The Gerualdi Union, officially known as the Fifty-Fourth Gerualdi Union or informally as Union-54 when the distinction from previous Unions is relevant, is a major political power throughout the Ealdremen system with much of its strength coming from a complex network of trade agreements and industry dating back thousands of years to the near-beginnings of Ealdremen as an interplanetary society. While the first appearance of a true Gerualdi Union was originally founded in the 2700s in response to the threat of war, the Gerualdi Union across all its incarnations has historically been neutral in wars since, at least officially, preferring to do battle with proxies and independent contractors whose ties to the Union are too tangled to easily trace. Because of their immense political power, the Gerualdi Union has averted wars simply by virtue of threatening to cut off belligerent nations and governments, and it is an indisputable fact that if even major powers of similar size such as the Veriol Alliance struggle to defy the Union's wishes, powers limited to a single nation have no hopes of changing the Union's course.
As its name suggests, the Gerualdi Union's seat of power can be found on the planet Gerualdi, though any individual or group not affiliated with a competing political power can become part of the Union. The highest seat of office, Union-President, is elected by representatives of the Union's "interest groups," which comprise individuals with enough influence to have a seat at the Union's table, corporations, and entire governing bodies. These representatives are elected by the interest groups they represent, though critics may argue that certain interest groups "appoint" individuals rather than truly elect them in fair elections.
History
Pre-Union
While not called the "Gerualdi Union," prior to the arrival of Estvoldian explorers and colonists during the Stellar Colonialism Era, Gerualdian civilizations had their own complex web of cultural exchange and political alliances. Of particular global importance were the nations of Gliatìus, Nicct'do Nuro, and Toaachi, known in the present-day more as the powers that would later merge to form the nation of Nicta towards the middle of the Millennial Calm. The often-stormy alliance between these three countries, the Nictan Tri-Accord, shaped much of Gerualdian politics before interstellar colonists set foot on the planet, and historians have suggested that the repeat breaking, mending, and reformation of the Nictan Tri-Accord throughout Gerualdi's pre-colonial history would echo through its eventual successor in the Gerualdi Union.
According to Union historical accounts, Gerualdians were overall welcoming to Estvoldians with a rare few exceptions; in particular, the Nictan Tri-Accord was stated to have given the Estvoldians a representative seat in their diet and access to the Tri-Accord's vast trove of knowledge pertaining to Gerualdian politics and resources. For years, the Nictan Tri-Accord profited equally alongside the Estvoldians, eager to learn of the aliens' technology that allowed them to cross stars and reach a different world, and the Tri-Accord's cooperation bolstered the Estvoldian's colonization and exploration of more resistant regions both on and beyond Gerualdi. However, the unity between the Estvoldians and the Tri-Accord waned throughout the 2600s CGC. Contemporary accounts suggest that the Estvoldians believed the Tri-Accord was disproportionately benefiting the Estvoldians' technology and knowledge and gave nothing in return while the Tri-Accord increasingly grew irate with the Estvoldians' perceived meddling and undue influence in the Tri-Accord's domestic affairs. Of particular contention was the growing popularity and political presence of Šenuriklý Istr Hnev, an abolitionist group of Estvoldian origin that had taken issue with the 2642 CGC resolution (signed and ratified by prominent Estvoldian politicians) that the cancchia species native to Gerualdi could not considered Kin and could be legally enslaved, as had been done throughout Gerualdi for centuries. As the abolition group gained ground with native Gerualdians — primarily cancchias and their allies, or nations with hostility towards the Tri-Accord — the Nictan Tri-Accord accused Estvoldians in the Tri-Accord's diet of supporting Šenuriklý Istr Hnev with the intentions to destabilize the native Gerualdian portions of the Tri-Accord, though this was initially seen as mere political blustering, xenophobia, and reluctance to part with the economic place that the cancchias' labor occupied throughout Gerualdian societies.
In 2658 CGC, Šenuriklý Istr Hnev won in Estvoldian courts to have cancchias regarded as Kin; while this had no true bearing in territories held by the Tri-Accord, as their laws superceded any Estvoldian rule, it resulted in a surge of cancchia immigration (or "escaping" by some contemporary Gerualdian records) into lands given to the Estvoldians by the Tri-Accord itself in the earlier stages of their political deals, or into regions that were not allied with the Nictan Tri-Accord. A Tri-Accord investigation (or inquisition, according to Estvoldian accounts) resulted in evidence that some Estvoldian members of the Tri-Accord diet had been colluding with Šenuriklý Istr Hnev, and the Nictan Tri-Accord summarily expelled all non-Gerualdians from positions of power throughout its territories and worked to seize Estvoldian property within its borders. This evidence, however, is contested in other accounts with claims of it being fabricated or exaggerated depictions of Estvoldians only sympathetic to Šenuriklý Istr Hnev's cause but with no intention to monetarily or politically support their aims. This population shift yielded oppositional reactions across Gerualdi and throughout Estvoled; Estvoldians that feared losing their power throughout Gerualdi and going to war with the Nictan Tri-Accord attempted to pacify the Tri-Accord, and many government officials that had enraged the Tri-Accord were deposed when their nations' leaders back home heard of the Gerualdian response to the cancchias' freedom. Similarly, though the enemies and political rivals of the Nictan Tri-Accord were generally pleased to see the Tri-Accord's industry destabilized and the titanic power left on the back foot, they were ill-equipped and generally unwilling to take in cancchian refugees. The resulting political upheaval eventually was pinned on Šenuriklý Istr Hnev; they were blamed for having no plan for the cancchias freed by their resolution, and its leaders and known members were extradited back to Estvoled to face judgment in hopes of appeasing the Gerualdian nations, in particular the Nictan Tri-Accord. When this failed to mollify the Nictan Tri-Accord, Estvoldian governments instead worked to find other political compromises and concessions to their Gerualdian once-allies and once-subjects.
In 2700 CGC, the primary prerequisite for being considered Kin that cancchias had initially "failed" — that is, their inability to manipulate Chrono or use any sort of magic — was reinstated, and cancchias were no longer considered free in Estvoldian territories. A rapidly-approved legislature change further specified cancchias caught within such Estvoldian-held territories would be deported back to "where they belonged," and some local governors went a step further and vowed to revoke all "illegitimate" citizenship rights granted to cancchias — the open wording of these laws allowed for interpretations that even legally freed cancchias or descendants thereof who had become legal citizens before the 2658 CGC decision would lose their rights. However, Gerualdian views of the Estvoldians largely went unchanged despite the Estvoldians' efforts; the past forty years had been characterized by civil unrest not only from cancchias but those that had long since wanted the Estvoldian colonists gone, and the Nictan Tri-Accord itself was facing chaos from within as its constituent states were feuding over borders and lands the Estvoldians relinquished in hopes of mollifying the Tri-Accord. Now seemingly aware of the social power the Estvoldians held all along despite the Tri-Accord's attempts to keep them in check, all across Gerualdi, the disparate nations, powers, civilizations, and peoples rejected the Estvoldians and were held only at bay by their own internal divisions and reluctance to open war with a more technologically powerful power — the prevailing belief was that, should the Gerualdians do more than put on political pressure and engage in minor skirmishes, any widespread violence would be met with proportional retribution from the Estvoldians' homelands.
As if in response to the Gerualdians' standstill, in 2706 CGC, news reached the Nictan Tri-Accord that the Estvoldians, now united under the banner of the Veriol Alliance to represent their communal interests, were focused on the dissident colonies on the distant planet of Raljikka that had banded together as the Alamír Empire. As Gerualdi, of all the planets Estvoled had colonized, was both most distant and the smallest, the Nictan Tri-Accord presumed that, if the Estvoldians were faced with hostility from multiple fronts, they would focus first on securing Raljikka and its sister planet Sigzlor; much to the Gerualdians' fortune, the orbits of Raljikka and Sigzlor would be in the direct line of Estvoled's most efficient interstellar paths to Gerualdi for the next several Gerualdian years, and Gerualdi itself would offer no tactical benefit to subduing Raljikka and Sigzlor due to its distance from the two planets and Estvoled itself. Eager to press this advantage, the Nictan Tri-Accord entreated Gerualdi's most powerful other nations with promises of a temporary alliance to eliminate the Estvoldians. They would share resources and military might, all contribute to a collective power, and push out the Estvoldians while their attention was on the Alamír Empire and its allies. One year later, the First Gerualdi Union, known at the time as simply the Gerualdi Union, was formed, and it declared war on the Veriol Alliance in 2710 CGC.
First Gerualdi Union
War to Shatter the Meteors
As a political power established to capitalize on an ongoing war, the Gerualdi Union immediately sent aid to the Alamír Empire and its allies in order to open diplomatic negotiations with the Veriol Alliance's enemies and defeat the Veriol Alliance by means of a proxy fight through the Alamír Empire. This strategy was initially controversial among more aggressive and often vengeful members of the Gerualdi Union's wartime councils, who in turn tended to represent people with violent grievances against the Veriol Alliance. However, their rationale was rooted in not only revenge, but in practicality and forward-thinking for what would happen after the war. They argued that to bolster a foreign power, especially one already strong enough to stand against the Estvoldians, was to exchange one colonial master for another once the war ended and that the Alamír Empire could more easily control Gerualdi than the Estvoldians had due to the planet Raljikka orbiting space significantly closer to Gerualdi than Estvoled. Instead, they promoted a strategy that would aggressively take the fight to Veriol forces already attacking Raljikka and Sigzlor but not provide material aid to the Alamír Empire so that the Empire would sustain critical losses throughout the war to keep their potential political power in check. However, this tactic proved unpopular with the council's more cautious members — particularly the Nictan Tri-Accord that held disproportionate representation compared to other countries. The idea of more aggressive strategies plummeted in popularity when the Gerualdi Union's first military assault on the Veriol moon bases throughout Nune Estellandri failed to secure the bases and resulted in devastating losses particularly for the nation of Tasar, whose soldiers had formed the bulk of the failed operation and whose council members had most fiercely promoted the idea of violent confrontations with the Veriol Alliance.