April 3rd, 70 CE. 1200 Colonial Standard. Principality of Zeon. Third Person POV
For the past two days the people of the Principality of Zeon had been on a constant state of edge. One moment they were zealously celebrating the much promised independence, the next they had all been knocked unconscious with most people not waking up for several hours. As it was in many extraordinary times of crisis, unrest rose with the spread of riots and looting along with occasional attacks by lone wolfs who wanted to use the Event to bring down the Zabi dynasty. Fortunately the coolness of the majority of the population and swift reaction of the military had kept order in place, but the low amount of deaths didn't stop the great unease that festered the population of Side 3.
For two days the population had been left in the dark with the state taking control of all television networks, radio stations, and the internet. No new information was allowed in with the news only reporting that everything was under control while all television stations only ran reruns with stern supervision from State Security. Those who had friends across the Sides, on Earth, or Luna were unable to contact them with a few who were incredibly persistent in their efforts being taken in the middle of the night. While most people placed their trust in the Zabi's and tried to go about their daily lives, deep inside there was a heavy discomfort that plagued them for each waking hour of the day. The national economy grinded to a halt with no work getting done in the private sector as all people could talk about was the Declaration of Independence, the communications blackout, and the event. Even the most diehard Nationalists had to question just what the Zabis were doing at this point.
During this time of crisis, the most confusing aspect was the sudden appearance of tens of millions of Zeon citizens who were outside of Side 3 during the time of independence. Each teleported person told a similar tale, of how they were watching the Declaration or performing some other activity, and then one moment while everything was perfectly normal, the next they found themselves in their homes surrounded by their families. While many were overjoyed to be reunited with their loved ones during this strange time, the fact that they had teleported across the Earth sphere gave cause for concern. Greater questions arose on why some people did not manage to come home instantly through this miracle, just why were they left behind while others were seemingly brought to Side 3 through divine intervention.
Had the situation gone one for longer then the unrest would have reached a breaking point and not even the Zabi's infamous cult of personality could save them. Fortunately on noon of "October 3rd", the people received their answer in the form of a state broadcast by Degwin Sodo Zabi with the following hour seeing the news flood the citizens with alerts that they needed to watch what their Sovereign would say.
Like many authoritarian regimes that came before, Zeon maintained a popular mandate through the creation of a cult of personality that portrayed them as the saviors of Side 3 and the only people capable of leading them to independence and prosperity. This cult was helped by the media, while on paper being free and in the hands of private citizens, falling into the pocket of the Zabi's with any who dared oppose the Zabi's being either alienated out of the industry, or if they were too persistent or dangerous, silenced. When it came to communicating with the people however, the Zabi's did not rely on the news, rather they acted outside of it through Gihren's propaganda network where he and the other Zabi's would directly approach the people, often times through thunderous rallies or inspiring films that motivated them to action. In this manner no one was technically forced to show their patriotism and loyalty to Zeon, rather being a patriot became a social requirement with participation in the Zabi machine being seen as an act of honor with service being its own reward. For Degwin to mandate that the people watch a news broadcast by him, the situation must have been incredibly grave.
Those who thought such sentiments would be proven correct as most of Side 3 tuned in to Degwin's speech. The footage showed Degwin sitting behind his desk, his face sporting an intensely grave focus that gave off a somber and serious air that went beyond Degwin's usual lack of emotion. For most of Zeon, the speech would be an affair that they would remember with every clear detail for the rest of their lives. From there a popular question would be, "Where were you when we learned of the Cosmic Era?"
"My fellow sons and daughters of Zeon, I come before you today with our nation in its darkest and most challenging our with the Principality finding itself in bizzare circumstances that before the Declaration could only be though of as fiction. For the past few days we have kept quiet on just what exactly happened during the Declaration and what the state of the Earth sphere was in the aftermath. I apologize for this intense manner of censorship as you all deserve the right to know the truth, however, it was a necessary evil in order to make sure that our nation could be united and prepared for the extraordinary circumstances we now find ourselves in, considering the events of the last few days, my decision to censor the communications network has been more than justified.
What I am about to present to you at this moment is an impossible tale that seems nothing more than fantasy, however I assure you that what I am about to say is the complete and total truth. Two days ago during the Declaration, through an unknown phenomena that broke all known laws of physics, the Principality of Zeon in its entirety, the far side of the moon, our asteroid outposts and fleets, along with tens of millions of citizens who were flung to Side 3 from the rest of the Earth sphere, were transported across space and time to an alternate timeline. What seems to be nothing more than science fiction is now reality as we find ourselves in a solar system based on a very different history. In short, we are no longer a part of the Universal Century, the solar system as we know no longer exists.
What Zeon now finds herself in is a timeline called the Cosmic Era. From what information we have obtained, due to a divergence in the late 20th century there was no Third World War with the Cold War ending peacefully in an American victory with the reformation of the Soviet Union into a liberalized Union of Sovereign States and the breakup of the Warsaw Pact with the fall of Communism everywhere outside of a few exceptions such as China, Cuba, Vietnam, and Cambodia. At first it seemed that in the absence of nuclear war this new world would be a unipolar one led by the United States, but through multiple factors that we are still struggling to understand, the world became multipolar and through an event known as the Reconstruction War in their year 2050, a new world order was established with the creation of a dozen superstates that split the Earth between them, a geopolitical scene that was created through multiple intense regional wars and a low scale usage of nuclear weaponry.
After the creation of their new calendar called the Cosmic Era in 2053, with the current date of this new solar system being April 3rd of Cosmic Era 70, or April 3rd 2113, history changed dramatically with humanity becoming incredibly alien to our history. For starters, the world never unified into a one world government akin to the Earth Federation with the world remaining divided into a dozen nations. Nuclear fusion was never discovered and as such human settlement has never gone into the Jovian sphere with the world being reliant on nuclear fission. Most of mankind remains on Earth with only 2% of the human population living in space or beyond the Earth sphere, with half of these migrants being volunteers rather than forced out. The starkest change in the Cosmic Era was the creation of genetic augmentations called Coordination, allowing people to manipulate the genes of an embryo to turn them into superhumans with unparalleled genius and super strength. These people have been termed as Coordinators.
Most of the Cosmic Era's history has seen intense social division over the status of Coordinators with some nations embracing them while others have persecuted them. The world's three greatest superpowers which are the successor states of the United States, Soviet Union, and China; have decided to force the majority of their Coordinator populations to migrate to colonies referred to as PLANTs, a history not so different from ours. A few months before our arrival, a crisis erupted over the PLANT's status of self-rule with war then breaking out after a conference by the UN, which still exists in this timeline, was dirty bombed with the PLANT delegation being conspicuously absent. While we have no idea who is truly responsible for the incident, the sponsor nations of the PLANTs have taken this as their responsibility and thus declared war with PLANT then declaring independence.
So far the war between PLANT and the organization of sponsor nations which have coined themselves as the Earth Alliance has been short but deadly. In the first week the Alliance launched a nuclear attack which destroyed one of PLANT's colonies. In retribution, hours after we arrived to this new timeline, PLANT launched a crippling attack on Earth which has seen most of the planet's energy grid be wiped out. As of this moment a majority of the planet is still without power according to satellite reports from the Space Force.
When we found ourselves in this new world, attempts were made to establish diplomatic relations with us successfully reaching out to two nations, the Republic of East Asia who is the successor state of China, and Orb, a nation which is an archipelago of artificial islands in the Southern Pacific. Unfortunately, such a tide of good fortune was not meant to be as yesterday our forward bases of Solomon and Pezun were attacked without warning or reason by PLANT and East Asia, the former having never attempted to contact us and the latter betraying the establishment of peaceful relations after first contact. We have no understanding of why they have attacked, but rest assured our great Space Force has seen to the obliteration of both of their fleets and as of now we are confident that Zeon can wipe out the military forces of this Earth sphere combined.
No matter how great these victories are, the fact remains that a tragedy has taken place with tens of thousands of Zeon servicemen and women paying the ultimate sacrifice. Further at this exact moment, hundreds of ships are launching to the far side of the moon to free the lunar cities from the tyrannical grip of the Earth Federation's fleet who have refused to recognize the death of their nation and have sought to continue their oppression of our Lunarian brothers and sisters. There are likely a number of you watching who have lost a loved one in these battles, and to you I give my deepest condolences. We are working hard to identify who has been lost with ongoing search and rescue missions for those who remain adrift in space or to retrieve corpses for a proper funeral. We will be releasing a list of all those who we have confirmed to be dead and for the families of those who have died I promise a highly generous gratuity payment along with the creation of a future state funeral to honor all those who have died in service of defending our independence from the aggression of the Federation or these new powers.
My fellow sons and daughters of Zeon, I swear to you on this day that their deaths shall be avenged. From this day forward we are now and forever free from gravity's tyranny with the insidious Federation no longer around to bend us to their will, the Principality will not let its independence be destroyed by the wanton aggression of the superstates of this timeline, and we will strike down all those who dare to deny our right to exist. With our titanic victories, diplomatic envoys have been sent to PLANT and East Asia to demand an armistice and for the beginnings of a negotiation to end this fruitless war. If they agree, then we shall have victory on our terms. If they choose to continue their senseless bloodshed then we will unleash the raw power and righteous fury of our military until they are no longer in a position to wage war.
The coming days shall be a difficult trial for Zeon but the rewards shall be great upon victory. None of us asked to leave the Universal Century, to enter this strange new world where most of humanity remains on Earth and a rise of supermen has occurred, now that we are here however, we shall establish our rightful place among the solar system and continue to fulfill the will of Zeon Zum Deikun, to show the Spacenoids of this era the enlightenment of Contolism so that they may all free their souls from gravity and become fellow Newtypes.
My people, I humbly call upon you in this time of crisis, to rise up and stand defiantly against the Cosmic Era so that we may create our new home. We shall endure, we shall prevail, Sieg Zeon.
April 4th, 70 CE. 0100 Colonial Standard. Luna. AFS Colin Powell. Malcolm Carlson POV.
Inside of the conference room of the Colin Powell, Admiral Malcolm Carlson sat alone with a small bottle of whiskey, attempting to explain to his colleagues and superiors of the Atlantic Federation Space Force just what the heck was happening and why they may have just made genuine first contact with a nation from an alternate dimension. While consuming alcohol in the middle of giving a report to his superiors was subject for severe discipline, Malcolm didn't give a damn. In the past few days the homeland had suffered a complete loss of power with millions dying, potentially including his home family, communication with the President was shaky at the best of times, thus leaving the Space Force on their own, and one of their allies may have unjustly attacked on a nation of hundreds of space colonies who had fusion nukes and mobile suits.
In other words, the whole world was going to hell and if Malcolm wanted to drink then he was going to goddamned drink!
'What the hell did we do to deserve this, it was all so simple just a week ago.' Malcolm groaned mentally. While the suits in Washington were doing a crappy job running the war as they had been prone to do since Korea, the war for the most part was contained to L5 and an inherent Alliance victory with unconditional surrender from Aprilius likely by Christmas. Then out of nowhere the PLANTs had the power to manipulate fission like a lightswitch and hundreds of colonies along with advanced fleets were popping out of nowhere as if God had introduced some new toys to the Aliens showed up tommorrow, then Malcolm would not be surprised.
"For the last time Admiral, if the Coordinators have the ability to pop up thousands of new ships, mobile suits, and nukes like it was magic, why the hell are they engaging in all of this secrecy when they can just wipe us out at ease? Why is this Renee Harper attempting to talk with us to prove her story when she can just wipe us out with her GINN's and nuke Endiyomon as she would clearly have the superior technology and service quality if it's ZAFT. Why hasn't ZAFT launched more attacks with those Oceanian and African bastards? Why are the mass drivers still intact? What the hell was that battle at L5 when none of our forces are present? Why the hell aren't we signing an unconditional surrender if this is all the work of those Coordinators?!" Malcolm barked at his colleague Admiral Lee Redford who was the garrison commander of the Endymion base while Malcolm handled operational affairs for the sortie of the 3rd Fleet.
From the day that he had been posted at Endymion Malcolm just could not stand Lee. While he was competent at as a flag officer that there was nothing for Malcolm to take to the Pentagon up to this point, there was just something about the man that was offputting. There were several factors about him that made Lee unlikable such as his constant attempts to micromanage the human resources of the base, his sporadic inspections of the base to try and regulate every small detail, and his rather intensely personal relationship with the supply corps among with frequent sightings of national politicians. While the man radiated unease, he just became downright unbearable whenever someone brought up the topic of Coordinators, sending Lee into raging rants and off the wall conspiracy theories. While Lee heavily disliked Coordinators, he didn't do anything about them so long as he didn't have to live with them and they tended to their own affairs in the PLANTs. Lee on the other hand, was all but a confirmed Blue Cosmos member at this point, the strangest thing about it was how strongly he denied his ties to the organization each time someone said he was linked to them. It was not out of shame or disgust though, rather an attempt to keep professional distance, or perhaps deniability.
"Who knows just what the hell the Patchworkers think. Their brains are far beyond our comprehension, this is all just part of some master plan to completely destroy us and leave no chance for retaliation. East Asia is practically dead at this point, and we'll be next if you just sit there and gawk at them." Lee argued. Malcolm just rolled his eyes and scoffed in disgust, not giving the pretense of civility anymore.
"Once again I must state, that if they have the resources to pull off the largest military masquerade in history, one that makes Fortitude look like the a bright red sign, then they would have won the war already and just enforce whatever they want on us.. Either the Coordinators are so smart and all powerful that they can fuck with reality, or they are so insanely stupid that they try to play theater with us while our ships are walking coffins. Why still stick with the story of a group of people from a different dimension if that supposedly failed with East Asia? And why are they making a new fleet that is impossible to hold mobile suits along with crappy spaceborn versions of aerial fighters. What. Is. The. Point?!" Malcolm shouted.
"Thank you Malcolm, I think you've made your point." Said Admiral Terrence Howard, the head of the 4th Fleet who was in charge of the defense of the L1 colonies with him recently having to abandon his charge to hunker down in the Lunar bases with the rest of the ships to make a final stand. "I could maybe put up with the magic colonies, the stealth fleets, and the masquerade, but the confirmation of nuclear explosions in L5 along with a lack of committing this titanic resources to strike at the homeland is damning enough evidence. The only excuse you could come up with is that some civil war is breaking out, but what little factionalism the CIA has presented us with has never infected the colonies at large and there would be no reason to shoot at each other after they deployed the N-Jammers. If they were so disgusted with the act, they would have fought each other before the operation began, not after and when total victory is within their grasp." Terrence said, with Malcolm breathing a sigh of relief at logic winning the day.
"But-"Lee began, only to be cut off by Pedro Sanchez, the Admiral in charge of the 2nd Fleet at Tycho Crater.
"Look, while I admit that with everything that's happened in the past couple of days that there's still a decent chance that this could be ZAFT's work, Malcolm's arguments debunk most support for this being a ZAFT masquerade, and for now I'd like to believe that there's still some semblance of normality left in reality for us to approach these situations with logic and our sanity intact. So for now can we just approach the 'Earth Federation' fleet as legitimate until otherwise proven?" Pedro asked, with a majority of agreement on the conference call, causing Lee to painfully retreat and concede to Malcolm's logic.
"Fine, so if we except that this "Earth Federation" exists, then what are we supposed to do about them?" Lee asked, with the question being directed towards Malcolm in a snear.
Ignoring the hostility, Malcolm gave his thoughts on what he had decided upon receiving the information, "From what I've seen so far in the information data that they sent us along with the words of this Rear Admiral Harper, the entity that we are dealing with is not the main composition of forces from another timeline, it is this Principality of Zeon, with the Principality being in a De Facto rebellion against the Federation, who is just limited to their lunar cities since the rest of their territory remained behind. If we assume blindly that the leaders of this Zeon have complete support from their populace and the Federation for the far side lunar cities, they outnumber their former masters 20 to 1. Based on the numbers we picked up from L4 and L5, we can assume that this Zeon contains 4,000-10,000 ships in a rough estimate, a far greater number than what we knew of ZAFT, with fusion nukes and mobile suits. Maybe if we were at peacetime, Earth was unmolested, and we had the backing of our allies then we could take them. But with our fleets being isolated from the others, the East Asians receiving a major ass whooping, and no near future support from Earth, going up against Zeon is suicide, which is something that we will be doing if we support the Federation.
"Won't Zeon just maintain their independence without the Earth Federation present? Their territorial claims are solely focused on Lagrange 2 and the far side cities were directly ruled by Earth, not them. So how about we intervene and extend the Earth Federation a hand of friendship, but make no overt military promises and mainly try to hold them from attacking Zeon. We force them to see reality and formally grant Zeon De Jure Independence, which will bring peace between the two and from there we'll be allied with a nation that has nuclear fusion technology. I'm sure we'll have to give them a crap ton of concessions, maybe even cede the entire far side to them, but that's Washington's job and with how ZAFT is now dominant, Congress would most likely sell themselves if it meant getting the fusion reactors and nukes." Offered Michael Ok, the Marine Lieutenant General in charge of the Lunar forces.
"Are we sure that this Zeon will be okay with just independence? If we acknowledge that those stealth fleets at L4 and L5 are Zeon's, then that meant that right before declaring independence, they sent forces to enemy Lagrange Points with absolutely no presence of their own or any legitimate claim to the territory. To me that seems like a war of naked conquest." Said Fleet Admiral Maxwell Carter, the ever serious and monotone Chief of Staff for the Lunar forces.
"Well, America did attempt to bring Quebec into the nation during the Revolutionary War. Perhaps they wanted to cause the other colonies to revolt in solidarity?" Pedro suggested.
"That only reinforces the argument, that action was done as an offensive strategy to push Great Britain out of North America completely. If Zeon sent forces to L4 and L5, tens of thousands of kilometres away from their vulnerable nation with no inherent resources besides manpower to procure, then they wanted to either decapitate the Federation or steal the colonies to increase their domain." Maxwell said.
"But that was when they were fighting Earth. Surely their sudden demographic superiority means that they would no longer have a need to attempt such a strategy?" Pedro once again suggested.
"If it were just colonies then perhaps your right, but those Lunar cities are industrial strongholds that are now surrounded by an untapped vein of mineral resources due to our suit's until now asinine policy of keeping the far side as neutral ground. Unless they have a large and stable connection to the Belt, then they'll be left to dry on resources and will want to secure the moon to increase their solarpolitical power. If we concentrate our fleets inside of our bases we could keep our cities, if we send even a fraction of our forces to defend the Earth Federation, then we're dead meat. We can't gamble for the sake of people from another reality while our nation is in the midst of collapse." Maxwell argued, with his bringing up of the current situation on Earth dashing any rising optimism of an alliance with the new Federation.
"But sir, you can't deny that the addition of physical tech for nuclear fusion would give us a fighting chance of continuing the war. If we don't grab our hands onto their reactors and nukes, and maybe their mobile suit tech, then we'll have to sue for peace, even unconditionally at the end of the month." Malcolm said.
When Malcolm brought about the possibility of surrender, he was given several dirty looks by those present within the call. By far the most chilling was Carter's who started at him coldly with his face bearing no emotion, but his eyes filled with silent rage as if he had just found Malcolm screwing with his wife. Thanks to the alcohol Malcolm didn't flinch, just barely though.
"I am well aware of how critical their weaponry could aid us in our war of survival against the Coordinators. But I will not have this nation be wiped out by Naturals from another dimension in place of Coordinators. Defeat is not an option, but I will rather go down fighting than through suicide. For now I suggest we try to stall until we get a clearer picture of the situation then the sole word of this Admiral. In particular we should reach out to this Zeon and instead ally with them, after all, they were able to defeat ZAFT, even with their superweapons."Maxwell said.
"Why would they ally with us? We are allied with East Asia and they attacked them without cause, therefore making us their enemies." Lee argued.
"No, we are not at war with Zeon, East Asia is. Considering we aren't having any fleet sent our way or angry demands for surrender, for now we can assume that they do not view us as an enemy despite our association. If necessary we should try to coordinate with Eurasia and South Africa to throw East Asia under the bus as a sacrifice to appease the Zeon, let them have East Asia's bases and colonies in exchange for peace. If we must we should aid them in their war against the Federation, perhaps we can keep our visitors here as hostages and give them to Zeon as a silver platter."
"So that's it, we're just going to stab those Earth Federation people in the back for trying to play nice and exchange in diplomacy with us? I didn't realize we were the 19th century Army sir." Malcolm grumbled.
"I didn't say that was our sole option, I'm just saying that we must do whatever it takes to make peace or ally with Zeon. If we have to shed blood against the Earth Federation to gain access to fusion nukes and mobile suits to destroy ZAFT, then it's a necessary evil. For now let's just play nice and get the Federation on our side until Zeon indicates that such an action will be one of war against them, I would much prefer the Federation as their small size and lack of resources would make us the senior partner in the relationship. Besides, as children of Earth who are technically in the midst of a rebellion from their colonies, I'm sure that they'll see the righteousness of our crusade against PLANT."
For the next eighty minutes they debated on the finite details of their rough draft of a strategy to deal in gunboat diplomacy with both the Earth Federation and Zeon. Once a plan was realized they sent it to Earth so that it could be seen by the President for approval. In the meantime they would play nice with the Federation fleet, playing a good host and drawing out talks while laying the groundwork for any potential treaties. This would allow the Space Force to act with support from the President instead of becoming mavericks like the East Asians seemed to be doing, it would give them time to research more of the Universal Century's history and thus change their strategy with any new information that would dramatically alter their plans, and most importantly it would allow them to watch on the current struggle between Zeon and the Federation, taking decisive action to appease the winner while not investing themselves too much on either side to prevent any possible alliance.
What Malcolm Carlson did not know at the time was how much his actions in the following days regarding the Atlantic Federation, and by extension the Earth Alliance's initial relationship between Zeon and the Federation would chart the course of the war between the Alliance and ZAFT.
April 4th, 70 CE. 1200 Colonial Standard. Sol System. Third Person POV
Across the solar system a message was being broadcast in all known forms of long range telecommunication. While it would take a couple hours for it to reach the Mars sphere, the nations of the Earth sphere received it near instantaneously at Noon Greenwich time of April 4th. While the message was not immediately noticed by a majority of the Earth sphere's population, by the end of the day it would be seen by billions of humans thanks to its heavy spread by the governments of the world and hundreds of news agencies.
The message when played presented an elderly obese man who was seated regally behind a very ornate wooden desk. The appearance of a large red, white, and black flag behind the man and his wearing of a ostentatious black and maroon uniform indicated that the man was of some high rank. While at first glance one would think that the man was a character from some cliche science fiction work, the serious and demanding aura that he presented gave off that of a powerful statesman.
After a second of silence, the man spoke.
"Greetings to the citizens of the Cosmic Era. I am Degwin Sodo Zabi, the Sovereign of the Principality of Zeon. To those watching this broadcast, these words may seem nothing more than gibberish. Throughout this video I shall explain the meaning of these words, how I and my people came to be in the Cosmic Era, the crimes inflicted upon us by the native nations of this timeline, and our demands for the near future.
To clarify my statement, I am the ruling monarch of the Principality of Zeon, a nation-state composed of over three hundred O'Neil cylinder colonies in Lagrange 2 with a combined population of 2.3 billion humans. To those who are watching, such a statement must surely seem false as no nation of the Cosmic Era has colonized Lagrange 2 and it would be impossible for any state to transport 2 billion people without being driven to bankruptcy. That is because my nation is not the product of any of the Cosmic Era's superstates like the PLANTs, rather we are a nation that comes from another timeline, dimension, parallel universe, etc. We come from a history where humanity was united into a single world government called the Earth Federation, with the Federation's main policy being the exile of a majority of humanity to space so that they could oppress the colonists of space to work for the benefits of the Earth elite. Alongside my broadcast shall be transmitted a history of the Universal Century, the timeline from which we hail, along with satellite imagery that proves our physical existence. If anyone still refuses to believe my words after this message, then come to Lagrange 2 and see for yourselves.
I do not know how or why my nation was transported in its entirety to the Cosmic Era, an act that defies all known laws of science and borders on divine nature. No matter the reason, we are here to stay indefinitely and thus are your new neighbors on the far side of the moon. In order to receive an understanding of what I am referring to, I shall present a brief history of my nation.
So far we have not identified at which specific point our timelines have diverged, but by far the biggest difference was an outbreak of the Third World War in our timeline in 1991 when Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev was replaced in a coup by the Soviet Army who then proceeded to invade the recently liberated Warsaw Pact, an act which pushed NATO to war against the Soviet Union and later other communist states such as China, Cuba, and North Korea. The war went on for four long years until May 1st of 1995 when the United States launched a large strategic nuclear assault on the Soviet Union and China in retaliation for the launching of their nuclear arsenals as a last ditch effort to stop NATO's liberation of their lands. The main reason our Earth was not a nuclear apocalyptic wasteland was due to NATO's usage of the Strategic Defense Initiative, a program which in our timeline not only came into reality, but was far more advanced in technology and scope than the SDI of your world.
The Third World War brought about the deaths of 200 million people and massive environmental destruction that was never before seen. In the aftermath of this catastrophe came calls for global unification in order to prevent the spread of evils such as Nazism and Communism from daring to arise in power and bring the world to the brink of ruin. In 1999 the United Nations was reformed into the Earth Federation, an organization with far greater powers and enforcement within its member-states. Due to multiple political and social developments, the Earth Federation was then reformed into a proper one world state in 2045, with the next year marking the conversion of the calendar from Anno Domini to the Universal Century. The last day that Zeon was in its original timeline it was October 1st 0078, in other words October 1st, 2113.
While the Federation was founded on noble ideals, overtime it became a corrupt government that inflicted countless atrocities upon the Earth in the name of world peace. Cultures and political ideologies which were deemed to be subversive to Western Liberalism were either heavily repressed or wiped out. Nations which had opposed the Federation, mainly in the Middle East and Africa, were conquered through brutal force and kept in a state of cyclical poverty while the Federation exploited their resources for the advancement of their economy. By far the worst crime of the Federation was the forced exile of nine billion of its people into space in the name of saving the environment. While some went willingly into space, most were forcibly dragged out of their homes by the Federal Army and forced to leave their ancestral homelands against their will to inhabit the colonies of the Earth sphere with no training, no education, no experience in living in a multi-cultural society, and little wealth besides their meager savings and the clothes on their backs.
The first decades of the colonies were harsh and unforgiving, but overtime we Spacenoids as we refer to ourselves adapted and made new homes in space. Some colonies were able to reach the living standards of Earth while the colonies as a whole were quickly becoming the majority of the world's economy. As we shed our heritage on Earth and increasingly identified the colonies we had been exiled to as home, greater demands for self-rule and independence were increased. Despite the fact that we were the majority of humanity, we were denied the right to vote in the Federation with every attempt to clamor for greater self-rule or equality with Earth met with harsh force. Over time many leaders for Spacenoid independence emerged, the greatest of them was Zeon Zum Deikun, my old friend and the revolutionary for which our nation was named after.
Unlike the Earthnoid Elite who clinged to the surface, Deikun foresaw that humanity's true future was in space and that in order for the Earth to heal and for our species to evolve, that all people must migrate to space where we shall take control of our destiny and ascend to a higher cultural plane. For nearly three decades Deikun worked peacefully in the name of Spacenoid independence, until his untimely demise nearly a decade ago, an act that was surely brought about by the Earth Federation to silence him and end the movement of Spacenoid independence once and for all. In the aftermath of my friend's demise, I rose as his successor as Prime Minister, and by the will of the people created the Principality of Zeon with my family at its head so that Deikun's will could be manintained and that one day the Spacenoids would rise up and tear off the shackles of Earth's gravity.
For the past decade our nation has been united in this goal with the Principality dedicated to greater self-sufficiency and fostering a sense of brotherhood among our fellow Spacenoid nations. On October 1st, or three days ago, we declared independence from the Federation. Shortly after I signed our nation's declaration, we were brought by some unknown phenomena to the Cosmic Era, an event where in the aftermath we were met with a severe unwelcome.
Hours after we were transported to the Cosmic Era, ZAFT launched an attack on Earth which eliminated a majority of the planet's energy production. Due to the chaos of this unprecedented calamity, both ZAFT and the Alliance were presumably met with great confusion at our presence. I hypothesize that due to the reality-breaking nature of ZAFT's attack on Earth, they believed that our colonies were creations of the other government. As such on April 2nd, our asteroid bases at Lagrnages 4 and 5 were attacked by East Asia and ZAFT respectively.
Through our usage of both mobile suits and nuclear fusion weaponry, we were able to defeat the East Asian and ZAFT fleets with tens of thousands of people from both sides currently our prisoners. Rest assured we are treating the imprisoned as prescribed by the ancient Geneva convention. At this moment Zeon is in a state of De Facto war with both PLANT and East Asia and hours ago I have secured a declaration of war from the Diet, our nation's legislative branch, against both nations. However, since information from both fleets has revealed that these attacks were done due to ignorance rather than pure aggression, I call for peace from both nations so that we may bring an end to this senseless fighting and that no more lives shall be lost.
For the next week from this broadcast, I am ordering a cease fire on all forces of the Principality on combat operations against PLANT and East Asia. During that time I request that both nations send representatives to engage in talks for ending the war. As of this moment we have established strong first relations with Orb and thus if either PLANT or East Asia feel inclined they may wish to use them as a mediator. What I wish to seek from the aggressors is treaties that recognize Zeon's sovereignty, reparations for our citizens who have died in these battles, and a settlement over the L4 Cluster with justice over its oppression from East Asia. If either side attacks Zeon before then then the cease fire shall be called off and we shall retaliate with prejudice. If neither side agrees to engage in diplomacy by the deadline then we shall resume the war until such a time that the offending parties sue for peace and recognize our existence.
For the nations of the world who have not engaged in war against us, including the other member-states of the Earth Alliance, Zeon extends a hand of friendship and hopes to engage in equal diplomacy and trade. In regards to the ongoing war between the Earth Alliance and ZAFT, the Principality shall at this current time remain neutral, though once peace has been reached with East Asia and ZAFT we would like to present ourselves as mediators to handle any peace treaty between PLANT and the Alliance.
I do not know why we have been transported here, but what I do know is that for the foreseeable future we are here to stay. After decades of suffering under the oppression of the Federation, the Principality of Zeon shall for now and forever more be an independent state and each and every last one of us stand united in our defense of our nation's sovereignty. To all nations who wish to reach out to us in peace we shall return the sentiment and begin an era of coexistence and fruitful relations. To those who wish to deny us our right to self-rule, they shall be met with a righteous fury that will not acquiesce until our foes are in no position to threaten our freedom.
Goodbye for now citizen of the Cosmic Era, may we meet again in peace."
A/N: Hello everyone, Kaiser Chris here with another chapter of Gihren's Glory. In this chapter the veil of confusion and miscommunication is lifted with all of Zeon now being aware of the Cosmic Era and vice versa. From this point on Zeon is now an established player in the Earth sphere and with the chaos and misinformation being lifted, now everyone is going to soak in just what kind of alternate universe they're dealing with and where they'll go from here.
On the Degwin sections, I know that it's just exposition dumps of knowledge that SEED and UC fans should clearly know, but I wanted to show just how Degwin presented the revelation to the people of Zeon and how most of the Cosmic Era came to be aware of Zeon. For those who are suspicious of Degwin's exact wording, particularly the biased account of UC history and why he told Zeon that the attack was unjustified while to the rest of the Earth sphere he said it was a case of mistaken identity, it's all a case of propaganda and Degwin's manipulation of the homefront and the Cosmic Era to present Zeon in the best situation possible. For Zeon he wanted to present the history of the Cosmic Era as an era of chaos and backwards thinking where humanity is mostly held back by gravity, while with the attacks he wanted to show both sides of the war as being savages for attacking Zeon without cause (which they were at fault for). This produces a rally around the flag effect that makes all of Zeon united around the Zabis and gives Degwin and his family free reign to engage with ZAFT and the Alliance however they like. For his speech to the Cosmic Era, he wanted to present Zeon as being a just nation who was unfairly oppressed by Earth and just obtained their independence, only for them to get thrown across space and time against their will and suddenly attacked by both parties of the ongoing war without the conduction of basic intelligence. This presents Zeon as a state that while powerful and ready to stand for their independence, a victim who the solar system should sympathize with and favor over the aggressors, putting Zeon in the moral right. We'll see more manipulation from Zeon towards all of the Cosmic Era parties in the future and the Zabi's endgame plan will be revealed soon.
In the middle section we got a small glimpse into Atlantic Federation command and how they're dealing with Renee's fleet. By that point they didn't mistake it for a ZAFT fleet as while the power of the N-Jammers still has them in heavy fear and paranoia, too many illogical events have happened for them to regard this as completely ZAFT's doing, especially when Renee's fleet does not have mobile suits. For now they'll play nice with the Federal Remnant, but if need be they'll turn on them to appease Zeon. At this point they're desperate and will do whatever it takes to continue the fight with ZAFT and prevent defeat. Considering they still fought on for a year when their position was far worse than the Federation Post-British, it shows that the Alliance will pull at any straws present to continue the war.
Also I know that I promised Talia to be present, but in the planning for the chapter I couldn't find any room to fit her organically, so her next appearence as a prisoner and her tour of Side 3 will show up later in the upcoming Reaction Arc, as either a standalone chapter or a portion of a greater chapter alongside the East Asian prisoners and the Federal Remnant.
Next chapter, which will be posted soon, will cover the colony of Mendel as Zeon sends an expedition to investigate it, laying the groundwork for a greater conspiracy and mystery that no one could have foreseen. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!