Interstellar Union of Revolutionary States

""Throughout the centuries, our united sovereign states have continuously perfected and developing NeoSocialism with Enlightened Characteristics. Though we face constant adversity from the rest of the galaxy, this has only tempered us into the unstoppable force we are today. Comrades, we can only look forward.""

- Leanna Poklonskaya, Chairman of the Interstellar Union of Revolutionary States, Opening Address to the 5th Annual Session of the 30th National People's Assembly, 249

The Interstellar Union of Revolutionary States, commonly known as the Interstellar Union or the Union, is a political and economic union of 17 member states located in the south-eastern part of the Human Sphere, mainly in the Aizawa Arm, Hyeonmu Archipelago, and Coreward Frontier. A single internal market has been established, alongside a standardised system of laws and a unified military force. Despite officially being a union of sovereign states, the Union is de facto largely a centralised federal union, with the bulk of political and economic power in the hands of the four founding states. The Interstellar Union is bordered by the Unified States Commonwealth to the north, the Federation of Sovereign States to the north-west, and the New Greater Empire to the west, and the Confederation of Coreward States to the south. It is the fourth-largest state in the Human Sphere with six inhabitable star systems and territories on a seventh, and a population of roughly 19.987 billion.

Nuevo Hyspanica is the official lingua franca of the Union, alongside a wide variety of local languages used across its member states and territories. Other major languages spoken include Minyu, Prajatask, Pulauan, Tieng Gio, and Liangyu. The capital of the Union is the federal territory of Ciudad de la Unión on Libertad, often referred to informally as la Capital. Some other major cities include Yujing (DFLS), Pulau Penjala (UPR), Zverograd (UPR), Gran Fortaleza (Cordillera), and Esperanza (Antillia). Considered one of the Sphere Hyperpowers due to its collective size, economic power, and powerful military, the Union boasts the second-largest military force in the Human Sphere.

The Interstellar Union does not have good relations with the other hyperpowers due to the Union's potential as a military threat, and partly due to their stated commitment to liberating the rest of the Human Sphere. Nonetheless, the Interstellar Union still maintains heavy economic ties with the rest of the Human Sphere, and major exports include food, raw materials, Energico fuel, weapons, and heavy industrial equipment. The Interstellar Union maintains Trade Offices in most of the national capitals across the Human Sphere, which act as de facto embassies.

Interstellar Revolution
Revolutionary sentiments had been rising in what was then the eastern frontier of the Federation due to various reasons. Various frontier political groups and factions were opposed to the increasing centralisation of power by the Federal government, which was seen as dominated by the Federation's core members at the expense of the frontier states. Along with the increasing power of the Federal government was an expansion of corporate exploitation of the frontier by omnicorps associated with the Federation's core members, particularly on the younger worlds of Prospect and Kesempatan. At the same time, the lobbying and influence of the Yashiman Cultural Lobby was also expanding, intruding on the culture of local colonies and annoying frontier conservatives. Some legitimate political parties as well as fringe militia groups opposed this as a form of imperialism by the Federation's core members, eventually evolving into a collection of anti-Federation secessionist movements in the eastern frontier.

During the War Against Aggression, the growing secessionist movement was an easy scapegoat for the Federation's early losses, particularly the inability to dislodge the Nangka from Kesempatan. The Federation Senate thus granted President James Leach emergency wartime powers that among other things enabled the Federal Government to intervene against anti-Federation activities within the member states. This allowed the Federal Government to ban the anti-Federation political parties within the states on the Eastern Frontier, driving further discontent and forcing the secessionist movements to go underground. Social unrest continued and was aggravated following the end of the War Against Aggression as the Federal Government did not give up its emergency powers and began a campaign against the secessionist movements, which began campaigns of guerrilla warfare and general resistance against the various state governments.

In 54 AT, a spontaneous popular uprising in the State of Cordillera on Prospect led to the toppling of the state government, with the revolutionaries establishing the Cordilleran People's Republic in its place and declaring secession from the Federation. The Federal Government declared this move unconstitutional, and President Leach declared that all secessionists would be persecuted as terrorists, deploying the Federation Starfleet to assist the State Militias in putting down the rebellion. In response to this threat, various revolutionary leaders met in a secret conference on Suhwag 1, 55 AT, and agreed to form a United Front to coordinate a joint uprising in the Eastern Frontier to attain freedom from the Federation.

Shortly after the United Front was established, the various revolutionary movements within the United Front began declaring the formation of liberated states on Prospect, Kesempatan, and Antillia. Open warfare began between the Federation Starfleet and the United Front, marking the start of the Union War of Independence. Using unconventional tactics and working with sympathisers in state governments and militias, Kesempatan was the first planet to be liberated from the Federation, with the local revolutionary governments forming the United People's Republics in 58 AT. In 60 AT, the United Front launched a major offensive to assist the Antillian revolutionaries, carrying out a planetary invasion of Antillia and ultimately securing the independence of Antillia under the Revolutionary State of United Antillia in late 61 AT.

As one of the oldest colonies in the Southern Sphere and previously home to some core members of the Federation, the loss of Antillia was a major blow to the Federation. On 62 AT, the Guangdong Ceasefire was signed between the Federation and the United Front, ending the Union War of Independence with the United Front controlling two entire planets as well as large parts of Prospect; Cordillera under the Cordilleran People's Republic, and Baidao and Kinwan under the newly-formed Democratic Federation of Liberated States. Even so, the Federation refused to recognise the autonomy and independence of the United Front's member states. Later that year, on Seoli 25, the Interstellar Union of Revolutionary States was officially founded as an intergovernmental union of the newly-independent states to better resist the Federation, consolidating the various inter-factional agencies into one organisation to foster greater economic cooperation and collective self-defence against the Federation.

Reconstruction and Expansion
Following independence, the Union member states undertook a period of reconstruction, with the various member states approaching this task in varying ways. A single internal economy was established between the member states, as well as various assistance agencies under the International Economic Affairs Council to help with reconstruction across the entire bloc; these agencies would eventually evolve into the Union's modern commissariats. With the Federation-based omnicorps having been expelled from the region, new megacorporations were formed to take their place in the Union's recovering economy. When founded, these new megacorporations were initially majority state-owned collectively by the four founding member states.

Due to the continued threat from the Federation as well as the precarious situation on Prospect, the Union also sponsored an expansion and reorganisation of all of the member states' militaries, aiming to transform the various militias and guerrilla forces into professional military forces that could realistically oppose the Federation in a protracted military conflict. The United Front framework was retained, with its scope expanded to encompass equipment standardisation and the sale and transfer of arms between different bloc members. Due to the situation on Prospect, where Union and Federation states had to coexist in constant tension, the Cordilleran People's Army the Democratic Federation's Revolutionary People's Army received large amounts of materiel from the other two members of the Union for free or at heavily subsidised costs.

Immediately following the revolution, the Union members persecuted remaining Federation loyalists and perceived ideological enemies in various ways, which ranged from mass deportations in Cordillera to class warfare and imprisonment in labour camps in Antillia. In addition to Federation propaganda, these early actions would negatively impact the Union's reputation for centuries to come, often colouring foreign perception of the Union as an authoritarian, monolithic communist bloc.

As the Union did not collapse within years like Federation analysts predicted, the Federation began a major anti-Union and anti-secessionist internal campaign and also committed to an arms buildup on Prospect and the eastern Federation, marking the start of the First Cold War. The Union's member states responded in kind, expanding their military forces despite the strain this had on the Union's developing economy.

Nonetheless, with reconstruction proceeding on schedule and economic reforms underway in all four member states, the Union also looked towards expansion and scientific development. In 67 AT, the Monumento System was discovered by Union mass probes, home to a near-inhabitable planet that was christened Éxito. The Union's top leadership decided that terraforming the planet would be a potent symbol of the Union's capabilities, and in 80 AT began sending colonists to the planet to begin the ambitious multi-generational Avivar Project that would render Éxito's atmosphere breathable by humans. This move was widely derided by observers in the Federation as a waste of lives and resources in a vanity project.

However, things would change dramatically in 90 AT, when the Shanxing System was discovered by explorers from the Democratic Federation, which immediately laid claim to the system and rapidly began colonisation to alleviate overpopulation in its largest cities. Home to two inhabitable planets, tidally-locked to each other, Shanxing is a scientific marvel and statistically impossibility, and is the only such star system discovered in the Human Sphere to the present day. The discovery of Shanxing immediately boosted the Union's prestige both domestically and abroad, and many Federation scientists made attempts to visit Shanxing to study its planets, with the Union accepting them with open arms.

This undermined the Federation's tough anti-Union stance and propaganda, causing concern to the hardline Federation government under freshly-reelected populist President Kim Sang-Duk, who ran on a platform of removing the Union from Prospect. In response, elements in the Federation Government began stirring up a new wave of nationalism and illicit sabotage against the Union. The Federation Government also claimed that the Union's colonisation of the Shanxing system was illegal under the Federation Charter, as the Democratic Federation was not a recognised Federation state. Though this was naturally ignored by the Union, relations between the blocs rapidly began deteriorating even further, and the First Cold War threatened to turn hot.

New Hyperpower
Following years of sporadic skirmishes in space and on the land borders on Prospect, the Federation Starfleet suddenly launched a large-scale multi-pronged offensive against the Union on 15 Simgi 95 AT, starting the First Hyperpower War. Starfleet squadrons attacked the vastly outnumbered space forces of the United Front across Union Space, while ground forces began invading Cordillera and the Democratic Federation's states on Prospect. Federation President Kim Sang-Duk stated that no cassus belli was required, as the war was merely a continuation of the anti-secessionist war of 54-62 AT.

Known in the Union as the Great Patriotic War, the fighting that ensued was some of the fiercest since the Second Extrasolar War. By avoiding direct confrontations in space and adopting a "space guerrilla warfare" strategy, the United Front's space forces under Admiral Guillermo Ortega were able to cut Federation supply lines despite lacking numbers and technology. On Prospect, Union agents agitated uprisings and rebellions across the Federation states, negatively affecting the Federation's supply lines and eventually driving the Federation forces out of Cordillera and the Democratic Federation's Prospect states. Subsequently, Cordillera and the Democratic Federation launched invasions of the Federation states in support of the various rebellions.

Amidst rising public discontent with the war, the Federation began to withdraw forces from the Union, also abandoning the remaining states on Prospect. These states quickly collapsed and were taken over by revolutionary governments which quickly joined the Union. On 20 Gaengsaeng 97 AT, the Federation and Union signed the landmark Treaty of the Labyrinth at the Labyrinth Asteroid Field on the edge of the Prospect System. In addition to ending the war, the Federation agreed to officially recognise the Union's member states as independent sovereign countries. The full independence of the Union was marked by the renaming of the planet Prospect to Libertad, and the establishment of the Union's new shared capital as a shared territory at the city of Agua Fria in Cordillera, where the Interstellar Revolution allegedly began.

With their defeat of the Federation, the Union became widely recognised as the second hyperpower in human history, and a direct competitor with the Federation and the emerging quasi-hyperpowers in the Northern Sphere. The war resulted in some political changes within the Union, beginning with the increased centralisation of the United Front with the establishment of the United Front Combined Command and the position of Supreme Commander of the United Front, first held by Marshal of the Union Guillermo Ortega. With the admission of new members into the Union for the first time, the four founding members amended the Interstellar Union Charter to ensure that these four countries would be recognised as permanent members of the Union, implying superiority over the junior members. In addition, the devastation that the Democratic Federation's Prospect states faced during the war led the ruling People's Liberation Party to decide to shift their capital and government to the planet Zhushan in the Shanxing System.

While the Union experienced a major post-war economic boom due to reconstruction efforts and a groundswell of nationalism, the Federation began to enter a decline due to various internal issues caused by he end of the war and the increasing agitation of the Yashiman Cultural Lobby. This ultimately resulted in the sudden Federation Civil War (109) and the formation of the Greater Empire. The creation of the Empire was a major cause for concern in the Union, as the corporatocratic, fascist, and imperialist Empire was the direct ideological enemy of the Union's member states' neo-socialist ideals, indirectly starting the drive within the Union towards greater centralisation.

In 125, the planet Iluminación was colonised by United Antillia, another founding member of the Union.

In 130 AT, the Union embarked on the lengthy Chorus War (130-139) by intervening on the planet Chorus in support of South Chorus against Unified States Commonwealth-backed North Chorus, marking the first conflict between Southern and Northern Sphere powers since the Second Extrasolar War. The war taxed the Union's economy and military, and the Union withdrew from Chorus in 142. The simultaneous destruction of the Greater Empire after the end of the Empire-Federation War in 141 resulted in a large number of former Imperial worlds suddenly returning to the Federation's control, albeit with major chaos across the entire Aizawa Arm and Coreward Frontier regions due to ongoing Imperial Holdout activity. The Union took this opportunity to support various dissident groups and attempt to enact revolutions across the Coreward Frontier, but limited their activities as they lacked the resources to carry out large-scale campaigns or defend against a feared Federation retaliation. During this period, the Union mainly focused on its internal economy and scientific and technological development.

Following the resurgence of the New Greater Empire at the end of the War of Imperial Restoration in 172, the Union rapidly embarked on a military expansion program to counter the arms race triggered by the massive Imperial military, with the United Front becoming the largest single military force in human history in 178. The cold war rivalry between the Union and the Empire quickly expanded to include the proxy war over Ventura in 180. In 190, the First Venturan Conflict expanded into a direct confrontation in the Empire-Union War (190). The Union was closely defeated and was forced to cede the occupied territories on Amanecer to the Empire. Both hyperpowers would again fight a proxy war in the extended Second Venturan Conflict in 199, which saw the Union-backed Revolutionary Ventura seize control of the planet, forcing Imperial-backed Independent Ventura to retreat to the uninhabitable planet Cristal.

After Union explorers discovered and subsequently colonised the ice planet Vanguardia in 209, relations between the Union and the Federation began deteriorating again as new right-wing hardliners were elected in the Federation. In 226, war broke out between the Union and the Federation after Federation-backed terrorists destroyed the Internationale Orbital Elevator on Libertad. At the same time, the Second Venturaln Conflict had developed to such a stage that the Union and Empire were drawn into direct conflict, beginning the Second Hyperpower War (226-227). The largest single conflict ever fought by humanity in terms of its astrographical scale, the war was fought by the unprecedented alliance of the Empire and Federation against the Union, and eventually ended inconclusively with the Great Southern Sphere Peace Treaty in 227. With the end of the Second Hyperpower War and the massive military mobilisation that all three hyperpowers had mustered all but assuring mutually assured destruction, the Southern Sphere entered the Neo-Confrontation Era, with the Union maintaining a strong and equal position to the other hyperpowers.

Tavo got power prior to and led during the 2nd Hyperpower War. He got kicked out afterwards and was denounced in the '30s.

Old Stuff
As the Federation began to decline following the Second Federation Civil War and the rise of the Empire, the Interstellar Union began attempting to assert itself as the new Sphere Hyperpower. This led to costly military actions such as the costly decade-long intervention on Chorus and the Third Mnemosynian War, both of which were largely failures that drained the economy. Schisms within the International Neo-Socialist Alliance began to form, particularly between the Chunmin Workers' Party of Yazhou and the ruling parties of the other three Pioneer States. After the War of Imperial Reunification, the Interstellar Union began to view the re-formed Empire as a major threat. In 218, the charismatic and popular Reinaldo Galindo became Chairman, under which the Interstellar Union saw rapid economic growth through efficient four-year plans and an unprecedented interstellar command economy, albeit pushed through with brutal enforcement and increasing centralisation. Elements within the Interstellar Union opposed to Galindo's consolidation of power in the central government and his personality cult began to emerge, culminating in agitation within Yazhou to secede from the Union.

Towards the end of Galindo's reign, the structural weaknesses of the command economy began to emerge, and the Interstellar Union stood on the edge of an economic crisis. Exacerbating matters was the outbreak of the Red Dust Plague in 243, a rapidly-spreading blight accidentally introduced from colonists on Vanguardia that wiped out food crops across the nation. A faction emerged within the upper leadership of the Interstellar Union that wished to attack the increasingly weakened Federation, in the process of rapprochement with the Empire, to seize necessary farmland, distract the populace, and attempt to jump-start the economy. Galindo was assassinated in 245, and Conrado Patronov took over as Chairman, launching the disastrous Second Hyperpower War, which ended with an Empire-Federation coalition defeating the Interstellar Union and forcing it back to pre-war boundaries. Towards and after the end of the war, another series of coups occurred which eventually resulted in Emigdo San Miguel taking over as Chairman. The Zhushan System was allowed to secede from the Interstellar Union as the Chunmin Republic, initially on friendly terms, though a regime change in the smaller state resulted in it becoming hostile to the Interstellar Union.

Under San Miguel, the command economy was progressively abandoned in favour of a mixed command-market economy, though political power remained highly centralised. Major efforts were made to eliminate Galindo's personality cult, though this gave way to a largely unsanctioned personality cult around San Miguel. San Miguel maintained the siege mentality behind the Interstellar Union's vast militarisation, carrying out a major rebuilding of the United Front in preparation for the next conflict. San Miguel eventually retired in

Astrography
Astrography of the Interstellar Union.

Government and Politics
In accordance with the Interstellar Union Charter, the Interstellar Union of Revolutionary States is de jure an intergovernmental alliance between 16 member states, each of which is a sovereign and independent country. The centralisation of power in the Interstellar Union and the relative independence of its member states has waxed and waned throughout its history, and member states have varying levels of autonomy based on their relative political influence within the Union. At its founding, the organs of the Interstellar Union were largely consultative and cooperative, but over time the Interstellar Union has evolved into a de facto central government that oversees the member states. Officially, no single political party or ideology governs the Interstellar Union, though all of the member states are generally neo-socialist to communist states to varying degrees. Communism is an ideology that diverged from collectivism and was embraced by the Greater Crosswind Republic back on Ordis.

The International Economic Affairs Council currently acts as the de facto executive branch of the Interstellar Union, with oversight over the various Commissariats that are analogous to government ministries. The Economic Council is headed by the General Secretary of the Economic Affairs Council, who is the Head of Government and is selected by the Central Committee from among their members. Originally, the International Economic Affairs Council acted as an intergovernmental economic assistance and development organisation, promoting free trade and providing developmental aid to less-developed members. The Economic Council has since expanded greatly in its scope and now carries out high-level executive decisions for the Union as a whole that are typically binding.

The International Central Revolutionary Committee is a committee of the national leaders of all the member states, with its origin as a forum for the initial revolutionary leaders to coordinate their actions during the Revolutionary War. In the present day, the Central Committee is the de facto legislature of the Interstellar Union, and is led by a Chairman who is the Head of State. The Chairman of the Central Committee is de jure elected to his position by the International Congress, but in practice they are appointed by the General Secretary of the Economic Affairs Council.

Originating as a forum for the various revolutionary parties of the member states to discuss ideology and cooperation, the International Congress of Revolutionary Parties is the de jure legislature of the Interstellar Union, though in practice they have little to no political agency and act as a rubber stamp for the Central Committee.

The final two branches of the Interstellar Union are the United Military Affairs Council and the International Security Committee. The Military Affairs Council oversees the United Front, the combined military force of the Union. During the period when Gustavo Anguiano attained control of the Union, the Military Affairs Council briefly became the heart of the Union's government, but it has since lost all political agency due to post-Anguiano leaders making efforts to purge the system of his cult of personality and influence. The International Security Committee is essentially a cross-border Union-level internal security agency that carries out counter-terrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigation, and is directly controlled by the General Secretary of the Economic Affairs Council.

Within the Central Committee, the four founding members of the Union are considered Permanent Members and maintain a disproportionate amount of influence over the Union's governance. These permanent members - the Cordilleran People's Republic, the Democratic Federation of Liberated States, the Revolutionary State of United Antillia, and the United People's Republics - are considered the dominant powers within the Union and generally direct the Union's affairs. Since the mid-2nd century AT, the Democratic Federation has gained such economic and political influence that they act with relative autonomy, and the other states have sought greater integration to compete with them. In recent years, and partly due to the pushback against the failures of Gustavo Anguiano's military dictatorship, Antillia and the UPR have gained the bulk of political power at the expense of Anguiano's native Cordillera, and the last three General Secretaries since Anguinao's assassination have been Antillians.

Other than the permanent members, the other member states of the Union are often regarded by foreign observers as satellite states to the permanent members. Under the Interstellar Union Charter, the permanent members retain the right to spearhead colonisation efforts of new worlds discovered by the Union. The official practice of the Union is to release new colonial holdings as self-governing independent states after a period of 50 years, and these new states typically come under the influence of the permanent member that led the founding of the colony.

In recent years, however, the political landscape appears to be changing and it was noted that the leaders of the four states on Iluminación, traditionally Antillia-aligned, recently banded together to halt an otherwise unanimous vote in the Central Committee regarding the "asteroid grab" free-for-all mining rights in the asteroid belt of their star system.

Member States

 * Unificado
 * Cordilleran People's Republic (Unificado)
 * Republic at Ascensión
 * People's Republic of Baidao
 * People's Republic of Costa Dorada
 * Republic of the Arenas Naranjas
 * Antillia
 * Revolutionary State of United Antillia (Antillia)
 * Kesempatan
 * United People's Republics
 * Iluminación
 * Revolutionary State of West Gran Terreno
 * Revolutionary State of East Gran Terreno
 * Revolutionary State of Crepúsculo
 * Revolutionary State of Archipiélago
 * Zhushan
 * Democratic Federation of Liberated States
 * Gran Exito
 * Revolutionary State of Lukomorye
 * Republic of Podemos
 * Vanguardia
 * Frontier Republic of Valiente
 * Frontier Republic of Vanguardia
 * Amanecer
 * Democratic Republic of Amanecer

Foreign relations
The Interstellar Union and its member states officially maintain no relations with the other hyperpowers, however they do maintain de facto consulates in the form of Special Trade Offices in their fellow human states.

According to the Interstellar Union Charter, the Union is officially a human-supremacist state and does not maintain any relations with non-humans.

Military
The unified military force of the Union is the United Front, a de facto military alliance between the various national militaries of the member states. The United Front comes under the control of the United Military Affairs Council, which is a Union-level organisation that officially exists to coordinate and unify the operations of the various member armed forces. In reality, the United Military Affairs Council largely directs all operations of most member states' military forces through a unified command structure, with the United Front operating mainly as a single armed force in most cases. The degree to which this is the case generally depends on the relative political strength of the state in question, and the national militaries of the more dominant powers in the Union such as the Revolutionary People's Army of the Democratic Federation are largely able to operate independently of the rest of the alliance.

Besides military cooperation and the unified command structure, the United Front also maintains a high degree of equipment standardisation and interoperability between the various national forces, with all member states generally receiving their equipment from the same suppliers. The United Front has a large and generally modernised military, though the quality of equipment varies between member states.

With a combined total of roughly 2.452 billion troops, the ISB has the second-largest military institution in the Human Sphere, behind that of the Empire. The United Front includes the Ground Force and the Space Force, both with their own streamlined command structures. The commander-in-chief of the United Front is the Chairman of the United Military Affairs Council, who is appointed by the General Secretary of the Economic Affairs Council.

Internal Troops
The Internal Troops, commonly referred to as the Tropas, are a paramilitary organization primarily responsible for internal security, riot control, counter-terrorism, disaster response, law enforcement, as well as providing support to the United Front Ground Force during wartime. They are under the Ministry of Internal Affairs and are not a part of the United Front.

Economy
The Interstellar Union officially maintains a policy of non-interference with its member states' economic affairs, though centralisation over time under the International Economic Affairs Council has led to the bloc having a generally highly-integrated singular interstellar economy. The central government maintains its influence and control over the member states' economies through large state-owned and directed industrial groups that oversee entire economic sectors. Within these industrial groups are numerous subsidiaries within the Union's member states that vary from being state-owned by member states, operating under a mixed-ownership scheme, or are public enterprises. Most private businesses are small enterprises such as restaurants or general stores.

The largest of the state-owned economic conglomerates is the Union International Petrochemical Industries (Industrias Petroquímicas Internacionales de Unión), also known as PetroUnion, which is in charge of the entire energy industry in the Union through its vast and myriad subsidiaries. In recent years, the state-owned conglomerates have begun attaining large amounts of influence in the Economic Council due to their sheer importance to the Union's economy, with the conglomerates' leaders forming a "shadow commissariat" that acts behind the Economic Affairs Council's State Commissars as some form of financial oligarchy. PetroUnion's Director Anatoly Egorov is believed to hold more political and social influence than the Union State Commissar for Energy Planning, and is held by Imperial intelligence to essentially be the true power within the State Commissariat for Energy Planning.

Other large and similarly influential conglomerates include the Interstellar Union Banking Group, the Union International State Shipping Companies Alliance, People's United Shipyards Alliance, Interstellar Union Food Industries, the Union Heavy Industry Development Group, the Union Electronics and Quantronics Development Group, and many others.

Energy
PetroUnion and Energico.

Communications
The Union Interstellar Communications Group (COMINT) dominates here. The local exonet is known as Estrella or Zvezda depending on your jurisdiction, and is generally disconnected from the rest of the exonet.

Demographics
Antillia – 26% - 5,196,855,300

DemFed – 38% - 7,595,403,900

UPR – 21% - 4,197,460,050

Cordillera – 5% - 959,395,250

The Rest – 10% - 2,038,790,500

Exito - 625 million

Illuminacion - 811,680,330

Vanguardia - 33.77 million

Amanecer - 462.5 million

Non-Cordilleran states on Libertad - 105,840,167

Culture
Like all hyperpowers, the Interstellar Union is widely varied with a large amount of human cultures, languages, and regional identities represented. According to the Interstellar Union Charter, the lingua franca of the Union is Nuevo Hyspanica, known informally as NuHys. About 80% of the Union's citizens are fluent in NuHys as either a first or second language. Some other major languages spoken include Prajatask (both Old and New dialects), Minyu, and Tieng Gio.

Every area of the Union boasts rich and vibrant local cultures that have evolved from the original colonists' Ordic traditions, and the Union embraces cultural freedom and the Interstellar Union Charter officially ensures freedom of expression for the people of its member states. The Union prides itself on being a multicultural state, especially in comparison to the Empire, which attempts to present itself as monocultural. However, this has not stopped the member states or even the central government itself from suppressing many forms of expression that do not conform with the nomenklatura's tolerances, and the Union as a whole has one of the lowest freedom of press in the Human Sphere. The Exonet in the Union, known locally as Zvezda, is heavily controlled and censored by the government apparatus that operates their infrastructure.

There is also a state-sponsored "Revolutionary Culture" that has undergone various waves of evolution throughout the Union's existence, originally conceived of during the strong centralisation of the Vera Fedorova period in an attempt to foster closer ties and unity between the member states. During different eras of the Union's history, the central government has promoted or imposed this culture on the member states to varying degrees, and elements of it have been assimilated into various local cultures. "Revolutionary Culture" is generally characterised as being austere and militarist, in reference to the Union's roots as a collection of rebel militias fighting against the Federation, and encompasses all forms of expression from art to architecture to cuisine. "Revolutionary Culture" architecture and stylings are generally brutalist and distinctly 'function over form', and so-called "Revolutionary Cuisine" originates from military field rations.

Even so, cultural drift and development over the Union's long existence has led to "Revolutionary Culture" itself evolving into various subcultures that cater to different regions and social classes. For example, the "Guerrilla Chic" style has become popular among the richer Kesemites in recent years, and high-class restaurants in la Unión are well known across the Human Sphere for their transformation of military ration menus into exquisite works of art using exotic ingredients (so-called "alta cocina militar").