New Mercia
| Kingdom of New Mercia | |||||||||||||
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Sphere 2
Tentative history paths:
A1)
Early National (+ CIP)
A2)
Dominantly Baseline (+ Pop, + logistics)
A3)
Resource Rich World
A6)
Relic Dust (+ Dust)
B1)
Artifact Find! (+ Dust)
B4)
Ancient Resources (+ Dust)
C1)
Artifact Find! (+ Dust)
B4)
Ancient Resources (+ Dust)
D1)
Broken Down (+ PIP)
D3)
Revolution! (+ Military, + doctrines, + morale, - pop)
E1)
Solidarity! (+ dust, - ToS, - debt)
G1
Internal Collapse (+ Military, + SP, + logistics, + stockpiles, - morale)
G2)
Postwar Depression (+ Logistics, + Military, + CIP, ++ PIP, -- Wealth)
G3)
Fort Up (+ Military, + defensive stuff, + ground doctrines, + ground tech)
Reganomics Keynesian Economics (+ wealth, - debt)
Totals:
++++++ Dust
++++ Military
+++ Logistics
+++ PIP
++ CIP
+ SP
+ Doctrines
+ Ground Doctrines
+ Defensive Stuff
+ Ground Tech
+ Mecha Tech
+ Mega Particle Tech
+ Shield Tech
+ Propulsion Tech
+ Hangarize
+ Stockpiles
-- Debt
- Shipbuilding
- Wealth
General Information
The planet of New Mercia is a frigid world, somewhat larger than Earth, at the extreme outer edge of the liquid water zone of the star Mintaka. The surface temperatures are generally extremely low; fully 90 percent of the surface is glaciated, in higher latitudes with carbon dioxide glaciers at higher latitudes and methane ice present at the poles. Of the remaining 10 percent, more than nine is covered with water. What land there is that is not covered with ice is permanently frozen. An already unpleasant climate is made worse by extremely violent weather. New Mercia has only two seasons; 'summer', effectively the time of year where there are no storms, and 'winter', the period where storms that are commonly more violent than category five hurricanes batter the non-subterranean portions of the arcologies scattered about the surface.
Radar surveys under the ice reveals that the planet possesses a pair of supercontinents, one at each pole, with the northern continent being the largest. Only the southern tip of the roughly triangular northern continent is not located below several hundred meters of ice, and this area is divided by two mountain ranges.
Despite possessing climactic conditions as extreme as it is possible to have and still be considered 'habitable', the planet is host to a considerable industrial, technical and military base. Although considerably damaged in a recent civil war, and currently in the midst of a severe depression, the planet is a major source of delta dust, and other exports include manufactured goods of all types, in addition to raw materials.
Politically, the planet 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 effectively impossible, and the well developed aerospace and orbital defence infrastructure of either nation makes leapfrogging their natural boundaries difficult, at best.
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.
(More to come.)