United Kingdoms Commonwealth

## **God Save the Monarchs**

Old earth once had many monarchies that controlled and owned great swaths of its land. By the time of the first exodus most of these had been dissolved and disappeared into history, all but one. The United Kingdom had a constitutional monarchy, meaning that although the monarch was the head of state they were only a figure head and did not have any power. When the Marnock Worm Hole opened the UK sent through 20 colony ships, all made a safe planet fall between 2041and 2042. The UK used a very different colony ship landing system than others. Instead of almost crashing the ship on planet and using it as building materials these ships stayed in orbit and utilised reusable delta technology to ferry materials from ship to planet and leave the ship as an orbital station. This system worked so well that most colonies did not have any large scale problems with resources thought out there development, and by 2113 all the UK colonies where at a 2040 level of development or beyond. On colony ship carried the 20 year old Prince Andrew, third in line for the British throne, brought his family to the planet of New Jerusalem and by a popular referendum was voted to take the throne in 2062, the twentieth year of the colony. His grand son Andrew II made the first contact with alien life of any of the colonies. An Adoc Survey Ship happened upon  New Jerusalem in 2115 and made peaceful contact setting up a star gate in orbit and opening free trade with New Jerusalem. The Adoc then sent Survey Ships to the 19 other UK Colonies and did the same there. Both the Adoc and the UK colonies have a similar culture, both having constitutional monarchs, and in 2134 the Declaration of Commonwealths is sign bringing both peoples under the one parliamentary body and assigning both peoples fate to one common cause. In 2162 peaceful contact in made with the Ja-Vin and by 2165 they elect one of their great houses to take the mantal of Monarchy, removing the house of So-Hillio-To from political life and join the Commonwealth as well. The Ja-Vin do not use star gate but instead have psyches that can transport vast ships from system to system in an instant, now all Commonwealth Naval Ships use this style of transport and also have psyonic weaponry. Two more races also join the UKC, the Treed in 2178 and the Salonians in 2201. 2210 the Terrain Alliance make it to New Jerusalem to bring it under their control. Sending a fleet of 24 ships the meet a resistance of some 320 ships with 41 ships of the line. The TA retreat and come back with a 200 strong battle fleet, only to be met with 2348 ships of the line from all the UKC armed forces that are now unified under one banner of the Royal Navy in English or the Vax-Lo-Hillio in Ja-Vin. The Terrains back off and do not bother the UKC again.

## The Civil Service

The UKC government consists of a large centralized bureaucracy and planetary local government or counsels All planets are stable and do not suffer from rebellions of high levels of lawlessness, although crime is always the biggest talking point in Parliament. Multiculturalism is the catchword of the UKC with all peoples under its flag living as one with music, art and culture all so intermixed that it is hard to tell which species it started with.

## The Parliament

All answer to the Parliament. The main law making Body of the UKC there is 2 chambers, The House of Commons, and the House of Monarchs. They make the over-riding laws that control the UKC and limit the Powers of the counsels. The House of Monarch believe their job is to uphold the rights of their subjects and check the power of The Commons

## The Royal Navy

The main defence force of the UKC is the Royal Navy. It has lots of different names depending what language you are speaking but all translate to the same thing. The RN and its ground force arm the Royal Marines (RM) are some 30 billion people strong with 800 thousand ships flying the Red Ensign.

## The Ma-Thob-Hillio

The Ma-Thob-Hillio is the UKC interplanetary police force. Their job is to catch criminals that leave a planetary jurisdiction  bring them to the world of High Court for trial. The Ma-Thob-Hillio have no more power than any other planetary police force.