Terran Confederation

The nominal government of Terra and its affiliated colony systems in the Sol Sector, the Terran Confederation was established in 2583 following the economic and political reorganization of the Unified Earth Government. Within forty-five years, the rebuilding Confederation was already faced with the first of a chain of wars that would conclude with the near extinction of the human race, and the inclusion of Terrans into the Galactic Federation Federation at the insistence of the Chozo Tho'ha following the end of the Machine War in 2763.

## History

Following the Covenant War and subsequent related conflicts, the United Earth Government was in shambles, and outer colony tensions were high, though not as severe as they had been prior to contact with the Covenant. During this time, the UEG underwent a reformation as the process of returning government power to civilian hands became complicated by disputes with the colonial regions and conflicts with the remaining Covenant splinter factions. But by 2580, a settlement was reached, and the UEG was reorganized into a new world and space republic of regions. On August 23, 2583, the Articles of Confederation were signed by representatives of the UEG and the colonial regions, formally marking the end of the Unified Earth Governments, and the birth of the Terran Confederation. It was hoped that by reforming the old UEG into a new entity, a new start could give way to the hopes of a golden age, with the greatest of their struggles behind them, and a growing circle of allies beside them.

Within forty-five years, the hard and painfully earned peace was shattered. Humanity was barely starting to rebuild what they had lost when on August 17, 2629, the TCS *Iason*, an exploratory vessel reaching out via the recently discovered jump points into the coreward regions of the Orion Spur, encountered an unknown race in the Tyr System, later discovered to be the Kilrathi. After a twenty minute wait with weapons disarmed and broadcasting first contacting hailing frequencies, the *Iason* was fired on and eventually destroyed, starting a five year period of harassment from the Empire before war was declared, and the Battle of McAuliffe showed the Confederation just how much of a horrifying repeat of the Covenant they were in for. Having barely recovered to just over twice the surviving population following the Covenant War, the conflict dragged on into years, then into decades, and while humanity held their ground well enough, in late 2667, a false armistice was offered by the Kilrathi in effort to lull the Confederation into a false sense of security, and afford themselves time to complete construction of a new fleet of heavy-carrier class ships. By the end of 2668, the Confederation has disarmed itself enough that the Kilrathi fleet was able to drive its way through the outer colonies and into the Sol System itself. If not for the last minute arrival by the fleets of the Free Republic of the Landreich, and the heel-turn of Baron Jukaga *nar* Ki'ra, it would have been likely the Earth would have been sterilized by the attacking fleet. The bitter victory brought heavy losses in almost all fronts going into 2669, leading to several special operations projects of desperation. One of these, the *Behemoth* dreadnought, attempted to create a refractive resonation superlaser capable of cracking and destabilizing the crust and mantle of a planet, but was destroyed by the Kilrathi while en route to the Kilrah system after sabotage and betrayal by Lieutenant Laurel “Cobra” Buckley, a former slave who had been conditioned with personality overlays and biochemical implants as a sleeper agent. The second project was a covert infiltration of the Kilrah system to gain tectonic data on Kilrah itself for the purpose of attuning the seismic resonation frequency of the experimental Temblor Bomb, a refinement of the hyper-destructive NOVA bomb into a seismic resonation weapon that could trigger devastating tectonic ruptures and shatter a planet through apocalyptic quakes. This second weapon of terrifying power became the lynchpin that turned the course of the war into an ending. A final strike was made by a quartette of experimental fighters with stealth drives into the heart of the Kilrathi Empire. The Crown Prince Thrakkath was shot down over the planet, the Temblor unleashed on a key-fault to trigger the chain reaction that would tear the planet open, destroying everything living on the surface, and decimating the orbiting fleet. With the imperial family eradicated in the destruction of Kilrah, power fell to the prince's retainer, who had come to realize what the lust for war had cost all those involved, and agreed to peace for the sake of the Kilrathi and the rest of the galaxy.

With the Treaty of Torgo came another era of recovery, and of contact with the mysterious Chozo, who pressed for the newly formed Galactic Federation to induct humanity as a member species. Refusal came, and the reasons of Terra’s destructive history as justification, but these all proved folly as in 2701, the Promethium Machine Empire arrived from across the dark space span and dragged the galaxy into an already raging second Machine War. This time, the entire Orion Spur was pulled into the conflict, and while some fared better than others, the Machine War would be the end of the Spartan legacy as the Strategic Readiness Agency database containing all information on the augmentation process was ravaged by a highly advanced AI attack, wiping more than half the defense project archives and setting the Confederation back decades. As well, the legendary TCS *Eternity* vanished during the war, the last legacy remaining of the UEG's era, though the two centuries old ship was never confirmed destroyed. Perhaps the only thing that saved the galaxy was the unexpected and sudden withdrawal of the Empire just as they had prepared to destabilize Sol itself and destroy the Sol System in the resulting nova. Once more, Terra lay wounded, damaged, but still living and the last refuge for the surviving Terrans of the Spur, under eight hundred million estimated to remain. Once more, the Chozo spoke on humanity's behalf, and this time, with the Mantu joining that call, and the fact that they had repeatedly courted extinction on the galaxy’s behalf, the Federation extended its aid and offers of inclusion to the Terrans.

But as the next century would reveal, Sol's desperate state that had convinced the Federation of their worth and value became the crippling flaw that gave rise to a system of control over the rebuilding military forces of the Confederation. Second perhaps only to the Sangheili as a military power despite their losses, humanity nonetheless had more material resources than they had a population, and the nihilistic outlook many had gave way to apathy towards their inferior political power in the Galactic Federation Congress, and they would not be the last treated in this fashion. It was, perhaps poetically, the expectation of yet another interstellar conflict that in fact never came that gave humanity hope once again, and over the next two centuries, Terra experienced an explosion in optimism and population unlike any it had seen since the end of the Gamilas War, one perhaps aided by the various artificial gestation technologies and advancements in technology and science that seemed to boom into being almost overnight. By 2925, the human population within the Orion Spur had exploded to over a hundred and four billion, and Terra was able to be inhabited in approximately two-thirds of the habitable surface regions, with reconstruction efforts still ongoing to restore the planet.

## Political Structure

The Terran Confederation is a mixture of representative democracy organized upon the federal system with a traditional confederation of sovereign states. While these two primary aspects have at times come to odds, the organization formed upon them has, to date, held steadfast. As of the 2970s, the Confederation consists of approximately two hundred and fifty star systems spread over sixty-five parsecs, making it the largest singular member of the Galactic Federation in terms of sovereign territory.

The Terran Congressional Assembly is the primary legislative body of the Confederation, composed of voting members from all self-governing planets. Three months of the year, Congress meets on Sol Station, a fifty kilometer wide heavily defended world station in orbit of Jupiter. Every six years, primary elections are held for the presidential office, with a term limit of two terms allowed for a single person to hold the office of President, executive officer of the Confederation. When there is a change of administration as a result of these elections, the Assembly elects a smaller council from its members, which serves as the cabinet for the President. As a matter of precaution given the number of times that Terra has suffered catastrophic assault by aggressors in the past, all departments of the civilian government are given operational redundancy at Sol Station, with the capital city rotating based on the current president in office. Currently, the civilian capital is located in Tokyo-II under the Iwata Administration.

The Terran Confederation Military, known collectively as the Confederation Armed Force,(and somewhat informally as simply Confed) is divided into two primary branches: the Confederation Army, under which the Confederation AeroSpace Corps operates, and the Confederation Navy, which also further sub-branches into the Fleet Marines. Each branch has a representative on the Confederation military's governing council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, based on Sol Station. Above the Joint Chiefs is the Commander-in-Chief of the Confederation Armed Forces, who answers directly to the Confederation President except in times where the president has been compromised, or has become a willing threat to the safety and foundations of the Confederation. To date, this article has never been invoked.

## Size and Population

The Sol Sector, at current date, spans a centralized sphere of sixty-five parsecs, with two hundred and fifty star systems under the Confederation flag, in addition to various mining outposts and colonies throughout the Orion Spur, and a human population of Confederation or Federation citizenship numbering approximately eighty-seven billion. Of these, fifty billion alone live within the confines of Sol Sector.

## Departments

* Office of the President
* Confederation Congressional Assembly
* Confederation Armed Forces
	+ ConFedArmForce Army
		- Confed AeroSpace Corp
	+ ConfedArmForce Navy
		- Confed Fleet Marines
	+ Department of Advanced Warfare