The Denver Treaty, signed in 2018, was the second step in the divide of North America (after Quebec independence in 2010). The United States and Canada were leaving the controle of the northern and most of western parts to Sovereign American Indian Movement. In three decades, the continent was to go from two countries to fifteen.

Israel launched in 2004 a high-intensity military operation against Palestinian armed groups. Among Arab countries who call for an immediate end of the operation, Libya threatened Israel of retaliation, and did it. On September 10th, several ballistic missiles with chemical warheads are fired from eastern Libya toward Israeli territory. Because of their limited range and precision, most only fell in the Negev desert. One of them hit the city of Beer-Shiva and, ironically, another hit Ramallah. Israel strikes back immediately by firing several nuclear missiles on half of Libyan cities, killing several hundred thousands.

After this event, the hostility of the Muslims toward Israel and the United States reached an unprecedented high. In this situation, the Americans understand their oil supplies from the Middle East are threatened. The new president of the US, Phillip Bester, elected two months later, made of energy independence his priority. The administration and the congress lifted almost all the existing restrictions on oil and mineral resources on US territory. Those who remains are circumvented thanks to legal options opened by the introduction of corporate extraterritoriality.

The corporations then received the authorizations to prospect and exploit natural resources located under national parks and indian tribal reserves. Ecological groups were still discredited in the aftermath of Terrafirst attempt to sabotage a nuclear power plant in 2001, and most of them were closely watch over by federal agencies. So the Amerindian tribes will lead the opposition. They're joined by many sympathizers settling inside giant camps inside several reserves. Clashes, some of them very violent, pitted protesters against workers, security services and law enforcement agencies. The Sovereign American Indian Movement (SAIM) is created during this period. In Mexico, it inspired what would become the Azatlan national party.

In 2009, Jesse Garrety replaced Bester as president, proposing to pursue on the road to energy independence and put an end to civil unrest. Arrests grow in number. More protesters were arrested in the first few months of his term than in his predecessor entire one.

On September 18th, 2009, several soldiers of Amerindian ascent, serving in different special forces units, seized control of a nuclear missile launching silo in Shiloh, Montana. A communique broadcasted by media threatens to shoot a nuclear missile on an unspecified target, and demand the end of all resources exploitation in the indian reserves, more especially the cancellation of the drilling rights granted to United Oil Industries four months earlier. After ten days of negotiations, the US Army unit "Scalpel" stormed the facility. All the Amerindian commandos are killed, but a missile is fired toward his preprogrammed target, Smolensk in Russia. Finally, none of the missile warheads would hit its target, though it remains unknown if the Russian were able to use their ballistic defenses.
It is at least the official version for Shiloh hostage crisis. The commando intention to proceed with the launching of a missile was questioned. Many underlined firing a missile require secret security codes. Some noted the written communique the medias shown was never authenticated, and it has never been where and when people from different tribes and serving in different units actually meet. In the following weeks, intelligence agencies will themselves suggest through media leaks another version, where the terrorist actually attempted to steal one or several nuclear warheads to smuggle them into a major American cities, or sell them on the black market. The government will blame an extensive network of accomplices and funding involving all tribal institutions in the countries, with connections in Canada and Mexico, et whose core is the SAIM. These revelations will trigger several riots targeting Amerindians.

On October 19th, president Garrety signed the Re-education and Relocation Act vote by the Congress. This law aimed to remove from indian tribal reserves any person linked to the SAIM and put them in custody. The authorities will apply it broadly, not just arresting SAIM members, but also all the person involved in any way in the political protests, especially eco-activists who were granted honorary tribal memberships and settled in the reserves. Administrative staff and teachers working in the reserves are also arrested. The Canadian government, who had to deal with violent incidents ever since the late 1990ies, voted the Nepean Act with the same goal to round up suspects and sympathizers. Repression put an apparent end to the protests. But it quickly moved the debate onto the limits of executive power when fighting terrorism, beyond the ecologist and amerindian movements. The Mormon community in particular will mobilize for the defense of indian rights.

On December 24th, 2011, the day of Awakening when the Great Dragon Ryumyo appeared in Japan, Daniel Coleman evaded from an internment camp in Abilene, Texas, with all the other detainees. The use by Coleman of magic to open the gate and stop bullets fired at him by the guards remained in history as the first use of magic by a human being. The group led Coleman will be the basis for the SAIM new military branch. In the following weeks, mass break-outs took place in all the internment camps ; the SAIM members in prisons were also almost all freed. The authorities were then just starting to gather information on magical abilities who were used. Cases of magic were growing in number around the world, but the SAIM shamans had from the start abilities well above those who were witnessed and studied elsewhere.

The SAIM members were nowhere to be seen for two years and a half. On June 10, 2014, Daniel Coleman, now going by the nom de guerre Howling Coyote, broadcasts a communique in which he announces the creation of the Sovereign Tribal Council and demands all the people of European, African and Asian origin leave North America. This demand is significantly tougher than the SAIM previous stance, before 2011, or even the Shiloh group. This stance will actually never be endorsed by a majority of SAIM members, even though Daniel Coleman new position as the head of the movement will never be put into question. If the government take seriously the terrorist threat, Coleman demands are indeed not obeyed. A few days later, Redondo Peak in New Mexico erupts, burying Los Alamos under ashes. It is the starting signal for an insurrection war on American and Canada territories by the SAIM armed branch. The 6th Air Cavalry Battalion, headquartered in Fort Hood, Texas, takes off immediately to intercept Coleman. Strong winds suddenly springs on the path taken by the helicopters, causing them to crash. By the time a second unit was sent, Coleman had disappeared.

The priority given to all federal agencies and the armed forces was then the neutralization of SAIM members, inside the US and in foreign countries. They will widely use private companies to support or conduct operations. It is such contractors who handle the detention and intelligence gathering centers" who are put under extraterritorial status by a law passed by the Congress. The few corporations with trained and skilled magicians also played a key role. Magical superiority will anyway clearly stays on the SAIM side. The insurgents used magic not only a as weapon, but also for intelligence and counter-intelligence: the first attempts to infiltrate agents inside the SAIM were almost immediately detected by the movement's "Truth Dancers." The casualties suffered in frontal assaults prompted the US government to target leadership and logistical support. Federal agents and the military systematically search vehicles and houses searches throughout the territory to find SAIM members. The president also authorized targeted assassination. Most of them were carried using drones, as it was the only mean to reach and hit the target before the SAIM shaman were able to detect the threat or flee it.
In spite of some blatant success, the search and the assassination often missed their target. The US agencies depended a lot on intelligence gathered by private companies. Those "sexed up" their findings to justify the contracts costs. On several occasions, they went as far as adding on target list people not connected to the SAIM, but linked to radical ecologist groups hostile toward corportions.

In 2015, the Azatlan Party on the elections in Mexico. The party ideological line was mostly based on preserving Mexico and American natives cultural heritage. The support given by Mexico to the SAIM thereafter will anger Washington. Despite the reinforcement of border patrols, the SAIM was able to set up new rear bases inside Mexico territory. The guerilla got more and more organized during this period. The SAIM established eight "war councils" who acted as regional commands. Each council led the operations inside its zone, often in spite of the rivalries between neighbouring tribes and jealousies caused by the unequal weight tribes may have inside the war councils. In addition to support from the Mormon communities, far-right militias started attacking federal agencies and military forces, and in some cases coordinated themselves with the war councils.
The SAIM won two majors victories in Washington state. Members of the Salish, Makah and Haida tribes, under the command of Thunder Tyee, seized the submarines base of Bangor. The captain of the USS Wichita, docked at the time of the attack, scuttled its ship in the Puget Sound. Two months later, Thunder Tyee led a new attack on Bremerton naval shipyard, twenty kilometers away. His warriors had at this point control of all the roads in the area, preventing any attempt by US Army units to move.

In the midst of 2016 electoral season, the dissenting voices were growing in number. In the Moutain West states, where most of the counter-insurgency operations took place, the voters were increasingly leaning towards candidates openly calling for dismantling the federal government or outright independence. The federal government reacted with exceptional measures to push back the election date, "because of security concerns". In Washington, there was a real fear that one or several state legislature could end up being controlled by secessionists.
Vice-president William Jarman campaigned criticizing the "inhuman" policy led by president Garrety and the administration he had belonged to for four years. On October 15th, a few weeks before Election Day, president Garrety was assassinated. His murdered is identified as William Springer, who will never be arrested (two weeks laters, on October 31st, Russian president Nikolai Chelenko and British and Israeli Prime Ministers Lena Rodle and Chaim were assassinated on the same day ; the persons identified as their murderers will be all three killed during arrest attempts). Jarman was sworn in in the following hours. On November 11th, he won the the election. Acknowledging the growing opposition to the federal government, Jarman called to put an end to repression against political movements, to focus on what he called "the real enemy": as soon as the definitive results confirmed his victory, he signed the Resolution Act, opening the way to the extermination of all Amerindian tribes. The text is voted by the Congress through an emergency procedure in December, and thus before the end of the ongoing session and the inauguration of the elected congress (a point that was heavily debated).

On December 12th, a battalion of the US Army 75 Ranger Regiment raided a shelter of the Kiowa tribe. Above one thousand non-combatant are killed, most of them by artillery fire before the assault. Previous intelligence reports would only mention Amerindian combatants, including several magicians, justifying to artillery preparation before closing in. An investigation on the massacre revealed intelligence came from a source in the Cheyenne tribe, which had a traditional feud with the Kiowa. This attack was considered either as one more mistake by the armed forces, a Cheyenne plot to eliminate their rivals inside the SAIM, the first show of force after the ratification of the Resolution Act, deliberately targeting civilians, or even possibly a plot designed by the SAIM leaders to act as a symbols and ensure the movement cohesion in a critical period.

The Resolution Act and the Kiowa massacre made Daniel Coleman and the SAIM decide to start the Ghost Dance ritual. In early 2017, shamans groups gathered accross North America to being the ritual. It was carried out without interruption for several months. Shamans continued to exhaustion, and only moved when federal agent or soldiers were coming too close, so that at least several circles of shamans were active at a given time. In Washington state, chief Thunder Tyee was ordered to delay an attack on McChord Air Force Base and give priority to the protection of shamans. Most of the insurgents attacks in 2017 were actually carried out by militias. They had indirectly contribute to the success of the ritual, as military operations focused on them instead. Moreover, the number and scale of the operations were voluntarily trimmed down to prepare a major offensive ordered by the president. It's possible Coleman did wait for this reason. Abnormal meteorological events did also multiply for months, disorganizing troops and equipment transport.

Near the end of the July, weather appeared to stabilize. The president set the operations to being on August 17th, 2017, 10:30. The information was supposed to be kept secret, but it probably was known to the SAIM, who never stopped enhancing its intelligence apparatus. On the same day, at 10:32, Mounts Hood, Rainier, Saint Helens and Adams in the Central Cascade Range erupted at the same time, without any warning sign. At the same time, SAIM fighters and militias seized military bases whose units just deployed. They captured that way several headquarters units involved in the operation. Similar operations were carried out against military bases in Canada. In Aztlan, despite the support given to the SAIM by the government, members of the Hopi tribe who were hiding from the US forces south of the border also overran military bases.
These occupation and the eruptions or a show of force. In Aztlan, things were resolved in a few hours, as Aztlan authorities let the Hopi leave with weapons and ammunitions. On McChord AFB, near Seattle, chief Thunder Tyee coordinated the evacuation of civilians around Mount Rainier, either convincing or forcing the soldiers he just had captured to help. The actual threats, secretly transmitted by the SAIM to the US government, were a major earthquake in California and New York, and an eruption of Yellowstone volcano. Classified s a supervolcano, Yellowstone could have upset the climate on the entire planet and for several decades.

The US and Canadian government accepted that international summit to be held in Denver to negotiate with the SAIM. However, Washington refused that other American militias and the Mormons took part, to negotiate solely with the Amerindian tribes. This attempt to isolate the SAIM from its allies did not succeed in putting them at odds, but nonetheless destabilized them. The negotiations led the following year to Denver Treaty. The United States and Canade abandoned northern and western territories, save California and Seattle area. Under the pressure from the Lakota tribes and militias, boundaries in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and western Kansas were decided county per county.

The people who did not wish to stay in the territories now under SAIM control were displaced. The US government started mentioning and still does to this date millions of refugees. The polls that foresaw a victory of candidates calling for independence weren't wrong, and the situation is much more complicated. To add further confusion, the US government quickly shut down existing administrative services. The SAIM ran a census and ask population to register with the closest local tribal authorities. The most vocal US media labelled as "pinkskin" the people queuing in front of former tribal reserves visitor centres to register. The tribal population figures still used nowadays mostly rely on the census performed at that time. It probably is a better picture of each tribe ability to manage the process and handle requests than of their actual size. For instance, the Hopi and Zuni tribes accounted for millions of latin-americans in Arizona and New Mexico, including a large number of previously illegal immigrants. On the other hand, the Mormons do not appear in the Ute nation "official" figures. Correcting these demographics has yet to be done. Moreover, votes on the Sovereign Tribal Council is weighted by population, which give no incentive for governements to seriously reconsider the matter.

The SAIM originally planned to establish one grand nation, where each tribe and community would be able to live by its own law autonomously. During the transition period, the eight war councils were to handle security matters. But dissensions came to light.

Among the tribes, the Apaches support the continuation of war to throw the white man out of North America. They propose to create a single North American nation by merging Aztlan with the new territories, as they consider it to be the only solution to have the military might for a final victory. Facing refusal from the other tribes, the Apache leaders negotiated with the Aztlan government the annexation of their territory.
However, several Apache tribes nonetheless did not trust Aztlan, as they did not considered it as a true Amerindian nation, and left the area to join the Sioux war council, which clearly embraced the idea of continuing war. While the SAIM was still discussing the power structures, the Sioux war council was already reorganizing its guerilla forces into a professional army, with its own intelligence service. Tribes and communities in the council control area are informed a reserve, a mandatory military service and a "national" tax to fund the Sioux army were established.

On the other side of the continent, the US and Canadian government secretly arranged meetings between the Aleut war council and the Greenland and Danish governments. The goal for North American corporations was to keep an access to the Northwest maritime passage and the Arctic ocean natural resources thanks to a "friendly" government. In this regard, the government of Greenland, educated in Danish universities, appeared as a more reliable parter than SAIM insurgents. The proposal to create a polar nation is well taken. The leaders of the Aleut war council, hailing from far north tribes, oppose the rest of the SAIM on keeping control zone as they were at the time of the ceasefire, which would let tribes of the Aleut isles under aegis of the Athabascan war council. They were also eager to "free" the Aleut tribes in Russia. The project of a polar nation thus gave birth to the Trans-Polar Aleut Nation: "Trans-Polar" to show their intent of expanding accross the police, into Russian territory, and "Aleut" to show their intent to reclaim the Aleutian Islands in the south. Though the capital city was Inuvik, the political elite from Greenland were pulling the strings.

Despite Daniel Coleman attempts at stopping the councils from turning into separate nations, it was quite a symbol that members of the Ute war council he was heading were the next to announce they were founding the Ute nation, officially as a reaction to the Sioux council decision a few weeks before. In fact, the SAIM project to grant autonomy to each community, conceived with tribes and small towns in mind, did not have the same implication for a Mormon community, several millions people-strong, who were the majority in Utah and had their owns authorities and laws. The war council was clearly afraid of a Mormon state. It also faced a specific issue regarding law enforcement in Las Vegas. The declaration of the Ute nation was in fact made to force Daniel Coleman and the Mormon leaders into accepting a single state solution. Facing the powerful Mormon community, but also because of Daniel Coleman authority, that extended way beyond his own tribe, the tribes and the other communities progressively renounced to autonomy to favor a centralized state.

The Algonkian, Athabascan and Salish councils will be the only ones to apply the SAIM original project. The Salish council settled in Bellingham, the closest city to its headquarters at the time of the ceasefire, instead of moving to a more important city. It extended its duties beyond law enforcement quickly. Many companies who had relocated to Seattle or California continued to illegally exploit natural resources in the Salish war council control zone. Operations against smuggling, plundering and pollution led the council to establish Coast Guards, Border Guards and Rangers, funded by the tribes and directed by the council.

The Tsimshian council followed the same line only in theory. The Tsimshian tribe was the largest and the most influential inside the war council, and its leaders established a dictatorship, transferring an increasingly larger number of powers to the council they controlled, at the expense of the other tribes.

The Pueblo council was facing a problem the other councils had not, having to keep under control to metropolitian areas with population above one millions inhabitants: Phoenic and Albuquerque (only the Ute council had metropolitan area of a similar size, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City). With the need for law enforcement and vital infrastructures maintenance - power, water, roads and telecoms - and to avoid creating a large administration, they choose to hand these duties to a "national" corporation owned by the council inhabitants.

The final treaty also contained a special status for Denver. It was among the few large metropolitan areas ceded by Washington. However, Colorado population was less favorable to leaving the union than in some other states. The US government wanted to avoid a massive influx of refugees, that could have numbered in the hundreds of thousands. SAIM negotiators weren't willing to make a new compromise after accepting to make Seattle an US enclave, but no one among the Sioux, Ute or Pueblo war councils was willing to take charge the city and deal with probable unrest. Finally, the Aztlan and Us negotiators drafted together a preliminary agreement to make Dener an international city, divided into five control zones to be managed by the United States, Aztlan, Pueblo, Sioux and Ute. Behind the scenes, corporate interests hoped to make Denver an economical center, who would maintain the region economical and financial dependency toward the United States.

The states established by the Denver Treaty took the name of Native American Nations (NAN). For the amerindian tribes, it was a way to affirm these states were theirs, even if actual demographics were giving a different picture. This symbolic decision angered a lot of the political groups spawned by the militias. They were anyway kept away from national-level responsabilities by the administration and the medias. Those who were ready to take arms again were dismantled and banned by the freshly established governments. These movements nonetheless retained a political weight at the local level in most of the NAN. Some were even claiming the "native americans" for themselves, considering they were the founders of a new America.

The political power however remained within the hands of the Amerindians tribes, ecologist groups and the Mormon community. The effort was made to build a new society upon traditional values, that would fit their aspirations. The integration of magic, supported by shamans who were veterans of the war and now held political positions, contributed to this change. The upheaval magic was worldwide was, in the NAN, better channeled than elsewhere. The Salish council for instance led a proactive policy to develop the field of biomedical research that would combine magical means with biotechnology. Overall, the NAN has a high-quality health system.