Seattle

Seattle, officially known as the United States of the Pacific Northwest, is a nation located in North America and comprised of the western half of the former state of and. Seattle is the nation's capital, while Bellevue, Vancouver BC, and Portland are major economic and cultural centers. The United States is a member of the Purple Defense Initiative, and is an active member of Pacific trading.

Seattle is bordered by the, and to the north of Vancouver they are bordered by known, but not hostile, city-states. To the south it is an anarchy state, and to the east it is a large grouping of republics.

Seattle has a large population of 9,056,000 souls, most of which speak English and are Christian. The Pacific Northwest is a republic, formerly titled a United States, and is broken up into multiple states: Seattle Metro Area, Olympia and Tacoma, Western Washington, Vancouver BC-Bellingham, Vancouver Island, Vancouver-Portland, and Snoqualmie. All the states are broken up into counties, which add up to 51 counties. The United States is led by a President, and has a Committee of Senators and a House of Representatives, and also varied departments and military districts.

Etymology
"Seattle" comes from "Sealth", also known as Chief Sealth of the Duwamish Tribe. Doc Maynard insisted that the city, formerly known as Duwamp, be named Seattle after the Indian Chief.

Overview
United States of the Pacific Northwest is a growing, developing, and young nation, with citizens primarily of Caucasian ethnicity whose religion is Christianity. It is a backwards nation when it comes to technology and many refer to it unkindly as a 'Third World Nation'. Its citizens pay moderately high tax rates and they are somewhat unhappy in their work environments as a result. The citizens of United States of the Pacific Northwest work diligently to produce Aluminum and Cattle as tradable resources for their nation. It is a mostly neutral country when it comes to foreign affairs. It will usually only attack another nation if attacked first. United States of the Pacific Northwest is currently researching nuclear technology for the use of nuclear power plants but believes nuclear weapons should be banned. The military of United States of the Pacific Northwest has been positioned at all border crossings and is arresting all drug traffickers. United States of the Pacific Northwest allows its citizens to openly protest their government, even if it means violence. It welcomes all new immigrants with open borders. United States of the Pacific Northwest believes in the freedom of speech and feels that it is every citizen's right to speak freely about their government. The government gives whatever is necessary to help others out in times of crisis, even if it means hurting its own economy. United States of the Pacific Northwest will not make deals with another country that has a history of inhuman treatment of its citizens.

Founding
Archaeological excavations confirm that the Seattle area has been inhabited by humans for at least 4,000 years. By the time the first European settlers arrived in the area, the people (now called the Duwamish Tribe) occupied at least seventeen villages in the areas around Elliott Bay.

In 1851, a large party led by Luther Collins made a location on land at the mouth of the Duwamish River; they formally claimed it on September 14, 1851. Thirteen days later, members of the Collins Party on the way to their claim passed three scouts of the Denny Party, the group who would eventually found Seattle. Members of the Denny Party claimed land on Alki Point on September 28, 1851. The rest of the Denny Party set sail from Portland, Oregon and landed on Alki point during a rainstorm on November 13, 1851.

After a difficult winter, most of the Denny Party relocated across Elliott Bay and founded the village of "Dewamps" or "Duwamps" on the site of present day Pioneer Square. Charles Terry and John Low remained at the original landing location and established a village they initially called "New York", but renamed "Alki" in April 1853, from a Chinook word meaning, roughly, by and by or someday. New York-Alki and Duwamps competed for dominance for the next few years, but in time Alki was abandoned and its residents moved across the bay to join the rest of the settlers.

David Swinson ("Doc") Maynard, one of Duwamps's founders, was the primary advocate to rename the village "Seattle" after Chief Sealth of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes. The term, "Seattle", appears on official Washington Territory papers dated May 23, 1853, when the first plats for the village were filed. In 1855, nominal land settlements were established. On January 14, 1865, the Legislature of Territorial Washington incorporated the Town of Seattle with a board of trustees managing the city. Two years later, after a petition was filed by most of the leading citizens, the Legislature disincorporated the town. The town remained a precinct of King County until late 1869 when a new petition was filed and the city was re-incorporated with a Mayor-council government.

Timber Town
Seattle has a history of boom and bust cycles, as is common to cities near areas of extensive natural and mineral resources. Seattle has risen several times economically, then gone into precipitous decline, but it has typically used those periods to rebuild solid infrastructure. The first such boom, covering the early years of the city, was fueled by the lumber industry. (During this period the road now known as Yesler Way was nicknamed "Skid Road", after the timber skidding down the hill to Henry Yesler's sawmill. This is considered a possible origin for the term which later entered the wider American vocabulary as Skid Row.) Like much of the American West, Seattle saw numerous conflicts between labor and management, as well as ethnic tensions that culminated in the anti-Chinese riots of 1885–1886. This violence was caused by unemployed whites who determined to drive the Chinese from Seattle (anti-Chinese riots also occurred in Tacoma). Martial law was declared, and federal troops were brought in to put down the disorder. Nevertheless, the economic success in the Seattle area was so great that when the Great Seattle fire of 1889 destroyed the central business district, a far grander city center rapidly emerged in its place. Finance company Washington Mutual, for example, was founded in the immediate wake of the fire. However, the Panic of 1893 hit Seattle hard.

Gold Rush, World War I, and the Great Depression
This boom was followed by the construction of a park system, designed by the Olmsted brothers' landscape architecture firm. The second and most dramatic boom and bust resulted from the Klondike Gold Rush, which ended the depression that had begun with the Panic of 1893; in a short time, Seattle became a major transportation center. On July 14, 1897, the S.S. Portland docked with its famed "ton of gold", and Seattle became the main transport and supply point for the miners in Alaska and the Yukon. Those working men only found lasting wealth in a few cases, however; it was Seattle's business of clothing the miners and feeding them salmon that panned out in the long run. Along with Seattle, other cities like Everett, Tacoma, Port Townsend, Bremerton, and Olympia, all within Puget Sound became competitors for exchange, rather than mother-lodes for extraction, of precious metals. The boom lasted well into the early part of the 20th century and funded many new Seattle companies and products. In 1907, 19-year-old James E. Casey borrowed $100 from a friend and founded the American Messenger Company (later UPS). Other Seattle companies founded during this period include Nordstrom and Eddie Bauer. The Gold Rush era culminated in the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909, which is largely responsible for the layout of today's University of Washington campus.

A shipbuilding boom in the early part of the 20th century became massive during World War I, making Seattle somewhat of a company town; the subsequent retrenchment led to the Seattle General Strike of 1919, the first general strike in the country. A 1912 city development plan by Virgil Bogue went largely unused. Seattle was mildly prosperous in the 1920s but was particularly hard hit in the Great Depression, experiencing some of the country's harshest labor strife in that era. Violence during the Maritime Strike of 1934 cost Seattle much of its maritime traffic, which was rerouted to the Port of Los Angeles.

Seattle was also the home base of impresario Alexander Pantages who, starting in 1902, opened a number of theaters in the city exhibiting vaudeville acts and silent movies. His activities soon expanded, and the thrifty Greek went on and became one of America's greatest theater and movie tycoons. Between Pantages and his rival John Considine, Seattle was for a while the western United States' vaudeville mecca. The several theaters Scottish-born, Seattle-based architect B. Marcus Priteca built for Pantages in Seattle have all been either demolished or converted to other uses, but many of their theaters survive in other cities of the former United States of America.

Post War Years
Seattle and Bellevue then became home to Microsoft, a huge technology dealer. This attracted T-Mobile, Amazon.com, AT&T, and Boston Scientific, most of which still have small headquarters in the country today. The local economy dipped after World War II, which had seen the dispersion of the numerous Japanese-American businessmen. The local economy rose again with manufacturing company Boeing's growing dominance in the airliner market. Seattle celebrated its restored prosperity and made a bid for world recognition with the Century 21 Exposition, the 1962 World's Fair. The local economy went into another major downturn in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Many left the area to look for work elsewhere, and two local real estate agents put up a billboard reading "Will the last person leaving Seattle – Turn out the lights."

Still, Seattle remained the corporate headquarters of Boeing until 2001, when the company separated its headquarters from its major production facilities. Boeing finally chose to move its corporate headquarters to Chicago. The Seattle area is still home to Boeing's Renton narrow-body plant (where the 707, 720, 727, and 757 were assembled, and the 737 is assembled today) and Everett wide-body plant (assembly plant for the 747, 767, 777 and the 787 Dreamliner); the company's credit union for employees, BECU, remains based in the Seattle area, though it is available to the rest of the Seattle-area as well.

Secession
As the United States began to crumble, along with its neighbors Canada and Mexico, most parts of the country began to secede and form small nations. Then-Mayor of Seattle, Mike McGinn, when approached by the Mayor of Bellevue, was distraught when he attempted to keep his city in the United States. The Mayor of Bellevue, being advised by fellow Bellevue residents and  to secede and form the United States of the Pacific Northwest, a name which had been coined by Reichert. Mike McGinn denied the request, and that action was followed by massive downtown strikes. Violence engulfed the city, and buildings were being broken into one by one, windows being smashed in the street and home invasions were common. The ten day period of anarchy resulted in McGinns resignation, which was shortly followed by the United States of Bellevue's annexation of Seattle. They sent peace keepers to the streets from their own police force, and the city was calmed down by the 22nd of December, 2009. The resulting elections took place on January 10, 2010, giving power to Seattleite Parker Ferguson as President and naming McKenna and Reichert into the government.

After ten days of being a United States, the leaders of the government were offered a deal by the Federation of Western Washington for entrance into the United States. , the President of the federation and former Senator for Washington State, met personally with McKenna, Ferguson, and Reichert. The relatively stable areas of the western region was regarded as key for expansion of the United States's mission, and it was accepted. As per the constitution of the United States, city-states or states that have applied for district/statehood must wait a month for review by the United States, western Washington was broken up into five different territories. They are Port Angeles, Bainbridge Island, Olympia, Tacoma, and Federal Way.

As Parker Ferguson signed a bill pushed forward by the House and Senate that gave the army two hundred more tanks, it allowed the army to finally go on with its plan to reinforce the area, which had been riddled by anarchists. Vancouver had not officially joined any government, and the United States was willing to seize that opportunity. Operation: Frightened Thunder commenced, and the army sent forward two frontal divisions to secure the area, along with Ambassador Arcantos and four senators. The group of diplomats met with the mayor of the city,. They offered Vancouver the protection of the United States and near immediate statehood, something which they could amend the constitution for. The Vancouver Mayor agreed, and the state of Vancouver BC-Northern Washington was formed, closely followed by the United States's souther prospects of Vancouver-Portland State.

Phoenix Rising
The United States entered into an alliance known as Phoenix Rising, otherwise the Allied Governments of the World for Rising Nations. Ferguson and Secretary of State Rossi immediately boarded Pacific 1, which was closely guarded by two of the United State's pilots, and set for the European states of Phoenix Rising. Ferguson and Rossi eventually split up, with Ferguson taking Pacific 1 to TZW Country and Rossi heading for three other countries in the area on a chartered vessel. Ferguson met with some of the regional leaders and considered the diplomatic ties a success. Ferguson and Rossi then met up in the Texas Confederacy, where they met the leader: Sam Houston. They were able to convince the confederacy to trade their natural resources with their own. The position of Secretary of State was soon after merged with the Ambassador's office, making Rossi the ambassador to Phoenix Rising and all of the United State's trade partners. John Arcantos, the former Ambassador, resigned right before the merger and was placed as Under Secretary of State.

The Senate, led by a Chairman Rob Mckenna's bill, voted to amend the constitution of the Pacific Northwest to make the Secretary of State synonymous with the Vice President. Dino Rossi would then be second in line in the succession, while he would also be the country's Secretary of State. His pay would still be docked at the Secretary of State's pay, at US$295,000.

Economy
The United States produces large amounts of aluminum and cattle for local use and export to other countries at a later date. The United States has been looking for trade partners all along the pacific coast and around the Puget Sound, but have had no luck so far. The United States has opened up relations with the Frobersgrun and Buccan Nations, and they have yet to respond to the Ambassador of the United States.

Seattle gains a large sum of money by selling their technology, which is gained through private companies such as and. The United States gives them resources to build the technology, since the President does not want the government to control more interests than the private sector. Seattle is expected, within a year or so, to be able to mass import technology to help the private sector grow. The United States's tax rates are at 19 percent, which is set by the Senate.

Seattle uses the dollar was their main currency, while they use the and  as reserve currencies.

The United States's private sector maintains all banks, which is regulated by the Department of Finance. The largest bank that operates in Seattle is, which is centered in Seattle. , which has been re-named to Bank of North America, has a large branch in Seattle, centered in. The Department of Finance directs all loans, due to not repeat any recessions for loans and mortgages. Buying homes is an extremely tumultuous process in Seattle, due to previous laws set by the Senate.

Geography


The United States covers a rather small piece of land: most of western Washington, Vancouver BC and Portland. The population of the United States is unevenly spread out, with being the largest city in population and the most active in trading. ,, , , , , and are all large cities in the United States as well. The rest of the population is unevenly spread out.

The highest point is, at 4,392 meters. Mount Rainier is right next to Crystal Mountain, a ski resort that is common for United States residents to ski at.

The United States shares the Columbia River with the Tahoe Republic.

States
The United States of the Pacific Northwest is broken up into seven different states: Seattle Metro Area, Olympia and Tacoma, Western Washington, Vancouver BC-Bellingham, Southern Vancouver Island, Vancouver-Portland, and Snoqualmie. Each state is responsible for state taxes, and most social programs (such as education and welfare) and collect more revenue than the federal government. The most populos state is the Seattle Metro Area.

Climate


Climate in the United States is extremely wet during the fall and winter seasons, while it heats up quite a bit during the spring and summer months. Major factors determining the United States's climate include the large semi-permanent high pressure and low pressure systems of the north Pacific Ocean, the continental air masses of North America, and the Olympic and Cascade mountains. In the spring and summer, a high pressure anticyclone system dominates the north Pacific Ocean, causing air to spiral out in a clockwise fashion. For Washington this means prevailing winds from the northwest bringing relatively cool air and a predictably dry season. In the autumn and winter, a low pressure cyclone system takes over in the north Pacific Ocean, with air spiraling inward in a counter-clockwise fashion. This causes the United States's prevailing winds to come from the southwest, bringing relatively warm and moist air masses and a predictably wet season. The term Pineapple Express is used to describe the extreme form of this wet season pattern.

Despite the United States having a marine climate similar to those of many coastal cities of Europe, there are exceptions such as the "Big Snow" events of 1880, 1881, 1893 and 1916 and the "deep freeze" winters of 1883–84, 1915–16, 1949–50 and 1955–56, among others. During these events western Washington experienced up to 6 feet (1.8 m) of snow, sub-zero (−18°C) temperatures, three months with snow on the ground, and lakes and rivers frozen over for weeks. Seattle's lowest officially recorded temperature is 0 °F (−18 °C) set on January 31, 1950, but areas a short distance away from Seattle have recorded lows as cold as −20 °F (−28.9 °C)

Resources
The resources of the United States are aluminium and cattle. Aluminium is mined out of beryl veins near Rainier. Farms all around the less populated areas of the United States are abundant with cattle. The government mandates the price of cattle for all citizens to enjoy fresh meat.

Government
The United States of the Pacific Northwest is a federation. Seattle’s constitution labels it a republican and a representative democracy, in which the majority rule is tempered by the minority rights, which is protected by law. The United States has a system of checks and balances which is defined by the Constitution of the United States, which is the United States’s supreme document of legal standing. In the Seattle federalist system, citizens are subject to three levels of government—federal, citywide, and local.

The federal government of Seattle is composed of three branches:


 * Legislative: the bicameral Parliament is made up of a Committee of Senators and the House of Representatives. They can make federal law, declare war on other nations, approve treaties and trade agreements, the power of the purse, and they have the power of impeachment, by which they can remove a sitting member of any government.
 * Executive: the President of the United States is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, who can veto legislative bills before they become law, and can appoint department secretaries and other officers, who administer and enforce the law of the federal government.
 * Judicial: the Judicial system of the United States is headed by the Supreme Court, and followed by Local Courts and the Court of Appeals. The judicial branch of the government is one of the smallest branches of the executive.

The House of Representatives has 100 members, each being elected from a district of 90,000 people. Each Representative serves a two year term. Districts are added and subtracted from the United States every five years, when the Census Department does their annual population census. The Committee of Senators has fourteen senators, two being elected from each of the United States’s states. Each senator serves a five year term and can only be elected four times. The President of the United States is elected by direct vote, and may not serve in his office for more than two terms, or eight years. The Supreme Court Justices are appointed by the President. There are 9 supreme court justices, and the Supreme Justice is appointed out of the group. Each member serves for life or until they retire.

Most of the cities in the United States either elect a mayor and a city council, or elect a mayor and a board of Presidents which come from gerrymandered districts in the city limits.

Any law that is composed by the federal government is subject to void through the Supreme Court, if the law is deemed un-constitutional.

Parties, Ideologies, and politics
Seattle is a two-party system, those parties being the majority and minority. Before the United States, Seattle was a sprawling democratic stronghold, but after it became a United States refugees from and , all of whom had been misplaced by war, arrived in Seattle, making it a more center-right city than center-left. Since the 2010 elections, third party candidates are usually on the left and caucus with the Democrats, while the Republicans, or center-right, is more unified.

Within the former United States culture, the Republican Party commonly identifies with center-right policies, or “conservative”, even though most Seattle Republicans are moderates at best. The Democrats are considered center-left, or “liberal”. Most of Bellevue and the Seattle suburbs identify as moderate Republicans, while west and downtown Seattle identify as liberals.

The winner of the 2010 presidential elections was Republican Parker Ferguson of Seattle, and he is the 1st President of the United States of the Pacific Northwest. The 2010 elections also saw a slim majority rise up for the Republicans in the senate, with a 8 to 6 lead over the Democrats. The House elections saw the Republicans get a larger majority in the senate, with a 64 to 36 lead over the Democrats. Only one member of a third party, of the Labor-Union Party, was elected from south Seattle. The majority of large city mayorships went to Democrats (out of the 10 major cities, 6 went to Democrats) while the same was with their city councils. Out of the smaller cities, the Republicans took a lead over the mayorships (64% of total mayorships).

Structure
Here is the governmental structure of the Seattle and Bellevue government.

Departments
The Departments of the United States basically run the day-to-day activites of the government. There are currently thirteen departments on the executive, while the number of ministries on the local level varies by area. All executive level departments are responsible for the overseeing the administration of local departments, and also to oversee the nation-wide adminsistration of the department's mission and aid.

Eligibility
In order to run for office, the constitution of Seattle requires you to be:


 * a citizen and resident of the United States for at least ten years,
 * twenty five years old,
 * mentally sane, and have no criminal record in your life,
 * and a representative of a district.

A person running to be a Representative in the House or a Senator must live in Seattle or Bellevue (if senator), and live in their district if a Representative.

Campaign and Debate
Every citizen that would like to run for an elected office in the United States must first go through their own party primaries (which are all sponsored by their parties) and then be shot through the United States Election Department. If the citizen is running as an independent you just need to be verified by the CED. All advertisements and campaign calls can go on for a month, after which all will cease for a series of debates. The debates will be hosted at some third party who is un-affiliated, such as a newspaper or TV headquarters or radio station.

General Voting
Voting would begin a week after debate, and in order to vote you must be: Eligible citizens will vote for their area's Representative, Senator, and the United States's President, plus local elections, at a local polling station which is put on by the CED.
 * a citizen of the United States with a valid ID,
 * eighteen years or older,
 * must have a valid voting card,
 * must not be working for the judicial branch or CED,
 * and must not have any criminal record in the past four years.

Appointment
The House and the Senate elects their speaker and chairman, respectively. The Supreme Court Justice is nominated by the President, and approved by the Senate. All other justices are appointed by the President as well.

The President appoints all cabinet secretaries and department heads, and has the power to appoint (without approval) members of both houses after their seat was abdicated for either death or retirement. But, by law, the new member has to be a member of the same political party as the abdicated.

Education
All education in the United States of the Pacific Northwest is privatized, due to a limited national budget on education. The total education budget, as part of the overall budget of the government, is .98 percent. Almost all of the public funds that go towards education are grants that allow students with special abilities to attend high rate schools. The government requires all private schools to have a mandated price for their services, and requires some schools to give scholarships to those in need. Homeschooling is a legal option, but is frowned upon. The government requires the student to go through elementary and middle school, high school, and at least two years of college. If a student were to drop out at any of these levels, the family or the student would be heavily penalized.

The average school year in the United States is mandated by the Secretary of Education and the Senate to the days between the 28th of August and the 10th of June. It is mandatory that all schools run at least five six hour days of school. There is an option for a sixth day, but it is illegal to require a seventh day. The homework load of most students is moderate at the elementary and middle school levels, but the schools usually pack up on homework as they go higher in their education. Most schools teach the languages of and, and sometimes  as a replacement for German. Uniforms are common in almost all of the Catholic, private and other religiously based schools.

The current Secretary of Education is.

Transportation
Paved roads and elevated highways are the most common type of transportation that citizens use every day. The United States requires that everyone drives on the right side of the road, and most cars in the United States are of, , , , and make. For reasons known to everyone, driving under the influence of alcohol and/or other drugs and using a handheld device while driving are illegal, however, handsfree devices are legal. All roads in the United States have speed limits under 70 MPH, and most are pedestrian and bicycle friendly. Other popular types of transportation are, a light rail-type system, and multiple bus systems.

For trips overseas or long distance, the most preferred method of travel is to use airlines (such as the local ), ferries throughout the Puget Sound, and. Plans for a major highway system throughout the United States is set for 2013, and a country-wide light rail system is set for 2020. To measure speed and distance, the government uses the (along with all other forms of measurement). The highways are set to have a speed limit of 65 miles per hour.

Industrial
While the Pacific Northwest was still part of the, factories were built all along the outskirts of both Seattle and Vancouver BC. The most notable of these factories is the Boeing Factory, in the Seattle suburb of. Recently, the government has given out contracts to multiple local companies to build a grouping of factories on the Colombia River. Those plans were scrapped, and instead the government positioned the factories on the Puget Sound. The government's Secretary of Development, Arman Grace, issued a statement saying that "all companies of all countries are welcome into this country, this nation under God." The government also cites these factories as a tool to stop the recently high unemployment rates inside the nation.

The largest employers in these factories are,  , and  (, , and ). These companies manufacture 70% of the United States' manufactured resources.

On April 20, 2010, Secretary Grace, along with President Ferguson, Chairman McKenna, and Speaker Reichert, unveiled a new plan for five new labor camps all around the nation. This measure was passed through the Senate with a 86 vote majority. The plan is set to be finished in 2015.

Sports
The Pacific Northwest is a home of avid runners and bikers, along with many citizens participating in. Some of the most popular sports during the winter are, , , , and. Outdoor and summer sports are, , , and. Each school in the United States is required to give at least 30 minutes each day of extracurricular activities to each student.

The state government of the Seattle Metro Area has proposed a tax increase to pay for over US$715 million in repairs to and. Sixty million of the price is reportedly being drawn from sponsors to rename Safeco Field to Boeing Field, and Qwest Field to Flinn Field (nicknamed by the residents of Seattle "FF"). There are local community centers for the CYO and other local school sports teams, where they can play daily. These are not kept up by the government, but instead by local city-wide governments and local action.

The government, after they complete those stadiums by the estimated date of 2011, wish to send a team to compete in the Summer Olympics of 2012.

Spirituality
Almost 90% of all citizens in the Pacific Northwest practice a form of religion. Most citizens follow a form of, which is split near evenly, with 55% of them being and the remainder being.

Military and Defence
The armed forces of the Pacific Northwest is called the United States Armed Forces, and composed of land-, special operations-, marine-, and air-based forces. All of the forces of the United States are equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry and technology (with the technology coming from local sources), and equipment coming from out of nation. The headquarters of the armed forces is located in the outskirts of, which is a two hundred acre campus lodged out of a formal industrial park. The headquarters is well protected from all attacks by air (with turrets surrounding the entire campus), aquatic, and land attacks.

Before the Pacific Northwest seceded from the United States, the area was extremely pro-pacifist and anti-military. During the course of secession and succeeding expansion in the area, the people turned pro-military as long as are not involved. , the current secretary of defense, came from Boeing's missile defense program, and was placed in the position by Parker Ferguson. Hood suggested that the military be positioned all around the country, and that they let the police forces control the cities. While many of the Republican Party did not like this option, they had to agree with it due to Speaker Reichert's pleas. The military has absolutely no involvement in city-wide police.

The armed forces is made up of the Army, the Navy, the National Guards of all states, the Air Force, the Marine Core, and the Occupation Force.