West Virginia

"Montani semper liberi."

- State Motto

West Virginia, the Mountain State, was the 35th state to be admitted into the United States of America. It broke away from Virginia during the American Civil War, 214 years before the Great War.

Background
The land known as West Virginia was inhabited by Native Americans for centuries long before white settlers from Europe arrived. British, later American settlers gradually moved into the area, with some of the territory's first towns and cities being founded before the American Revolution in 1776-1783. The British colony and later American state of Virginia claimed West Virginia's land as its territory, and it remained so until 1861, when Virginia seceded from the United States to join the Confederate States of America.

West Virginia formed when numerous western counties of Virginia refused to go along with the secession. Being pro-Union and with no attachments to slavery, citizens there met in Wheeling and formed a new government. After some debate over the state's new name, West Virginia was chosen and it became part of the United States in 1863.

Nicknamed the "Mountain State", West Virginia struggled for generations with state-wide poverty, lack of education, and economic stagnation. Its rugged beauty was made famous in American singer John Denver's 1971 song "Take Me Home, Country Roads". The song remained famous even a century later.

When the Great War began and swiftly escalated to a mass nuclear exchange between the United States and China in 2077, West Virginia ceased to exist as a political entity as its government was destroyed or disbanded. Sparsely-populated settlements persisted throughout the ruins of the state, much as they had in the old world.

Southern West Virginia
Regarded as the heart of Appalachia, this has been coal mining country for centuries.