Australia

**Australia**, officially the **Commonwealth of Australia**, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands.

By 2101, Australia has become a central hub in the world, and a hot pot of cultures, each more distinct and vibrant than the next. Harnessing and melding this diversity is the nation’s greatest strength, and the conflicts emerging from that unification are its greatest source of conflict.

## History

Geographic isolation and the complete dismantling of most autoniums in the nation following the Autonica Coporation's dissolution spared Australia from the worst ravages of the Auton Wars. Afterwards, the nation recovered with characteristic aplomb, which positioned it as a key regional provider of relief and reconstruction aid. Relatively intact infrastructure, reversal of the previous century’s anti-immigration laws, and reconstruction-related job growth attracted immigrants from devastated regions around the globe. While many remained in the coastal cities, thousands of enterprising (or desperate) newcomers struck out to settle the Outback. The luckiest and most capable prospered, establishing communities that still flourish. The unlucky and the unprepared met tragic ends.

With their traditional trading partners in shambles, Australian economic strategy shifted toward self-reliance. Booms in mining, heavy manufacturing, and agriculture began in the 2070s. The hidden key to the nation’s postwar success, though, was large-scale relocation of another industry: mass media. With North American and Asian production hubs in ruins and the rise of UFNA government censorship, studios and talent flocked to Australian shores. An entire generation grew up to images of Australian prosperity and opportunity. Although these recordings and vids glossed over problems like class inequalities and immigrant slums, the positive public relations more than offset those inaccuracies.

As the UFNA and UK shifted their foreign policies in the war’s wake, a wary Australia distanced itself from both, asserted more regional leadership, and expanded its arms industry. Grateful aid recipients sought alliance in the face of a formidable China and a militant UFNA. Australia found itself the unplanned keystone of a regional defense coalition and in 2081 founded the Australasian Regional Defence Pact (ARDEP). The 2090s brought belated attention to space. A focus on domestic and regional issues caused Australia to neglect the high frontier and the country found itself playing catch-up. Rather than build its own space industry from nothing, Australia invited foreign investment, redeveloping old missile ranges and tracking stations to support the space renaissance. This strategy’s lynchpin was the audacious Sydney Spaceport, planned as the world’s first intermodal port for air, sea and space cargo. Opening in 2100 to international acclaim, SSX rapidly became the South Pacific’s spaceflight hub.

## Australia Today

To describe Australia — well, which Australia?

Global view starts with a wide-angle orbital shot, watching the terminator sweep west as dawn breaks over the Tasman Sea. Coastal jewel boxes glitter in the sun: studio city Sydney, Melbourne’s painstakingly preserved vintage charm, the cutting-edge cutthroat think tanks of Brisbane, Darwin’s exploding melting-pot arcology, Perth’s heavy industrial muscle. Inland, the trackless outback is home to the underdog Aussie Battler, teeth gleaming, hat cocked rakishly, Outback dust coating his boots, and a devil-may-care gleam in his eye. Carefully packaged images, cut, mixed, and retouched and then exported, show oiled bodies frolicking in the surf, and the nightclubs’ age-old mating displays.

The regional perspective spans the South Pacific. New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. The Austronesian Union’s island nations revolve around Australia. Mutual security and prosperity flow from this alliance but also draws people away from these islands. Small businesses and educated citizens are leaving their birthplaces for Australian job markets and tax incentives. Eager to halt the slide, AU members now seek foreign investors and widen their economic exclusion zones, ratcheting up tensions with China and Oceania.

Australia is inextricably linked to the sea, a sea full of Australian ships and Australian cities. Like England before, Australia’s wealth and power have deep maritime roots. Between coastal communities and offshore arcologies, 90% of Australians live within 30 miles of the sea. Half the nation’s jobs depend on the water. Simple energy efficiency keeps maritime shipping the most cost-effective means of moving goods across the planet. The world’s largest merchant fleet flies the Red Ensign.

Down on the streets, the reality more sharply diverges from the vids, most noticeably in the abundance of Australians who are not blonde-and-bronzed. Less than half of Australians are Anglos now, even after last century’s American flight and European diaspora. Australia is one of the few nations to see steady population growth between the war and today, largely thanks to immigration. Generations of East and Southeast Asians have stirred that melting pot. Pacific islanders, too, and not just from the rest of the AU. The western shores are home to a few Africans, and Sudaméricans similarly call the east home. But there still aren’t many Aboriginal Australians in the port cities. Their history at newcomers’ hands isn’t a source of pride.

Sydney is best known to outsiders, particularly the off-world travelers who route through the spaceport and its jump ring to Olympus. The world knows this city’s tangled expressways, arching skyline and overflowing harbor from a thousand crime dramas’ establishing shots. Operatica, The Vault, Off-Port, 9010; these celebrity hangouts are familiar from paparazzi reports and world premieres. The sprawling industrial sectors and gang turf are vid-familiar, too.

Melbourne clings to the look and feel of pre-war Europe, preserving its colonial architecture and expanding outward rather than building on top of its history. It’s the nation’s cultural heart, educated and understatedly trendy, birthplace of uniquely Australian sports, performance, and street art. Old money dwells and plays here too, in world-famous casinos and deliberately obscure private clubs. Much of that cash flows into the discreet, well-spoken underworld whose invisible taxes keep this one of the world’s most expensive cities.

Something’s missing from most city streets, though: recent immigrants. Unprepared for the sheer numbers, the urban majority is defensive. Even long-standing pro-immigration ethnic communities feel unfairly pressured to absorb the new arrivals. State and local governments “encourage” newcomers to settle in the Outback rather than assimilating into already-overcrowded coastal cities. Ethnic, cultural, and generational tensions are ready to boil over. Scarcely a night goes by without civil disorder making headlines.

The Outback is another Australia in the cultural, economic, and geographic senses. It doesn’t quite live up to the popular image of pristine arid wilderness and breeding ground for hardy Aussies. Rather, it’s a national icon most urbanites would rather keep at a vidscreen’s safe distance, and it’s not all undeveloped. Golden Age intervention still keeps huge swaths green, making Australia a net agricultural exporter. Recent immigrants outnumber native-born Outback residents even as isolation keeps them unintegrated. The aboriginals aren’t happy about the growing influx of outsiders.

## International Relations

Australia’s foreign policy centers on economic stability, with its allies’ welfare taking precedence. It’s not expansionist or bent on exporting its philosophy, although some nations charge the media corporations with cultural imperialism. In more peaceful times, it would be content to maintain prosperity and otherwise be left alone.

China is Australia’s biggest rival. Both nations call the western Pacific home and compete for nearby natural resources. China and the Ministry resent their typecasting as villains or, at best, morally ambiguous foils in Australian entertainment exports. To the regular protests in the UN, Australia replies that its studios wouldn’t make such fare if the world didn’t want to watch it. Still, discourse stays civil and the two nations have extensive trade. Maritime trade and resource extraction also bring Australian corporations into conflict with Oceanian member-states. Several major disputes over territorial claims are slowing making their way through the World Court. Cooling relations have led Oceanian firms to break off contracts and partnerships, harming their Australian business partners.

Recent administrations have grown complacent and defense cuts have hollowed out Australia’s land and aerospace forces. However, the Australian Navy remains among the world’s top “wet” navies due to its border security and commerce protection responsibilities. It falls short of the UFM’s power projection and China’s sheer numbers, but its personnel and tech are first-rate. Outside the ARDEP, Japan is Australia’s closest defense partner.

## Threats and Features of Interest

Australia is a land of opportunity for those willing to take control of their futures. By modern standards, it’s a safe and secure place... for the most part. Australia’s most pressing social problem remains immigration. As rapid urban overcrowding strains the infrastructure and local economy in every port city, class tensions and anti-immigrant violence are boiling over. National media coverage isn’t helping the citizenry’s political polarization, either. Protests and rallies are common, though police have been able to break up any mob violence before it gets under way.

Sydney is a vortex of wealth, power, and privilege, which leads to a sensation of consequences being evaded. A seemingly safe invitation can suck characters into a scandal or cover-up that can leave them disgraced or blackmailed. Melbourne’s just as bad but the celebrities there are well-heeled corporate moguls and semi-legal crime bosses from three continents who are always on the lookout for a new edge on the competition. Job offers are common but flow through so many proxies that characters may never know their real employer or how dirty her money is.

A half-century of settlement hasn’t appreciably reduced the size of the Outback. There’s plenty of space to get lost and the climate and native life are among the planet’s most lethal. Many Outback communities are off the grid because they don’t want to be bothered. Most micronations and immigrant enclaves are harmless, but some are festering and predatory social anomalies. Garden-variety cults and illicit enterprises make enough problems but there’s also trouble brewing in the form of ecoterrorism directed at new settlements. So far, it’s been confined to vandalism and sabotage, but some immigrants are starting to push back and bloodshed is imminent. Any incident here, away from urban law enforcement’s ability to rapidly contain it, has the potential to escalate into something that sparks nation-wide riots or worse.