Reawakening the Bear: The CIS

Formation and Early History

During the early formation of 'American Yugoslavia', Russia remained largely neutral, while selling arms to both sides. However, due to trade and technology-transfer agreements, it gradually began leaning towards the Confederacy. With the rise of the UN, simple trade became a mutual-defense pact and, eventually, a full-fledged alliance. The 2031-2032 'EuroWar' saw Confederate and Russian/CIS forces allied against UN troops in both Eastern Europe and the former US east coast.

H7N1 hit the Russian Federation extremely hard. Its population, already small compared to the monolithic Eurozone, shrank to just below twenty million. Large swaths of eastern Russia were nearly completely depopulated along with parts of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics.

The Commonwealth of Independent States, formed in 1991 as a simple regional organization, soon became an alliance of necessity against the UN. Possessing a somewhat egregious thermonuclear arsenal, the CIS relied on MAD doctrine and exchange of advanced weapons systems with the CSA/UCSA to maintain its sovereignty.

Weakened Eastern European nations, such as Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states, joined the CIS for security reasons. While the UCSA was insulated from the UN by the Atlantic, resisting European sites had no such buffer, instead turning to nuclear weaponry- much of it manufactured with uranium enriched in the Middle East- to counter substantial UN conventional forces in Europe.

The CIS was the first foreign power to receive exported Alcubierre FTL drives, using these in extrasolar colonization beginning in the 2080s. It was also the first to move past simple aerospace fighters and build Alcubierre-capable prygat' bombardirovshchiki, or 'Jump Bombers', the basis of the modern striker.

By 2090, cosmonauts had constructed small exploratory bases in BD-09°3413, Gliese 453, and Alpha Mensae. These eventually grew into full colonies with populations numbering in the millions. At this point, the Commonwealth of Independent States was renamed to the Confederation of Independent Subjects, reflecting its general decentralization- impressive, but still somewhat shy of the UCSA model.

Military and Foreign Affairs

Abroad, the CIS primarily trades with the UCSA and Republic of Texas. Serious mutual suspicion exists between the CIS and the Systems Commonwealth, and trade is limited.

Like the UCSA, the CIS' main potential foe is the UNCS and its alien puppet-systems. Additionally, given its large number of resource-extraction outposts, the CIS occasionally comes into conflict with fringe aliens and peripheral human states. These encounters usually go well for the CIS, but serious concerns have been raised over suspected sightings of Sinterian warships on the Western Frontier.

The CIS' military consists of three branches- the Surface Forces (сухопутные войска), including atmospheric aircraft, the Aerospace & Orbital Defense Forces (Аэрокосмическая и орбитальных сил обороны), responsible for operation of missile silos, platforms, and aerospace interceptors, and the Strategic Space Forces (Стратегическое Космических войск), which combines the roles of the Navy and Long Range Aviation. It operates striker squadrons, spacelift craft, and surveillance/operational support vessels.

Unlike the UCSA's aerospace forces, in most cases dispersed to the flight or demi-squadron level, the CIS tends towards a slightly greater degree of centralization. Strikers are usually based in squadrons of eight to ten, which serve as the flying unit of a Battalion, itself a component of an Aerospace regiment. Accordingly, basing density is roughly half that of the UCSA, though most oblasts or other confederal subjects have anywhere from one to three bases of various types.

Command authority is also slightly more centralized, with requests for operations outside a stellar system relayed to Headquarters, Strategic Space Forces, in Rossiya for approval before execution. However, subject systems are granted full authority to police their own territory in any manner their military authorities see fit.

Culture and Economy

In the early- to mid-21st century, Russia and its neighbors had begun to rebuild blighted industrial infrastructure, left to rust after the end of the Soviet era. Gradually, the standard of living in the CIS nations improved, reaching a level comparable to that of Europe, with greater civil liberties. The 2031 war cemented this, while H7N1 served to increase the concentration of industry to the dwindling populace. Quality of life was never greater- in those areas with a population large enough to support meaningful commercial endeavors.

The Russian Federation, centerpiece of the CIS, ironically enough, reached a greater degree of political equality as a sparsely-populated, decentralized representative democracy than during decades of Communist rule. In a further ironic twist, it was rated by American NGOs as the second-freest nation in Europe, only lagging behind a resurgent Poland.

Decades after this, the CIS resembles rural Russia, with occasional urban areas of twenty to fifty thousand inhabitants centered around resource-extraction and industrial hubs. Primary industrial exports include inexpensive orbital-lift vehicles, industrial machinery, mining/drilling equipment, and commercial electronic products.

The three CIS subject systems are Ukraina (Україна), Rossiya (Россия), and Sibir (Сибирь). Ukraina was mostly settled by Eastern Europeans, from Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and other nations. It is the most technologically-advanced of the three, but also the most agrarian and least militarized. Rossiya's original colonists were generally from western and central Russia; the system serves as the CIS' capital, as most CIS territory on Earth has largely been evacuated. It boasts the greatest industrial base, but also struggles with unemployment and crime as a result of governmental and corporate corruption. Finally, Sibir was largely colonized by transplanted Siberians and citizens of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Mongolia, and northern China. It is a CO2-atmosphere 'cold' carbon planet with exceptionally large concentrations of industrial-grade graphite, diamond, and other useful materials. Sibir is sparsely populated, and generally a strange mix of isolated, small communities with little modern technology, and massive mines, refineries, and processing plants supporting modest towns and cities. In this respect, it resembles a hybrid of Soviet-era single-factory cities, and 'New Russian' industry driven by private, often foreign, investment capital.

However, the general economic malaise of 21st-century Russia never truly escaped the CIS. Industrial production rates are quite low, while unemployment is high, as is corruption on most levels of government. State contracts are more often than not settled by bribery of officials. Many regions- especially remote districts of Sibir and the majority of large urban areas- are effectively lawless.

Politics and Government

The government of the CIS can be considered an intermediate point between the UCSA and UNCS. Its subject systems are granted substantial autonomy, but ultimately are unified under a relatively strong central government. As opposed to the UCSA's central government- a small bureaucracy with little role beyond diplomacy and wartime military command- the CIS boasts the Confederal Assembly, its main legislative body, divided into the Duma and Confederation Council. The Assembly is maintained in addition to subject systems' local legislature and governmental bodies.

Currently, the Union Party, People's Defense Bloc, Liberal Democratic Party, Communist Party, Social Democratic Party, and smaller, regional political parties have performed well in Confederal and system parliamentary elections. This represents an ever-growing political divide between far-left and far-right parties, thankfully, this divide usually exists across systems. In regions with substantial political tensions, violence is not unheard of.

Population and Demographics

Population by Subject System

Rossiya: 7,095,120

Ukraina: 4,634,700

Sibir: 1,343,879

Total: 13,073,699

The population of the CIS is extremely small, even by modern standards. Sibir's population is primarily made up of subsistence farmers, miners, and industrial support workers. Density figures are virtually meaningless, as most colonized planets aside from UNCS 'population warehouses' have well below 0.1 persons per square kilometer. Demographically, roughly one in eight CIS citizens is of Asiatic descent, while the vast majority of the remainder are ethnic Russians or Europeans. Only a tiny fraction are of other descents, although there exists a reasonably large collection of UCSA and Commonwealth expatriates.