The colonial conference of 1906 was a massive sprawling conference including the leaders of all of the Dominions and major Colonies alongside the leaders of the opposition and the premier of States of Australia and Canada in order to have a truly empire wide policy on how to deal with the Stargate and proceed forward on Earth. The first proposal was to remove tariffs from non-imperial nations as the new need for industrial products due to the amount of construction that New Windsor was going through the delegates were divided with some arguing that the better alternative was to keep Imperial preference and develop the Dominions and colonies into industrial powers. The eventual decision was that the Imperial Preference would be dropped but the dominions and colonies would be developed.
The second major debate was who would have control over New Windsor with some arguing that it should become a dominion while others argued that it should be integrated into the United Kingdom. The debate was mainly focused on the fact that if New Windsor were integrated into the United Kingdom it would be the first major colony integrated into the motherland and if this happened the idea of Imperial Federation would gain a massive boost and despite the revelation that Humanity was not the first race that had arisen in the galaxy there were still those who believed that the Dominions would do better off independent which is laughable to us now.
-Extract from the notoriously Unionist Margert Thatcher book The Imperial Federation to the stars and beyond
Following the controversial decision that when New Windsor's population exceeded 100'000 it would be integrated into the United Kingdom as an integral province much like Scotland or Ireland the next major decision was introduced the suggestion to create an Imperial military high command in order for the operations through the Stargate to be coordinated with men from across the empire fighting together. At first it seemed that this attempt would fail much like the attempt in 1902 as both Australia and Canada argued that it weakened their self-governance and is seemed like the Imperial high command would fail until a message came from New Windsor bearing news of the discovery of the Staff Weapons and the British delegates seized on this with happiness. As the delegates prepared to cast their votes King Edward VII took to the stage to deliver as may have said his greatest speech. He spoke of the discovery of an alien species that wielded weapons more powerful than any found on earth and if the armies of the empire were dividedif the time came to fight these foes they would fall and the light of British civilization would be lost forever. The final vote was narrowly in favour of establishing a joint imperial high command with representatives from each armed force under their command in the leadership.
-Extract from Nicholas Carter's book The Oak lion: a history of the Imperial Armed Forces
With the establishment of a Military high command the suggestion for the Imperial Federation looked a lot less outlandish with the support of the delegates increasing it was decided to hold a vote on if the Imperial Federation should be a goal for the British Empire to achieve by the end of the 1930's and after three days of sheer negotiation with everyone who had an inkling of influence over the decision the vote barely managed to pass and the decision on how to lay the framework for the eventual superstate. The eventual decision was to create two separate conferences within the empire one every two years would be a Constitutional Convention while the other happening every four years would be an Imperial Conference discussing other problems that affect the empire.
-Extract from Michael Schanck's book The Lion and the Unicorn: The death of the United Kingdom and rise of the United Empire
The conclusion of the 1906 colonial conference was a sombre affair with the delegates leaving deep in thought over the effects that this conference had unleashed upon their nations while many were of the belief that the Imperial Federation was a good idea they were still worried that the people of the dominions would protest vigorously and they did most notably in South Africa where the Afrikaans population exploded in anger as they perceived that the Anglos were trying to enforce their dominance over them this would severely affect the South African stance towards federation which could be seen with their demands for heavy federalisation in the United Empire.
-Extract from Cliff Simon's book the Gazelle and the Lion: South Africa within the United Empire
The Australian reaction to Imperial Federation was divided with some bitter that they had gained their independence only to lose it again while others celebrated the union with the motherland. The population was on the whole accepting towards the reunion with some worrying that the White Australia policy might be overturned but most thought that why head to Australia when you could head to the beautiful New Windsor. Compared to their brothers across the Tasman Sea they were in the midst of a civil war. New Zealand as it was still technically a colony had officially been integrated into the United Kingdom much like Singapore, Gibraltar, Malta and the Caribbean Islands in order for the United Kingdom to be able to deal with territories that were not part of the British Isles so that when Federation came around the Empire would be able to control their new territories without their bureaucracy collapsing under its own weight.
-Extract from Scott Morrisons book The Lion, The Kiwi, and the Kangaroo: Australia and New Zealand on the road to Federation.
The Canadian reaction to the announcement of Federation was massive out welling of support and happiness as the first Dominion had always felt close to the motherland so when Federation was announced the only area with any form of dislike towards it was Quebec with the French Roman Catholic population erupting into protests. The protests would at first be peaceful until one turned into a riot following a mistranslation from the police and started a riot which ended up killing four citizens and one police officer before it died down and so the First Quebecois Troubles began. The early years were dominated by occasional terror attacks but in 1910 a radical Quebecois attempted to attack the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa but was foiled by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
-Extract from David Hewlett's book the Bloody Moose: Canada on the road to Imperial Federation.
The constitutional convention of 1908 made a few major decisions on the eventual form that the United Empire would take it would be a highly federal state with each of the former Dominions and New Zealand becoming constituent Commonwealths that would each grant a title to the Monarch. The South Africans, Canadians and Australians managed to allow the Commonwealths to have states within them which the Welsh, Irish and Scottish were very happy about when they heard the news. The second decision was the national flag would be the Union Jack with a crowned globe in the centre, the Commonwealths would not be allowed to have the Union Jack on their flag and so the designers were sent to work in the Dominions. The third and final decision was that the superstate would be called the United Empire of Britannia to convey a connection with the United Kingdom and to show that it was a different to just a larger United Kingdom.
-Extract from Peter FitzSimons book The Global Lion: The Constitutional History of the United Empire
The first human plasma weapon was made in 1908 after the researchers in Nobel managed to secure enough rifles to test their plan. The first thing they did was to completely rebuild the interior of the guns so that the acceleration capacitor made up the barrel of the gun. Then they attacked the rest of the weapon the cartridge was replaced with the hydrogen need to power the plasma and then the final obstacle was reached inserting the Naquadah and the firing mechanisms so that it actually fired plasma. The Naquadah within each staff weapon was divided into three metal containers that would each power a weapon. The Naquadah was placed towards the end of the barrel just after the acceleration capacitor ended and so the first 15 Lee-Enfield 1907 rifle plasma mark was created.
The British government's reaction to this development was to immediately order the weapons to be put through rigorous testing to make sure that it could be used in combat situations and not just be a large sinkhole that made no actual contributions. The testing was heavily successful with the range, power and accuracy satisfying the military representatives and its hardiness was a definite benefit. Then the British government had to work out what to do with them 15 was hardly enough to outfit any sizable military force and they had no idea how to find more Naquadah and so it seemed that the Empires first plasma weapons would be put in storage and forgotten about until a piece of ancient technology was discovered that propelled the United Kingdom's military capabilities forward massively.
The first discovery of technology within the castle of New Windsor besides the Lantean computer, was when Harold St George Gray stumbled across a strange piece of tech abandoned in a room upstairs in the castle that looked vaguely like a mirror. He would hold it up to see what happened and the device's surface activated with blue light and began to scan the selected material in this case a knife that had been left on the floor of the room by an exploring soldier made out of a good steel. When the device scanned the knife, which took less than a second it stated the Ancient name for steel 'ferrium'. This would shock Harold St George Gray deeply and so he returned to the centre of the castle where one of the Plasma rifles where on display with some of the Naquadah used to power it being put in a jar for public scrutiny. The device would scan the Naquadah and stated the name sending shock throughout the assembled researchers from Nobel.
-Extract from Tony Robinsons book A history of Imperial Plasma Weaponry.