Sweden first became inhabitated after the worlds latest ice age, covering almost all of Scandinavia. Immigrants arrived from the European continent into a beautiful but not-so-fertile land. Therefore, most of the swedes at this time were hunters, not farmers.
Indeed, that slowed down the establisment of a Swedish society. However, as more and more of the people eventually switched to farming, villages grew up, trading commenced, and the first steps were taken towards an empire.
Eventually, as the villages grew, inhabitants living on the coastline became more and more interested in seafaring. They built boats and started seaborne trading. These peaceful merchants brought back tales of amazing things they had seen, and of course, this made some people dream. A well known event is the raid at Lindisfarne. It marks the start of the viking era.
However, most of the vikings remained peacful merchants. Still they are most known today as toadstool-eating berserkers arriving in their dragon ships and killing everything in sight. The vikings were not only warriors and raders, but also explorers. They reached Iceland, Greenland, and even North America in their open boats. The native americans did drive them away, but imagine how history had looked today if they hadn't.
However, as the people in Scandinavia settled down and communications improved, viking raids died out and a more peaceful era began.
After the vikings, christianty got a foothold in the country. Catholic priests and monks arrived in Sweden, monasteries were set up, and a society was formed. At this time, Sweden was not a country but three, Svealand, Östra Götaland, and Västra Götaland. Many people tried to unite the three, but failed. As time passed however, they actually became one country, which soon thereafter was united in a union with Denmark-Norway. Soon, fighting broke out and Sweden had to surrender to Denmark. The Danish king, Christian the Tyrant promised he wouldn't punish the defeated people.
But, "new" crimes were discovered when the king arrived in Stockholm. On the third day of his crowning party, he suddenly arrested around 100 of the mightiest men in Sweden. They were sentenced to death and executed on Stortorget in Stockholm. It's really hard to realize this today, but it was like the whole U.S. congress, senate, Supreme Court, president and vice-president and some more offcials were executed in public. This event is called the Stockholm Bloodbath, and it marks the end of the middle age in Sweden.
If King Christian believed his bloodbath would end Swedish resistance, then he was wrong. A young nobleman named Gustav Vasa, whose father had been executed in Stockholm, revolted and after long years of fighting, he overthew the Danish rule and became king. He was a hard king, but the most important one Sweden ever has had. He listened to the ideas of Martin Luther, and saw a great opportunity to make himself rich. Sweden was reformed into a protestantic country, and the king plundred catholic churches to pay his debts to german merchants.
After Gustav Vasa came his mad son, who destroyed the economy before getting imprisoned by his brother. After the brother (Johan III) came their third brother, Carl IX. His son would became the greatest regent Sweden ever have had, feared troughout Europe. I'm talking about Gustav II Adolf, "the lion from the North"
Hansen rose to power in the year 20XX. Immediatly, he reformed Sweden into a democratic republic. The industry was prospering, as well as the military.
But the country of New Sweden soon got into conflicts. The first major international crisis that New Sweden was involved in, was the Fort Maine-U.S.S.R. war. After a conflict of interest with their close neighbours, the Valhallians, Swedish troops seized control of Denmark and began to support Maine troops in Germany.
However, the terrorist organization "Order 347" bombed the city of Kalmar, and forced Sweden to withdraw from the war. However, Hansen covered it up, and the people never got to knew the truth.
Soon after the war, Hansen was critized for getting peace with Valhalla, and giving Denmark back. The critic came mostly from the Swedish Nationalist Party, a bunch of right wing nazis. Sadly, the people listened to them. In the elections of year 20XX, Hansen liberal party only got 30% of the votes. The nazis got 40%, not enough to rule on their own, but more than enough to control the country in reality.
But it wasn't enough for the nazis. With the aid of the disgruntled military, they seized control of the country. Karl Hansen managed to escape, but his plane crashed, killing his family and his friends. Hansen himself was saved by the Germans.
But the nazis weren't allowed to rule a country in this new world. Dominion of New India, New Praetoria, Groton, Fort Maine, IRSS and a few others formed the alliance "the Big Eight". While they prepared for the assault on nazi New Sweden, the nazis were planning for the future, with two operations named "Iron Storm" and "Morning Star", they seized the island of Novaja Zemlja.
When the Big Eight finally launched their offensive, operatin "IcePick", 500 fanatical nazis left Novaja Zemlja to form the next generation nazis, a terror group. Any information has yet to be found about this threat.
The Big Eight crushed New Sweden and their Drakka allies, just to start fighting themselves. Fighting each other, the Big Eight dissolved. Then, Karl Hansen returned from Germany, and took back the country he'd lost.
New Sweden experienced growth for some time, in a world where peace seemed an impossibility. However, tensions heated up and a depressed and weak president Hansen followed his generals advice, and declared war on Groton. The war is still going on...