Earth Federation

The Earth Federation is one of the main factions of the Universal Century timeline of the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise. It is a global government that stretches over the Earth Sphere, which comprises the planet Earth and its orbiting colonies, called "Sides".

While generally seen as the heroic faction of the franchise, over the course of the Universal Century timeline, the Earth Federation has been shown to be morally gray and even villainous at times. In Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, they become establish the corrupt and oppressive Titans military force to patrol the Sides following the end of the One Year War. However, after the Titans atrocities are exposed on live television to the masses by the Anti-Earth Union Group, the Earth Federation is forced to order their disbandment by public pressure, leading the Titans to split off from the Earth Federation and go rogue.

History
The Earth Federation was formed in the late 20th Century at a time when global famine and overpopulation were major issues. To rectify this, the Earth Federation began the Space Colonization Plan, which involved the construction of space colonies along the Earth-Lunar Langrangian Points. After the colonies were constructed, a large portion of the ordinary civilian population relocated to them while most of the elite and wealthy stayed on Earth, giving rise to a perceived cultural belief that those who lived on Earth, called "Earthnoids", were generally more well off and superior to those who lived in space colonies, called "Spacenoids". With nearly all nations on Earth having been assimilated into one government, a new calendar, called the "Universal Century", was established, beginning on U.C. 0001.

However, in the middle of the first Universal Century, a philosopher named Zeon Zum Deikun rose to prominence. Deikun preached that humanity population was always meant to live among the stars, and that the Earth should be sealed off as a nature preserve to maintain it as sacred while all of humanity migrated into space to become Spacenoids and evolve into Newtypes. Deikun eventually moved to Side 3, where his ideas found widespread popularity among its people. Deikun's political party soon won major elections in Side 3's regional government and Deikun was elected ruler of Side 3 in U.C. 0058. At his victory speech, Deikun announced that Side 3 would be seceding from the Earth Federation and becoming its own independent state, the Autonomous Republic of Zeon. The Earth Federation allowed Side 3 to peacefully withdraw from them, but despite this Deikun feared an invasion from the Earth Federation Forces to reclaim Side 3 and ordered a build up of arms for Zeon's national guard.

Deikun later died under mysterious circumstances and his Vice Chairman, Degwin Zabi, rose to power in Side 3, turning it into a dictatorship governed by the Zabi family and renaming it the "Principality of Zeon". His eldest son, Gihren, rose to Supreme Commander of the Zeon Armed Forces and began a propaganda campaign that depicted the Earth Federation as an oppressive government restricting the rights of Spacenoids.

Eventually, on January 3, 0079, the Principality of Zeon declared war on the Earth Federation and began attacks on the colonies still under Earth Federation rule. Despite claiming to be liberating the Spacenoids, under orders from Gihren Zabi, the Zeon military invaded Side 2 and exterminated its entire population with nerve gas. They then prepared to drop the colony on the Earth Federation's Jaburo central military base in South America. The Earth Federation Forces attempted to stop the colony drop and failed, but as it entered Earth's atmosphere, the empty colony veered off course and crashed into Sydney, Australia instead, destroying 16% of the continent.

Zeon attempted yet another colony drop on Jaburo in the Battle of Loum, which saw them gassing Side 5 and attempting to colony drop it. This time, the Federation Forces were able to stop the colony drop, though they were unable to save Side 5's population. Also during the battle, the commander-in-chief of the EFF, Johann Abraham Revil, was taken prisoner by the Zeon forces.

With nearly a third of Earth's population wiped out and their resources running low, the Earth Federation agreed to give in to Zeon's demands and met with them to discuss the terms of surrender. During the talks however, Revil escaped capture by Zeon with help from Zeon defectors and traveled back to Earth to interrupt the talks. In his famous "Zeon is exhausted" speech, Revil detailed the poor condition the Zeon homefront was in, leading the Federation to refuse to surrender to Zeon and to back out of the talks. Instead, the Antarctic Treaty was signed banning the use of biological and nuclear weapons in warfare.

Later on, the tide of the war was turned with the invention of the Mobile Suit RX-78-2 Gundam, which could compete with Zeon's formidable Zaku Mobile Suits. Eventually, the Principality of Zeon was decisively defeated at the Battle of A Baoa Qu, which saw a large of chunk of Zeon's leadership wiped out (mostly due to power struggles within the Zabi family). The Principality of Zeon surrendered soon after on January 1, 0080 and the conflict, which would become known as the "One Year War", came to a close.

Despite the Principality being defeated and dissolved, surviving Zeon Remnants continued to fight against Earth Federation Forces. In 0083, a group of Zeon Remnants led by Aiguille Delaz, a loyalist to Gihren Zabi, perpetrated Operation Stardust, which saw an empty colony cylinder being dropped on the Earth Federation food reserve in North America as revenge for Zeon's defeat in the One Year War. Despite the death of Aiguille early into the conflict, the colony drop was secretly allowed to succeed by Earth Federation Admiral Jamitov Hymem, who sought to use the threat of Zeon as justification to form his own elite task force of the EFF to patrol the colonies. With the fear and devastation brought about by the colony drop, Jamitov and his right-hand man Bask Om secured the backing he needed to form the Titans as an elite branch of the Earth Federation Forces.

Despite the Titans being purportedly formed to combat violent Zeon insurgents, the organization quickly became corrupt and dedicated to oppressing all Spacenoids in the colonies. In truth, the Titans were part of an agenda by Jamitov and his inner circle to gain control of the Earth Sphere by gradually supplanting the Earth Federation as the global government. Eventually, protests began to erupt against the tyranny of the Titans. When a protest in Side 2 turned chaotic, the Titans were called in to deal with it and put it down by exterminating the entire population of the colony with nerve gas. Though the genocide was covered up and downplayed by the Earth Federation, word of the Titans' brutality still spread and multiple resistance movements sprung up to fight against the Titans' oppression, the Karaba on Earth and the Anti-Earth Union Group in space.

Eventually, the Earth Federation could no longer cover up the war crimes committed by the Titans when the AEUG crashed the Earth Federation conference in Dakar to give a speech. The Titans attempted to silence the speech, but their violence and brutality was exposed on live television and broadcast across the entire Earth. Faced with mounting public pressure, the Earth Federation ordered for the Titans to be disbanded, causing the Titans to split off from the Earth Federation and go rogue. After Jamitov was murdered in a coup perpetrated by high-ranking Titans member Paptimus Scirocco, the Titans allied with Axis Zeon.

With the Titans wiped out and the AEUG's numbers dramatically reduced following the end of the Gryps War, the Zeon remnant Axis Zeon, later renamed to "Neo Zeon", emerged as the most powerful military force in the Earth Sphere. Soon after the Gryps War ended, Neo Zeon declared war on the Earth Federation and invaded Earth. With a devastating colony drop on Dublin, the Neo Zeon military under the command of Haman Karn was able to mount a successful ground invasion of Earth and the Earth Federation soon began seeking to negotiate peace with Haman. However, a civil war erupted within Neo Zeon between those loyal to Haman and a radical faction of supporters for Glemy Toto, who claimed to be a descendant of the Zabi family, paving way for the Earth Federation to mount a counterattack on Neo Zeon. Exploiting the split in Neo Zeon's ranks, the Earth Federation sent a task force comprised of both Earth Federation Forces and AEUG members to take the Axis asteroid base, putting an end to the First Neo Zeon War.

Some time after Haman Karn's Neo Zeon was defeated, a new Neo Zeon movement emerged led by Zeon ace and One Year War veteran Char Aznable. Char advocated a radical implementation of the Zeonic ideology by dropping the Axis asteroid base onto Earth to make it uninhabitable and force humanity to migrate into space. However, the attempted colony drop was foiled by the Earth Federation's Londo Bell task force formed to replace the Titans.

Following the end of the Neo Zeon Wars, the Earth Federation saw a period of peace and dramatically reduced its military forces. However, it was unaware of a buildup of arms by the Crossbone Vanguard, a paramilitary force established by the Ronah family seeking to annex the colonies and implement the principle of "Cosmic Aristocracy" onto them. The Crossbone Vanguard mounted a successful invasion of Side 4 and renamed it to "Cosmo Babylonia". However, the Crossbone Vanguard's uprising was put down by the Earth Federation Forces and Side 4 was taken back into the Earth Federation.

In the time period following the war against the Crossbone Vanguard, the Earth Federation was left weakened by an economic crisis that caused a serious downturn in the Earth Sphere. In the colonies, a new movement began to gain popularity, a pacifist cult formed by the powerful Newtype Maria Pure Armonia, who advocated female supremacy and the establishment of a matrilineal society to govern the Earth Sphere. At the Side 2 Amelia colony, the Gattle Party led by Maria gained widespread support from the populous. However, in contrast to the pacifistic ideals it was originally founded upon, the Gattle Party quickly became a radical and violent movement. In U.C. 0149, they staged an uprising against the regional government of Side 2 and executed its corrupt ministers via the guillotine. With Side 2 under their control, the newly formed Zanscare Empire declared war against the Earth Federation and invaded the other colonies as well as Earth.

Because the Earth Federation Forces had been crippled following the Neo Zeon Wars and war against the Crossbone Vanguard, the task of defending the Earth fell to the League Militaire, a civilian militia formed to oppose the Zanscare's invasion and supported by the remnants of Anaheim Electronics. Eventually, with the destruction of Zanscare's Angel Halo superweapon, the Zanscare Empire was defeated and disbanded.

By the start of the Regild Century, the Earth Federation had been done away with now that all of humanity had migrated to live in space colonies, finally fulfilling the dreams of the late Zeon Zum Deikun.