PCBaller World/Montana

This page will be dedicated to mostly statistics and projects by Montana, also known as the Republic of Montana, Greater Montana, Afungrad II, Animal Cruelty Capital, and Greater Illinois, Mild Flavor. Its large population capacity is mainly achieved by the large numbers of suburban and urban cities built close to major interstates (but that isn't enough).

"Montana's system does not represent my exact personal beliefs due to numerous compromises and treaties made with other nations. - Afun "

Advanced CRISPR/Gene Editing
Genetic modification within Montana is extremely common. Over 99% of foods are grown GMOs, but pesticides are used less frequently than in modern America. GMOs are used to make plants insect resistant, vitamin-rich, larger during harvest season, and to perform many functions stated here (some plants are made simply to create toxic chemicals en masse, e.g. resiniferatoxin).

The most genetically modified organisms in Montana are farm animals. Cows, pigs, and chickens are mostly (if not all) genetically modified organisms. They may result in an increase in flavorants in meat, naturally produced vitamins, or even larger size (plus all the hormones). These genomes are top-secret within Montana, and only select countries or states (looking at you, Greater Illinois) possess copies of them.

As of 2035, Montana has engineered into existence bacteria capable of accelerated photosynthesis, converting some metal oxides into oxygen, and even producing specific chemicals from their components.

Asteroid Spectroscopy
The Republic of Montana has special telescopes placed into orbit around the Earth in order to scan distant asteroids in the inner asteroid belt using laser spectroscopy. With this, the spacecraft can determine the composition of the asteroids, and sell the information to asteroid miners (specifically to Greater Illinois) and collect large commissions from them (usually anywhere from 5% to 10%), earning Montana hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars.

Montana has been a leading producer of platinum and palladium, until the genesis of asteroid mining and spectroscopy.

Nuclear Fusion Research Project
Most of Montana is powered using hydrogen-helium nuclear fusion. There are research projects aiming to generate power using the triple-alpha process (helium-carbon) and quark fusion.

Space Program
Montana has its own space program, albeit it not being overly advanced. SpaceX, one of the most prevalent private organizations, Asteroid spectroscopy and propagation lasers have been deployed into space to help with other high-level tasks, such as determining asteroid-mining candidates, studying faraway stars (using giant telescopes that even outclass the James Webb), and sending microcrafts to nearby stars (planned: P. Centauri). A more recent use of the space program was to set up (and possibly drop) the "Rods from God" (large tungsten rods weighing thousands of kilograms each, developed from asteroid-mining tungsten-rich asteroids with the help of LFA and GI ) on countries it is at war with, damaging their infrastructure and army.

Moon
The ARI moon base is 20% owned by Montana. Helium-3 is mined in vast quantities to provide fuel for both nuclear fusion and quark fusion reactors across the ARI. Montana has set up a basic reverse area denial system, capable of potentially blocking or foiling immigrants that are not desired.

Mars
The Montanan Mars base, partially owned by Greater Illinois, is similar to the large lunar base, but it has the purpose of being a robust research center. They have the goal of creating a means to modernize and eventually terraform Mars, a goal that may take at most a few thousand years to complete.

[META] At least Jonah won't be able to micromanage us. We'll be free to fuck with this place however much we want. Only once we've terraformed this place, that is, which could potentially take a looooooooong time to do.

Europa
Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter, has a Montanan/GI presence on it. They use naturally occurring hydrogen (and isotopes) to fuse to create fusion energy. The colony has about 500 members, some of which are researchers from Byzantium, LFA, and GI. This is generally a portal or starting point for all Jovian settlements.

Titan
In 2039, the first mostly-Montanan base has been planted on Titan. The moon, with its vast quantities of hydrocarbons, could be used to produce energy by Montana's advanced methane cracking technologies, capable of cracking methane rapidly. This hydrogen then could then be fused into helium, creating enough power to generate an overwhelming net positive. In fact, Titan is suggested to have liquid water underneath. If a planet, moon, or whatever has water, fuse it! This settlement can serve as a shortcut for creating settlements on the other moons of Saturn.

Capsaicin/Resiniferatoxin
Montana is the leading producer of concentrated capsaicin and resiniferatoxin in North America, using heavily genetically modified plants and chemical processes to produce ever-larger amounts of these chemicals in use for pepperspray and weaponry (and trading) than before at an ever-lower cost. Montana's gene-modification and weaponry production departments have genetically modified Euphorbia resinifera plants to increase per-mass resiniferatoxin production hundredfold. Manufacturing at most hundreds of tons of these chemicals per year, these chemicals are regularly traded in with partners such as Quebec and central Greater Illinois (who in turn trades it in with partners). While a jalapeno may have 9,000 chemical heat measures (or Scoville units), pure capsaicin ranks to approximately 16,000,000 units while pure resiniferatoxin ranks to approximately 16,000,000,000 units.

The Aesthetics Problem
The "Aesthetics Problem" is a nickname given to the governmental softban on the lack of a specified aesthetical design (with the exception of prisons) due to the passage of a specific bill from the House of Representatives; it was passed on 21 February, 2036. In other words, buildings are required to be aesthetically pleasing (to some extent). Most factories and industrial buildings are built with a brutalist aesthetic in order to keep the costs low. Most other buildings are built with aesthetics in mind (not completely, but are more aesthetically pleasing than let's say buildings in Chicago, IL). The "Aesthetics Problem" has slightly increased the cost of building and the cost of living, but innovators have managed to create aesthetically pleasing buildings that are mostly functional.

The Industrial Channel
The "Industrial Channel" is a portion of Interstates 90 and 65. The portion in I-90 starts in Bozeman, MT and goes to the junction with I-65 at Gary, IN. From there, the Industrial Channel will continue down to the interstate's junction with I-70 in Indianapolis, IN. The Channel has an extra lane on either side of the roadway (either that or the people are planning to build an extra lane on either side of the roadway, as it may not be finished). The Channel is notable for having many industrial centers, factory farms, airports, cheap aesthetically unpleasing homes, and abattoirs near it—shipment costs to Greater Illinois and the LFA are slightly lower. The northernmost 50 kilometers of Interstate 25 are surrounded by the robust Montanan industry sector.

The Vegan Problem
The "Vegan Problem" is a perceived problem in industrial areas near the Industrial Channel, where numerous factory farms and slaughterhouses are located. Many exits on industrial I-90 lead to slaughterhouses or factory farms, and these roads often face the issue of overcrowding by disruptive activists. Hostile architecture and surveillance have been implemented en masse to discourage the movement of these activists who intend on blocking the flow of traffic. Many factory farms and slaughterhouses are located near sheriff/police stations (or even military bases if they happen to be close to I-90) for this reason. In extreme cases, caravans of trucks and buses carrying animals for slaughter can be followed by teams of police cars.

Language
English is the primary language of Montana, with 85% of residents having it as their first language. The Russian language is in running second, with 13% of the population having it as an L1 and 70% of those with a second language having it as an L2. Spanish, French, German, and Ukrainian are uncommon as L1's in Montana, with up to 20% having one of those four as second languages. English is the second language of 5% of those who have one. All official documents are written in English, even though both English and Russian are spoken in big meetings (the former is significantly more common for obvious reasons).

Over 98% of the population knows the Latin script (as used in English), with anywhere from 70% to 90% knowing the Russian Cyrillic script.

The Montanan accent is known for the ability to pronounce /ɨ/ and the ability to articulate /tʲ/, /dʲ/, and /sʲ/ mostly (but not completely) like a native Russian would; the average Montanan accent may struggle with /w/. The Montanan accent in the West may have a decreased ability to pronounce /w/ and an increased ability to make the /vʲ/, /bʲ/, and /pʲ/ sounds. On the other hand, the Montanan accent in the East may have a decreased ability to make the /ɨ/, /sʲ/, and /dʲ/ sounds, usually having little to no problem with /w/.

West vs East
There is a cultural divide between the western side of Montana and the eastern side of Montana. The West has a rather high concentration of Russian speakers while Russian is spoken less than average in the Eastern portion. Cost of living is approximately 30% higher in western Montana, as houses take longer to build and are costlier to build/repair.

The amount of effort put into aesthetically pleasing building within the Western Montana is often high, driving up costs and building times, even if the functionality of said building is impaired. Buildings built in Eastern Montana tend to be rather aesthetically unpleasing (most of them usually meet the bare minimum, except houses, which are more aesthetically pleasing than most buildings there), even though they usually have increased functionality. Buildings built in a strictly geometrical or even honeycomb-like manner are somewhat more common for non-residential buildings than in the West.

The rural lifestyle is a relatively major factor here in the West, with urban/industrial cities being uncommon (just somewhat less common than in the east but whatever). Ruralism and ranch life are virtually nonexistent in the east, with over 99% of the meat produced by the East being raised in factory farms. The attempted violent crime rate is nearly 60% higher here than in the West, even though police and military being very common.

60% of damage costs from extreme weather events are in Western Montana, while factory-related diseases and deaths are nearly three times as prevalent in the east.

Suburbs, upper-class neighborhoods, lower-class neighborhoods, and industrial centers are found in both halves of Montana. Suburbs are equally common in both halves, as are upper- and lower-class neighborhoods.

Ethical veganism, vegan activism, and violent animal rights protests are all more common in the East than in the West. Nonviolent animal rights protesters, seventh-day Adventists, and dietary vegans are more common in the West.

The space in between Western and Eastern Montana (Midwestern Montana) is the least population-dense area in Montana. Many land-based telescopes and military bases, as well as ranches, exist here, due to how relatively desolate it is. There are no urban cities here, as this is the northern end of the rocky mountains (pretty much). Suburbs are rare to find.

Our Opinions on Animal Cruelty
The Manifesto AES-256 ECB. This is one block of text.

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

Bartonian Movement
The Bartonian movement is a Christian religious movement that originated in western Montana.

The Bartonian movement, founded by Alexander Bartone, is a Protestant Christian fundamentalist religious movement that emerged out of the Seventh-day Adventist church in 2028. It started as a group of ethical vegans within the Adventist church (a denomination that usually supports vegetarianism) that assimilated many fundamentalist points to explain the American Collapse, including blaming the events on the abortion industry and the acceptance of LGBT. Later in 2028, the movement officially split off from the Adventist church, led by Bartone himself. The movement helped form the Party for National Revival in 2028; it was later banned in 2034. Even with the party banned, the Bartonian movement lives on.

Bartonian theology is (obviously) very similar to seventh-day Adventism. It supports ethical veganism as opposed to just vegetarianism (maybe not as far as PETA but same idea). The movement is also notoriously anti-LGBT, stating that sodomy should be recriminalized as a felony. The movement isn't as anti-abortion as many pulpit fundamentalists are. The movement also approves of the use of violence in some situations. Some sects within movement also see Greater Illinois and  Indonesia as joint manifestations of the beast mentioned in Revelation 17 (Ofc the Pope is the false prophet, they're revisionist Adventists so...). It also supports the enforcement of recent creationism in public and even private schools. It also believes that Sunday worship is a sign of Catholic infiltration and that Saturday is the only valid day to worship on.

An estimated ~12,500 people follow Bartonian theology. It has been described by many people as a cult within Christianity. Loose connections have been found between the 2000-man slaughterhouse raid and the Bartonian movement.

NWI-Montana Border
Montana might have border walls all over, but the wall between Northwest Imperium and Montana is frequently breached by large gangs and bands of criminals. This part of the border is currently being upgraded as the current protection is insufficient to thwart crime and trespassing. The border here is nearly done being upgraded; it'll possibly be done by 2041. Many criminal bases have been made within 15 km of the base, making the nearest 15 km of the NWI-Montana border mostly uninhabitable in the long term, so workers only help construct the wall in the day. Ethical vegan radicals have been sighted here at midnight as the entire area peaks in crime from ~11p to ~7a. Criminal passage is common through the unupgraded portions of the wall.

New Cheyenne
A new city is being built east of Billings. Its western border will be at most 30 km east of Billings. This city is a large hub for industry, including Montana's weapons industry and housing industry. The city will have a few suburbs for housing and general suburban life. Hexagonally-shaped (or honeycomb) buildings are a major sight in New Cheyenne. The city envelops S-580, and more is being built north of it (and south of I-94). The city is not even finished yet; it'll be awesome once it's done.

The new highway, S-580, serves as one of the city's main arterial roadways, with its western terminus on I-94 (at a spot in Yellowstone County ~12 km from its own western terminus with I-90) and its eastern terminus on the intersection of Upper Rd. and Rider Rd. Rider Rd. (or road 85 on a map) is upgraded to the same lane count and freeway status as S-580 itself; it continues for another 1.61 kilometers before ultimately making its eastern terminus in Big Horn County at MT-47, about 6.5 km north of its own southern terminus at I-90. The highway will be approximately 55.66 km long, or 57.27 km if Rider Rd. is included. Some properties will be bought by the industrial powers for the easternmost two kilometers of S-580 to be built. After enough buybacks performed by the corporations, Rider Rd. will be relabeled S-580. The roadway is a total of eight lanes wide, four lanes per direction. It functions as a freeway, having a speed limit of 110 kph, not using traffic lights on the freeway itself, and using off-ramps in the shape of ribbons to connect to intersecting roads. "Exits" will be used like on any major freeway.

New Cheyenne is a primarily corporate project that was thought of for the purpose of having one large industry-oriented and technology-oriented region in the eastern section of Montana. The city is to have a large residential population as well as a larger population (especially of factory workers and upper-class migrants) than Billings (only 400,000 people as of 2035). It will even serve as a backup capital for Montana in the case of a West-East schism. This city may even extend south of I-90 to US-87, if you know what that is. When New Cheyenne is fully built, it should occupy the entire triangle of I-90, I-94, and MT-47, making an area of slightly more than 1,355 km2, boasting nearly twelve times the area of Billings in 2023 (or about eight times greater than the large urban metropolises built by Montanan corporations post-collapse). It'll be only slightly larger than Los Angeles by area, per 2023.

The city is predicted to be fully finished from 2040 to 2046. As of 2039, the city has ~175,000 people and covers about 1,000 km2. People are moving into the new city at an alarming rate, as the project is becoming well-known among Montanans and other people in the USA.

New Cheyenne is also more dense and tightly packed than most cities in Montana. This is what makes the city different from most cities of its era.

New Cheyenne Megalopolis
Okay, here is the fun part. Other cities are being built between MT 47 and MT 59 by these large corporations. When the megalopolis is fully built, it will have an area of over 13,000 km2, being made up of many cities (and being ten times bigger than New Cheyenne itself) once the 16 component cities are done being built. Roads already exist in these areas, but they will be insufficient when the cities are fully built. There will even be military bases within this area.

S-580 will be expanded eastward so that its eastern terminus is moved from MT-47 (6.5 km north of its terminus) to a spot on MT-59 in Custer County (54.6 km north of its intersection with US 212), extending the route by 154.21 km, giving it a full length of 211.48 km. The extensions cannot be driven on, as they are currently in construction. 20 kilometers of the new extension have been constructed from the east end at MT-59; about 10 km of the extension have been constructed from the extension's west end at MT-47. Much deforestation will be needed for this. The highway itself will be projected to be fully finished anytime from later in 2039 to 2045 as its construction will be vital for the raising of the megalopolis. The route will have potentially dozens of spur routes in the form of big streets.

This megalopolis is projected to be finished between 2042 and 2075. It is projected to have enough homes for hundreds of millions of people. It will be visible from space during the day. Suburbs will be present in pockets within the urban landscape, but the rural parts will be fully removed from this area.

"Geometrical Cities"
Many of the buildings in New Cheyenne (and a few found in other cities or just along major roads) are geometrically connected in the form of a triangular grid, square grid, hexagonal grid, or a grid of any repeating pattern. These buildings may be standalone buildings or may be massive tall habitats. These tall habitats may be tens (or even hundreds) of meters wide/tall and are built out functionally advantageous and strong materials. Support poles exist inside of the buildings (obviously). These buildings could house living spaces with the same area found in a middle-class house. Each building usually has anywhere from a few to dozens of floors, each one six to eight meters tall. This gives ample space for supports, housing, and business to be built on the inside. The companies that build these often take commissions from whoever/whatever inhabits these massive buildings.

The ground floor is often a massive parking garage that has a small outway to a road or street. Large elevators, water pipes, electrical wires, and ethernet cables run down the middle of the building near its widest support beam. Buildings not fully dedicated to commercial use are usually somewhat spaced to allow the building of small backyards and balconies. Higher floors are smaller than lower floors in order to keep the building from collapsing; thus, residential spaces on higher floors will have larger balconies than lower ones (and the view is also good if there isn't just another building; also, costs are higher up here).

The buildings are somewhat wider at the bottom than at the top. The construction procedures have costed significantly less than they have in the past. The materials used to make the supporting beams (some of them up to meters in diameter) and the external supports are very erosion-resistant and expansion-resistant as well as (relatively) cheap materials mined from outer space. Platinum and iridium are used for the coating of external supports while titanium and heavily reinforced steel are used for the support. Of course the buildings aren't completely hexagonal as they have some efforts put into making them aesthetically pleasing to look at (as compared to just raw metallic bars and beams spiking a hundred meters into the sky). Aesthetical accommodations (like wood and bricks) are usually at most one meter thick, resting on the metallic and cemented supports that give the buildings their durability and functionality.

"Geometrical cities" are often heated and lit to a certain extent (but not too much as to avoid increasing the maintenance costs). Lighting is usually in sync with the outside day/night cycle, using photoelectric nodes to determine day and night.

Geometrical cities are often built in clusters; this is often the reason they are built in shapes that are able to make repeating patterns. Roads may wind between the individual buildings. Each "geometric city" is simply a large prism with a specific cross-sectional shape. The shape is usually a regular polygon, and that will most likely be either a triangle, a square, or a hexagon. Hexagons are the most resource-efficient shape, as less wall material and less road are needed per unit area. In fact, circles are the most efficient shapes in this context, but they cannot be tessellated without the use of stars. Squares are able to make "blocks" out of roads, having one intersection at the shared corner of any two square buildings. Triangles are a strong shape, and they can resist wind and extreme weather events (e.g. tornadoes) somewhat better than the other shapes. Triangular buildings are often used on the borders of clusters of "geometrical cities" for this reason.

The base of each geometric city is often at least 10 meters (for one-lane streets, some areas have two-lane streets, making it 20 meters) away from the neighboring geometric city in order to ensure the passage of roads. The distance is usually the number of lanes times 5 meters. Left-turn lanes are often not present in clusters of geometrical cities. If no road passes between any two geometrical cities, they can often be as close as 2 meters together.

Terraforming of Mars
Much of the CRISPR gene editing done on bacteria is primarily for the eventual purpose of terraforming Mars, which could be started at most 1000 years into the future. Teaming up with LFA, Greater Illinois, and (possibly) Byzantium, Mars will eventually be made a habitable world of its own that can allow a human to live on the surface without the use of a space suit. Mars will be used as a second habitable planet similar to Earth. It will have water, nitrogen, oxygen, (little) carbon dioxide, iron, and an agreeable atmospheric pressure. The planet may have artificial moons built in orbit around Mars (by then many artificial moons will be built around Earth and its moon).

Project Spherewash
"See Mainstream Idea Jingoism." Project Spherewash is a corporate plan to deplatform and eventually eliminate (or "wash out") those who hold flat-Earth beliefs, geocentrism, alternative cosmology, and/or hollow-Earth beliefs across the entire world. The plan has been started, and the first phase is currently being rolled out.

The efforts of these companies will include the vast majority of megacorporations in pretty much every corner of the planet (even those not on good terms with Montana, e.g. Indonesia or Austria). The project will even involve the government of Greater Illinois and other authoritarian regimes to commit cultural genocide on flat-Earthers (besides Russophiles and furries).

National governments that resist Project Spherewash will face some corporate withdrawal and tight corporate sanctions. The goal of this project is to eliminate flat-Earth belief and geocentrism, remember?

Why does Corporate want to do something this great?
This operation is done due to how many flat-Earthers there are all over the world. Even though science education is going strong over here in Montana, other countries might not be as lucky. These flat-Earthers and geocentrists forge plans and schemas to stop large asteroid companies, forcing them to spend billions of dollars yearly in court cases thanks to how powerful large groups of flat-Earthers and geocentrists can be when it comes to libel and misinformation. In order to eliminate these obstacles, they elites, pretty much all billion-dollar corporations, some authoritarian governments, and pretty much every conventional science education agency have come together to devise a plan to eliminate this threat.

Phase 1: The Beginning of the End
Phase 1 is the first phase of Project Spherewash. It is planned to last about ten years, and it will start anytime from 2035 to 2040. In this case, social media will be funded large billions (especially by trillion-dollar asteroid-mining companies and industrial megacorporations) to prohibit the promotion of targeted belief systems across all social networks. Any resistance will be met with either intensive fact-checking, account terminations, or sitewide bans. Links to sites such as FES will be prohibited across sites. Advanced AI technology installed on websites will be used to clean bad posts or even ban users of social networks.

Phase 2: The End?
After social media companies crack down upon target belief systems, the next stage is the dissenters. "Free speech" social networks that have not succumbed to Project Spherewash in Phase 1 will be removed from the majority of search engines. Search engines (e.g. Google or Bing) will remove these links from their search engines. Internet service providers will block any sites that support flat-Earth theory (or even search engines that do not remove such links). The ISP system will be modified as to fully disconnect and isolate such individuals. Any protests, online or physical, will be met with staged forces from those participating in Project Spherewash. This phase is predicted to last anywhere from 20 to 80 years.

Public book-burning ceremonies and rituals will be held. Entire debates will be held between teams of conventional scientists and individual dissenters; they're specifically held in order to turn the wider populace against alt-cosmologies and flat-Earth theory. These debates are staged in order to give the scientists more ground than the flat-Earthers and alternative theorists. 24-hour (or even 48-hour) space trips will be held with anywhere up to a thousand people in each one in an attempt to show visible proof of a spherical Earth to those in it. Armed teams of evangelists (armed to defend themselves) will be sent to areas will abnormally large numbers of flat-Earthers and geocentrists.

Phase 3. The End.
Once phase 3 has been hit, there is no coming back. Once alternative cosmology has been pushed underground almost entirely, the job/housing/auto market will be targeted next. Those who publicly hold alternative cosmology as true will be prohibited from holding jobs with affected companies. Housing or auto will be prohibited for those who haven't given in at this point. Companies that have not succumbed will be removed from search lists. Landlords targeted will be required by contract to prohibit individuals who hold alt-cosmology systems (or even alt-cosmology-friendly businesses) to be true from holding businesses there. Individuals who hold alternative cosmologies will be prohibited from working at schools. Entire public schools will teach strictly conventional cosmologies, with dire penalties put in place against teachers or educators who resist.

Home- and private-schooled children will be targeted as well. Places where young children are held (typically ages 4-6) will face an intensive wave of indoctrination into mainstream cosmology in order to sharply decrease the chances of flat-Earthers being raised. Major news agencies by now will be egging on this wave of mass indoctrination of children as young as preschool age. All levels of schooling starting with kindergarten will have classes intended to saturate children with the conventional narrative of cosmology.

This stage could take up to 100 years to complete.

Phase 4: ???
After all is said and done, the complete removal of alternative cosmology will be performed by natural selection. Over the centuries and millennia that will elapse in the future, alternative beliefs will be washed out of even the underground, and natural selection will perform the bulk of the job of washing out these belief systems among those who still believe them at this point.

Conspiracy Problem
How is Montana complete without its own conspiracy theory problem? In the year 2039, conspiracy-based violence spiked and then started decreasing as many militant groups were sniffed out and exposed. Some of these I cannot post here in detail since they would violate the wiki rules, but you probably know what those will be about. The following are the main offenders.

Greater Illinois NWO/Antichrist
Greater Illinois and the ARI are the medium through which the NWO will be established, and President Bernard Henderson himself is the Antichrist.

GI Wisconsin's Tunnels
You can probably tell what this one will be about.

Animal Genocide
Montana's enormous meat industry is a joint attempt by both Montana and Greater Illinois to increase obesity and incompetence in all of America and the world.

Catholic Church - ARI Synthesis
Self-explanatory. Mainly posited by Seventh-day Adventists. The high numbers of factory farms built are built to provide food to the elites and help submit the global population to the Catholic church and the one world religion.

I90gate
I90gate is a conspiracy theory that Interstate 90 serves as a transit route for much secretive and illegal activity at night. It also posited that the extremely high rate of traffic jams back in 2029 and 2030 were the result of the elites attempting to slow down population growth in Montana; this would allow the elites to perform their illegal duties above ground for longer.

The Collapse Paved the Way for the NWO
Self-explanatory. The collapses of Montana and the USA were pulled off to establish globalism in the world. The USA is seen as a threat to that plan, and ARI is a force of evil.

Energy Production
Numbers are in billions of kilowatt-hours per year.
 * Total: 5,595
 * H-He nuclear fusion: 4,150
 * Fossil fuel: 845
 * Nuclear fission: 450
 * Wind: 87
 * Solar: 55
 * Hydro: 8

Science Education

 * Percentage of schools teaching biological evolution: 98%
 * Percentage of schools teaching creation: 5%
 * Percentage of schools teaching round earth: ~100%
 * Percentage of schools teaching recent creation: 0.5%
 * Views on the origins of humanity:
 * Humans arose due to natural processes: 76%
 * Humans arose due to natural processes, with divine help: 12%
 * Humans were created no more than 10k years ago: 2%
 * Uncertain: 10%
 * Views on age of the earth:
 * Conventional age of 4.5 billion years: 88%
 * Under 10,000 years: 2%
 * Uncertain: 10%
 * View on shape of the earth:
 * Roughly spherical: 95%
 * Flat: 0.5%
 * Uncertain: 4.5%
 * View on the earth's interior:
 * Filled/Not Hollow: 96.5%
 * Hollow: 0.5%
 * Uncertain: 3%
 * View on chemtrails:
 * Real threat: 0.4%
 * Hoax: 92.6%
 * Uncertain: 7%
 * View on MSG:
 * Safe: 95%
 * Dangerous: 3.5%
 * Uncertain: 1.5%
 * View on climate change:
 * It's a real thing, and humans are/were part of the problem: 83%
 * It's a real thing, but humans are/were not a part of the problem: 9%
 * It doesn't exist: 1%
 * Uncertain: 7%
 * View on GMOs:
 * Safe: 88%
 * Dangerous and/or harmful: 1.5%
 * Uncertain: 10.5%
 * View on Greater Illinois and ARI:
 * Beneficial: 38%
 * Harmful: 34%
 * Not much effect: 24%
 * Uncertain: 4%

Trivia

 * Montana was formed out of a political collapse caused by far-right groups, later to be stabilized.
 * Montana assimilated Wyoming during the American Collapse. The city of Helena was couped shortly after Cheyenne was couped.
 * Interstate 90 has the most traffic of any road in Montana.
 * Montana is actually at par with Greater Illinois in gene editing technology. Usually they either surpass GI, or GI surpasses them.
 * The Montanan sect of Seventh-day Adventism has accepted both recent creation and progressive creation as acceptable for adherents to hold to. The prevalence of progressive creationism in Montanan SDAs is possibly due to the fact that opposing young-Earth creationism is a strong social norm in Montana. This has posed a significant selective pressure to religious groups in the area, especially Adventists and traditionally pro-YEC religious groups. Bartonism is one of the few SDA sects in Montana that oppose progressive creation.
 * In the early 2030s, Montana had more people than living spaces.
 * Individuals who were originally Montanans/Wyomingites before the Collapse are relatively uncommon. Most people in Western Montana are either Russian or Californian immigrants while most people in Eastern Montana are Illinoisan or New Englander immigrants.