The year was 2047.
Five years had passed since Cascadia shocked the world and successfully became an independent nation. It hadn’t fallen. It hadn’t been crushed by sanctions or swallowed by chaos. In fact, it had thrived—greener, smarter, and more united than many believed possible.
And people were watching.
Especially in Texas.
Texas had always flirted with the idea of secession—since the days of the Republic of Texas, through tea party rallies, and again during the Great Federal Grid Failure of 2029. But it was always talk, bluster, a myth wrapped in oil and pride.
Then came the Second Dust Bowl.
In 2046, a confluence of drought, failing crops, aquifer collapses, and migrant surges from across the southern U.S. and Latin America created an unsustainable strain on Texas’s infrastructure. Federal disaster relief was delayed, mishandled, and then withheld entirely after Texas openly defied new federal climate mandates.
Governor Marisol Reyes, a former rancher turned populist technocrat, made the fateful announcement during a nationally televised address from the steps of the Austin Capitol:
“We’ve begged for fair treatment. We’ve paid more into the Union than we’ve received. We’ve buried our children in sandstorms and sent our workers to fix broken systems that Washington refuses to address. If Cascadia can choose a new way, so can Texas. We were a republic before, and by God, we will be one again.”
The message spread like wildfire. Not just through Texas, but across parts of Oklahoma, New Mexico, and even western Louisiana.
But this wasn’t a return to the cowboy caricature of old. Governor Reyes was no nationalist, nor isolationist. Her vision for a new Texas was based on resilience—energy independence, water sovereignty, agricultural reinvention, and local governance.
The movement was called “The Red Soil Pact.”
Key figures emerged quickly:
Dr. Xavier Juarez, an agri-ecologist from El Paso, developed new regenerative dryland farming models using AI soil monitoring and genetically adapted native crops.
Angela Doss, a Black tech entrepreneur from Houston, built out an oil-to-renewables transition framework that didn’t ignore the realities of the state’s economy but turned rig workers into solar grid technicians in under 18 months.
Chief Raymond Cozad of the Comanche Nation became an unlikely cultural ambassador, ensuring Native voices were not only respected but central to land reform policies.
And from Dallas to Lubbock, a new generation of rural youth—raised on open-source coding, crypto agri-co-ops, and post-partisan pragmatism—began to call themselves Texarcadians.
The Republic of Texas, reborn, passed its own constitution in 2047. It was bold: every citizen had guaranteed energy access, water rations, and a right to localized democratic representation through digital referenda. The death penalty was abolished. Gun rights remained, but now under a “civil defense collective” model modeled after Iceland and Switzerland.
Borders were contentious. East Texas and parts of the Panhandle resisted, waving federal flags. Texas didn’t try to conquer them. Instead, it allowed counties to opt out. Many eventually opted back in after comparing results.
Despite cultural differences, Cascadia and Texas began a cautious but strategic alliance. Water tech from the Northwest met solar tech from the South. AI weather modeling developed in Portland helped preempt wildfires in Amarillo. Students from Houston and Eugene took part in the Green Grit Exchange, learning each other’s histories, dialects, and dreams.
And the United States?
It was weaker now—still whole, but splintered. The government quietly acknowledged both new nations in practice, if not in rhetoric. By 2049, the U.N. had recognized both Cascadia and Texas as sovereign observer states.
Other regions began asking questions. Appalachia, forgotten by both coasts, whispered of a New Cumberland Compact. The Great Lakes formed the Freshwater Alliance to protect against privatization and corporate overreach. Even parts of New England began drafting a Charter of Autonomy, grounded in democratic socialism and cooperative banking.
The United States had not collapsed. But the map was changing.
On July 4, 2050, in an unprecedented broadcast, Chancellor Arianna Zhou of Cascadia and President Marisol Reyes of the Republic of Texas appeared side by side on a split-screen simulcast. They each held a flag—not of rebellion, but of rebirth. One evergreen. One a lone star against a rising sun.
“We are not enemies of the Union,” they said in unison.
“We are experiments in democracy, still unfolding. May we all have the freedom to try again.”
And so, beneath different banners, on the same soil, the American story continued—not broken, but branching.
Just as trees do.