Author Topic: A History of the UEA: Preface  (Read 3197 times)

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A History of the UEA: Preface
« on: March 19, 2015, 08:36:15 PM »
Preface:  2015 to 2115

By 2015 there are three major conflict zones active in the world:  Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and western Asia.  Each of these areas have been marred by continuing regional conflicts that only threaten to get worse as time goes on.  

In 2018 the situation is critical.  Each of these three regions are primed to explode with the slightest push.  That push comes in February, when small nuclear devices are detonated inside Israel and Japan, with a death toll calculated at over 10 million individuals.  Additional devices are detonated days later inside Ukraine.

The result of these actions is catastrophic.  Israel and Iran unleash their limited nuclear arsenals, rendering portions of the Middle East uninhabitable and wiping out both capitals at the same time.  Russia declares formal war against Ukraine and NATO, and soon a ground war is being fought.  Things stalemate after a month, but soon pick up speed again when another small nuclear device is detonated in Kiev.  

Asia is not much better off.  North Korea begins an offensive against their southern neighbor, aided by China’s military.  The Japanese move to defend South Korea with their own limited armed forces and America is forced to take action at the DMZ as well.  Despite all of this, allied forces are soon being pushed down the Korean peninsula and Seoul is surrounded and besieged.

On July 4, 2018, terrorist devices are detonated in a dozen cities across the American Midwest.  Indianapolis, Chicago, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, and Cincinnati are all irradiated and the death toll is in the millions.  A few days later, similar devices are set off in St. Petersburg and Moscow.  

With the Americans scrambling to recover their balance, the North Koreans utilize their own nuclear arsenal and deliver strikes to Seoul in an effort to force the capitulation of the city.  The United States military reacts to this by launching their own limited nuclear offensive against the Chinese, deploying stealth bombers and gravity bombs on known Chinese missile fields to discourage retaliation in kind.  

In two years the African continent is aflame as civil wars and uprisings break out.  Many governments fall rapidly as they have no support from the US, China, or Russia.  The EU has taken isolationist precautions and refuses to provide outside support.  It is during these uprisings that the truth comes out - that a terrorist organization had masterminded the nuclear IEDs through “procuring” some dozen surplus Soviet nuclear warheads and repurposing them.

With so many national militaries largely neutralized (either due to destruction or self-imposed isolation), it falls to the Indian government, in conjunction with the Australians and several South American governments, to restore order to Africa and try to begin restoring order to the world.  It takes over 10 years of campaigning before the final elements of the terrorist organization are finally extinguished.

By 2040 fallout, famine, fighting, and disease have claimed over a billion people on the planet.  For the first time in human history the global birth rate is in the negative.  

A Global Congress is called in Australia in 2048.  The aims of this Congress are to begin to restore balance and order to the world and to clean up a planet that has been nearly torn asunder by all the ravages of modern warfare.  

It takes 15 years to hammer out all the details which will be needed to form the first global government - a government long dreamed of since the days of Rome or Egypt.  There are moments of bloodshed and stubbornness as old borders and ways of life must be changed or removed to make way for new.  Regional identities must be remade, and regional disputes and arguments put aside.  It is a slow process but a necessary one.

The new government’s form and function are decidedly simple:

-   The size of the Congress is proportional to the size of the planetary population at an effective ratio of one representative for every 25 million in population.
-   Representatives are chosen every five years completely at random from the populations they represent.  The only time this does not happen is if 80% of the population votes to keep their representative.
-   A “Planetary Administrator” will be chosen from among the delegates to the first Congress.  They will have a life term unless 80% of the Congress votes to remove them from that office at the start of the new Congress. At that point, a random selection will be made from the most recent Congress.
-   It will be the Planetary Administrator’s job to oversee items of global importance.  The Global Congress will work with them to execute those items.  The name for the overall government will be the “United Earth Alliance”.

Several more years pass before the UEA is formally ratified into being, by a vote of the planet’s population.  

In 2075 the first Global Congress is chosen, and Jessica Erskine is picked as the first Planetary Administrator.  Erskine, one of the founding delegates from Australia, is the figurative George Washington of this new body.  She faces a daunting challenge:  Clean up contaminated parts of the planet, provide aid and assistance to survivors and refugees, restore regional governments in those areas, and reverse the declining birth rate of the planet.

During her tenure, which runs for nearly 25 years, she makes substantial progress in almost all of these challenges.  When she passes away, at the age of 83 in 2197, the birth rate has stabilized and portions of the US and Middle East are becoming habitable once more.  The population of the planet stands at 4 billion people.  

Lucas Christensen, a 37-year-old delegate from Denmark in the last Congress is selected at random to become the next Planetary Administrator.  He continues the work of his predecessor leading into the new millennium.  

Pedro Fernandes, a scientist in Brazil, makes a breakthrough in late 2106 when he discovers “Trans-Newtonian” materials.  The presence of these materials is revolutionary.  In the same way that radioactivity helped usher in the 20th Century, Trans-Newtonian materials help usher in the 22nd Century.  

Breakthroughs are made quickly in all scientific fields of research.  One of the fields that is most impacted is the field of space travel and exploration, a field that had been neglected since the early 21st Century.  Suddenly the idea of exploring and settling new planets and solar systems is an idea that galvanizes Earth.

Christensen, in failing health, takes advantage of the groundswell of interest.  He orders construction of Earth’s first orbital shipyard and begins to invest resources into making space travel and colonization affordable.  

The year is now 2115.  Christensen has not lived to see the launch of the Ulatowski Shipbuilding complex.  This complex is the first commercial yard ever created and sits alongside the Hara Shipbuilding complex, which is dedicated to military use.  Both yards have only one slip each for use.  

Stanton Kingham, from the United States, is selected as the next Planetary Administrator.  He is quite conscientious and professional, and has researched a great many fields before being selected to take over for Christensen.  He will be the person who leads humanity into the stars and what awaits them there.