Bulgaria

Bulgaria was a human nation located in the Balkan region of Southeastern Europe on Earth in the Sol System. It bordered countries including Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey.

Several nations have previously existed on the lands which 20th century Bulgaria occupied. The most recent incarnation of Bulgaria achieved independence as the Kingdom of Bulgaria in 1908, following the Russo-Turkish War.

The Balkan Wars left Serbia, Greece and Romania (allies of Great Britain and France) in possession of lands perceived in Bulgaria as Bulgarian. During the Great War the government of Vasil Radoslavov therefore decided to align the country with the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1915, even though this also meant allying with the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria's traditional enemy.

The Great War ended in 1916 with a devastating exchange of orbital weaponry, destroying much of the European continent. While Bulgaria had no space program or orbital weapons platforms of its own, the country's capital of Sofia was struck by Allied orbital strikes in retaliation for its allegiance with Germany. The destruction of the national capital led to the rapid collapse of government institutions and the monarchy. More than one million Bulgarian soldiers and civilians died during the Great War.

In 1917 revolutionary groups declared the abolition of the Bulgarian monarchy and established the Republic of Bulgaria. The capital was relocated to the country's second-largest city of Plovdiv, which had escaped destruction by orbital strikes during the Great War.

Bulgaria joined the European Union in 1964. The European Union was merged with the Commonwealth of Nations to form the United Commonwealth in 1968.

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 Bulgarian government was therefore effectively absorbed into the United Commonwealth Government in 1988, and Bulgaria is largely regarded to have ceased to exist as a separate nation-state on that date.