For centuries Polish – Lithuanian Commonwealth was growing weaker. They were one of the first pseudo-democracies, with nobles choosing their king, but they always chose weakness not strength. Moreover, there was always price for their support, and so the successive rulers had to give up their power little by little.
But this changed when first as a young noble, then as a king Stanis?aw II August Poniatowski forced a revolution, transforming Polish – Lithuanian Commonwealth into Polish Republic with the first constitution in the world. This happened in 1765. Painfully aware of the vulnerable position the Republic was in, sandwiched between three empires or Russia, Prussia and Austria, he begun his work on strengthening the army, while also quietly working with nations subjugated by Austria. In 1772, the three nations invaded Poland, intending to split it between themselves. However, not only were the Poles stronger than anticipated, a Hungarian uprising threw spanner in the Coalition's work. The Austrian Army had to retreat to quell it, but it was followed closely by Poles. Within a year the Austrian Empire ceased to exist. Austria still had their independence, but many of their former territories become full and integral parts of the Polish Republic, renamed Polish Commonwealth.
The other fronts weren't faring nearly as well. Even so, both Russian and Prussian advance was stopped. After three years of bloody, inconclusive battles a peace treaty was signed. But it was not over yet.
Six years later, Russia and Prussia tried again, this time with the help of Sweden. The Poles were ready again. Fighting delaying action against western and northern invaders, they moved quickly into Ukraine and Belarus, bringing with them the Hungarians, Croatian, Czech and other nations liberated from Austrian rule – and their message, that if they join Polish Commonwealth they will be full partners, full citizens, not subjugated nations. And they listened.
After five years of another bloody war another treaty was signed. Most of the Russian territories east of Poland were ceded to the Commonwealth, including the territory of the Baltic states, Ukraine and Belarus, and more, with the new boarder being only twenty-five kilometres from such cities as St. Petersburg, Moscow or Volgograd, with even parts of the Caucasus now belonging to Poles. The Prussia and Sweden gained nothing from this war.
This time the Commonwealth was not going to just wait for another attack. Barely three years later they attacked Prussia and Austria in a surprising, quick and brutal attack. Within two years, those two nations were conquered. Unlike others, they were not partners. They were defeated nations, to be subjugated. They will become partners, in fullness of time, but not for decades.
This was known as Three Wars. And they were quite possible history making. The Poland was strong nation, once a middle - European power, that was declining. Now they were power once again, stronger than ever.
When few decades later Napoleon tried to make his way into the Commonwealth, he was stopped cold. There were few nations willing to support him in the Commonwealth territory, and under Poniatowski's rule Poland become heavily militaristic, believing only strong army can truly guarantee one's independence. The Napolean War was long, bloody ordeal, but in the end he was defeated. Even so, after their experiences in German states, the Commonwealth nations were unwilling to go through another large-scale occupation, and as such France retained their independence. All the same, the Poles decided to secure themselves by incorporating all the remaining German states and the Low Countries into their federation. During that time, and the following decades much of the Balkan states were also incorporated into the Commonwealth, willingly or not.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, The Commonwealth was encompassing most of central Europe, having boarders with France in the west, Italy and Greece in the south, Denmark and Scandinavian states at the North, and very diminished Russia in the east. Their relationships were somewhat cold with other European nations, who saw Poles as militaristic, expansionist nation. There was nothing they could do about that however. While not exactly expansionist, they were indeed militaristic, and they were also very innovative and industrious. They were a world power. While their fleet wasn't exactly big, their ground forces were well trained, equipped and supplied, and their industry was strong. But they weren't a hegemony.
The isolationist USA was growing strong, by the simple fact of them owning almost an entire continent, with all it's resources. It was hard to do wrong in such a case. Japanese Empire was making their way into China and Pacific. Russia worked their way, albeit slowly, into Asia.
But everything changed when the Great War started. The Japanese and Americans were in tense relations, as their spheres of influence begun colliding in the Pacific. The USA fleet was only slightly larger than Imperial one, and most of those ships were in Atlantic, keeping an eye on the Commonwealth.
On 22 may 1931 in a surprising move, Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor, San Diego and Panama Channel, destroying all major naval units and bases on the Pacific and denying USA ability to shift units from the Atlantic easily.
Mere three weeks later, in agreement with Japan, Russia doctored Commonwealth attack on their territory. While later historians agree, that the deception should be easy enough to see if only other nations cared to verify it, the existing preconceptions and tensions meant that Italy, France, Great Britain, Greece, Turkey and Sweden, all signatories of the anti-Polish alliance with the Russians, jumped the gun. The Commonwealth was attacked from all sides. Only three things saved them. First was how uncoordinated the attack was. Second, was heir high tensions with Russia, which lead to massive fortifications on the eastern Commonwealth border. Third was the surprising stability of the state. Despite incorporating dozens of nations, the huge autonomy given to them and the mostly democratic rule meant, that pretty much everyone was defending their homes, treating other nations as invaders – never liberators.
The conflict raged for years. With British and other European colonial powers recalling the troops to fight the Commonwealth, the India and south-eastern Asia begun a full fledged – and successful – rebellion, followed soon by Africa. Russia, discouraged by the Polish defence, begun moving swiftly into central Asia, going as far as Persian Gulf south, Suez channel west and Pakistan East. But by time India and other newly liberated nations, afraid for their independence and feeling threatened their former masters were heavily militarised. While they didn't have any modern weapons, they had millions of troops, and the Russia was stretched thin. So were the Japanese for that matter. That meant that neither Empire had strength to expand further.
By 1938 the Pacific war was still undecided. The American isolationism meant that their industry wasn't all it could be, and their Pacific gains provided more than enough resources for the Japanese war machine. In Europe, the Alliance was making slow progress into the Commonwealth however. Their victory, while still distant, seemed inevitable.
In desperation, Poland used their weapons of last resort: seven nuclear warheads. Three were dropped on the biggest Alliance troop concentrations inside Commonwealth. The other four struck Paris, London, Rome and St. Petersburg.
With the loss of several dozen divisions, the Alliance had no way for an easy victory and that meant the Commonwealth would have time to build more nuclear devices. A peace treaty was signed, with returned to pre-war boarders and no repatriations either way. The Commonwealth preserved their independence and their territorial integrity, but the stigma of using nuclear weapons will be with them, isolating them.
Fearing that Commonwealth may try to use their nuclear weapons for expansion, Japan and USA finally made peace – on Japanese term. Most of the Pacific become their territory, going as far south as Indonesia. Chine, Tibet, Mongolia, Korea – all become Japanese territories.
The following decades were surprisingly peaceful, but also somewhat brutal. The Russia and Japan were subjugating their territories by any means possible, finally opening eyes of the remaining European powers who they sided with, in comparison with Commonwealth which stayed peaceful. Africa, despite overthrowing it's colonial masters several decades earlier, was fraught with wars, famine and plagues. While there were many oceans of stability – ones that were increasing with time in size and number in fact – as a whole the continent was a mess. South America, while in a much better position, was fraught with revolutions that slowed it's progress significantly.
Starting Positions.
Polish Commonwealth.
As free and democratic as any other nation, they don't suffer any social problems. Quite the opposite, almost every nation was glad to be part of the Commonwealth, including the once-conquered Russians, which were bolstered by many immigrants preferring democratic Poland to their imperialist homeland. The only problem child was Prussia where many still did not accept the fact of being taken down – but even those were minority.
However, the stigma of using nuclear weapons and bad publicity, that didn't go away even though they never did things like using nerve gas on insurgents – maybe because there were none – like the Russia did, meant that there was little trade between Commonwealth and the rest of the world. That forced them to quickly improve their industrial techniques, digging deeper for metals, creating a viable recycling industry decades sooner than others and providing a level of automation unseen elsewhere. They were also the ones pushing space exploration hoping to solve their resource problems there.
All in all Commonwealth citizens were very resourceful, hard working and enterprising. Their need to overcome confines of their territory by means other than expansion, whether political or military one, made their industry much more efficient. As such, they get 30% bonus to production and 20% bonus to wealth.
Population: 550 million
Conventional Industry: 1000
Research Laboratories: 10
Shipyards: One naval (one 1kT slip), one commercial (one 10kT slip).
Nuclear Missile Bases: 8
Asian Federation
Born from the need of the newly liberated Asian states to defend themselves from the two empires, all still independent Asian nations are part of the Federation. Located south of Japan occupied China and Tibet and east of Russia occupied Pakistan and north-western India, the Federation is very militaristic, even more so, since the need to create a vast army and industry to support it made those nation's economies grow incredibly fast. It was not a painless process however. Using the most extreme form of capitalism, many who could not find work perished due to diseases and hunger, with no support – or even attempt at support – from their nation's governments. Worse yet, very few of those nations were democracies, increasing somewhat public opposition. While in the old days the threat of the Empires was enough to keep people in check, this is no longer the case, and the Federation's states begun slow and painful process of transformation to democracy.
While capitalistic in nature, their late start means they are still somewhat behind the other flourishing democracies. As such they get ten percent penalty to both industrial and wealth production.
Population: 1350
Conventional Industry: 1800
Research Laboratories: 4
Shipyards: One naval (one 1kT slip)
Nuclear Missile Bases: 4
Russian Empire
Owning about half of the Asian continent, Russia suffers lack of neither manpower nor resources. Even so, while they made great efforts in industrialising their gains, there was only so much they could do in the time between the conquest and today. In addition resistance and even terrorism are still present on their territory, and their factories rely more on cheap workforce than technological efficiency. As such they get 10% penalty to their industrial effectiveness and 25% penalty to wealth generation.
Population: 900 million on Earth
Conventional Industry: 1400
Research labs: 5
Shipyards: One naval (one 1kT slip)
Nuclear Missile Bases: 10
Atlantic Alliance
The Alliance was formed in response to the emergence of huge powers, like Russian and Japanese Empires or the Commonwealth. At first it was the old Anti-Polish alliance minus Russia, which later expanded to include USA and Canada, giving the Alliance it's name. In time it also included Australia and New Zealand.
Alliance suffers no penalties nor they gain any bonuses.
Population: 1150 million.
Conventional Industry: 1800
Research Labs: 6
Shipyards: One commercial (one 10kT slip)
Nuclear Missile Bases: 8
Empire of Japan
The Empire controls the second half of Asia, and is the single most populous nation on Earth. Parts of it are heavily industrialised, especially Japan and some parts of China that have become de facto Japanese colonies. Other parts, while still somewhat industrialised, are mainly agricultural and mining in nature. Those are located in the conquered territories.
Since the war the Empire wasn't particularly confrontational. Japanese are very deliberate; they expanded because they needed resources and due to their independent nature they were unwilling to depend on others for it. Now that they had all the resources they needed, they had no need for expansion.
The Japanese have strong work ethic, giving them 30% bonus to industry. However, there are clear divisions within their population. The Japanese themselves are the wealthiest ethic group on Earth, but the subjugated nations are easily second-class citizens, with correspondingly less wealth. As such their average wealth gets 30% penalty.
Population: 1900 million
Construction factories: 1400
Research Labs: 4
Shipyards: One naval (one 1kT slip)
Nuclear Missile Bases: 6
Confederation of Non-Aligned States
The early twenty-first century Earth political scene could be divided into two parts: the five great nations (although the Alliance and the Federation were only pseudo-nations) and small, independent and mostly forgotten states, most of those in Africa and South America. Those nations varied from pretty well developed ones like Argentine, Brazil, South Africa or Cube to destitute Somalia or Sudan.
However, even if practical standard of living was low, there was a lot of wealth there. The two Empires, spanning almost whole of Asia and Pacific had all the resources they needed, and they weren't interested in sharing. Because of this both the Federation and the Alliance invested heavily in the Africa creating oases of stability. Not only that, but the threat from Russia, just beyond the Suez Channel have prompted a host of nations to create an uneasy alliance, one that managed to convince their citizens of the need of internal peace. While those nations weren't democracies, they were stable.
With the advent of TN technology it seemed like all those small nations will have no choice but to join one of the five great powers. However, unlikely as it may have seemed, they banded together. The Confederation was in fact more like a corporation than a government. An organisation tasked with exploring and exploiting the Solar System in the name of the member states, but unable to set any kind of policy back on Earth. Whether or not the Confederation can be successful, or even stable, remains to be seen.
Since the Confederation includes some very poor and poorly developed regions they suffer 20% penalty to productivity and 35% penalty to wealth generation. They also have no nuclear weapons.
Population: 1600
Conventional Industry: 1000
Research Labs: 3
Shipyards: None
Nuclear Missile Bases: None
