Me, almost two years ago...
Some say that this is the beginning of the end of the United States, that, like the Soviet Union, 20 years ago, it will soon collapse and dissolve, with the larger States (Alaska, Texas, California, New York) becoming independent countries, and the smaller ones merging to form new countries.
I wonder if that will happen.
A new TV show premiered last fall that outlined this scenario. It's called Revolution, and it airs Monday nights at 10:00 PM on NBC. It has been renewed for a second season.
Revolution takes place in a post-apocalyptic dystopian future. Fifteen years earlier, a new technology had been developed by the U.S. Department of Defense to disarm opponents in the battlefield. The technology was based around inert air-populated nano-machines which are capable of nullifying electricity and self-multiplying. The technology was pursued by the Department of Defense and weaponized, but after deployment, the nano-machines spread quickly out of control worldwide and effectively disabled all electricity on Earth within a single night, ranging from computers and electronics to car and jet engines. Trains and cars stopped where they were, ships went dead in the water and fly-by-wire aircraft fell from the sky and crashed. Since the nano-machines remain active, power cannot be restored.
People were forced to adapt to a world without electricity over the next fifteen years. Due to the collapse of government and public order, many areas are now ruled by warlords and militias. Civilization has regressed to the era of feudalism. The U.S. Government was one such government that collapsed and the country fractured into various new states such as the Monroe Republic, the Georgia Confederation, the California Commonwealth, and Texas.
The series starts with the surviving family: Ben, Charlie, and Danny, now living near what used to be Chicago, who possessed a pendant-shaped device (a USB flash drive contained in a pendant) that is the key to not only finding out what happened fifteen years ago, but also a possible way to reverse its effects. However, Sebastian Monroe, the General of the Monroe Militia and self-appointed President of the Monroe Republic, an area of the former United States east of the Mississippi River northward of Kentucky and the Carolinas, now possesses that power for himself seeking conquest of the entire former United States of America. The remaining Matheson family, joined initially by Miles Matheson, Aaron Pittman, and Nora Clayton now strive to counter the Monroe Militia. Monroe's new benefactor, Randall Flynn, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense who 15 years earlier ordered the deployment of the weaponized technology that caused the blackout, now seeks to fortify Monroe in his efforts after Rachel Matheson (Charlie and Danny's mother, who helped created the nano-machines, before they were corrupted by Flynn and the DoD) escaped from his custody.
