Risings

The single most important historical event in living memory. The term 'Risings' can be used to describe the (ongoing) rising of the ocean levels worldwide, which have, in turn, caused people to either move inland or adapt their cities to the new environment (Shin Tokyo is a good example of the latter). More specifically, its usually used to describe the conflicts and disasters associated with mass migrations inland by the coastal cities of the world, which has shaped much of the political and social landscape of modern times.

While the Risings have had an impact across the world, North America was particularly hard hit, especially the territories of the old USA, which had already been wracked by generations of sectarian conflict (sometimes violence) between the conservative rural areas, largely in the middle of the continent and the culture of the largely coastal urban areas. When the vast masses of people rushed inland to escape the rising tides swallowing their homes, the already resentful and heavily-armed heartland struck back against these 'urbimmigrants', leading to a generation of bloody civil war as the "PGUS" Provisional Government of the US (backed largely by Coastal Solutions) and the rural or nonmetropolitan forces of the 'Real American' or 'Save America' militias and states (funded largely by PatrioTech). The conflict dragged on, further devastating the already crippled former world power.

The "American Wars" gave birth to the current state of North America today, with the majority of the urban population concentrated in the Megalopolis in the Mississippi River valley, under the aegis of the "Reunited States of America", a puppet regime set up by the peacekeepers. West of the Megalopolis the last survivors of the Continental forces eke out a living in the increasingly desertified Wastelands.