Under mounting pressure from global resource scarcity and the influence of several operatives from Formers, the United States of America adopted a brutal strategy for attempting to survive the Burnout. 

This strategy had two prongs: U3C and the Gemini Projects. Unprecedented Civil Collapse Coordination was a joint effort between the government’s administrative and military assets. Their ultimate goal was to supply and defend a handful of “Last Stand” cities in strategic locations across the country. In order to protect the cities during what they assumed would be multiple decades, U3C tried to make sure that any other survivors would be too few, and too weak to be a threat. They accomplished this by destroying critical infrastructure across the country and moving significant resource reserves to the Last Stands. The idea was that the unsupported population would quickly perish due to infighting, famine, and exposure to the already apocalyptic weather. While this strategy was effective, the sheer volume of America’s population combined with millions of international refugees still produced large movements of desperate survivors heading for the Last Stands. U3C then moved to actively culling the population with strategic bombing, flooding, and at least one failed attempt at nuclear deterrents. By the summer of 2030, every major highway in the country was pocked with impact craters, and the surrounding coastlines were saturated with incoming refugee ships that had been torpedoed. While highly effective, U3C’s efforts were in vain. Formers made sure of this, by misreporting data, disrupting supply-chains, and intentionally mismanaging the country’s endgame. 

Meanwhile, the Gemini Projects (a name chosen simply because of its vagueness), were underway. These Projects were viewed as a more productive alternative to the Last Stand cities. Each Project was a well-supplied bunker with a staff dedicated to a particular research project. Many of these Projects utilized the Dufresne-3.2 AI for experiments in genetics or the material sciences. The hope was that if the Last Stands failed, these Projects would be a boon to other survivors. 

The Burnout, as it was experienced by the average citizen who was not involved in one of these two projects, followed these stages.

• Mounting Inconvenience. As smaller countries collapsed, the global resource-network fell apart. Americans experienced this as a severe economic recession: emergency services and utilities were still available, but most consumer goods were rarified and there was a mounting sense of dread. The internet was also practically unavailable.
• Abandonment: As U3C shut down the nation’s infrastructure, power and water supplies failed, and local governments were left to fend for themselves. Martial law was typically declared, and a few communities immediately fell into violent anarchy. Others kept order and prepared for a coming wave of violence. A majority of the population became nomadic and tried to reach areas near the Last Stands.
• Locust-Era: The peak of the Burnout. As the Last Stands fell, enormous convoys of autonomous military groups, and refugees-turned-marauders systematically raided the country for dwindling supplies of fuel, ammunition, and other resources. Depending on the area and when it was abandoned, this stage could have lasted for an entire year. 
• The Winter After. Officially the end of the Burnout. 

During this period, billions of people around the world died in a matter of months. By the Winter, America was occupied by less than one million souls.