institutions, including 2D television, the 8-lane highway, televangelism, MacDonalds, Coca Cola, MTV, the Internet, rap culture, the Microsoft operating system, and Silicon Valley.
They were the first Old Earth polity to develop nuclear weapons, the first to use them, the first to land a man on the moon (but not the first to put a man in space), the first to develop a "star wars" shield (which never lived up to expectations), and the first to build a viable interplanetary capital ship (the Randolph).
During the Information Age they weathered several serious acts of terrorism from both overseas and local extremists, but the downfall of this great polity was the result of factional seccession and a depressed economy during the late Information and early Interplanetary period. By the middle Interplanetary period, extravagant and last-gasp acts of political supremacy like the construction of the Randolph bankrupted the polity. However, some of its ex-member states, like California and Cascadia, continued to flourish right up until the nanoswarm disaster.
Many important early interstellar colonies were influenced very strongly by American culture, including Nova Terra, Pacifica, Atlantis and later colonies like New California and New Cascadia. The influence of American culture lasted into the First Federation era and beyond, and is often known as Americanism.
Even in the modern era the influence of America, and of other ancient cultures such as the Roman Empire, the British Empire, Imperial Egypt and China are still important, if only because of reconstructions of those eras for virtual reality entertainment. However such VR histori-dramas are quite often factually inaccurate or even entirely misleading.
Perhaps the most lasting legacy of America and Americanism is the widespread use of Anglic, a language family derived from the predominant American Tongue, English.
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Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev; additions by Steve Bowers
Initially published on 10 September 2001.
Initially published on 10 September 2001.
