Interlude 02
A miniature, old-fashioned tape recorder, placed on the table, is broadcasting Federation of Central Usea's national anthem. Then it is switched off by Larry Foulke: "As the schedule states, today we're going to talk about Federation of Central Usea."
(voice over)
The origin of FCU lies outside Usean Continent. Look across the Eusian Ocean, to Verusan Continent, there was once a legendary empire called "Verusan Empire", during its prime period extended over one and a half millennium, Verusan Empire's territory almost covered entire Verusan Continent and its grand armada roamed across the globe, to expand trading and colonization activities, as well as to spread sparks of civilization. Usean Continent housed one of Verusan Empire's major colonies, stretched several hundreds of kilometers from Saint Ark, the very first landing site and settlement of Verusan colonists, also the where the viceroy estate was located, to west, southwest and south. This colony would become the foundation of future FCU.
After more than one thousand and five hundred years of flourish, Verusan Empire began to decline in 15th century, the imperial fleets faded away from the oceans and the connections with colonies waned to lost subsequently.
During the following one or two centuries, Verusan Empire's colonies disappeared in varied ways. Supreme viceroy of Usean colony, one of the youngest princes in imperial house of Verusan Empire, seized the chance and declared independence on January 23rd 1487, established "Empire of Central Usea" and self-coronate as its first emperor. Saint Ark was chosen to be this new-founded monarchy's capital.
As Verusan Empire's domain was dwindling under fierce siege of new-rising Yuktobanian Empire, Empire of Central Usea was on the expansive streak. To the southeast, imperial army defeated Empire of North Point, took over many lands on and near eastern mainland coasts, forcing North Point to retreat back to its metropolitan territory. Feared by possible invasions, emperor of North Point renounced his title, degraded himself to a king and renamed his country as Kingdom of North Point. The kingdom paid tributes to the empire annually, which secured a peaceful relationship until Industrial Revolution. Imperial navy even invaded and conquered Rocky Islands, a large-sized island with some small adjacent islands floating in Eusian Ocean. To west and northwest, the empire claimed much of the frozen and arid grounds, pushes its borderline forward to footstep of Kingdom of Nordlands' (later would split into three nations known as Kingdom of Nordlands, Federal Republic of Erusea and Independent State of Ugellas) sphere of influence. To south, Empire of Central Usea advanced even quicker and farther, occupied those rich and fertilized soils, and proceeded as far as to Intimate Island. By the end of 16th century, Empire of Central Usea had been inflated into a huge monarchy state that covers majority of Usean Continent's superficial area, from arctic shores to southern hemisphere tropical islands, from eastern isles to inlands of far-west.
However such expansionism activities brought about sequelae. That is, the constant territorial disputes between Empire of Central Usea and neighboring nations, especially with Kingdom of North Point (later reformed into Republic of North Point) and Kingdom of Nordlands (later Federal Republic of Erusea). For North Point, after industrialization was completed, it began a series of attempts to reclaim historical lost lands, resulting in debates of maritime space delimitations that lasted to 1980s, the aforementioned dissension over Newfield Island's affiliation, is a part of it. On the other hand, hostility between empire and Erusea is much severer, and would become a root of Second Usean Continental War.
When time reached early 19th century, Empire of Central Usea began to decline by both serious internal corruptions of its bureaucracy system and incapability of coping with change of time — dawn of industrial era. Meanwhile, Kingdom of North Point and Federal Republic of Erusea had begun the progresses of industrialization. Seeing Empire of Central Usea was weak, Erusea initiated an invasion to its western provinces in June 1840. Unable to fend off Erusian army who were equipped with industry-grade weaponry, the emperor had only one choice: Defraying astronomical amount of war indemnity in exchange of ceasefire. But Erusea "had learned the tasty flavor of marrow" and came back ten years later, grabbed even more wealth from the empire. To accumulate funds for war indemnities, Empire of Central Usea tightened exploitations on southern provinces for the relatively barren northern provinces heavily rely on southern resources and productions. Intensified exploitations dissatisfied peasants and merchants, even a few local governors who were living in south. So in 1851's autumn, a general uprising broke out among southern region.
Armies of imperial loyalists were defeated by insurrectionary armies from the south, the ominous omen of empire's total collapse was looming above Saint Ark, as rebellion forces moved further and further into north. The emperor was forced to lift prohibition of provincial military forces and civil corps, allowing each province and lesser population communities to organize their own troops, in order to deal with rebels. Thirteen years later, last trace of uprising was pacified, the empire managed to hold itself together, but imperial ruling body lost much of its prestige during the process. Worse, military strength of southern provinces had been largely amplified for they were playing major roles in defeating rebels, thus turned those provincial governors into de facto warlords. The fate of the empire was sealed.
Finally on October 10th 1911, southern provinces rose in revolution again, this time they were led by those governors who were supposed to be loyal to emperor. Calling themselves "Confederation of Progressive People", the alliance of revolutionary provinces declared independence from Empire of Central Usea, and simultaneously launched an all-out offensive against north, targeting Saint Ark. Imperial family and loyalists fled from capital to Rocky Islands, still retained title of reign. Within one year, revolutionists liberated all mainland territories of empire.
Under principles of equality and voluntarily, Federation of Central Usea, a federal republic of reformism, was founded on January 1st 1912, setting Port Edwards as new capital. Most of former provinces of Empire of Central Usea joined the federation, remaining ones chose to stay outside and established their own standalone sovereign states, such as Comonan Commonwealth (abbr. Comona) and Federated States of Perfanesia (abbr. Perfanesia) in southern sea, also Republic of San Salvacion, Republic of Delarus (abbr. Delarus) and Republic of Amber (abbr. Amber) in the west. While most of these newly-formed countries, including Comona and Perfanesia, as well as other tiny city-states, would fall under heavy influence of FCU then struck an alliance with it, San Salvacion and Amber declared neutrality between FCU and Erusea, subsequently became buffer zones in middle of two powers; Delarus, however, decided to ally with Erusea instead. There was an operation of freeing Rocky Islands by sending naval forces, but FCU's fleet was defeated by loyalist's counterpart on October 25th 1912, therefore the further plans of liberating Rocky Islands were canceled due to FCU government was addressing numerous internal affairs, also because they couldn't risk more resources to an unguaranteed victory (Rocky Islands would later self-revolute into a republic and allies with FCU).
FCU drove on a smooth path of development since its formation, during 1930s, it had been recognized as a major world power as its predecessor did, and thanks to the barrier consisted by San Salvacion and Amber, the stained relations with Erusea never triggers an actual war (at least until 2003). In response to potential threats posed by two growing global superpowers, Osean Federation and Union of Yuktobanian Republics, FCU conceived an idea of entire Usean Continent's unification, creating the third-party global superpower, in 1940s. The first step of implementing said plan was the formation of Central Usea Treaty Organization on August 24th 1949, an intergovernmental military alliance based on Central Usea Treaty, consisted by FCU and its allied nations. Erusea and its affiliated states, Delarus and Independent States of Ugellas (abbr. Ugellas), plus neutral countries of San Salvacion, Amber and North Point, remained not to join (North Point would become FCU's ally and accede UTO in 1990s, after Newfield Island's issue got solved peacefully). On April 8th 1965, FCU initiated another organization for assisting unification of Usean Continent, known as "Economic League of Continental Nations", which would be the basis of Independent States Allied Force.
During Ulysses Crisis, FCU was the state of presidency of Stonehenge Project, backed by global society, also was put in charge as the coordinator of auxiliary planetary defense projects within Usean Continent's vicinity. In First Usean Continental War, FCU was one of principal members of Usean Allied Force who fought against renegade Usean Unified Force, despite most of its territories was temperately lost to rebels.
FCU suffered most devastating damages inflicted by Ulysses 1994XF04 Asteroid's planet-fall. Evidence is three of the largest impact craters are located in its border. Efforts of reconstruction was interrupted by Second Usean Continental War, entire federation was occupied by invading Erusea, and central government was forced to take refuge in North Point until Port Edwards was recaptured. It was also under siege by Free Erusea just less than one year after Second Usean Continental War's conclusion. Ironically, Free Erusea's incursions exactly became a potent catalyst for FCU to accelerate its plan of Usean Continent's unification — in name of "all Usean nations band together to face the common enemy". On July 1st 2015, Confederation of USEA (USEA stands for United States of Euro-Asia) was formed, sovereignties across Usean Continent began to lose their independencies and started getting absorbed by FCU to set up a coalitional government. Finally on May 9th 2020, the loose confederate transformed into a tightened, continent-scale federation, known as The USEA Federation, and Expo City, a newly built Metropolis near eastern coast, was chosen to be the continental capital.
After centuries of wars and strives, it seemed Usean Continent finally can enjoy an era of peace and prosperity, but the fact is no. USEA Federation soon found itself in an inferior position against the two other players, namely Osean Federation and Union of Yuktobanian Republics, who had head starts, in the fierce competitions among global superpowers, not to mention the two leading players were showing more and more trends of cooperating with each other. Soaked by its own agony, the federation became overly irritable to intercontinental interactions, especially the International Space Elevator (abbr. ISEV, aka "Lighthouse"), primarily commissioned by Osean Federation and constructed near Gunther Bay and Alex Bay, was the last straw breaks the camel's back. ISEV was the response to Usean nations' requests of foreign aids of reconstruction, but after reorganizing into USEA Federation, newly-elected leaders saw it as a symbol of invasion and exploitation, finally triggering Third Usean Continental War or so-called "Lighthouse War" in 2025, a war so devastating, according to post-war statistics, way beyond combination of previous two continental wars.
After the war, short on funding and other resources to repair damages, also still wary of possible economic and political infiltration from Osea and Yuktobania, the reestablished federal government of Usean Continent could only subcontract reconstruction efforts to mega-corporations, namely General Resource Limited, a mega-corporation succeeded from defunct Gründer Industries after Circum-Pacific War, and Neucom Incorporated, a Usean-based mega-corporation merged by multiple local large enterprises who purchased EASA, as time proceeds, officials were gradually taken over by the two mega-corporations. By 2040, both rivalling trusts had carved up Usean Continent for their own, and sparked more and more tensions between themselves, eventually led to Usean Corporate War.
Larry Foulke: "So this is a brief history of Federation of Central Usea, from pre-founding to pre-Usean Corporate War. Next time we'll discuss something about Federal Republic of Erusea."