Los Angeles

Los Angeles is the largest city in the state of California and the second largest in the United States.

Los Angeles in The Valley-Westside War
Los Angeles, like the rest of the world, was the target of full-scale nuclear warfare between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1967. One-hundred thirty years later, the people had been bombed back into the Middle Ages, ruling tiny, fragmented kingdoms amid the ruins. The four main kingdoms of the area were Westside, The Valley, Speedro, and "beautiful downtown Burbank".

This alternate was one Crosstime Traffic had not determined the Point of Divergence; namely, who had ordered the dropping of the atomic bomb first. The Mendoza family received a research grant from UCLA to figure this out. Liz Mendoza particularly spent time studying in the ruins of the UCLA library, an activity that was interrupted by the invasion of the Westside by King Zev's army from The Valley.

Los Angeles in In the Presence of Mine Enemies
Los Angeles was invaded by Greater German Reich and Japanese forces during the Third World War. After the war ended, the Reich's Einsatzkommandos massacred the Jewish and Negro populations of the city with the help of local collaborators.

Afterwards, the city was officially proclaimed "Judenrein" and "Free of Niggers" - which was not completely true, as members of both groups in fact survived. Jews in Los Angeles, as in other Nazi-ruled locations (including even in the capital Berlin itself) were able to go underground - their hiding facilitated by the fact that the United States government, unlike the governments of Europe, had not registered people by religious affiliations; moreover, American Jews knew from the fate of their European brethren that they could expect the worst, and most Jewish communal organizations destroyed their records ahead of the Nazis' arrival. Thus, a considerable number of Los Angeles Jews were able to go underground, some concerned simply with staying alive while others took the riskier course of maintaining clandestine communities and preserving Jewish religion and culture.

Blacks were less prepared and far less able to "hide in plain sight". Still, many of them could pass for Hispanics, who were badly treated by the Nazis but not fated to all-out extermination; an extensive underground industry developed of bleaching materials, designed to make dark skin lighter; and courageous doctors performed plastic surgery to remove negroid facial features, despite the draconian punishment meted out to those involved in such activity.

Los Angeles in Southern Victory
Los Angeles's population increased steadily in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It came under attack by the French Navy in the Second Mexican War of 1881, and by the Japanese during the Pacific War. In the Pacific War, Japanese planes operating from two aircraft carriers bombed the city while President Hosea Blackford was visiting on a campaign stop. The attack guaranteed Blackford's defeat in the US presidential elections of 1932. Between the end of the Pacific War and the beginning of the Second Great War, Los Angeles was also the scene of serious labor strife between radicalized construction workers and Pinkerton thugs hired to keep Los Angeles non-unionized. This unrest petered out after the beginning of the war, as the enlistment of many workers forced builders to implement wage hikes to keep those that remained from finding higher pay in new war plants. Los Angeles became a center for the aircraft industry due to its relative remoteness from Confederate air bases (though it did come under attack, as did Denver and Las Vegas, in one of the diversionary air strikes launched to shield the Hanford raid of early 1943) and of the movie industry because of its year-round good weather.

Los Angeles in Worldwar
Los Angeles grew rapidly after the war with the Race. Sam Yeager and other important people settled down there. A large community of Lizard expatriates also settled in the city, due to its warm climate and proximity to Race-held Mexico.

Los Angeles in The Two Georges
New Liverpool was a large city in the North American Union province of Upper California. It was here that the painting "The Two Georges" was stolen by the Sons of Liberty while on a tour stop. "Honest" Dick, the famous steamer salesman, made his business headquarters here, and was murdered by the Sons as a distraction.

Los Angeles in The Disunited States of America
Los Angeles was the home of the Royer family. Beckie Royer mentally compared and contrasted every town in Virginia to Los Angeles, and found each of them wanting.

Los Angeles in "Half the Battle"
''See: Ellay