The Republic of Near Earth Orbitals

The Republic of Near Earth Orbit was initially founded by Karl Rothschilde, who declared the colony located at the second Earth-Luna Lagrangian Point, named Side 3, independent from the Earth Federation in UC 0058. For the next several years, Karl Rothschilde and his followers dealt with issues surrounding their independence, chiefly the economic pressure applied to Side 3 by the Earth Federation, in their efforts to force Side 3 back into the Federation. During this time, Side 3 formed its first national guard unit. Unfortunately, for the Republic of NEO, Karl Rothschilde unexpectedly died in UC 0068, leaving Side 3 without a leader.

Flag of the Republic of NEO

The Principality of NEO
After Rothschilde’s death, his advisor, Xavion Chrysylophax, became the new leader and renamed the Republic the Principality of NEO, changing its flag as well. Xavion rapidly expanded the colony's national guard units into a full fledged army. Battle Mechs and other unique weapons made their first appearance. War was soon declared on the Earth Federation. Outside of the armed forces ranks, Xavion Chrysylophax is sometimes referred to as the "Sovereign of Near Earth Orbit".

The resulting conflict became against the Federation was known as the One Year War. The first week, known as the One-Week War (from January 3 UC 0079 to January 10 UC 0079) resulted in the deaths of 3 billion people (2.8 billion colonists, by indiscriminate use of NBC weapons, and an estimated 0.2 billion from nuclear winter, as a result of Operation British). Following the Battle of Loum on January 15 UC 0079, most residents of the Side 5 colony were also killed. The combined attacks during this period resulted in the death of nearly a third of the total human population around the Earth sphere.

Initial estimations put the death toll of the colony drop at 2.32 billion: 0.32 billion as a direct result of the drop itself, and an additional 2 billion due to the drop's after-effects (that is, many places in the vicinity of the drop zone losing contact with the rest of the world, and thus losing any aid in their survival). Post-war research, however, lowered the number to a total of 0.2 billion deaths directly related to the drop. As a consequence of the astounding losses, the Earth Federation and the Principality of NEO signed the Antarctic Treaty on January 31 UC 0079, banning the used of NBC weapons and colony drops.

The next day, immediately after the treaty was signed, NEO began the formation of its NEO Earth Attack Force. By the middle of UC 0079, the NEO forces had controlled over 70% of the Earth's surface.

Flag of the Principality of NEO

NEO Armed Forces
In UC 0079, the NEO army was composed of three branches:

NEO Space Attack Force
The equivalent of the Earth Federation Space Force, the Space Attack Force consisted of six battle fleets, modeled after the Earth Federation Navy, with space battleships and battle mech carriers used as their primary weapons.
The Commander of the Space Attack Force is Vice Admiral Gloriana Chrysylophax. The Space Attack Force's headquarters are based in the Fortress of Solomon.

NEO Mobile Assault Force
The Commander of the Mobile Assault Force was Rear Admiral Titania Chrysylophax.
Its headquarters were based at the lunar city of Granada. Consisting of the equivalent of about one battle fleet, Titania's forces include intelligence services, research projects, like the Flanagan Institute, resource and mining operations, and special forces teams, like the Black Tri-Stars, Chimaera Corp and the Midnight Fenrir Corp.

NEO Earth Attack Force
Commanded by Captain Valoria Chrysylophax, the Earth Attack Force was headquartered in California.
Because the Earth Attack Force was presumably the largest of the other three branches, the role of Valoria Chrysylophax was practically ceremonial, since the Earth Attack Force consisted of an army, navy, and air force and she was at the time only in her early twenties. Other senior officials who still reported to Valoria hold the reins in the army, navy and air force, respectively. Valoria's main duty was to serve as commandant of NEO-occupied North America.

NEO E.A.F Rank - Federation Army Equivalent
Gruppenführer - General
Oberführer - Brigadier
Standartenführer - Colonel
Sturmbannführer - Major
Sturmhauptführer - Captain
Sturmführer - Lieutenant
Haupttruppführer - Sergeant Major
Truppführer - Sergeant
Scharführer - Corporal
Mann - Private

NEO Space Attack Forces Officer Ranks
Largely based on the Navy, these are the ranks held by NEO's space force's soldiers and leaders during the one year war. They are given as follows:

Non-Comissioned

Corporal- Starting rank
Petty Officer 3rd class
Petty Officer 2nd Class
Petty Officer 1st Class
Chief Petty Officer
Senior Chief Petty Officer
Master Chief Petty Officer

Enlisted Officers

Ensign
Lieutenant Junior Grade
Lieutenant
Lieutenant Commander
Commander
Captain
Rear Admiral
Vice Admiral
Admiral - Highest rank inside the armed forces

Symbol of the Near Earth Orbitals

The Earth Sphere

Universal Century 3000 takes place in the Earth sphere, a region of space which encompasses Earth, the moon, and the orbiting space colonies. These colonies are grouped into seven colony clusters called Sides, which rotate around five areas of gravitational stability known as Lagrange points.

The map below shows the locations of the five Lagrange points and the routes that spacecraft use to travel to these areas from Earth orbit.

The Earth sphere circa U.C. 0079

Karl Rothschilde

Karl Rothschilde was a philosopher and politician. He developed Contolism, which was both about Ere-ism (that Earth is sacred and mankind must leave it and live in space) and Side-ism (all Sides are to be treated as sovereign states). This philosophy was welcomed by Side 3 (L2), which made him leader of the Side. After the Colony Republic announced its independence, the Federation responded with the Bardot Policy, which halted all resources to Side 3 (L2). Deikun responded by making the Colony Republican Guard into a full-fledged armed force. Rothschilde was believed to have been assassinated by his former advisor, Xavion Chrysylophax who seized control of the republic and renamed it with a Contolist flavor in order to help draw suspicion for the murder away from himself. Karl had two children, his son Victor Rothschilde and daughter Artesia Rothschilde

Xavion Chrysylophax

He is the absolute dictator of the Principality of NEO and came to power in UC 0068 after the suspicious death of Karl Rothschilde.

Xavion was Rothschilde's chief of staff and claimed that on his deathbed, Rothschilde, with his dying words, declared Xavion his successor. Given this much, general consensus tends to automatically connect Xavion Chrysylophax with the sudden death of Karl Rothschilde, but nothing concrete has ever been uncovered.

Xavion initiated a purge of Rothschilde loyalists and declared Side 3 colony the Principality of NEO and himself as Archduke. He initiated a war with the Earth Federation and set his children up in high ranking positions.

While initially fiercely promoting war with the Federation, Xavion is also consumed by the intrafamilial feuding between his ambitious children, most notably Victor and Titania.

Xavion leaves most of the day to day operations to Victor, his eldest. As a result, Victor is effectively becoming the self styled "fuhrer" of NEO, slowly leaving Xavion as little more than a figurehead.

Although Victor dismisses his father as a tired old man, Xavion does not hide his disgust for Victor's ruthlessness. Never having any respect for Victor's lofty ideals, Xavion once humiliated his son by stating that he would never be NEO's ideal of an ESPer but only a caricature of Adolf Hitler. And he anticipated that as with Hitler, Victor's own followers will eventually want to kill him.

Victor Chrysylophax

One of the heads of the Principality of NEO, Victor is the oldest son of Xavion Chrysylophax, the ruler of NEO and the instigator of the war with Earth. Victor was gifted with a high IQ (240) and ingenious oratory abilities. He and his sister Titania were constantly at odds with each other as both had similar political goals but different methods.

Although Victor is seeing successes in reducing his father's role to that of a figurehead ruler, he must still endure Xavion's criticisms and scorn. Xavion saes Victor as little more than an updated version of historical dictator Adolf Hitler (a role that Victor was all too happy to take to heart.)

Victor's own father compares him to Hitler, which may not be completely inaccurate. Like Hitler, Victor appeared to believe in a 'survival of the fittest' mentality and that the 'Superior Race' should rule over the inferior ones (the superior race being Colonists from Side 3 and the inferior the Earthlings). He also shared Hitler's gift for oratory and manipulation, taking the reins of power from his father behind the scenes the way Hitler did with the German president of his day.

Unluckily for Victor, he also has a number of Hitler's personality flaws, such as an over-reliance on miracle weapons to turn the tide against numerically superior foes. By this logic, the assorted super weapons such as the MA-08 Orbital Laser and Apsalus Project Heavy Mechs can be seen as analogies of the V1 and V2 rocket-bombs used by the Third Reich. Like Hitler, he also greatly overestimates the capability of his forces.

Titania Chrysylophax

Titania Chrysylophax is one of three daughters of Xavion Chrysylophax. Sources indicate that she is second-eldest after her brother Victor.

Titania was quick to adapt to the changing technology of the One Year War, and was equally proficient in gathering intelligence for use against the Federation. She was in charge of the Principality's Battle Mech Forces, and was responsible for their use against the Federation. In addition, she was responsible for the creation of numerous elite Battle Mech units, including Captain Vorstagg's 300th Independent Corps (AKA Vorstagg's ESPer Corps), the hand-picked Chimera Corps, and the Midnight Fenrir covert ops team.

She is seen ambiguously, with her motives often open to question. On the one hand, she is shown to be fiercely loyal to the people of NEO, and to the men under her command. Many of her actions, however, can also be interpreted as those of a charismatic, but utterly merciless manipulator of the highest order, preparing for a military coup.

Not much is known about Titania's youth, but she is known to have grown up on Side 3, where she first met Johnny Ridden.

During the Battle of Luom, she ordered her fleet to withdraw as soon as the main engagement was over, allowing her sister's fleets the "glory" of mopping-up the Federation's retreating troops while preserving the lives of the men under her own command. A veteran of the battle, Lt. Cdr Gerhart Schmeisser (who had been too seriously wounded in the fight to continue active combat piloting), approached her during the Antarctic Treaty cease-fire. He proposed the formation of a small Earth-bound covert-operations unit, to be named the Midnight Fenrir corps. She immediately approved.

Her activities during the first half of the One Year War are poorly documented. In the latter half of the One Year War she took Captain Vorstagg under her wing. With her support, he proceeded to form the 300th Independent Corps, gathering ESPers from the Flanagan Institute and prototype Heavy Battle Mechs from NEO-held territory .

There is some debate as to the nature of her relationship with ace pilot Johnny Ridden, however, they appear to share a courtly love. He refers to himself as her knight, and uses the symbol of a unicorn as a dedication to her.

Gloriana Chrysylophax

Gloriana Chrysylophax is the second oldest daughter of Xavion Chrysylophax and the Principality of NEO's Space Attack Force Commander. Her job during the war was to move fleets to and from various points in space to help the NEO secure victory during the One Year War, not unlike the American Fleet Admirals of World War II.

Tall, athletic and scarred, Gloriana casts a fearsome appearance at first glance but she is actually one of the more likable of the Chrysylophax clan. Gregarious and good natured, Gloriana is a good woman to her troops. She is also a devoted, loving wife and has a husband Wülf and baby daughter Mineva. Gloriana is closest to her younger sister Velouria and actually looks forward to the day when Velouria becomes an admiral in her own right.

Gloriana is revered by her troops in the Space Attack Force for personally leading them in battle. She and her bodyguard and close friend Shin Matsunaga were known to stage frontline "inspections" in her custom MS-06F Zaku II battle mech, which typically became impromptu raids on nearby Earth Federation forces.

Gloriana's command center is located in the heart of the asteroid Solomon.

Velouria Chrysylophax

The beautiful young Valoria is as ravishingly suave as her siblings are determined and ruthless and, unfortunately for her, as naïve as they are experienced and calculating. She is loved greatly by the NEO people and is clearly her father's favorite child, acting mainly as the commander of the North American NEO forces under the command of her sister Gloriana Chrysylophax, residing temporarily in California. Valoria is also carrying on a doomed romance with Krüezer Eschonbach, the son of the former mayor of New York City.