American Breakup

Beth, 

We know Canada comes to the rescue (or 
whatever) of USA with Britain. What I'm curious 
about is what kept US from falling apart during  
the same time period, why we weren't in there 
helping the Yanks (or were we), and why some 
of this disaster didn't spill over into our 
territory as well and how we ever put together 
enough force to help out? 

I'd suggest:
-- Canadian latent anti-US sentiment suffers a 
rise in the 2000-2010 era due to ludicrous US 
protectionism. This leads to a bit of a split and 
some nastiness which convinces the Canadian 
populace that at least a minor military upgrade 
is required (including some fringe-ist rumblings 
from the US about "securing strategic oil and 
water resources" in the event of trouble). This 
gives an upgunned RCMP and military to patrol 
the border and help keep the US troubles from 
spilling over plus a chance to help the US out 
when the chance comes.
-- Some troubles do spill over into Canada, and 
some violence ensues. Not enough to 
destabilize things, but enough to make people 
real serious about preventing a repeat. And a 
French Canadian government (ousted as a 
result of the US collapse because it was 
ineffective in preventing it and the ensuing 
chaos) has less interest in intervening in the 
USA than an equivalent ango-Canadian 
government might. 
-- The isolationist movements maintain a "we fix 
our own problems, bugoff" attitude towards 
external offers of help pre-collapse. So 
Canadians, though wanting to offer a hand, 
aren't able to, and are sometimes kind of 
irritated with the rhetoric that comes out of the 
various factionalist leaders in the South. 
-- As the protectionist and isolationist US 
movements end up causing the calamity, 
perhaps Canada and Britain come in to aide the 
American people (whom they basically like, if 
not all of them) with the intention of maybe 
removing a mass of chaos and economic 
collapse (which will impact the world situation 
rather unfortunately) with some semblance of 
order again, maybe in the hopes to reconstitute 
the US in a more useful and less volatile 
manner. For Canada, this might actually be self 
defense as a lawless and divided nation to the 
south would be very problematic. It would also 
be in our nature to want to help. We complain 
about our brethren to the south, but in the 
same way you complain about annoying 
siblings. We'd still want to go down and dig 
them out. Besides, a lot of ex-pats from either 
country live in the other. 
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Thomas Barclay
Co-Creator of http://www.stargrunt.ca 
Stargrunt II and Dirtside II game site

No Battle Plan Survives Contact With Dice.
-- Mark 'Indy' Kochte
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