The Unitary State of Kelley
Written by: Tahoma
Of all the things that happened in the sixth world, one of the most impactful changes on the life of Joe Schmoe is the balkanization of North America. Used to just be the ol' USA and Canada, but now we've got the CAS, the UCAS, the California Free State, Sioux, the Pueblo Corporate Council and Kelley, among other territories and interests splitting up the continent into little chunks of independant territories and agendas. Wait, you've never heard of Kelley? Guess I can't be surprised chummer, considering it's less than a couple of square kilometers with a population of 30-ish, so lemme give you the brass tacks on this little tourist-attraction of Raleigh. The 'Unitary State of Kelley' is a small stretch of land on the outskirts of the Raleigh sprawl, ran by one President Elijah Kelley, a hardcore libertarian who from a family of libertarians who wants to live the dream of true independance, seeing that dream coming to fruition by claiming his own stretch of land as a sovereign-nation, independant of the CAS by way of a decades-old loophole. The fight to keep it independant still goes in and out of various courts in and around the CAS as they determine whether or not the claim's still valid now that the loophole's been shut out, but most people in Raleigh agreed that the US of K is gonna survive, and even thrive despite the legal issues. Don't believe me? Head over there yourself and look. Kelley keeps itself afloat through tourism and merchandise, hocking novelty hats from his garage-stall and custom guns with the Kelley national-seal stamped on the side from his personal gunsmithing facility while housing 'diplomatic visitors' in the guest-house near his own mansion-turned-mini-arcology. Best thousand bucks you'll ever spend, pal.Demographics
Elijah Kelley's open-minded hiring practices makes the USK one of the few nations in the world where metahumans make a majority of the population, with only two humans in the whole nation. Dwarves and Elves come around at four apiece, while Trolls take up an impressive six people and Orks an impressive fifteen. Three citizens are counted and registered as awakened, while one person counts himself as the sole technomancer in the USK (and its first official immigrant).
Government
Kelley claims itself to be a 'minarchist' state, where the Kelley family exert democratically-regulated power only to uphold the sovereignity and non-aggression principles of the nation while otherwise leaving everyone to their own devices. The family's current monopoly on infrastructure and employment on the other hand, makes the state more of a clan-based monarchy in practice, not at the generously paid employees are too bothered by it right now.
Defences
Kelley's 'national defence' officially consists of only one individual, an old security-guard with back problems, but the truth of the matter is that ever citizen of the nation is a member of an unorganised militia: If you're able-bodied, you're expected to own and maintain at least one rifle and pistol and put in a couple of weekends of training every now and then. Doesn't sound like much, but combined with the defensible design of the main building and the healthy supplement of drones, they're pretty set for most threats coming their way.
Industry & Trade
Most of the nation's income is sourced from tourism and merchandise: Around the main building, the Kelley family maintains several guest-houses for 'diplomatic guests' but rents 'em out for anyone willing to pay for 'em, and pretty much everything produced on the property can be bought as souveniers, from baseball-caps and soycaf travel-mugs to guns fresh out of Elijah's smithy, so long as you can get the red-tape cleared to bring it back into the CAS (Elijah's nice enough to keep them in a safe at no extra cost if you're having trouble with that).
Infrastructure
Aside from importations of goods and materials not easily procured on sight, Kelley maintains a pretty self-sufficiient infrastructure based on prepper and 'solarpunk' ideals of renewable resources: Power's generated via solar and wind generation supplemented by microfusion solutions, water is filtered from rain and condensation (and water-recycling, ick..) and food is provided by way of vertical farming and livestock agriculture. A substantial amount of goods produced on-site are made by way of nanomachine-based 'nanofax' tech in complete defiance to the recent distrust of nanomachine tech.
Assets
Because of its small population, Kelley rightfully considers itself to be in pretty fine abundance of goods and necessities, and the recent turnover in tourism has only improved on that by bringing its economy up and up. A lot of this money's been spent towards 'diplomatic transport', purchasing a fleet of new and used vehicles to let citizens of Kelley do their business in safety and style.
History
It's no secret that Kelley's technically as old as the nation around it: in the 30s, when the Confederated States of America declared independance, there was a body of text in the official paperwork that if interpreted in the right way, would technically allow anyone to secede and form their own independant territory within the CAS. The loophole was patched up quickly, but not before the founder of the nation, an old-money gal called Maude Kelley, was able to find out about it and declare her entire property as sovereign soil, allegedly as a means of avoiding paying taxes fueled by an evening of mint juleps, but nontheless spilled over into a legitimate cause she and her family rallied behind.
Raleigh City-Council ignored this at first, but when the Kelley family started taking full advantage of their purported independance by no longer paying taxes, things started to get a little hairy and matters were taken to the court. Try as they might though, even with the legal hole patched through they simply didn't have much of a case to actually stop Kelley from technically being an independant. With public support dwindling and legal costs paying, the council eventually threw in the towel and let the family remain an 'independant nation', so long as they didn't cause too much trouble, on the grounds that even without taxes they were still buying all their crap from the city (and paying VAT anyways as a result).
Come fourty years later and the new head of the family, Elijah Kelley, started causing trouble: The rest of the mostly libertarian family and staff were content on being a country in name only, but the very independant-minded and acutely unhinged Elijah had a dream of true independance, and to the government of Raleigh's horror, he was actually looking to pursue it. Changes were made to the family estate to begin doing business and generating revenue independantly, while Eli himself started shaking hands with big names in Raleigh to get 'potential investors' interested in his ideas.
Once Kelley started getting money rolling in for real, Raleigh's city-council got a sat salty about the whole thing: After a lengthy and loud meeting, the city's politicians once again started pushing legal action to renounce Kelley's status as an independant nation, starting with the decision to cut off power and water to the Kelley estate, figuring that if they wanted to be independant so bad, they could have it. But Elijah was smart enough to have seen this coming, and within a few days the estate (and thus the entire nation of Kelley) had water and power again, albeit in small amounts, supplied by local and renewable sources manned by staff who had their wages doubled (and paid in NuYen instead of CAS bucks) just for sticking it through.
City council once again eased up on the Unitary State of Kelley, but this time it was from public mandate. Turns out that the locals had started to think of the eccentric Elijah as something of a scrappy underdog fighting big government, and the nation of Kelley started becoming a point of pride for the people of Raleigh. Seeing that once again it would cause more problems than solve, Raleigh once again eased off on Kelley - publically, at least. Somewhere in city-hall, interns are still scouring for means to reign the wannabe-nation back into line.
As for Kelley, they started fully embracing being a micronation. Employees started considering themselves full citizens of the nation, and in '77, they had their first proper immigrant: A Technomancer by the name of Jared Molina, who clambered over the gates begging for asylum as anti-techno sentiment started gripping the city hard, a request that was unconditionally granted by Elijah, increasing his population by a whole 3.3 percent! And with Elijah looking at purchasing an old artificial-island off the coast, it's looking like they're planning on getting even bigger...
Founding Date
2034/2075
Alternative Name(s)
The USK
Type
Arcology
Population
31 registered inhabitants
Inhabitant Demonym
Kelleyites
Location under
Owner/Ruler
Characters in Location
Comments