NOTES: Origins of the GAR and the United Commonwealth

These are some notes I've compiled over the past few months. The title of the fiction is preliminary, but if anyone wants to add some feedback feel free. Continuity issues are addressed in manuscript--which I will share excerpts when I qualify.

It all began with humanity’s first steps. When the first seed is planted, mankind is doomed. Agriculture demands land; land produces food; food grows the population; the population demands more land. Empire, therefore, is an extension of this simple feedback loop: Growth, acquisition, power. War is inevitable, and from the conflict emerges a single minded group of individuals: the body politic. Seeking security and the promise of plenty, people flock to the new power. Thus does agriculture give birth to the State. The State prospers; it conquers; it grows. Its people secure in their persons and possessions seek their own prosperity, and the State encourages and taxes them, subsidizes their commerce, and gives them currency with which to trade. Thus does the State give birth to Enterprise, and for a time it is good. State and Enterprise, a symbiosis of tax and trade ensuring the security and revenue of both, but as agriculture demands land, so too does Enterprise demand goods and services. Above all, however, Enterprise demands people, and so agriculture grows the population, the population grows the State, and the State cultures Enterprise to new heights of power.

As the State wars with other states alliances are forged. Some alliances become States in of themselves, and eventually nations. Out of this geopolitical cauldron emerges the Federated Americas in the West, and the Russo-Chinese Empire in the East. Yet, the marriage of State and Enterprise festers under the looming burden of empire. Empire must be maintained, for Agriculture demands more land as resources become scarce and war becomes progressively more expensive. More is demanded of Enterprise for the cause of the State, and the State has less for the subsidy of Enterprise. Thus does Enterprise begin to question the State, for what the State can secure Enterprise can produce.

After mankind takes its first hesitant steps into the sky, the State judges space exploration untenable, its orthodoxy of acquisition, compounded by vexing paranoia, demands attention to other states and their machinations. In this Enterprise sees opportunity, for in the stars are new resources to exploit for a race rapidly outgrowing its homeworld. The time had come for divorce, and after careful planning it is agreed between the titans of enterprise the first to act is TerraCom, using its consolidated global network to blind the earthbound governments to the impending schism.

Historians disagree on the precise order of events, but we know sometime in the 21st century TerraCom is preempted by the Federated Americas. Federation forces nationalize TerraCom assets all over the Western hemisphere, while the Empire watches carefully. TerraCom’s retaliation is swift. The potent missile defenses of the world’s super-powers maintain a long standing nuclear stalemate. TerraCom electronic warfare and anti-satellite assets rapidly dismantle the Federation North Pacific Shield Net (NorPAS), opening a widening chasm through which the Empire launches a salvo of thermonuclear warheads. The North American Pacific coast is nearly vaporized in the assault, turning Federation attentions to the more tactile threat.

TerraCom declares its sovereignty in 2081. Months later, on October 28th, 2081, The Russo-Chinese Empire officially recognizes the first commercial-state, and the call goes out immediately for a commercial defense coalition. In honor of its late CEO, Hideo Tokashi, TerraCom establishes the Tokashi Commonwealth, drafting a contract-constitution establishing the Tokashi Doctrine: the forced integration of select commercial enterprises. At first, otherwise private corporations willingly apply for membership. Telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, and resource extraction are the big three: SAPCO (South American Polar Natural Gas Inc.), Bowman Energy (energy extraction: coal), Xinhua Chang and Sons (mineral extraction: borax, bauxite, iron ore, uranium, other assorted metals), DeBeers (mineral extraction: diamonds), and their subsidiaries merge to form The Terrex Conglomerate. Valera Chemical, Dex Pharmaceuticals, and Matheson-Darbey BioEngineering merge into Xenogen.
 
As the American Federation and the Empire plunge into a prolonged global war, the Tokashi Commonwealth begins covertly arming both sides of the conflict while further diversifying itself into aerospace and armaments. The global Tokashi stratagem is to arm both powers into a forced peace, and after eight years of combat the two adversaries realize the stalemate and their common foe, but it is too late. With alarming speed the Commonwealth had come to construct heavily fortified space platforms, and the Federation’s response—true to form—is to launch orbital-trajectory ICBMs, only to find Commonwealth point-defenses held by overlapping laser batteries.

The Russo-Chinese, recognizing extraordinary opportunity, are the first to open substantive dialogue, but their requests are rebuffed; the Tokashi Doctrine declares all earthbound governments to be de facto states. Outraged, the Empire extends a ceasefire agreement to the Federation, who accepts and offers an armistice proposal. Treaties are drafted, and the TerraCom War of 2081 is concluded with the Global Armistice Resolution of 2090 establishing the GAR Coalition, which all respective satellite states—virtually the rest of the world—are compelled to recognize. At the same time TerraCom integrates the newly established megacorporations Terrex and Xenogen, and the Tokashi Commonwealth becomes the United Commonwealth.