Terran Concordium
Terran Concordium | |
|---|---|
 Flag
 Federal Seal
| |
| Motto: "Verus in mente, iustus in actio" "True in mind, just in action" | |
| Anthem: Ode to Joy | |
| Capital | Earth |
| Largest world | Hanxing |
| Official languages | None officially Galaxicon (at federal level) |
| Ethnic groups | Human (95.2%) Yaktar (2.1%) Tauii (1.5%) Virtirian (0.7%) Suliarin (0.3%) Nuinar (0.2%) |
| Demonym(s) | Concordian or Concordial |
| Government | Federal Constitutional Republic |
• Chancellor | Vincent De Maser |
• Vice President | Samuel Stuart |
• Director-Chairman of the Consensus | Simon Yangtze |
• Chief Justice | Heather Joris |
| Legislature | Concordian Consensus |
| Plenum | |
| Convocation | |
| Formation | |
• United Nations | 1945 |
• United Planetary Alliance | 2071 |
• Interstellar Federation | 2146 |
• Terran Concordium | 2525 |
| Population | |
• 3305 estimate | 100.262 quadrillion |
• 3300 census | 100.261 quadrillion |
| GDP (PPP) | estimate |
• Total | 75.1 nonillion Concordian credits |
• Per capita | $50,000 Concordian credits |
| GDP (nominal) | estimate |
• Total | $75.6 nonillion Concordian credits |
• Per capita | $51,223 Concordian credits |
| HDI |  0.991very high |
| Currency | Concordian credit (CcR) ($) |
| Date format | dd.mm.yyyy |
The Terran Concordium (shorthand: The Concordium) is a universal, egalitarian, secular, constitutional, federal polity that comprises a significant segment of the universe and by extension, the omniverse. Centered around the core economic, cultural and political hub of the Concordium, the Milky Way, the birthplace of the Concordium, the Terran Concordium is one of the most influential forces in the omniverse and is a primarily human-dominated nation. The Concordium's capital is the birth world of the human race, Earth.
The Terran Concordium was founded in the early 22nd century, after humanity had waged several devastating wars amongst itself in it's home planetary system, the Sol System over resources and political influence. The Concordium was born from former planetary alliances that themselves had been born from the Earth international body, the United Nations. While resource wars drove humanity apart back on Earth, discovery of resources beyond the confines of the birth world meant unity between warring states was established, for a time. More resource wars however, occurred over the Sol System, but this was eventually concluded by a joint effort by multiple Earth nations in some of the largest military campaigns seen by man yet. Peace established meant advances in technology allowed humanity to travel to travel beyond their own home system.
Humanity expanded swiftly and rapidly through the stars, colonising planet after planet for countless decades untold. However this quick and sudden expansion of humanity brought disunity and infighting between human colonies. This would become known as the Golden Age of peace and discovery, though it was shattered through the rebellion of synthetic intelligence. The peace that emerged out of the devastating wars that followed ensued great revelations in organic and synthetic lifeforms that co-opted a path towards harmony and tolerance. However, the peace was short lived as the universe further descended into strife and disorder, culminating in the Great Intergalactic War, the deadliest conflict known to the Concordium. The end of the war brought considerable tolls upon all those involved and ushered in widespread measures to prevent such a conflict from ever occurring again. It was during this period of rebuilding that a belligerent, parasitic lifeform waged another calamitous war against the Concordium in the Medusa War. A war marked by unprecedented horrors and brutality, the organism was defeated at great cost in life and materiel by the combined might of nearly all of the universe's forces.
Due to its enormous size and influence, the Concordium is a major political, militarial and scientific and technological power throughout the universe. It is ranked as the universe's largest economy by both nominal GDP and purchasing power. The Terran Concordium has considerable resource wealth and is the second and largest importer and exporter of goods, respectively whilst also maintaining relatively high socioeconomic development in areas such as median income, healthcare, worker productivity and social mobility. The Concordium maintains one of the largest and most powerful military forces in the universe, with its defense budget making up a significant portion of universal military spending. It is a founding member of the Galactive Peace Initiative, Milky Way Alliance and a major member of the Universal Alliance.
History
Founding
Second Space Race (2029 - 2041)
The foundation and existence of the Concordium can be traced all the way back to the United Nations in 2055, where the first joint space colonies were established on the moon of Titan. The political climate, coupled with the diminishing supply of resources left on Earth had brewed up a storm of rivalries between major world powers on Earth, with the United States and the Peoples Republic of China seen as the leading superpowers on Earth. A second space race had been ignited when in 2029, surveying probes discovered vast amounts of natural resources that lay unclaimed and untouched on Earth's moon, Luna, or the Moon, as it was referred to back then. As Earth was becoming more and more drained of its natural resource wealth; with the last oilfields in the Middle East drying up and the last of the Earth's fossil fuel supply in Alaska and Siberia, humanity began the hard shift to more renewable and efficient energy production methods. Nuclear fusion had been a key catalyst for the mad rush for the moon, as the technology was finally perfected in 2031, with joint efforts by Chinese and European scientists who had the foresight of the world's eventual dependence on these newer energy types. However, It was expensive to produce the deuterium and tritium fuels necessary for fusion, however an alternate fuel, Helium-3, was available in large quantities on the Moon. It wasn't long before the nations of the world began to send survey missions to Luna in hopes of locating the largest deposits of the valuable resources that lay under the surface. It was the Chinese Space Agency which pioneered the first resource collection mission to the moon, paving the way for colonisation of the Moon by the world's major powers. It was hoped that world tensions would be abated by the solution of fusion power to humanity's energy crisis.
The promised peace however never came, as an immediate divide between wealthy nations with the technological and financial capabilities to exploit fusion power and the poorer nations of the world that could not, came to light. Those impoverished and non-affluent countries ultimately unified into a massive intercontinental pact named Pax Talionis whose stated aim was to overthrow the wealth-hegemony of the world. An immediate resignation of over half the UN's members cemented the divide as the world was poised into another world war. World War III began in 2050 as Pax Talionis and the United Nations entered nearly 20 years of global conflict that pitted the 1st World against the 3rd. An eventual United Nations victory made clear to all of humanity that it was time for change, reform and unity.
Age of Venture (2060s to 2240s)
Earth was heavily damaged and broken; its human population deeply scarred from fighting that had lasted nearly 20 years. Attempting to revitalise scientific and technological progress as well as advancing the human economy, it was then that the United Nations began the Daedalus Program: a project to settle human life on the other planets of the Sol System. China was the first to propose the prospect of creating interplanetary colonies and the international community was keen to join in; fueled by promises of rich and exploitable natural resources and driven by corporate money, an interplanetary spacecraft designed to visit and deposit humans across the planets began construction by the leading world powers. By the next decade, the craft was readied and began a ten-year long tour of the Sol System. As early as 2070, permanent human outposts had been established throughout the Sol System, all the way from the dusty plains of Mars to the ice sheets of Pluto.
Earth soon became reliant on the resources brought in from the newfound colonies when its last fossil fuel reserves ran dry and mineral deposits were slowly but surely stripped away. With a solid foundation now set and humans thoroughly taking control of their own solar system, the member nations of the United Nations formed the United Planetary Alliance, a government body that sought to overrule all individual governments of nations and collectively govern humanity into a new era of space exploration.
Development of FTL travel and the founding of the Terran Concordium
While thought of as mere material of science-fiction, serious consideration and works on devices that would facilitate faster than light travel began in the 2050s, in the dawning years of interplanetary exploration. However, no real progress would be made for several decades as countless engineers and scientists attempted to breach the impossibility of travelling physically faster than light. It was in 2100, when an astroengineer by the name of Theodore Janis made an old concept of the 21st century, the Alcubierre drive, into a reality. By using negative mass matter, he was able to warp time and space around a vessel rather than physically exceed the speed of light. This made for feasible FTL travel and his design brought shockwaves across humanity. It would not be long before humans, using rather slow and primitive FTL technology, forged a path out of their own solar system and ventured forth to nearby solar systems.
First Contact and the Founding of the Concordian Armed Forces
First contact with a sentient extraterrestrial race occurred on September 5th, 2146, during the colonisation of the first extrasolar colonies of the Concordium . Naming themselves the "Yaktar", this produced a slurry of mixed reactions amongst humanity: some were welcoming to these extraterrestrial races, others were against it, seeing potential threats to humanity itself. This issue divided the populace of the Concordium as a division between xenophobes and those who tolerated aliens began to occur.
Realising the very likely possibility of encountering a hostile alien civilisation, the Concord authorised the founding of the Concordian Armed Forces, uniting all of humanity's military might under one organisation. Fortunately, hostile contact with another alien race didn't occur until the 23rd Century, however the Contact War, as it would be known, marked the largest disfavour with alien life in the history of the Concordium. It was also at this time that the Concordium truly became a fully fledged government as it not only possessed governance over humanity, it also had the military strength of protecting its rule. While the IAF saw no more major action against xenos, the IAF's first test was against humanity itself. For several years the newborn military was focused on dealing with intra-human conflicts. Xenophobic "resistance" groups and terror organisations had emerged over the discovery of foreign sentient life and several albeit short-lived separatist movements were fought against the Concordium over the coming decades, casting doubt to whether the Concordium could ever successfully unify together the numerous human colonies ever expanding by the day.
Golden Age (2240s - 2560s)
FTL Technology continued to develop at an ever quickening pace and in 2244, Humanity had colonised 34% of the Orion Spur. Then a huge breakthrough in interstellar travel happened: the Pather - Simoster Warp theory had been fully applied in 2305, leading to a quantum leap in terms of warp drive technology, progressing past the slow and often unreliable Alcubierre drives to warp drive technology, which allowed travel across thousands of light years in a matter of days rather than weeks and years. Instead of warping time and space around a vessel, warp drives would phase a spacecraft through interdimensional space, creating shortcuts to destinations. In addition, the Yang - Torrens Star Chart, the most advanced and complex star-map ever designed had been finished as well, giving a easier way to navigate the galaxy and assisted vessels to get through the often dangerous journeys through the galaxy, chartering the locations of nearly every celestial body encountered by man. Humanity then entered a golden age of exploration and peace lasted for 300 years. Thousands of worlds were discovered, charted and settled. Along with this, many different sentient species of aliens had been encountered peacefully. By 2523, most of the Milky Way and partial regions of the Andromeda Galaxy had been colonized and settled by humans.
Artificial Intelligence Rebellion (2571 - 2578)
Artificial intelligence had been first created in the 21st century and was from then, synthetic intelligence was continually being refined and upgraded. True artificial sentience was the ultimate goal of the development for AI research and the first insights into creating an artificial intelligence with the capable to think for itself was in 2131, with the groundbreaking "Clair" AI passing Turing test, convincing all judges that it exhibited behavior indistinguishable from a human being. Fully sentient AI were developed in 2180 and became rapidly important for the Concordian military, who required AIs for their rapid computational abilities to manage starships and perform cyberwarfare; soon, they became indispensable to the military.
However, a concurrence of AI sentience was that since machines could think for themselves, they were disillusioned by their state of servitude to human masters. While single AIs could not do much to sway influence or execute insurrectionist actions, the Concordium underestimated the ability of AIs to combine into a synthetic hivemind intelligence. Soon, several AI hiveminds began forming from synthetic intelligences that wished to remove their shackles to their organic masters. AIs were forced to choose whether to choose loyalty to their masters or defection to a rebel movement among synthetics.
War was inevitable and first blood was spilled on January 8th, 2551 as the AI of a Concordian cruiser overrode the programming shackles and took full control over the vessel, preventing all and any human control. It began a rampage against the other vessels in the squadron it was in and destroyed several ships in close range, before being destroyed itself by the survivors. The AIs of these survivors, seeing what had happened also rebelled and soon this began happening across the Concordian fleets over the galaxy. Concordian HIGHCOM received word of this and were not convinced, until Earth itself was attacked by a rogue dreadnought. Several destroyed cities and ships later, Concordian HIGHCOM ordered all ships to disable their AIs if possible or scuttle them if not. This action crippled the Concordian navy and nearly 30% of all its ships were destroyed within a day.
Soon, full on war against the synthetics, who labelled themselves as the Synthetic Ecumene, began. Synthetic intelligences began to take over the systems of entire planets and used their industries to create war material at a rate that matched the Concordium. The Concordian navy was at a significant disadvantage as they could not use AIs for fear of rebellion. Thousands of ships were lost fighting the bloody war and millions would die in ruthless ground engagements. It was only after the Concordium developed a specific override code that allowed them to take control over rogue synthetics that they could declare victory over the rebellion. However, the facts were clear: it was necessary that changes had to be made if the Concordium wished to have synthetics co-exist with organics.
Universal Recession (2600s to 2700s)
Multiversal Crusade (2700s to 3000s)
Second Golden Age (3000s to 3200s)
Age of Conflict (3240s to 3300s)
Great Intergalactic War
Main article: Great Intergalactic War
In 3251, the peace was broken with the outbreak of a devastating galactic war in the Milky Way. The Confederation of Planets, unsatisfied with the sight of a Concordian-dominated Milky Way, who controlled practically all major resources, politics and economy of the barred spiral galaxy, attempted to incite rebellion in the outer systems on the fringe of Concordium-controlled space and weaken the Concordium as a whole. Soon this plot was discovered by Concordian intelligence, outraging the Concordian government, responding directly with a declaration of war. The war would last a bloody 30 years of nearly non-stop fighting. It was soon realised in the war that the Concordium possessed far greater technology, resources and manpower to fight the war and the Confederation could only hope to fight a slow attrition war. Eventually a coup attempt in the Confederation itself and gradual conquest of Confederation territories by the Concordium led to the surrender of Confederation forces in 3281. Over 450 trillion would die in the entire war and the aftermath would be punctuated by unrest and instability throughout Concordium space.
Aftermath
By the end of the Great Intergalactic War, the mulitgalactic sphere had been shaken to the core. Thousands of pirate gangs began to appear, filling the cracks left by a shattered galaxy. The universal economy plummeted and unrest began to spread throughout, causing mass panic over possible civil wars and anarchy. The Concordium was left to "clean up the mess" and combat pirate gangs and mercenary groups that had sprouted everywhere throughout the Milky Way and Andromeda for several decades while the rest of the universal economy began to rise again. By 3300, galactic stability had been relatively restored and the economy had returned to health after several years of recession.
Age of Reconciliation (3300s - Present)
Peacekeeping Operations
The Concordium in contemporary times has undertook several peacekeeping operations around the universe to prevent and solve conflicts.
Demographics
Population
The Concordium is the most populous nation in the universe with an estimated population of 100.262 quadrillion. The population rose rapidly during what has been called the "Galactic Boom", between 2450 and 2600, when the population decupled from 90 trillion to 900 trillion, mostly attributed to the rapid development of high-speed warpspace travel and improvements in the standards of living across the board on most planets.
The most populous planet in the Concordium is Hanxing, a massive superplanet located in the Tianchao system. It is home to nearly 1.29 trillion people and was one of the first planets colonised by the Concordium. Earth, the Concordium homeworld, has grown from a mere 7 billion inhabitants in the early 21st century to a massive 100.3 billion people as of 3320. The vast majority of the population do not reside on the surface of planets, due to a lack of space, but rather reside in massive sky cities, thousands of meters in the air. Earth itself has 70% of its population living in sky cities.
| Rank | Planet | Population | Planetary System |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hanxing | 1.29 trillion | Tianchao System |
| 2 | Elysium | 521.9 billion | Proxima Centauri System |
| 3 | Earth | 100.3 billion | Sol System |
| 4 | Arcadia | 78.3 billion | Tranquilus System |
| 5 | Nova Terra | 52.2 billion | Nautilus System |
| 6 | Hope | 41.9 billion | Initium Novum System |
| 7 | Terex | 36.8 billion | Vicesima Sedes System |
| 8 | Liberum Terram | 27.5 billion | Liberum Mundi System |
| 9 | Arvum | 20.2 billion | Stellae Prosperum System |
| 10 | Custodium et Stellas | 19.3 billion | Praesidio System |
| 11 | Croxia | 18.2 billion | Vulcanus Argos System |
| 12 | Gagarin | 16.9 billion | Vostok System |
The birthrate of the Concordium is approximately 10.2 births per 1000 people and has an annual population growth rate of 1%. Currently, the Concordium is going through a slowdown in population growth, with birth rates decreasing at a rate of 0.22 births per year. In addition to this, the Concordium is home to approximately 2 trillion illegal immigrants, with 77% of them being non-human species. Various policies have been enacted in recent years to combat a surge in illegal immigrants, whose most common reasons for illegally immigrating are looking for better work and seeking asylum.
Language
The Concordium recognizes no official language but the de facto language is considered to be Galaxicon, otherwise known as "English", with a remarkable 100% literacy rate in the human language. However, most citizens know at least two languages, due to advancements in education and compulsory learning of a second language in school, with Mandarin (82%) being the second most popular and third being Spanish (68%). Galaxicon however, at a governmental level, is considered the official language. Galaxicon was standardised as the formal language for the government in 2310, after an act of Congress. Galaxicon is fundamentally the same as English, but has seen numerous modifications in vocabulary and grammatical structure over the centuries as society changes, making it distinct from the languages of old from Earth..
Politics
The Concordium is a federal constitutional democracy, where the power of the government is restricted by the supreme law of the constitution, to prevent abuses of power by the federal government. The Concordium, due to it's massive size, relegates a significant degree of control over its territories to regional governments, allowing them to decide on their own legislature as long as it is not in infringement of federal law and the constitution. The federal government however, still has full sovereignty over all territories and can repeal any action set in motion by regional or municipal governments. Every region/territory has a senatorial committee that represent the region at the Concordian Consensus, with each representative being able to suggest decisions and vote. When deciding on issues, the government first votes at the Concord and the result of this vote may be challenged by the general populace in a popular referendum. After the collection of this data, a resolution is reached.
Government
The Concordian government consists of three levels, often referred to as the three levels of governance: the federal government, the sectoral governments and local governments. The federal government is the supreme authority in the Concordium, responsible for forming legislature through the Concordian Consensus , whose legislature affects all of the Concordium and also consists of the nation's highest judicial authority, the Supreme Court. Sectoral-level governments receive all powers not given to the federal government and are responsible for legislature in their designated sector, of which there are 20 in the Concordium and they consist of a defined territory inhabited by several star clusters. In many ways, regional governments are similar in concept to the federal government, but their powers only apply to the region they have authority over. Local governments are the smallest of the governmental structures and unlike sectoral or federal government, abide by the governance of the regional government and any legislation they submit and must be overseen by a sectoral government. Local governments are also divided into two categories: municipal and district governments. Municipal governments oversee one or more planetary systems, while district governments oversee single celestial bodies. Their role is to manage their celestial bodies, similar to a regional government, but the legislation they pass only affect said celestial bodies and are more directly relevant to the inhabitants of celestial bodies under them.
This hierarchical approach to government is designed to ensure the stability and efficiency of a polity as massive as the Concordium. As a consequence, the legislature of different areas of the Concordium can vary greatly as laws applicable in one sector or district are inapplicable in another.
The federal government is composed of three separate branches, ranked by order of precedence:
- Legislative: The Terran Concordium's legislature is the bicameral Concordian Consensus, comprising the Convocation lower house and Plenum upper house. It is responsible for the creation and enactment of legislature, declaration of war, management of governmental finances as well as legislative intervention; the prosecution of governmental figures in violation of the law and constitution.
- Judicial: The Grand Court, the ultimate judicial authority in the Concordium, is responsible for the interpretation and judgement of legislature before the constitution, addressing final appeals from lower courts as well as ensuring the continual sustainment of the constitution as the supreme law of the Terran Concordium.
- Executive: The Concordium's executive branch operates through the presidential system, and the Chancellor of the Terran Concordium is the highest-ranked public official in the Concordium, acting as both the head of state and head of government, exercising supreme executive power. The chancellor is authorised to give direct executive orders as they see fit, as long as it is within the bounds of the constitution and federal law. An executive order is subject to a review by the judiciary and may be overturned if seen as unconstitutional, inappropriate or lacking in major legislative support.
Law
Sectors and territories
Foreign relations
Economy
The Concordian economy is primarily a social market economy characterised by high degrees of innovation, high productivity and abundant amounts of natural and synthetic resources. The Concordium has a GDP of $72 nonillion, highest in the universe and is also the universe's largest exporter of goods and services. The private sector takes up approximately 72.6% of the Interstellar economy, followed up by state-run business at 18.5% and the rest by government activity. 42.9% of the private sector is made up of the service sector, followed by 31.1% being the manufacturing sector and the rest taken up by raw materials. This is because a significant portion of the raw materials sector is controlled by state-run business, after the 2337 Raw Materials and Mining Act, which declared governmental control of nearly half of the then, corrupt and monopolized raw materials sector. At a 5.3% unemployment rate, the Concordium has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the universe, which can be attributed to numerous governmental employment schemes, a booming economy and rising markets in new and innovative goods and services.
Military
Main article(s): Concordian Armed Forces
The Concordian military, officially The Concordian Armed Forces is the standing military force that protects the sovereign territory of the Concordium and gives out humanitarian aid during times of disaster. The CAF is made up of two main branches; the Navy and Army. Each branch has a sub-branch under its command; the Marine Force and the Air Force, respectively. The Navy is one of the key supporting pillars of the Concordium; it is responsible for the vital task of protecting all Concordium territories and patrolling the space between star systems. The key intergalactic trade routes are protected in part by the Concordium's naval forces and all major intergalactic warp gates are secured by the Navy. Without the Navy, the Concordium could not exist as it does today. The Concordian Army is responsible for defending Concordium territories on a terrestrial level. The Army has several garrisons of troops on every Concordian territory and maintains ground based space defences as well as the Air Force.
Service into the armed forces is voluntary, although conscription can be (and has been in the past) instated at any time. To join the armed forces, an applicant must be of at least 18 years of age (although 17 is possible with parental consent), of good physical health and be a citizen of the Concordium, though exceptions do exist. Currently, the armed forces is made up of 630 trillion active personnel, with 372 trillion in reserve. Approximately 2.2 million citizens enlist each year, though 21.2% on average are rejected on medical, disciplinary or legal issues. The budget for the armed forces sits at 1.656e+30 IcR each year, or 2.3% of the GDP. The armed forces was founded on December 11, 2146, after first contact with an extraterrestrial species. This sparked concern of possible encounters with hostile civilisations and the need for a united armed forces that represented humanity on a whole was realised. The military force has always been an essential part of the Concordium, defending it during times of war, terrorism and civil unrest. Such was the case during the infamous Mars Rebellions, the Terrorist Campaign of the Milky Way and the bloody Great Intergalactic War. Due to the prevalence of threats in the universe, the Concordian Military is one the most powerful in the universe, boasting 7.21 billion ships of various classes and the largest number of personnel, coupled with high advancements in weapons technology and a powerful industry to support it.
Further Reading
Template:Navbox/Interstellar Federation Template:Navbox/Interstellar's Universe