Earth Federation

The Earth Federation (地球連邦) is a fictional organization in the Universal Century timeline of the Gundam anime series.

Organization
The Earth Federation's heraldry is a golden or white north star, similar to that of NATO, over a horizontally lying crescent, forming an anchor-like symbol.

The Federation is a global government that was formed by a 'rich mans' club' of wealthy nations. In Gundam, no individual nations are mentioned or continue to exist. Places are mentioned by what landmass or region they are in, such as New York City (or New Yark, according to on-screen text) and Odessa are mentioned to be located in North America and Central Asia, not the United States or Ukraine. While Japan, Australia, and Ireland are mentioned, these names refer to the landmasses and not the former countries. The only exception to this is the language and nationality of characters, which can be interpreted to be based on their predecessors' former homeland before emigrating to the space colonies.

The Federation military headquarters was a secret, underground complex located at Jaburo, deep in the Amazon jungle. It was located underground for protection against Zeon attacks.

The Federation maintained a just for show military academy at Nijmegen.

The Earth Federation Assembly, as seen in Zeta Gundam, was located in Dakar.

Until UC 0093, the Earth Federation Capital was located inLhasa.

Administrative regions
Earth's surface is divided into eleven primary administrative regions, with smaller territoriy regions throughout the world. It is not revealed whether these regions operate with some degree of autonomy or not. Composed of the former nations of Canada, United States, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America, ending at the Panama Canal. In the Gundam universe the region is similar to the political map in the Cold War era. In the Gundam universe the region is similar to the Warsaw Pact political map during the Cold War, including Western Russia, ending at the Ural Mountains and along the Ural River. This region includes most of what was the Soviet Union, starting at the Ural Mountains, and excludes South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Northeast Asia The region also includes Southeast Asia
 * North America
 * South America
 * Western Europe
 * Eastern Europe
 * Eurasia
 * South Asia
 * East Asia
 * Middle East
 * North Africa
 * Sub-Saharan Africa
 * Oceania

History
The Earth Federation was formed in the pre-Universal Century (i.e. the late 21st Century), when overpopulation began causing famines, outbreaks of disease, and wars over living space, food, and resources.

Space colonization
In order to relieve Earth of the burden and allow it to heal, the Earth Federation announced the Space Colonization Plan. The Earth Federation began the construction of orbital habitats, based on the designs and research of Gerard K. O'Neill, and located in the Earth-Lunar Lagrangian Points. The colonies, called Bunches (possibly due to the ballistic pairing of the colony cylinders) were then organized into administrative sectors called Sides. While most of the human population was forced to relocate to the colonies as part of the Space Colonization Plan, the wealthy and influential members were able to remain on Earth. This gave rise to the image of the Earth Federation as "Earth-Born Elite", living comfortably on Earth while the ordinary populace, for the most part, has been forced to live in space.

In order to maintain and satisfy energy concerns, the Earth Federation launches Solar Power Station Satellites, which broadcast energy to power stations on the ground. In addition, the Federation also launched the Jupiter Energy Fleet, which collect helium-3, hydrogen and methane from the upper atmosphere of the gas giant. In U.C. 001, the Federation elected it's first prime-minister, Ricardo Marcenas. Marcenas was prepared to unveil the Universal Century Charter,. However, before he could do so, his resident colony, Laplace, was destroyed by a terrorist group. Arguably, the sabotage was the best thing that could've happened for the Federation, allowing to maintain all its authority under the pretense of preventing terror.

One Year War
main article: One Year War

The One Year War was a year-long conflict between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon, who declared independence and attacked the Earth without warning. The war was ultimately won by the Earth Federation, who disbanded the Zeon army. However, for many years on, several incidents were caused by Zeon remaining forces or loyalists.

The Gryps Conflict
main article: Gryps Conflict

The Gryps conflict was a full-scale war between the Titans, an Earth Federation elite force, and the AEUG/Karaba anti-federal forces. The war erupted when the Titans mass-murdered the civilian population of the 30 Bunch colony at Side 1, to suppress peaceful demonstrations against federal politics.

The Neo Zeon Movements
main article: Neo-Zeon Movements

The First Neo Zeon War was a full-scale war between Neo Zeon, led by Haman Karn and the AEUG/Earth Federation Forces. The war erupted after the Gryps Conflict. The Second Neo Zeon War was a full-scale war between Neo-Zeon, this time led by The Red Comet and the Earth Federation Space Forces Londo Bell. The war erupted after Char Aznable declared war against the Earth Federation, so he could usher in a new era for mankind in space.

Late UC
Following the wars, leadership of the Earth Federation was put back into the hands of civilians. The government decided to decrease military spending but maintain the same amount of force. This led to the development miniaturized mobile suits. Unaware that the Bunch corporation had secretly constructed a private army of their own using state of the art but extremely expensive mobile suits. These could outperform the Earth Federation mobile suits. The Earth Federation did not know of the Crossbone Vanguard's existence.

The Earth Federation could not hope to produce for all branches of its military and by the time the Earth Federation could fully figure out the Ronahs it was to late. They attacked the frontier side or Side 4. Cosmo Babylon was eventually defeated, and the Earth Federation made them pay for what the Ronahs did. They confiscated colony buildings and uncompleted colonies to a different location. As result of the loss of so many vital resources Cosmo Babylon was forced to declare bankruptcy. During this time the Assembly or part of it at least moved to space, on the moon. This is well received by the colonies.

All the Earth Federation had to do was wait. It finally collapsed in a 3 way civil war and after Cosmo Babylon collapsed the Earth Federation retook Side 4 and moved all the colonies to the new location. They also secretly supported the new Crossbone Vanguard against the Jupiter Energy Fleet which had proclaimed themselves the Jupiter Empire. After the war the Federation sent a large fleet to Jupiter to retake it. They did not meet much resistance they provided much aid to the people of Jupiter and Jupiter was annexed without much resistance.

All seemed well and mankind was headed towards peace. However an economic crisis hit the colonies and affected the Federation, due to trade imbalance. The Federation acted quickly enough to prevent the crisis from turning into a depression, but the economy was still highly unstable. So to help solve the crisis, they severely red-taped the EFF. This meant they were largely confined their bases. As a result, most development money went down the drain. But the Earth Federation forces were not down-sized. The Earth Federation government's primary focus was on the economic crisis, because the future of the Earth Federation was at stake. Then due to the economic crisis, some anti-Federation parties rose up, including the Gatte party, who began spreading the philosophy of Maria Pure Armonia. She was a Newtype who performed miracles for the people and was advocating independence from the Federation, as well as power to women, motherly love and a claim of the Earth for true believers. At first, they advocated in Side 1, but the local Federation commander, realizing the threat, kicked them out of Side 1. They then moved to Side 2 Amillia colony after which they really gained popularity in neighboring colonies. However, this greatly terrified the Federation, and most of Side 2's colonists.

Around this time, the Gatte party became radical. They demonstrated their new found extremism by executing two corrupt party ministers on the guillotine. They then staged an uprising in Amelia and other colonies, which are staged by secretly raised Gatte party yellow jackets. As a result of the undeveloped state of the riot suit and limited by the fact that they could not use normal Mobile Suits on civilians, they soon gained ground control of a few colonies. Federation forces in Amelia made their last stand at the BESPA arms building. Before being defeated, they destroyed key material, which allowed the Federation to make Gunderium alloy and their VBSR beam rifles. Unfortunately they could not destroy the BESPA arms building, before it is overrun by Gatte party yellow jackets. After that the colonies that rebelled declared Maria their queen and declared themselves the Zanscare Empire and that they were independent from the Earth Federation.

After that, the Earth Federation declared that colonies held by Zanscare were held by insurgents and declare it an insurgency. They did not declare war on them, because that would ruin their economy and they could do nothing against them due to the red tape put on the EFF, so the Earth Federation ordered all colonies they held in side 2 be moved to side 5 with their garrisons. The process went very slowly because of natural and economic barriers. During this time the League Militaire is formed to oppose Zanscare, in the event should they ever decide to invade Earth itself and to also buy time for the EFF to get ready.

Zanscare war
Then in UC 0151, the Earth Federation forces and BESPA started fighting as each faction took over a series of colonies. The League Militaire is formed and makes its combat debut in U.C. 0153.

After the Woowng incident, Zanscare found out where one of the League's secret factories was and destroyed it. The League Militaire managed to make their way to a Federation base to get to the mass driver complex. During this time, the Federation finally upgraded the Zanscare insurrection to a war.

The League Militaire managed to get up into space and got a few obsolete ships from the Earth Federation. During this time, the Federation Side 2 fleet moved away with colonies they were protecting. Realizing they could not move the few remaining colonies they had in Side 2, the ships did a tactical withdrawal instead, along with the last colony they were going to move to Side 5. The land garrisons stayed behind to protect the remaining colonies and inflicting damages on Zanscare installations. The League Militaire managed to capture the Giga particle cannon from Zanscare in a previous battle during the 1st battle of Amelia.

With the Federation forces that were available for offense, the League Militaire managed to buy time for the Giga particle cannon to fire at its intended target, which was to destroy Amelia, but somehow the shot was redirected by Cronicle Asher. The redirection came at a price of the destruction of one of Zanscare's main fleets, forcing Zanscare to halt infinitely their plans to conquer the remaining Federation colonies they had in Side 2. This allowed the Federation to move the remaining colonies in their control to Side 5.

Realizing their plans to conquer Side 2 were ruined and with no distraction bothering them, they sent the newly constructed Motorad fleet to Earth. Due to red tape, the Federation forces on Earth were unable to stop them. With the League Militaire's failure to stop the Zanscare forces as well, the Empire's forces were able to land somewhere in Mexico. The Federation realized they could be defeated and between choosing to either go out fighting, or dying like cowards, they chose to former.

While Uso and his friends were away, the Earth Federation government ordered Earth Federation Forces in Europe to move out of their bases and fight Zanscare forces in Europe. They quickly regained the lost ground, owing to the fact that they had nothing to lose. While the Earth Federation said they would help the League Militaire, but due to the fact that the Federation is phasing out their land battle ships as well as they could not direct any heavy weapons at the enemy fleet, the Earth Federation mobile suits stationed in Mexico could only fight the Motorad fleet to a stalemate.

There was a plan was to lure the Zanscare forces to the EFF headquarters at California, which was reinforced over the years with the ability to withstand a full on colony drop and it was fully manned. However Zanscare knew that it did not have the battle strength to pierce even the weakest line of defense, thus bypass this key military installation.

Due to the European front going badly for Zanscare and the fact that the Motorad fleet was going to get destroyed by the combined Earth Federation & League Militaire forces eventually, Zanscare offered a cease fire to the Earth Federation.

When the Federation finally released the red tape, the active Federation central government on the Moon secretly sent an EFSF fleet to support the struggling League Militaire forces in space. The Federation fleet destroyed the Zanscare forces first line of defense rapidly. Subsequently, Federation forces ended up defeating the Zanscare on numerous battles, while the Zanscare was having internal conflicts.

The Federation soon discovered the effects of the super-weapon, Angel Halo, that were causing people around Earth to fall into an unconscious state. The Earth Federation subsequently gives the League Militaire its full support to destroy the Angel Halo.

The battle that would decide the fate of humanity continued to rage over the Earth's atmosphere. Jinn Gehenam, leader of the League Militaire, ordered an attack on the Angel Halo, despite the fact the combined Earth Federation and League Militaire forces were not complete and the fact that additional Federation reinforcements were still on their way. Several key members of the League Militaire and the Zanscare Empire are killed during this battle.

At the height of the conflict, Shakti, daughter of Maria, took control of the Angel Halo and attempted to broadcast a message of peace which was transmitted all over the Earth sphere via her Newtype abilities. With most of the Zanscare fleet in disarray, the EFF overwhelmed the remaining forces. The massive Angel Halo broke apart and disappeared from Earth. EFF forces that were captured by the Angel Halo earlier were eventually rescued by reinforcements. With the collapse of Zanscare Empire, the Earth Federation retook the Zanscare-held colonies after the war.

Military


The Earth Federation forces were organized under the moniker Earth Federation Forces, or EFF (地球連邦軍), to enforce Federation edicts. The Earth Federation Forces were organized into three groups - an Earth-based military force, which handled all military matters on sea, and in Earth atmosphere, and a space naval military branch, and in between branch which was the Army which had bases and troops both in space and on Earth the Earth Federation Space Forces or EFSF. However, in Gundam 0080 and Gundam 0083, this force was referred to as UNT Spacy, but EFSF is currently the official moniker.

Originally, the naming in the 1980s used United Nations Troops (U.N.T.) and is referred to UNT army, UNT grand (first a typo of ground, later the term was used for an army-navy joint forces). This naming convention was used in Japan until 1999. This is due to the release of the Perfect Grade model of the RX-78-2 Gundam. All naming was changed from UNT to EF and UNT forces have been changed to EF Forces. The Japanese publications had since then renamed all of the wordings to the current naming convention. The acronym U.N.T. has been retconned to Under Normal Tactical to prevent confusion in anime series and older model kits. The reason for changing is unknown, but the naming convention is the same as the Macross series and there might be a conflict in getting an America copyright even though the Gundam series aired before the Macross series in Japan but later than the Macross series (known as Robotech) in America.

Until UC 0087, the military central command for the Earth Federation Forces was located at a base called Jaburo (or Jabrow), located under the Amazon river. During the One Year War, the base was the target of many attacks by the Principality of Zeon, including the Operation British colony drop and a decisive battle at which the remaining bulk of Zeon's Earth Attack Force made their final attempt to destroy Jaburo. Throughout the Universal Century the Earth Federation Space Force operated from their headquarters at Luna II.

Earth Federation Ground Force
The ground force was the most poorly-equipped of all the EFF branches; it possessed outdated weaponry. The army was caught completely by surprise when the Zeon launched their drop operation for control of the earth and subsequently spent most of the time between February and August UC 0079 in disarray and retreat. The addition of mobile suits did much to help out the Earth Federation Army, and in the post war years, the army became a force to be feared and building a mighty reputation. During the Universal Century, the EFA maintains a force of 120 million troops at all times, except during the One Year War, when its force count was higher, and the Army was also the only branch that operated on Earth and in space, despite the Earth Federation possessing a separate Space Forces branch.

Earth Federation Naval Force
The Navy was a major power in the Earth Federation, and possessed several bases on the coast of California, collectively known as the California base. The Federation's navy took heavy casualties following the failed colony drop, and when the Zeon seized the California Base in the Earth invasion (during the One Year War) they converted the facilities to build Zeon submarines. Although the California Base was recaptured by Federation Forces in the dying weeks of the One Year war, the Federation regained control of the seas but the navy was in a shadow of its former glory. Ships in the Federation's navy include gunboats, which appeared in 08th MS Team and an aircraft carrier, but the total number of ships and their types is not known.

Naval officers were the best trained soldiers in the Earth Federation at the dawn of the space colonization era, and hence would become the model that the Earth Federation would turn to when they created the Earth Federation Space Force.

Earth Federation Air Force
Not much is known about the Earth Federation's air force, other than the fact that they do exist and did participate in several ground campaigns. The group has several powerful bombers created from core booster pieces left over from the vision project. However, those pieces of equipment were rare. Their aircraft were outdated and are not adapted to combats under the influence of Minovsky particles. They do not have enough fire power to destroy mobile suits due to the guided missiles became partly useless under Minovsky particles but at the same time, mobile suits can hardly shoot down fast flying planes and thus the EFAF seldom encountered Mobile Suits. Their main mission during the One Year War is to intercept Zeon atmospheric entry vehicles with their High altitude fighter FF-3 Saberfish (an atmospheric version of the FF-S3 Saberfish which was used by the EFSF.) During the course of the One Year War, many EFAF pilots ended up becoming Mobile Suit pilots.

Earth Federation Space Force
The fourth branch of the Earth Federation Forces was the Earth Federation Space Force. This branch was created to enforce the edicts of the Earth Federation Government in space with the army garrisons in the colonies. As such, this branch of the armed service is almost exclusively concerned with space combat. Before the One Year War this branch is listed under the above branches and was commanded by generals appointed by commanders of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. For example, the Commander-in-chief during the One Year War, General Revil, was listed as a Lieutenant General of the EFA.

The Federation's Space Force is a mirror image of the "Big Gun" ship philosophy, embodying powerful guns to destroy enemies. This began to change in UC0079, when the Zeon introduced their mobile suits, which thoroughly decimated the Federation's Space Force during the Battle of Loum. The advent of the mobile suit forced the Federation to develop their own mobile suits and ships that could carry them, resulting in the Pegasus-class mobile suit carrier. After Zeon remnants successfully executed Operation Stardust, the Federation's Space Force finally abandoned their obsolesce approach and focused on making ships that were capable of carrying mobile suits.

A handful of the EFSF ships were designed to withstand atmospheric re-entry and to operate on Earth via Minovsky Craft System; these ships were primarily from the Pegasus-class. Throughout the Universal Century, the Earth Federation had 30'000 warships at its disposal, except during the first Neo Zeon war. But after that, it rebuilt and once again had 30,000 warships at its disposal. When the Earth Federation hit the year U.C 0123, the EFSF had 35 fleets at its disposal.

Military rank of the EFSF
 * Petty Officer Third Class (PO3)
 * Petty Officer Second Class (PO2)
 * Petty Officer First Class (PO1)
 * Chief Petty Officer (CPO)
 * Master Chief Petty Officer (MCPO)
 * Warrant Officer (WO)
 * Ensign (ENS)
 * Lieutenant JG (LTJG)
 * Lieutenant (LT)
 * Lt. Commander (LCDR)
 * Commander (CDR)
 * Captain (CAPT)
 * Commodore (CDRE)
 * Rear Admiral (RDML)
 * Vice Admiral (VADM)
 * Admiral (ADM)

Trivia

 * In Gundam 00, there's Earth Sphere Federation, which is extremely similar to Universal Century's Earth Federation, most notably in Gundam 00 S2, whereas the Federation government was corrupted and their independent forces, A-Laws, misused their authorities, just like Earth Federation's corruption in Zeta Gundam and the misdoings of Titans, the oldest counterpart of A-Laws. But there's also difference between these two federations. Earth Federation was formed with the union of all countries on the Earth and as one unity while Earth Sphere Federation was formed by the former 3 superpowers (HRL, Union, and AEU), which didn't include the nations that didn't support any of these superpowers and the nations around Middle East. These unincluded nations weren't part of the Earth Sphere Federation and mostly used as the hideouts of Katharon (most notably Middle East, where the people opposed the federation strictly).
 * Its flag closely resembles the flag of Brazi