PCBaller World/Montana

This page will be dedicated to mostly statistics and projects by Montana, also known as the Republic of Montana, Greater Montana, Animal Cruelty Capital, and Greater Illinois, Mild Flavor.

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.

Breakthrough Starshot 2.0
As of 2040, no individual human has left the solar system, but Montana has sent microcraft to other planets in other solar systems (and will send out microcraft in the future). Erytinser and M3B7 have been scouted out by Montanan craft, while other nearby stars (even Proxima Centauri) are planned to be explored using microcraft.

With the current system, approximately 1,000 microcraft, each one with a 4x4 meter solar sail and weighing approximately 5 grams, are released from large spacecraft and accelerated to 5% of the speed of light using laser propulsion technology. These lasers are in middle-earth orbit, and the microcrafts are launched from upper-earth orbit outward toward their target.

These craft are capable of taking pictures and performing spectroscopic analysis on objects to determine their composition.

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, has landed (but not settled) on the Moon once between the establishment of Montana in 2029 and the present. 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: Belyreschevo, P. Centauri, and Denmit). A more recent use of the space program was to 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 Indonesia, damaging their infrastructure and army.

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-plant 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).

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, 2039. 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.

Energy Production
Numbers are in billions of kilowatt-hours per year.
 * Total: 5,595
 * H-He nuclear fusion: 3,850
 * Fossil fuel: 1,145
 * Nuclear fission: 450
 * Wind: 87
 * Solar: 55
 * Hydro: 8