Chapter Text
The African Federal Union: once a collection of former colonies of Europia United, it now stands as the premier superpower of the continent of Africa. It contains the lions share of territory in the divided continent, made up of a host of Europian-style republics in western and central Africa, while Britannia's colonial holdings dominate southern and eastern Africa. Depending on who you ask, it is either the best champion of liberty and republicanism outside of Europia, or one of the most corrupt governing systems in the entire world, highlighting the flaws of capitalism, oligarchy, and so-called 'managed' democracy.
But where did it begin? How did we get here in the first place? That, too, is a complicated story. The Europians will tell you one thing, the Britannians another, and the Egyptians and Libyans would prefer being referred to as Arabs and not be considered as part of Africa, thank you very much. The truth, as with most things, lies somewhere in the middle.
The twilight of the Nineteenth Century and the dawn of the Twentieth laid the foundations for modern day Africa. After nearly a century of war and fighting, most of Europe had come under the sway of France, though the United Republics of Europia was still a distant glimmer in the eyes of Charles de Gaulle(1). With its only rival to Europian dominance being the increasingly isolated and sickly Empire of Russia, France began to turn its attention to more worldly affairs starting in the 1880s. And what it found alarmed them.
As Europia entered a golden age, so too was its counterpart in the Americas. For nearly a century the so-called Holy Britannian Empire had been viewed as a backwater kingdom, the dying remnants of an old order that would fall apart within a few decades. But Ricardo von Britannia and his successors had turned a small North American power into a giant that dominated not only the North, but Central and South America as well. With the Union of Kingdoms Act of 1899(2), Britannia achieved total dominion over the Americas, giving it unprecedented industrial, economic, and military power. With that dominance complete, it seemed only natural for Britannia to turn its eyes toward Africa next, as it already had a foothold there with the Crown Colony of the Cape, among other African acquisitions.
Of course, the French were not going to let that happen without a fight. If anyone deserved to carve up Africa and her treasures, it was the enlightened scions of Europia, not some backwards, inbred duke from Britannia.
So began the Scramble for Africa. Lasting from the 1880s to the early 1910s, the ordeal would see the previously independent-if less technologically advanced and reliant on Europian trade and military power-nations of Africa conquered and reorganized into formal colonies of the Europian powers. France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, England(3), Spain, and Portugal all contended for territory in the continent, with France gaining the largest share of land in Colonial Africa. At the same time Britannia was not idle either, and seeing their peer powers in Europia conquering territory spurred them to do the same. The previously slow expansion of its Cape colony expanded tenfold during this era, with Britannia absorbing a great deal of territory in southern and western Africa, including the island of Madagascar.
This, too, coincided with the revitalization and reorganization of the Chinese Empire under the Qing Dynasty into the Chinese Federation, and their own experiments in colonialism in Central and East Asia. But that is its own separate tale worthy of its own story.
Regardless, running a colonial empire was not all fun and games for the Europians. Unrest grew over time, spread further by the flames of socialist and communist agitation, and the events of the First and Second Europian-Russo Wars. Things came to a head with the Libyan Rebellion, the largest colonial revolt in Europian history. It erupted in 1952, forcing Italy to start a war of attrition against its own colonial populace. Matters were not helped when similar revolts and rebellions started to spread from Libya to the rest of Europia's African and Middle Eastern colonies, with the revolt in the Middle East spearheaded by charismatic general Abdel Nasser(4), and Africa's rebellion led by a magnetic minister turned socialist activist Kwame Nkrumah.
Europia United, only eight years old at this point(5), and still recovering from the recent War of Russian Aggression, faced an apocalyptic nightmare. To prevent total collapse of its colonial empire and send Europia back into the financial crisis it had just clawed its way out of, the EU entered into negotiations with the main independence movements and leaders. This culminated with the Treaty of Cairo in 1957, which recognized the independence of a majority of Europia's African and Middle Eastern colonies, in exchange for various economic concessions, the established formation of French-style republics for the new independent nations, and other political matters.
Unlike the Arabs-who soon formed their own nation in the Middle Eastern Federation-things were not so simple for the new African powers. Unity and peace was far more difficult to achieve, let alone maintain, especially when the new maps of Africa were drawn with little care toward ethnic and religious minorities, cultural differences, or governing practicalities. Independence soon gave way to the realities of self-governance, including a rise of factionalism, religious and ethnic strife, conflicts with ones neighbors, and far more. And, of course, came the influence of money into politics.
It started slow, but over the intervening decades the Europians reasserted control over its African client states, this time with far more subtle and insidious influence. With the urging of the Europians, the independent nations of Africa-save Libya, who joined the Middle Eastern Federation-grouped together to form the African Federal Union in 1988, a formalized union of sister republics modeled after the EU in both scope and organization. On paper, the free people of Africa are stronger and freer than they ever have been.
But it is a shallow freedom. The Europians may pat themselves on the back for being forward thinking and morally superior to the Britannians, and at having supposedly ditched their past Imperialist ambitions, but their style of colonialism was and is hardly any different from that of the Britannians. They now hand-pick the leaders of Africa, they have military installations all throughout the continent, and their trade deals heavily favor the Europians themselves at the cost of the African people.
In the modern day most of the republics of the African Union are openly corrupt and run by oligarchies, with many national Presidents doing away with term limits entirely, now serving for life. There is an aura of discontent and malaise throughout the African Union, and in the shadows new revolutionary groups muster to overthrow their Europian overlords once and for all. The stage is set more and more for a new revolution to break out within the African Federal Union, except...
However intolerable their current governments are, the people of the Union know that things could be worse. And their political leaders know it too, and are more than happy to take advantage of this.
Look at Britannia, their leaders say. Look at how they treat the people of Southern and Eastern Africa, the people they call 'Twos'. It is inhumane, barbaric, and utterly nightmarish. Never forget that this could be you; never forget that with just one decision, Britannia could march over the border and invade your neighborhoods, demolish your homes, send you into ghettos, and render you even less than human. They've taken much of East Asia already, haven't they? Who's to say they won't target us next?
So it is that specter of fear that keeps the African Federal Union in one piece. The knowledge that one day-maybe in a decade, maybe a year from now, maybe next month, maybe tomorrow-Britannia could continue its horrifying wave of expansion into the heart of Africa.
But fear is a very poor foundation to build a successful nation upon. Maybe one day, even that won't be enough to drive away the discontent that plagues the African Federal Union.