New Mercia
| Kingdom of New Mercia | |||||||||||||
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Sphere 2
Paths
A1: Early National (+ 100 CIP)
A2: Mixed (+Transgene, +11 SP)
A3: Resource Rich World
A5: Relic Dust (+100 Dust, +1 SP)
B1: Artifact Find (+100 dust)
B4: Ancient Resources (+ 100 dust, +1 SP)
C1: Artfact Find (+100 dust)
C2: Reverse Engineerable (+100 Applications)
D1: Broken Down (+100 PIP, +30 SP)
D3: Civil Unrest (+5,000 military)
E1: Solidarity! (+100 dust, -debt, Treaty of Sirius)
G1: Never Forget (+2,500 military, +Logistics, +Doctrines)
G2: Crash Industrialisation (+100 CIP, +100 Wealth, +200 PIP, -debt)
G3: Fort Up (+Military, +Defensive Stuff, +Ground Doctrines, +Ground Tech)
L1: Space Monarchy (+2,500 Military, +100 PIP, +Logistics, +1 SP)
Chaotic Event: Revanche! (+Morale, -Military)
+10,000 Military
+500 Dust
+400 PIP
+200 CIP
+100 Application
++Logistics
+Morale
+Wealth
+Transgene
+44 SP
+Defensive Stuff
+Doctrines
+Ground Doctrines
++Ground Application
+Mega-Particle Application
+Power Application
+Aerospace Application
+3 Hangarize Application
+4 Shipbuilding Application
--Debt
Treaty of Sirius
Cruiser Construction
Tech Indexes
Global Technology Level: 18
- Shipbuilding: -3 [15]
- Hangarize: +32 [50]
- Mecha: +7 [25]
- Power Systems: +7 [25]
- Propulsion: +7 [25]
- Mega Particle Weapons: +32 [50]
- Basic Theotech: +37 [55]
- Mass Production +4 [22]
- Civilian Technology -2 [16]
- Materials +5 [23]
- Transgenics +2 [20]
General Information
New Mercia is one of several moons of the gas giant Deria in the Mintaka system. It is well known as a source of delta dust, owing to significant precursor deposits all over the planet, and for an extremely erratic climate with variations from extreme cold to tropical heat owing to the elliptical orbit of Deria and the tidally locked nature of New Mercia and Deira. More recently a civil war, running concurrently with the larger ZOCU war, has made New Mercia infamous for extremely high civilian and military casualties, use of WMDs (particularly what has become known as the Mercian Zombie Plague), political extremism and disastrous overreaction.
Politically, the moon is divided between the Kingdom of New Mercia, the government that arose from the original UN/EU chartered colony, and the Federal Republic of Albion, the breakaway polity that is the result of the New Mercian Civil War. The Kingdom is a ZOCU member state, while the FRA is an EU affiliate. Also present is an ARROWs peacekeeping force, intended to enforce compliance with the ceasefire that brought an end to the Civil War. As both sides are well supplied with advanced weapons and the UN force small and under-equipped in comparison, the effectiveness of this attempt is low; raids by both sides are commonplace, although the forbidding mountain chains that for the boundary between the two polities make any large scale attempt at military action difficult and the well developed aerospace defence infrastructure of both nations makes leapfrogging their natural boundaries difficult, at best.
Geography
Arcologies
Landing Arcology
New Anglia Arcology
Highfoss Arcology
Tamwold Arcology
Whelworth Arcology
Windermere Arcology
History
Early History
The origins of the New Mercia Colony are found in Britain, in the late 21st century. Despite long membership in the EU, a portion of the population still disapproved of British membership in the bloc. Efforts to secure a colony to which to emigrate began in the 2060s, when the first wave of longshot colonies was leaving, but a lack of funding and political resistance delayed an expedition until nearly 2082. From the point of view of a Briton wishing to leave the grasp of Brussels behind, this was undesirable, but the delay was fortunate for the colony; they received slightly more detailed survey data on their destination than many colonies, and could therefore adequately prepare for the harsh climate of their new world.
On the 5th of July 2182, the New Mercia Colony Expedition was launched. Although mechanically identical to more far flung longshot colonies, their destination was significantly closer to Earth than many, so much so that while it was decades before any ship from what would become the Core reached the colony, the administrators were in almost constant contact with Earth via hyperwave. This was, while not the ideal situation of complete isolation from the EU the colony members desired, still a significant improvement over remaining on Earth in everybody's opinion. It was also, everybody agreed, a shame about the weather.
Well prepared for the problems of their new world, the colonists completed the construction of their initial shelters at the site of what was to become the unimaginatively named city of Landing before the start of the first stormy season. It was during the construction of these underground shelters that the first cache of precursor materials was discovered. The possibility of such caches had not even been considered by the colony planners, much less the discovery of intact, functional delta dust manufacturing plants several years later.
The discovery of delta dust caches continued as the colony was developed, and was uninterrupted by the reorganisation of the colony's political structure along 'traditional' lines, with a bicameral parliament and a figurehead monarch for purposes of morale. Likewise, when physical recontact brought a more firm Core control over the colony, the rate of new finds was barely affected. If anything, with the backing of Core industrial consortiums, they actually increased.
The relatively peaceful, orderly growth of the colony at this point continued with minor grumbling about EU control for almost another two decades before the first mistake was made in the comedy of errors that would lead to a nuclear war and several million dead.
EU Mismanagement, the Breakdown, and the January Revolution
The EU administration from official recontact until the Breakdown and the subsequent toppling of the Colonial Administration was characterised, in general, by well meaning ineptitude and increasing corporate rapaciousness. Combined with EU policies on Earth that were out of the hands of the colonial government and unpopular in the outworlds- specifically, in this case, official incentives and encouragement to emigrate to various colonies- this resulted in a slowly increasing resentment of the EU in general, and the Administration in particular. A resentment that was extended to immigrants from the EU.
Mostly, those immigrants were brought in to further develop the delta dust production facilities. In a deeply unpopular move, almost every factory and cache had, upon recontact, first been nationalised by the EU, and then sold off to various well established corporations who were, in the eyes of Brussels, in a better position to develop such important strategic resources. Blame for this was attached firmly to the Administration who's task it was to expropriate the relevant properties from their New Mercian owners and the immigrants who came to the planet to work for the megacorps that now owned the dust factories.
The immigrants, for their part, quickly realised that they were unwelcome, and within a decade, most arcologies has a 'European Tower' or something similar, wherein EU citizens and their children or grandchildren could live without facing constant anger over having 'stolen' New Mercian property and jobs. The Administration, for it's part, recognised what was happening very early, and embarked upon numerous schemes with which to alleviate the 'understandable resentment long-term residents of the planet felt,' with an extensive economic stimulus and development package.
It was during this period that the planet's orbital elevator was constructed, as well as the first large scale orbital infrastructure and small civilian shipyards. The diversification of the economy helped somewhat with the problems facing the planet, but megacorp involvement in all stages of the project meant that most of the new industries were dominated by Core world concerns rather than under local ownership. The perception remained, therefore, that the EU, through the Administration, was 'stealing New Mercian prosperity,' and anti-EU demonstrations were commonplace, although always peaceful in nature.
The Breakdown proved unfortunately timed for the Colonial Administration. New Mercia's effective isolation from the EU- certainly enough to make deployment of troops an impossibility- coincided with a number of extremely high profile scandals involving corrupt Administration officials and EU megacorps, some of which had resulted in deaths. In particular, the asphyxiation of thirteen dock workers due to faulty vacsuits provided by the European Starport Authority, and the refusal of the ESA not only to pay out their standard contractual obligation upon the death of one or more workers, but to comply with a New Mercian court ruling finding them at fault and ordering them to pay punitive damages to the families of the dead workers, was causing an upwelling of anger and anti-Core sentiment.
What started as simple street protests in major areas of a handful of arcologies swiftly escalated into a general strike. When the EU and the megacorps failed to respond, and it emerged that reinforcements were not forthcoming, the teetering Administration and frightened corporate security forces deployed to the streets in an attempt to qush the protests before they grew any further.
Exactly what happened is unclear, but a combined team of Administration and corporate personnel were involved in a shooting incident in Landing that left three people dead. This proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back, and what had been extremely angry but generally non-violent protests mutated into a wave of street violence focused on the Administration, the megacorps, and their visible instruments. A tide of shouting and screaming people pulled members of the security forces off their feet, beating many of them to death. Administration offices were stormed all across the planet, and the workers therein assaulted and detained. By the time the riots subsided, the Colonial Administration had effectively been destroyed.
The next day, Oliver Pierce, the Prime Minister and until this point as much a figurehead for the Administration as the King, made a declaration from the steps of Stanley House, the administrative centre of the New Anglia Arcology. Hastily printed on a single sheet of paper, the Stanley House Declaration announced that the Kingdom of New Mercia was an independant state, with all the rights and responsibilities that entailed, the His Majesty's Government assumed for itself all the powers and responsibilities of the EU Colonial Administration, and that the political ties between the Kingdom and the sections of the Colonial Charter outlining the political ties between the Kingdom, the EU and UN were suspended indefinitely.
The January Revolution, as the ousting of the Colonial Administration became known, neatly redressed many of the perceived problems with Core interests on New Mercia; delta dust factories were again seized, and this time sold to domestic operators. It still left, however, the problem of the EU immigrants and their descendants, who were trapped on the planet with nowhere else to go, and suddenly facing a majority populace in a position to take revenge for years of perceived slights, real or imagined.
As it turned out, said 'revenge' failed to materialise in any significant way, although many highly paid immigrants lost their jobs in favour of native New Mercians. Still, the sharp divide between EU immigrant and native was carved deep by the violent overthrow of the Colonial Administration, and the fear amongst the immigrant communities that they might be the next victims of the mob.
Solidarity!
The Breakdown was unexpected, and, beyond leading to the panicked decision to deploy soldiers to attempt to squash the brewing civil unrest, had played little part in the January Revolution. Certainly, in the aftermath, it allowed the independant government to establish itself and get the nation organised without the inconvenience of an EU battlegroup turning up in the system, but there had never been any planning or, indeed, conscious decision to topple the Administration.
There was, therefore, no preparation or planning on what exactly was to be done in the aftermath of the Revolution. The Government ended up in charge not because of any serious qualification- it had been little more than a rubber stamp for Administration policies during the EU era, rather than an actual legislative body- but because it was already in existance immediately after the Revolution, and possessed at least a facsimile of the proper apparatus to control a nation, something that the various demagogues and popular ringleaders lacked. Elected effectively on the basis of who could blow the most hot air, the post-Revolutionary Government- termed the Stanley House Parliament, after the declaration made by Pierce- was in the unenviable position of attempting to deal with a sudden and apparently complete isolation. With no theta dust drives available, there was no way of traveling outside the system.
The New Mercian economy until that point had largely relied on exporting dust to the EU, with conventional industry taking a much smaller second place. Many manufactured necessities were imported from the EU, and although the capability to produce the needed items existed, the ability to produce them in quantity did not. Likewise, with no transport, there was no way to sell dust.
The effect, unsurprisingly, was an economic meltdown.
The new owners of the dust factories, with almost no income, imploded within months. Likewise, the companies that did buisness with imports from the EU and elsewhere died almost instantly. The only spark of light in the economic darkness was the explosive expansion of the domestic industrial sector to fill the void left by the unwilling departure of their Core world competitors. Unfortunately, neither the money or the production capacity to support the necessary expansion existed, and living conditions quickly slumped.
Eventually, the Stanley House Government itself fell victim to the depression, losing decisively to an opposition coalition composed almost entirely of economists, senior ex-military officers, and other specialists in organising and directing complex organisations. Rachel Collins, celebrated political activist and lecturer at the Royal University, was sworn in as Prime Minister on the 9th of July 2158.
The Collins Government immediately set to work in enacting it's plans to kick start the economy, starting an ambitious programme of public works, expanding the orbital infrastructure and constructing the basis of what is today the high speed rail network that links the arcologies of both the Kingdom and Albion. Other companies, those not directly involved in the works projects but clearly viable and limited only by a lack of liquid cash, were given loans at low or zero interest rates. This did have an effect; the seemingly unstoppable economic decline actually halted, and the economy grew by tiny amounts during the early sixties. Unfortunately, the economic lifeline that was sustaining the economy was becoming increasingly strained. With a shrinking tax base and ballooning expenses, the integrity of the Treasury became increasingly uncertain.
Nevertheless, the economy showed signs of definite recovery in 2162 and 2163, in large part due to increased domestic Dust demand in space based non-FTL systems, allowing the government to break even on their nationalised Dust production, effectively taking the industry off of direct life support. As a result, Collins was reelected in the 2163 general elections against an opposition candidate running on a platform of inviting the EU or the newly formed ARROWs into the country in return for economic aid. It was into this situation that the ZOCU stepped in 2165.
Although in hyperwave contact with the rest of the Sphere, the Kingdom had been effectively ignored in the aftermath of the fall of the Administration. Beyond an official protest by the EU, and a refusal to recognise the new regime, there had been no response by any of the Core powers, and the post-revolutionary governments had felt little need to broadcast news of New Mercia's fragile situation far and wide. Thus it was that the theta dust drive equipped jumpship Canavan arrived in the system with a party of diplomats from the young ZOCU, and a mission to attempt to get the planet to join. By this point, it was clear that a solution to the problems with delta dust based FTL drives was possible, if not imminent, and ZOCU wanted to ensure that, when a solution was at last found, they would have access to an abundant supply.
The Collins Government jumped at the opportunity. In return for promises of economic aid and a guaranteed market for dust, New Mercia joined the bloc on the 25th of March 2166. The economic effects were immediate and profound; demand for dust based technology throughout ZOCU was high, even without any need for delta dust FTL drives, and the factories on New Mercia, while not at full capacity, were at least turning a reliable profit for the government, despite the uneconomical policy of maintaining excess dust production capacity. Before the first aid payment had been made, ZOCU membership had provided the shot in the arm the New Mercian economy needed to stage a real recovery.
Despite the improving economic situation, New Mercia contributed little to the Magnate War. Beyond manufacturing equipment and a small ground based expeditionary force, the Kingdom was completely absent from the conflict. In large part, this was because the New Mercian economy, although recovering at an impressive rate, was still too fragile to sustain a 'proper' war. The most important result of the Magnate War, as far as the Kingdom was concerned, was the establishment of a viable domestic arms industry. Although initially manufacturing only licensed equipment like OMF-4s, by the time of the 'official' second recontact with the EU, companies like Royal Arms, General Ordinance and Stanmore Fleet Systems were putting their own internally developed designs into production for the by that time officially established New Mercian Armed Forces.
The Path to War
During the Breakdown, tensions between the dis-empowered EU colonists and the original inhabitants of New Mercia remained constant. Both the Stanley House Government and the Collins Government had made rapprochement with the 'Yurps' a priority, and by 2173, this was having some success. Although a lunatic fringe of 'resistance fighters' still existed, distrust was fading, and the previously politically marginalised Europeans were slowly becoming more integrated into New Mercian society. Had the Breakdown lasted another fifty years, the ultimate outcome of the second recontact with the Core might well have been quite different.
In March of 2173, and ARROWs cruiser Aristotle arrived in system via use of the newly constructed EU catapult in the Basil system. Despite working hyperwave radios, neither the EU nor the Kingdom had bothered to keep each other informed of what the other was doing. The existence of a catapult so close, therefore, came as a surprise to the Kingdom, and New Mercian membership of ZOCU, and the fact that the Kingdom not only had a real army and air force, but a well equipped navy as well. The scene European recontact teams arrived to was not the expected collapsed economy, political instability and miserable squalor, but a growing, if still slightly shaky economy, a well maintained military and a popular, newly elected government led by the now retired Collins' protege, Sir Mark Abnett. Although they had known of the existence of ZOCU, this was the first Zodiac world with which physical recontact had been made.
In light of subsequent events, recontact was surprisingly cordial. Perhaps the EU, at the end of a long, tenuous supply line and faced with an organisation with as-yet unquantified military capabilities felt that an aggressive attempt to reassert a hold over it's former colony was too risky, or perhaps at that point, there was a genuine desire to construct an early friendship between the EU and ZOCU. In either case, the EU diplomats were unfailingly polite, reasonable and accommodating. All the EU wanted, they said, was to extend their catapult chain into the system, in order to reconnect the worlds isolated by the Breakdown with the rest of humanity. Setting up a deal took several months, but in the end, permission to build the catapult was granted.
Construction was completed in 2176, and New Mercia 'officially' rejoined the civilised portion of the Sphere. It was, in the words of one contemporary commentator, 'the beginning of a new era'. As it turned out, he was right, but not in the way he expected.
The Black Thursday Coup: War Begins
Despite initial prospects of friendly recontact in light of the success of the catapult project at New Mercia, during the late 2170s and 2180s it became increasingly clear that, for a variety of reasons, ZOCU and the Core powers would come to blows in one form or another. With the Breakdown finally at an end, demand for delta dust was skyrocketing, creating an economic boom on New Mercia, and cementing the Kingdom as a vital supply source for the ZOCU Combined Militias. Considering the location of the Mintaka system on what was then the endpoint of the EU catapult chain towards ZOCU, it's exposed position to EU fleet movements with no other ZOCU worlds between it and the Core, and the mostly-quiescent but still extant political divisions between the descendants of the original colonists and the pre-Breakdown EU newcomers, some of whom had arrived in living memory, the possibilities were too great for the EU to ignore.
With the goal of, at the very least, denying New Mercian dust supplies to ZOCU, and ideally securing a developed, strategically important world and resource supply with a good communications link to the Core on the edge of EU space, the EU began funding the handful of pro-EU terrorist movements, providing them with cash, weapons and professionally composed propaganda, in an effort to force open rifts in New Mercian society. For the most part, this was unsuccessful; although the number and lethality of bombings increased, there was no great distance or distrust sown between the two groups. Nevertheless, some suspicion was sown, and crucially, military and civil security services were forced to consider contingency plans and potential risks posed by 'European Nationalist Extremists'. This sense of the EU-derived population being 'the enemy' among analysts and high level planners was to have catastrophic effects.
Fanatics have never been known for their keen perception of reality. As they kept no electronic or hardcopy records, and were all killed in the attempt, it will never be known why or how the organisation that called itself the National Freedom Army came to the conclusion that the public was on the side of the EU, and that removing the major organs of government would cause a general uprising amongst the population, allowing the EU to move in and take control. On the 18th of May 2180, after an extensive and well disguised plot that had only been partially unraveled by security services, the NFA stormed the Houses of Parliament and killed all the MPs and government officials they could find within. Smaller groups targeted the Home Office, Ministry of Defence, Foreign Office and the Office of Administrative Affairs, inflicting severe casualties among the civil servants inside. A final contingent targeted the Palace and the Royal Family.
Knowing that the Royals enjoyed the support of the populace, and likewise that any future administration that enjoyed the support of the Royals would be far less likely to suffer a counter-coup, the intentions of the NFA were to capture the Royal Family alive, to be used as figureheads for a restored EU Colonial Administration. To the ultimate misfortune of everybody, mis-timing the strike led to the attack teams facing a company-strength contingent from the Guard Division who had been alerted by the carnage taking place inside Parliament and government ministries. The operation turned into a bloody stalemate, with the outnumbered and outgunned ceremonial contingent holding their ground against the better equipped, more numerous but less skilled NFA strike teams until spaceborne marines arrived to crush the attackers. Of the three hundred Guards in the palace, eleven survived the action. Far mroe critically, all the Royals bar the off-world Princess Margret were killed in the fighting.
With the Palace, Parliament and various ministries transformed into charnel houses, only a handful of elected officials still alive and the sole heir to the throne off-world attending university on Londonium and therefore vulnerable to a separate attack, the situation was a nightmare for the security services. Moreover, since the government had effectively been decapitated, and ancillary bomb attacks on communications infrastructure disrupting communications all over the planet, the only organisation in a position to take over the running of the planet was the military. From the point of view of the analysts and planners, the situation was a worst-case nightmare come to life, and with the situation still unclear, the possibility of a general uprising did not seem impossible. Martial law was declared less than an hour after the attack, and troops were deployed to the streets of all the arcologies on the planet.
What propaganda had not achieved, atrocity had; the general population blamed the EU minority as responsible for the bloodbath, and backlash was fierce, with lynchings and murders widespread. Soldiers, in many cases, participated rather than try to halt the proceedings. Understandably, the immigrants banded together themselves, concentrating themselves into sections of arcologies to take advantage of the safety found in numbers and leaving many of their personal possessions behind. The men in charge of the temporary military regime, receiving intelligence reports through the lens of departments that had already concluded that there was a widespread security risk among the EU-descended population, instituted harsher and harsher security measures. By the time the situation had resolved itself, most arcologies had forced their 'Yurps' into huge ghettos. In the atmosphere of paranoia and mistrust, relaxing the harsh security measures in the 'EU zones' was politically impossible; all the candidates running in the emergency parliamentary elections called for them to be maintained, or for even harsher schemes to be implemented. When mobs attempting to prevent Yurps in Whelworth Arcology from voting killed three people, it was the last straw.
The riots started in Whelworth, but quickly spread to all the New Mercian arcology complexes. Military units were deployed, but left without specific rules of engagement. When a section guarding a barricade in New Anglia came under attack from petrol bombs and home made grenades, they opened fire into the crowd, killing ten and wounding dozens more. The next day, a different section in Tamwold was attacked and overwhelmed by furious Yurps, killing an unknown but high number of assailants in self defence. Finally, military units in Landing were ordered to use lethal force to break up a large riot that had caused enough damage to actually breach the skin of the arcology. Yurp soldiers refused the order, and when their native comrades attempted to carry it out, turned on them in an attempt to protect people who could well be their family and friends. The fissure spread as rapidly through the military as it had through civilian society. Within three months of the NFA attack, the New Mercian military was shooting at itself in space, in the air and on the ground.
Before the new Queen had returned to New Mercia, and under the watching eyes of a horrified interstellar press corps, the Kingdom tore itself apart.
Brother Against Brother
Although what came to be considered the first shots of the war were fired mid way through 2181 with the attacks on government facilities, the war proper did not erupt until nearly 2182. The first two years of conflict were a study in contrasts; for six months, some of the bloodiest- or, at least, bloodiest well documented- fighting in recent history raged through the passages and parks of the New Mercian arcology complexes, spreading swiftly into the frozen wasteland outside as one side or another ousted their opponents from shelter. In large part, this period of the war was a disaster for New Mercia; in all cases, arcologies with a significant fraction of European soldiers resident were captured, and loyalist units withdrawing from defeat across the planet vanished into the snows without being seen again. In the end, all the arcologies north of the McMahon Mountains were siezed by the rebels, and two of the three spire complexes on the Fuller Plateau between the McMahon and Bevel ranges were taken by assault from outside, rather than internal rebellion.
Conversely, it was in this period that two of the most vital blows against Albionan chances of ultimate victory were struck. Firstly, in the single major field battle at that point not directly linked to an arcology, the remains of the loyalist II Corps under the command of General George Grossman held the Sterling pass through the Bevel range against four times their number of Albionans, preventing a rebel move on the New Anglia orbital elevator and maintaining New Mercia's vital orbital link to ZOCU reinforcements in the early two years of the war. Secondly, withdrawing loyalist troops either destroyed or took with them a significant proportion of any available GTO artillery weapons. The result was that Albion was consistently lacking a ground to orbit attack capability, and was thus unable to assist in facilitating a major EU breakthrough of New Mercian planetary defences later in the war.
Beyond the first six months, however, very little happened. The newly-declared Federal Republic of Albion was engaged fully in creating a workable government and military hierarchy, as well as dealing with reluctant New Mercians unwilling to work for a faction they perceived as rebels. New Mercia, meanwhile, was absorbed in reassembling units shattered by desertion and combat and waiting for ZOCU reinforcements to arrive on a large scale. Moreover, both sides had discovered that their equipment, intended mostly for use in resisting an EU or Magnate assault on climatically benign arcology complexes, was unsuitable for use in the conditions outside. ZOCU Combined Militia and national troops, often using equipment for which usability in extreme cold had not been a design issue at all, were even worse off.
Despite this, at the outbreak of the ZOCU war proper, ZOCU troops had pushed through the Sterling pass and looked set to bring the FRA to it's knees in a matter of months. EU occupation of the Mintaka system cut off the flow of easy reinforcement, and even had movement remained easy, ZOCU had larger concerns. Although the EU decided that forcing the New Mercian orbital works would have proven too costly relative to the potential return (it had, accurately, been concluded that New Mercian ability to participate in a wider interstellar war was nonexistant), EU troops were still able to make planetfall in large numbers. Although they could not force victory against the ZOCU forces, they effectively stalemated the war.
The defining image of the ZOCU War on New Mercia, that of Achilleus equipped infantrymen leaping off of a mountain ledge into a blizzard, originates from this stalemate period, as do the infamous examples of nuclear and biological weapons use against both sides and the Fuller Plateau arcologies that killed several million people and rendered the Fuller Spires uninhabitable, contaminated ruins. The Fuller Plateau was, eventually, secured in 2187 by the New Mercians, who advanced to the eastern McMahon range before running into the same meatgrinder that had been chewing up their comrades further east. The front lines were to remain static for the remainder of the war.
Partition and the Present Day
Although New Mercia was a member of ZOCU, and agreed to the peace outlined in the Treaty of Sirius, Albion was not formally part of a bloc at the conclusion of the ZOCU War. Although the FRA ws clearly in the EU sphere of influence, the lack of any formal treaty that explicitly covered the situation on New Mercia allowed the civil war to continue for several months after the conclusion of the ZOCU war proper, something that has caused many (including the New Mercian government) to claim the ZOCU war and New Mercian civil war were related but separate wars that occurred concurrently.
Both the EU and ZOCU recognised quickly that the situation could not be allowed to continue, but likewise, they were in an awkward position; both Albion and New Mercia by this point fielded two of the more powerful armies in the Sphere, and forcibly subduing them would have been an expensive task. Fortunately, both sides were swayed by pointed meetings with their allies, and a ceasefire was agreed upon.
The lack of a formal treaty has led to continuing problems. Both sides retain the territory they held at the conclusion of the ZOCU War, which meant that Albion did not and still does not possess any off planet territory, and the ideal orbits required to service Albionan arcologies are already occupied by New Mercian stations. Meanwhile, New Mercia refuses to recognise the legitimacy of the FRA, despite pressure from the EU and, quietly, from Londonium and other ZOCU worlds eager to remove a flashpoint for a potential future war. With neither side willing to compromise, it seems certain that hostilities will resume at some point in the future.