Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania and a number of other islands in the Southern, Indian, and Pacific Oceans.

The mainland of Australia has been inhabited for more than 42,000 years by Indigenous Australians. After sporadic visits by fishermen from the north and by European explorers and merchants starting in the seventeenth century, the eastern half of the mainland was claimed by the British in 1770 and officially settled through penal transportation as the colony of New South Wales on 26 January 1788. As the population grew and new areas were explored, another five largely self-governing Crown Colonies were successively established over the course of the 19th century.

On 1 January 1901, the six colonies became a Federation, and the Commonwealth of Australia was formed. Since federation, Australia has maintained a stable liberal democratic political system and remains a Commonwealth Realm. The capital city is Canberra, located in the Australian Capital Territory. The current national population is approximately 20.6 million people, and is concentrated mainly in the large coastal cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

Australia in Days of Infamy
Australia was completely unprepared when the Japanese entered the Second World War in 1941. They were defeated in Malaya, Singapore, The East Indies, and New Guinea. After the fall of Hawaii, Australia found supply from the United States extremely difficult, while the Japanese held complete air superiority over the northern half of the continent.

Australian towns were subjected to bombing raids, many of which were shown in the movies of Occupied Hawaii, or the Japanese run news papers.

By early-1943 however, the Japanese had lost their total air superiority while the Americans were now bombing the southern coast of New Guinea.

Australia in In the Presence of Mine Enemies
Australia was part of Japan's empire. Japan conquered Australia along with much of the Pacific Ocean during the Second World War.

Australia in Les Mortes d'Arthur
By the Twenty-second Century Australia along with New Zealand had joined together in a political alliance called the Anzac Federation.

Australia in "News From the Front"
During the early stages of World War II, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on anti-war demonstrators demanding, among other things, that the US withdraw it's troops from Australia.

Before Bataan fell, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on General Douglas MacArthur's flight from the Philippines to Australia, landing in Darwin, which had been bombed and evacuated.

When New York Times revealed that the UK had broken the German codes, it also revealed the presence of British code breakers in Australia as part the British Intelligence network.

After the loss of Midway, it was feared that Japanese submarines could cut the supply lines to Australia.

Australia in Noninterference
Australia had more than three thousand years of history as an English-speaking continent in the southern hemisphere of Earth, going through the stages of being a British colony, an independent state, an autonomous part of United Earth and finally - while retaining the later role - also a sub-unit of Earth as itself an autonomous Member World of the Federacy. Australia still was in the later status during the dramatic events of the Federacy Standard Year 2686, and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

Australians - being native speakers of English, which was largely identical with the Federacy official language Basic - had some advantage over non-English speakers from other parts of Earth or other worlds of the Federacy. Andrea Dubois, the anthropology student who courageously took the initiative to expose the gross abuse of power in the Survey Service and who paid for it with her life, was a native of Perth, Australia.

Australia in Southern Victory
Australia’s geographical position left her isolated from the rest of the world during the outbreak of the Great War. However, it became the British Pacific fleet's primary outpost after the United States Navy took the Sandwich Islands in the opening weeks.

During the 1930s as the world marched to war, it was feared that Australia, along with New Zealand could be used as a submersible base for the British Pacific fleet to attack American convoys between the mainland and the Sandwich Islands.

Towards the end of the Second Great War, Australia became alarmed by Japan's activities in the Pacific after Japan stopped fighting the United States and turned its attention to British territories in Asia.

Australia in The Two Georges
Australia was a kingdom within the British Empire ruled by the king-emperor (or queen-empress) as a constitutional monarch.

Australia in Worldwar
Australia was an isolated nation on Tosev 3. When the Race's Conquest Fleet arrived in the Tosev system, the Australians had been arrayed against Japan in World War II and turned their military resources to opposing the Lizards' conquest of the planet. The Race landed in Australia and quickly overran much of the island; however, despite the huge odds stacked against them, Australian forces managed to hold out in the south-east of the continent. Australia was able to launch disruptive hit-and-run raids on the Lizard lines. In response, Atvar ordered nuclear strikes on Australia's two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, permanently breaking the nation's back.

Following these attacks, Australia was heavily colonized by the Race, and became something of a Lizard's Paradise on Tosev 3. It had one of the few climates on Earth which the Race found agreeable, and that combined with its low human population (after its major cities were both destroyed) made it the most desirable area of the planet for the Race. Nonetheless, Atvar rejected the idea of establishing the seat of his government there in favor of the much more politically volatile Cairo.

Converesely, human Australians felt the Race's rule as far more heavy and oppressive than in most other Race-ruled human countries. In effect, they had been dispossessed of their country, much as they themselves dispossessed the Australian Aborigines a century earlier. Seeing no chance of ever throwing off the Race's yoke, and on the contrary seeing its colonization of Australia greatly intensified following the landing of the Colonization Fleet in the 1960s, many Australians chose to emigrate - especially to Canada, which had a history and culture similar to theirs but avoided occupation by the Race.

When it was learned that ginger caused the Race to become sexually active at any time of the year, the Soviet Union fired missiles containing ginger and detonated them above Australia. This caused widespread intoxication among the members of the Race there, including Atvar, as well as a sexual orgy. The Race was unable to identify which Tosevite power ordered this attack and did not attempt to inflict punishment, as they saw the incident as little more than a prank.

The Greater German Reich caused extensive damage to Race colonies in Australia with nuclear submarines during the Race-German War of 1965.