Starchart Summer Issue 2014 | Page 18

western border is the Mississippi River from the Ohio River south to approximately Baton Rouge, then due south to the Gulf of Mexico. Texas Texas has had tension with the Monroe Republic for at least part of the time after the blackout, but, assuming they would lose, the Monroe Republic did not want to go to war with them. The eastern border of Texas is the Mississippi River from the Arkansas River south to approximately the Atchafalaya River, then due south to the Gulf of Mexico. The extent south is unclear from the maps shown in the show (it extends further south than the map does), but it extends well into former Mexico. The western border coincides with the western border of the U.S. state of Texas north of the Rio Grande, but extends diagonally west from about midway between El Paso/Juárez and Big Bend to the Gulf of California. The Texas Rangers have become a sort of military police force in the country. Plains Nation The Plains Nation is dominated by several individual tribes who dictate their own laws. The people in the Plains Nation live in tribes, similar to those of the Native Americans. Eventually, all of the main characters travel into the Plains Nation to get to a former Department of Defence facility in Colorado Springs known as "The Tower". The southern part of the Canadian province of Manitoba has been annexed by the Plains Nation. California Commonwealth Little is known about the California Commonwealth, other than that the head of state is a woman known as Governor Affleck. Monroe was set to send Jason Neville as an Emissary to California before Major Neville talked him out of sending his son. It is unknown if another emissary was sent or what relationship the Monroe Republic has with California. The California Commonwealth takes up all of the land of the former Mexican territory of Baja California Sur, the former Mexican state of Baja California, all of the former U.S. states of California, Oregon, and Washington, as well as parts of Nevada and Idaho. The northern border is unclear as it extends past the edge of the map, but it appears to extend into formerly-Canadian British Columbia. Wasteland The wasteland is not mentioned in the show, only shown on a map. It appears to take up parts of Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and Idaho, as well as all of New Mexico and Arizona. It mostly bordered the California Commonwealth in the west, and the Plains Nation in the east, and Texas in the southwest. The Patriots The Patriots are a mysterious group who claim to be surviving former members of the United States Government, and as such its only legitimate successors. The group supposedly includes the last President of the United States and the remnants of the last U.S. government, who have been sheltering at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. So If It’s Been Cancelled, Why Should I Watch It? If there's one thing we TV-viewing masses can't get enough of, it's a good apocalypse. Blasted, burntout cities. Ragged survivors driven to barbarism and betrayal. Twitchy-eyed heroes staring up at the black, hopeless heavens and asking "Why? WHY?" as the bodies of their family members lie scattered all around, bloodied and dead. We love all that. And the good news is it's all going to happen again, in a new and crazy way. How does the world end in this one? Simple: there's a power cut. Not the kind that makes you get the candles out, spend quality time together and say things like "I actually hope this lasts a bit longer". No, this is a total, never-ending power cut that causes civilisation to collapse into paranoid, medieval communities ruled over by roaming militia and wannabe-warlords. And the show throws us in at the deep end, cutting immediately to 15 years after the great calamity, where the Matheson family and