Imagination Realm # 586 The State of Deseret

ronanmahaffey
Nov 20, 2018
16 min read

Updated: Nov 19, 2020

In our history the The LDS church or the Mormons moved in large numbers to the Utah Territory and attempted to created a large state that would have made it the largest state in the Union. This didn't happen and now Utah is much smaller than it could have been. Well this story is about how the Mormons did get the state that they wanted, but they went a step further and created their own independent state. First I will give some information on the state in modern times

Desert Today- The State of Deseret is an independent theocratic republic located in what is the western United States. The country today is an economic powerhouse with an economy that would have rivaled the state of California in our timeline. The Capitol city is Salt Lake City, which has over 500,000 inhabitants, but the largest city is Las Angeles, which has a similar population to the city in our timeline. The country has a population of around 55 million inhabitants. The military of the State of Deseret is a modest and well equipped in the world with over 200,000 active duty soldiers and another 100,000 reserves and it even has a number of nuclear warheads.

The country owns much of its wealth to the massive amount of resources that are located in its territories and to its tech industry. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the largest religious denomination and it is recognized as the state religion with over 50 percent of the population being a member of the church. The government is lead by a president who is elected by the twelve members of the Quorum of the twelve. The people elect members to be in their own version of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The country in a member of the UN and has good relationships with the United States and the members of the British Commonwealth.

History- The State of Deseret was formed in 1850 after the Mormon settlers tried to create their own state, but it was rejected by the United States. So they attempted to create their own country. The United States responded to this by invading the Utah Territory with the intent of subduing the LDS population. The LDS Church in this history befriended the Native Americans in the area and together fought a highly sucessful guerrilla war that lasted for about a year. The United States realizing that they were not going to force them out began to occupy the cities and threaten to kill the inhabitants. The result of this threat was a disaster because the American people were disturbed and horrified to hear what their troops were doing to the innocent women and children in the west. The guerrilla forces finally met the US troops in the open near Salt Lake City and defeated a superior force.

The United States faced unrest at home over this now unpopular war and to add fuel to the fire they failed to defeat the Mormons in battle, so they finally abandoned their plans of conquest and left the Mormons alone to create their country. The State of Deseret was formed and Brigham Young was elected as their first president. The State of Deseret had great success in converting gold miners and prospectors who traveled through the country frequently. Many of these people ended up residing in the country and this helped the country grow steadily. The Deseret population continued to grow and soon the other world powers started to notice this growing, young country filled with natural wealth and they wanted a part of this wealth. Britain and France opened up relations with them almost immediately and they invested heavily in their mining industry which brought both them and Deseret's prosperity.

Soon the Civil War began back in the United States and Deseret remained neutral at first. But this began to change as the CSA started to stir up trouble in the plains and desert bordering Deseret territory, by encouraging the Indians to attack the Mormons. After repeated attempts to negotiate with the CSA the State of Deseret declared war on the CSA in March of 1863 and sent troops into Texas. The Deseret force which did not have much experience or strength did not do well at first and in a large battle north of Austin they were repelled and suffered heavy losses which sent shivers up their line of command. They didn't resume attacking until early 1864. But they succeeded in defeating the army of Texas and Texas surrendered to LDS/Deseret troops in early 1865 and after negotiations with the US Government they handed over Texas to the US. Over 10,000 Deseret troops died fighting in the American Civil War.

The United States was very grateful for the help that the State of Deseret provided during the war and in return for this help the United States began to increasingly participate in trade with them and even built the transcontinental railroad through the country for almost no charge. Deseret then entered a state of near continuous growth both in wealth and population that lasted for nearly half a century. Brigham Young died in 1877 and John Taylor was elected as president. During his term the country continued to grow due to its mining industry but they also began to grow in military strength with the help of the British and the Americans. A naval base was established in the quickly growing city of San Diego as the State of Deseret began to construct a navy to protect its small merchant fleet.

The State of Deseret also had great relations with the American Indians in their territory. They gave them full citizenship and allowed them to remain in their tribal lands as long as they didn't harm settlers. Although for some tribes that wasn't good enough and they began attacking the settlers. War erupted and the Mormon battalion was sent to destroy the attacking tribes who then fled to the mountains and continued to harass Deseret troops for nearly three years. Finally these groups surrendered due to lack of food and ammuntion and were suprisingly forgiven and allowed to return to their normal lives. This event showed the Indians that they could trust the Deseret government and many settled down to live like the white man.

In this history a bodyguard that was originally part of the Deseret Army stopped the assassination of president James A. Garfield. This event greatly boosted the popularity of the State of Deseret in the eyes of the American people. The United States payed back Deseret for their repeared acts of kindness by constructing a battleship for the State of Deseret as a gift. The remainder of John Taylor's term was uneventful except with the criticism that the Church and the State recieved for its continuous practice of polygamy.

With the death of John Taylor in 1887, Woodrow Wilson became president of the State of Deseret. During his term as president he the saw the industrialization of the country which then grew greatly in military strength and the navy began to be seen as a legitimate power in the Pacific. Large number of immigrants came from Asia and Europe at this time, which swelled the population and Church membership.

Sadly problems began to occur between Deseret and the United States after a large group of Anti Mormons attacked and killed several people going to church one day. When Deseret demanded that they be hanged for the crime the United States at first did nothing, they didn't even attempt to arrest the culprits. Encouraged by this many Anti Mormons flocked into the State of Deseret and began killing and terrifying the people. The United States then moved in an attempt to subdue the murderers, but was unable as many of the United States military commanders who were tasked with hunting them down were also Anti Mormon and thus gave refugee to the criminals.

What happened next would become known as the War of the Thorns because many Anti Mormons would make crown of thorns and place it on the heads of their victims to mock them. The US government tried to control its troops and officers to the wesr and ordered them to stop supporting these bandits. Instead of obey their high command, they ignored the government and actually began to invaded Deseret. The got within 18 miles of Salt Lake City before they were stopped. The United States responded by sending loyal and respectable commanders and troops to fight the traitors who would dare threaten the peace in the Americas. The State of Deseret was able to mobilize its militia and army which then succeeded in destroying the entire force of rogue Americans. Killing over 2,000 troops while capturing many more. When the American troops then arrived and killed or captured the remaining bandits and rouge troops. With the American and Deseret relations strained because of this war, the United States attempted to repay Deseret by selling them lands in Oregon and New Mexico. This pleased the State of Deseret and their normal relations were able to resumed. President Wilson remaining term was quiet and uneventful.

When Wilson died, Lorenzo Snow was elected as the President. While under his leadership the country continued its rapid growth and industrialization. The State of Deseret also began reaching out into the Pacific by creatingc a joint naval base in Hawaii with the United States (which it would sell full ownership too in 1956). Lorenzo Snow probably had the most uneventful presidency in the history of Deseret and died on October 10th, 1901 at age 87. With his death Joseph F. Smith was subsequently elected president of Deseret.

Joseph F. Smith saw the expansion of the church overseas and across the United States. He also survived an assassination attempt unhurt, by a radical Anti Mormon named Gregory P. Bilge. Joseph became the first president of Deseret to visit England were he befriended the king. With this friendship the British Empire and the State of Deseret grew even fonder of each other and many more British immigrants travelled to country while Deseret citizens went to England to study and trade. British military tactics were shared with them and they even sold a few warships to the State of Deseret. In Return they promised to support the British Empire with resources and the promise of returning the favor one day.

That day came on August 4th, 1914 when Britain declared war on Germany. The State of Deseret followed quickly behind and declared war on August 8th, 1914 against Germany. Deseret immediately sent 20,000 troops to take over the German territories and holdings in the Pacific, which quickly fell to Deseret and Japanese forces. Then a total force of over 200,000 troops were sent to the western front in Europe. As the war dragged on and on, more and more troops were sent to Europe and with the great influence Deseret had in America the United States declared war on December 2nd, 1915 against Germany and the other Axis Powers. Masses of troops were sent to Europe and in this history due to the earlier help of the Americans the war ended on June 1st, 1918 over 5 months earlier than in our timeline. Deseret sent over 500,000 soldiers in total to fight the Axis and sadly over 60,000 of those died in the horrific fighting. Yet even with this great loss of life the United States suffered even worse with over 400,000 dead. This was the price of victory.

Britain showed much gratitude towards Deseret and the United States for their support during the war by giving many Pacific Islands to Deseret, they also attempted to reward the US but as in our history the United States affected the Treaty of Versailles and didn't want to gain anything and didn't even join the League of Nations. Deseret joined the League but that still didn't change the fact that it was almost useless due to the lack of interest anyone had in actually enforcing the Versailles Treaty. President Smith died later that year and Heber J. Grant was elected as president of Deseret.

After the horrors of the Great War, the people of Deseret were eager to jump into the roaring twenties. The State of Deseret banned alcohol along with the United States during these times, although it didn't recieve that much public backlash as in the States. Deseret also opened up new oil wells found in Nevada and Western Colorado, which brought them even more wealth. Their people were living in better conditions than the average in the United States or any other North American country. They continued to build up military power and when asked to sign the Washington Treaty to limit their military growth, they declined. They continued building up their military or at least maintaning their military. In 1933 they finished the construction of their finest warship yet the SDS (State of Deseret Ship) Helaman with eight 16 inch guns.

The depression hit the country with just as much force as any other and nearly 29 percent of their population was out of work in 1934. This quickly changed as the members of the church began to hire and support those who were looking for work as long as good management by the government. This caused many to immigrate again in search of work. By 1937 the unemployment had fallen to 14 percent and it continued to drop.

But just as the country was climbing out of the Great Depression an even more terrible event took place. Germany invaded Poland, which sparked WW2. Deseret at first didn't know if it was wise to join in another war against Germany, they were not at all affected by the war except for a few merchant ships that were lost to U-boats. This changed in the spring of 1940 with the fall of France. This angered and shocked Deseret and its people who were horrified at the growing atrocities that the German Army was commiting. The anger turned to aggression when Germany began to bomb England in the Blitz and many Deseret men and women volunteered to serve in the British armed forces to help them, but still the State of Deseret did not do anything but send supplies under a lend lease like the United States to England.

The State of Deseret was dragged into the war like the United States with the bombing of the joint controlled naval port of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. Many old battleships were sunk in the attack including the Deseret battleships Gidgiddoni and Mormon. The State of Deseret and the United States declared war against Japan on December 8th, 1941 with Germany and Italy then declaring war on them. As the United States began sending troops to fight the Germans, the State of Deseret was assigned to deal with the Japanese. They commanded for the time being the allied forces in the Pacific and won many battles against the Japanese at Midway, Guadalcanal, and the Carolinas.

The State of Deseret sent about 70,000 troops were to North Africa and then to Italy to fight the German and Italian armies there, but most of their troops remained in the Pacific, allowing many Americans to go to Europe to fight. The war continued much like in our history except much of the actions in the Pacific were fought with Deseret Troops. Deseret and the United States both worked together on the Manhattan Project. After sending some soldiers to participate in Operation Overlord and after the fall of Germany to the United Allied Forces the main focus was then turned on Japan.

The battle of Okinawa went much the same except that the Japanese redoubled their efforts after the Americans came to replace the Deseret troops. Sadly the Americans in this history lost much more soldiers and ships to the Japanese with over 40,104 American dead in the battle and over 100,000 wounded with the loss of 13 destroyers, 2 carriers, and a battleship along with many other vessels and aircraft destroyed. The Deseret troops lost around 12,500 troops in the battle. It was the bloodiest battle in both countries histories at the time.

Finally the Allies began to prepare for the invasion of Japan with the United States nuking Hiroshima, while Deseret nuked Nagasaki. Russia invaded Manchuria and it seemed that Japan would surrender. But sadly in this history they did not due to a military coup that captured the emperor and forced him to continue the war. The invasion of Japan, Operation Downfall, was thus given the go ahead.

On the 1st of November 1945 the largest invasion force in history with over six million allied troops invaded Japan with the first force landing on Kyushu. The battle was horrific with it becoming the bloodiest battle in US and the second bloodiest in Deseret history. The invasion ended though after Japanese civilians and soldiers killed their commanders and freed the emperor and they surrendered on January 1st and all fighting ended. The battle was terrible with over 80,000 American dead, 15,000 Commonwealth dead, and 10,000 Deseret dead with 500,000 Japanese dead. World War Two was finally over after lasting longer and being far worse than in our history.

During the war president Grant had died on May 14th, 1945. This was devastating to Deseret morale who seemed at a loss with the death of their leader. George Albert Smith was elected as president and quickly tried to fit in the shoes of his predecessor. He is the one who ordered the bombing on Nagasaki and he visited the battlefield at Okinawa after the fight to help increase morale amount his troops. He led his people after the war with courage and hope for the future. Under his leadership Deseret entered the United Nations as one of the founding signatures and he sent aid to the war torn areas of the world. He also sent millions of dollars of aid to the Soviet Union after the war in order to keep its promise it had made to them to help in the reconstruction of Europe. The United States did not do this, in fact they scorned Deseret for taking such an action. The USSR would from this day on be considered an enemy, yet the USSR had a greater respect for Deseret than it ever had for the US. Deseret was also the second most powerful nation on earth, mainly due to their possession of nuclear weapons. They and the United States were the only countries on earth at the time to produced nuclear weapons, but that would soon change when the USSR detonated its first nuclear weapon in 1953.

George Albert Smith died in the spring of 1951 and David O. McKay was elected president. He authorized the declaration of war against North Korea and sent 20,000 Deseret troops to fight with other UN forces in South Korea. In this history the Korean War went much differently, with the Americans preparing for the Chinese counter attack and the successful attempt to repel them what and stop them from retaking all of North Korea's lands. North Korea today is a complete Chinese puppet state that is only a third the size of the one in our history. Most of Korea is united and the war was seen as an absolute victory in the States. McKay in 1960 declared that African members could hold the priesthood, many years sooner than in our timeline, probably because the world was in a better state to accept such doctrine. He helped mediate the Cuba Crisis and was greatly respect by both sides of the conflict as a respectful and wise man. He died on January 20th, 1970 and with Joseph Fielding Smith being elected as president.

Joseph Fielding Smith tried to convince the American government of the uselessness of the war against Vietnam but was ignored by the current administration. He was there when the Deseret version of NASA called NSD (National Space Department) landed the first Deseretian on the moon on January 8th, 1972 (with American help). He then died on July 20th, 1972. Harold B. Lee was elected as president of the State of Deseret. Harold B Lee didn't really see much because he was in office for less than a year and died on December 27th, 1973. Spencer W. Kimball was then elected president.

Spencer W. Kimball led the church through some of the last stages of the Cold War when things began to look as though they would get hot. So Deseret once again began to greatly increase the military spending of the country to a massive 10 percent of the nations GDP. The State of Deseret increased its nuclear arsenal to well over 2,000 warheads. The navy pumped out new carriers and warships along with thousands of tanks and aircraft being produced by the Army and Air Force. He had an aggressive foreign relations policy that made him good friends with, Ronald Reagan, the president of the United States. But this aggravated the Communist block, calling them "Enemies of Humanity" and "Foes of God".

When Spencer W. Kimball died in 1985, he left a heavily militarized state to the next president, Ezra Taft Benson. President Benson first lowered the military spending, but kept the new weapons that his predecessor had left him. He was president when the communist countries fell apart in 1989 and 1991. Under his leadership, the country joined in on the war against Iraq to force them out of Kuwait, but he didn't stop there. In a move that shocked the world and despite protests from the United States, Deseret soldiers killed Saddam Hussein and uncovered information that they showed to the world that showed the evil that he had done. This embarrassed the United States, which planned on just letting Saddam remain the leader of Iraq. Benson ordered his men to remain in Iraq to actually stop the rise of insurgents and with amazing foresight ordered that Osama Bin Laden be found and killed for his involvment with terrorists, which he was. This in essence stopped the war of terror from ever becoming as bad as it did in our world.

Spencer W. Kimball died on May 30th, 1994 and Howard W. Hunter got elected as president. Howard W. Hunter was held hostage for three days by islamic terrorists, but was freed by special forces who killed all of the terrorists. This attack was connected to the Taliban and he ordered that they be destroyed. Howard W. Hunter died after less than a year in office. Gordon B. Hinckley was elected as president.

Gordon B. Hinckley continued the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and they were overthrown in 2000. Gordon B. Hinckley began to decrease the nuclear arsenal in accordance with a Nuclear Arms Agreement made in early 2000. The destruction of the World Trade Centers still happened in this history and it was related to a new group called ISIS and this was quickly dealt with in this history and destroyed before 2004 by a joint group of NATO and former Communist countries.. Hinckley also was able to greatly improved the countries less fortunate. He raised the minimum wages and created many programs that gave over 90,000 homeless people homes and work. Gordon B. Hinckley helped to create new businesses and trade deals that increased the economy greatly so that while under his presidency the country passed the 1.5 trillion dollar GDP mark. Gordon B. Hinckley died early in 2008 and was succeeded by president Thomas S. Monson.

Thomas S. Monson was given a country that was rapidly growing in wealth and power, but it wouldn't last forever. Deseret was greatly effected by the economic crisis of 2008, thousands were left homeless and without work and the wages dropped significantly. Thomas S. Monson rapidly attempted to repair the economy and was successful in doing so after passing new laws that helped stabilize the economy. With this the economy slowly started to grow again and it even surpassed the two trillion dollar GDP mark. Monson was not in good health during the last two years in office and many times wasn't able to attend national events due to his failing health. He died on January 2, 2018 and left with him a country that would continue to influence world events for many years to come. With his death Russell M. Nelson was elected president of the State of Deseret and has just started his term as president.

Now for the Statistics

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