"The Union
[Some parts of what follows are taken from or inspired by parts of David bar Elias' story 'Oh Blast - Clive-Less World in Puritan World'.]

The second most powerful nation on Earth after the French Empire, the Union is an Anglo-German federal state with possessions on every continent that grew out of the eighteenth century alliance of Prussia with the Hanoverian monarchy of Britain and Hanover itself.

Politics
Beginning with an alliance that turned into a Personal Union of thrones and eventually political union, the Union has, over time, evolved into a Federal organisation, something not entirely unlike the real-world British Commonwealth. That is, it is a nation made up of a number of partially self-governing states or regions united by a central (federal) government. In particular they are linked via treaties of mutual defence, but also ones of trade, in particular of free trade with there being no internal tariffs between the states of the Union.

Each of the states of the Union handles its own internal affairs, within certain limits that apply to the Union as a whole, and sends five representatives to the Upper and twenty to the Lower House of the Union Parliament in the capital city of Hanover. The Union government handles inter-state affairs and the relations of the Union with the other nations of the world, such as defence and foreign policy. Within these bounds the fundamental rules of the government of the Union are, like those of the United Kingdom in the real world, an unwritten constitution. Rather than being explicitely codified in law as a single unit, they are instead made up of a mass of individual laws, customs, usages and precendents that have evolved over time and that together define how the Union should operate.

The forming of the Union was based on the principles of self-determination on local matters for all of its states, within the overall structure of the Union itself. However, it was also formed on the more idealistic principles of 'Freid aund Ordat' [Freedom and Order], which helped to define how the Union should be formed and run, with an eye on how it might grow and change in the future. This principle is still used up to the present day, although to different degrees in different states, with Hanover itself being the most insistent on 'Freid aund Ordat'.

There is universal suffrage in the Union from the age of twenty-one. All states of the Union also have universal national service from the ages of 18 to 21, though this is not necessarily in the military; many perform their national service in the medical or fire services, or in the civil service.

A constitutional monarchy, the head of state of the Union as a whole is its monarch, currently Queen Louise I, who is the head of the Hanover-Hohenzollern Dynasty. Because the Union is a constitutional monarchy, they are responsible only for diplomatic and ceremonial duties, though the monarch has more power than (for example) the real-world British monarch. It is possible for the monarch of the Union to also be the monarch of a nation within the Union, though there are strict controls about their abusing their position if so. Several nations within the Union have their own branches of the Royal Family, with their own Princes and Princesses who are their local constitutional royalty. Due to the different history of this world the Crown Jewels of the Union, as derived from those of Britain, Prussia and Hanover, are not as extensive as the British Crown Jewels of the real world. They do not include the Koh-i-Noor diamond.

The head of the Union government is the Supreme Minister, currently Angharad Morgan, the former Prime Minister of Wales. The Supreme Minister is elected from among the heads of government of the states of the Union by the people of the Union as a whole; because of this each state selects a deputy head of government in case the 'primary' one becomes Supreme Minister. Members of the Union Kabinett [Cabinet] are selected from the governments of the states of the Union.

Under the Union Kabinett, the Union government is divided into a number of Direktorates [Directorates], agencies that coordinate its Union-wide activities. The Direktorates include:

Foreign Relations. The Direktorate which maintains relations between the Union and the rest of the world. As such it maintains the embassies of the Union around the world and provides the diplomats to staff them. It also works to build trading links with friendly nations, and runs both the internal and external espionage services of the Union.
Defence. As the name implies, this Direktorate runs the military of the Union. As such it is responsible, with the Standards Direktorate, for ensuring that the recruits provided by the states of the Union are of a sufficiently high standard (though the recruitment process itself is a local matter), and for working with industry to provide the equipment that the Union military requires. The Union military is divided into:
The Royal Navy; this grew out of the British Royal Navy, which, being by far the largest and most powerful of the navies of Britain, Prussia and Hanover, over time subsumed the navies of the other two nations into itself. It includes naval aviation under its auspices, as a Sky Arm that forms part of the overall Royal Navy much as other specialised groups such as submariners do. The Royal Navy is divided into two branches, within and between which personnel move on a regular basis:
 
The Home Fleet. The parts of the Royal Navy tasked with providing naval protection to the states of the Union; this is mainly defensive, but may have a more offensive element depending on the exact nature of a states neighbours. The Home Fleet consists of relatively short-range forces based in the different states of the Union as required; as such it is often referred to as the Home Fleets. Although all are part of the same organisation, each element of the Home Fleet has a high degree of local autonomy in its own area of operations. The largest elements of the Home Fleet are those in southern England and Prussia, with other significant forces in Sierra Leone and New Wales.
 
The High Seas Fleet. Those parts of the Royal Navy concerned with projecting force outside of Union waters; it is sometimes jokingly referred to as the 'Away Fleet'. It consists of long-range, long-duration forces and their supporting vessels and generally performs more proactive (and sometimes offensive) actions than the Home Fleet. These include submarines, skycraft carriers and more conventional warships. The main parts of the High Seas Fleet are based on either side of the Atlantic, although depending on what is required of them its ships can be found anywhere in the world.
The Zusammengelegt Union Army [Amalgamated Union Army], or ZUA; the combination of the Prussian, Hanoverian and British armies, a combination which was initially, and largely remains, dominated by Prussia. They have units which originated in all of the three nations, but under central Union command, based in the different states of the Union according to perceived need. In general the proportion of the ZUA in each state is similar to that of the Home Fleet based there. There is an Army Sky Force that supports and defends the ZUA and the Union much as and in concert with the overall ZUA. The Union has large number of military units. The most feared include:
 
The elite London Trupors.
The Grenadiers, the elite heavy infantry units of the Union armies.
The Queen's Own Prussian Marines.
 
All soldiers wear standard uniforms in green, grey and brown camouflage with unit and rank insignia added as required. These include protective face masks. Their standard weapon in the J-99 autorifle. Dress uniforms vary greatly in colour, cut and design depending on the history of the unit, and by real world standards are rather ornate and archaic in appearance.
Schock Kommando [Shock Command], a separate force that performs what is perceived as the separate role of sending skycraft deep into enemy territory to destroy targets there. This is considered to be a separate type of task to those performed by either the Royal Navy or the ZUA and so has its own organisation. Schock Kommando is also responsible for long-range escort-type skycraft as well as military cruise missiles and ballistic missile systems of all kinds, from those used on the battlefield to those of intercontinental range.
Internal Affairs. The Direktorate responsible for keeping the Union united and stable. It provides a framework for negotiations between states, and for defusing - as far as is possible - any tensions that arise between them. It also works to balance the movements of populations to and fro within the Union; the free movement of people within the Union is allowed, but sometimes Internal Affairs steps in to prevent imbalances. As part of this it helps to facilitate the regional development of different parts of the Union as necessary as part of ensuring that the different states of the Union are kept on as level a playing field as possible, so that both nationalists and federalists have as little leg as possible to stand on (though there have been scandals where the numbers were tweaked to give the appearance of this rather than it actually being done, but the most recent of these was decades ago). This Direktorate also runs the Union Post Office and televox system. It has three sub-Direktorates:
Culture. This sub-Direktorate works to both help keep existing national cultures and arts alive and not overwhelmed by the Union as a whole, but also to use them to encourage understanding and tolerance between the states of the Union. It also runs the state-operated newspaper, the Daily News, and the state-operated radiant and television services, the latter two being under the auspices of the Union Radiant Dienst [Union Radiant Service]. Another part of the organisation, the Union Telekommunikation Büro [Union Telecommunications Bureau], oversees and licenses those newspapers and radiant and television services that are privately owned and operate across more than one state of the Union (single state organisations are regulated by their state government). The Culture sub-Direktorate also provides a framework for sporting competitions between the states of the Union and in particular organises and help to fund the five-yearly Intra-Union Games (IUG), a major sporting competition between all the states of the Union [not unlike the Commonwealth Games of the real world].
Wohlfahrt [Welfare]. The sub-Direktorate that ensures that all states within the Union provide roughly equivalent care for their people, including pensions for the old and unemployed. In particular they oversee the running of the Mercriks [Mercy Districts] by state governments. They work closely with the Standards Direktorate to ensure that standards of welfare are defined and applied correctly.
Health. The organisation responsible for Union-wide health policy (though the implementation of policy is a local matter), particularly the expected levels of care, and the provision of compulsory vaccinations. They also make the plans required to deal with any Union-wide emergency, medical or otherwise, such as a disease outbreak. They maintain most of the links between the Union and the CPMM.
The Exchequer. The Direktorate that runs the finances of the Union as a whole. It collects the taxation from the Union governments that is required to fund the Union as a whole, and distributes it according to the (perceived) needs of the Union and its member states. They provide government investment in things that are considered necessary to help build up the less developed parts of the Union; as investments these are provided in the form of long-term loans that are expected to provide returns in the end. The Exchequer also funds Union-wide infrastructure projects such as railways, communications systems, roads and so on, and provides funding and support for what are considered to be essential industries, such as infrastructure and defence. State governments within the Union set their own tax policies. However, each state is obliged to deliver a set level of funding (taxation) to the Union government, the level of which varies from state to state and year to year. This limits what states can do with regards to taxation from year to year. The Exchequer will intervene (with the help of the Internal Affairs Direktorate) if the financial and tax polices of any state become particularly unbalanced with respect to the others, to the level that they begin to skew the economy of the Union as a whole.
Under the Exchequer is the Union Bank, the central bank of the Union as a whole. It is responsible for the currency, money supply and interest rates of the Union. Each of the states of the Union also has its own central bank, handling its own internal financial affairs. Obviously there are close links between these and the Union Bank.
Standards. The Direktorate which governs the scientific, technical, economic and bureaucratic standards used across the Union, to ensure that they are, and remain, compatible with one another. Many Union state governments grumble about these, but their necessity is generally recognised. These standards include the definition of common units of measurement such as the Union Foot and Union Pound [which differ from the Imperial Units of the real world, as well as from the units in use in Hanover and Prussia before unification].
Science. The organisation that provides government funding for science across the Union, in particular those parts of science with less obvious immediate applications, and acts as a central coordinating office for scientific policy across the Union. Among other things it tries to ensure there is not duplication of effort across the Union, and also helps scientific establishments across the Union collaborate and coordinate their activities. The Science Direktorate also works with industry on the joint funding of some areas of research.
Associated with the Science Direktorate, but independent of it, is the Royal Society, which grew out of the merging of the British Royal Society with the Prussian Academy of Sciences and similar bodies elsewhere in the Union. They provide scientific advice to the Union and state governments that is (at least nominally) objective and independent of politics.
Konstabulary. The Direktorate responsible for enforcing Union-wide law and for the detection and prevention of crime that occurs between states of the Union. They also encourage inter-state cooperation in law enforcement. Its members are recruited from the state police forces of the nations making up the Union. They sometimes have a strained relationship with local law enforcement agencies when each considers the other to be treading on their toes over some matter. There are occasional calls for this Direktorate to be merged with Internal Affairs, but in general the independence of the Konstabulary is considered important enough for such proposals to be rejected.
Under the Konstabulary Direktorate is the Supreme Court of the Union, where disputes between the states which cannot be resolved in any other way come for resolution. It is also where the most serious cross-state crimes are tried and where constitutional and other Union-wide legal issues are resolved. In addition to this the Supreme Court handles more minor inter-state matters, down to the level of custody disputes and normal criminals who happen to operate across state borders.
The Union government is staffed and run by members of the Union civil service, which is made up of people recruited from across the Union itself. The civil service is largely based in Hanover though there are of course Union bureaucrats in towns, cities and so on, wherever they are required all across the Union.

Due to prolonged contact with Britain, over time Prussia has become more of a constitutional monarchy.

Due to prolonged contact with Prussia, over time Britain has become more bureaucratic and militaristic.

Most of the states within the Union have nationalist movements within them, who see the Union as gradually eroding the character of their state into the homogenous whole that is the Union itself. They wish their state to either entirely leave the Union, or at least to weaken the ties between them. In general they are very much minorities within their states, due to the both the benefits perceived to arise from the Union, and also from the need to remain unified due to the proximity of the greatly powerful France. For these reasons the strongest nationalist groups tend to be in the more isolated parts of the Union such as those in the Americas, Neues Prussia and Neuer Hanover [New Zealand].

In opposition to these, the Union also has a number of groups advocating the conversion of the Union from a federation of states into a single overarching unitary super-state. Although a more popular idea than that of the nationalists, this is still very much a minority view, as most people and governments are happy with the compromise between national individuality and security provided by the Union as it stands.

The number of states within the Union has remained constant for decades, simply because there are only a few nations who are not already part of the Union who might wish to join it. Those that do exist are mainly in the German-speaking parts of Europe, and parts of South America. In all of these cases, however, there are political pressures that prevent them being allowed to join. As such the Union has few mechanisms for adding new states (and none at all for allowing states to leave once they have joined).

Law Enforcement
Each of the states of the Union has its own police force, which operates independently of the others, although in general they cooperate with one another on cross-border crimes through the auspices of the Konstabulary Direktorate, which handles those forms of crime that apply to the Union as a whole or that are considered too important to be handled by a state police force.

As in the real world the police force of Britain and the British-descended parts of the Union is descended from the Bow Street Runners of the eighteenth century. Over time it has evolved into a civilian police force analogous to, though also different in many details from, that of Britain in the real world. One major difference between the British-descended police of this world and the British police of the real world is that in this world it is customary for all police officers to carry firearms.

Prussia and the Prussian-descended parts of the Union, on the other hand, have police forces which are a branch of the military of the region and which originated in the paramilitary policing that developed in those areas. Again, the police in these states normally carry firearms. Although part of the military, they do not police the military but do become an auxiliary military force in time of war.

The police force of Hanover and its descendant states within the Union are much like the British police forces in terms of its structure and how it functions, but is nonetheless a paramilitary force that is part of the military rather than a civilian organisation. Because they function as an entirely civilian organisation, they do not become a military force in time of war.

Mercriks [Mercy Districts]
Welfare in the Union is largely provided by local state governments, through the auspices of the Mercriks. These grew out of the growth of industrialisation during the course of the 19th century, as millions flocked to industrial centres throughout the Union, and overcrowding, poverty and malnourishment soared to new heights. In 1893, following the Second Societal Wars, Charles Tamric, a New England sociologist, introduced the idea of 'Mercriks' as an evolution of workhouses, places where the unemployed and malnourished could come for charity, shelter and food.

The first Mercrik was established in Boston, in Hudsonia, in 1900, from where Mercriks spread steadily across the Union. By the present day, most cities have multiple Mercriks, all located on the outskirts of the city (or at least what were the outskirts when they were built, something that is often no longer the case) to provide a degree of relief to the chronic congestion from which many cities suffer. With advances in medical technology - along with a number of outbreaks of disease that arose from the Mercriks - free medical care also became available in them. The concept of Mercriks has also been adopted by a number of other governments around the world.

The city and government authorities are generally in favour of the Mercriks because it moves the unemployed off the streets (and avoids the rioting and looting that the Second Societal Wars had been infamous for) while providing markets for crops and helping the unemployed survive and find better lives for themselves. This is largely done by keeping them busy. All inhabitants undergo compulsory education, and also undertake work as part of the price for their receiving help [as a form of workfare]; the nature of this work varies but often includes farming and maintenance of the Mercrik itself. Work is not entirely compulsory, but it brings better food, clothing and other supplies to those who undertake it.

Most state governments reserve the right to call upon all adult inhabitants of their Mercriks to assist in the event of disasters. The Union also reserves the right to draft them as soldiers in time of war.

In reality, despite the Union-wide standards set for them by the Wohlfahrt Sub-Direktorate, Mercriks are normally less than pleasant, mostly filled with dark, run-down tenement houses packed with the unemployed, many of whom unhappy, depressed or mentally ill. Petty theft and other crimes are common, despite the best efforts of the authorities to combat them. Most Mercriks also include farm towers so that they are, to some extent, self-supporting.

In some places, the children of those who enter the Mercriks are taken from their parents and raised in 'more suitable' locations elsewhere, often through fostering. In all Mercriks, the inhabitants are expected to use contraception so that no children are born there. In some states, the inhabitants of the Mercricks are forced to take contraceptive drugs, either via an implant, in their food or in the water they drink. It is rumoured that in some places additional drugs are employed to keep the population of the Mercricks passive or otherwise control them.

Land owners whose circumstances force them into Mercriks do not lose their property, but control of it passes to the state for the duration of their stay. In general state governments rent out such properties, with residential ones becoming part of their stock of public housing, while industrial property is rented to concerns that will make use of it.

People do leave the Mercriks then they find new jobs, or emigrate to parts of the Union that have more need of them. However, for many, once they enter a Mercrik they only leave to assist on local farms on a temporary basis, and even this is declining as industrialisation takes over more and more jobs (along with the problem of criminals taking advantage of peoples absence to rob their homes).

Religion
The Union has no state religion. Instead, religious affairs are left entirely to its constituent states, within the limits of a Union-wide ban on religious discrimination.

The vast majority of religious people in the Union follow one or other branch of Christianity, with the various branches of Protestantism being the most common of these. A minority of people, mostly of Indian descent, follow Hinduism or Buddhism, while a few others are Muslims. The only state in which the vast majority of the population is not Christian is Sierra Leone, where a large fraction of the population are Muslim, and a significant (and growing) fraction follow indigenous religions, which have also attracted a small number of followers elsewhere in the Union.

Other Things
Several Union settlements developed from coaling stations or trading posts, particularly on several islands in the East Indies [Indonesia].

Most of the cities within the European parts of the Union, particularly those in its German parts (including Berlin and Hanover) but also many British cities, retain more of their historical layout and buildings due to their different history and lack of destructive wars compared to the real world [in particular the lack of a WWII].

The Union largely consists of areas with small non-European populations, so that it is very much an ethnically-European state, with only a tiny minority of other races living in it. The only exceptions to this are Sierra Leone, and Neues Prussia and Neuer Hanover [New Zealand] which have a high percentage of African and Maori-descended citizens respectively. As such the Union as a whole is much less ethnically diverse than (for example) Britain in the real world.

The Union has unified postal and televox [telephone] systems which have evolved from the integration of the national systems of the original states of the Union into one. These are both owned and operated by the government under the auspices of the Internal Affairs Direktorate, with no private services of this kind allowed. Although postage stamps cost the same for the same service all across the Union, each state has its own designs. There is a degree of competition as each state tries to produce the most popular design.

There are a large number of newspapers in the Union, the single government-run newspaper, the Daily News (considered very dry and dull) and a large number of privately-owned papers. Some of these are Union-wide, with the rest operating across a fraction of or within a single state of the Union. The most popular of the Union-wide newspapers include:

The Times, published in London, England.
Vossische Zeitung, published in Berlin, Prussia.
Die Spyglass [The Spyglass], published in London.
Der Tag [The Day], published in Hanover. It and Der Neur Tag are great rivals.
Der Neur Tag [The New Day], published in Hanover. It and Der Tag are great rivals.
Die Zeit [The Age], published in Berlin.
The Eagle, published in Boston, the capital of Hudsonia.
[Although some of these may share names with newspapers from the real world, they are not the same as them.]

There are also a large number of radiant [radio] and television services with, as for newspapers, a small number being Union-wide and the rest operating across a fraction of or within a single state of the Union. Most of the radiant and television services are privately operated. The Union government does maintain a small number of both of the latter for official purposes, operating under the auspices of the Union Radiant Dienst [Union Radiant Service]. The Union-operated radiant and television services are unimaginatively named URD-1, URD-2 and so on.

Privately run newspapers and radiant and television services are licensed to operate by the Union or their state government under the auspices of the Union Telekommunikation Büro [Union Telecommunications Bureau].

Two sports that originated in the Union are played around the world. These are:

Stettin [Szczecin] rules football, a Prussian-derived full contact version of football that is not unlike the game of Rugby from the real world.
League rules football, a British-derived version of the game not unlike real world football (soccer).
Other sports are played in the Union but have not been as successful in spreading elsewhere in the world. In particular cricket is widely played within the Union but barely followed elsewhere [the basic game is the same as that of the real world, though the details of the rules are different, sometimes significantly].

The Union officially speaks Unionsprache [Unionspeech], a constructed composite language introduced during the 1850s that is derived from a combination of both English and German. It is the language of government and politics within the Union, intended to formalise the already-existing mixing of English and German occurring within the Union, and to help to cement the Union into a unified entity. English and German are still spoken, but very much as secondary languages. Unionsprache is also the language of education, with government-funded schools and universities required to teach only in it. In general all state-provided services are conducted in Unionsprache (for example, policing, medical care and so on), and all new immigrants are required to learn it.

At the same time as the introduction of Unionsprache a Union-wide system of measurement units and a unified Union currency were also introduced. The Union currency is a decimal system, consisting of Marks that are each divided into one hundred Pennies. The measurement units are a rationalisation of the different systems used in each of Britain, Hanover and Prussia rather a radically new system.

The Union flag is a white cross (derived from the British cross of St George), with each quarter that it divides off a different colour, gold, red, blue and black, all derived from the colours of the flags of Britain, Hanover and Prussia.

The Ensigns used by Union ships and many of the British-derived states in the Union are very similar to the red, white and blue ensigns used by Britain in the real world, and are descended from them. The major difference is that instead of having the British Union Flag in the top left corner it has the flag of the Union. State flags normally have an appropriate national symbol added to the basic ensign [in a similar manner to the real world flags of Australia, New Zealand and so on]"

How do politics work in the Union?