United States government in Jericho

This is an outline of the various fictional remnants of the United States government created in the aftermath of the nuclear attacks in the CBS series Jericho.

Successor states
In the second season of Jericho, the United States is shown to have split into three separate factions: the original United States of America, which controls the states to the east of the Mississippi River; the Allied States of America, which controls the other states, excluding Texas; and the Independent Republic of Texas. Separating the United States and the new Allied States of America along their common border is the "Blue Line," a security perimeter set up by United Nations Peacekeepers. The status of Hawaii and Alaska is unclear: both have Jennings and Rall offices, but the Allied States' flag has only 21 stars, accounting for the 21 continental states under its control, so whether or not they have joined any side is unclear.

Allied States of America
The Allied States of America is a separatist faction formed in response to the nuclear bombings. Its capital is located in Cheyenne, Wyoming (now known as the "Federal District of Cheyenne"); the states west of the Mississippi River (including Kansas, in which Jericho is located), except for Texas, are within its claimed borders. The Flag of the Allied States is an altered version of the Flag of the United States; its stripes are aligned vertically (as in the U.S. Coast Guard Ensign) and only 21 stars are present; the significance of the directional change of the stripes could be taken literally as "a new direction" for Americans. Soldiers in the Allied States military wear arm patches displaying the new flag.

The Allied States of America is led by President Tomarchio, a former United States Senator. Because a joint session of the United States Congress was being addressed by the President in Washington, D.C. at the time of the attacks, many of the successors to the presidency were killed, leaving the line of succession unclear. Six different officials were claiming to be the legitimate successor, Tomarchio among them. Several of these other leaders must have eventually capitulated, and the Allied States of America was born.

Much of the Allied States administration is suggested to be made up of former Jennings & Rall (J&R) employees, and thus the fictional corporation, and its paramilitary subsidiary Ravenwood, are afforded preferential treatment and sweeping monopolistic powers. The Allied States of America promotes itself as being born of a desire to create a much stronger government, but in reality it is a corporatocracy (like the East India Trading Company) with J&R firmly in control. Allied States citizens had little choice in these matters, due to the devastating aftermath of such a massive and shocking series of attacks. Many Americans, however, are so terrified and traumatized that they are fearfully willing to accept the new government freely granting itself fascistic powers in order to "keep America safe."

The Allied States has formed a new Constitutional Convention to totally rewrite the US Constitution, even though it does not control the entire country. This convention is known to have eliminated the right to bear arms ("Patriots and Tyrants"); prior to this, President Tomarchio suspended the Posse Comitatus Act ("Black Jack"). The Allied States military is seen throughout Season Two occupying and administering civilian areas and overriding the civilian state governments ("Reconstruction"), engaging in warrantless searches and seizures ("Sedition," "Jennings and Rall"), imprisoning individuals without due process of the law in conjunction with the Jennings & Rall corporation ("Oversight"), engaging in acts of torture and collective punishment ("Sedition"), suppressing free speech and freedom of assembly ("Condor," "Sedition"), and committing summary executions ("Condor"). This suggests that the Allied States legal system lacks anacedents to the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Tenth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, lacks the writ of habeas corpus, and does not consider the Allied States to be party to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or Geneva Conventions. The Allied States government is also seen distributing completely rewritten history books which state that Iran and North Korea were responsible for initiating the nuclear attacks. The books lay strong blame at the feet of the former United States government for its "ineptitude" in allowing the attacks to take place and for its "gridlocked" reaction. The books further claimed that the Vietnam War was lost over the former government's "failure of will". The books are immediately recognized by the citizens of Jericho as thinly veiled propaganda designed to sway the American people toward the belief that they will be much safer in the future for pledging allegiance to the Allied States's "New America."

In the wake of the initial attacks, American nuclear missiles were launched in "retaliation strikes" against Iran and North Korea, ordered by President Tomarchio ("Condor"). It is implied throughout the series that this was to conceal the truth of their own nuclear plot to overthrow the United States; however, Robert Hawkins discovers in "Sedition" the secret that the nuclear attacks on America were actually the work of an unknown agent. The mysterious mastermind regarded the Jennings & Rall corporation as a "disease" on the United States government and had sought to orchestrate J&R's destruction by using the attacks to "uproot" it from its original position of influence. His plan assumed that the federal government would recover afterward, but backfired when the Allied States formed and took J&R as its ready ally, making the company more powerful than ever, and leaving the former government vulnerable to hostile takeover.

United States of America
The original United States still exists and is attempting to reassemble itself with those states east of the Mississippi River under its control. While still reeling from the attacks, the United States is also forced to compete for its very existence against the Allied States. Its leader is the surviving legitimate designated successor to the Presidency, former United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Charles.

New York City and Columbus, Ohio, two major US cities targeted in the initial attacks, survived unharmed. Due to increased security measures by the New York City Police Department after the September 11, 2001 attacks, as well as from Hawkins's last minute tipoff, the nuclear bomb set to be detonated in New York City was intercepted moments before it would have exploded, and the city was saved. Hawkins was assigned to deliver the Columbus bomb, but instead brought it with him secretly to Jericho. As a direct result, the states east of the Mississippi River are in a significantly stronger position than the attack plans had assumed -- a major setback to the instigator of the nuclear attacks and to the Allied States in the struggle for continental power.

Independent Republic of Texas
Energy-rich Texas did not join the Allied States of America, nor has it reunited with the United States to the east; it became the Independent Republic of Texas, led by a Governor named Todd, and is the wild card in the struggle for Central North American supremacy after the nuclear attacks. If Texas were to ally with either the Allied States or the United States, it would drastically tip the odds in the inevitable oncoming civil war in their favor.

The major plotline of Season Two, prior to the unknown mastermind's introduction, consisted of the residents of Jericho trying to use Hawkins's Columbus-bound nuclear bomb as "smoking-gun" evidence to convince the Texan government that the nuclear attacks were actually a conspiracy by the current leaders of the Allied States to seize power, hopefully causing Texas to rejoin the United States. Despite major interference by the true architect of the conspiracy, who was pursuing the last bomb himself in order to detonate it in Cheyenne, thereby destroying J&R and the Allied States but also 1 million innocent civilians, the bomb is successfully delivered to Texas. As the series ends, the Texas government appears poised to rejoin the United States, having sent two Texas Air National Guard jets to shoot down two Allied States Air Force fighters sent from Cheyenne to stop the bomb from reaching San Antonio.

Original faction leaders
Immediately after the September 2006 attacks, a power vacuum ensued across the United States, as indecision and lack of communication began to take its toll on the various surviving regions of the nation. The following information was depicted in the Season One episode "Black Jack" and Season Two episode "Patriots and Tyrants."

FEMA camps
Shortly after the bombs went off, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) successfully setup refugee camps near blast sites. There are presumably numerous camps (with varying conditions), but only a few are specifically mentioned: Topeka ("Long Live the Mayor"), West Chicago Camp ("Casus Belli"), a camp near Baltimore ("Black Jack"), and a camp at an unknown location with 10,000 refugees ("Semper Fidelis"). A camp in Lexington, Kentucky, was also mentioned by Sarah Mason in the online video segment Ask the Mystery Woman. Semper Fidelis also noted that food riots occurred in the West Chicago Camp, resulting in the overpowering of their Marine guards.

Foreign relations
One of the questions posed to Robert Hawkins in his segments on the CBS website is whether any targets outside of the U.S. were attacked. His response is that he hasn't heard of any, but that "it wouldn't surprise [him]". The fake Marines in "Semper Fidelis" say that North Korea and Iran have been attacked in retaliation by the U.S., which is confirmed to be done by the Allied States under the orders of President Tomarchio in "retaliation for the September bombings". With Hawkins' intimate knowledge of the attacks, it is determined that the strikes on North Korea and Iran are likely a cover-up of a domestic conspiracy.

Also, China and Germany have apparently performed several air supply drops to U.S. citizens (mostly food, but also mechanical and medical supplies).

The United Nations is involved in keeping the peace between the Allied and United States. Now with evidence about Cheyene involvement in September Attacks the United Nations will likely withdraw.