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The cradle of the human race and to some the most important planet in the Orion Spur, Earth is the center of humanity even in the 25th century. Though it was ravaged by ecological devastation caused during humanity’s ascension to the stars to such an extent that most of its non-human life died off, the blue planet was revitalized over the course of the 23rd and 24th centuries by the Solarian Alliance and many previously-extinct species and devastated ecosystems have been restored through the efforts of Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals. The Earth of the 25th century today stands as the most populated planet in the entire Orion Spur, with 19 billion residents on its surface -- many of which have come to live in massive urban settlements commonly referred to as conurbations -- and another billion in orbit. Earth maintains a close relationship -- sometimes simply referred to as the “special relationship” -- with other colonized worlds in the Sol System though no “planet” is closer to it than its sole natural satellite, Luna. The capital of the Alliance, Unity Station, is positioned in the orbit of Earth.

Environment

Earth’s contemporary environment is similar to the contemporary Earth of the early 21st century thanks to extensive environmental reclamation projects undertaken by the Solarian Alliance over the course of nearly a century. Most of the flora and fauna that can be found on the continents and in the oceans modern Earth are cloned species reintroduced during the course of the Alliance’s reclamation projects, though some species -- often locally referred to as “vintages” on Earth -- survived the pre-reclamation period of ecological collapse and were able to persist into the current day.

More information about Earth’s ecological crisis and the efforts undertaken to restore the cradle of humanity to its former glory can be found in the Timeline of Humanity.

Regions

Though Earth is now under the unquestioned control of the Solarian Alliance it has, despite ecological disasters and the steady passage of time, managed to retain a planet defined by distinctive regional identities and governments. These regional governments are subservient to the greater Solarian Alliance, but hold a degree of autonomy not typically seen in other Solarian member states thanks to the special status of Earth. There is no such thing as a truly unified “Earther culture” on Earth thanks to this regionalism, and many from the cradle of humanity pride themselves on their distinctive regional identities, even if they are from what is functionally a single Sovereign Solarian Nation. Despite this pride many Earthers hold it is often seen as foolish to describe oneself as coming from anything other than Earth when abroad, and Earthers that instead identify themselves as belonging to a region first and Earth second are typically looked down upon by other Earthers as strange or dangerously identitarian.

The Planetary Government of Earth is centred in Paris, France, and consists of a 1,000-representative large Planetary Parliament, with representatives from every region of Earth aside from those directly governed by the planetary government attending. The number of representatives per region is determined by population. Every 4 years the assembly elects the Planetary Governor of Earth, and along with the Governor, is the highest authority on the planet. The primary function of the Planetary Government is to mediate disputes between the various regions of Earth and ensure cooperation between them, even if such has to be forced from time to time. The regions of Earth maintain autonomy in many ways, but are in no way fully independent. All are beholden to the laws and decisions of the Planetary Assembly and its Governor.

Asia

The Federal Republic of China is the undisputed largest regional power in Asia and where humanity’s oldest megacorporation, Einstein Engines, originated. While founded in the aftermath of the bloody Sino-Soviet War and Second Chinese Civil War, the Federal Republic has left its bloody history behind itself to become one of the most important nations on Earth. The Federal Republic is additionally the birthplace of Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals, a biomedical giant that is regarded by many on Earth as having saved the planet itself due to the keiretsu’s massive investment and involvement in Earth’s reclamation projects. Earthers from China are a significant portion of Einstein Engines’ staff and can be found at all levels of Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals, with the megacorporation’s headquarters in Shanghai employing hundreds of thousands of workers in its massive arcology. The economic influence of China during the early space age can still be felt throughout human space, particularly on Luna, and Standard Chinese formed the linguistic basis for modern Solarian Common. In the modern day, the Federal Republic of China is still arguably the global centre for business and culture for the planet Earth, housing dozens of its most populated cities and largest commercial centres such as Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou.

cross the East China Sea from the Federal Republic of China lies the island nation of Japan, another major regional power in Asia. Several parts of Zeng-Hu Pharmaceutical’s keiretsu, such as Yomi Genetics, originated here along with many other smaller medical companies that would eventually form other smaller parts of the Zeng-Hu machine. The country has long been a center for technological development, particularly in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics. Japanese engineers working for Einstein Engines helped pioneer early forms of robotic laborers and assistants, though their products would ultimately be supplanted by IPCs originating on Konyang. Like many island nations, Japan covered its coastlines in a network of extensive seawalls primarily produced by Hephaestus Industries in order to withstand climate change, though recently, some of these walls are beginning to come down in an initiative by the Japanese regional government to restore the natural beauty of their island.

Between Japan and China lies the Republic of Korea, another important economic player in Asia. Following a successful reunification in the late 20th century thanks to the support of the Federal Republic of China, Korea established itself as a major regional power that was able to gain the attention of the early Solarian Alliance during the first colonization efforts through the orienteering of many of its heavy industries and technology companies to the colonisation programme. Eventually this would result in the colonization of the frontier world of Konyang, which would later become the center for robotics in the Alliance. Korea, as a result, has recently seen a return to form as one of the top centers of positronic research and development in the Alliance alongside Callisto following Konyang’s secession in late 2462.

Southeast Asia can be divided into two distinct parts: the mainland and oceanic regions. The mainland of Southeast Asia is, as it has been throughout its history, divided between a variety of states such as Vietnam, Siam, and Thailand. The countries of the region have had close economic ties with one another for centuries now, and worked together alongside one another to colonize New Hai Phong Despite this, the region’s trade is dominated by the Federal Republic of China and its associated megacorporations, and the entire area has seen heavy investment by Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals from its regional hub in Singapore. Oceanic Southeast Asia is dominated by the economies of Malaysia and the Indonesian Federation along with the recently resurgent Philippines, which is widely touted as a a herculean feat of Earth’s ecological reclamation project due to the amount of time and work needed to restore the archipelago’s devastated ecosphere. Large-scale construction projects of bridges linking the various islands of Indonesia with each other and to the mainland have recently begun with the sponsorship of the Solarian Government, and many in the islands are hopeful for what new possibilities these might bring.

Further to the south Oceania is home to Australia, New Zealand, and the Federation of Oceania -- an alliance of those islands in the Pacific lucky enough to survive the ecological disasters that impacted Earth before ecological projects were undertaken to restore the planet to its former glory. The region is most well-known for the Restored Great Barrier Reef, which was regrown by Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals following its complete destruction in the late 21st century. Many in the keiretsu hold the Restored Great Barrier Reef as the crowning achievement of Zeng-Hu alongside cloning. Australia and New Zealand are also founding Commonwealth Members and participated in the colonisation efforts with the rest of their Commonwealth partners. The Federation of Oceania, like its counterparts in the region, was severely impacted by the ecological disasters that befell Earth during its climate crisis. As a result many surviving islands in the Federation were reinforced with seawalls constructed by Hephaestus Industries to prevent flooding, though the usefulness of these structures has faded with the success of Earth’s climate restoration measures. Many of these colossal constructions now stand as relics of a much darker period in Earth’s long history, though there have been recent proposals from various officials and even citizens in the Oceanian government to either scrap the sea walls for materials, preserve them as outdoor museums, or even convert them into giant, free standing art exhibits.

The Indian subcontinent is the most populous region on earth and one of its powerful economically, competing with other regions like China, the United States, the European Union, and the Soviet Union. Even so, it has long been seen as less prestigious as no megacorporations originated in the subcontinent and lacking a certain pedigree. Despite this though, India remains a mighty economic powerhouse felt across the globe that was able to carry out a colonization effort alongside its neighbors that resulted in the settlement of numerous colonies on the Human Frontier prior to the Interstellar War, most notably Gadpathur. While this colony has long slipped from Solarian rule, India also found success in its efforts to colonise Callisto alongside the other members of the Commonwealth of Nations. While China’s influence is felt most strongly in the Alliance economically, India’s influence -- particularly in the linguistic sphere -- can still be felt in the Coalition of Colonies and the broader human frontier today, as Freespeak, the most spoken language in the Orion Spur, has its roots in the various languages of the Indian subcontinent.

Europe

Europe in the 25th century remains an important and relevant center of the planet despite its former division between the European Union and Warsaw Pact. The one nation that does not follow this trend is the neutral state of Switzerland. While on paper Switzerland is unique on Earth in that it is technically not a Sovereign Solarian Nation or regional province of Earth and is instead an independent nation, it is de jure a member of the Alliance and all Swiss citizens automatically hold dual citizenship in the Alliance. It, along with Luna, has long been diplomatic neutral ground for humanity and a variety of treaties -- such as those ending the Interstellar War and recognising the independence of breakaway states such as the Republic of Biesel -- have been signed here.

The European Union is the unquestioned economic power of the European continent and home to many of the companies that would eventually form the foundations of humanity’s megacorporations. The modern EU consists of a multitude of smaller semi-independent nations from Scandinavia, the British Isles, Western Europe, Iberia, and the Balkans. The most important of these member states is generally considered to be France, which is home to the EU’s largest city and the seat of Earth’s planetary government, Paris. The city is not just notable for these traits however, but also for its long history of being a city on the cutting edge of the sciences, particularly those relating to Aerospace and Nuclear Science. It is also where practical fusion power was invented in 2027, a year which many historians consider to be the start of a new Human Era. West Germany is also a strong force in the economy of the European Union, and is considered the spiritual home of Hephaestus Industries by virtue of it where some of their first engineering facilities and factories on Earth were built. Also of importance is Italy, which is more closely aligned with the Mediterranean nations such as the United Arab Federation through the Mediterranean Economic Pact, commonly called the Med-7 agreement. The Vatican City, located in Italy, is both the smallest member state of the Alliance and also one of its most-visited tourist locations, with millions performing pilgrimages to it every year. Other locations in the European Union, such as Yugoslavia, Portugal, Ireland, and Spain, are also commonly visited for their natural and cultural beauty by Humans from all over the Orion Spur. The EU is where Terraneus Diagnostics -- a subsidiary of Einstein Engines that would later go on to invent the first practical IPC frames. The Romance languages found throughout Western Europe formed the basis of modern Tradeband.

The United Kingdom never formally joined the European Union and instead reinvested itself into its former colonies through the establishment of the international organisation known as the Commonwealth of Nations that focused on being an economic and cultural partnership between all of its member states. As colonisation became more prominent as well, the Commonwealth, headed by the United Kingdom, took to the stars and established numerous colonies throughout human space, the most notable and successful being the colony on the Jovian moon of Callisto. In the present day, the Commonwealth is still a strong economic partnership, though it has declined in notoriety since it stopped colonising worlds across the spur. It maintains a positive relationship with nearly all of its former colonies, however, aside from those no longer in Solarian space, and often coordinates trade between its member states and these colonial worlds.

The European Union’s opposite in Europe is the Warsaw Pact, formerly a military alliance of socialist nations long in the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence that transformed into an economic and colonial cooperative pact after the establishment of the Solarian Alliance in the early 2130’s . The countries of the Pact lagged behind their Western counterparts as megacorporations gained more and more power until what would eventually become Zavodskoi Interstellar was founded as an effort to unify the heavy industry of the Pact into a cohesive industrial force. In the years since the Pact has caught up to, though not surpassed, its western counterpart. The strongest economies in the Warsaw Pact are East Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, with each having a respective focus in arms development, ship building, and robotics. The Warsaw Pact’s economic woes in the Second Great DEpression caused it to experience a period of social and political instability during the Earth’s climate crisis, which would result in the Pact -- working alongside Soviet authorities -- deporting a great number of political dissidents to the colony of Visegrad. Most Earthers from the Pact that go abroad find themselves working for Zavodskoi Interstellar.

To the east of the Warsaw Pact lies its historical overlord, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The USSR is an intimidating economic strongman on Earth that has a unique, and often strained, relationship with the greater Solarian Alliance and the corporations that have come to dominate its economy. The Soviet Union maintains a strict policy of disallowing the operations of any corporation aside from the state-sponsored Zavodskoi Interstellar inside its borders and sphere of influence, which has won the Union very few friends abroad. Regardless of this cold attitude though, the old Union maintains a significant amount of clout in Earth’s politics and economy due to its size and dominant heavy industry, much of which was critical to Earth’s climate restoration project. The Soviet Union has also been the most supportive of any region on Earth of the recent establishment of the Solarian Corporate Authority and the expulsion of NanoTrasen from Solarian space following the collapse of Solarian authorities in its outer colonies in 2462. Soviet citizens that travel abroad are almost always employed by Zavodskoi Interstellar, thanks to the state’s sponsorship of the megacorporation. The USSR’s most well-known colonial ventures are the establishment of the Zvezda moonbase in the 1980’s on Luna, the first permanent human extraterrestrial settlement, and the settlement of Pluto and the moons surrounding it, which now serve as the Alliance’s primary source of the valuable gas Helium-3.

While the Pact and EU are still often at one another’s throats politically and economically in the eternal game of vying for resources and influence over the global affairs of Earth’s Government, the Mediterranean Economic Pact, sometimes referred to as the Mediterranean Seven, Med-7, or Med-Sev, represents an alleged third option, though its influence has waned since its golden age in the 22nd century. The MEP is an unusual economic cooperation agreement between countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea originally designed to both counterbalance the economic power of Asia and North America and allow its constituent nations, some of which were already members of the EU or the United Arab Federation, to afford then costly colonization projects. While its economic cooperation terms remain in effect, it is now primarily a ceremonial organization that shows the historical friendship of the Mediterranean nations. The most notable achievement of the MEP was the colonization of Assunzione, which still remains one of the farthest planets from Earth that has been successfully colonized. There are movements within the Med-Sev nations to try and establish cultural exchanges or trade agreements with their far-flung former-colony in the name of extending the friendship now so emphasised by the organisation, though these efforts have met staunch resistance in the new political climate of a post-collapse Solarian Alliance.