New Ukraine

From Acw

Despite two hundred years of intensive farming and a mature industrial sector, New Ukraine retains the idyllic climate and fertile soil for which it was originally selected for colonisation. There is concern that the planet may be unable to maintain current atmospheric oxygen levels, due to the continuing success of the native oxygen consuming algae that inhabit its oceans (like earth, though, the native land-dwelling flora consumes carbon dioxide), but the New Ukraine High Committee assures its citizens that this problem is being addressed in their continuing terraforming efforts.

History

The naming of the planet, (originally simply called Lenin) was a political ploy by Josef Kolikoff to win the support of the Ukrainian Communist Party in his battles against the Division Now! movements of the 2140's which threatened to dissolve the Union.

Influence and repression

As Russian farmland was swallowed by the great post-crash re-industrialisation of the 2160's, New Ukraine emerged as an important source of agricultural produce, but the resulting power the massive agricultural communes wielded made them a source of significant concern for their political masters. After the election of the Union's first non-earthborn Chairman, Pietro Sukov of Mars, in 2175, was secured by the threat of a New Ukrainian general strike, their position would remain the chief point of political struggle in the union for the next 50 years. Eventually, though, the New Ukrainian's exceptionalist demands, and the growth of underground and aboveground hydroponics on Mars gave their opponents - an interesting mix of hard-liners and reformers - a chance to strike.

In his now infamous "New Kulaks" speech on the eve of the invasion in 2208, General Sergei Roslov urged all loyal Soviets living on New Ukraine to fight the communes with their teeth, their fingernails, and the bones of their children, because "The only Ukrainians we shall deem worthy of life are those we find already dead". The invasion commander, the progressive General Timoslav Kolikoff (grand-son of Josef), was not as good as his commander's word, however, and after taking control of the planet without great loss of life, simply reorganised the commune system hierarchically, placing central government bureaucrats in administrative positions, who were to be regularly rotated. The invasion and subsequent operation are known as the Second Kulak Suppression. He also set up a major planetary garrison, the ruins of which can be seen today near Kiev II.

Zion and Kolikoff

While the Soviet colonisation effort on New Ukraine was the largest, and ultimately the only successful one; there were a few others. A number of American private corporations tried and failed to establish a foothold on the less-fertile Northern continent, while a British expedition (Corinth) near the Great Isthmus set down in 2170, before being forced to withdraw 15 years later by unsanctioned Soviet communal guerilla activity.

The most lasting mark on New Ukraine, however, was left by the still-extant population of Zion. A private corporation set up by the American Neo-Zionist movement set down on the Northern continent in 2173, in the period when space-travel was becoming affordable for private organisations. Having failed to secure a Middle-Eastern homeland, the Zionists hoped to build a new Jewish homeland on New Ukraine, and, despite the barrenness of the Northern soil, were able to survive and prosper, relying on income from the rich bauxite and iron mines in the surrounding area to support their subsistence hydroponics operations. The choice of New Ukraine was also, in part, an effort to protect themselves from the hostile Fourth Reich, which was forbidden by treaty from sending military vessels into orbit around the planet, since the Battle of New Ukraine For 50 years, the colony of Zion struggled along, until, in the wake of the Second Kulak Suppression, General Kolikoff made the unilateral decision that the Zionists, benefiting from their protection, should be forced to pay for it and presented the Zionists with a demand to pay, with a month to reply.

Zion turned immediately to America, the nation from which it had come, for assistance. However, America was engaged in a trade negotiation with the Nazis, and assisting the Jews was perceived as being likely to offend them. In addition, the New Zion Corporation had failed to pay what the IRS considered its fair share of tax, and had previously refused to assist American military vessels or serve in the military themselves. America let them know that as far as it was concerned, they were a sovereign nation, and good luck to them. Kolikoff, not expecting this turn of events, now saw a chance to unify all of New Ukraine under Russian rule, and from his Kiev II base launched a full-scale invasion of Zion 14 days before his terms ran out - but before the colonists had a chance to appeal to the potentially sympathetic British.

Zion was well-armed, however, in preparation for the long-feared Nazi invasion, and the Two Week War (Named for the betrayed treaty, but which actually lasted more than three months before subsiding into 30 more years of intermittent guerilla warfare) was one of the bloodiest and most vicious ever seen, with names like the Battle of Judea Spaceport and Tel Golan remembered today as expressions of man's inhumanity to man.

Today, the region is known as the Black Pale (Black referring to the charcoal-like soil of the area, as well as the black of space, and the Pale referring to the area of the Ukraine traditionally inhabited by Russia's Jewish community), and is the scene of intermittent rebellions and terrorist attacks. It is a dumping ground for unpopular Soviet Bureaucrats, who speak of "being bled" (a pun on "Made Pale") to describe assignment to the area.