The general strike of 1948 was the largest strike ever called in human history as over ten million workers joined the movement protesting the Eden's government denationalization of several major industries. The strike had begun in Australia as the workers on the Imperial Navies Interstellar Warships demanded better pay but it soon spread across the United Empire with nearly every union walking out from the 10th of January to the 23rd of February. The strike was caused by the Eden Government planning to privatize the nationalized British defence industry against the wishes of the workers and they declared a General Strike. At first the government tried to just wait them off assuming that the workers would be unable to hold out for long, but they forgot the support of the people with many Australian workers not affected by the privation supporting the strikers both directly and indirectly. Anthony Eden then ordered the police to crack down on the strikers however many of the Australian police defected to the strike. With that catastrophic failure alongside a leak to the IBU revealing how many industries Eden wanted to privatize the strike spread across the United Empire. By the 1st of February, the British economy had ground to a halt and strikes were spreading across the world in solidarity. Support for Anthony Eden plummeted while support for the Labour Party grew massively with most of that coming from the daily speeches by one John Curtin that the IBU broadcasted across the world as he spoke to the birthplace of the strike. By the 5th of February it was clear to Anthony Eden that he needed to negotiate, and he flew down to Australia to met with the ring leaders in an attempt to find a comprise. When he arrived, he found that their demands far out stripped what he was willing to cede on. Their demands included equal votes for all no matter their race or class, the constitutional requirement that certain industries would be under the complete control of the crown, the constitutional right to strike without being punished, and all workers to have the right to join an union. Anthony Eden rejected the demands and returned to London just as a motion of no confidence was introduced into the House of Representatives. Knowing that both the left and the right would attack him Eden did not even bother to go to Imperial Hall instead he headed straight to Buckingham Palace where he requested that George VI dissolve Parliament and call elections. His request was granted, and the election of 1948 came along.
The election was a massacre for the Conservatives reduced to a hundred seats they were pushed to the opposition benches once more, but all was not lost for example in the Melbourne Seat of Kooyong fell from the Liberal Party to the Conservative Party with one Robert Menzies winning his seat and entering Imperial Politics the same time that his greatest rival did. For in Western Australia in the seat of Freemantle one John Curtin was elected for the Labour Party and the great Australian Rivalry had begun. The results of the election are fascinating with the Liberal Party winning several seats but losing several to the Conservatives compared to their partner in the opposition they did terribly. The Labour Party picked up seats across the United Empire reaching a whopping hundred and twenty-two seats making them the largest party in the House of Representatives by far. However, they did not hold the majority and were forced to enter into a coalition with the Liberal Party once more albeit they were the dominant members of the coalition this time and thus, were able to force through many of their goals. Within three weeks of Clement Attlee visiting Buckingham Palace three referendums were introduced to the United Empire. The first introduced the motion to make the transport, defence, healthcare, and education industries placed under the control of the crown, the second motion was the right of all workers to both strike and join an union, and the final union was to make it illegal to remove rights from any citizen. All three motions passed with the majority of the population and Commonwealths supporting the amendments to the constitution.
-Extract from the Attlee Ministry: A history by Dr. Sirius Siegfried Sasse
With the defeat and later death of Heru'ur there was only a single claimant left that had fought since the beginning of the war that being Lord Yu however he had long since realised that there was no chance for him to win the war at the current stage and he decided to act. On the 5th of March 1948 he declared the independence of his core lands as the Kingdom of the Eastern Fringe. His independence was immediately recognized by humanity with talks in the background discussing the possibility of a defensive alliance, but it was not humanity who would decide if the new state would survive but Anubis and Sokar. At the time they were conquering the last of Cronus's land and running into and brutally murdering each other's forces so when the news reached them they had enough time to plan out a reaction. Anubis decided to go for the pragmatic approach and recognized the independence of Lord Yu for the time. Sokar on the other had launched the largest attack in the war so far against Lord Yu. The offensive was called off before it even reached the borders of Yu's new realm as Anubis launched his attack against Sokar to secure his dominance over the Goa'uld permanently. The final stage of the War of Ra's Succession had finally begun the War of the Usurpers.
- Extract from Christopher Bowes's book The Bloody Wolves of the Stars: A history of Imperial Stargate Command.
By 1950 humanity had fifty-eight interstellar warships I will now list off all of the warships, their allegiance, and their classification.
United Empire of Britannia (12): HIMIS Lion, George V, Nelson, New Windsor, Ark Royal, Prince of Wales, Victoria, Melbourne, Toronto, Ceylon, and King Arthur (Destroyers) HIMIS Victoria, Eagle (Light Cruisers)
United States of America (7): USSS Enterprise, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Thomas Jefferson (Destroyers) USSS Yorktown, Gettysburg (Light Cruisers)
German Empire (7): SMIS Bismarck, Prinz Eugen, König, König Albert, Kaiser Wilhelm II (Destroyers) SMIS Gneisenau, Tirpitz (Light Cruisers)
French Federation (8): FIS Napoléon VI, Charlemagne, Jean II, Robespierre, Louis IX, Napoléon (Destroyers) FIS Jeanne d'Arc, Dauphin Henri
Russian Empire (6): HIRMIS Nicholas II, Alexander Nevsky, Ivan III, Peter the Great, Catherine I, Alexander I (Destroyers) HIRMIS Constantine, Mannerheim, Tolstoy (Light Cruisers)
Empire of Brazil (4): NISMIB Pedro I, Isabella, Rio (Destroyers) Pedro II (Light Cruiser)
Empire of Japan (4): IJN Yamato, Zuikaku (Destroyers) Akagi, Kaga (Light Cruisers)
Kingdom of the Arabs (3): HAMIS Muhammed, Hussein I, Ali I (Destroyers)
Danubia (2): SMIS Franz Joseph, Karl I (Destroyers)
Hellenic Empire (1): HIHS Justinian (Destroyer)
Kingdom of Italy (1): RIN Umberto I (Destroyer)
Kingdom of Portugal (3): RPIS João IV, Carlos I, Manuel I (Destroyers)
-Extract from Neil Armstrong's book Mankind's Fist: A history of Interstellar warships