United Nations

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The United Nations (UN) is a government body aiming to promote international peace and security. Elevated from its original status as an intergovernmental organization, the UN has since vested its power into a full government with the signing of the Constellation Act, prompting the UN to become the sole representative body of Earth as a whole.

In the wake of space travel, the UN has taken operations as the executive government behind interstellar operations, overseeing colonization, security and defence, trade, and diplomacy. It maintains large military forces as well as a sizeable complement of peacekeeping and diplomatic agencies.

The UN fields two dominant armed forces forming the United Nations Defence Forces: the Peacekeeper Corps for Earth and planetary-based defence and security, and the Sol Defence Corps for interplanetary and space defence and dominance.

Organization
The United Nations comprises similarly to how it was structured in the 21st century, albeit much more streamlined and governmental:


 * The General Assembly (GENSEM) is the primary legislative body and the UN's parliament, consisting of ambassadors of all member states of the United Nations. In addition to monitoring, reporting, and discussing world events, its governmental function serves to govern areas considered international territory - including space. It additionally acts to allocate and spend the budget of the UN.
 * The 'Secretariat is the executive body, serving as the primary bureaucratic and administrative wing of the UN, serving to manage and govern all agencies under the supervision of the United Nations. It is headed by the UN Secretary-General, democratically elected for a five-year term.
 * The UN Security Council (SECCOUN) oversees international peacekeeping efforts as well as the administration of the United Nations’ collective military forces for defence and peacekeeping.
 * The Socio-Economic Council (SOCECO) is responsible for the economy and social affairs between UN member states. It additionally oversees trade between Sol colonies.
 * The International Court of Justice (INCOURT) handles disputes and legal affairs between member states.

As of the signing of the Constellation Act that made the UN the governing body of colonies in Sol, new assemblies were created:


 * The Colonial Administration Assembly (CAA/COLADMIN) is dedicated to the governance and management of all extraterrestrial colonies owned by the UN, including those on Mars, Venus, and the Moon.
 * The Frontier Security Council (FRONTSEC) is a branch of the Security Council specifically in charge of military and peacekeeping beyond Earth, being placed in charge of the space defence force of the UN, the Sol Defence Corps.
 * The Cooperation Council (COOPCOUN) facilitates ambassadorial affairs between the UN and other allied bodies, including non-governmental agencies such as corporations. In the future, it is to serve as the ambassadorial wing for any aliens contacted by humanity.

Constellation Act
With the groundbreaking colonization of Mars in 2052, a new act was passed to reform the United Nations into a real planetary government to act as the face of the collective Earth governments. While it does not exercise control over individual nations, it does govern matters that concern the planet as a whole.

The Constellation Act, however, failed to unite the Earth under a single flag, instead repercussing to spark several civil wars, albeit small, over the future of some countries whose dictators preferred to remain in power, independently. While democracy reigns as the majority political system on the planet, small nations still house authoritarian regimes that do not wish to join the forces and governance of the UN.

Military
With the dawn of a new UN came the dawn of a new military. Pragmatic world leaders agreed that unwavering peace was all but an unreachable hope in humanity and that a new military must be installed to defend the UN’s collective interests and its borders, both inside—with the Peacekeeper Corps—and outside, with the Sol Defence Corps.

The Peacekeeper Corps (PC) form the internal guard wing of the UN’s military, comprised of detachments of world militaries organized into a new flag. Contrary to the PC’s predecessor, Peacekeepers were paid as full soldiers and were trained as full soldiers under both their nations’ militaries and the UN’s own training regimen. The PC is formed of an infantry unit, a navy unit, and an air force unit, each assembled from the craft, soldiers, and equipment of every member of the UN, with large benefactors being the United States, European Union, Russian Federation, and China. The PC divisions form the largest military on the planet, forming a massive army led by the Security Council to quell civil wars and revolutions and support the UN’s ideals throughout its life.

Outside the atmosphere of Earth lay the Sol Defence Corps (SDC), a new military set in deep space to defend Earth and its parent system from pirates, foreign invaders, and even from itself. The values of the SDC itself remains heavily contested, with several of its influencers attempting to sway it towards the more idealistic ways of its sibling Peacekeepers, while others try and make it an aggressive agency to claim humanity’s borders through force and install it as a galactic power before others take the throne first. The Sol Defence Corps comprises of a space-based navy along with an infantry unit, the Marines, for ground-based campaigns and operations.

Colonies
Four colonies have been founded on the planets of Mars, Venus, Jupiter, as well as Earth’s own Moon. These colonies are governed by what is known as their own Colonial Administrations (CA, colloquially known as Col-Ad), governments controlled directly by the UN to allocate their resources to both their own development as well as the development of Earth. Each of the colonies has its own dramatic architecture to give them unique appearances as well as suit the environment they’re tailored for, naturally granting enormous tourist presence in the colonies.


 * The Colonial Administration of Mars (CAM) is the most populous colony and one of the most famous. Its domed infrastructure and towering oxygen reclaimers make it resemble more of something from science fiction from reality, although it is offset by its violent dust storms and extreme weather conditions. While some say it’s not worth going to the red planet, others claim the very merit of living on another world is enough of a reason to make the journey. The architecture of Mars is dominated by massive glass domes and stainless steel towers, often painted red-orange to match the surface of the planet. Mars’ population sits at around 8.8 million permanent residents as of 2110 and was founded in 2052.


 * The Colonial Administration of Venus (CAV) is a newer colony, albeit much more spectacular in its own history. Enormous networks of balloons and thrusters form hovering cities high above the noxious clouds of the planet and tethered by dense graphene cables, forming gleaming platforms that resemble elegant, curving architecture even more extreme and artistic than those on Mars. Its own specializations are sulfur mining and tourism—both earning Venus a remarkable spot in history as one of the most prosperous colonies in human history. It also holds an enormous gambling culture, often giving the planet the unofficial nickname of “Space Vegas”, a title heavily contested by the casino stations scattered across the solar system. Venus sits at around 3.6 million people as of 2110 and was founded in 2056.


 * The Colonial Administration of Luna (CAL) is the most influential colony in Sol, forming a massive spaceport processing and shipping the gigatons of cargo that get sent in and out of Earth to the colonies, asteroids, and ships. Its nonexistent atmosphere and low gravity give rise to towering, geometric structures gleaming as white as the lunar surface itself. While its permanent population is relatively small, its workforce is unrivaled, with its enormous amount of job opportunities allowing billions of blue-collar workers new chances at employment outside of the confines of Earth. The Moon has a permanent population of around 1.7 million as of 2110 and was founded in 2054.


 * The Colonial Administration of Jupiter (CAJ) is a small mining colony, serving as the UN's central hub of gas mining and atmospheric mineral extraction. Jupiter is home to many orbital mining stations, often in low orbit or skimming the gas giant's atmosphere, which extracts valuable gasses from the planet's atmosphere. Several of Jupiter's 79 moons have also been successfully colonized, the largest colony of which being Europa. Jupiter has a permanent population of around 16 thousand as of 2110 and was founded in 2062. All of Jupiter’s moons are controlled by the CAJ.

The Final Frontier Project
Main article: Final Frontier Project

Despite Earth’s promising stability, the efforts are not enough to completely stall Earth’s deterioration from the centuries of pollution that plagued its skies and seas. As Earth is slated to gradually become uninhabitable in the next few centuries, the UN’s Constellation Act drafted up a new mandate to chart and colonize new worlds in order to guarantee that humanity as a species will survive throughout the ages. This is the Final Frontier Project.

The FFP facilitated development into an Alcubierre drive, a hypothetical form of faster-than-light travel that could allow a spacecraft to propel itself great distances without breaking the laws of relativity. While the concept was in research ever since the dawn of the 21st century, scientists rapidly accelerated development of the drive and, after monumental breakthroughs in research into negative mass theory and dark matter, ultimately gave rise to a working prototype of an Alcubierre drive, to be fitted on a new vessel, the HSC-133 Escapade, which acted as a testbed for new technologies and was totally reconstructed to house new scientific equipment for its voyage.

The Escapade made its maiden voyage on March 11, 2100, and successfully activated its warp drive to cover a distance ranging one light hour in approximately 30 minutes, going at twice the speed of light. The success of the flight instantly commissioned the Escapade as the first vessel of the Final Frontier Project and would serve as the benchmark for many of the future expeditions to be carried out by the Project.

Corruption
As much as the UN values itself to be the idealistic society that previous republics could only dream to be, the UN is still home to heavily corrupt politicians, with thoughts of personal advancement shaping their own agendas and mandates.

This has led to staggering amounts of internal conflict in the UN, as underworld enterprises buy out Assembly politicians to forward laws encouraging crime and discouraging control. Several high-profile investigations carried out by the Security Council find dozens of assemblymen guilty of corruption and graft, but as they leave the doors, new waves flood in.

Mega-corporations such as AXIOM continuously fight themselves and other rival organizations for their own control over the UN’s affairs. While not outright purchasing or hiring politicians, corporations often use their influence to sway their minds in alternate directions that could benefit both parties above collective interests.

While some say the UN might collapse from the inside due to its instability, the majority says that corruption is an inevitable factor of governments—especially worldwide ones.