Commonwealth

Once merely the remnants of an empire fallen apart, the Commonwealth of Nations was renewed as humanity set out for the stars. Whereas other powers had to first forge alliances and economical webs on a global scale, the Commonwealth could draw on well established historical connections and revive a global web of diverse international assets, securing territories all over the world.

## Industry and Innovation

Spread around the globe, trade is one of the Commonwealth's primary assets. Worldwide, the Commonwealth is a top supplier of luxury goods, advanced plastics, and computer parts. Rapidly growing industrial sectors include geothermic energy production and deep-crust mining.

## Politics and Allegiances

Granting its member nations a great deal of political independence, the Commonwealth is mostly an industrial-military bloc on the global stage, maintaining a massive network of sub-orbital transport vehicles and trading hubs. Despite seeking no extensive expansion, the Commonwealth's enclaves on various continents otherwise dominated by local powers have caused tensions in the past.

## Military

### Commonwealth Aerospace Navy

The Commonwealth maintains a sizable navy divided into three main fleets (The British Royal Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Australian Navy). While each of the three maintains their own shipyards and class designs, all follow the same overall doctrine, favoring heavy battleships of the line, heavily armored cruisers and a great number of small, lightly armed destroyers.

### Commonwealth Federal Forces

The planetary forces of the Commonwealth are designed to be highly mobile and rapidly deployed via sub-orbital drop-ships. Well trained and equipped, but low in number, they display the highest degree of specialization of all Terran forces.

### British Expeditionary Force

Standing out in the Commonwealth are the British Expeditionary Forces, which maintain a small fleet of interplanetary vessels of their own and specialize in bridgehead invasions and operations behind enemy lines.

## Terran Territories

The Commonwealth maintains territories all over the world. The most populous of these are located in Australia, Africa, and Britain, each of which forms also an administrative and industrial center. Due to its widespread territories, the Commonwealth is less centralized than most major powers. It also maintains some of Earth's largest nature preservation regions.

## Offworld Territories

The Commonwealth was among the last major powers launching large scale colonization projects, despite launching a number of historical manned exploration missions to the outer Gas Giants. Whereas the exploration was bold and rapid, the colonization projects remained small in number, being all the more methodical and fortified instead.

### Unity Habitat Ring (Near Earth Space)

Providing all nations of the Commonwealth with a foothold in Near Earth Space, the Unity Habitat Ring is one of the largest civilian structures in orbit. Consisting of loosely connected cylinder habitats, it is constantly being rearranged and expanded upon.

### Lunar Orbital 'Spirit' (Moon: Orbit)

While the Commonwealth maintains no direct foothold on the lunar surface, the Lunar Orbital 'Spirit' is one of the largest stations of its kind, launching regular expeditions and mining operations on the surface. It is also a major port of the royal navies of the Commonwealth.

### Heaven's Gate City (Venus: Upper Atmosphere)

Located in the upper habitable zone of the Venusian Atmosphere, the floating city Heaven's Gate is a testbed for atmosphere-conversion technologies, intended for the terraforming of Venus in the far future. As of 2180, this technology is still to be perfected, but the station already houses a sizable population.

### Belt Nation (Asteroid Belt)

Officially an independent nation of the commonwealth, this galleon project of the Commonwealth has yet to become fully self-sufficient. It is a major asteroid colony in the belt but exerts little influence on the Outer Solar System.

### Endeavour Colony (Jupiter: Callisto)

Located on one of Jupiter's major moons, the Endeavour Colony was a direct answer of the Commonwealth to the Chinese colonization projects for the Galilean Moons. The colony is mostly military in nature, but large automated construction projects have been put in place to support a growing civilian population.