Guardiola Foundation

The Guardiola Foundation was a radical anti-colonial faction of the aristocratic Mediterranean Union, that conducted a series of terrorist attacks against several Lagrangian and Lunar colonies between 2097 and 2102. In early 2022, a war with a show made the Guardiola Foundation form. Officially denounced by the Mediterranean Union, though supported quietly during its early operations, the Guardiolas posed a major geopolitical challenge to the United States and Mexico. At the time of their operation the Mediterranean Union was a stable ally of Mexico, and the attacks on the colonies were technically attacks on US Soil. This would have dragged both countries into a war if either country responded directly. Thus the colonies were left to defend themselves, as the Guardiolas typically strike economic the colonies directly rather than Terran military bases. They were eventually disavowed by the MU entirely in 2098 after a particularly daring attempt on the life on Takashi Akiyama, who was serving as Chairman of the Interplanetary Trade Commission at the time. The loss of support from the MU drove the Guardiolas to, what was officially designated "a Major Terrorist Attack," by the governments on Earth. To the colonies, it was all out war. The Guardiola incident lasted barely a year, and the colonies directly engaged them in low orbit, but never directly operated on Earth proper. After the end of the conflict the Guardiolas slowly crumbled, eventually dissolving with the MU in 2102.

## History

The Refreeze brought with it the restoration of Earth's sea levels to their pre-anthropocene state, but also breathed new life into the Sahara. The new megalakes, inland seas, and rivers carved out of their prehistoric basins fed what has been called the Great Blossoming in Africa. Deserts turned to Savannah, and the new rivers fed farmland, while the inland seas brought fishing industry and the means to ship the bounty of Africa to Mediterranean ports. Riches from these long ignored lands fed a string of independence movements and wars, kept in check only by the Turks and occasionally the Americans. Despite this period of instability, the dynamism of the New Sahara attracted investments from Southern Europe. After a generation of economic depression, separatist movements, nationalist purges, and population decline, the South had finally managed to find some sense of economic normalcy, at least compared to the communitarian balancing act of the Intermarium or the American subsidized welfare states of Atlantic Europe. These investments in North African ports and shipping generated wealth that was in turn spent on goods from North Africa, which in turn spurred more growth. In 2076 these trade partners came together to form the Mediterranean Union, less of a trade bloc and more of a pseudo-oligarchy governed by the would-be aristocrats who made their fortunes from Africa’s economic boom.

Throughout the late 70s and 80s, the MU funded any faction in North-Central Africa that made it easier for them to do business. One of the leaders of this enterprise was a Catlan arms dealer, Victor Guardiola. Guardiola made a fortune selling arms to Tuareg and Azawad rebels, and eventually operated a private army to protect the rest of North-Central Africa from those same rebels. When Occitania and Burgundy began their independence movements, it was because of Guardiola that France chose peaceful separation rather than war. Victor eventually “legitimized,” himself by consolidating his various legal and illegal ventures with those of a number of cohorts to form the Guardiola Foundation in 2083. A consortium of venture capitalists and self-styled aristocrats, the Guardiola Foundation collectively made up roughly 19% of the MU’s economy by 2085. While the Guardiolas were a legitimate business venture for Victor and his partners, their formation had an ulterior motive. In 2081 Mars opened the floodgates for colonization, and to better achieve that the Mars Corporation funded the upgrades of Earth’s limited space elevator network. Upon the completion of the next generation Uganda Tower, scores of potential colonists flooded through Africa to find a new life on Mars. The MU profited greatly from the initial migration, however, the opening of the tower brought with it a new flood of goods from the colonies. Guardiola saw this new flow of goods as a direct threat to his own enterprises in Africa. Initially the MU was happy to take the colonial’s money and ship their goods from African ports, but the Guardiolas furiously lobbied to put tariffs on these goods. The Guardiolas, while not formally opposed to the idea of space colonization, saw the current power structure of the colonies as a direct threat to their way of life. The post-scarcity colonies flew in the face of the MU's foundation of near-feudalistic capitalism. On a broader level, the Guardiolas saw the growing power of the colonies as a prelude to their dominance over the Earth.

It was not Victor who made the Guardiolas into the bane of the colonies, but rather his son Roma. Roma pushed the Foundation towards radical anti-colonialism and began campaigns aimed at antagonizing the Earth-Luna colonies. Pushing the MU nations to ban the sale of goods imported from the colonies, publishing Terran nativist propaganda, and even conducting a series of cyberattacks on the Earth-Luna colonies during the first half of the 2090s. After Victor Guardiola’s death in 2096, Roma began a far more militant campaign against the Colonies. Using their private army the Guardiolas conducted a series of terrorist attacks against several Lagrangian and Lunar colonies starting in 2097. Officially denounced by the Mediterranean Union, though supported quietly during its early operations, the Guardiolas posed a major geopolitical challenge to the United States and Mexico. At the time of their operation the Mediterranean Union was a stable ally of Mexico, and the attacks on the colonies were technically attacks on US Soil. This would have dragged both countries into a war if either country responded directly. Thus the colonies were left to defend themselves, as the Guardiolas never struck US military assets in space.

They were eventually disavowed by the MU in 2098 after a particularly daring attempt on the life on Takashi Akiyama, who was serving as Chairman of the Interplanetary Trade Commission at the time. The loss of support from the MU drove the Guardiolas to, what was officially designated "a Major Terrorist Attack," by the governments on Earth. On May 1st, 2099, the Guardiolas staged a massive attack on Glen Station at L1, attacking with a force of 8000 Guardiola Specialists and some 15 assault ships. With the colonies’ calls on the federal government falling on deaf ears, the ITC formed a united front with the Planetary Guard forces of the rest of the colonies. The war nearly spread to Earth, as Planetary Guard commanders had been devising an assault on the Guardiola stronghold in Catalonia after clearing them out of Earth-Luna orbit. Fortunately, Chairman Akiyama was able to persuade the Guard to wait after the US began a blockade of the MU after the Martians had arrived, in a somewhat lackluster attempt to appease the colonials.

After the Guardiola Incident, the Foundation began to fall apart. Roma had died at the Battle of Stanford Station, directly engaging the colonials in armor rather than from the safety of his assault ship. Roma’s brothers and his father’s old cohorts attempted to continue attack on the colonies, but by the revolutions of 2102 the organization fell apart with the MU, crushed by the same uprisings that the colonies caused with their embargos after the war. Perhaps the greatest irony of the Guardiola’s attempt to break the colonies was that it did more to unite them than ever before. After the conflict, Lionel Halvidar, who earned the Planetary Guard Cross for his actions at Stanford Station, found his way into politics. The position of ITC chairman became known to many as, “The Other President,” as his orders to the Planetary Guards (who were technically under the US Military) took precedent. The war launched the careers of dozens of military officers and politicians who would go onto play a major role in the Third Mexican-American War, and the incident’s impact on the colonial psyche is what caused the colonials to begin building what would become the Colonial Fleet. The Guardiolas were right about one thing, power of the colonies continued to grow over the course of the 22nd Century, and led to greater influence over the Earth.