on the Soviet republics, joined together in a new North American Union. A map shown on screen reveals these administrative areas to be: California Special District: California, Nevada Western Semi-Autonomous: Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming Northwest: Oregon, Washington Southwest: Arizona, New Mexico North Central: Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Central: Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska (this is Peter Bradford's administrative area, and the territory which eventually becomes Heartland, with Omaha, Nebraska, as its capital) South Central: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas Southern: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi Mid-Atlantic: Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia Appalachia: Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia Ameritech: Indiana, the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania (presumably named after the phone company that serviced these areas) Northeastern: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont In addition to these areas, Washington, D.C. comprises its own National Administrative District, South Florida is described by a character as the "Space Zone", and there is a passing reference to three "International Cities", one of which is San Francisco. Michigan is separated into two administrative regions, with the Lower Peninsula belonging to Ameritech, and the Upper Peninsula belonging to the North Central region. Alaska is described as never having been pacified, requiring continued engagement by Soviet troops, and there are pockets of armed resistance in the Rocky Mountains and in West Virginia. There is no mention of what has happened to Hawaii, or to U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico, Guam, and American Samoa. The Rust Belt (presumably "Ameritech") faces its own special problems. Most of its advanced factory equipment was removed at the start of the occupation and taken to the Soviet Union. The region suffers 50% unemployment as a result, and its residents are not permitted to leave, except to volunteer for factory work in the Soviet Union, from which no one has yet returned. Travel and communications between the various zones is heavily restricted, part of the "divide and conquer" plan of the Soviet occupation. Communist occupation elsewhere Both the novel and miniseries imply that the Soviet Union has conquered other countries after the U.S. coup (it can be surmised, for example, that the EMP which disabled U.S. technology also would have crippled Canada and Mexico, a minor character says that he and his wife fled East Germany for the United States and remarked that "the promised land [had]