With the exception of a few locations, the Midwest does not play a great role in the story, and most of it seems to be an irradiated wasteland haunted by wild magic and mutated creatures, revived as a de jure independent nation only to serve as a buffer state between the Reich-occupied eastern US and the japanese-occupied western seabord. The I.M. holds the distinction of having never been occupied by any force and most of it was never the target of any direct attacks, with most of the war-related phenomena being "washed in" from the eastern seaboard and the immediate Great Lakes area. Consequently, much of the I.M. is untouched wilderness and most uncorrupted nature, a rarity.