Union
The Tyrant, the Watcher, the Guiding Hand
Union is the hegemonic power in control of the three pillars that prop up the human diaspora: the blink network (FTL travel), manna (universal galactic currency), and the omninet (the near-instant communication network that keeps the diaspora connected, trading, and communicating).
Without these three pillars, the human diaspora would be scattered across the populated arm of the galaxy — the Cygnus-Orion Arm — time and distance both too great a factor to keep Union intact. Humanity would fracture into tens of thousands of individual states, some claiming scant territory on backwater colony worlds, others able to maintain whole solar systems.
Structure
Union’s executive administrative body is the Central Committee. They’re advised by the Forecast/GALSIM, and delegate edicts to the Union Administrative Department. The Union Naval Department operates under the command and advisement of Forecast/GALSIM’s subcommittee, GALCOM, and is subordinate to the Central Committee. The Union Science Bureau operates at the direction of Forecast/GALSIM and, as a non-political, non-military body, are directly subordinate to F/GALSIM.
Union’s bureaucracy is vast. Its most notable departments are detailed below:
- Union Administrative Department (UAD)
- Union Naval Department (UND or UN)
- Union Science Bureau (USB)
- Union Central Committee (CentComm)
- Forecast/GALSIM
- Union Omninet Bureau (UOB)
- Union Economic Bureau (UEB)
- Department of Interstellar Transportation (DoIT)
- Union Colonial Administration Bureau (UCAB)
- Union Orbital and Non-Terrestrial Management Bureau (UO/NTMB)
- Union Department of Justice and Human Rights (UDoJ/HR)
Public Agenda
Union works towards a greater purpose, one unknown to the vast bulk of the human diaspora: they work to preserve human existence on a galactic scale, following the edicts of their most powerful minds to ensure humanity spreads across the stars, never to be threatened by an existential crisis.
Demography and Population
The galaxy is vast, and humanity contains multitudes. Organizing the galaxy into something resembling a state is a full-time task that requires a broad, complex bureaucracy: the Union Administrative Department (UAD).
The UAD has classified humanity into three major categories: Peoples of the Galactic Core (PGC), Diasporans — or humans who live in “real” time on non-Capital-tier terrestrial worlds, moons, and/or space stations — and Cosmopolitans, humans who spend the majority of their lives in the “subjective” time accrued by interstellar travel.
Territories
For simple top-down galactic orientation, Union has adopted a concentric ring system of territory classification centered on the Cradle system. Each ring bears the name of a mountain range found on Cradle, increasing in length the closer you get to the Cradle system. Blink stations are named after peaks in the mountain range their ring is named for.
- Cradle: ANDES Line — Aconcagua Station, Cerro Bonete Station, Galan Station, etc
- Ring 1: ROCKY MOUNTAIN Line — Elbert Station, Lincoln Station, Castle Station, etc
- Ring 2: KUNLUN Line — Kongur Tagh Station, Karakoram Station, Mayakovsky Station, etc
- Ring 3: URAL Line — Manaraga Station, Elbrus Station, Iremel Station, etc
- Ring 4: ATLAS Line — Toubkal Station, Ouanoukrim Station, M’Goun Station, etc
- Ring 5: HIMALAYA Line — Everest Station, Kanchenjunga Station, Annapurna Station, etc
- Ring 6: ALTAI Line — Belukha Station, Nairamdal Station, Kharkhiraa Station, etc
- Ring 7: CARPATHIAN Line — Gerlachovsky Station, L’adovy Station, Moldoveanu Station, etc
- Ring 8: SIERRA MADRE Line — Mohinora Station, Peak Station, Bridger Station, etc
- Ring 9: VINDHYA Line — Kalumar Station, Dhupgarh Station, Mahendragiri Station, etc
- Ring 10: CASCADE Line — Rainier Station, Adams Station, Hood Station, etc
- Ring 11: ANNAMITE Line — Phou Bia Station, Phu Xai Lai Leng Station, Ngoc Linh Station, etc.
Military
The Union Navy is the largest and most powerful fighting force in the populated galaxy— on paper. It is subordinate to the Central Committee, though takes strategic and logistic direction from GALCOM, a subcommittee of Forecast/GALSIM.
It is a sprawling, carefully administered organization that project’s Cradles power to all corners of the populated galaxy and beyond using a (relatively) small core of Union-flagged capital and supercapital ships, supported by vast numbers of standardized, integrated auxiliary ships pulled from Union’s subject states’s navies.
Union Auxiliaries make up the vast bulk of the Union Navy’s armed forces. In contrast to Union Regulars, who are drawn from Cradle and her satellite worlds, Union Auxiliaries hail from around
the galaxy.
Raised from the myriad armies, marshaled forces, levies, conscripted populations, and hosts, soldiers of all stripes pledge to serve in the Union Navy. Some states treat this service as an honor; others, a burden. Some states have colleges, trials, and competitions to determine who is fit to serve abroad; others send their worst, their least “useful”.
Union Navy Auxiliary units are integrated at the squad level, with their officers drawn from a pool of career Auxiliary troopers who have been through one full deployment or have had a senior officer recommend them for a promotion.
All cadets, regardless of status on their homeworld, training, or previous combat/policing experience, are processed through a Union Cadet Program, where they are reeducated, brought up to speed on Union if necessary, and re-trained over the course of a year (at least) to operate as a trooper in the Auxiliary.
Founding Date
The year 0 marks the founding of Unions and it's First Committee. In 2880, the Second Committee was formed amid the political struggles gripping Cradle during the First Distal War. Around 4600, the Third Committee formed after the Hercynian Crisis.
Type
Geopolitical, State
Capital
Alternative Names
Central Committee, Third Committee, The Hegemony
Demonym
Unionite
Government System
Oligarchy
Power Structure
Unitary state
Economic System
Post-scarcity economy
Currency
Union's Capital worlds and developed Diasporan worlds are generally post-scarcity and do not function as a market-based economy. However, not all of its client states have progressed to this point, in order to foster fair galactic trade and build a shared consciousness Union’s Central Committee developed a galaxy-wide standardized currency called Manna.
Legislative Body
The executive body of Union’s civil government is the Union Central Committee (CentComm), and makes its seat in Cradle. Cradle, and CentComm, are largely isolated from the events of the galaxy, though few—if any—other bodies have comparable access to information and data. Under advisement of Forecast/GALSIM, with information and accounts from curated omninet feeds, and with input from representatives of the diaspora, CentComm issues edicts to be distributed amongst its vast network of client states. The Central Committee is a vast administrative body on par with the UAD, USB, and UN, and is spread across campuses around Earth.
Judicial Body
Union's Department of Justice and Human Rights is the primary and final court system for all interstellar and intrastellar complaints, civil suits, and criminal suits. Responsible for maintaining the Union Charter on Human Rights, which regulates clonal affairs across the galaxy, provides input on transhuman policies, and ensures compliance with Union legal code. Also maintains the galactic register of Non-Human Persons and handles complaints, suits, and legal questions related to NHPs through their Sub-Department of Personal Affairs. The UDoJ/HR is the administrative body of Union’s surgical strike "Liberator" teams, the modern iteration of the early ThirdComm Interstellar Solidarity Brigades.
A relatively new department on the galactic scale, the DoJ/HR is the creation of the Third Committee, itself a response to the hardline anthrochauvinist Second Committee. Seeing a need for a direct intervention force without the baggage of the Second Committee’s anthrochauvinist ideology, the DoJ/HR was founded with a mandate to proactively seek out states and actors that break the Third Committee's founding edicts.
The DoJ/HR is not a long-term occupation and state-building force (akin to the now defunct Union Colonial Mission, a bureau of the Second Committee) but a rapid-strike intervention force with a two-part mission: first, to intervene and meet force with force, and second, to provide triage and recovery for affected populations.
With such a wide portfolio, the UN DoJ/HR is flooded with petitions, pleas, distress calls, and missives from states, non-state actors, and stateless groups. To wit, their caselog far outpaces their capacity to address incoming tickets.
Subsidiary Organizations
Controlled Territories
Neighboring Nations
Related Ethnicities
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments