Antarctic Commonwealth

## Introduction

The **Commonwealth of Antarctica**, also known as the **Antarctic Commonwealth** (or simply the **Commonwealth**) is a democratic federal union of fifteen semi-independent cities: thirteen arcologies beneath the Antarctic ice and two major surface cities (Buenos Aires and Santiago). It also has fairly expansive holdings in South America, encompassing a large number of small towns and villages in the countryside and the aforementioned surface cities. Its population is in the area of 160 million as of 2154, making it one of the smallest states on the planet.

It is a member of the NSC, and maintains friendly relations with the Conglomerate and Luna and neutral-to-friendly relations with the New Frenco Empire, and holds a neutral-to-hostile stance toward Mechanocratic Russia, the UDAP, and the various Nexuses.

In the Altcanon, it joins the Tandi-Nama Accord as a founding member, and as such its relations with the Empire and Luna are closer, while its stance towards the Mechanocratic International is more hostile than in the Main Canon.

## History

The Commonwealth's origins begin in 2047, as a doomsday project ran by notably eccentric British billionaire and businessman John Blair. In secret, Blair used his massive wealth to construct thirteen gigantic arcologies deep underneath the Antarctic ice over a period of two and a half decades. In that timespan, several million people from across the world of the sorts Blair envisioned to be necessary for rebuilding the Earth were secretly recruited for the project and put into cryostasis, replaced with flash clones designed to die shortly of various diseases and genetic illnesses.

In 2077, when the nukes flew however, Blair (despite having spent decades wary of an incoming apocalypse) was unprepared, dying when nukes hit London. In early 2078, the arcologies, their automated systems having detected the massed nuclear detonations and reverted to protocols for such a scenario, automatically unfroze their inhabitants.

Faced with a world in shambles, torn apart by petty warlords and men with ambitions of world domination in the mere months that had passed since nuclear fire eradicated the old order, the thirteen arcologies united into the 'Antarctican Commonwealth' and launched the 'War of Unification' into South America in 2079. Met with minor resistance and only facing petty warlords with poorly-equipped troops using whatever they could scavenge, the militias and mercenary outfits of the Commonwealth managed to reach as far north as Buenos Aires and Santiago before they ran into the forces of the expanding United States of South America in 2081.

After spending the next few years fighting a low-intensity war with occasional skirmishes over the border and consolidating their holds on what they already had, the USSA and the Commonwealth forged a peace treaty in 2086 which established the permanent borders as following the front lines of 2081. After this treaty was established, the Commonwealth instead turned its attention

In 2091, the Commonwealth Armed Forces were founded, incorporating a number of mercenary outfits, militias, and other ragtag outfits that had fought during the War of Unification and the border war into a professional armed forces with a naval branch and proper air force.