In 2027, Texas was largely spared the horrors of nuclear apocalypse that engulfed the West Coast of the United States due to ballistic missile defenses across the Great Plains, with the notable exception of Dallas/Fort Worth. While background radiation would still kill hundreds of thousands, and contaminated water in the Rio Grande River threw the border cities into chaos, the core of Texas remained intact and relatively well-off compared to the rest of the country. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the Texas State Guard and 36th Infantry Division (Texas National Guard), under the command of Governor Harrison, declared martial law and reined in the worst excesses of rioting and post-war anarchy.

However, the rest of the country was not so lucky. When the U.S. President asked Governor Harrsion to allow the southern states to tap into Texas’ power grid, Harrison refused.

Texas’ energy infrastructure, unique to the rest of the United States, was under the purview of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, and subordinate to the state, not federal, government. While Texas had largely been spared, it would be years until electricity and the rest of the amenities therein (fresh, running water, heat, etc) could be returned.

This played a large factor in Governor Harrison’s decision not to share Texas’ power with the rest of the South. The US, without any real way to enforce their will upon the Governor, settled with leaving Texas a backwater and focusing on the reorganization of the East Coast.

But Harrison was more than just a governor with a streak of independence. The first Democratic governor to be elected in Texas in over XXXX years, he was an outspoken left-wing populist. Harrison denounced the wealthy urban East Coast and D.C. elites, oligarchs and the banks. Harrison took a page out of the Great Depression and reinvigorated the "Share Our Wealth" program, which would establish a net asset tax, the earnings of which would be redistributed so as to curb the poverty and homelessness epidemic statewide during the years following the Kaliningrad disaster.