| Capital: | Union Hall, Arbanograd, People's Democratic Xanu State |
| Motto: | All Workers. All Creeds. One Union. |
| Founded: | 2451 |
| Type: | Committee Supervised Republic |
| Leader: | Union Premier Ma Ying |
| Languages: | Freespeak, Xanan Common (Similar to Sol Common) |
The Union of Progressive Peoples (UPP) is a coalition of socialist-aligned planets whose primary goals are self defence and spreading revolutionary fervour. While largely considered a Xanan affair, not every partner is a silent one, not least the Himeans, who are some of the longest-standing members of the organisation. Eternally in a state of vigilance surrounding the threat of counter-revolution or foreign invasion, the UPP is eternally in a state of military readiness. While small, it has significant diplomatic sway through the indirect threat of support of any number of communist, socialist or anarchist aligned partisans scattered across the Orion Spur, making them the nation to placate in private while opposing in public.
Server Relevant Information
This section will summarise some of the behaviours and pieces of information that are most typical of a citizen of the UPP who would be seen in the server’s setting. These are not hard rules, however they are highly advised to be loosely followed for the sake of a coherent story.
- Consistently addressing others as Comrade or Tovarisch will earn you strange looks from outsiders, and will make you look like a brown-noser to anybody that has grown up in the Union. Comrade is a formal address akin to calling an officer "Sir" or saying "Yes Chef".
- If you have politically affiliated family, or higher-ranking military family, you may have grown up paranoid of being surveilled and only express anti-authority views in quiet or hard-to-bug areas.
- You may be prone to believing these stereotypes about other groups
- Tajarans are hard, model workers who are consistently innovating their own workplaces.
- IPCs are aware of their situation and perfectly willing to run away with you from their enslavers.
- Eridani Corporates are unfeeling and will actively try to stab you in the back at the first opportunity.
- Elyran citizens are fully in support of every action of their government, and are all warhawks.
- People from UNIP have an inferiority complex when they see you.
- It is typically expected that you send many letters home, especially telling your family about what you have been up to over the past few months.
Populations and Planets
The UPP has an extremely diverse population for its size, due to numerous factors including acceptance of refugees from unsympathetic nations (of whom many would label defectors); the abnormal history of its founding; and unusual border expansions involving planets on the frontier.
The junior major planet, The Free System of Vysoka is the bread basket of the Union, having tracts upon tracts of arable land and an environment deeply in tune with its unique wild life and livestock alike. Less politically motivated than its superiors, the newer member to the union is something of a client state, undergoing industrialisation and cultural changes. What makes them so well loved, however, is their culture of believing that laziness is the ultimate way to alienate oneself from the group, which is often framed as being industrious proletarians for the sake of their politically enthusiastic allies.
Scattered across the various stations and planets of the Union is a diaspora of Tajaran refugees. These are mostly neo-socialist movements from areas either under control of the Sacred Azunal Kingdom or that have been squashed after an attempted rebellion in the Free Tajara Republic. The majority of planetary tajara live on Himeo, especially in the city of Lirmak, but they can typically be found in small numbers anywhere, especially in areas with large amounts of engineering employment. Tajaran refugees are often treated well, but generally feel a sense of being a "model minority" put on display to show off the opportunities provided by the UPP.
Due to the efforts of the Brotherhood of Synthetic Freedom, a small number of post-debt IPCs find their way to the UPP in the form of refugees. Many of them are wanted individuals, and there are some suspicions that many of the refugees are actually being taken to sponsored training camps within the borders of the UPP. Union spokesmen have refused to confirm nor deny this claim, stating that their internal surveillance would not be able to pick up any activities of this nature in the more remote aspects of their borders. Many of these refugees that do appear to be genuine refugees find their way to Xanu, mingling with a society that has a high level of non-positronic automation and generally finding the attitude of treating machines as comrades amenable, if somewhat condescending.
History
Founded in 2451 as a duo of planets, the relationship between Xanu and Himeo became a binding one during the signing of the 1st Treaty of Solidarity. Working together, these two groups began to form the ideas of a state, attempting to reach compromise between their allied but differing ideologies, united in their shared abandonment by the UN and the corporations. The ideas for this Union were always grand, with the treaty including clauses that it must be resigned every time a new member joined the collective. Equal footing for equal members.
Equal footing did not last long, with the incorporation of a series of abandoned or defecting Hephaestus mining and refinery stations. This required the formation of stations as their own political entity, and one Committee seat on the Himean side was sacrificed due to the perceived political similarities between the stations and Himeans. By the signing of the 2nd Treaty of Solidarity in 2456, Xanu had gained a slight political edge, being able to take advantage of the differences between the stations and Himeans that did exist.
Unexpectedly, a series of pirate incursions began in 2458, raiding UPP mining stations and seemingly running for their lives, establishing pirate colonies all over the border regions of the Union. This created one of the first major military actions of the UPP: Anti-Piracy. The size of the fleet swelled and the inexperienced military began to cut its teeth, learning anti-guerrilla tactics and naval combat in order to whittle down the pirate threat. Progress was slow, but spirits were high and pirates regularly became a fixture enemy for both Xanan and Himean cinema. After a long-fought campaign, the UPP found the source of the pirates: fleeing their exile from the colony of Vysoka.
In 2514, official contact was made with the Vysokans, who too had been abandoned by their original colony sponsors. At this point Union society had developed the joke that the entire Orion Spur must have been orphan colonies, and a government effort was concerted to woo the Vysokans into the Union with the promise of technological progress. After twelve years of debate, the Vysokan city states each held a referendum, voting in favour with an unusually even 65.3-65.5% in every single city. The planet joined the Union, eventually convincing their nomadic tribes that they were indeed a part of something other than Vysoka after another decade of confused protests. Many of the individuals who verified the fairness of these referendums have since become members of the People's Chamber. With this, the 3rd Treaty of Solidarity was signed, taking yet another Himean seat and handing it to the junior member with the reasoning that Himeo and Vysoka are both primary industry based economies, and would therefore vote on the same lines. This left the Central Union Committee in its current state.
Government
The governance of the UPP is decided by a Central Union Committee between its member planets, consisting of ten seats and one Premier. Currently, five are from Xanu, three are from Himeo, one is from Vysoka, and one has been selected by a collective vote of every space station within their borders. This committee directs policy goals, to be planned and forwarded by the elected body known as the "People's Chamber" to the labour unions of various planets. Those labour unions are local and vaguely self-governing, moreso on Himeo and Vysoka than on Xanu. The People's Chamber is filled by these labour unions, who each send a representative in the event that they are one of the 50 biggest unions in their profession (i.e the top 50 steel mill unions or the top 50 nurses unions). The military, being large and unionless, gets 50 seats for each regiment, each port and each carrier group, leaving the military to represent over 25% of the People's Chamber. The Central Union Committee is only elected by the People's Chamber whenever a member dies. In the event that the Premier dies, the Committee will pick one of their own to fill the seat, often taking months of political wrangling including getting the support of the majority of the People's Chamber by any means necessary: Entire economies can shift overnight during a Premier election.
Premier Ma Ying
The current standing premier was born 19th April 2530 in Arbanograd. Starting his career as a political officer in the 43rd Air Assault Regiment, he quickly rose to the rank of Captain, allowing him to become a representative in the People's Chamber at the humble age of 31. During his time in the People's Chamber, he became something of a media figure, regularly being photographed spending time with the wounded or visiting military bases to cheer up the soldiers deployed there. These media appearances made him something of a darling to the military, who "persuaded" the rest of the Chamber to elect him to the Committee in 2572, a position which he used to bolster military spending, controversially earning him the position of Premier after the suspicious death of his Himean predecessor Sayra Battulga in 2581. He was rumoured to have used the military as a threat during the following election, securing his position under threat of tearing the Union in half, and ensuring that his successor on the committee was a Xanan like himself. This is denied by all Union affiliated media.
Relationships
United Nations Interstellar Protectorate
Having been effectively abandoned by Earth in their own eyes, the Union very rarely has positive interactions with UNIP. Typically they spend their diplomatic time demanding reparations for abandonment, full recognition of independence and reigning in Eridani independence for the sake of the treatment of dregs. UNIP, in return, often demands sweeping reforms of the government, including the opening of Xanan elections and loss-of-property repayments from Himeo to Hephaestus Industries. Naturally, this often leaves relations at an impasse, with both sides accusing the other of sponsoring separatist militias within the other's borders. Relations are often frosty, but not outright hostile, and tokens of good faith are often shared between both sides, be it murals or sporting events to show off the excellence of both sides.
The Serene Republic of Elyra
Any citizen of the Union who is even slightly politically involved is want to believe that The Serene Republic of Elyra is a dangerously endangered democracy on the verge of becoming a fascist dictatorship akin to Dominia. The reality of Elyra's expansionist policies combined with their treatment of Non-Citizen Persons means that the political landscape between the two is outright hostile, with the UPP openly endorsing any small scale rebellion or civil unrest within the nation and regularly sending ships to the border in a sense of military readiness. Elyran citizens are treated with hostility when met on neutral ground, and suspicion of Elyran interests has created a mutual working relationship with the Commonwealth of Independent Systems.
The Commonwealth of Indepedent Systems
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as the saying goes, and no greater enemies are there than the Commonwealth of Independent Systems and Elyra. Circumstance and shared goals of independence have driven the UPP and the CIS closer than any other duo, working together militarily and economically to prepare one another for either an Elyran or UNIP incursion. However, while the two work together, there is no strong culture of collaboration, and the UPP is often suspicious of the free market capitalism that goes on within the Coalition's borders, fearing a second Eridani.
Azunali Space
The UPP is often viewed as one of the most antagonistic forces within Azunali space, sponsoring revolutions left right and centre. The Sacred Azunal Kingdom is outright hostile, refusing negotiations and demanding trade embargos when meeting with their foreign allies. Meanwhile in the Free Tajara Republic, many find them an irritating radical nuisance, pushing counter-revolutions and demanding a move further left of the human political spectrum. To further this, many tajaran refugees appear in the Union, hoping for a better life and often beign swayed by propaganda spread by pro-Union political agitators.
Bomus Space
If you can read this, I forgot to talk to Traki about how this would work