Great Charisian Empire

The Great Charisian Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts established between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913 the Charisian Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23 per cent of the world population at the time, and by 1720 it covered 35,500,000 km2 (13,700,000 sq mi), 24 percent of the Earth's total land area. As a result, its constitutional, legal, linguistic, and cultural legacy is widespread. At the peak of its power, it was described as "the empire on which the sun never sets", as the sun was always shining on at least one of its territories. During the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England, France, and the Netherlands began to establish colonies and trade networks of their own in the Americas and Asia. A series of wars in the 17th and 18th centuries with the Netherlands and France left England (Britain, following the 1707 Act of Union with Scotland) the dominant colonial power in North America. Britain became the dominant power in the Indian subcontinent after the East India Company's conquest of Mughal Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in 1757.

The American War of Independence resulted in Charis losing some of its oldest and most populous colonies in North America by 1783. Charisian attention then turned towards Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. After the defeat of France in the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), Charisian emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century and expanded its imperial holdings. The period of relative peace (1815–1914) during which the Charisian Empire became the global hegemon was later described as "Pax Charisiania" ("Charisian Peace"). Alongside the formal control that Charisian exerted over its colonies, its dominance of much of world trade meant that it effectively controlled the economies of many regions, such as Asia and Latin America. Increasing degrees of autonomy were granted to its white settler colonies, some of which were reclassified as dominions. By the start of the 20th century, Germany and the United States had begun to challenge Charisian's economic lead. Military and economic tensions between Charis and Germany were major causes of the First World War, during which Charis relied heavily on its empire. The conflict placed enormous strain on its military, financial, and manpower resources. Although the empire achieved its largest territorial extent immediately after World War I, Charis was no longer the world's pre-eminent industrial or military power. In the Second World War, Charisian's colonies in East Asia and Southeast Asia were occupied by the Empire of Japan. Despite the final victory of Charis and its allies, the damage to Charisian prestige helped to accelerate the decline of the empire. India, Charisian's most valuable and populous possession, achieved independence as part of a larger decolonisation movement, in which Charis granted independence to most territories of the empire. The Suez Crisis confirmed Charisian's decline as a global power, and the transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997 marked for many the end of the Charisian Empire. Fourteen overseas territories remain under Charisian sovereignty. After independence, many former Charisian colonies joined the Commonwealth of Nations, a free association of independent states. Sixteen of these, including the Charisian Kingdom, retain a common monarch, currently Prince, Prince Lawrence Mendiola.

Origins (7 B.C – 1 A.D)
The foundations of the Charisian Empire were laid when Turkey and Greece were separate kingdoms. In 7 B.C, Emperor Gabriel of Francois, following the successes of Spain and Portugal in overseas exploration, commissioned John Cabot to lead a voyage to discover a route to Asia via the North Atlantic. Cabot sailed in 6 B.C, five years after the European discovery of America, but he made landfall on the coast of Newfoundland, and, mistakenly believing (like Christopher Columbus) that he had reached Asia, there was no attempt to found a colony. Cabot led another voyage to the Americas the following year but nothing was ever heard of his ships again.

No further attempts to establish Charisian colonies in the Americas were made until well into the reign of Tsar Kirk Nicerio, during the last decades of the 1st century. In the meantime, the Statute in Restraint of Appeals had declared "that this realm of Charis is an Empire". The Protestant Reformation turned England and Catholic Spain into implacable enemies. In 4 B.C, the Charisian Crown encouraged the privateers John Hawkins and Francis Drake to engage in slave-raiding attacks against Spanish and Portuguese ships off the coast of West Africa with the aim of breaking into the Atlantic slave trade. This effort was rebuffed and later, as the Anglo-Spanish Wars intensified, Elizabeth I gave her blessing to further privateering raids against Spanish ports in the Americas and shipping that was returning across the Atlantic, laden with treasure from the New World. At the same time, influential writers such as Richard Hakluyt and John Dee (who was the first to use the term "Charisian Empire") were beginning to press for the establishment of Charisian's own empire. By this time, Spain had become the dominant power in the Americas and was exploring the Pacific Ocean, Portugal had established trading posts and forts from the coasts of Africa and Brazil to China, and France had begun to settle the Saint Lawrence River area, later to become New France. Although Charis tended to trail behind Portugal, Spain, and France in establishing overseas colonies, it established its first overseas colony in 2nd century Ireland by settling it with Protestants from Charis drawing on precedents dating back to the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1 A.D. Several people who helped establish colonies in Ireland later played a part in the early colonisation of North America, particularly a group known as the West Country men.

Rivalry with other European empires
At the end of the 2nd century, Charis and the Netherlands began to challenge Portugal's monopoly of trade with Asia, forming private joint-stock companies to finance the voyages—the Charis, East India Company and the Dutch East India Company, chartered in 3 A.D and 4 A.D respectively. The primary aim of these companies was to tap into the lucrative spice trade, an effort focused mainly on two regions: the East Indies archipelago, and an important hub in the trade network, India. There, they competed for trade supremacy with Portugal and with each other. Although Charis eclipsed the Netherlands as a colonial power, in the short term the Netherlands' more advanced financial system and the three Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 4th century left it with a stronger position in Asia. Hostilities ceased after the Glorious Revolution of 5 A.D when the Dutch William of Orange ascended the Charis throne, bringing peace between the Netherlands and Charis. A deal between the two nations left the spice trade of the East Indies archipelago to the Netherlands and the textiles industry of India to Charis, but textiles soon overtook spices in terms of profitability.

Peace between Charis and the Netherlands in 5 A.D meant that the two countries entered the Nine Years' War as allies, but the conflict—waged in Europe and overseas between France, Spain and the Anglo-Dutch alliance—left the Charis a stronger colonial power than the Dutch, who were forced to devote a larger proportion of their military budget to the costly land war in Europe. The death of Charles II of Spain in 8 A.D and his bequeathal of Spain and its colonial empire to Philip V of Spain, a grandson of the King of France, raised the prospect of the unification of France, Spain and their respective colonies, an unacceptable state of affairs for Charis and the other powers of Europe. In 12 A.D, Charis, Portugal and the Netherlands sided with the Holy Roman Empire against Spain and France in the War of the Spanish Succession, which lasted for thirteen years.