History
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Zabi Family Riah Revolution One Week War Battle of Lourm Antarctic Treaty Earth Drop Operation Please note that the information contained here has been slightly tailored for the RPG, and should not be considered Gundam canon. As the information age entered its height, the lines between Nation and Nation, as well as between Nation and Corporation, began to blur. A dwindling oil market, coupled by global corporatization and religions strife, started the spark of terrorist activity and guerrilla warfare around the globe. Modern medicine and lifestyles caused birth rates to skyrocket. Global warming and the global economy linked a countries economic and environmental policies with the rest of the world. The new pressures of population growth, environment control, unorthodox warfare and economic strife pressured the creation of the Earth Federation government. Originally consisting of the old European Union with the additions of the United States, Brazil, India, Japan, and a few other powers, more than 90 percent of the worlds governments became signing members within a few short years. The Earth Federations solution to the planets problems were simple in design, but complex in implementation. The human race had grown too big for the Earth, and was forced to migrate to the stars. The Federations space colonization plan started with a tremendous movement to obtain the necessary supplies. The proposed Space Colonies would require more material than the Earth had to offer. Three missions to the stars were sent, using a temporary base on the moon as a staging ground. First, the Jupiter Energy Fleet was constructed, traveling to the gas giant and collecting gasses useful for rocket propellant en masse. A small settlement was built in Jupiter Orbit in order to assist the fleet in its then three month long journey. This settlement would later become the basis for the corporate Jupiter Government. Second, a colonization project was sent to Mars, in order to obtain the minerals necessary to build the colonies. After ten years of attempts to master the red planet, it was decided that Martian conditions were too harsh for a mass colonization project, and even though it was farther away, the Asteroid Belt would be more cost effective. The Federations focus moved towards the Belt, leaving ten million Martian colonists on the red planet, where they would live for the next hundred years. Finally, the mission to the Asteroid Belt was established. Fleets would corral huge asteroids, assess their content of useful minerals, then attach rockets to them and shoot them back towards the Earth. Several small settlements were built in order to house these workers, some man made, some using the hollowed out shells of asteroids as living spaces. Unlike the settlements on Jupiter, these were very small and spread out, preventing any kind of unified Asteroid Belt government from forming. However, people did live in the Belt for the rest of human history. These missions lasted more than fifty years, a period of space exploration that would be overlooked later on with the coming of the space colonies, and the start of the war. When the One Year War began, a half a billion people lived outside the Earth Sphere. The majority of them were Jovians, but Mars, the Asteroid Belt, and even way stations in Deep Space were home to millions of people.
The space colonies were organized into seven clusters, or Sides, orbiting the five Lagrange points. These first colonies provide new homes for war refugees, the poor, the adventurous, and many entrepreneurs. From now on those who live in the colonies would be known as Spacenoids, and those who live on Earth as Earthnoids. While the population of space sharply increases, the population of Earth sharply declines, going from eleven billion to five billion in just forty years. This causes rapid changes in the Earth politically, economically and environmentally, some good and some bad. While religious and environmental strife lessen dramatically, the rapidly declining population turns an innumerable number of cities into ghost towns. Entire countries cease to exist as their populations move to space, and those remaining migrate to the still populated areas of East Asia, North America and Europe. Africa, South America and Southeast Asia become a wilderness, full of natural beauty, and ghostly ruins. In year 10 of the Universal Century, the Federation privatizes the Jupiter Energy Fleet, realizing the difficulties in managing another planet from afar. The JDEG becomes in essence a country of its own, operating from Jupiter and dealing with the Earth. This decision creates a large number of byproducts politically, both for Jupiter and for Earth. When the Minovsky Particle is discovered and Minovsky Physics become commonplace, Jupiter's Helium 3 quickly becomes the oil of the space age. The JDEG becomes the richest corporation in the solar system overnight, and its monopoly on Helium 3 makes it incredibly powerful. In addition to this, when the Spacenoids of the colonies become interested in governing themselves, they would use the JDEG's privatization as an example that the Earth should not meddle in the affairs of those who live in space.
Newtypes were nothing more than a propaganda tool when first proposed by Zeon Zum Daikun, but over the next hundred years would become an undeniable reality of human existance. They were proposed by Daikun as a generation of people who were capable of understanding each other to a degree that was not previously possible, due to the harshness and unique conditions of space life. Even thirty years later when the war began, the vast majority of the human race would not believe in the actual existance of Newtypes, thinking them a myth or a political tool. However, as science caught up with genetics, both Earth and Space would slowly come to terms with Newtypes existance. In UC 0051, the Earth Federation realized that the population of Space was becoming restless. They halted the construction of new colonies, leaving Side 7 unfinished, and passed a number of laws designed to constrict the Spacenoids ability to migrate and work together. Spacenoids were prevented from owning property on Earth, prevented from building new colonies, and later prevented even from moving between the seven Sides. These restrictive policies would quickly backfire, causing unrest amongst the colonies. Zeon Zum Daikun moved to Side 3 illegally, and began to realize his philosophy of Contolism. Side 3 was the farthest from Earth, and due to its position behind the moon, was the only Side that could not see the Earth directly from its own border. The people here were the most restless, and quickly elected Daikun as their Governor. The Federation knew what was happening, but the situation was too delicate for them to be able to stop it. If they were too soft they risked leaving Daikun unchecked, but if they were too harsh it would spark a rebellion in the other Sides. In 0058 Zeon Zum Daikun would declare Side 3 the independent Republic of Zeon. The Federation government immediately applied economic sanctions towards Zeon, but this would have little real affect.
In UC 0077, the solar systems first military conflict in space would occur. The population of Side 6 would rise up, revolting against its Federation government. A fleet would quickly be sent from Earth to assist, but the closer Side 3 military would arrive first, blockading Side 6 with its new mobile suits. Neither side was willing to start a war over Side 6, and nothing more than a few off the record skirmishes would occur. However, both sides used the conflict as an excuse to test themselves for the upcoming war. In the aftermath of the conflict, the Nationalist party in Side 6 would gain control, declaring their own independence as the Riah Revolution. When the war between the Federation and Zeon began two years later, Riah would declare itself a neutral party, and its citizens would be saved from the incredible genocide of the One Week War. On January Third, UC 0079, Zeon launched a surprise attack on the Federation garrisons at Sides 1, 2 and 4. The resulting week long battle would be known as the One Week War. The discovery of the Minovsky Particle would change the future of warfare. Using Minovsky-Ionesco Fusion Reactors and the radio-dampening Minovsky Particle Field, the Duchies nuclear weapon armed Mobile Suit Corps would annihilate the Federation military, as well as the colonies housing the garrisons. Accidental damage caused by both sides of the conflict would result in the destruction of hundreds of space colonies, and the loss of nearly three billion human lives.
The EFSF organized their entire fleet in preparation for a counterattack just outside Side 5, the closest Side to Earth, and the one with the strongest Federation support. Their fleet outnumbered that of Zeons twenty ships to one. However, they were still unable to defeat Zeons new weapon of war, the Mobile Suit. The Earth Federation Space Force was decimated, and the Federations supreme military commander, General Revil, was captured. A second attempt at sending a space colony on a collision course with Jaburo would barely be thwarted by the Federation fleet. The entirety of Side 5 would be destroyed in the battle, resulting in the deaths of 99.9% of its one billion citizens. In the two weeks following the battle of Lourm, Zeons military superiority and its control of space was assured. The Federation held a thin battle line at Earth Orbit, using the asteroid Juno, renamed Luna II, as its base of operations. Luna II's thick hide was immune to nuclear barrage, its one saving grace in stopping the Duchy onslaught. Their space fleet now crippled, the Federation decided to meet with the Zabis in Antarctica, to discuss terms for surrender. However, three Federation sympathizers in the Duchy military would rescue General Revil, and send him in a shuttle to the Antarctic summit. He arrived mere hours before the signing of the armistice, and showed the Federation leaders information the three defectors had brought with them. The Duchy had used the entirety of its military and economic might in this one month campaign, and was bluffing with its claims of being able to defend its new territory. It would be relatively simple for the Federation to use its vast nuclear stockpile to completely obliterate Side 3. Revils points would be articulated in his "Zeon is Exhausted!" speech, given before the delegates at the summit. At the end of the speech, Kycillia Zabi would pick up her chair and throw it at the man in anger. What started as the signing of the Federations surrender, would end as the Antarctic Treaty. The Duchy of Zeon would agree to no longer drop colonies or any other high mass objects on the Earth, and both sides would agree to refrain from using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in the coming conflict. This agreement was miraculously followed by both sides in large part, and would turn the coming war into a long, drawn out, war of attrition.
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