The Great Cataclysm: This history begins on the last night of the old age. It had been well known to the American public and to the people across the world that the events of the previous months were finally coming to a head. As always, in times of trouble, the people turned to their religion and church to see them through the difficult time. On the night of the Great Cataclysm, as with all the nights leading up to it, thousands of people poured into their local places of worship and prayed. As the bombs fell that night, the people died, and the Ley-Lines erupted, millions of people were sealed inside of their churches by a mysterious force. In the city of Baltimore, a city known for its hundreds of churches, more than 100,000 people were sealed in.
           During the worst of the Great Cataclysm, earthquakes, floods, firestorms, and tidal waves destroyed the earth. During this period of destruction, time seemed to slow for those inside of the churches. While decades passed outside, mere hours seemed to pass for those Sealed inside. To those who lived through the worst of the Cataclysm, the areas where the places of worship originally existed were mysterious warps in the space. One could see the area where a church existed, but if you were to try to walk into it, you were transported to the area directly opposite of where you tried to enter. Anything of the real world that tried to cross these were transported to the other side with no interruption. The Great Sealing, as it was called in later days, lasted nearly 80 years. After the Great Sealing was over, the people trapped in the churches were allowed to leave the buildings. Like so many all over the world, the citizens of Baltimore emerged to find their world nothing like it was before the Great Sealing.
           In the city of Baltimore, this change was dramatic and traumatic. The majority of Baltimore City north of old Mount Royal Avenue survived the Great Cataclysm relatively intact. However, with the exception of the churches and City Hall, everything south of Mount Royal had been completely destroyed and left for ruins. The majority of the damage was concentrated in the old Inner Harbor where most of the buildings were reduced to rubble and ruins. Between the earthquakes, floods, and tsunami that heralded the Great Cataclysm, everything south of City Hall was either destroyed, or rested under 15 feet of water. The only exceptions to this were the old forts, which used to guard the Harbor hundreds of years ago.

Reconstruction: Upon emerging from their churches, the citizens of Baltimore were traumatized by the destruction seen all around them. Hundreds died of shock and depression, but the rest moved on and attempted to rebuild the city. However, in the decades since the Great Cataclysm, the Rifts had opened and alien creatures roamed the countryside, with some having made the outskirts of the city their home. Also inhabiting the city were the remnants of two pre-Cataclysm organizations, the Engineers of Poly and the Knights of City. In the decades since the Cataclysm, these two groups had changed from being simply alumni organizations of the two oldest schools in the old city, they had become the preservers of Baltimore.
           During the worst weeks of the Great Cataclysm, hundreds of people survived the tidalwaves and earthquakes by living in the old bomb shelters that had been built during the worst years of the Cold War. Those old bomb shelters proved to be proof against the worst of the Cataclysm. Besides the destruction of the city, these survivors were witnesses to the forming of the twin ley-lines that would most change the city, the Jones Falls and the I-95 ley-lines. These are two of the most stable ley-lines in existance. The Jones Falls ley-line extends from southern Penn's Sylvania in a straight line that flows through the Jones Falls valley in Baltimore, into the Harbor, and finally tapers off near Gibson Island in the Chesapeake Bay. The I-95 ley-line extends for hundreds of miles from northeast Penn's Sylvania, where it starts, and along I-95 until it ends outside of old Alexandria. Just inside of Baltimore, the I-95 ley-line splits in half. One half follows the I-895 Harbor Tunnel, the other half follows the I-95 Harbor Tunnel. The two ley-lines then reform just outside of Baltimore to continue to its end near Alexandria. These two stable ley-lines have two major effects. The first is that there exists two stable nexus points in the middle of the Inner Harbor. The second is that the constant flux of magical and psychic energies slowly made the survivors of Baltimore very talented in magic and psionics.
           Among those who became Talented was a seeress who became known as simply Mother. While others had the ability to see events hours, and maybe even days before they occured, Mother had the ability to see events months and even years in the future. She firmly believed that events that she forsaw could not be avoided, but they could be prepared for. Following that belief, she organized the survivors into two groups whose purpose would be the same, but whose methods would be different. The group that became the Engineers of Poly were charged with the construction and maintenance of massive TW Power Generators that would be built on the two stable ley-lines. They would be responsible for preserving those generators and all of the surviving technology for Those Who Are To Come. The group that became the Knights of City were charged with the protection and maintenance of the city. Mother understood early on that the city could only be restored by a larger population than currently existed. The Knights were charged with the tasks of demolishing those surviving buildings that were in danger of collapsing, and maintaining those buildings that didn't need to be demolished. They were also charged with the duty of keeping the city clear of those creatures who would try to destroy what was left.
           For two decades, Mother led the survivors of the city. On her deathbed, she gave the leaders of the two organizations her final prophesy, the vision that led her to create the two organizations and do everything she did over the past decades. She told them of Those Who Are To Come and what would happen if the two organizations were not diligent in their duties. She did not know when the Great Sealing would end, only that when it did, the Knights and the Engineers had to be prepared.
           And so it was that after nearly six decades of waiting, the Great Sealing ended and the people emerged. To them it was if a few terrifying hours had passed, instead of the decades that actually did. While the surviving Knights and Engineers were at first daunted by the fulfilling of the prophesy, they quickly jumped into the void and began the process of acclimating the emergees to life on Rifts Earth. While the emergees stayed with their church homes, they were split into three job groups. One group worked on expanding the farmlands that the Knights and Engineers used to support everyone in the city. A second group was trained in the use of the construction and maintenance equipment to help maintain and rebuild portions of the city. The third group was trained in the use of the weapons the Engineers had been building and using for decades.
           For decades, Baltimore was known to house a small population of humans by the D-Bees in the surrounding area. However, up until now, they had been ignored as an oddity, two groups of survivors only interested in preserving a ruined city. It was generally not considered worth the effort to destroy two groups of humans over a city full of ruins. However, that all changed when word got out that the city had gone from holding a few hundred humans to more than 100,000 humans. Suddenly, the city represented a bonanza to any group willing to attack it. At first the city experienced small raids, but they quickly expanded into full-bourne invasions by the surrounding D-Bee tribes. The city-rebuilding project was put on hold, as the need for defense became more and more apparent. It was about this time that it was discovered that the churches had a unique property that would eventually save the people of the city from the supernatural creatures.
           It was discovered the land around a church had the ability to turn what would normally be a supernatural, MDC creature into a regular SDC creature. That property made it possible for people with just common shotguns and handguns to be able to take down the most horrifying of demons. However, this effect only extends over an area in proportion to the size of the congregation of a church. For the smaller churches, this area could be 100-200 feet in radius; for the largest of churches this area would extend up to 2-3 city blocks. It was also discovered that when a pastor of a church died, if his body was buried near the perimeter of the protected area, the area of protection there slowly expanded a few dozen to a few hundred feet.
           Instead of rebuilding the city as a whole, congregations and alliances of nearby churches began fortifying the grounds near their churches against the supernatural hordes. Walls were built at the perimeter of the protected area, and living quarters and small industries were moved inside of the walls. As the years went by many of the congregations merged with each other and expanded their land holdings to cover more ground for expansion. The city slowly turned into a community of neighboring church forts. While an overall defense force was formed to protect the TW power generators and other essential utilities, each church fort was completely independent.

Unity: With the population of the city isolated within the confines of their individual church forts, the rebuilding of the city was put on hold for more than 75 years. This all changed when the two biggest non-church related organizations decided to reunite the city. These two organizations, the Knights of City and the Engineers of Poly, had been rivals for more than 200 years before the Great Cataclysm, and while they did work together to fulfill Mother's prophesy, had continued to be rivals after it. This all changed 25 years before the current Post-Apocalyptic Age.
           The Knights and Engineers were based out of the old high school buildings the organizations originate their names from. The Knights inhabited the City Castle and its surrounding area; the Engineers inhabited the Falls Road Campus. The Knights helped fight off invading D-Bees throughout the city, while the Engineers were responsible for the repair and upkeep of the massive TW Power Generators that were erected over the Jones Falls Ley Line. Those TW Generators provided power to the western half of the city, while the Generators on the I-895 Ley Line provided power to the eastern half. Approximately 25 years Pre-PA, a massive horde of D-Bees swarmed down the Jones Falls River and assaulted the Poly Campus. After hours of fighting, the Engineers were forced to abandon the Falls Road Campus. They retreated further into the city and took over the Old Campus on North Avenue. After seeking help from the Knights and several of the nearby churches, the Engineers retook the Falls Road Campus and pushed the D-Bees out of the area. The combined forces then proceeded to harass the defeated D-Bees until they had moved far south of the city.
           After the successful battle, the Knights and Engineers decided to put aside their rivalry and work together to defend the city. They decided the best way to do that was to unite all of the churches in the city. After five years of constant politicing and deal making, the churches, the Knights, and the Engineers formally reconstituted the City of Baltimore. Originally, every two years the heads of the Knights and Engineers alternated which would be the Mayor of the city. While hundreds of churches were saved in the Great Sealing, in the 80+ years since its ending most of the churches had fortified to become parishes. While some parishes represented a single mega-church, many were combinations of 2, 5, or up to 10 churches. The City Council was composed of a representative from each of the 24 remaining parishes. It was later decided that each organization would have one representative each on the Council (bringing the total to 26), and the populace of the city would elect the Mayor, who would have a tie-breaking vote.

Expansion: The next ten years saw the city begin to expand its territory. Those ten years also saw the massive amount of planning that went into the single largest project the city had seen since the coming of the Rifts, the building of the City Wall. The City Wall was a massive project for the newly reunited city. It would be a wall that extended nearly fifty miles, following the outside edge of the old I-695 Beltway from one end of the old Key Bridge to the other end. It would be 100 feet tall, with a base thickness of 100 feet tapering to 50 feet wide at the top. Every half mile of the wall would be reinforced with a massive 150 foot tall tower. The entire length of the wall would be armed with automated weapon systems controlled either from their nearby tower, or manned from inside of the wall. Using construction methods and devices that hadn't been used on such a massive scale in nearly 100 years, the citizens of Baltimore completed the wall in a little more than 10 years.
           The ten years of construction wrought changes to the basic industries of the city and to the government of the city. Building the City Wall was a project that threatened to stretch the city's resources beyond what was readily available. To prevent shortages in materials extraordinary methods were undertaken to supply building materials. The city workforce began a massive campaign of recycling. Everything from old rusted automobiles in junk piles to crumbled, ruined downtown buildings were broken up and reduced to their base constituancies. Metals were remelted and separated into their basic materials: iron, steel, lead, zinc, etc. Construction materials like concrete and brick were ground back into sand. Anything that could be recycled, and wasn't needed, was recycled. Even to the present day, the recycling industry provides 1/3rd of the employment in the city.
           While the city was being given a new look by the tearing down of the old buildings, the government was also being changed. While nearly a third of the population was being used to build the wall, a small group was needed to do the jobs that would normally be done by the construction group. This smaller group would form the basis of the City Work Corps. The CWC became responsible for maintaining the city. Another basic change made to the government was the way the Mayor was chosen. Where as before, the Mayor was either the head of the Knights or the Engineers, the Mayor was now elected to one 5 year term by the population. After his term was over, a previous Mayor could be asked by the new Mayor to serve as one of three Assistant Mayors. While there are no particular powers granted to an Assistant Mayor, the position does allow the previous Mayor to act as an advisor to the new one.
           During the construction period, Baltimore continued to suffer attacks from the neighboring D-Bee population, but the attacks began to slack off as the united forces of the city proved themselves willing to destroy any attacking force. Besides attracting attention from the neighboring D-Bees, the City Wall construction also drew the attention of some of the neighboring human populations. Many of these small towns and villages sent small delegations to Baltimore to see what was going on in this now burgeoning city. While many were blown off or simply ignored, one in particular became an unknown participant in the workings of the city. Columbia, as it was called, came offering help in the construction of the Wall. The Knight Mayor at the time saw the offer as an attempt to commit sabotage against the city, either by leaving boobytraps built into the wall or by gaining detailed information about potential weakspots in the wall. He rejected the offer out of hand with no discussion with the City Council. The Columbia representative decided to take the matter up with the City Council. Upon finding out what had happened, the City Council undertook two courses of action. The first undertaking resulted in the Mayorship becoming an elected position instead of an assigned one. The second set of actions resulted in a secret limited trade agreement being reached between Columbia and certain merchants in the city. Feeling that Columbia's involvement in the change in the Mayorship would not reflect well to the general population, those merchants assigned to trade with Columbia were sworn to keep Columbia's involvement in Baltimore secret. This secret continued to be kept by select members of the City Council even after the City Wall was completed.
           With the City Wall to protect Baltimore from outside threats, the churches disbanded their individual militaries and combined them into a single Defense Force to man the Wall. While even during peacetime it takes more than 10,000 soldiers to effectively man the Wall, the expenses and resources used are far less than the amount the churches were expending to protect their individual walls. Even with the resources saved in manning the Wall, the city needed more to continue expanding the city. Additional farming communities were formed outside of the Wall to help feed the growing population, and prospectors were sent into the hills and mountains of Western Maryland to find old mines and new mineral resources. The only benefit of the Great Cataclysm was discovered by the prospectors. Many mining resources that had previously been buried deep within the earth were now much closer to the surface because of the rampant earthquakes and tidal waves of the Great Cataclysm. Several mining towns were founded in the mountains to mine these minerals.
           With some of these outlying townships being more than 50 miles away, a more secure method of transport was needed to import the minerals into the city and export people to populate the outlying townships. The City Council decided to have the old rail system completely revamped to perform this task. The original maglev trains were replaced with massive, heavily armored cars that greatly resembled the double-decker trains of the old Amtrack. These new trains were powered by fusion engines, built completely out of MDC materials, and were more than 1000 yards in length. Each car was 100 feet in length and heavily armed with built in weapon systems to help protect them from marauding D-Bees. On a regular passenger run, every fourth car is a flight deck carrying up to 5 VTOL attack craft or 10 Powered Armors. Besides the 200 soldiers that accompany each train, pillbox cars can also be attached to both supplement the firepower of the train, and carry an additional 200 soldiers each. To support these new, far heavier trains, the railways were relayed using MDC metal alloys to replace the old steel of the original tracks. With a tri-weekly schedule, each train carries more than 2000 passengers and thousands of tons of materials back and forth between the city and the outlying towns.
           As Baltimore continued its expansion, its attention eventually focused itself to the south towards the growing Monster Zone. After their defeat by the combined forces of the city, the Jones Falls Horde, and several other defeated groups of D-Bees began settling into the vast territory of wild forests directly north and west of old Washington, D.C. While some of the creatures settling into the Monster Zone were peaceful, a lot more of them weren't and sent raiding parties against the trains and some of the outlying settlements. While chasing one of these raiding parties, two platoons of Baltimore soldiers officially discovered the fledgling city of Columbia a little more than 10 miles southwest of the city-state. After destroying the raiding party, the platoons stayed in Columbia to make arraingments for an official delegation to visit from Baltimore.
           In the year 10 PA, Baltimore and Columbia officially met for the first time. While there were some initial misgivings, the two states formed a trade alliance that benefitted both cities. Columbia provided the high tech electronics Baltimore needed for its train system, vehicles, and other high tech items, and advanced underground construction techniques that became vital in mining the western mountains. Baltimore provided the processed materials Columbia needed to expand the city and to better protect the area already within its walls, and in emergencies, the personnel to man those walls. Two years after the trade alliance was formed, a new rail line was laid from Baltimore to Columbia and from Columbia to Detrickville. With this railway, Columbia became a vital portion of Baltimore's economy, much as Baltimore was of Columbia's. In the year 20 PA, Columbia and Baltimore formally allied to form the Baltimore Commonwealth. Columbia was given 10 seats on the City Council to represent the 10 original churches Columbia had within its borders. The Mayor of Baltimore's title was changed to reflect his being the leader of the combined Commonwealth, his official title became Lord Mayor of the Baltimore Commonwealth. As before, the Lord Mayor is chosen by popular vote of all citizens of the Commonwealth, and is elected to a single five year term.

Conflict: In the years following its incorporation, the Commonwealth continued to spread its influence over the region. The three towns Baltimore had founded decades before in the west were the main bases for several mining operations that provided the raw ore Baltimore needed to forge steel and MDC materials. Several smaller towns and villages to the north and south of the cities provided timber for shipbuilding and furniture. Even the sea felt the Commonwealth's influence as Baltimore built and sailed fishing fleets to provide alternate foods for the City State and warships to protect those fishing fleets.
           Two military forces were formed during this expansion period to cover areas of the Commonwealth that were outside of the charter of the regular army. The Baltimore Navy was founded to protect the ships of the fishing fleet from the monsters of the open sea, and to protect the Inner Harbor from the creatures that periodically come in through the underwater nexus points where the Jones Falls Ley-Line and the I-95 and I-895 Ley-Lines meet. The Open Water Fleet consists of technologically and magically enhanced wooden clipper ships and frigates. The Inner Harbor Fleet consists of mini-subs, battle-skis, and small attack boats. The second force, the Knights of Baltimore, were formed after the city was visited by a group of cyberknights in 14 PA. The Knights were formed to be an organization that was a cross between the U.S. Army Rangers and the U.S. Marshals. They are given extraordinary powers to enforce Baltimore's laws anywhere within the Commonwealth, and are intensively trained to use their natural abilities to do that.
           As can be expected, this rapid expansion of a major powerhouse on the Atlantic coast drew the attention of Atlantis. At first, the slavers were content on making raids on small outlying villages. Since these raids resulted in no survivors being left behind, Baltimore's military leaders at first thought the dead villages were the victims of a roaming D-Bee tribe. After two years of sporatic raids, a survivor was found in one of the raided villages. This survivor gave the military its first major break when he revealed that the raiders came from the sea, not from the west or the Monster Zone like so many had assumed. The Commonwealth undertook three major courses of action. The first was to setup a series of land and ship-based radar stations. This radar network warned the Commonwealth of an incoming raiding party, and gave the military the time it needed to have a response force intercept the raiders. The second was to form a Rapid Deployment Force to intercept and destroy the slavers when they landed to take slaves. While the RDF was initially an all-army force, it was later changed to have a mix of regular army, Knights, and Columbian Special Forces. The third course of action wasn't undertaken until late in Baltimore's Slave War against Atlantis. In 36 PA a group of prospectors discovered a series of buried vaults under the ruins of the Westinghouse research facility at the old Baltimore-Washington International Airport. While most of the vaults had been ruined from the earthquakes and the floods of the Cataclysm, three of the vaults were found to be intact in pristine condition. These three vaults, built during the height of the Cold War, contained on microfiche detailed plans and schematics for the manufacture of airborne radar units dating from the late 1970's to the late 1980's. Also contained in the vaults were working models of many of the radar units detailed on the microfiche plans. These plans and working models gave the Commonwealth the means to produce the one unit they hadn't been able to build until now, an airborne early warning system. With the construction of the new AWACS aircraft, Baltimore now had a credible reason to build long range interceptor aircraft, the backbone of its new Air Force. While Baltimore built the airframes for the new aircraft, Columbia built the avionics and other electronic equipment in the aircraft.
           By September of 38 PA, the Slave War had devolved into a series of weekly battles with neither side gaining the upper hand. Then suddenly the attacks ceased. The military leaders guessed that a major attack was brewing and made plans for it. While the AWACS patrolled the skys and the Navy patrolled the seas, the Commonwealth rushed production on its air-superiority and ground support aircraft. On All Hallow's Eve, one of the AWACS patrols detected a massive force moving up the Chesapeake Bay. The force, numbered at more than 250 various crafts, split up and began attacking Baltimore City from both the sea and the land. This battle, which would prove to be the final one in the Slave War, lasted for nearly two days. It would see Baltimore use everything in its arsenal against the Atlantean slavers. After two days of fighting, the Atlanteans retreated with barely 1/10th of their original fighting force, never to return in such large numbers.
           The two days of fighting left southern Baltimore City in flames. While the Wall had held, the Atlanteans were still able to infiltrate strike squads into the city by the Inner Harbor. While civilian casualties were light, barely 1000 dead or wounded, the military losses were severe at nearly 10,000 dead or wounded. Besides the near total loss of the Air Force and the destruction of at least half of the Navy, the Knights suffered nearly 75% casualties, a catastrophic number considering there were only 2000 of them before the battle began. While the city was rebuilding, the military was reorganized. Those units and vehicles that proved themselves successful were copied, those that didn't were investigated and revised to fix those problems that were observed in combat. While most of the changes were made in the Air Force and Navy, the surviving Knights instituted sweeping changes in the way squires were trained and apprenticed. These changes resulted in a much higher number of Knights surviving their first couple of years than before. With the ranks of the Knights continuously being filled each year with more experienced warriors and problem solvers, Baltimore was able to quickly retake its obligations to its satellite towns and villages.
           Over the next 50 years, The Commonwealth faced very few serious threats other than the occasional raid by an independent slaving party from Atlantis or an attack from a hostile D-Bee or human group. During this time period, Baltimore had its first run-in with the Coalition States. While they aren't exactly friendly, the two states did come to an agreement to leave each other's business alone. In 87 PA, Baltimore's scouts began hearing about a new city-state to the south, the ARMOR City-States. While the information gathered was pretty scarce, Baltimore's leaders didn't like what they were hearing. The rumors of a very militaristic southern city-state, steadily expanding north began to worry Baltimore's leaders.
           Then in the spring of 88 PA, a RDF pursuit party ran into a large ARMOR scout party in the southern area of the Monster Zone. What would have been an already tense situation was made worse by the pursuit party being on the trail of a group of heavily armed D-Bee raiders. In the brief but deadly exchange, the ARMOR scout party was almost completely wiped out, while the RDF party suffered several casualties. When the RDF party retreated to one of the garrison towns outside of the Monster Zone, several of the ARMOR scouts followed and reported back the location of the town. While there were several instances of individual scouts from both sides meeting, no further incidents were reported. 
           All that changed later that August. Sneaking under Baltimore's scarce radar coverage in the southwest area of the Monster Zone, a massive invasion force from ARMOR took over Detrickville and several other outlying towns. The next day, Columbia sent out a large relief force to take back the towns. Severely underestimating the size of the invasion force, the Columbian force of 5,000 soldiers was met halfway to Detrickville, ambushed, and demolished. The survivors retreated back to Columbia, followed by the ARMOR ground forces. Preparing to throw back the pursuers, Columbia began massing and sending reinforcements out of the West Gate. Just as the survivors from the relief force arrived at prepared positions, 5 Battlecruisers and almost 300 Terran Fighters swept south on a tangent to the Columbian outer wall. Firing on the wall to open holes for the armor, the Battlecruisers also dropped thousands of Terrines on the Columbian forces and barracks areas. What followed was nearly 12 hours of unrelenting bloodshed. The survivors of the Terrine jump squads retreated back over the wall, leaving nearly three quarters of their numbers behind. Discovering the rail-lines that connect Columbia to the rest of the Commonwealth, the ARMOR forces proceeded to cut-off the city and lay siege to it. After nearly two weeks of fighting, a relief force was sent out from Baltimore to break the siege. After being forced to retreat, the ARMOR forces were slowly pushed back to the captured garrison towns. Over the next three months, the ARMOR forces were pushed out of town after town until only Detrickville was left. The final week of fighting saw both sides suffer almost as many casualties as they had in the previous three months of fighting. On the final day of fighting, the ARMOR forces snuck out of the town as quietly as they had snuck in. All told, this little war saw Baltimore suffering nearly 45,000 casualties and losses. The ARMOR losses were estimated at nearly 40,000 casualties, or about 80% of the initial invading force.

Current Relations: In the nearly two decades since the war, Baltimore and ARMOR have had a cold relationship. No embassy has ever been opened between the two states, and most relations between them have been over the barrel of a gun. On the otherhand, the relationship between Baltimore and its two other neighbors has been very friendly and fruitful. Baltimore currently has a very lucrative trading agreement with Golden Age Weapons to its south. In exchange for food supplies and certain raw materials, GAW has agreed to supply Baltimore with the designers and engineers it needs to produce some of its more advanced power armors and weapon systems. Meanwhile in the west, Baltimore has a friendly relationship going on with the Kingdom of Lord Smiley. Lord Smiley, a distant relation of Baron Smiley of the Baron's Folley Incident, rules a small kingdom that pretty much encompasses Pittsburgh and several small towns in the western Allegheny Mountains. In recent years there have even been rumors of the possibility of the Kingdom joining the Commonwealth as its third major city.
           At this time, Baltimore has a neutral relationship with the Coalition States. While Baltimore shares many of the Coalition's views about D-Bees and human superiority, it does not share the genocidal outlook of the Coalition. Baltimore only believes in destroying those D-Bee tribes who try to attack the City and its allies. If a D-Bee tribe is friendly, then Baltimore has no problem with it living within its protective area. In fact, there are several groups of D-Bees who live and work within Baltimore City and some of the outlying towns. One viewpoint Baltimore disagrees with the Coalition is the treatment of psionicists and magic-users, who Baltimore feels are vital parts of the Commonwealth and its defense. This is a viewpoint that has gotten Baltimore in more than a few pots of hot water with the Coalition, especially since most of its emissaries have either been current or retired Knights of Baltimore.