History of the United States of Mars

The history of the United States of Mars began Febuary 3 2045 when the British and Irish colonies of Bottes, Cropwell and Fosse gained independence and unified to become a single nation.

Colonisation

The first colony ship which set down in what would be the United States of Mars landed at 0632 (MST) on January 2 2041 in what would later be Williamsburg. Initially 312 British colony ships landed in the North of the Mare Sirenum continent and founded the colony of Fosse over a period of two weeks.

The British colony ships help up to 5000 colonists and were designed to be dismantled for the materials. After the first wave of colonisation, 113 colonies had been created in the British territory which had a population of approximately one and a half million.

Limited self rule was granted to Fosse in May 2042 with a Governor appointed and the created of a governing assembly. Rapid building work throughout the colony meant that within the space of two years, a decade's development was undertaken.

In June 2042, a second territory was colonised by Britain to the south of Fosse. The colony of Bottes was founded on June 17 2042 when the first of 162 colony ships to set down in the territory landed in Kantar. Bottes was afforded the same self rule as Fosse and a second wave of 322 colony ships arrived several months later. The largest wave arrived in 2043 with 400 ships which was later described in Arnold Butterfield's poem 'The 400'.

The Republic of Ireland founded the colony of Ireland in January 2044 in order to increase their nation's industrial output. At the same rate as residential properties were built, industry was created and tens of thousands of Irish workers were moved to the new colony.

Unification

An extremely early winter swept Mars starting in May of 2044 which almost wiped out the Cropwell colony which suffered temperatures as low as -34 degrees centigrade. Insufficient recourses in the three colonies and lack of co-ordination led to hundreds of deaths, confusion and a feeling of hatred towards the United Kingdom and Ireland which had done nothing to help.

Co-operation and sharing of recourses between the colonies helped to save many more lives and a council of representatives from each of the territories was created several weeks into the winter. As the winter became milder a consensus was arrived at amongst the representatives that the colonies would be better independant from their home nations and a summit was held in July at the Round Hall in Luvron, Fosse. A team of representatives from each colony was sent to discuss the idea of independence and unification. Pro-unification Lisa Howard of Fosse dominated the talks and was fundimental to the speed at which the union would take place.

The summit was followed by two more within a month and it was decided that a referendum would take place in each of colonies on the idea of independence and unification on September 9. Representatives from Bottes threatened to pull out of all talks due to the speed of the process however a meeting between Howard and the Bottes delegation made them realise that, as the largest of the colonies, they had the most to gain from a union.

The public voted profoundly in favour of independence and unification in the referendum and articles of independence were sent to the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland on September 10.

The first months

The provisions of the articles of independence were that if no objections were recieved and sustained by October 1 2044 the nation would achieve independence. A provisional government was formed on September 11 2044 with the council of representatives electing Lisa Howard as interim president. One of Howard's first acts was to form the constitutional committee with representatives from all three colonies which was tasked with creating a draft constitution.

The United Kingdom gave no objection to the articles of independence due to it's need to concentrate it's foreign policy on a military build up abroad however the Republic of Ireland believed it was losing a key industriall foothold by losing the colony. After discussions with Irish President Sioni Hearth and Lisa Howard, Ireland decided that it couldn't afford to sent a military force to Mars. With no further objections from either countries the United States of Mars was formed on October 1 with the three colonies becoming states.

Howard pledged to set elections after the new constitution had been accepted and dedicated most of her time to the progress of it and the intigration of the three states. A draft was completed in early November which was accepted by the provisional government and a final draft was presented by the end of that month. After further consultation and debate, the final version of the proposed constitution was published on December 15.

A national referendum held on January 3 2045 when citizens from each state voted for their state's decision in the ratification of the document. The first results to come in were from Cropwell which ratified the constitution with a 72% vote for it followed by Fosse with a 66% vote in favour. The final ratification came when 71% of Bottes's citizens voted in favour of it.

The provisional government signed the 2045 Constitution Act. (Prov) and Howard immediately called for presidential and legislative elections in February of that year. Howard went on to win the presidential election with her party, the New Martian Democratic Party winning power of both the Chamber of Representatives and the Chamber of the States.