As the secretary to the Prime Minister of the Confederation comments:

“The Indian republic is 200 years old … and in that time I think we’ve occasionally drifted somewhat from the principles on which it was founded. Every now and then a country goes mad. It happened to the fascist and communist states of the twentieth century, the combines of the twenty first … and it happened to us in the twenty second. We were rich and powerful but we were peaceful. We founded the Confederation because economically and technologically we dominated Asia and we wanted to use that power for the good of all. And we did, for a while, until you and your kind came along with your talk of Greater India and your dreams of the bad old days. Conquest, war, glory.”

The Confederation grew out of the economic power house that was India in the mid-twenty first century. At the time of His Majesty’s Starship it rules what is now India, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Tibet and Burma.

Its history has been mixed: sometimes a power for great good, sometimes for great bad, sometimes both at once. By 2147 it has just emerged from a particularly dark age which was symbolised by the nuclear destruction of Rangoon: an act authorised by RV Krishnamurthy, Confederation delegate, who candidly explains:

“… it was part of Greater India and even though it was obvious we could no longer hold it, we could not possibly allow it to fall into enemy hands. What we cannot have … we do not let others have.”

Now, though many of the old mechanisms are still in place — including the dreaded NVN, a military elite similar to the Nazi SS — the Progressives are once again in charge of the Confederation (or Greater India, as Krishnamurthy prefers to call it) and the bad old days are by and large gone. Prime Minister Chandwani comments:

“Our border acquisitions were justified at the time as necessary for our security. Now that we are confident in our security, we no longer need the acquisitions. Thus, the administration shows its consistency and sense of purpose.”

Krishnamurthy has what he thinks is a foolproof plan for making sure the Confederation does win the bid. And for all their Progressiveness, the government can’t deny the potential benefits should it succeed …