California Incident

On April 29th, 2038, the demons Alcor the Dreambender and Milchiresa of Unknown Darkness were summoned by their respective cults and ordered to fight to the death. The ensuing battle, referred to as the California Incident, resulted in mass destruction to the surrounding areas and countless casualties, including Milchiresa. The state of California was hit the hardest, with most of the coastline destroyed and split into islands. This event had significant international consequences, precipitated widespread anti-demon sentiments, and is one of the reasons Alcor is so feared.

The Immediate Aftermath

+ Once Supernatural Aid and the Red Cross come through (to the more accessible islands—the furthest ones are deemed unsafe and aren’t breached) and leave, the inhabitants of the islands are left with their lives to try to pick up—some may make it back to the US, some may stay on the islands and try to venture further out, and some may just go screw it I’m starting something new here.

+ So many donations by nonprofits to get aid out as far as they can—food, clothing, shelter, clean-up crews. These tend to go to, again, the more accessible islands.

+Other donations and cuts on housing or renting hotels etc, even access to jobs, goes to those Californians who survived the disaster, whether they came back to the mainland from the islands or they were abroad/away from home at the time (see: Pines Parents).

Global Significance

+California is a hub of travel and multi-cultural communities; there will be exchange students, tourists, visiting businessmen and women, international actors and actresses, possibly diplomats and foreign singers who were in California at the time of the disaster—this means that they probably all died :D

+But seriously, while April 29 is a huge date in the US for a while, globally there might also be some celebration to a lesser degree—a day of remembrance, kind of. 

+Also, global leaders take a look at the demons who did this—attempts to summon Milchiresa of Unknown Darkness go unanswered, and all anybody gets of Alcor is an angry terror that rips apart their binding circles in .002 seconds flat and demolishes the facility where the summoning is being held—and most do their best to blacklist the info on them. More Alcor than the latter, because Milchiresa is nowhere to be found (not for a millennia or so, at least), but blacklisted info.

+What’s left of California is, due to the liability issues and monetary costs it represents, written off as a non-state. Well, the new coastline of California being the Sierra Nevada might be instated as the new California (New California or something like that), but the rest of it? Just islands, possibly not even belonging to the United States. 

+Those interested in new territory, then (mostly East Asian countries, possibly New Zealand or Australia), attempt to send out survey groups or try to attempt contact with the islands. However, due to the highly-supernaturally-concentrated waters in what was the San Francisco area, those don’t end too well. 

+Also: Hawaii and coastal East Asian countries might have some tsunamis; if there was enough disturbance of the earth to submerge most of California, then they probably faced problems themselves.  Huge problems. 

+The US might try to salvage tech off its shores and in the California region, but once the islands get some kind of political pull that’s stopping real fast, especially if they’re autonomous. They might continue to pull stuff off the New California shoreline, but beyond that their hands are tied, and who wants to piss off a bunch of tiny nations that have more magical power and knowledge than your entire continent? 

Geography

+We have a wonderful preliminary map (as seen above), which outlines the bigger islands. However, the shapes won’t be exactly the same, and there will also be smaller islands dotting various areas because the demon fight literally raised and sunk chunks of the earth.

+Floating islands! Not sure about the logistics of this, but any ships that miraculously didn’t sink in the disaster could possibly become floating civilizations as survivors drifted to them and managed to climb aboard. 

+Debris islands are also a distinct possibility! Areas where the seafloor is much closer to the surface may find debris caught on them, and over time the trash just piles up and up and up until you have this sort-of landmass. Humans don’t tend to inhabit these areas, though if they do, they’re likely hermits. 

+Many islands, the further in time we get away from the disaster, create a system of levees to increase accessible land. 

+These waters are infused with magical, supernatural, and demonic energy, so strange things and strange weather patterns happen in these parts. 

+Underwater Cities! While not inhabited by humans, they sport a host of mundane and magical/supernatural flora and fauna. Some cities aren’t as inhabited by anything due to the lingering negative emotions of the deceased.

+Eventually, these cities become like giant treasure troves, Titanics moored underwater. 

Treasure Hunting

+Centuries later, even just decades later, the LA and San Francisco areas become the grounds for the next Gold Rush.

+Explorers and Thrill-seekers cause an increase in scuba-diving and deep-sea-diving classes and certificates, and they risk their lives to come back with some underwater relic, which may be completely mundane or perhaps might be charged with supernatural energies. 

+San Fran especially is the forbidden jewel of treasure hunters; being in one of the worst, most dangerous areas of the region, it’s a place not only for study but also for thrill-seekers to find their thrill, and also possibly more artifacts. 

+These artifacts tend to be more…haunted, so to speak, or demonically charged than others. And more dangerous: for example, some items that have natural holes in them or had holes during the disaster that are charged with this demonic energy have the possibility of allowing a person to see the mindscape through that hole? Or to see the supernatural, if the mindscape is too much of a stretch.

Culture

+As reported by asianpankake​, California is huge and insanely diverse, so the culture of each island is going to differ a great deal from the others.

+Culture is, after all, dependent on people and their traditional values, their upbringing, and people of different nationalities are going to have different upbringings. Some islands may have mixed-cultures(where you take traditions of different cultures and celebrate them all), some may have cultures very similar to the US’s or Mexico’s (especially the islands close to the coast), etc.

+Also to be taken into consideration is the cultures of supernatural beings, also stranded on these islands. Selkies, Dryads, Satyrs, Crab People, Gnomes, etc. Some islands will get along with these beings better than others, and that will also influence/be influenced by the underlying political thoughts of the majority of the people on that particular island. 

+Each island does have its own name, as they are wont to do, but I’m going to refer to them as the California islands.

+Also possibly scavenger/pirate culture for the moving islands/boats? More should be said about this. 

Politics

+Political views change from island to island, but many closer to the new coastline are pro-nats (the fact that a demon caused all this destruction is kind of a supporting argument they use), whereas those further away tend to be more liberal. 

+Remember that the islands get smaller as you get further from the coast: As asianpankake​ said, “The Bay Area is probably the most wrecked, and a huge percentage of the liberal, supernatural-friendly population is lost.” 

+Because of the highly diverse and disparate communities, the residents might have friendly relations and trade between islands, but it’s unlikely that they’re never really unified. They might eventually enter an agreement like the European Union, but that’s a pretty heavy might that depends on the situations this new region finds itself in. 

+The tentative name for this possible governmental body is ‘Californian Island Federation.’

Magic

+Magic, due to an early lack of electricity/oil/fuel/coal/other-energy, quickly becomes the preferred energy of choice. You can create lights with it, you can heat things, you can cool things. You can use it to tie your makeshift house-tent together (though you’ll need to find a more permanent solution before long), you can use it to find food and drinking water, etc. 

+Because it’s used so often, magic quickly becomes a desired skill, and a skill that is practiced to extents not before reached in the Post-Transcendence age. 

+Basically magic becomes the export skill/trade/etc of most of the islands in the California region. 

+ theorykids​ suggested that a few generations after the disaster is when the islands become really well known for their magic: sales of magical supplies, charms, and talismans reaches an all-time high, their universities are the best to go to for magic degrees and especially for magic-education degrees, their constant improvement of the MagiOrb and related magitech (see Technology) is a selling point, etc.

+It’s mentioned in the TAU blog that one of Acacia’s kids is the guy who really, really manages to meld tech and magic together: headcanon that he went to undergrad or grad school at one of the Universities in the California region. 

+While you have a lot of pro-nats on these islands, these pro-nats sure change their mind about using magic pretty quickly. And again, some will take to magic with less prodding than others; not every pro-nat person is going to have the exact same beliefs.

+Same goes with anti-magic societies: while they run rampant all over the continental US, the anti-magic societies of the islands of California don’t do too well. They kind of fizzle out and die, and Magic Cults/Societies take their places with a vengeance.

+One of these societies, the Reclaimant Circle, emerges as the (social-not-magic) societies on the islands start to come together and discuss the issue of land. They’re dedicated to raising as much land as they can, and can only really move maybe a couple square feet at a time; raising the earth takes a lot of energy, and this probably in the beginning causes minor earthquakes itself. 

+These earthquakes, while they might be devastating in the early years, also release a ton of easily manipulated elemental magic, and it’s why the Reclaimant Circle still exists centuries later; because no matter what, there’ll be something good coming out of shifting the earth

Technology

+This is really mayordomogoliat​ ‘s area of expertise, so I’m just compiling what I know! You may want to read (this) and (this) before continuing onto this section. 

+ According to asianpankake​, the technology industry of CA is located all over the state but is centered around the Bay Area (Silicon Valley) or LA, aka disaster zones. This means that most tech-tech has gone underwater, even the most experimental of magic-tech melds, such as the possibility of binding magic to metals. 

+So MagiOrb/Magiorb/Magicore (I like capitalizing things): Basically, from word of god (mayordomogoliat), it is a “new school of magic more readily available to the general populace based on a sphere covered in geometric shapes that mimicked the Earth’s leylines and worked by programming spells into the machine via computer and powering it with some magical type of battery.”

+The MagiOrb 1.0 was opensource so tons of people have it/have knowledge on how to make it, so probably the MagiOrb 1.0 becomes the new, better way to do magic-tech when you don’t necessarily have access to all the ritualistic ingredients that the analogue way requires.

+Basically the MagiOrb 1.0 becomes super insanely popular across the islands, even if it is a bit bulky and non-mobile. In fact, the development of the MagiOrb is a bit different for each of the islands, taking into consideration different population demographics/dynamics and access to resources. 

+ESPECIALLY as people figure out how to run laptops on magical energy. It kind of screws with the monitor and shows funny colors, but if you’re just trying to power a MagiOrb through the laptop, then what does color matter?

+However, the creator of the MagiOrb (Mercury/Iris) dies in the disaster, and with them a lot of awesome plans and everything.

+But here’s the thing: somebody survived, some kid with a fascination with the MagiOrb and MagiTech, some curious old geezer with a bit too much time on his hands and a streak of luck to boot, several somebodies on different islands, and their innovative minds managed to pull something out of the MagiOrb 1.0s and create something great with it. 

+Now there were already MagiOrb 2.0 prototypes floating around, which was meant to be more portable version, more streamlined: the commercial version, so to speak. More power, easily configured, probably more memory, easy to replace magical battery, etc. Primarily, they were a means to earn the creator a bit of cash money.

+Very few of these existed in the first place, so they’re less than rare after the disaster. But the islands that have them? They’re leaps and bounds ahead of the rest for a while, especially if they have one of those innovative souls buggering with them. 

+Within decades, the MagiOrb 2.0 prototypes have  been altered and improved, and their tinkerers left with a greater understanding of the MagiTech behind them. This information was applied to other projects, and the MagiTech line was widened in scope.

+Also, magical batteries: during the disaster, they’re pretty much recharged beyond anything anybody could have thought them to withstand, and some that are close enough are bound together and supercharged, collectively forming a giant energy core of magical energy, forming the center of a civilization for at least one of the islands. 

+They never really get back to mundane tech. Maybe some, sure (esp. on college campuses), but it’s not as big a thing. More and more the way these islands are going is a fusion of magic and technology. 

Flora/Fauna

+Crab People populate the islands, some (debris islands?) more than others. 

+Coral Reefs and the like slowly start to grow, especially as these waters have a radical range of elevation within the same ten square miles. 

Appearances

• April 29, 2038 — The demon summonings that caused the incident, as well as some of the fallout during the incident
• April 29, 2038: Oxygen — Alcor, overflowing with power after killing Milchiresa, makes a deal with Willow to get her out of an asthma attack.