Oceania

## Commonwealth of Oceania

Flag of Oceania

Location of Oceania (blue) within the Eastonian Federation (blue and dark gray)

**Oceania**, officially the **Commonwealth of Oceania** (Eastonian: *Samväldet Oceanien*), was a state of the Eastonian Federation with territories in the Eastern Ocean and on the eastern continent of New Iotania. It was formed as a merger of the Eastonian Lesser Kylling Islands territory and the former Panzerian province of Oceania when the people of Hope Island voted to join the Eastonian Federation in a referendum held after the island had unilaterally seceded from Panzeria during the Panzerian Civil War.

Oceania was the smallest Eastonian state by area and population, but the second most densely populated one.

## Etymology

The first documented use of the name Oceania is in Panzerian documents from the late 240s BCE when Hope Island was elevated to provincial status within the Panzerian Empire. The name comes from the word 'ocean', owing to the state's location in the middle of the Eastern Ocean.

Oceanien is the state's name in the Eastonian language and most other New Iotanian languages use a name of the same root, for example Gryphonian (Okyanusya) and Reusnesian (Oseania).

## History

The Kylling Islands were first noted on maps by Reusnesian settlers when they made their way from the Angstein trading post to the Elerrian Valley in 299 BCE. There are no signs of any Reusnesian settlement in the archipelago but early writings from Reuselerria warns travellers of an island "infested by plague" which historians have identified as Lille Kylling.

Panzerians became increasingly present in the Kylling Islands from the 270s BCE and onward. The archipelago was declared a protectorate of the empire but no efforts were made to establish a permanent settlement.

The islands were the source of great contention between Panzeria and Eastonia in 255 BCE when a move was made to bring them under Eastonian protection following an incident involving the death of multiple Eastonian nationals at the hands of creepers. To avoid an escalation of the conflict, an agreement was reached to divide the islands between the two powers where Panzeria retained their claims to Hope Island to the south while Eastonia took over administration of the Lesser Kylling Islands to the north. The settlement Hoppenhavn on Hope Island was established by the Panzerians soon after this crisis to ensure their presence in the region and most of the island's buildings stem from this time period.

Hope Island remained outside the battles of the Panzerian Civil War due to its isolation but was still greatly affected by it. It was originally a Traditionalist holdout but growing discontent with the decrease in trade and further isolation led the provincial council to declare their independence from Panzeria altogether following a referendum. During the later stages of the war, an agenda of unification with Eastonia and the Lesser Kylling Islands was pursued and it was then the modern state of Oceania was born, politically reuniting the archipelago within the Eastonian Federation.

Soon after Oceania's admission to the federation, the Eastonian government invested in a new hyperloop connection to Hope Island which ended its century-long isolation as it was now closer to Eastonia - and Panzeria - than ever before. The Lesser Kylling Islands remained largely uninhabited but in the 140s BCE a group of Eastonian Seris settled on the island of Smygareskär, making it the first majority Seri settlement outside of the Seri Confederation.

In the early 1st century BCE, the Eastonian Federation claimed President Kola Land on the eastern continent of New Iotania which was incorporated into the state of Oceania alongside the popular vacation destination Silent Island as the Eastern Territories.

## State Council

**Government (8)*** Eastonian Democratic Party (4)
* Federalist Party (2)
* Social Justice Party (2)

**Opposition (9)**

* Alliance for Peace and Love (4)
* Unionist Alternative (3)
* Radical Unionist Party (2)

As a state of the Eastonian Federation, Oceania had a democratic form of government. The state elected 7 representatives and 3 senators to the federal parliament.

The origins of the State Council of Oceania can be traced back to the Panzerian days when every household on Hope Island sent one member to the island council who governed the province under a form of direct democracy. By 2 BCE it was made up of 16 councillors and the Governor of Oceania, who was also the state's head executive. The Governor presided over the chamber similar to a Speaker in other Eastonian state legislatures and couldn't vote on legislation unless a tie occurs.

The Governor of Oceania was sometimes called by the ancient Panzerian title Daftpanzer in an unofficial capacity, a tradition carried over from the days of Hope Island independence during the Panzerian Civil War when island leaders wanted to stress their nationhood by adopting the title for the senior member of the island council. The Oceanian state did not use it in any government documentation, but it nonetheless held ceremonial value among ethnic Panzerians in the state.