Union of Sol

The Union of Sol, or the Solar Union, or the Union of Earth was the primary government of Earth and the Sol system. While not all inhabitants of the solar system fell under the Union, it was the main economic, cultural, and militaric force. Especially humanity's second colony, Mars, often claimed its independence from the Union. Despite their claims, they never actually became fully independent.

The Union of Sol was an important member in both the Alliance of Systems and the Allied Systems Federation, as Earth served as the capital of the Federation since its foundation.

After the Vrox Rampage, the union fragmented as some colonies and bases broke loose from the Systems Federation and joined the emerging human-centric Terran Unitary State. While the Union still held the strongest grasp on the Sol system, various dwarf planets became Unitary Territory.

The military of the Union, the Aegis Solarum, was adopted into both the Alliance of Systems and the Allied Systems Federation as the defense fleet of the Sol System.

United Earth
Main article: United Nations of Earth

As humanity continued to spread out from their home planet Earth into their Sol system, new divides started to appear in the once singular entity of the United Nations of Earth. Human colonies on Mars, Ceres, and in the Jupiter planetary system started to voice their wishes for autonomy, free from Earth. Still, with its massive economy and population, the UNE held on to its control over the system. With the continuing development of the Earth Expansion Vessel Program and the completed construction of the Segan-class interstellar explorer, the UNE set its sights on crewed exploration of other stars.

As humanity began to colonise their moon Luna and their neighbouring planet Mars in the early 2030's both for scientific advancement and the fear of extinction due to the rapidly increasing effects of climate change, a new scramble for power and security took place between the nationstates of Earth. With plummeting biodiversity, massive worldwide desertification and deforestation, depletion of critical and strategic resources, worldwide harvest failures and food shortages, and massive migration waves, the previous world order was tumbeling further down with every passing day.

Some fared much better than others, however. The continent of Africa, as well as parts of Eurasia, became completely uninhabitable during the 21st century. A massive civil war left huge parts of North America broken. As governments fell, megacorporations became the continents de facto government, providing for its customers and enforcing various forms of law and order.

By the early 2050's, most governments of the planet were crippled by the worldwide famines and the partial collapse of the global trade network. After a coordinated worldwide revolt, many governments in Eurasia, North Africa, and the America's were forced to release a lot of their power and assets to a reformed United Nations that would and could take singular action against the many problems that troubled humanity. Also around this period, Humanity had established self-sufficient outposts on both Luna and Mars that attracted many colonists trying to escape Earth.

With this newfound power and reluctant support of most of the planet's population and economic power, the United Nations of Earth began to aggresively push preservation and reclamation of the Earth's biosphere by constructing massive nuclear energy plants, renewable energy sources along the coasts of UNE-affliated countries, planting or replanting massive area's of forest, and repopulating near-extinct species of flora and fauna. These campaigns did come at the cost of curtailed and controlled market systems, as the available resources could not all be converted to consumer goods and amenities. While the planet was in serious unrest and civilian uprising due to the impaired living conditions and curtailed social welfare, some serious progress was made to preserve the planet. UNE-peacekeeping forces kept the population in line with military intervention and public disciplining. More and more nation-states of Earth handed over autonomy to the United Nations to gain access to its quickly recovering economic power and to benefit from the renewable global energy and standardised transportation grids.

Despite its benefits and rapid progress, many of the old governments tried to reclaim their former power and autonomy back from the UNE. While true national autonomy was never fully granted, many cultural, social and infrastructural responsibilities were granted to areas with democratic governance. Where this forceful democratisation of the planet was not met with willful cooperation, the UNE created oversight committees to keep the population alive and to develop a regions infrastructure and economy.

During these decades of restructuring the world order, the United Nations continued to expand further into the Sol System, expanding human colonies and infrastructure on Luna and Mars, colonising several dwarf planets in the asteroid belt, and colonising the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Using a network of autonomous fuel ferries between Earth and Luna, provided by spacefaring megacorporations, the United Nations quickly became a dominant player in outer space ventures.

Due to the aggresive preservation campaigns, the effects of climate change were halted at last by the 2080's. The damage was still done, and Earth still had an unstable biosphere, but Humanity and the remaining flora and fauna species were saved for now. It would still take decades before the planet could revert to an pre-industrialisation environment.

First contact and Unification
The first ships of the scientific explorer ships, the Segan-line, the ESV Segan, ESV Einstein, and ESV Alcubierre, were launched in 2090, after 19 years of construction. These ships were the first ships with interstellar-grade warp drives. 6 years later, in 2096, the ESV Alcubierre discovered an alien civilization in the early stages of global industrialisation. These Aliens, the Votos, suffered from a genetic disease that would doom their species in a few decades. The crew of the ESV Alcubierre reported back to Earth and pleaded to let them save the Votos, as its was the first alien civilization that humanity ever encountered. The United Nations eventually accepted the plead, and ordered the other ships to rendez-vous with the Alcubierre to prepare for first contact.

The news of aliens swept through the Sol system, and even the remaining independent nation states of Earth began to see that a united humanity was better for everyone, especially now that humanity would have to start caring for a species from another world. The United Nations, the remaining nation-states of Earth, and the extraterran colonies and stations banded together to form the Union of Sol.

First contact between Humanity and the Votos was officially established in 2100 to hurry the development of the cure for the Votos genetic disease. Armies of translators, exobiologists, diplomats and cultural probers were sent from Sol to the Votos to assist in keeping the peace, as the Votos were initially quite wary about the newcomers from space.

The Alliance of Systems
By 2120, the Votos were completely cured from their genetic disorder. Humanity continued actively ascending the Votos people. Massive infrastructural plans were underway on the planet of Vota to accommodate the coming space age. Planet wide education programs had been established to teach the Votos everything about these new technologies. Due to the enormous market for teachers, philosophers, cultural interpreters, engineers and traders, a massive surge in spacefaring began for humanity. This coorperation between world led to the Alliance of Systems, a committee that oversaw issues regarding the exploration and colonisation of space by both Humanity and the newly ascended Votos. Bespite being equal on paper, the Union of Sol absolutely dominated this alliance, and the Votos had very little to no say in how affairs should be handled. Despite this, the Votos were more than happy to benefit from the extremely rapid economic and technological advancements that the humans brought with them. Especially adult and elder Votos had trouble differentiating the humans from benevolent gods and their technology from magic. The Union of Sol puppeteered the Votos homeworld through the Alliance, making sure that the Votos would not annihilate themselves accidentally with all this newfound power.