"In the name of peace and equality We join hands in brotherhood To defend these ideals from evil Will we stand and fight" -Excerpt from the anthem of the Atlantic Federation- |
The Atlantic Federation, often simply referred to as just the "Federation", is a loose alliance of democracies from the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of two main military powers in Europa, and a participant in both EWI and EWII.
Sometimes in colloquial usage, "Federation" may only refer to the Europan member nations/territories, thus excluding Vinland.
History[]
Popular uprisings spurred on by the late 18th Century Industrial Revolution gave birth to a number of new democratic republics. The nascent Empire, formed to the east, represented a common threat, motivating a mutual defense agreement among these infant republics.
Though an elected Head Councilor acts as the Federation's chief executive, unanimous agreements are rare among the constituent republics, meaning it often takes months to enact measures. Though a series of secret alliances and gains won by extortion and blackmail put the Federation ahead of the Empire in terms of national power, they have yet to defeat them on the field of war.
During Valkyria Chronicles[]
The Empire and Atlantic Federation were already at war when a large Imperial force under the command of the Imperial Crown Prince Maximilian invaded Gallia. For the most part, the Gallian front was of little concern to the Federation war effort, save for one specific event.
The Federation ambassador to Gallia at the time was Jean Townshend, and he tirelessly campaigned for Gallia to join the Federation and lend its famous militias and large supplies of Ragnite to their greater war effort. He was always rebuffed by the heiress to the Gallian throne, Cordelia Gi Randgriz, but had recently found an ally in her conniving and ambitious Prime Minister, Maurits von Borg.
From this information, unclear figures within the Federation hatched a plot to kidnap Princess Cordelia and in her absence make von Borg the de facto ruler of Gallia. The plot involved disguising a crack Federation unit as members of the Gallian Royal Guard to get close to Cordelia, and then quickly extracting her in a Gallian APC. Ambassador Townshend was charged with organizing the details of the plot, and attempted to recruit Claude Wallace and elements of the Federation's elite Squad E: Claude, a Gallian himself, clearly sensed something was not right about the offer and declined it, saying he would pretend their conversation never took place.
It is not clear where the unit that ultimately performed the mission were recruited from, but they were stopped by the swift intervention of the Gallian militia's Squad 7 under Welkin Gunther. Ambassador Townshend successfully concealed his part in the operation, and retained his position. Von Borg, meanwhile, was executed at the order of Crown Prince Maximilian for his traitorous nature, after the Prime Minister attempted to perform the exact same power play with the Empire that he previously attempted with the Federation.
During Valkyria Chronicles 4[]
In early 1935 the military might of the Empire had pushed the Federation back, and a bold plan was created to remedy this, a massive counter-offensive called Operation Northern Cross aimed at punching through Imperial lines with the final goal nothing less than the seizure of the Imperial capital, Schwartzgrad.
In its early stages, Northern Cross was a phenomenal success, with Imperial forces left in full rout by the sudden offensive and even their attempts to muster a defense of the mighty Siegval Line ending in defeat. However, in their mad charge for Schwartzgrad, the Federation's forces had severely overextended their supply lines, and soon found themselves in the middle of an early and bitterly cold winter, without proper winter equipment. As the Federation forces hesitated, the Empire launched a massive offensive headed up by the tanks of Ausbruch, destroying the main Federation supply center at Lindbergh Base and forcing Federation forces to give back almost all of the territory they had taken as they retreated.
All platoons from the 2nd Regiment of the Edinburgh 32nd Armored Ranger Corps were split off from the main force and ordered to instead retreat across the Achtzehn Mountains to meet up with a Federation force landing on the coast. This turned out not to be a conventional landing fleet, but three Snow Cruisers participating in a secret mission, Operation Cygnus. While this was originally supposed to be a support operation, with the failure of Northern Cross the Snow Cruisers crossing the Crystal Sea to assault the Imperial capital was the Federation's last hope of bringing a quick end to the war.
In actuality, the Snow Cruisers had a more sinister purpose: each vessel's reactor could be turned into a Valkyrian Bomb, and the detonation of even once such device would be powerful enough to level Schwartzgrad. With the loss of their top ranks, the highly centralized Imperial military would be left in disarray, allowing the Federation's forces to defeat them in detail.
Northern Cross turned into a colossal meat grinder as even the Imperial advance stalled, with Federation and Imperial forces dying in unprecedented numbers as the Snow Cruisers secretly proceeded on their deadly mission, stalked by a crack unit from the secretive Imperial experimental strike force, X-O. The Empire grew desperate as they discovered the purpose of the ships with the detonation of the bomb on the Cavalier, and with the Centurion still functional and the recent news of Prince Maximilian's death at the hands of the Gallians, the Empire focused all efforts on defending Schwartzgrad, all but ignoring the continued battles raging to the west.
Centurion successfully penetrated the defenses of Schwartzgrad, but the Valkyrian Bomb was not detonated following news of a stand-down order after the Empire signed an armistice agreement with the Federation. The final Snow Cruiser was ultimately lost after Heinrich Belgar attempted to detonate the bomb, and the role of the Snow Cruisers, as well as their deadly payload, was covered up in the aftermath of the war.
Post 1935 EC[]
The Federation, while officially supporting Archduchess Cordelia's leadership of Gallia, secretly supported the Gallian Revolutionary Army during the Gallian Civil War of 1937, having secured a promise from Gilbert Gassenarl that as leader of Gallia he would join the Federation. They supplied the Revolutionary forces with arms, Ragnite, and even the battleship Dandarius, but following his assassination by his son Baldren Gassenarl and the GRA's loss of the Gallian capital, Federation logistical support effectively ended. Ambassador Townshend, who had fully supported the GRA, was aboard the Dandarius when she was sunk by the Gallian Navy, though his fate is not known.
Known Member Nations[]
- The United Kingdom of Edinburgh
- The United States of Vinland
- Assen
- Valois
- Roeselare
- Wese
- Sneek
Trivia[]
- The Atlantic Federation is similar to the Western Allies of WW2, both in terms of geography, political ideology, troubles, what we know of their military doctrine, and their covert support of sometimes morally dubious "allies".
- Most of the names belonging to Federation cities on the 1935 map of Europa are from real life European cities, namely the Belgian cities of Liege, Arlon, Verijsel, Namur, Botrange, Wesel and Bergen, the French city of Sedan, and the Dutch cities of Deventer and Terneuzen.
- Some provinces in the Atlantic Federation are named after other Dutch cities, namely Assen and Sneek.
- In Valkyria Chronicles 4, an Imperial soldier can be heard retorting to Minerva Victor's accusation that the Empire's political regime oppresses its people by referring to the Federation's colonies, suggesting that like the Allies in World War II, at least some Federation member countries have colonies on other continents whose treatment of the natives is no different from the oppression imposed on its subjects by the Empire.
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Valkyria Chronicles 4
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