Ambler's Travels

Your world is invaded. Within weeks, your home, your job, and your ability to care for your family have disappeared. The economy and your government collapses. Power shifts. Strong men emerge. Huge populations are suddenly homeless, short of food, and forced to migrate. How do families caught up in the whirlwind of cataclysm cope? Steve Ambler was swept into service, rose through the ranks and profoundly influenced tumultuous events. This series chronicles the struggles of Ambler and the pivotal McCandless family to survive and thrive.

Government is hanging by a thread. Warlords, roaming bandits, and armed insurrections exist in America. Families struggle to survive in huge crowded communal camps from coast to coast. Food, clothing, and cold are constant worries. New rigid attitudes, a forced work ethic, and mistakes are leading to revolution. The economy has shriveled. There's a new currency. Whole industries are simply gone, confiscated. Fossil fuels are reserved for only government and military service.

Economic collapse has forced sweeping confiscations of real and personal property. The United States converts to a fully managed economy. Much of the population has been forced into, concentrated into, camps in warmer states. A desperate newly autocratic government has created a reformed education system, gigantic make-work salvage operations, and required jobs training programs. Restructuring is rigorous. Stringent military style law enforcement has brought personal safety.

The McCandless family adapted. They experienced extremes of weather and fluxuating harvest prices. They diversified into new markets. In this way, they avoided the worst ravages of high inflation and shortages that plagued the nation. Alec McCandless continues to dabble in politics, learning new skills as an orator. He is elected a Senator of the newly designed federal government. Trying to represent his constituents, he learns the realities of high stakes political maneuvers in the National Capitol in Colorado.

Alec McCandless created a new national political party. He nominates himself for the Presidency. He runs a slugfest campaign against political corruption, and is elected to the office of President of the New American Republic in a landslide. Using the New Constitution that he had helped write, Alec immediately seizes the reins of The Executive political, economic, judicial and military powers. He gathers both ‘de jure’ and ‘de facto’ controls to himself.