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The Doclopedia #236
Altered (United) States: Florida “Mother Nature Lives Here”
Florida was discovered in 1513 by Juan Ponce de Leon. Unfortunately, during his voyage around the peninsula of the state, he did something to piss off the living spirit of the great Everglades. By the time he sailed of for home, the spirit was gearing up for any future visits from Europeans. When they did inevitably return, the plants and creatures of the great wetlands attacked and killed them. By the early 1600s, nobody dared set foot on southern Florida, the Keys or any of a couple hundred small nearby islands. The Everglades now covered the entire southern half of the peninsula, far more than it ever did in our world.
The northern portion of Florida was much less hostile to humans, for the most part. Thick forests and swamps were places to stay away from, but otherwise, humans were allowed to settle as long as they didn’t get too destructive. Of course, some humans did get too destructive, but they were soon gone, taken by the forces of nature. And by “forces of nature”, we mean everything from groups of black bears to massive flocks of birds to vines & trees to alligators measuring in excess of 35 feet long. In 1823, a small town on the panhandle was wiped completely off the face of the earth after the people there began dumping waste from a tannery into the ocean.
Eventually, Florida became a state in 1845 and it was acknowledged that rather large areas of the state were off limits to humans. Things went well for 80 years, until June of 1925, when several scientists, backed by wealthy southern businessmen, decided to use several huge machines to “tame the primeval land in the name of progress”. The machines went into the swamps prepared to cut drainage channels, build levees and cut down forests. Before they could even get started, an enormous green…thing…appeared. Made up of swamp plants, mud, tree trunks and other materials, it stood over 150 feet tall and had a vaguely humanoid shape. It destroyed the machines, killed all the humans connected with them and then started to move north, destroying every human habitation it came to. Nothing could stop it, although the United States Army tried like hell.
When the “Swamp Thing” finally got to the state capital at Tallahassee, it stopped. It then dropped pieces of the machines and humans who assaulted it onto the capital building. Finally, in a voice that sounded like both the wind through trees and a wave breaking on a beach, it said “Leave the wild alone!”. It then collapsed into roughly three million gallons of swamp muck, flooding most of the city.
Today (current year: 1960) nobody in their right mind goes into the wilds of Florida with anything less than the utmost respect for nature. In fact, just to be on the safe side, most of the other southern states are pretty respectful of nature, too. After all, they have some prety big gators swimming around, too.
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