Atlantic Federation is one of the main power blocs in Aqua. In the north Atlantic lies the center of one of the most powerful power blocs of Aqua: Neopolis, capital of the Atlantic Federation. Founded by some former NATO countries, the loose North Atlantic Alliance merged into a tight federation in 2112.
This was a reaction to the foundation of the monarchist "Conductate" established two years previously by Long Guiwen in the northwest Pacific, which was transformed into the "Shogunate” by Long Akira in 2178. “The power bloc in the Philippine Sea” and the presence of the Conductator became too uncomfortable for the inhabitants of the north Atlantic. In 2135, when Long violated the Treaty on Worldwide Control and Use of Nuclear Fusion, a general rearmament and the establishment of powerful armies of soldiers and mercenaries took place.
Background[]
Similarly to the Eastern Shogunate, the research stations of the Americans and Europeans united in the year 2044 into a loose league in the Aquatorium of the North Atlantic. It was the larger industrial concerns that already had enough power and capital on the surface who promoted the research, development, residential and ore-exploitation stations.
If a war was being waged on the surface, down here in Aqua, on the contrary, the laws of progress and human evolution prevailed. Experiments on the extraction of food, water treatment, energy supply and the production of breathing gas soon showed results so that the Aquatorium was completely independent from the surface at an early stage.
In 2061, the unification of what had meanwhile become high-tech stations of the U.S.A., and Europe was consolidated by the Conference in the West European Basin 20. The spacious living and extraction station of "Neopolis" in the Bay of Biscay was designated as the center. An elected parliament took over the administration of the union and the buildup of an army was started in order to combat any possible dangers from the surface or from Eastern Aquatoria. The stability that prevailed within the North Atlantic Union motivated numerous other concerns of the surface to invest here and set up new habitats. The result was continuous rapid growth of the Aquatorium.
Farsighted politicians had a secret military base built in the vicinity of the North Pole, in order to have an advance post at the entry of the Northwest Passage that could provide protection from possible invasions from the East. At the same time, this meant that they had a highly developed attack base for a possible first strike. When the Eastern Conductate was founded in 2110, such a base became highly necessary. While the Atlantic Federation was driven forward in the following period by the self-initiative, confidence and zeal of the inhabitants, the developments on the surface had to be viewed with increasing dismay. Within the framework of increasing tribalization of the former alliances, an embitteredwar broke out in the former territories of the European Union, the Balkans and the Community of Independent States (CIS). For a while, it was still waged with conventional weapons but became just as threatened by the use of chemical weapons as with the use of ballistic nuclear weapons.
However, the economic war between the USA and Japan had long since escalated into a nuclear war. Neutron bombs annihilated large portions of the population on both sides. Enormous naval battles dominated the South Pacific and as a result of the conflict between the Arabs and the Israelis in the Middle East, thousands of burning oil wells darkened the atmosphere. Refugees began to flood into the Aquatoria. Initially the North Atlantic Federation limited itself to taking in only those who could be useful for life under water: workmen, engineers, scientists and other skilled people that could bring material, technology and knowledge into the depths. Soon, however, the steadily growing flood of refugees could no longer be kept at bay with simple measures. In order to counter the dramatically growing overpopulation of the stations, the League defended itself with military means. There were embittered naval battles in which refugee boats were driven as far back as the South Pacific. They were either destroyed in naval battles between Japan and the USA, or barely escaped into one of the few descent locks of the stations being set up in the Tornado Zone.
At the same time, work was going on feverishly in Neopolis on setting up new reception camps to try and accommodate at least some of the refugees. Whoever was lucky enough to be taken in had to make himself available for working for the welfare of the community and participate in the construction of the new stations. In this manner it was possible to create enough living space for everybody within ten years.
In time the situation became more stabilized. Economic interests pushed into the foreground and the concerns that had established themselves under water started again to compete with one another. The first trading expeditions into the Arabian Sea brought money, raw materials and economic improvement to the Clansunion.
During the Florida Conference of 2106, the participating suboceanic nations emphasized their intention to work together. The representatives of the Eastern Alliances, Indian-Arab nations and technicians of the North Atlantic League, joined forces. They set up gigantic fields of turbines in the Florida Strait to extract energy along with huge water treatment plants and a research center for nuclear fusion and the production of breathing gas. EnTrOx was created as a supernational authority with its business to control and administer these resources.
In 2110 Long Guiwen in the East made himself the sole ruler of the North Pacific League and with his Conductate forged a politically self-sufficient power bloc out of the formerly independent federation. Thus, the nations of the North Atlantic League decided on an even closer collaboration, which culminated in the year 2112, in the founding of the Atlantic Federation.
In the year 2135, Conductator Long in the East abrogated the treaty on common utilization of nuclear fusion by setting up his own nuclear reactors, whereupon the great era of the mercenary armies began in the Atlantic Federation. The principle of cost-effectiveness from then on regulated the economy and the army. Soldiers were paid well, given expensive training and stationed at strategically important points in AQUA. The creation of the Shogunate in 2178 finally crowned the monarchist developments in the North Pacific. A power bloc had thereby manifested itself with political goals and views in stark contrast to the democratic understanding of the Federation. The existence of a powerful army, ready for combat, thus gained increasing importance.
In the following decades, the capitalistic-democratic consciousness became solidified within the Federation. At the same time a close-meshed social safety net was set up as the tough competition also produced victims like the weak, the sick and those who were not equal to the demands of the capitalist system. The school system was developed, universities were set up and separation of powers were established. However, the top power was the economy and remained so because only the economy possessed the financial means to hold the structural framework together.
In the course of the 23rd Century, the system, which up to then had been self-sustaining, reached its limits. For over 100 years, the economy had been carried by the battle against an environment that was harmful to life, by a continuously challenged spirit of invention and by the ever-increasing need of a growing population for ever more prosperity. When this prosperity was reached and the increase in population passed into decadent complacency, the hitherto stable system started tottering.
More and more people became victims of an increasing productivity that no longer corresponded to any real increment in buying power. A direct result was that the social safety net became loosely meshed. As had already been the case at the turn of the millennium, the only recipe was the production of poverty. Many fell into a desperate state and were driven to begging. Unemployment rose just as fast as the crime rate. The selling market of the Federation became too small and the trade routes to the other Aquatoria were too difficult, long and dangerous. The consequence was a concentration of the markets leading to oligarchic structures. A small number of concerns dominated the financial markets and the parliament and suppressed everything that opposed their interests. The upturn was followed first by stagnation and then by decay.
Drug trafficking, prostitution and piracy blossomed. Organized crime, which soon gained the upper hand, was fought against by special-mission commandos. Whoever could save himself finally withdrew into the area around Gibraltar. Here, behind the strait a totally invincible fortress of pirates and buccaneers was soon set up. Overseas trade came to a complete standstill as a consequence of piracy. The Dark Age began.
Mercenaries were recruited to protect cargo ships, the transport of people and the fixed locations, from the numerous attacks by criminals. The criminal degenerates under the domes of Neopolis were quickly recruited as a paramilitary private army. Numerous scandals, among them the EnTrOx scandal, which is still often mentioned, shook belief in the self-cleaning power of democracy. The majority that were still working voted, on orders from their employers, for the liberal parties that were opposed to any intervention in the economy by the authorities in control.
For a long time, proposals were put forward for improving the long-lasting crisis but all of them would have entailed the end of the oligarchic structures and the absolute power of the concerns. It was the power of the concerns that preserved the intrinsically unbearable conditions well into the 26th Century.
Up until the year 2544 Leo van der Waal, director of the family concern of the same name, started to criticize these conditions. As a consequence, he withdrew from the government coalition together with the UFT (Union of Free Trading) that he controlled, in order to form a new government with the opposition socialists.
He even acquiesced to the breakup of the concerns, which was on the socialists' main program. His only condition was the privatization of the EnTrOx bureaucracy, which had long since been insignificant. It enjoyed the monopoly on the production of breathing gas but even after privatization it was not allowed to make a profit. Only years later did it transpire that Leo Van der Waal was not a selfless reformer but that he was pursuing completely different, extremely selfish goals with his manner of operation. As a consequence of his popularity and of the slowly recovering economy, falling unemployment and a renewed improvement in the standard of living, his UFT succeeded in becoming the governing power in the coalition. Twenty years after the breakup of the concerns, nothing could be done without the UFT. It was at this moment that the EnTrOx push came.
Van der Waal prevented the breakup of his own concern by previously founding a web of fictitious companies that continued the concern after its breakup, almost without change and completely unnoticed by the public. In the following years, these companies began to buy up EnTrOx shares little by little, until the latter company was finally in the hands of the Van der Waal clan.
In 2565 Leo Van der Waal declared the independence of the EnTrOx Aquatorium in the Florida Strait. Any aggressive action from the Federation would be met with an immediate cessation of breathing-gas deliveries. With the same means, every attempt to break the breathing-gas monopoly or to limit the commercial activity of the Van der Waal concern (which would henceforth be called simply EnTrOx) would be throttled. Otherwise, people had the "option" of continuing to build on the customarily good commercial relations.
From one day to the next, the Atlantic Federation had been made into the slave of EnTrOx. Van der Waal was too clever to slaughter the cow that gave him milk. The economic prosperity of the Federation was in his interest, thus the 'collaboration' led to success on both sides, so that plans for stripping EnTrOx of its powers soon disappeared from the political agenda. With the help of the profits from the production of breathing gas, the jump-ship technology arose and there were quite a few who actually had nothing against being ruled by EnTrOx.
These 500-m long jump ships were capable of reaching a speed of up to 900 km/h and Aqua owes the greatest economic upturn since its founding to the invention of them. It also has them to thank for the first great war. Since the surface of the earth was lost, trade between the power blocs had been taking place only to a limited extent. With the huge fast jump ships, there was the possibility of transporting merchandise over long distances. Suddenly there was both worldwide trade and worldwide protectionism. From the latter arose the first underwater war, the so-called Digger War.
The controversy over the digger stations whose nitrogen production is essential for the production of synthetic food, broke out at the start of the 27th Century. Again, there were minor border disputes between the Shogunate, the Federation and the Indian-Arab Clansunion that had become wealthy through its position in the middle. All attempts at arbitration on a diplomatic level came to nothing. Old resentments from the time of the surface wars resurfaced and prevented any peaceful resolution of the conflicts.
Finally, in the year 2625 the Shogunate's forces attacked a digger station of the Atlantic Federation on the Cape Verde Rise and caused a border violation that could not be tolerated by the Federation. The resulting war between the Federation and the Shogunate brought the entire political equilibrium of Aqua into disarray.
The Clans Union sought to take a neutral position but because of its location in areas with very high concentrations of raw material, it kept getting involved in the conflicts. However, in spite of the determination with which the power blocs fought over the raw materials, none of the nuclear weapons available were employed. Nevertheless, in the year 2647 there was a disaster. A fusion-powered battleship of the Shogunate exploded under bombardment by Federated forces directly in front of New Bombay, the capital of the Clans Union, and threatened to contaminate the entire Aquatorium
Awakened by the shock of this event, people sought a cease-fire very quickly. Diplomatic negotiations were undertaken and a peace conference took place in New Bombay, where after long and arduous negotiations the borders of the individual power blocs were redefined. The peace treaty that resulted therefrom is still in force today, in the year 2660 The Clans Union received large financial and industrial assistance from the other power blocs for the rebuilding of their capital on a floating balanced platform, since then called Floating Bombay.
In the time of peace that followed, many of the mercenaries that became jobless through the peace treaty migrated into the Tornado Zone or joined up with the pirates of Gibraltar. After the Cold War ended and peace treaties with the Shogunate were signed, a new political movement is gaining strength in Neopolis, the so-called "New Line". Fresh young politicians from the techno-business universities are crowding out the old, now stolid warhorses.
New buzzwords are making the rounds: transhuman bioengineering, anti-sleep laws, relaxed firearms laws within the habitats, lower labor costs. A state of emergency has been in force for a month now in parts of the Federation, particularly in Neopolis. The elections were cancelled (this was facilitated by a complicated calculation of the so-called primary seat allocation in the city parliament, pushing at the limits of legality). In addition, the mayor was replaced by an interim regent named Kristina dePonto (HiCommander of the North Polar Garrison), who has close ties to the military.
People are marching in the streets and going on strike. Popular opinion is divided. The young people like the idea of a "quantum leap in technology" and an "evolutionary leap towards transhuman beings", while the older people see the real problems more clearly: a stagnating economy, a wage crisis, pollution of the habitats, etc.
New hope for everyone is raised by the secret "Brainfire" project, which is to be implemented in the Pacific.
Organization[]
The primary power within the Federation lies with the democratically elected parliament with the President of the Federation at its head, as well as ministerial councils, committees and opposition parties, are supposed to assure the preservation and further development of democratic principles. Since 2135, the Federation's capitalistic-democratic consciousness became solidified, while a close-meshed social safety net was set up as the tough competition also produced victims like the weak, the sick and those who were not equal to the demands of the capitalist system. The school system was developed, universities were set up and separation of powers were established. However, the top power was the economy and remained so because only the economy possessed the financial means to hold the structural framework together.
This social welfare network, much like in the 20th century, was instrumental in creating an economy that served the people, rather than the elite, and paired with major population growth translated into uniform prosperity. Unforunately, without an organizing and driving idea, this capitalist system lapsed into decadent complacency, and the hitherto stable system started tottering. The end result was a deterioration of buying power even as productivty rose, leading to a mass production of poverty, and re-emergence of beggars on the Federation's streets. Unemployment and crime rose dramatically, while the small selling market allowed for the rise of monopolies and return of the oligarchs. They quickly gained control of the financial markets and the parliament, suppressing everything that opposed their interests. Stagnation and decay followed, while drug abuse, prostitution, and piracy proliferated, culminating in the beginning of a Dark Age.
Numerous scandals shook belief in the self-cleaning power of democracy. The majority that were still working voted, on orders from their employers, for the liberal parties that were opposed to any intervention in the economy by the authorities in control. For a long time, proposals were put forward for improving the long-lasting crisis but all of them would have entailed the end of the oligarchic structures and the absolute power of the concerns. It was the power of the concerns that preserved the intrinsically unbearable conditions well into the 26th Century. It was only the coalition of socialists and van der Waal's Union of Free Trading that allowed for them to be broken up, and the emergence of EnTrOx and their global network of jump ship that led to a Renaissance and a return to the values of old.
However, the Federation's bloated and archaic systems of governance, relying on old modes of democratic governance, rather than modernized solutions, have continued to hold it back and prevent the emergence of a true, people-centric democracy.