XIII) Unity
(2090-2227)
The Atomic Ice Age
Following the nuclear exchange during the year 2090, enough radioactive debris was thrown into the atmosphere to block out sunlight for years. In fact, the last decade of the 21st Century had only three summers; one in 2094, another in 2098 and the last in 2100. At the time of the disaster of 2090, much of Greenland’s ice cap had melted, reducing it in size by more than half. This amount of freshwater suddenly released into the North Atlantic was even before the nuclear exchange, starting to erode the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream broke down entirely during the following nuclear winter, and Europe was plunged into the freezer. Temperatures in Northern Europe soon dropped by several degrees, matching the same temperatures at the same latitudes in Canada.
At the start of the 22nd Century, Siberia began to slowly grow, creeping over the Ural Mountains and into Europe itself. The first decade of the new century was a hard time for Europeans. Many of those who had tamed the Russian Steppes during the 19th Century had their descendants fleeing the advancing tundra and taiga. The agricultural productivity of southern Sweden and Poland-Lithuania was all but destroyed at the dawn of the Atomic Ice Age. In North America, after three centuries of exploitation, the great aquifer that once supported the Midwest was nearing depletion. With shifting climatic patterns, the once Bread Basket of the World slowly reverted to frozen steppe. Much of the world’s food production was diminished by nuclear winter and radioactive fallout. During the last decade of the 21st Century and first of the 22nd, well over one billion humans died from starvation-related causes. With coldness wrapping itself around the Northern Hemisphere, old cities such as Novgorod, Moscow and the industrial cities of the Urals, turned into virtual ghost towns as the survivors are forced to migrate south, or towards the Baltic coast, where at least fish could still be had.
Of all the World Powers, Sweden was hit hardest by the Atomic Ice Age. By the second decade of the 22nd Century, the Baltic Sea was choked with ice for nine months out of the year. Only in the brief summer could shipping flow without risk of collision with icebergs. For the first time in three centuries, the worlds glaciers, those that remained, began to grow. As the glaciers, and the ice caps, grew, moisture was sapped from the atmosphere. Rain forests began to shrivel and die. By the 23rd Century, the once mighty Amazon Rain Forest was nothing but savanna and open woodlands, with almost all of its species extinct. That which did precipitate, did so as snow. Snow fall began to clog the mountain passes of the world, and with lower average temperatures, it never completely melted during the short summers. A total drop in the planetary average by ten degrees soon cause glaciers to crown the Rockies, Andes, Alps, Urals and every other major mountain range on Earth.
By the 25th Century, the population reached a stable point of approximately two billion. It proved impossible to expand the population, for all the arable land on Earth was now located in the tropics. With much effort, the Empire of Brazil turned the new Amazonian Plains into a breadbasket. Most of the population lived where the food was grown, but not all. The capitals of Europe were still alive, albeit frigid, with activity. Berlin, Rome, Constantinople, London and even Stockholm were rebuilt from the ashes. Due to the subarctic conditions these cities found themselves in, they would never again play a dominating role in world affairs. The United States still maintained its vast territory, including control over Canada. Since the Canadian lands were largely depopulated and uninhabited, controlling them was a moot issue.
By the end of the 25th Century, the ice caps and glaciers have grown enough to cause the sea level to drop three meters lower than it had been five hundred years earlier. Many ruined coastal cities, such as Amsterdam and New Orleans, along with the tops of some submarine cities, were exposed to the atmosphere for the first time in centuries. The ruins were curiosities to some archaeologists, mostly from the moon or stations in the Earth-Luna system, but only a few came from Earthbound locations. The nations of Earth were still rebuilding civilization, which even at this point in the Atomic Ice Age, teetered on the brink of oblivion.
Stability did not return to Earth’s climate until the 31st Century. The arctic was completely abandoned, and glaciers flowed down from the mountains. The sea level dropped to negative four meter during the 27th Century, but rose and stabilized at negative three meters in respect to a thousand years previously. Emigration from Earth to Luna, Mars, Mercury and various stations scattered around the Sol System caused the population of Earth in the Common Era year 3001, to drop below one billion for the first time in over a millennium. The planetary population stabilized at one billion during the 31st Century.
Final Fate of the United Provinces
Following the brief nuclear exchange in 2090, the United Provinces faced a proportionally higher destruction than most nations. The primary reason has to do with high population densities. The Provinces have never been geographically large, and only a few warheads could effectively destroy it. On that day, over twenty hit the United Provinces. Of the pre-exchange population, less than ten percent survived the attack. Of the total land area of the contiguous seventeen Provinces, half of the area was now underwater. Nuclear explosions vaporized both Netherlanders and centuries old dikes, which were already under pressure by rising sea levels. Destruction of the United Provinces was total.
Iceland and Norway escaped severe damage, but the destruction of global trade brought shortages to those Provinces, including famine. Legally, these two joined with Brazil. However, as the Atomic Ice Age took its course, freezing temperatures depopulated the area as Norwayers and Icelanders left their ancestral lands for the mild climate of Brazil itself. The surviving Netherlanders of the seventeen Provinces also made their way to safer lands, leaving the once mighty Kingdom of the United Provinces a broken and discarded husk. The Provinces that were not drowned, including Limbourg and Luxembourg were absorbed into and repopulated by the German Empire. Vestiges of the once might Dutch Empire, that ruled world trade and commerce for centuries, vanished from the face of the Earth.
Emperor Michael
Beyond the material damage resulting from the disaster that was 2090, a moral blow was dealt the Dutch People. During the brief but lethal nuclear exchange, the Queen, all her children and grandchildren, along with her brothers and sisters, were in the United Provinces at the time, and thus killed. For two years, while the world tried to right itself, it appeared as if the House of Oranje was extinct. In 2092, a royal cousin, some two generations removed, was located in Recife, Brazil. Michael Willem Oranje van Natal was born in the year 2063, from a mother who was the second daughter of King Willem VIII, and in the year 2090, happen to be the closest surviving relative to Queen Katerina.
Michael attended the Naval Academy in Recife, and served in the Commonwealth Navy from 2085 until 2092. He and his ship were in Recife during the exchange, a city that was spared destruction through anti-ballistic missiles. Even without the missile defense, being stationed on the submarine DCS Narwhal would have protected him from the blast. However, EMP from nearby atomic detonations destroyed much of the electronics in Recife, and while the Narwhal was not patrolling the coast, it was in port giving its shielded computing power over for civilian use. It was not until 2092, that Michael was located by surviving officials. Upon being informed that he was now heir to the thrones of the Dutch Commonwealth, he resigned from the Navy to take on his royal duty.
On June 4, 2092, the Brazilian Staaten-General elected him as Emperor Michael. The Emperor had the distinction of being the first Dutch monarch to not be King of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, as that state effectively ceased to exist when nuclear reactions met the rising North Sea. With global communication now a thing of the past, Emperor Michael had no means of contacting the other realms, short of sailing there. Instead, he focused his effort on organizing and overseeing reconstruction in the Brazilian Empire. It was only in 2098, a few years after lanes of communication were reestablished with southern Africa via new fiber optic cables, did Michael sail to Angola and Mozambique to be crowned King of both states by their respective Staaten-Generals. He continued around Cape Horn to Abyssinia, where the Abyssinian Staaten-General actually rejected him, instead electing an illegitimate royal cousin named Pieter.
For the next six years, reconstruction continued in Brazil. With cities leveled and tens of millions dead of the war and later of famine that raged across the world, there was little time to worry about establishing his claim to Dutch crowns. Angola and Mozambique were largely spared the terror of 2090, mainly due to their lack of strategically important targets. The Boer Republics were not so luck, with tens of million more dead there. Trade between southern Africa and Brazil did little to boost the economy as there was no longer any disposable income.
In 2104, Michael traveled to New Zeeland to claim its crown, increasing his crowns to four. New Zeeland was damaged during 2090, with its capital and largest port wiped off the map. However, with a low population to begin with, famine was not the same problem as it was across the rest of the planet. However, New Zeeland kept a very isolationist policy for those years after the exchange, going so far as to sink boats full of refugees rather than let them land on New Zeelander shores and take food from New Zeelander citizens. Contact was also reestablished with Ceylon, via radio waves bounced off the ionosphere. While Michael never ventured there in person, he was elected King of Ceylon and did appoint Governor-Generals via the radio waves.
The House of Oranje-Afar
The origins of the House of Oranje-Afar starts with a distant royal cousin, two generations removed from Queen Katerina, and his Abyssinian mistress, who hailed from the Afar region. This royal cousin lived in Afar, serving in his capacity as a Commonwealth bureaucrat. Between him and his mistress was born an illegitimate son named Peter. Upon the nuclear exchange of 2090, the bulk of the House of Oranje were killed. Only distant cousins remained scattered around the world. Though his father was killed when Addis Ababa was destroyed, Peter was alive and well in Afar. With no contact with the United Provinces (and no way of knowing it was destroyed) the Abyssinian Staaten-General had a succession crisis. Who would be king if the House of Oranje was extinct? It was not for several years did Emperor Michael of Brazil appear over the horizon.
Though Peter had no ambitions for the throne, his actions following 2090 made him a natural choice. With famine looming due to the devastation of Abyssinia’s infrastructure, it was Peter who organized relief missions with the surviving, functional vehicles. On one such mission, Peter was wounded while saving three relief workers during an ambush by highwaymen. Aside from relief work, Peter also organized construction of housing for the millions left homeless by the exchange. Unlike other managers, Peter took up a hammer and nails and worked along side his fellow Abyssinians. His royal lineage was not discovered until 2094, when members of the Staaten-General of Abyssinia approached him at his relief headquarters in Djibouti. They offered him the throne saying that the Kingdom must have a King. Peter refused at first, preferring to work. However, between 2094 and 2096 his pedigree (albeit illegitimate) became widely know among the people, and those workers he struggled along side.
Peter’s popularity among the survivors and their demand that he take the throne. Again he refused, not overly desiring the title of King. Some of the construction workers in the ruins of Addis Ababa went on strike when he arrived, protesting his refusal to take the crown. If Peter will not undertake his rightful task, then the workers would not undertake their own. malnourished and homeless survivors even took to the street, declaring that they would not accept any King but Peter. Abyssinia was in tatters and the people required hope, and a hero to look up to. At least that was the reasoning Peter gave himself when he finally relented to the demands of his people, though a minority were Republicans, arguing in favor of abolishing the monarchy.
He was to become a king popularly elected by the people, as well as the first black monarch of Abyssinia since the Ethiopian Empire. In a way, he is not unlike Maurice van Oranje, the first King of the United Provinces. He was the only choice that the Staaten-General would accept. He was crowned in 2098, only shortly before the arrival of Emperor Michael. Thus, with the crowning of King Peter I, the House of Oranje-Afar was officially born. Unlike the core royal house, this new branch was located in a precarious spot. To the north and northeast, lay an Arab World undergoing a wave of religious fundamentalism. The exchange brought out many rebirth movements in the world’s religions, most of them emphasizing God’s Final Judgement.
The Arabs banded together under the formerly repressed Wahabi sect of the Arabian Peninsula. A New Caliphate was born in the early 22nd Century swore to reunited the world of Islam under one banner, stretching from Spain to China. In the case of the Kingdom of Abyssinia, the Somali Coast was long ago colonized by Arabs, centuries before the Portugese moved in and the Dutch supplanted them. Since Abyssinia has always been one of the least industrialized of the Commonwealth states, it did not receive as much damage during the exchange. The dams on the Blue Nile still existed. King Peter made it clear to the Arab, that if any hostile move was made against his kingdom, he would divert the Blue Nile, causing the floods in Egypt to not happen, and destroy the Arab’s breadbasket.
Hainan and Formosa
The fate of Hainan and Formosa are drastically different from the other Commonwealth members, save the United Provinces themselves, which geographically ceased to exist. Even by 2090, Hainan had little industrialization and was largely spared from the exchange, though a naval air station was on the receiving end of a fifty kiloton explosion. Formosa was hit far worse, with New Antwerp and Taipei both being wiped off the map, and millions killed. Formosa was broken, with its government all but destroyed. The last Governor-General, Albert Dong Fou, survived the attack on Taipei, only to succumb to radiation poising in the following weeks. Across the sea, the People’s Republic of China bore the brunt of Sweden’s nuclear arsenal, yet was far from broken. All of its major cities had their cores burned out, but so much of China has sprawled out during the 21st Century, that it was still a functioning entity after the exchange.
The islands were taken from the Chinese centuries before, and a new generation of the People’s Dynasty was bent on reclaiming all of China’s lost lands. The first to fall was Hainan, rested from the Chinese by the VOC under less-than-favorable terms. The island put up minimal resistance. In fact, not organized resistance even existed. China’s plan to bring all the Han under one rule fell on deaf ears. The people of Hainan, whether descended from Dutch colonists or Chinese workers have long considered themselves Dutch, and citizens of the Commonwealth. The “ethnic” Chinese of Hainan spoke Dutch, ate Dutch food and loved the Dutch Dream: not to depose the capitalist, but to become one. The ideas of communism were even more alien than the traditional culture of the Mainland. The Hainaners met attempts to nationalize lands and business with protests. In turn, these protests were met with the machine gun fire of Marshall Law.
Formosa put up a more active resistance. When the Chinese crossed the straight in 2092, a few function ships of the Commonwealth Navy, and aircraft of its Air Force, met the Chinese invasion. Like Hainan, the crossing was done with barges, ferries and anything that can float. The defenders of Formosa ignored the Chinese warships and chew through the invasion flotilla. An estimated twenty thousand Chinese soldiers drowned during the invasion. However, the defending ships, including a battered Queen of Ceylon class cruiser, were destroyed, and the last fighters overwhelmed by the lower quality, but far more numerous People’s Air Force. The island was conquered after two months worth of fighting. Far harsher conditions were enforced on Formosa after the events on Hainan. Surviving members of the Kingdom’s government were hunted down by Chinese officials and summarily executed.
Conditions further deteriorated as Formosans took to the hills in a guerilla campaign against the invader. In decades past, this was to be the plan of the Army on Formosa until reinforcements could be summoned. However, with the world in ruins, none would ever come. The last heroic chapter of the Dutch Kingdom of Formosa came from the exploits of Alexander Buren, who waged a three year personal war against the Chinese. Between 2094 and 2097, he and his band of guerillas are said to be responsible for the deaths of over a thousand People’s Liberation Army personnel. His resistance took place along the eastern coast of Formosa, centered around the Xiguluan River. Roads that crossed the river were constantly mined, and the PLA was reluctant to approach the bridges.
In 2095, one such bridge was blown after half a Chinese company had crossed. Buren’s raiders massacred both halves of the unit. In response to this, the town of Fuyuan had its population deported to reconstruction camps on the mainland. It was not until 2097, when Buren’s reign of terror was brought to an end. While leading a patrol into the Central Range of Formosa, he and his thirty-two followers were ambushed by the Chinese. They were killed in cave-to-cave fighting when Buren took his unit into the cover of limestone caves. It is not known if he was killed by the collapsing caves or by the thermobaric weapons dropped on the cave entrances. The resistance continued for more than a decade on the island before the Chinese finally stamped it out. In retaliation for guerilla attacks, the Chinese instituted hostage taking and random executions in areas of active resistance. Accurate casualties during the decade of 2091-2100 for civilians is hard to come by, but it is estimated some half a million Formosans were killed during the invasion and following pacification.
India
Even before the exchange, India was hit with hard times. Between missed monsoons and vanished Himalayan glaciers, India was suffering both drought and famine which it had no experienced in more than two hundred years. Ironically, the exchange lessened the famine at first. With cities like Mumbai and Delhi wiped from the map and tens of millions killed, there were that many less mouths to feed. However, with the infrastructure devastated and radioactive fallout raining down upon India, a further one hundred million died from starvation, starvation-related disease and radiation poisoning in the decade to follow. During the starving times, many of the Princes of the Princely States found themselves deposed. Some were violently overthrown by the throngs of starving Indians demanding the Princes release the foodstuffs they had hoarded.
With the government gone and chaos reigning, India entered a period of Civil War. There were no clearly defined sides, but rather masses of people wanting the meager scraps their neighbors possessed. With the oncoming of the Atomic Ice Age, the situation in India actually began to improve. Dropping temperatures across the globe caused the first growth of glaciers in over a century, as well as the regular return of the monsoon. The first few floods was late spring thaws in the mountains were tainted with fallout. After these toxins were washed out to sea, the climate in India began to return to what it had been in the 19th Century. During the chaos, many of the great land owners were dead and their estates and farms divided up among the surviving Indians. Unlike most of the Commonwealth states, India has always been a reluctant and coerced member. Much of the resentment towards the Europeans surfaced during the Starving Times, and many were killed by the mobs.
Though there was hatred towards the Dutch, the Indians still spoke Dutch as a common language. The language was used in 2110, when Constantine Majaraha called a Constitutional Convention in a still ruined New Delhi. Many Indian elite and intellectuals, those who survived, called for a new constitution in order to tear up the hated constitution of 1910 that was written in the Hague and forced upon India. The new constitution declared India a republic, and abolished all hereditary titles. Delegate declared that the Dutch Commonwealth of Nations was dead and that it was time for India to return to its former place in the sun. India’s government would consist of a President and a Congress, both elected by popular vote. The franchise was granted to all Indians over the age of 18.
When contact was established once again with the Dutch Commonwealth, only the fact that neither side had much of a functioning military left prevented war from erupting. Upon hearing the news of a fully independent India, only 32% of the Indian officers in the surviving Commonwealth Armed Forces resigned and returned home. The rest stayed, and nearly half of those were in favor of overthrowing the new Indian Government, but again, the forces to pull of such a coup no longer existed. The Commonwealth had little choice but to abandon India and focus on rebuilding its shattered members.
Australia
The more distant parts of the Commonwealth weathered the Exchange differently. New Zeeland was largely left alone, except for the destruction of a naval base on the North Island. The same was true for New Holland. The Kingdom had little in the way of military targets, aside from outposts along the Australian border and the international airport at Apeldoorn. New Holland’s relatively low population also spared it the famine conditions of India and Abyssinia. The biggest blow to New Holland was the virtual destruction of trade following 2090. Imports dropped to nothing. Luxuries such as sugar and coffee were all but gone, as were the tropical fruits brought in from Java and Indonesia. New Holland’s economy also depended greatly on exporting raw materials and resources. With nobody to buy their ores, wool and Manufactured goods, the economy stagnated.
By 2100, the unemployment rate skyrocketed to 25%. Not as bad as most countries, but those countries were in ruins and had no economies left. Further problems occurred with China’s seizure of Hainan and Formosa. New Hollanders were a long ways away from the weakened, and divided Commonwealth. The Staaten-General in Apeldoorn could not decide upon accepting Michael or Peter as their King. The former was closer in blood to the previous queen, but the latter was closer in geographical terms. Neither were in any position to help New Holland. Furthermore, there were no royal cousins residing in New Holland. The Kingdom had always been an effective backwater of the Commonwealth.
New Holland did have one who could help them, one right next door. Australia, a member of Britain’s smaller Commonwealth of Nations, was in the same boat. They had no monarch and were cut-off from the rest of their personal union. Australia was much larger in territory and population, but like New Holland it was mostly ignored by the World Powers as they slugged it out with atomic weapons. By 2110, New Holland and Australia were exclusive trading partners. They had the resources to help rebuild the world, but lacked the ability to transport the goods. With world navies weakened and the populous in desperate straights, piracy grew exponentially since 2090. Even shipping to New Zeeland was hazardous, and to ship north through the Indonesian Archipelago was all but impossible. The only ships that dared those waters were the heavily armed freighters of the VOC, and the VOC charged exorbitant rates in order to fund its own rebuilding.
The isolation of the island-continent caused its two nations to grow closer, with trade barriers collapsing in 2118, and passports being abolished by 2124. A formal military alliance was signed between the two in 2125, violating Commonwealth law and charter, which calls that the Commonwealth have a single foreign policy. New Holland politicians, such as Gunther Dirk, declared that the Dutch Commonwealth of Nations was dead and New Holland would still have to do what was in its best interest. After decades, the throne of New Holland still remained empty, as was the throne of Australia. In 2128, talk of full unification of the continent began.
Delegates from both nations met in Melbourne on August 14, 2130, to negotiate unification. A Constitution was drafted that would have the new state take the name of Australia and that it would be a republic. Neither side could agree upon who could take the throne, thus it was abolished. The Constitution also called for a unicameral National Assembly, to have English and Dutch as the official languages and for a President to be elected by popular vote once every five years. The delegates returned to their respective countries where referendums were held. Australians passed the new Constitution by 84%. Three months later, New Hollanders passed it with only 61%. On January 14, 2131, the two states merged and the Republic of Australia was born.
Reconstruction
While the 21st Century is remembered for its monumental wars, the 22nd Century is best remembered by its monumental reconstruction. Hundreds of cities across the planet were left in ruins and the industrial capacity was virtually razed. The entire century was dedicated to regaining humanity’s former glory, and it fell short. Well over a century was required for humanity to rebuild what was destroyed in a single day back in 2090. Even at the dawn of the 23rd Century, the global standards of living were well down at the level of the year 1900. Electricity was sporadic in some parts, and in others so limited that it was used only for essential purposes. Electricity was not the only formerly common commodity rationed. Water was as well. Gone from the suburban sprawls were the once lush lawns. Water was to be used for drinking, sanitation and agriculture only. Much of the fresh water was slowly being gathered up into the growing mountain and polar glaciers.
A mass migration of the likes that had not been seen since the 19th Century hit Europe and Canada. Tens of millions of survivors fled southward, depopulating entire areas. The Canadian Arctic was all but abandoned, while the rest of the country was taken under the protection of a greatly weakened and divided United States. As stated before, both Iceland and Norway quickly became uninhabited tundra by 2150. The Swedes were forced to leave their ancestral Scandinavian lands, relocating their capital to Kiev. Once again, Kiev is under the control of the Rus. Kamchatka faced a mass die-off, and fell under the direct control of China, though it was lethally cold and the Chinese could do little with this land of ice.
Rebuilt industries by the middle of the century focused on the necessities of life and society. No longer are countless luxuries or recreationals were produced. In the 21st Century, the Dutch had access to televisions, telephones, computers, cars, and various other items that would have once been declared luxuries or novelties. No more. The exchange generated a massive storm of electromagnetic pulses that destroyed the planet’s electronics. Not only are these items not required for survival, in many cases it was no longer possible to build them. At least not on Earth. Several nations faced full command economies, while all face the loss of economic freedoms. Personal freedoms were restricted as martial law continued world-wide for the whole century.
With so much of Earth’s easily accessed resources depleted, new sources were sought higher up and further out. By 2150, most of the iron demand of Earth was satisfied by near-Earth asteroids. Hundreds of Heavy Lifters survived the exchange, while hundreds more were built in the nano-factories on the moon. The Lunar models were infinitely cheaper, with the bulk of development cost going into programming the nanites to build the first machine. Once perfected, the microscopic robots can build dozens of heavy lifters a week. The Earth-built models were chosen by the nations of Earth, not so much the innate fear of nanotechnology as it was for keeping humans on Earth employed and attempting to reboot the economy. By 2200, all of Earth’s metallic demands were met by mining asteroids with Earth’s vicinity.
In order to restore the economy of the Commonwealth, the Dutch were forced to purchase some Lunar products, namely electronics. Luna was untouched by the exchange and continued to grow and advance without interruption. Most Lunar products were not purchased, for they competed with Dutch companies and projects. However, electronics were in high demand. Lunar companies made fortunes off producing basic computers. The demand was so high that electronics accounted for 40% of the Lunar economy by the year 2200. The demand also generated another demand, this one on the moon. A demand for capable and skill workers. In spite of the devastation on Earth, a steady but select stream of immigrants were allowed into the Lunar nations, with the main requirements being that immigrants are skilled, healthy and young.
Andean War
Despite the amount of devastation left in the wake of the exchange, modern warfare still raged across the globe. The largest such conflict the fragmenting Dutch Commonwealth experienced is known as the Andean War, lasting between 2118 to 2121. The cause of the war dates back decades before the exchange, when both Peru and Bolivia had territorial claims in western Brazil. Seeing how the Commonwealth was a shadow of its former self, the two states formed an alliance with the expressed intent of conquering what remained of the Amazon Rain Forest. With a combination of global warming during the 21st Century and glaciation during the 22nd, the Amazon was fast drying into a large, tropical savanna. Most of the species were already extinct when the first Peruvian units came down from the mountains.
The invaders scored initial gains through 2119, as Recife attempted to learn just what was happening. The only working avenues into the Amazon post-exchange were that of the river itself. Patrol boats steamed up the river, only to be sunk by mines or a few function aircraft of the Peruvian Air Force. Without access to the satellite network surrounding the planet in geostationary orbit, communication was slow. Lower orbiting satellites had long since fallen from their position, and were of even less use. The standard means of relaying messages during the Andean War was the same as the Commonwealth had used in the year 1900; messengers. Runners would move from the front to the nearest land line, almost rendered as extinct as an Amazonian parrot because of the same wireless network that could no longer be accessed.
The Peruvian and Bolivian advances came to a halt once they entered into the jungle. The Commonwealth Army, under the command of one Colonel Maurice Willem van Oranje, Grand Prince of Norway and heir to the Brazilian throne, fought both invading armies to a standstill through attrition, and by 2120, all but destroyed the Peruvian Army. The Emperor decided that destroying their army was not enough. The mountains of Peru still had deposits of ores and other minerals required by the Commonwealth to rebuild. Thus the decision changed from simply expelling the Peruvians to conquering them. The invasion of Peru was slow and tedious, with both sides having to stop once winter hit the mountains. Treacherous passes and poor infrastructure made this an infantry war, with very few armored vehicles fighting in out in the Andes.
Bolivia sued for peace early on, abandoning their allies. For their quick cession of hostilities, Brazil only took the northern portions of the Bolivian Empire. Peru held out longer, Lima hoping for one great miracle to turn the tide of the war. The government had such control over the national media, that even as the Brazilian guns began to shell the northern and eastern suburbs of Lima, the government still insisted no Dutch soldiers had yet to set foot in their country. It was not until 2121, that the first Dutch soldiers, a contingent of New Zeelanders, advanced within view of the Pacific Ocean. When Peru surrendered, on November 3, 2121, they did not receive the same generous terms as had Bolivia. Peru would be annexed by the Brazilian Empire and its entire government, including cabinet and parliament, would be arrested and tried by Commonwealth Officials. The trials were not the fair ones the Dutch people had been known for, for so many years. Instead they were quick court marshals, ending with most of the senior Peruvian government being sentenced to death. Some Brazilian officers attempted to have the officials exiled, but the Emperor overruled. He reasoned that exiles could come back and cause trouble, while the dead could not. Thus, with the execution of the last Peruvian President, a half century of Martial Law began in Peru, as its provinces were gradually assimilated into Dutch society.
Anno Lunarium
In the year 2113, old reckoning by Lunar standards, the nations of Luna developed a new calender. Where as the previous one was in the year of the Christian Lord, the new calender would be in the year of the moon, the new center of civilization. With Earthbound civilization nearly obliterated in 2090, the creators of this new calender, lead by the Swede Anton Swenson from Lunapolis, was retroactively began in 2090. Thus the year of the exchange was now year 1 A.L. The development of this new system of time was an addition to the already mounting cultural independence of the Lunar nations of the Continental States, Nieu Prussia, Avalon, Lunapolis and Fort Recife, all greatly expanded since the Nanotechnology Revolution. It was also the year of de facto political and economic independence from Earth, as well as the year Luna became the new center of technological civilization. The new calender confounded the nations and companies of Earth that did business with Luna for years to come. The fact that the calender had no months and instead was divided into fifty-two weeks, each numbered, only add to the initial confusion.
South African Union
By the start of the 22nd Century, the Boer Republics, along with most of Africa south of the equator, was cut off from global trade. More precisely, global trade simply ceased to exist. Unlike many parts of the world, the Boer Republics were sel-sufficient in food and other essentials to life. Despite a population explosion during the middle decades of the 21st Century, there was still enough farmland to feed the populous. Not only enough, but land to spare for the wildlife. Collapse of governmental control did allow a new wave of poaching in Transvaal and Natal. For years, the Boer Republics were out of touch with the Commonwealth, and correctly surmised that the Hague was no longer there. The separation of the Boer Republics from the Dutch Commonwealth was not that traumatic of a process. The states of Kapenstaaten, Nieu Oranje, Transvaal, Natal, and Johannestaaten never had monarchs, and only held a common foreign policy with other Commonwealth Members.
In 2104, the Boer Republics moved to loosen border control between themselves. Though they were all Boers, they did not live in perfect harmony. For decades, the Boer Republics competed with each other in exports as fiercely as any non-related European state. In southern Africa, the Boer Republics lead the way in rebuilding. Only the major cities of the region were destroyed during the exchange, with much of its industrial output and infrastructure mostly left intact. The metals, particularly the gold reserves, helped fund a region-wide rebuilding effort, including the Kingdoms of Angola and Mozambique along with Namibia. The states began to pool their resources, and cooperating at levels that Boers seldom have. By 2140, clamoring for a full political union of the Boer Republics reached the forefront of the broadsheets.
The Treaty of Kimberley was signed on August 14, 2141, where the full union of the Boer Republics into a single southern African republic, dubbed the South African Union, was born. The Senaat would meet in Kimberley and a single President would preside over it and the government in general. In 2143, the German-speaking Namibia joined the federal republic. The union spread north as negotiations with Angola and Mozambique dragged on through the years. If not for the tyranny of Emperor Maurice IV, the two southern African kingdoms might not have joined. Instead, in 2146, referendums were held in both states on whether or not to abolish the monarchy and join the union. By 2147, both passed with 61% in Angola and 55% in Mozambique, and joined the South African Union. Though a single state for the decade, it was not until 2150 that a Constitutional Convention was called forth, making the union officially a Federal Republic, but with a much stronger central government than the Boers had ever dealt with in the past. Maarten van der Weld was elected in 2151 as the first President of the South African Union, and because the region rebuilt the fastest, and with its strategic location, South Africa became a center of the reestablished global trade for the last half of the 22nd Century.
Maurice IV
Unarguably the most despised of all Dutch Monarchs, Maurice IV was the first to be born in the post-exchange world, growing up never knowing the luxuries that existed before 2090. Being born in such a harder world is part of what made Maurice such a brutal king, earning him the title Maurice the Terrible by much of the Dutch population. His autocratic rule effected the Brazilians the most, with communications still slower than they had been when global communications were taken for granted. At best, messages would cross the world to the most distant of his dominions, New Zeeland, at the speed of light. Under normal circumstances, messengers were still in use when he was crowned in 2141.
Before taking the throne, Maurice IV was a Colonial in the Commonwealth Army, and was a minor hero before becoming Emperor during his actions in the Andean War. His regiment lead an in depth guerilla campaign in the drying Amazon against the Peruvians. Upon the death of his father, he was recalled from the front, which at the time was nearing the Pacific, to take on his hereditary responsibilities in Recife. His unilateral declaration of martial law and suspension of traditional Dutch rights across the Commonwealth forced Ceylon to defect to the House of Oranje-Afar. Two more of his Kingdoms in southern Africa rejected Maurice.
These rejections lead to a more autocratic rule, including the summer time dismissal of the Brazilian Staaten-General in 2148. He is known as the strongest of all Dutch Monarchs, taking his realms closer to absolutism than the Dutch people have been since before the Forty Years War. He ruled much by decree, ignoring what his own parliament told him. The Staaten-General was not totally enable during Maurice’s reign; they still controlled the purse strings of the Empire. Some of his decrees did finally force through projects, such as the construction of a maglev network across Brazil, that were stalling before debates in the Staaten-General. However, this was not enough to keep him on the throne. By 2150, a vast majority of the Brazilian people were dissatisfied with his rule. Furthermore, New Zeeland, the last of his overseas realms, was threatening to defect to Oranje-Afar.
Maurice’s reign ended in 2151, when a coup lead by his brother Willem Johannes van Recife, and backed by the Staaten-General forced him to abdicate. On September 4, 2151, Maurice relinquished his hold on the throne and entered exile in Cape Verde, while his brother was crowned William IX. William relaxed the existing marshal law, and restored some of the freedoms cherished by the Dutch people for centuries, though rationing would remain in effect for decades to come.
Little Amsterdam
One of the few centers of industry on Earth not effected by waves of electromagnetic pulse during the exchange was that of Klein Amsterdam. The most amazing thing of this small city is not that it was shielded, but why it was. Klein Amsterdam is one of the many submarine cities founded during the 21st Century. The city was founded by a man named Mannheim Vidt, a native of the original Amsterdam. The story goes that Vidt grew tired of the never-ending battle with the sea, and decided to embrace the waters instead of resist them. He, and a group of investors, set out to found their own underwater city. Klein Amsterdam was built off the southern coast of Ceylon on the ocean floor, situated atop of a vein of gold to make it start out as an economically viable project. At first, it was but a prospecting town of 3,000, founded in 2058. However, as hundreds of atomic explosions fried virtually all electronics in Earth’s atmosphere, those beneath the ocean were shielded by many meters worth of water. More than half the towns, all built into tunnels beneath the sea floor, where destroyed during the 2080s, as well as the chaotic final decade of the 21st Century.
Klein Amsterdam survived because of its small population and relatively strategic unimportance. However, as it became clear the amount of devastation humanity inflicted upon itself, and the destruction of centuries’ worth of industry, Klein Amsterdam was one of the shining pearls of hope scattered across Earth’s sea floor. Demand in electronics reached unheard of levels as the nations of Earth slowly began to rebuild themselves. Klein Amsterdam had fully functional machine shops and fabrication plants. Part of what the gold they mined was destined for was high quality electronics. It quickly became the primary electronic production center for the Kingdom of Ceylon. The newly “independent” India laid claim to the city, but made no overt attempts to wrest it from Ceylonese control.
The city is bound with exports, but its borders are sealed for most anything entering it. They accept foodstuffs, but turn away immigrants. Klein Amsterdam, unlike surface cities, had to also ration its air supply. Essential personnel only, and not a single of the hundreds of millions of refugees were allowed to enter. So strong was this close-border policy, that Klein Amsterdam went as far as destroying its only maglev that connected it with the island. All commerce must be shuttled to the surface world via submersible, which docks at air locks that are tightly guarded. The security system is so sophisticated, second only to what would be found on 22nd Century Luna, that not even a rodent could enter undetected.
Unified Earth Front
India, separated from the Commonwealth for decades by 2153, saw the birth of a new international political movement. Centered around the Indian Ocean for its first century of existence, the Unified Earth Front had but one simple goal in mind: full political unification of Earth. Branches of the Unification Party sprang up in India, Burma, Indonesia, Indochina, Australia and East Asia. The U.E.F. headquarters was located in the partially rebuilt New Delhi. The Unified Earth Front headquarters was a plain and unimpressive fifteen story office building constructed atop the rubble of Dutch Delhi. The party was not founded by an Indian, but rather an American named Eugene Smiley. He knew his plan would never sell at home; Americans have a long standing tradition of minding their own affairs, with the exception of interventions in Mexico, and have always focused clearly on solving their own problems and simply not caring about the rest of the world’s. Such isolationist attitudes run contrary to unification.
The Unification Party was not an instant success in any state but India. The Unification won its first majority in India in 2157. Ironically, the same country that broke away from the unity of the Commonwealth was now advocating full union of the entire world. The U.E.F. operated knowing full well that the exchange nearly destroyed human civilization. In order to prevent such a catastrophe from ever occurring again, Earth must be brought under a single government. For the last half of the 22nd Century, the battered World Powers ignored this upstart movement. By 2070, only the above mentioned regions had the Unification Party in power. In most cases, they were elected by a populous who was ready to leave the nation-state in the past, as the city-state was left behind millennia before. In the case of East Africa, a coup backed by other Unification states toppled the legitimate government.
Each branch of the Unification Party moved quickly to remove the barriers between their respective countries. In 2178, all trade barriers were lifted and all tariffs eliminated. This did cause a great deal of deficit in the governments who once were financed by said tariffs. The shortfall forced both a rise in taxes and the nationalization of profitable industries to fund the state. In 2190, passports between U.E.F. states became a thing of the past. In 2197, in order to emphasize the progress of humanity, the U.E.F. became the first Earth-based anything to adopt the Anno Lunarium calender as a common calender for Earth that completely disregarded religion. The decision was also symbolic in that the exchange, 1 A.L. was also seen as a turning point in history.
In 2204, the U.E.F. implemented a common currency, simply called the credit. Before the exchange, most hard currency was rendered obsolete. Afterwards, such capital did make a comeback out of necessity. The U.E.F. had every intention on returning to that level of technology that would render paper money obsolete. However, gold and other metals were still used as a reserve, an emergency back up. For half a century, credits were printed on paper note, until the communication network was restored to a level were instant transactions to any point on the map was again possible. The year 2209 saw the creation of the Earth Defense Force, a military integration of the U.E.F. states into a single force. During a meeting of high ranking Party officials in 2210 set the year 2227, 137 A.L. as the year when full political unification of the U.E.F. states would be scheduled.
For more than seventy years, the Unified Earth Front strove for the creation of a world-state. The goal was nearing completion when on January 4, 2227, delegates from all U.E.F. controlled states met in New Delhi. At this famous meeting, the Articles of Confederation for a world-state were drawn up. Heading the government would be a unicameral Senate, based much on that of the Staaten-General India had while it was an empire within the Commonwealth. Heading the government would be a council of ministers, with a First Minister as the head of the world-state. Elections would be held every five years for the senate, and upon their taking office following their elections, they would appoint ministers from their own ranks, and elect a First Minister to preside over it all. The elections of Senators would be universal suffrage, with the only requirements being that the voter is eighteen years of age and that he resides in the state in which he is voting.
For ten days the debates raged on about the new government. Some, such as Hans Veergan of Australia, wanted a strong federal government for Earth. Others, such as President Indira Medehaula of India, was suspicious of strong central governments. Even after a century, the Indians still remembered their own rule by the Dutch Commonwealth. As with the name of the new governing laws, the Indians and their confederated faction won out. The new state would be a loose confederation of states with common currencies, standards and military, along with open borders for both people and commerce to flow. Because of the states with current Unification Parties in control, the official languages of the world-state would be Dutch, English and French. Though the member states are all post colonial, and quite a few conquered by said nationalities, pragmatism won out. These three European languages would make communication far easier than dozens of regional tongues. That, coupled with the fact that both Dutch and English were international languages of trade, made them the two most logical choices.
After January 29, the draft of the Articles was returned to each of the member states, were referendums were scheduled to be held in the following February and March. By March 16, 2227, the final U.E.F. state, India itself, passed the Articles by 62%. Thus, the Terran Confederation was born. Elections to the Confederation Senate were held in May, and the first Confederation Congress began in Delhi in July. The Unified Earth Front long dreamed of Geneva as the capital of the world, but that old city of international negotiations was in the process of begin reclaimed by expanding Alpine glaciers. The first item on Confed’s agenda was to complete the unification of Earth. Reaction to the founding of the Terran Confederation among the World Powers ranged from concerned to indifferent. Americans were concerned for guarding their sovereignty, while a weakening People’s Dynasty in China simply did not care, provided the U.E.F. stayed out of China’s internal affairs. In the Commonwealth, both the House of Oranje and the House of Oranje-Afar saw this as the potential start of a newer, grander Commonwealth.
The Atomic Ice Age
Following the nuclear exchange during the year 2090, enough radioactive debris was thrown into the atmosphere to block out sunlight for years. In fact, the last decade of the 21st Century had only three summers; one in 2094, another in 2098 and the last in 2100. At the time of the disaster of 2090, much of Greenland’s ice cap had melted, reducing it in size by more than half. This amount of freshwater suddenly released into the North Atlantic was even before the nuclear exchange, starting to erode the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream broke down entirely during the following nuclear winter, and Europe was plunged into the freezer. Temperatures in Northern Europe soon dropped by several degrees, matching the same temperatures at the same latitudes in Canada.
At the start of the 22nd Century, Siberia began to slowly grow, creeping over the Ural Mountains and into Europe itself. The first decade of the new century was a hard time for Europeans. Many of those who had tamed the Russian Steppes during the 19th Century had their descendants fleeing the advancing tundra and taiga. The agricultural productivity of southern Sweden and Poland-Lithuania was all but destroyed at the dawn of the Atomic Ice Age. In North America, after three centuries of exploitation, the great aquifer that once supported the Midwest was nearing depletion. With shifting climatic patterns, the once Bread Basket of the World slowly reverted to frozen steppe. Much of the world’s food production was diminished by nuclear winter and radioactive fallout. During the last decade of the 21st Century and first of the 22nd, well over one billion humans died from starvation-related causes. With coldness wrapping itself around the Northern Hemisphere, old cities such as Novgorod, Moscow and the industrial cities of the Urals, turned into virtual ghost towns as the survivors are forced to migrate south, or towards the Baltic coast, where at least fish could still be had.
Of all the World Powers, Sweden was hit hardest by the Atomic Ice Age. By the second decade of the 22nd Century, the Baltic Sea was choked with ice for nine months out of the year. Only in the brief summer could shipping flow without risk of collision with icebergs. For the first time in three centuries, the worlds glaciers, those that remained, began to grow. As the glaciers, and the ice caps, grew, moisture was sapped from the atmosphere. Rain forests began to shrivel and die. By the 23rd Century, the once mighty Amazon Rain Forest was nothing but savanna and open woodlands, with almost all of its species extinct. That which did precipitate, did so as snow. Snow fall began to clog the mountain passes of the world, and with lower average temperatures, it never completely melted during the short summers. A total drop in the planetary average by ten degrees soon cause glaciers to crown the Rockies, Andes, Alps, Urals and every other major mountain range on Earth.
By the 25th Century, the population reached a stable point of approximately two billion. It proved impossible to expand the population, for all the arable land on Earth was now located in the tropics. With much effort, the Empire of Brazil turned the new Amazonian Plains into a breadbasket. Most of the population lived where the food was grown, but not all. The capitals of Europe were still alive, albeit frigid, with activity. Berlin, Rome, Constantinople, London and even Stockholm were rebuilt from the ashes. Due to the subarctic conditions these cities found themselves in, they would never again play a dominating role in world affairs. The United States still maintained its vast territory, including control over Canada. Since the Canadian lands were largely depopulated and uninhabited, controlling them was a moot issue.
By the end of the 25th Century, the ice caps and glaciers have grown enough to cause the sea level to drop three meters lower than it had been five hundred years earlier. Many ruined coastal cities, such as Amsterdam and New Orleans, along with the tops of some submarine cities, were exposed to the atmosphere for the first time in centuries. The ruins were curiosities to some archaeologists, mostly from the moon or stations in the Earth-Luna system, but only a few came from Earthbound locations. The nations of Earth were still rebuilding civilization, which even at this point in the Atomic Ice Age, teetered on the brink of oblivion.
Stability did not return to Earth’s climate until the 31st Century. The arctic was completely abandoned, and glaciers flowed down from the mountains. The sea level dropped to negative four meter during the 27th Century, but rose and stabilized at negative three meters in respect to a thousand years previously. Emigration from Earth to Luna, Mars, Mercury and various stations scattered around the Sol System caused the population of Earth in the Common Era year 3001, to drop below one billion for the first time in over a millennium. The planetary population stabilized at one billion during the 31st Century.
Final Fate of the United Provinces
Following the brief nuclear exchange in 2090, the United Provinces faced a proportionally higher destruction than most nations. The primary reason has to do with high population densities. The Provinces have never been geographically large, and only a few warheads could effectively destroy it. On that day, over twenty hit the United Provinces. Of the pre-exchange population, less than ten percent survived the attack. Of the total land area of the contiguous seventeen Provinces, half of the area was now underwater. Nuclear explosions vaporized both Netherlanders and centuries old dikes, which were already under pressure by rising sea levels. Destruction of the United Provinces was total.
Iceland and Norway escaped severe damage, but the destruction of global trade brought shortages to those Provinces, including famine. Legally, these two joined with Brazil. However, as the Atomic Ice Age took its course, freezing temperatures depopulated the area as Norwayers and Icelanders left their ancestral lands for the mild climate of Brazil itself. The surviving Netherlanders of the seventeen Provinces also made their way to safer lands, leaving the once mighty Kingdom of the United Provinces a broken and discarded husk. The Provinces that were not drowned, including Limbourg and Luxembourg were absorbed into and repopulated by the German Empire. Vestiges of the once might Dutch Empire, that ruled world trade and commerce for centuries, vanished from the face of the Earth.
Emperor Michael
Beyond the material damage resulting from the disaster that was 2090, a moral blow was dealt the Dutch People. During the brief but lethal nuclear exchange, the Queen, all her children and grandchildren, along with her brothers and sisters, were in the United Provinces at the time, and thus killed. For two years, while the world tried to right itself, it appeared as if the House of Oranje was extinct. In 2092, a royal cousin, some two generations removed, was located in Recife, Brazil. Michael Willem Oranje van Natal was born in the year 2063, from a mother who was the second daughter of King Willem VIII, and in the year 2090, happen to be the closest surviving relative to Queen Katerina.
Michael attended the Naval Academy in Recife, and served in the Commonwealth Navy from 2085 until 2092. He and his ship were in Recife during the exchange, a city that was spared destruction through anti-ballistic missiles. Even without the missile defense, being stationed on the submarine DCS Narwhal would have protected him from the blast. However, EMP from nearby atomic detonations destroyed much of the electronics in Recife, and while the Narwhal was not patrolling the coast, it was in port giving its shielded computing power over for civilian use. It was not until 2092, that Michael was located by surviving officials. Upon being informed that he was now heir to the thrones of the Dutch Commonwealth, he resigned from the Navy to take on his royal duty.
On June 4, 2092, the Brazilian Staaten-General elected him as Emperor Michael. The Emperor had the distinction of being the first Dutch monarch to not be King of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, as that state effectively ceased to exist when nuclear reactions met the rising North Sea. With global communication now a thing of the past, Emperor Michael had no means of contacting the other realms, short of sailing there. Instead, he focused his effort on organizing and overseeing reconstruction in the Brazilian Empire. It was only in 2098, a few years after lanes of communication were reestablished with southern Africa via new fiber optic cables, did Michael sail to Angola and Mozambique to be crowned King of both states by their respective Staaten-Generals. He continued around Cape Horn to Abyssinia, where the Abyssinian Staaten-General actually rejected him, instead electing an illegitimate royal cousin named Pieter.
For the next six years, reconstruction continued in Brazil. With cities leveled and tens of millions dead of the war and later of famine that raged across the world, there was little time to worry about establishing his claim to Dutch crowns. Angola and Mozambique were largely spared the terror of 2090, mainly due to their lack of strategically important targets. The Boer Republics were not so luck, with tens of million more dead there. Trade between southern Africa and Brazil did little to boost the economy as there was no longer any disposable income.
In 2104, Michael traveled to New Zeeland to claim its crown, increasing his crowns to four. New Zeeland was damaged during 2090, with its capital and largest port wiped off the map. However, with a low population to begin with, famine was not the same problem as it was across the rest of the planet. However, New Zeeland kept a very isolationist policy for those years after the exchange, going so far as to sink boats full of refugees rather than let them land on New Zeelander shores and take food from New Zeelander citizens. Contact was also reestablished with Ceylon, via radio waves bounced off the ionosphere. While Michael never ventured there in person, he was elected King of Ceylon and did appoint Governor-Generals via the radio waves.
The House of Oranje-Afar
The origins of the House of Oranje-Afar starts with a distant royal cousin, two generations removed from Queen Katerina, and his Abyssinian mistress, who hailed from the Afar region. This royal cousin lived in Afar, serving in his capacity as a Commonwealth bureaucrat. Between him and his mistress was born an illegitimate son named Peter. Upon the nuclear exchange of 2090, the bulk of the House of Oranje were killed. Only distant cousins remained scattered around the world. Though his father was killed when Addis Ababa was destroyed, Peter was alive and well in Afar. With no contact with the United Provinces (and no way of knowing it was destroyed) the Abyssinian Staaten-General had a succession crisis. Who would be king if the House of Oranje was extinct? It was not for several years did Emperor Michael of Brazil appear over the horizon.
Though Peter had no ambitions for the throne, his actions following 2090 made him a natural choice. With famine looming due to the devastation of Abyssinia’s infrastructure, it was Peter who organized relief missions with the surviving, functional vehicles. On one such mission, Peter was wounded while saving three relief workers during an ambush by highwaymen. Aside from relief work, Peter also organized construction of housing for the millions left homeless by the exchange. Unlike other managers, Peter took up a hammer and nails and worked along side his fellow Abyssinians. His royal lineage was not discovered until 2094, when members of the Staaten-General of Abyssinia approached him at his relief headquarters in Djibouti. They offered him the throne saying that the Kingdom must have a King. Peter refused at first, preferring to work. However, between 2094 and 2096 his pedigree (albeit illegitimate) became widely know among the people, and those workers he struggled along side.
Peter’s popularity among the survivors and their demand that he take the throne. Again he refused, not overly desiring the title of King. Some of the construction workers in the ruins of Addis Ababa went on strike when he arrived, protesting his refusal to take the crown. If Peter will not undertake his rightful task, then the workers would not undertake their own. malnourished and homeless survivors even took to the street, declaring that they would not accept any King but Peter. Abyssinia was in tatters and the people required hope, and a hero to look up to. At least that was the reasoning Peter gave himself when he finally relented to the demands of his people, though a minority were Republicans, arguing in favor of abolishing the monarchy.
He was to become a king popularly elected by the people, as well as the first black monarch of Abyssinia since the Ethiopian Empire. In a way, he is not unlike Maurice van Oranje, the first King of the United Provinces. He was the only choice that the Staaten-General would accept. He was crowned in 2098, only shortly before the arrival of Emperor Michael. Thus, with the crowning of King Peter I, the House of Oranje-Afar was officially born. Unlike the core royal house, this new branch was located in a precarious spot. To the north and northeast, lay an Arab World undergoing a wave of religious fundamentalism. The exchange brought out many rebirth movements in the world’s religions, most of them emphasizing God’s Final Judgement.
The Arabs banded together under the formerly repressed Wahabi sect of the Arabian Peninsula. A New Caliphate was born in the early 22nd Century swore to reunited the world of Islam under one banner, stretching from Spain to China. In the case of the Kingdom of Abyssinia, the Somali Coast was long ago colonized by Arabs, centuries before the Portugese moved in and the Dutch supplanted them. Since Abyssinia has always been one of the least industrialized of the Commonwealth states, it did not receive as much damage during the exchange. The dams on the Blue Nile still existed. King Peter made it clear to the Arab, that if any hostile move was made against his kingdom, he would divert the Blue Nile, causing the floods in Egypt to not happen, and destroy the Arab’s breadbasket.
Hainan and Formosa
The fate of Hainan and Formosa are drastically different from the other Commonwealth members, save the United Provinces themselves, which geographically ceased to exist. Even by 2090, Hainan had little industrialization and was largely spared from the exchange, though a naval air station was on the receiving end of a fifty kiloton explosion. Formosa was hit far worse, with New Antwerp and Taipei both being wiped off the map, and millions killed. Formosa was broken, with its government all but destroyed. The last Governor-General, Albert Dong Fou, survived the attack on Taipei, only to succumb to radiation poising in the following weeks. Across the sea, the People’s Republic of China bore the brunt of Sweden’s nuclear arsenal, yet was far from broken. All of its major cities had their cores burned out, but so much of China has sprawled out during the 21st Century, that it was still a functioning entity after the exchange.
The islands were taken from the Chinese centuries before, and a new generation of the People’s Dynasty was bent on reclaiming all of China’s lost lands. The first to fall was Hainan, rested from the Chinese by the VOC under less-than-favorable terms. The island put up minimal resistance. In fact, not organized resistance even existed. China’s plan to bring all the Han under one rule fell on deaf ears. The people of Hainan, whether descended from Dutch colonists or Chinese workers have long considered themselves Dutch, and citizens of the Commonwealth. The “ethnic” Chinese of Hainan spoke Dutch, ate Dutch food and loved the Dutch Dream: not to depose the capitalist, but to become one. The ideas of communism were even more alien than the traditional culture of the Mainland. The Hainaners met attempts to nationalize lands and business with protests. In turn, these protests were met with the machine gun fire of Marshall Law.
Formosa put up a more active resistance. When the Chinese crossed the straight in 2092, a few function ships of the Commonwealth Navy, and aircraft of its Air Force, met the Chinese invasion. Like Hainan, the crossing was done with barges, ferries and anything that can float. The defenders of Formosa ignored the Chinese warships and chew through the invasion flotilla. An estimated twenty thousand Chinese soldiers drowned during the invasion. However, the defending ships, including a battered Queen of Ceylon class cruiser, were destroyed, and the last fighters overwhelmed by the lower quality, but far more numerous People’s Air Force. The island was conquered after two months worth of fighting. Far harsher conditions were enforced on Formosa after the events on Hainan. Surviving members of the Kingdom’s government were hunted down by Chinese officials and summarily executed.
Conditions further deteriorated as Formosans took to the hills in a guerilla campaign against the invader. In decades past, this was to be the plan of the Army on Formosa until reinforcements could be summoned. However, with the world in ruins, none would ever come. The last heroic chapter of the Dutch Kingdom of Formosa came from the exploits of Alexander Buren, who waged a three year personal war against the Chinese. Between 2094 and 2097, he and his band of guerillas are said to be responsible for the deaths of over a thousand People’s Liberation Army personnel. His resistance took place along the eastern coast of Formosa, centered around the Xiguluan River. Roads that crossed the river were constantly mined, and the PLA was reluctant to approach the bridges.
In 2095, one such bridge was blown after half a Chinese company had crossed. Buren’s raiders massacred both halves of the unit. In response to this, the town of Fuyuan had its population deported to reconstruction camps on the mainland. It was not until 2097, when Buren’s reign of terror was brought to an end. While leading a patrol into the Central Range of Formosa, he and his thirty-two followers were ambushed by the Chinese. They were killed in cave-to-cave fighting when Buren took his unit into the cover of limestone caves. It is not known if he was killed by the collapsing caves or by the thermobaric weapons dropped on the cave entrances. The resistance continued for more than a decade on the island before the Chinese finally stamped it out. In retaliation for guerilla attacks, the Chinese instituted hostage taking and random executions in areas of active resistance. Accurate casualties during the decade of 2091-2100 for civilians is hard to come by, but it is estimated some half a million Formosans were killed during the invasion and following pacification.
India
Even before the exchange, India was hit with hard times. Between missed monsoons and vanished Himalayan glaciers, India was suffering both drought and famine which it had no experienced in more than two hundred years. Ironically, the exchange lessened the famine at first. With cities like Mumbai and Delhi wiped from the map and tens of millions killed, there were that many less mouths to feed. However, with the infrastructure devastated and radioactive fallout raining down upon India, a further one hundred million died from starvation, starvation-related disease and radiation poisoning in the decade to follow. During the starving times, many of the Princes of the Princely States found themselves deposed. Some were violently overthrown by the throngs of starving Indians demanding the Princes release the foodstuffs they had hoarded.
With the government gone and chaos reigning, India entered a period of Civil War. There were no clearly defined sides, but rather masses of people wanting the meager scraps their neighbors possessed. With the oncoming of the Atomic Ice Age, the situation in India actually began to improve. Dropping temperatures across the globe caused the first growth of glaciers in over a century, as well as the regular return of the monsoon. The first few floods was late spring thaws in the mountains were tainted with fallout. After these toxins were washed out to sea, the climate in India began to return to what it had been in the 19th Century. During the chaos, many of the great land owners were dead and their estates and farms divided up among the surviving Indians. Unlike most of the Commonwealth states, India has always been a reluctant and coerced member. Much of the resentment towards the Europeans surfaced during the Starving Times, and many were killed by the mobs.
Though there was hatred towards the Dutch, the Indians still spoke Dutch as a common language. The language was used in 2110, when Constantine Majaraha called a Constitutional Convention in a still ruined New Delhi. Many Indian elite and intellectuals, those who survived, called for a new constitution in order to tear up the hated constitution of 1910 that was written in the Hague and forced upon India. The new constitution declared India a republic, and abolished all hereditary titles. Delegate declared that the Dutch Commonwealth of Nations was dead and that it was time for India to return to its former place in the sun. India’s government would consist of a President and a Congress, both elected by popular vote. The franchise was granted to all Indians over the age of 18.
When contact was established once again with the Dutch Commonwealth, only the fact that neither side had much of a functioning military left prevented war from erupting. Upon hearing the news of a fully independent India, only 32% of the Indian officers in the surviving Commonwealth Armed Forces resigned and returned home. The rest stayed, and nearly half of those were in favor of overthrowing the new Indian Government, but again, the forces to pull of such a coup no longer existed. The Commonwealth had little choice but to abandon India and focus on rebuilding its shattered members.
Australia
The more distant parts of the Commonwealth weathered the Exchange differently. New Zeeland was largely left alone, except for the destruction of a naval base on the North Island. The same was true for New Holland. The Kingdom had little in the way of military targets, aside from outposts along the Australian border and the international airport at Apeldoorn. New Holland’s relatively low population also spared it the famine conditions of India and Abyssinia. The biggest blow to New Holland was the virtual destruction of trade following 2090. Imports dropped to nothing. Luxuries such as sugar and coffee were all but gone, as were the tropical fruits brought in from Java and Indonesia. New Holland’s economy also depended greatly on exporting raw materials and resources. With nobody to buy their ores, wool and Manufactured goods, the economy stagnated.
By 2100, the unemployment rate skyrocketed to 25%. Not as bad as most countries, but those countries were in ruins and had no economies left. Further problems occurred with China’s seizure of Hainan and Formosa. New Hollanders were a long ways away from the weakened, and divided Commonwealth. The Staaten-General in Apeldoorn could not decide upon accepting Michael or Peter as their King. The former was closer in blood to the previous queen, but the latter was closer in geographical terms. Neither were in any position to help New Holland. Furthermore, there were no royal cousins residing in New Holland. The Kingdom had always been an effective backwater of the Commonwealth.
New Holland did have one who could help them, one right next door. Australia, a member of Britain’s smaller Commonwealth of Nations, was in the same boat. They had no monarch and were cut-off from the rest of their personal union. Australia was much larger in territory and population, but like New Holland it was mostly ignored by the World Powers as they slugged it out with atomic weapons. By 2110, New Holland and Australia were exclusive trading partners. They had the resources to help rebuild the world, but lacked the ability to transport the goods. With world navies weakened and the populous in desperate straights, piracy grew exponentially since 2090. Even shipping to New Zeeland was hazardous, and to ship north through the Indonesian Archipelago was all but impossible. The only ships that dared those waters were the heavily armed freighters of the VOC, and the VOC charged exorbitant rates in order to fund its own rebuilding.
The isolation of the island-continent caused its two nations to grow closer, with trade barriers collapsing in 2118, and passports being abolished by 2124. A formal military alliance was signed between the two in 2125, violating Commonwealth law and charter, which calls that the Commonwealth have a single foreign policy. New Holland politicians, such as Gunther Dirk, declared that the Dutch Commonwealth of Nations was dead and New Holland would still have to do what was in its best interest. After decades, the throne of New Holland still remained empty, as was the throne of Australia. In 2128, talk of full unification of the continent began.
Delegates from both nations met in Melbourne on August 14, 2130, to negotiate unification. A Constitution was drafted that would have the new state take the name of Australia and that it would be a republic. Neither side could agree upon who could take the throne, thus it was abolished. The Constitution also called for a unicameral National Assembly, to have English and Dutch as the official languages and for a President to be elected by popular vote once every five years. The delegates returned to their respective countries where referendums were held. Australians passed the new Constitution by 84%. Three months later, New Hollanders passed it with only 61%. On January 14, 2131, the two states merged and the Republic of Australia was born.
Reconstruction
While the 21st Century is remembered for its monumental wars, the 22nd Century is best remembered by its monumental reconstruction. Hundreds of cities across the planet were left in ruins and the industrial capacity was virtually razed. The entire century was dedicated to regaining humanity’s former glory, and it fell short. Well over a century was required for humanity to rebuild what was destroyed in a single day back in 2090. Even at the dawn of the 23rd Century, the global standards of living were well down at the level of the year 1900. Electricity was sporadic in some parts, and in others so limited that it was used only for essential purposes. Electricity was not the only formerly common commodity rationed. Water was as well. Gone from the suburban sprawls were the once lush lawns. Water was to be used for drinking, sanitation and agriculture only. Much of the fresh water was slowly being gathered up into the growing mountain and polar glaciers.
A mass migration of the likes that had not been seen since the 19th Century hit Europe and Canada. Tens of millions of survivors fled southward, depopulating entire areas. The Canadian Arctic was all but abandoned, while the rest of the country was taken under the protection of a greatly weakened and divided United States. As stated before, both Iceland and Norway quickly became uninhabited tundra by 2150. The Swedes were forced to leave their ancestral Scandinavian lands, relocating their capital to Kiev. Once again, Kiev is under the control of the Rus. Kamchatka faced a mass die-off, and fell under the direct control of China, though it was lethally cold and the Chinese could do little with this land of ice.
Rebuilt industries by the middle of the century focused on the necessities of life and society. No longer are countless luxuries or recreationals were produced. In the 21st Century, the Dutch had access to televisions, telephones, computers, cars, and various other items that would have once been declared luxuries or novelties. No more. The exchange generated a massive storm of electromagnetic pulses that destroyed the planet’s electronics. Not only are these items not required for survival, in many cases it was no longer possible to build them. At least not on Earth. Several nations faced full command economies, while all face the loss of economic freedoms. Personal freedoms were restricted as martial law continued world-wide for the whole century.
With so much of Earth’s easily accessed resources depleted, new sources were sought higher up and further out. By 2150, most of the iron demand of Earth was satisfied by near-Earth asteroids. Hundreds of Heavy Lifters survived the exchange, while hundreds more were built in the nano-factories on the moon. The Lunar models were infinitely cheaper, with the bulk of development cost going into programming the nanites to build the first machine. Once perfected, the microscopic robots can build dozens of heavy lifters a week. The Earth-built models were chosen by the nations of Earth, not so much the innate fear of nanotechnology as it was for keeping humans on Earth employed and attempting to reboot the economy. By 2200, all of Earth’s metallic demands were met by mining asteroids with Earth’s vicinity.
In order to restore the economy of the Commonwealth, the Dutch were forced to purchase some Lunar products, namely electronics. Luna was untouched by the exchange and continued to grow and advance without interruption. Most Lunar products were not purchased, for they competed with Dutch companies and projects. However, electronics were in high demand. Lunar companies made fortunes off producing basic computers. The demand was so high that electronics accounted for 40% of the Lunar economy by the year 2200. The demand also generated another demand, this one on the moon. A demand for capable and skill workers. In spite of the devastation on Earth, a steady but select stream of immigrants were allowed into the Lunar nations, with the main requirements being that immigrants are skilled, healthy and young.
Andean War
Despite the amount of devastation left in the wake of the exchange, modern warfare still raged across the globe. The largest such conflict the fragmenting Dutch Commonwealth experienced is known as the Andean War, lasting between 2118 to 2121. The cause of the war dates back decades before the exchange, when both Peru and Bolivia had territorial claims in western Brazil. Seeing how the Commonwealth was a shadow of its former self, the two states formed an alliance with the expressed intent of conquering what remained of the Amazon Rain Forest. With a combination of global warming during the 21st Century and glaciation during the 22nd, the Amazon was fast drying into a large, tropical savanna. Most of the species were already extinct when the first Peruvian units came down from the mountains.
The invaders scored initial gains through 2119, as Recife attempted to learn just what was happening. The only working avenues into the Amazon post-exchange were that of the river itself. Patrol boats steamed up the river, only to be sunk by mines or a few function aircraft of the Peruvian Air Force. Without access to the satellite network surrounding the planet in geostationary orbit, communication was slow. Lower orbiting satellites had long since fallen from their position, and were of even less use. The standard means of relaying messages during the Andean War was the same as the Commonwealth had used in the year 1900; messengers. Runners would move from the front to the nearest land line, almost rendered as extinct as an Amazonian parrot because of the same wireless network that could no longer be accessed.
The Peruvian and Bolivian advances came to a halt once they entered into the jungle. The Commonwealth Army, under the command of one Colonel Maurice Willem van Oranje, Grand Prince of Norway and heir to the Brazilian throne, fought both invading armies to a standstill through attrition, and by 2120, all but destroyed the Peruvian Army. The Emperor decided that destroying their army was not enough. The mountains of Peru still had deposits of ores and other minerals required by the Commonwealth to rebuild. Thus the decision changed from simply expelling the Peruvians to conquering them. The invasion of Peru was slow and tedious, with both sides having to stop once winter hit the mountains. Treacherous passes and poor infrastructure made this an infantry war, with very few armored vehicles fighting in out in the Andes.
Bolivia sued for peace early on, abandoning their allies. For their quick cession of hostilities, Brazil only took the northern portions of the Bolivian Empire. Peru held out longer, Lima hoping for one great miracle to turn the tide of the war. The government had such control over the national media, that even as the Brazilian guns began to shell the northern and eastern suburbs of Lima, the government still insisted no Dutch soldiers had yet to set foot in their country. It was not until 2121, that the first Dutch soldiers, a contingent of New Zeelanders, advanced within view of the Pacific Ocean. When Peru surrendered, on November 3, 2121, they did not receive the same generous terms as had Bolivia. Peru would be annexed by the Brazilian Empire and its entire government, including cabinet and parliament, would be arrested and tried by Commonwealth Officials. The trials were not the fair ones the Dutch people had been known for, for so many years. Instead they were quick court marshals, ending with most of the senior Peruvian government being sentenced to death. Some Brazilian officers attempted to have the officials exiled, but the Emperor overruled. He reasoned that exiles could come back and cause trouble, while the dead could not. Thus, with the execution of the last Peruvian President, a half century of Martial Law began in Peru, as its provinces were gradually assimilated into Dutch society.
Anno Lunarium
In the year 2113, old reckoning by Lunar standards, the nations of Luna developed a new calender. Where as the previous one was in the year of the Christian Lord, the new calender would be in the year of the moon, the new center of civilization. With Earthbound civilization nearly obliterated in 2090, the creators of this new calender, lead by the Swede Anton Swenson from Lunapolis, was retroactively began in 2090. Thus the year of the exchange was now year 1 A.L. The development of this new system of time was an addition to the already mounting cultural independence of the Lunar nations of the Continental States, Nieu Prussia, Avalon, Lunapolis and Fort Recife, all greatly expanded since the Nanotechnology Revolution. It was also the year of de facto political and economic independence from Earth, as well as the year Luna became the new center of technological civilization. The new calender confounded the nations and companies of Earth that did business with Luna for years to come. The fact that the calender had no months and instead was divided into fifty-two weeks, each numbered, only add to the initial confusion.
South African Union
By the start of the 22nd Century, the Boer Republics, along with most of Africa south of the equator, was cut off from global trade. More precisely, global trade simply ceased to exist. Unlike many parts of the world, the Boer Republics were sel-sufficient in food and other essentials to life. Despite a population explosion during the middle decades of the 21st Century, there was still enough farmland to feed the populous. Not only enough, but land to spare for the wildlife. Collapse of governmental control did allow a new wave of poaching in Transvaal and Natal. For years, the Boer Republics were out of touch with the Commonwealth, and correctly surmised that the Hague was no longer there. The separation of the Boer Republics from the Dutch Commonwealth was not that traumatic of a process. The states of Kapenstaaten, Nieu Oranje, Transvaal, Natal, and Johannestaaten never had monarchs, and only held a common foreign policy with other Commonwealth Members.
In 2104, the Boer Republics moved to loosen border control between themselves. Though they were all Boers, they did not live in perfect harmony. For decades, the Boer Republics competed with each other in exports as fiercely as any non-related European state. In southern Africa, the Boer Republics lead the way in rebuilding. Only the major cities of the region were destroyed during the exchange, with much of its industrial output and infrastructure mostly left intact. The metals, particularly the gold reserves, helped fund a region-wide rebuilding effort, including the Kingdoms of Angola and Mozambique along with Namibia. The states began to pool their resources, and cooperating at levels that Boers seldom have. By 2140, clamoring for a full political union of the Boer Republics reached the forefront of the broadsheets.
The Treaty of Kimberley was signed on August 14, 2141, where the full union of the Boer Republics into a single southern African republic, dubbed the South African Union, was born. The Senaat would meet in Kimberley and a single President would preside over it and the government in general. In 2143, the German-speaking Namibia joined the federal republic. The union spread north as negotiations with Angola and Mozambique dragged on through the years. If not for the tyranny of Emperor Maurice IV, the two southern African kingdoms might not have joined. Instead, in 2146, referendums were held in both states on whether or not to abolish the monarchy and join the union. By 2147, both passed with 61% in Angola and 55% in Mozambique, and joined the South African Union. Though a single state for the decade, it was not until 2150 that a Constitutional Convention was called forth, making the union officially a Federal Republic, but with a much stronger central government than the Boers had ever dealt with in the past. Maarten van der Weld was elected in 2151 as the first President of the South African Union, and because the region rebuilt the fastest, and with its strategic location, South Africa became a center of the reestablished global trade for the last half of the 22nd Century.
Maurice IV
Unarguably the most despised of all Dutch Monarchs, Maurice IV was the first to be born in the post-exchange world, growing up never knowing the luxuries that existed before 2090. Being born in such a harder world is part of what made Maurice such a brutal king, earning him the title Maurice the Terrible by much of the Dutch population. His autocratic rule effected the Brazilians the most, with communications still slower than they had been when global communications were taken for granted. At best, messages would cross the world to the most distant of his dominions, New Zeeland, at the speed of light. Under normal circumstances, messengers were still in use when he was crowned in 2141.
Before taking the throne, Maurice IV was a Colonial in the Commonwealth Army, and was a minor hero before becoming Emperor during his actions in the Andean War. His regiment lead an in depth guerilla campaign in the drying Amazon against the Peruvians. Upon the death of his father, he was recalled from the front, which at the time was nearing the Pacific, to take on his hereditary responsibilities in Recife. His unilateral declaration of martial law and suspension of traditional Dutch rights across the Commonwealth forced Ceylon to defect to the House of Oranje-Afar. Two more of his Kingdoms in southern Africa rejected Maurice.
These rejections lead to a more autocratic rule, including the summer time dismissal of the Brazilian Staaten-General in 2148. He is known as the strongest of all Dutch Monarchs, taking his realms closer to absolutism than the Dutch people have been since before the Forty Years War. He ruled much by decree, ignoring what his own parliament told him. The Staaten-General was not totally enable during Maurice’s reign; they still controlled the purse strings of the Empire. Some of his decrees did finally force through projects, such as the construction of a maglev network across Brazil, that were stalling before debates in the Staaten-General. However, this was not enough to keep him on the throne. By 2150, a vast majority of the Brazilian people were dissatisfied with his rule. Furthermore, New Zeeland, the last of his overseas realms, was threatening to defect to Oranje-Afar.
Maurice’s reign ended in 2151, when a coup lead by his brother Willem Johannes van Recife, and backed by the Staaten-General forced him to abdicate. On September 4, 2151, Maurice relinquished his hold on the throne and entered exile in Cape Verde, while his brother was crowned William IX. William relaxed the existing marshal law, and restored some of the freedoms cherished by the Dutch people for centuries, though rationing would remain in effect for decades to come.
Little Amsterdam
One of the few centers of industry on Earth not effected by waves of electromagnetic pulse during the exchange was that of Klein Amsterdam. The most amazing thing of this small city is not that it was shielded, but why it was. Klein Amsterdam is one of the many submarine cities founded during the 21st Century. The city was founded by a man named Mannheim Vidt, a native of the original Amsterdam. The story goes that Vidt grew tired of the never-ending battle with the sea, and decided to embrace the waters instead of resist them. He, and a group of investors, set out to found their own underwater city. Klein Amsterdam was built off the southern coast of Ceylon on the ocean floor, situated atop of a vein of gold to make it start out as an economically viable project. At first, it was but a prospecting town of 3,000, founded in 2058. However, as hundreds of atomic explosions fried virtually all electronics in Earth’s atmosphere, those beneath the ocean were shielded by many meters worth of water. More than half the towns, all built into tunnels beneath the sea floor, where destroyed during the 2080s, as well as the chaotic final decade of the 21st Century.
Klein Amsterdam survived because of its small population and relatively strategic unimportance. However, as it became clear the amount of devastation humanity inflicted upon itself, and the destruction of centuries’ worth of industry, Klein Amsterdam was one of the shining pearls of hope scattered across Earth’s sea floor. Demand in electronics reached unheard of levels as the nations of Earth slowly began to rebuild themselves. Klein Amsterdam had fully functional machine shops and fabrication plants. Part of what the gold they mined was destined for was high quality electronics. It quickly became the primary electronic production center for the Kingdom of Ceylon. The newly “independent” India laid claim to the city, but made no overt attempts to wrest it from Ceylonese control.
The city is bound with exports, but its borders are sealed for most anything entering it. They accept foodstuffs, but turn away immigrants. Klein Amsterdam, unlike surface cities, had to also ration its air supply. Essential personnel only, and not a single of the hundreds of millions of refugees were allowed to enter. So strong was this close-border policy, that Klein Amsterdam went as far as destroying its only maglev that connected it with the island. All commerce must be shuttled to the surface world via submersible, which docks at air locks that are tightly guarded. The security system is so sophisticated, second only to what would be found on 22nd Century Luna, that not even a rodent could enter undetected.
Unified Earth Front
India, separated from the Commonwealth for decades by 2153, saw the birth of a new international political movement. Centered around the Indian Ocean for its first century of existence, the Unified Earth Front had but one simple goal in mind: full political unification of Earth. Branches of the Unification Party sprang up in India, Burma, Indonesia, Indochina, Australia and East Asia. The U.E.F. headquarters was located in the partially rebuilt New Delhi. The Unified Earth Front headquarters was a plain and unimpressive fifteen story office building constructed atop the rubble of Dutch Delhi. The party was not founded by an Indian, but rather an American named Eugene Smiley. He knew his plan would never sell at home; Americans have a long standing tradition of minding their own affairs, with the exception of interventions in Mexico, and have always focused clearly on solving their own problems and simply not caring about the rest of the world’s. Such isolationist attitudes run contrary to unification.
The Unification Party was not an instant success in any state but India. The Unification won its first majority in India in 2157. Ironically, the same country that broke away from the unity of the Commonwealth was now advocating full union of the entire world. The U.E.F. operated knowing full well that the exchange nearly destroyed human civilization. In order to prevent such a catastrophe from ever occurring again, Earth must be brought under a single government. For the last half of the 22nd Century, the battered World Powers ignored this upstart movement. By 2070, only the above mentioned regions had the Unification Party in power. In most cases, they were elected by a populous who was ready to leave the nation-state in the past, as the city-state was left behind millennia before. In the case of East Africa, a coup backed by other Unification states toppled the legitimate government.
Each branch of the Unification Party moved quickly to remove the barriers between their respective countries. In 2178, all trade barriers were lifted and all tariffs eliminated. This did cause a great deal of deficit in the governments who once were financed by said tariffs. The shortfall forced both a rise in taxes and the nationalization of profitable industries to fund the state. In 2190, passports between U.E.F. states became a thing of the past. In 2197, in order to emphasize the progress of humanity, the U.E.F. became the first Earth-based anything to adopt the Anno Lunarium calender as a common calender for Earth that completely disregarded religion. The decision was also symbolic in that the exchange, 1 A.L. was also seen as a turning point in history.
In 2204, the U.E.F. implemented a common currency, simply called the credit. Before the exchange, most hard currency was rendered obsolete. Afterwards, such capital did make a comeback out of necessity. The U.E.F. had every intention on returning to that level of technology that would render paper money obsolete. However, gold and other metals were still used as a reserve, an emergency back up. For half a century, credits were printed on paper note, until the communication network was restored to a level were instant transactions to any point on the map was again possible. The year 2209 saw the creation of the Earth Defense Force, a military integration of the U.E.F. states into a single force. During a meeting of high ranking Party officials in 2210 set the year 2227, 137 A.L. as the year when full political unification of the U.E.F. states would be scheduled.
For more than seventy years, the Unified Earth Front strove for the creation of a world-state. The goal was nearing completion when on January 4, 2227, delegates from all U.E.F. controlled states met in New Delhi. At this famous meeting, the Articles of Confederation for a world-state were drawn up. Heading the government would be a unicameral Senate, based much on that of the Staaten-General India had while it was an empire within the Commonwealth. Heading the government would be a council of ministers, with a First Minister as the head of the world-state. Elections would be held every five years for the senate, and upon their taking office following their elections, they would appoint ministers from their own ranks, and elect a First Minister to preside over it all. The elections of Senators would be universal suffrage, with the only requirements being that the voter is eighteen years of age and that he resides in the state in which he is voting.
For ten days the debates raged on about the new government. Some, such as Hans Veergan of Australia, wanted a strong federal government for Earth. Others, such as President Indira Medehaula of India, was suspicious of strong central governments. Even after a century, the Indians still remembered their own rule by the Dutch Commonwealth. As with the name of the new governing laws, the Indians and their confederated faction won out. The new state would be a loose confederation of states with common currencies, standards and military, along with open borders for both people and commerce to flow. Because of the states with current Unification Parties in control, the official languages of the world-state would be Dutch, English and French. Though the member states are all post colonial, and quite a few conquered by said nationalities, pragmatism won out. These three European languages would make communication far easier than dozens of regional tongues. That, coupled with the fact that both Dutch and English were international languages of trade, made them the two most logical choices.
After January 29, the draft of the Articles was returned to each of the member states, were referendums were scheduled to be held in the following February and March. By March 16, 2227, the final U.E.F. state, India itself, passed the Articles by 62%. Thus, the Terran Confederation was born. Elections to the Confederation Senate were held in May, and the first Confederation Congress began in Delhi in July. The Unified Earth Front long dreamed of Geneva as the capital of the world, but that old city of international negotiations was in the process of begin reclaimed by expanding Alpine glaciers. The first item on Confed’s agenda was to complete the unification of Earth. Reaction to the founding of the Terran Confederation among the World Powers ranged from concerned to indifferent. Americans were concerned for guarding their sovereignty, while a weakening People’s Dynasty in China simply did not care, provided the U.E.F. stayed out of China’s internal affairs. In the Commonwealth, both the House of Oranje and the House of Oranje-Afar saw this as the potential start of a newer, grander Commonwealth.