This investigation is brought to you by Audible! Below, you’ll find a link in the description where
you can get a 30 day Free Trial of Audible and a credit to spend on whatever premium title you’d
like. I’d recommend the Terms of Enlistment, the first book in the Frontlines Series
by Marko Kloos. Not only is it the focus of today’s investigation but it also happens to be,
in my opinion, one of the best military science fiction series ever written.
The Templin Institute had an opportunity to speak with Mr. Kloos, to talk about worldbuilding,
writing, and what it’s like to see your work adapted into a Netflix series. Again,
you’ll find the links in the description and a bit more information at the end of this video.
Scroll through the channels across any of the networks and it won’t be
long before you come across a classic science fiction film.
Common in these anachronistic stories from the pre-colonization era was the
idea that when the nations of Earth took to the stars, they would do so united in purpose,
driven by high ideals and dreams of discovery. Reality has proven to be far different.
When nations came together, it was not to form a single world government,
but instead, regional power blocs. Alliances that competed among one another for resources,
wealth and power. When the first ships travelled to distant stars, their efforts were rarely in
the pursuit of knowledge and understanding, but more often than not in the simple desire
to ensure that whatever valuable real estate was found, was kept out of the hands of their rivals.
It is perhaps fitting that the country which once chose to go to the moon,
vowing that space would never be governed by a hostile flag of conquest, no longer exists.
In its place arose a new nation, one that today stretches from the shores of Alaska,
to the jungles of Central America, and hundreds of planets beyond; The North American Commonwealth.
The modern Commonwealth is widely recognized as the successor nation to the former United States
of America. It retains much of its predecessor’s governmental structure, public laws, and
traditions, yet with amendments to all as a means of incorporating the former territories of Canada
and Mexico. Under international law however, the NAC operates in something of a legal grey area.
Its government has at times argued that it must be afforded all the benefits and rights granted
to its founding nations, while simultaneously asserting that it is an entirely new legal entity,
when faced with outstanding debts or obligations.
Yet despite lingering controversies related to its international legal personality
and questions surrounding the legitimacy of its founding, the Commonwealth has nevertheless
firmly upheld its status as an interstellar superpower. It is a highly developed country,
holds the largest share of wealth by any nation, and is a leading political,
cultural, and scientific force internationally. It is also at the forefront of military spending
and one of only a few nations capable of projecting power across interstellar space.
The North American Commonwealth is officially a federal republic,
regulated by a system of checks and balances as defined by the Commonwealth Constitution.
This constitution also establishes the structure and responsibilities of the federal government
and its relationship with its administrative districts and dependent territories.
Federal power is shared between three branches.
Legislative power is held within four separate bodies. The jurisdiction of three roughly
conforms to the pre-unification territories of Canada, the United States and Mexico.
They operate on an equal and decentralized basis, but are subordinate to the fourth, a Commonwealth
Assembly which nominally holds authority on matters pertaining to foreign affairs, the
military and other larger aspects of the state. Judicial power is held by the Supreme Court of
the North American Commonwealth, and many lower federal courts.
Executive power is vested in the President of the North American Commonwealth, who serves as
both the head of state, head of government, and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.
The Commonwealth’s capital city is Minot (Mine-Not), selected for its symbolic location
in the center of the North American continent. It has been redeveloped entirely to better
suit its new status, and while some federal institutions are based here,
the city is primarily a ceremonial hub. Many major federal offices remain located in Ottawa,
Washington, and Mexico City which retain a special significance within the Commonwealth.
Since its founding, political discourse in the Commonwealth has been dominated by income
and wealth inequality, overpopulation, rising poverty and government spending. Divisions
between economic classes have risen to levels unprecedented in modern history, and the Citizens
of the Commonwealth have been increasingly separated between two distinct groups.
Wealth, income and taxation has been progressively concentrated across the upper classes,
often derogatorily referred to as “burbers”. While representing less than 10% of the
nation’s population, it consistently holds more than 80% of the wealth.
Systematic overcrowding within major metroplexes and cities has resulted in a significant
migration of upper-class populations to more socially and economically homogeneous suburbs.
These communities are purposely isolated and remain some of the few areas within
North America not affected by dangerous levels of chemical or energy pollutants.
In contrast to the pristine enclaves exclusive to the upper class, the majority
of the Commonwealth’s three billion citizens live within severely overpopulated cities.
The largest of these have transitioned into enormous metroplexes, areas in which
two or more cities of equal importance have expanded to create a single continuous urban
or industrially developed area. Metroplexes dominate the NAC’s East Coast with other
major areas of urban sprawl across the Pacific Northwest, Valley of Mexico, and The Californias.
Every major city or metroplex features uncontrolled urban blight. These areas are home
to high levels of unemployment, elevated levels of pollution, unfettered crime and systemic narcotics
use among the population. Poverty is rampant within the cities but typically concentrated
within Public Residence Clusters, or PRCs. A fixture within every urban area,
PRCs are designed to provide government sponsored economic assistance. These are enormous complexes,
often self-contained cities in their own right, marked by towering residential arcologies.
The largest, 5th generation PRC towers can rise well above 300 meters and each provides residence
to tens of thousands of citizens, as well as an assortment of shops and services. In exchange for
certain civil liberties, citizens can be allotted housing within a PRC, and rations consisting of
roughly 14,000 calories each week as part of a basic nutritional allowance. BNA rations typically
consist of soy-based imitations of dining staples, but there remains the persistent rumor that
reconstituted fecal material from wastewater treatment plants is a primary ingredient.
PRCs are persistently underfunded and almost always overrun by gangs and criminals.
Guns and other deadly weapons are illegal within the clusters,
yet regularly smuggled in and available for purchase within pervasive black markets,
alongside other controlled substances and products. Commissary vouchers for BNA rations
constitute the main form of currency within the PRCs, and can be traded for almost anything,
but most often guns, alcohol, drugs, fake IDs, or vouchers for food stores outside a PRC.
In practice, the PRCs have come to resemble enormous prison complexes.
Most police services have abandoned trying to prevent violence and crime within a cluster,
and now instead focus on simply confining it to within a PRC’s
borders. The actions of police within a PRC are routinely excessive and brutal,
but usually confined to the areas surrounding public infrastructure or government buildings.
To remain housed within a PRC, residents must consent to random home searches, drug testing, and
agree to have their DNA on file. Additionally, all BNA rations are laced with contraceptive agents
and all pregnancies require approval from the state. Such restrictive measures,
combined with reductions in calorie allowances or other grievances, can sometimes escalate into
large-scale riots. These are consistently chaotic events, in which valid protestors, criminals
and anarchists take to the streets. During such displays of public unrest, it becomes impossible
to differentiate these varied groups, and all are treated as equal enemies of public order.
In some cases, when local civilian police or security services are unable to
contain a PRC riot, military forces might be deployed, authorized to employ lethal force.
While the reputation of the armed forces within the PRCs is overwhelmingly negative,
the military is one of only a few ways that a welfare resident might achieve
any kind of social mobility. However, the number of available slots open to
potential recruits is so limited, that less than 10% of those who apply are accepted.
Military recruiters for the Armed Forces of the North American Commonwealth
instead actively work to discourage enlistment by emphasizing the drawbacks of service.
Of even the small fraction of recruits accepted as applicants, less than half will graduate
from Basic Training. Very little effort is made to shape recruits into soldiers and
overcome individual weaknesses. Recruits are not mistreated or physically abused, and they are free
to disobey orders, but in doing so, they will be immediately removed from the training program.
Failing any examination or skill test, striking a superior, or merely displaying a bad attitude,
all carry the same penalty of expulsion. Recruits can be removed from Basic Training for almost
any reason, including ones that might appear entirely capricious.
The extreme nature of the selection process ensures that no expense is wasted on individuals
who are unfit to serve. Benefits afforded to service members include unmodified,
unprocessed food, a salary with regular bonuses, and the chance to travel off-world
to an extrasolar colony. Such luxuries are on par with the lifestyles of the upper class,
and unsustainable without a stringent recruitment policy.
Graduates of basic training will be assigned to one of the NAC’s military branches and undergo
more specialized training. The three primary branches consist of the NAC Navy, NAC Marine
Corps, and the NAC Territorial Army, alongside numerous independent or component services.
The role of the NAC Navy stems from the Commonwealth’s position as a spacefaring,
colonising nation. The ability to project power across vast distances of space and if necessary,
forcefully enter hostile areas of space, is a major component of national strategy.
To achieve this, the NAC Navy operates many hundreds of interstellar warships, ranging in
size from orbital patrol vessels, to space control cruisers, to assault carriers. The latter type of
warship in particular, are a necessary component in any major planetary assault, typically forming
the core of NAC fleets, task forces or strike groups. These formations are routinely deployed
across NAC colonies, or serve as security detachments for high-value extrasolar bases.
The NAC Marine Corps provides the ground based component for extrasolar warfare.
While historically used to refer to soldiers who fought from ships at sea,
in the modern era it has become synonymous with an elite force of soldiers, always able to fight
regardless of the nation’s overall readiness. The Marine Corps are intended to be forward deployed
across the NAC’s many colonies, and if necessary, operate far from friendly soil on hostile worlds.
The Territorial Army by contrast, is confined to duties on Earth. They defend
the national interests of the NAC against world powers without the means to expand into space,
and are occasionally deployed to maintain civil order in rioting PRCs.
In addition to the myriad of regional headquarters, and military bases operated by
the Commonwealth Armed Forces on Earth, the nation also maintains a network of other installations
across the Solar System and its extrasolar colonies. In orbit of Earth are Gateway Station
and Independence station, the major military and civilian starbases respectively.
Luna and Mars provide large fleet anchorages and training stations, while smaller anchorages,
depots and relay stations can be found across the remainder of the system.
Large military bases on the colonies are comparatively rare,
but typically coincide with the strategic value of the star system.
Across both the media, the public imagination and the barracks of Basic Training,
the Navy is widely seen as the NAC’s preeminent service branch, and a choice assignment. The
Marine Corps is also highly regarded, perceived to be the “tip of the spear” and made up of
only the elite. The Territorial Army, is by contrast, thought to be of lesser status,
with an especially sour reputation within the PRCs. Despite this public perception however, the
NAC Navy has not undertaken any major campaigns in recent memory, while the Marine Corps is typically
engaged only in light garrison duty or skirmishes limited to only a few companies on either side.
It is the Territorial Army alone that is deployed consistently to large scale conflicts
and its members have exponentially more combat experience than the two other branches combined.
Despite an ongoing ideological and political struggle with the Sino-Russian Alliance
and sporadic flare-ups with other nation states on Earth, the Svalbard accords have
largely succeeded in limiting the escalation of conflicts within the Solar System. They have also
served to prohibit the further use of nuclear warheads, and other weapons of mass destruction.
While skirmishes with the SRA and rival states remain consistent,
they are mainly low-intensity conflicts with comparatively few casualties.
The NAC’s primary aim in any interstellar conflict is to secure the most valuable, habitable worlds,
with the intention of developing them into interstellar colonies. Burdened with severe
overpopulation on Earth, and the constant need for resources, the NACs expansionist policies
are the forefront of national strategy. But of the roughly 100 worlds colonized
by the NAC, most remain largely barren and uninhibited, home to only a few thousand
settlers. The cost of interstellar development remains prohibitively expensive in most cases,
and the need to protect current territories far outweighs the desire to colonize more.
Despite their typically harsh natures, settlement upon NAC colonies is deeply coveted, and the
Commonwealth mainly relies upon a national lottery to determine who will be selected.
For most within the NAC, the dream of gaining a spot on a colony ship
and settling a distant world free of pollution and overpopulation will forever
remain out of reach. Even those select few who today raise the flag of the Commonwealth
on a distant world, are faced with a constant struggle to survive on largely desolate worlds,
and the possibility that their colony might be targeted by the Sino-Russian Alliance.
Whether in the depths of a PRC, or on the frontiers of interstellar space,
life within the North American Commonwealth can be brutal. It is a nation overwhelmed by poverty,
inequality, social unrest and the need to defend what little it has seized across the galaxy.
Yet while the Sino-Russian Alliance remains the greatest rival to the Commonwealth since
its founding, there is growing evidence of another, far greater threat to its existence.
Contact has been lost with the frontier world of Willoughby, and the limited reconnaissance
taken since then, has brought back only baffling images and details that can’t possibly be correct.
The planet’s atmosphere has changed, a rapid and severe transformation beyond even the
most advanced terraformers. Images have been obtained that purport to show a towering spire,
crafted from an unknown material resembling bone. And the few survivors from its surface
have brought with them tales of a new enemy, against which every weapon and tactic are useless.
Thanks again to audible for sponsoring this investigation into the North American
Commonwealth. If you’d like to follow the career of Andrew Grayson from his first day
of basic training to his time as hardened veteran in humanity’s first true interstellar war, Audible
has the entire Frontlines series available right now. Plus, the next book in the series, Orders of
Battle is out tomorrow, December 8th, 2020 in print and on kindle! The audiobook version is
out in February, which gives you just enough time to catch up if like me, you like going the audio
route. Frontlines is in my mind the best military science fiction series since Starship Troopers
founded the genre and is well worth your purchase. I had the chance to talk with Marko Kloos,
author of the Frontlines series as well as get his invaluable input on this episode into the NAC, so
if you’d like to listen that or grab a copy of his books, you’ll find the links in the description.