Ottoman Empire

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The **Ottoman Empire** was a historic human state that once controlled much of Southeastern Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa on the planet Earth in the Sol System. The Ottoman Empire also had a small interplanetary colony on the planet Mars in the Sol System.

The Ottoman state was founded at the end of the 13th century in northwestern Anatolia in the town of Söğüt (modern-day Bilecik Province) by the Turkoman tribal leader Osman I. After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe and with the conquest of the Balkans, the Ottoman beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire - the final incarnation of the Roman Empire - with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed the Conqueror.

Under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire marked the peak of its power and prosperity as well as the highest development of its government, social, and economic systems. However, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian empires. The Ottoman Empire was also slower to industrialise during the 18th century compared to many other world powers. The Ottomans consequently suffered severe military defeats in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Greece also became independent from the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century after the Greek War of Independence. This and other defeats prompted the Ottoman Empire to initiate a comprehensive process of reform and modernisation known as the Tanzimat. Thus, over the course of the 19th century, the Ottoman state became vastly more powerful and organised, despite suffering further territorial losses, especially in the Balkans, where a number of new states emerged.

In 1876, the Ottoman Empire surprised the world by becoming the fifth nation after Great Britain, the Russian Empire, France and the German Empire to launch a man into space on a suborbital flight. Unlike the British, Germans, Russians and French, which by this point were predominantly using liquid-fueled rockets for their launches from Earth, the Ottoman Empire still used an older gunpowder rocket design to launch its first manned suborbital flight from Habesh Eyalet in Arabia. The Empire's first successful orbital spaceflight would follow a year later, in 1877.

In 1898, the Ottoman Empire landed 30 astronauts in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars. The Ottoman Empire's interplanetary ships still used obsolete Brunel drives for propulsion, while most spacefaring nations by that point were using engines powered by a liquid propellant consisting of nitric acid and hydrazine.

The constitutionalist Young Turk Revolution occurred in 1908, forcing Sultan Abdulhamid II to establish a constitution and parliament. The Empire began to conduct competitive multi-party elections.

In 1909 the Ottoman Empire established a small colony with an initial population of 100 settlers in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars. By 1914 this colony had a population of around 1,500.

In 1913 the Ottoman Empire deployed its first orbital weapons platform, which it designed and constructed with German assistance.

In 1913 the Union and Progress Party - a radical nationalistic faction of the Young Turk Movement that had been the driving force behind the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 - took over the government in a coup. In 1915 the Union and Progress Party brought the Ottoman Empire into the Great War on the side of the German Empire, hoping to escape from the diplomatic isolation which had contributed to the Empire's recent territorial losses. The Ottoman Empire fought against the Russian Empire, Great Britain and France, among other nations on the Allied side. While the Ottoman Empire largely managed to hold its own during the conventional fighting, Allied forces on Mars quickly captured the Ottoman Empire's small colony on the planet. During this time, genocide was committed by the Union and Progress Party government against the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks.

In 1916 Great Britain, France and the Russian Empire launched a surprise attack using a fleet of armed space capsules and rockets directed at the orbital weapons platforms of Germany and its allies, including the Ottoman Empire. It was hoped that destroying most of the German-led alliance's fleet of orbital weapons platforms would leave Germany with no way to retaliate against an attack by the Allies' own orbital weapons, which would have forced Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire to surrender and bring a swift end to the war. However, the surprise attack was detected by German forces soon after it began and the leaders of Germany, the Ottoman Empire and their allies ordered their weapons platforms to open fire on Allied cities and military targets before they could be destroyed. After the German, Ottoman and allied battle stations began firing, the Allies ordered their own orbital weapons stations to fire on Germany and its allies. Many long-range rockets were also used by both sides to strike each other. The short exchange of orbital kinetic weapons and rockets left most of the European continent destroyed. Tens of millions of civilians would eventually die from the strikes themselves, as well as from the resulting breakdown of food, water and electricity supplies in addition to outbreaks of disease. The use of chemical shells in many of the orbital projectiles and rockets left some parts of Europe uninhabitable for several years.

The Ottoman Empire was one of the countries hit hardest by the Great War and the resulting orbital weapon exchange. In addition to losing more than 300,000 soldiers in the conventional fighting in 1915 and 1916, at least ten million Ottoman civilians were estimated to have died, largely as a result of the complete destruction of ten of the country's largest cities by Allied orbital weapon strikes. In total, the Ottoman Empire lost more than 25 per cent of its prewar population. The Ottoman capital of Constantinople was heavily bombed and destroyed, killing Sultan Mehmed V and much of his line of succession as well as most of the Empire's government and military leadership. The power vacuums resulting from the collapse of the government led to many groups within what had once been the territory of the Ottoman Empire declaring independence, especially in the Middle East. Parts of the former Ottoman Empire would eventually comprise a number of newly independent states, including the Kingdom of Hejaz and Isratin. Greece also took advantage of the instability in the former Ottoman Empire by invading and annexing parts of western and northwestern Anatolia. Meanwhile, liberal intellectuals from the Ottoman Empire established the democratic and secular Republic of Turkey in the Anatolian core of what had once been the Ottoman Empire.