The main antagonists preparing to fight over Wolfram are the Technical Alliance and the Federated Territories.
The Technical Alliance was originally not a government as such, but a scientific, academic and political organization, and it had no territory of its own. It was, in essence, an attempt to create a human government known as a “technate,” a single, unified hierarchy led by scientific, technical and engineering experts. It grew out of the major economic and social crises that accompanied the end of the previous century, and at one time seemed to have a reasonable chance of achieving its goals peacefully. A turnover in the organization occurred after the start of the First Exodus, a major colonization push that culminated in the independence of colonies on the Moon, Mars and Venus, which relieved a great deal of social and economic pressure on Earth and led to a cooling of interest in a technical dictatorship among the public as a means of solving problems which were rapidly becoming less important. The Alliance began to radicalize when a particular faction, the “Optimalists,” took control of the group’s ideology, and introduced an outlook that advocated subversion and overthrow of various governments by force, instead of the slow attempts at public persuasion that had previously taken place. Under Optimalist control, the Alliance subverted a number of Earth and Colonial governments and their military and bueaucratic hierarchies, and staged a series of attempted coups on Earth and the Moon, which led to a major conflict now known as the First Upheaval.
The Federated Territories are not a single nation either, but a coalition of sovereign powers that aligned themselves to resist the Technical Alliance. The primary members are themselves multinational organizations and alliances, of which the three leading groups are ENSPUN, the Russian Confederation and EAST. ENSPUN, the English-Speaking Union, is an alliance of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, Nigeria and the majority of the Caribbean countries. It’s the primary superpower on Earth, driven by the Anglo-American industrial complex and the extensive financial and commercial resources of Nigeria, South Africa, India and CARICOM. The Union doesn’t always appear to be the most stable structure, but it successfully deterred war on Earth for nearly ninety years before the start of the First Upheaval, and has managed to create strong economic and political ties with Russia and EAST that have, until recently, maintained a large measure of stability on Earth despite the economic and political crises at the end of the last century. The Russian Confederation is a grouping of Russian states roughly analogous to its predecessor the Russian Federation, although with a less centralized government and a poorly-defined Eastern frontier. The Confederation has a large military budget but relies on its alliance with ENSPUN to conduct extended off-world campaigns, and its terrestrial and colonial economies are highly dependent on resource exploitation. And lastly the East-Asian Security Treaty or EAST, is an alliance of the Chinese Republic, much of Southeast Asia and Indonesia, with Japan and Korea as independently-aligned silent partners. EAST has a very aggressive colonization policy, but many members of EAST also maintain independent ties with ENSPUN nations as well, primarily Australia and the United States. Other members of the Federated Territories joined later in the conflict, and the Pan-African Congolmerate, Coalition of South and Central American Nations, and Mitteleuropa are all Federally aligned, although they began the war under Technical Alliance control.
The early stages of the Technical Alliance’s actions were successful, as surprise was complete and the subversion of public opinion had been very subtle, although incomplete. Academic and media organizations lined up with the Alliance as well, and a number of countries, primarily in Central and South America, Asia and some parts of Western Europe, declared themselves members of a new Technate, ushering in Alliance control of a great deal of industrial and technical capacity in a very short period of time. The Alliance attempt to subvert the Russian Confederation was a step too far for them, however, and the close ties between the Confederation and ENSPUN led to a major military response.
After a number of years of confused fighting, re-groupings of various power blocs on Earth, and several popular uprisings against Technical Alliance rule, three decisive battles were fought: on Earth, the Battle of Quraynah decisively broke the offensive power of the Technical Alliance’s ground forces on Earth, when ENSPUN and the Russian Confederation deployed tactical nuclear weapons to destroy five divisions of Alliance troops, the bulk of their forces in the Middle East along with most of their most skilled personnel. On the Moon, the Battle of Tycho brought Alliance industrial and space port facilities at Clavius under the control of the Federally-allied League of Cresinon, and crippled the Alliance war effort in the colonies, and in space, a multinational fleet defeated the main force of the Technical Alliance’s navy at the Battle of the Van Allen Belt.
The defeat of the Alliance was not total, however, as their resources were simply too extensive. However, Alliance forces were not powerful enough to face the now-consolidated power of the Federated Territories inside the Sol system, and the main forces retreated to the orbit of Saturn, where they regrouped and retreated towards the outer colonies, first to Barnard’s Star, and then to points unknown. Recognizing that the war was not yet won, the Federated Territories began a major process of retrenchment and fortification, and a large-scale search for Technical Alliance forces began.
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