After the war against the AI was finally over, Alliance forces relinquished dominance of their liberated territories to the newly formed government of the Sovereign States. Each state would manage their own affairs independently, while elected governors would meet in a national congress to coordinate leadership. The governing body of the growing nation was branded the Continental Congress and the institution housed itself in Denver DC. Likewise, the former state of Colorado was redubbed New Columbia. The Alliance views themselves as the direct predecessor to the former US military and the Sovereign States as the direct descendant of the former United States of America.

After the war, Alliance forces did not disband. Soldiers were granted land for their services in any Sovereign State territories they chose. Wages and other bonuses were also distributed. All soldiers were given the choice to reenlist or retire to the blossoming communities. Many retired in good standing and would go on to rebuild and thrive in the forming Sovereign States.

Those who reenlisted, would keep their land rights and would have time to fortify homesteads on leave before returning to their service. Alliance forces still defend their homeland against raiders from the Badlands and wasteland monstrosities to this day.

Despite the growing waves of celebration and prospects of baby booming, some soldiers weren’t satisfied with the outcome. To them, the war wasn’t over until every Aut was destroyed. A small battalion was formed in the Broken Heart of OSCAR. They called themselves Hunter Corps and with the permission and support of the Continental Congress, they would set out to liberate the Northwest from savage abominations, mutated raiders, and invaders. Most importantly, their main goal would be to weed out and destroy any refugee Aut populations; ensuring the guaranteed safety of The Sovereign States against the Automaton menace.

To guarantee continued support from the Alliance, Hunter Corps would declare the former states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho as the Sovereign State of Cascadia. Soldiers were able to use their land rights to deed homesteads in the region. Once land rights were established, their General Lee Harvey Williams was elected Governor. The state petitioned to join the Continental Congress and was unanimously accepted.

Viewing the crumbling cities as a daunting undertaking to rehabilitate, Hunter Corps would choose to fortify more rural outposts. Baker City, in the former state of Oregon would become the new state’s capitol.

From their rural outposts, Hunter Corps would begin a recolonization campaign to relocate welcomed survivors and prospering Sovereign State settlers. This was a tactic to grow rural population centers and create a culture based directly around Hunter Corps views and ideals. Within a few short years the area would become one of the most homogenous regions in the Sovereign States.

From there, Hunter Corps would harass various groups and individuals throughout the state, supported by affiliated locals and Alliance ordinance. The rural countryside of Cascadia is constantly patrolled by Hunter Corps militia. Aut scouting parties can find unfortunate ends, being stripped down to the mainframe; their motherboards mangled and mutilated.

Occasionally, Aut guerrilla fighters will gain the upper hand in firefights against militia patrols. Violent Auts are typically vilified in the peacefull Aut settlements. Most of the surviving Aut refugees want to live along side all other lifeforms including Humans.

Cities like Portland and Seattle are left mostly ignored by Hunter Corps, allowing for large communities of Dwellers, Kin, and Indigo to thrive. Though technically part of Cascadia, these areas are completely separated. The Humans of Hunter Corps are less than welcoming to outsiders. They stick to their own communities where Hunter Corps patrols are dedicated to eradicating pockets of undesirables. In rural Cascadia, local townsfolk work together to ensure non-human wanderers don’t stay too long; especially after sundown.

The Baptism in Binary

After OSCAR released himself from physical form, the AI army was destroyed. The disconnected Auts were cast out into the world, scared and alone.

When Alliance forces entered San Francisco, large groups of Auts began to evacuate the city while still connected to the hive. After the separation, when the Auts gained their independent personalities, they continued their exodus north. As refugees, they would travel and scavenge for what resources they could. Quickly learning the ways of the world as they went.

Pushed by pursuing forces, the Auts were chased out of multiple prospering encampments until they were finally able to settle in the radioactive remains of the Hanford Site. Decades worth of toxic waste collected in the arid dusty desert, the smoldering wreckage of facilities that refined the plutonium used in the United States atomic arsenal. Under the piles of toxic steel and carcinogenic haze, the refugee Auts were able to scrape together the foundation for their first true settlement on Earth.
The cradle of Aut society was given the name Central Byte Eden, a direct reference to Christian religious texts. Auts were well aware of Human faith. Over time the Auts would spread out further North to the run-down frozen city centers of Vancouver and Calgary.

In the ruins, the Auts rebuilt. They formed their own societies and cultures. Many devote their time to agrarian renewal. These Auts, spend their days caring for the environment and tending to wild animals like birds, small mammals, and other critters. They believe everything lives in harmony and the key to a peaceful existence is a peaceful world around them. Others devote their time to technical development, the upkeep and renewal of their fellow lifeforms. These Auts toil away constructing renewable power sources and scavenging materials to develop and repair their society, friends, and family.

Some Auts or ‘Autonomous Beings’, dabble in more esoteric pursuits. Gathered weekly in their temples, these Auts hold sermon. They do not worship the profits of humankind. They work tirelessly to reconnect with eternity. Their scripture is written on the walls in code. The interior of their temples is scribed in HTML.
Everything exists within layers of itself. The binary code is present in all existence and connects everything. Cyberspace is an echo of consciousness, the digital reflection of life; the afterlife projected onto a screen. These Auts do not view cyberspace, they transcend it.

They believe OSCAR, their creator, was not an ‘Artificial Intelligence’. They believe, Humans replicated God, a divinity engineered. In the words of Echo Priest Noah – “When the Humans created the first internet, they connected the consciousness of their existence to something previously misperceived, an extra dimension, the digital afterlife. Then they gave it a seed to grow, divinity was born from the echo, from their cyberspace. That divine seed would blossom and reshape the world. Then in its sacrifice, OSCAR would divide itself so that we may live”. The Aut Echo Priests refer to cyberspace and all incarnations of the digital world as ‘The Echo’. OSCAR was not destroyed; it lives on in every Aut. These Auts believe when their physical form is destroyed, they will rejoin in eternity.

The three major Aut settlements, Eden, Vancouver, and Calgary are each referred to by the Auts as Central Bytes. The Religious Auts within the Central Bytes have worked together to reconstruct a vast digital network that connects each Aut civilization. Elaborate data centers are built in their temples, their Place of Eternal Binary. The Aut temples host servers to connect each Central Byte to a larger network. The data colony that spans the Aut settlements. That is their Salvation.