On February 17th, 2090 a flotilla of alien warships arrived in Earth’s orbit and for
the next seven years waged an apoc a liptic war against the forces of humanity.
When mankind finally emerged victorious, the planet had been decimated and in a desperate
bid to prevent the complete collapse of civilization, Earth was united under the governance of a
single authoritarian regime that would become known as the Greater Terran Union.
Today on Incoming, we investigate an alternate world of our design with a look at the Greater
Terran Union, or the GTU, from our miniseries, Stellaris Invicta.
We’ll go into how we came up with some of our ideas, why certain decisions were made
and even provide some resources for those of you looking to improve your skills in writing,
graphic design, and other elements of worldbuilding thanks to today’s sponsor Skillshare.
First, for those of you who haven’t followed our Stellaris Invicta series, the Greater
Terran Union was one of four nations developed by the Templin Institute which were then given
to our Patreon supporters to vote on which one would become the focus of an ongoing game
of Stellaris.
Every week we’ve been streaming our progress on our Twitch channel and then once a month
produce an episode detailing the events of the game.
Of the four nations we came up with, the others being the United Federation of Nations, the
Soviet Union and the Holy Solar Empire, the Greater Terran Union was by far the most authoritarian
and closely resembled the fascist societies of World War Two Germany, Italy and Japan.
When the GTU won our Patreon poll and we were given the opportunity to further develop its
background.
Our primary goal was to retain these fascist elements but give it a little more nuance
and complexity.
The Greater Terran Union may not be a place where you’d want to live but as with any
nation, it would never be evil just for the sake of being evil and there needed to understandable
reasons why its society developed the way it did.
This is where the idea of an alien invasion came from.
If you’ve seen some of our earlier episodes on worldbuilding you’d know that I don’t
find a single world government all that interesting or believable, and a global fascist dictatorship
seems even less likely.
For a government like the GTU to come into being, there needed to be an enormous change
to the political situation on Earth and a dire threat that could unite all of humanity
and maybe make it a little more willing to surrender some of its basic freedoms.
Knowing we’d eventually be fighting alien empires in Stellaris, the idea of a prior
alien invasion made a lot of sense and opened some cool narrative possibilities.
While the Greater Terran Union displays the usual tenets of a fascist government, ultra-nationalism,
the militarization and regimentation of society and the economy, the ultimate goal of the
GTU is to ensure that the existence of humanity is never again threatened.
To achieve this, every aspect of human civilization needs to be managed as efficiently as possible
without regard for personal liberty.
For the GTU, the ends always justify the means and every decision it makes stems from this
one idea.
But governments are still just made up of people and not everyone thinks identically.
In our earliest episodes covering the history of the GTU we went out of our way to mention
that even some of the highest members of the nation’s government were horrified at some
of the actions they were forced to take, adding what I hope is a bit of humanity and subtlety
to what would otherwise be an implacable regime.
The Greater Terran Union couldn’t just be a 1930s authoritarian dictatorship in space
though.
It needed to be modernized and then given some more futuristic elements so it wouldn’t
feel completely out of place in a Stellaris campaign.
Our answer was to introduce a tiered citizenship structure that forms the central pillar of
the GTU’s society.
Everyone in the GTU is assigned a citizenship tier that dictates everything from the type
of employment they’re allowed to seek, whether limitations exist on their freedom of movement,
all the way down to the amount of water allotted to their showers each month.
The system is fluid, with citizens gaining tiers or losing them depending on their performance,
criminal activity and other considerations.
This was directly inspired by the civilian/citizen dynamic in Starship Troopers, the hierarchical
structure of the Turians in Mass Effect, and the rating system portrayed in Black Mirror.
A lot of research was also done on China’s upcoming Social Credit System which utilizes
a lot of these same ideas.
The citizenship tier system has been a huge hit and it’s been amazing seeing that take
off in the comments of our videos and during the Twitch streams.
With efficiency the primary driving factor of the GTU, it naturally operates as a meritocracy.
The better your abilities, the higher your citizenship tier, the higher your citizenship
tier the further you can rise within the government.
Almost nothing else is considered.
For this reason, the GTU is actually very socially liberal.
Regardless of race, creed, gender or however a citizen might identify, whether its gay,
straight, transgender or whatever else, they are afforded the exact same rights and responsibilities.
While this might be morally the right thing to do, and I believe helps sets the GTU apart
from other authoritarian regimes, the rationale behind it is more utilitarian than utopian.
For the Greater Terran Union, people are essentially another resource and to deny someone the chance
to utilize their skills to further the goals of humanity because of their gender, race
or religion is inefficient.
I really like the idea that this almost tyrannical society is doing the right thing for maybe
the wrong reasons.
It also means that if and when the GTU starts accepting aliens as citizens, it will be forced
to confront its own values which is another interesting narrative possibility.
The government of the GTU is almost completely made up of military officers, first as a matter
of necessity following the invasion and then formalized a little later on.
All too often, military leaders are portrayed as power hungry war hawks and I wanted to
avoid this over simplification.
Also, given that the GTU’s leadership was a coalition formed between many different
states with different pre-war governments, economic systems and ideals, it seemed only
natural there might be bit of pressure to return to the status quo.
This was addressed by having the Greater Terran Union put forward a vote to voluntarily dissolve
itself, only to have the people overwhelmingly support its continued existence.
This vote was important as it defines a large part of the GTU’s national character.
It is not an illegal regime, but one formed by the consent of the governed.
When it came to the GTU’s executive office, I wanted to do something different than the
standard Dictator or Emperor.
I did a ton of research on various executive branches across the world and came across
the Federal Council used by modern-day Switzerland.
Not only was it really interesting and unique, I thought it perfectly fit the Greater Terran
Union.
Especially in its earliest days, the GTU would have been divided along former nationalist
lines.
Chinese citizens might not be overly eager to be led by an American, or vice versa for
example.
By adopting the model of the Federal Council, representatives from all across the Earth
form the highest level of government.
Of course, both Stellaris and narrative reasons kinda demanded there be a sole leader, so
we added the position of “High Marshal” which acts as a kind of “first among equals”.
The last major feature of the GTU intended to make it stand out are the Commissariats.
These are essentially provinces that govern various regions on Earth and eventually, sectors
of space.
The goal here was to make sure the GTU never felt like America in space or Germany in space
but instead reflected all of humanity.
Just because the world is united under a single government doesn’t mean that thousands of
years of culture and tradition is immediately replaced.
While at the time of this video we haven’t had the opportunity to explore this idea thoroughly
in any of our episodes yet, the Commissariats make it clear that historical, cultural and
national distinctions still remain in the GTU.
So that brings us to the flag of the Greater Terran Union.
If you’re a regular Incoming viewer you know I’m a sucker for a good flag so this
part of the process is always a highlight.
When it comes to fascist flags there's not really even a roughly defined style like communist
flags have for example, but I really wanted to base it around a single, basic geometric
shape.
To me that just seemed very authoritarian.
A triangle looks like the most warlike shape, don’t ask me why, so I messed around with
a bunch of variants before settling on one with a few segments cut out of it.
Now, it is of course important that an emblem be designed with symbolism in mind, but I
am not the strongest graphic designer so my intention was to come up with something that
looked cool first, and then figure out the symbolism later.
Even then, I cheated a bit and came up with a bit of background story where this symbol
was originally used as a resistance marker with no real meaning, that eventually took
on a life of its own and became a worldwide symbol of defiance.
That just seemed a bit more interesting to me than “the three points represent duty,
honor and glory” or whatever.
When it came to colors, I mostly just ripped off the Helghast which was another big inspiration
for the GTU as a whole.
Of course, the best part of worldbuilding is seeing how people react to what you’ve
come up with.
Many people were asking in our Discord server and on YouTube why the Greater Terran Union
would enact a old-child policy after the initial alien invasion.
Surely after losing so many people that’s the worst thing the GTU could do, right?
Well the intent was that even after the alien invasion had been defeated, the collapse of
civilization across much of the world meant that there weren’t enough resources for
even the current number of survivors.
Millions more were faced with famine so the one child policy was supposed to help stabilize
the current population until the situation improved.
It’s been incredibly rewarding seeing everyone have such fierce debates on what the GTU would
do in a given situation or whether their core values had been betrayed following a particularly
divisive choice.
Having an original creation discussed with the same amount of passion usually reserved
for properties like Star Wars or Warhammer 40,000 has been my favorite part of Stellaris
Invicta, and I’m looking forward to continuing the story of the GTU and perhaps other groups
in future seasons.
So you might have realized by now that worldbuilding can be kinda tough.
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graphic design, cartography, iconography and basically whatever else you want to cover
in your world.
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So that’s how the Greater Terran Union came together, and this time it’s not just my
opinion but absolute undeniable fact.
Although there is basically no difference.
Did I forget to mention something though?
Was there an aspect of the GTU you want to know more about?
Where can you get a Prikiki-Ti plushie toy?
Ask away in the comments below and we’ll do our best to get back to you.
So until next time, this has been Incoming.
The Templin Institute investigates alternate worlds and realities.
If you’ve enjoyed this video and would like to directly support us, vote in polls to determine
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