United Commonwealth

The United Commonwealth was a human political entity that existed between the 20th and the 22nd centuries. It was first formed in 1968 as an intergovernmental supranational union with the merger of the European Union and the Commonwealth of Nations to manage a single market and currency union. From its inception as a supranational union, the United Commonwealth's member states also established common policies on international trade and maintained a single unified military force called the United Commonwealth Defence Force. In 1988, after the beginning of the Allied-Cramori War, the United Commonwealth was federalised and absorbed the national governments of its member states. For most of its existence as a federation, the United Commonwealth had the largest national economy and the most powerful military in the human world. Its vast territory stretched across all of Earth's inhabited continents. By the end of its existence as an independent state in the 22nd century, the United Commonwealth controlled an interplanetary colony on the planet Venus in the Sol System.

Establishment
The Great War (1914-16), and particularly the exchange of orbital kinetic bombardment weapons that ended the conflict, left much of the European continent devastated. The conflict killed around 100 million people, the vast majority of them civilians in Europe, and resulted in the destruction of dozens of major European cities. Many of the European great powers that had fought in the war saw the collapse of their governments and fragmentation of their nations, as well as the losses of their overseas colonial empires.

Relations between the primary combatants in the war, Great Britain, France and Germany, remained tense for several years after the conflict had officially ended despite the signing of an armistice agreement in Switzerland in 1918. The major point of contention was Germany's continued post-war military occupation of most of Belgium and all of Luxembourg, which the German government claimed was necessary due to its concerns about a possible British and French invasion of Germany. From the early 1920s, however, the European political climate had greatly shifted from the previous decade. Europeans roundly rejected the ethnic and religious nationalism that were perceived to have been the major causes of the war. Under pressure from the international community and even advocacy groups within Germany itself, in 1923 Germany voluntarily relinquished control over the parts of Belgium and Luxembourg which it had occupied since the Great War. This led to a dramatic improvement in relations between Germany, Great Britain and France, paving the way for international trade to resume between the three nations.

Despite the improved political climate in Europe, Europe's economic recovery was slow. The major economies of Europe would take several decades to return to their pre-war levels of productivity. In the meantime, they were greatly surpassed as the political and economic leaders of the human world by nations such as the United States, the Soviet Union and Japan. Although there was newfound optimism that another major war between human nations could be avoided, two schools of thought had evolved in Europe concerning approaches to international relations in the post-Great War era. Political leaders in Great Britain came to believe that its emergence from the "splendid isolation" that it had enjoyed for most of the 19th century had heightened tensions with European powers such as the German Empire, leading to its entry into the Great War. Britain therefore thought that withdrawing from involvement in European political affairs would be beneficial to supporting long-term peace in Europe, and decided to rebuild its economy by establishing a political and economic union called the Commonwealth of Nations which included many former British colonies. Conversely, the nations of Western Europe sought to boost trade and economic integration between themselves, concluding that economic cooperation would improve the European continent's post-war economic productivity and limit the possibility of another war between European nations. In order to achieve this, many nations in Western Europe established the European Union.

During the early 1950s, negotiations began between the European Union and Commonwealth of Nations officials about a prospective merging of the two intergovernmental organisations. By the 1950s British policy toward Europe had shifted again, and Great Britain wanted to once again engage economically and politically with Europe. In addition, the Soviet Union's 1955 test of a fusion rocket established the large communist state as the human world's leading military and scientific power. The European Union as well as Commonwealth members Great Britain and India all considered the Soviet Union to be a potential military threat, and it was thought that expanded political cooperation between the European Union and the Commonwealth of Nations would deter the Soviets from military aggression. The British government received the support of India, the largest and most powerful Commonwealth of Nations member, to initiate negotiations with the European Union on the prospect of a merger with the Commonwealth. The merging of the Commonwealth of Nations and the European Union would also create a large global free trade zone that would give the new organisation huge bargaining power in trade negotiations. After much debate, in 1968 the political and economic structures of the European Union and the Commonwealth of Nations were merged to form the United Commonwealth.

In 1976, nearly 130 million humans were killed on Mars when the Cramori Empire launched its first attack against the Sol System. United Commonwealth Defence Force military spaceships and the civilian spaceships of Commonwealth member states were used to transport ground forces of the United Commonwealth and other human ground forces to Mars to engage Cramori invasion forces and evacuate human survivors from the planet.

In 1976, the United Commonwealth also became the third human nation (after the United States and Japan) to test a second-generation gravity drive capable of propelling a spacecraft to relativistic speeds.

Government, law and economy
The treaties establishing the United Commonwealth created an internal single market between Commonwealth member nations. A monetary union was also established upon the Commonwealth's foundation in 1968, leading to the replacement of all national currencies with the Commonwealth credit.

Commonwealth policies were passed by the Commonwealth Parliament in Luxembourg, which had been the location of the former European Parliament of the European Union. The Commonwealth Parliament had members elected by the citizens of member states, who also elected their national parliaments. The laws passed by the Commonwealth Parliament aimed to ensure the free movement of people, goods, services and capital within the internal market.

The United Commonwealth Secretariat, which was located in Bristol, Great Britain, acted both as the Commonwealth's executive arm, responsible for the day-to-day running of the Commonwealth, and also the legislative initiator, with the sole power to propose laws for debate. One Commonwealth Secretary was also elected by voters in each Commonwealth member state during Commonwealth elections. A single Commonwealth Secretary was selected to be the Secretary General of the United Commonwealth.

Even during the United Commonwealth's existence as a supranational union, the United Commonwealth Parliament and the United Commonwealth Secretariat formulated international trade, foreign and defence laws and policies affecting all Commonwealth member states. The United Commonwealth's member states maintained a single unified military force called the United Commonwealth Defence Force, which absorbed the European Union Defense Force and the separate military forces of Commonwealth of Nations member nations when the United Commonwealth was established in 1968. The Secretary General of the United Commonwealth, for example, controlled the activation codes for all of the United Commonwealth Defence Force's nuclear weapons and orbital weapons platforms.

The United Commonwealth also had a Supreme Court to adjudicate disputes between member nations, and member nations and the Commonwealth itself. The Supreme Court's seat was located in New Delhi, India.

Member states
The member states of the United Commonwealth, between the establishment of the United Commonwealth as a supranational union in 1968 and its federation in 1988, included the following nations:
 * [[Image:Flag_of_Australia33.png|20px]] Australia
 * [[Image:Flag of Belgium11.svg|20px]] Belgium
 * [[Image:Flag of Bulgaria33.png|20px]] Bulgaria
 * [[Image:Flag_of_Canada33.png|20px]] Canada
 * [[Image:Flag of Czechoslovakia33.png|20px]] Czechoslovakia
 * [[Image:Flag of Denmark33.png|20px]] Denmark
 * [[Image:Flag of Finland33.png|20px]] Finland
 * [[Image:Flag of France33.png|20px|link=Special:FilePath/Flag_of_France11.png]] France
 * [[Image:Flag of GermanRepublic33.png|20px|link=Special:FilePath/Flag_of_Germany11.png]] Germany
 * [[Image:Flag_of_GB33.png|20px]] Great Britain
 * [[Image:Flag of Greece33.png|20px]] Greece
 * [[Image:Flag of Hungary33.png|20px]] Hungary
 * [[Image:Flag_of_India33.png|20px]] India
 * [[Image:Flag_of_Ireland33.png|20px]] Ireland
 * [[Image:Flag of Ita33.png|20px|link=Special:FilePath/Flag_of_Italy11.png]] Italy
 * [[Image:Flag of Luxembourg11.png|20px]] Luxembourg
 * [[Image:Flag_of_Malaya33.png|20px]] Malaya
 * [[Image:Flag of Netherlands11.png|20px]] Netherlands
 * [[Image:Flag_of_NewZealand33.png|20px]] New Zealand
 * [[Image:Flag of Norway33.png|20px]] Norway
 * [[Image:Flag of Poland33.png|20px|link=Special:FilePath/Flag_of_Poland11.png]] Poland
 * [[Image:Flag of PortEmpi11.png|20px]] Portugal
 * [[Image:Flag of Romania33.png|20px]] Romania
 * [[Image:Flag_of_SouthAfrica33.png|20px]] South Africa
 * [[Image:Flag of Spain11.svg|20px]] Spain
 * [[Image:Flag of Sweden33.png|20px]] Sweden
 * [[Image:Flag of Turkey33.png|20px]] Turkey
 * [[Image:Flag of Ukraine33.png|20px]] Ukraine
 * [[Image:Flag of Yugo33.png|20px]] Yugoslavia

Federal state (1988-2155)
In the wake of the start of the Allied-Cramori War and the Cramori Empire's attempted invasion of the Sol System in 1976, in 1988 the citizens of the member states of the United Commonwealth voted to give the United Commonwealth Parliament and the United Commonwealth Secretariat the powers of a federal government, effectively transforming the United Commonwealth from a supranational political and economic union to a single federal republic. It was thought that granting the United Commonwealth greater economic, political and military control over the resources of its constituent states would be more effective for planetary defence against the Cramori. The United Commonwealth's member states ceased to exist and were effectively absorbed into the United Commonwealth Government in 1988, while the United Commonwealth Secretariat was renamed the United Commonwealth Executive. The title of the leader of the United Commonwealth Executive, and therefore the senior political official in the entire nation, was changed from Secretary General to President of the United Commonwealth. Immediately upon its federation, the United Commonwealth became the human world's largest economy and most populous country.

In 1991, the United Commonwealth began conducting asteroid mining operations in the Kuiper belt. However, much of the Commonwealth's Kuiper belt mining infrastructure was destroyed in an attack by the Cramori Empire in 2006.

In 1993, the United Commonwealth successfully tested a pure fusion weapon.

In 2001, the United Commonwealth became the second human nation (after the United States) to test a faster-than-light starship powered by a kugelblitz drive. The United Commonwealth launched its first interstellar spaceflight in 2016 as part of the Operation Starshio series of missions, becoming the third human nation (after the Soviet Union and the United States) to launch an interstellar spaceflight.

In 2005, the destruction of much of the United States' frontline space battle fleet after its disastrous Vega offensive left the United Commonwealth with the largest and most powerful space fleet in the League of Nations Space Command. For most of the Allied-Camori War, the United Commonwealth's military forces would constitute the bulk of humanity's military resistance against the Cramori Empire.

In 2006, eight million Commonwealth settlers were among 16 million humans killed on Titan when the Cramori Empire launched an attack on the Saturnian moon.

In 2023, United Commonwealth astronauts conducting an Operation Starshot mission discovered the Trappist star system, including the planet Veoria which contained an advanced industrial civilisation.

The government of the United Commonwealth was officially dissolved in 2155, as were the governments of all other nations on Earth. National governments were replaced by a single democratic leadership structure called the Human Federation. The unification of all of humanity under a single federal government made humanity eligible for admission into the Galactic Union.