Ask Wasty; The formation of the NMU

 

Wasty: The NMU was originally comprised of several different native and colonizing nation's claims. The colonizing nations primarily included Great Kitten, Mane, and Prance, and much of the land colonized largely had to be negotiated for from the local native tribes. Of course, not every one of these trade deals was exactly 'fair', and upon review the less than fair ones we're renegotiated or completely undone within the last century. However, a bulk of many of these negotiations would result in the local natives and settlers combining forces and living on the land together. They traded goods, taught each other various skills, and a large amount of the interaction was peaceful. Within a century settling in the new world, a great many of those living there had stopped distinguishing natives from settler descendants. Of course, this was largely helped along due to the romantic intermingling from both sides. Sure, species still mattered, but most had come to see the NMU as a new nation in and of itself, and that those who lived there, settlers and natives alike, were its citizens. Naturally, that mindset, coupled with aggressive taxation that only worsened with each decade from the settlers home countries, as well as Zootopia's own independence acting as inspiration, would inevitably lead to a full-scale revolution, one of which neither Kitten, Mane, or Prance were truly prepared to handle with such a slow overseas response time.

This is where events sort of coincide with our own America, the thirteen colonies, the Revolutionary War, and some of our famous figures from American and British history come into play. However, in the world of my Zootopia, the Revolutionary war is of a much bigger scale and sees not just Kitten cut off from the NMU, but Mane and Prance as well. At the end of said war of independence. about half of the NMU as we know it, (The Eastern half) was united under one largely democratic banner. Over the next few centuries, as exploration moved west, more nations and tribes would be brought into the fold of the NMU. However, it is only within the last twenty years that Canidea and Mexicat joined, effectively establishing the modern North Mammalian Union as mammals like Dawn and Vern would know it.

The government of the NMU is largely based off of America's own government system, with elements taken from the EU due to it being a multi-nation country. There is still a constitution, bill of rights, etcetera...however each of the regions in the NMU can have different laws and behave slightly differently. I've already briefly discussed the system in place in terms of senators, regional presidents, and then the president themselves in order to give some idea on how this system works in a previous ask, but the point is there is a big emphasis on the people of each region and each state feeling like they truly have a voice in their home country.