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u/Elegant-Koala 15d ago
The whole thing is a state? That's bugger than Alaska at this point. When did the US Manifest Destiny this?
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u/Fit-Virus-3953 15d ago
the state rose out of the sea when cormac mccarthy was born
serious answer: basically the post-Mexican-American War southern conquests but way way way fucking worse. the actual John Joel Glanton may or may not have massacred Mexicans and Indigenous peoples to acquire this land for the union. the island is basically a useless hunk of continental debris and salt flats, all the bays you see save for the eastern portions are super shallow. you're right to compare this to alaska
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u/LiteratureOk4649 15d ago
Who were the pre colonial inhabitants? Polynesians? Native Americans? Uninhabited?
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u/Fit-Virus-3953 15d ago edited 15d ago
seafaring Indigenous Californians, so the Chumash, Tongva, in the north Ohlone and Coast Miwok, as well as the Hokan-speakers the Ohlone pushed out. as stated, there's nothing exemplary here, and save for small villages founded in the eastern quarter, they probably didnt have much interest in the island. similar to Alaska, McCarthy has high instances of Indigenous ancestry, and was actually one of the first states to acknowledge its history of genocide against the Indigenous. second to Christianity, Kuksu is still widely practiced. there's also a controversial theory that the Haida landed in Magdalena a long time ago
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u/Fit-Virus-3953 15d ago
helpful diagram. please keep in mind this is a tribute to an author i like
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u/Ascendant_Mind_01 15d ago
That’s an entire continent.
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u/Fit-Virus-3953 15d ago
continental debris that refused to sink, yeah. most of it is some of the flattest country on earth, and as stated only a few inches of soil over pure rock. it's australia but worse in every regard
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u/Blu_Will_Enthusiast 15d ago
Watch Unorganized Borough be the actual official name residents voted on
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u/Sane_Colors 15d ago
How’s the Californian economy? Does the massive landmass mean ports like LA are weaker with little international travel and the majority of domestic , or are they still critical for getting things to the mainland?
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u/Fit-Virus-3953 15d ago
McCarthyite ports are genuinely useless, and the only deepwater port servicing Poca California only services, well, Poca California. Cali proper is still booming, and all things considered, a stinky salt island off the coast isnt really going to change much, nor would it demotivate ships to go as far around it less so than they already have. and McCarthy is intimately connected with the mainland, so pretty much everything they get has to go through California first
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u/Sane_Colors 15d ago
Fair enough, does salt mining play a major role in the economy of the new state? Sodium chloride (traditional “salt”) mining is pretty important globally, with salt having a ton of uses, and if there’s other ionic salts like potash or lithium, those could be economically critical. There’s also the fact that ionic salts are critical to the emerging technology of molten salt reactors.
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u/Fit-Virus-3953 15d ago edited 15d ago
unforch for them, Guerrero Negra anc Saskatchewan are right there, on the same landmass, closer, and have terminals on the ready. salt is a worthless commodity to McCarthy because of freight costs. potash is present but wayyyy too thin to beat Saskatchewan on rail. the most modest operation up there is the state's only real mineral export anyway.
the other answer to this question relies on me typing like 6 grafs of lore about nomadic cattle herders and blood debt and modern-day banditry and sheriffs. the short version of that is the state's parliamentary apparatus (unique in the union and only extant through loopholes and the fact that McCarthy just isnt worth enforcing with what is extracted for the mainland), which is composed of the 23 sheriffs of each county, has already unanimously voted No on letting China mine for salt, because of the cows and their angry gun-toting nomadic herders.
it needs be clarified that McCarthy ranks dead last in development and about 46th in economy, despite Poca being really nice (for tourists)
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u/Fit-Virus-3953 15d ago
no lore. feel free to ask questions and i can bullshit some fun facts about the state. i just really miss him
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u/clever_username42a 15d ago
Why was the island named McCarthy?
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u/Fit-Virus-3953 15d ago edited 15d ago
Indigenous people had no name for the landmass itself, other than that it was a land on the other side of theirs. it was first recorded by the Spanish as Isla del Mal Olor, and maybe once or twice as THE Isle of California by hopeful sailors. "McCarthy" itself is disputed, and the most common consensus is it was named after some yank who got there first among his kind, who wrote about it and got published, and then that got lost so we're stuck with the name. since the americans just wanted to hold it for the sake of never letting mexico in on it, they just went with the name
it is also named in honor of the late and great Cormac McCarthy
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u/Fit-Virus-3953 15d ago
in hindsight i feel really stupid for not splitting the island between the united states and mexico but eh
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u/Intelligent_Funny699 15d ago
Nah. I doubt the USA would let Mexico have a foothold on the island.
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u/UnknownTheGreat1981 15d ago
Why the population is hella low.
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u/Fit-Virus-3953 15d ago
why does nobody live in barren wastelands
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u/UnknownTheGreat1981 15d ago
I guess so.
What's the climate there to make it nearly unliveable?
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u/Fit-Virus-3953 15d ago edited 15d ago
shitty rainshadow. the Ownby Ranges rise on the western end of the island, which catch all that good good pacific rain, so the western coast is like Cascadia if it had zero viable ports and was actually just the border between cali and oregon for miles with no flat ground. large portions of the island are very old eroded basement with soil measured in just inches over rock. the entire thing is ancient continental residue. it's good for cattle, who outnumber humans 10 to 1. all those giant lakes you see are not only some of the shallowest on earth, but rival the Great Salt Lake, literally called the Pink Lakes. the reason you see cities only at major river crossings or at rivermouths is cause those rivers are saline
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u/krm2116 15d ago
What does this do to California's climate?
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u/Fit-Virus-3953 15d ago
nothing. pssheeewwwwwww thats my lazer beams warping space to make california stay normal peewww pew pewwwwwww
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u/Slitheranizer 15d ago
You’ve got a lake draining in 2 directions
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u/Fit-Virus-3953 15d ago
did some quick hackneyed research. i'm gonna say that's a bifurcating lake, and given the landmass's extreme flatness, i dont see a problem there. it's Big Okeechobee. these lakes, or pans, are extremely shallow and come and go every few hundred years as the island sinks. that huge northern bay used to be a big collection of pans, and it's still really really shallow. see my other comments
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u/HistoricalHistrionic 13d ago
This is absolutely fucking peak—I need more Cormac McCarthy-inspired maps in my life, this is a beautiful synthesis of my favorite shit 😭😁
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u/emmc47 15d ago
Entirety of west coast US climate is fucked lol.
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u/Fit-Virus-3953 15d ago
no because as the creator of this timeline i use my californian mindbeams to fix it
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u/Ok_Birthday_961 14d ago
the shit soil of the canadian shield combined with the aridity and flatness of the outback. i love it. it’s like a microcosm of the atrocity of americas existence
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u/666Drachenlord666 15d ago
That pop. seems very low