Stellar League
The Stellar League was a galactic state that unified humanity in the latter days of the Age of Unity, from the end of the Third Great Human Civil War to the end of the Jred Scourge. Its downfall marked the end of the Age of Unity, and the start of the Long Night. It was one of the most controversial organizations of its time, and remains a controversial organization to this day, with some seeing it as a beacon of peace, prosperity, and progress, where others saw an oppressive colonialist regime threatening the peace and independence of the Frontier.
Government
The Stellar League was nominally a federal technocracy, though in practice only the core sectors of the League were considered full members of the league, which practiced interstellar colonialism in practice. The central governing apparatus was the the League Council a small body of technocratic elites that held executive powers, as well as being the de facto legislature. A League Senate, with members representing most worlds, or clusters of worlds did exist but held very little functional power for most of the Stellar League’s existence, delegating most of the factual powers of state to the executive. A League High Judiciary did exist. Initially it was largely a rubber stamp for the policies of the Council, but it did become more independent towards the latter years of the League, and did hinder some of the more autocratic policies suggested by the Council during the Jred Scourge. In practice however, routine governance of the League was overseen by the Sector governors who were appointed by the Council to serve its interests. In core sectors of the League they were often held in much higher esteem than at the fringes where they largely served in a manner similar to colonial viceroys of the ancient past.Culture
To say that the League had a singular culture would be incorrect, as a body encompassing, at least in theory, the entirety of humanity, it also encompassed all of the myriad human cultures and subcultures that existed in the galaxy at the time. The League did try to impose a consumeristic monoculture, in a mirroring of the globailization process on Earth before the stellar era, and fostered the development of larger cultural producers to create this culture. The practical realities of interstellar travel, particularly at the fringes meant that, in practice however, such an effort was doomed to failure. Many distinctive cultures survived this process, and most indeed survived past the League itself.
History
The Stellar League was the result of growing ideological tensions within its predecessor, the Transolar Federation, caught between a growing hardline Frentierist faction, frontier seperatists, and a small but slowing progressing galactic Stelsoc movement the latter Transolar government became increasingly unstable. With the death of Nyota Akende by assassination, the Union would be wracked by an eight decade long civil war, known to most as the Third Great Human Civil War. During this conflict, the Frentiersts found themselves in a favorable position, and continually undemrined and destroyed their opposition slowly throughout the conflict before emerging as the victor of the Civil War.
With all the other factions weakened, forced underground, or destroyed by the time of the New Sverdlovsk treaty, the Frentierists took control of the galaxy and began to reshape the galaxy in their image. First however, was the matter of the frontier territories. The hodgepodge of regions, system clusters, and leagues that had been the result of early colonization efforts led to a high degree of regional affliation, which strengthened seperatist movements. In the early 36th century, the League reorganized all of the territories under their control into new sectors, determined by easily quanitifiable astrographic boundaries, each with their own loyal governor appointed. These sectors had an informal hierarchy. Sol and its closest neighbors became known as "core space" and were given greater lattitude to choose their own local governments, allowed to develop along more independent economic lines, and maintained stronger security forces. The outer sectors however, were ruled more stringently from the top, and became contemporary colonies of Sol and its surroundings, with a higher degree of economic specialization expected from most worlds there, and weaker militaries, both in an effort to undermine the independence of fringe territories. By the time of the end of reconstruction and the signing of the Io Accords, this process had been completed and the newly founded League's control cemented.
After the reconstruction period, the Stellar League entered a period of rapid economic development and colonial expansion. With the rapid maturation of human developed jumpgate technology, the refinement of terraforming technologies, and the explosive population growth of humanity in the era following reconstruction, the Third Expansion was by far the largest period of interstellar colonization in human history. As many billions of loyal citizens settled further into the frontier, especially towards the Rimward reaches, the resource and industrial base expanded, and humanity entered a new era of technological progress, and in the core at least, material prosperity that had not been seen in centuries. The "League Miracle" as it was called ensured that even as the period of rapid colonization came to a close, there wasn't a period of trouble, malaise, or unrest, as the general good functioning of society kept the era of prosperity in place.
All was not perfect however, as minor rebellions occured throughout even the Pax Astra. Though these rebellions would be put down with ruthless efficiency every time, they would keep cropping up. The Great Yuanjing rebellion however, would be the most potent. This rebellion, though relatively localized occured in an area of relatively civilized space, and cost more resources than was expected to finally put down. When it had finally been put down, the League began a slow process of remilitarization, and began to crack down further on the independence of league member worlds. However, even after this warning, the League remained relatively complacent to minor threats something which would become a problem in the latter half of the League's ruling of the galaxy.
In the latter half of the League's existence however, evidence of a new, external threat began to arise. Rimward colonists found themselves coming into contact with red, chitinous creatures that seemed to act with a collective intelligence, and with hostility towards humanity. The first minor incidents were usually brushed off, though as time went on contact with these organisms, called the Jred collectively, became more common, and more concerning in its nature. The complete destruction of a scientific outpost on Umbria, and the growth of increasingly complex Jred forms, up to and including organic spacecraft interstellar psionic amplifiers called bioantennae, eventually escalated these incidents into a galactic conflict, one that would define the Stellar League, and its collapse.
The Jred Scourge as it became known was a century long war between the Stellar League the Jred, one where humanity consistently struggled to combat the Jred. Throughout most of the war, attempts were made to slow the Jred down, some of which were successful, some of which were abysmal failures. However, as the war continued, League planners realized that conventional victory would be an impossibility. They instead searched for a bioweapon to end the threat. The League sacrificed billions of lives in the latter decades of the war to buy time for the League's finest scientists to develop a solution. Time ran out however, when the Jred reached Earth. In an event known as the Scourging of Earth, the overwhelming majority of the Earth's population, and much of the vaunted Sol Sector Fleet was destroyed. Without any further time, the bioweapon that had been developed was deployed at the next decisive battle in the Junction System. It proved a success, but The Great Cataclysm on an unprepared galaxy.
Disbandment
The Great Cataclysm spelled the ultimate doom for the Stellar League. With its jump gate Network ravaged, Jumpspace itself a much more hostile place than it was before, communication with much of the galaxy severed, and its military a tattered shell of its former self, the League could no longer maintain the vast Empire it had claimed. Surviving government officials, military officers, and assorted technocrats met on Mars to discuss the future of the League. It was decided there, that the overwhelming majority of the galaxy would be cut off, or left in the hands of the few governors who could be contacted as "autonomous" governates (that would in practice be loyal, but independent warlords), and the League would be abolished. Its replacement the Union of Sol would be established in the aftermath of these conferences, and would take its place as the nominal head of what was left of galactic civilization.
Demography and Population
Exact population records are hard to obtain. Much of the League bureaucratic apparatus was located on Earth, and much of the records on Earth were destroyed when it was invaded by the Jred. It is widely accepted that the League, at its height commanded a population in the hundreds of billions, possibly the trillions, encompassing, in law all of humanity, and in practice the overwhelming majority of it. As a result the population of the Stellar League represented the most diverse collection of humanity to have ever existed under a single polity with members of every major ethnicity, and religion known in the galaxy at the time, being represented among its citizen body.
Territories
The Stellar League's territories stretched much further that any state before or after it. Though the most recent records, were largely lost with the Scourging of Earth, it is widely believed that the League incorporated as many as 100 sectors of space under its belt, or approximately 8,000 cubic parsecs, possibly even more. Included were tens of thousands of terrestrial planets, a similar number of gas giants, and countless billions of smaller astroraphic bodies, though smaller asteroids weren't fully tallied even at the best of times. Though many of these territories were indeed sparesely settled frontier sectors, it is an accepted reality that the Jumpgate network extended much further than the current network, and many sectors of what are now considered frontier space were, at least during the League's height at least semi-integrated into the League's core territories.
Military
The Stellar League maintained an extensive military split along three lines. The first and by far most common military force at the League's disposal were the numerous planet and system defense forces. These forces, under the command of system governors were an entirely defensive force, intended to maintain local security and see off pirates. Though most were lightly armed, many systems took pride in equipping their units with the best equipment that they could produce, or afford to import. Above them in the hiearchy were the Colonial Sector Forces, a semi-mobile unit intended to see off minor interstellar threats and put down the smaller rebellions that routinely occurred in frontier space. This force was intentionally limited in the hardware it could naturally procure through the Standard Build Template system, though most sector governors whould could, would second system defense ships, and purchase whatever else they could on the private sector, in order to augment their units with more advanced hardware. The third and most prestigious force of the League were the Sol Sector Forces who were intended to be the decisive element in any major conflict, and were therefore given the best personnel and equipment that could readily be procured within the League.
Technological Level
The Stellar Leage had an overall mixed technology level. Though the League was much more advanced on average, than even modern civilized space, there was a definitive division of development between the core and the frontier. Though some of this was a result of the different levels of economic development, it was also a deliberate political choice by the Stellar League to limit the flow of advanced technology to the frontiers as a means of keeping them under control. However, for every member of the League, barring a handful of deliberately anti-tech worlds settled by technophobic elements, could expect at least a Low Stellar level of technologlical advancement.
Religion
The Stellar League was a secular state, and allowed the free practice of religion, and freedom from religion in theory. In practice however, there were efforts to discourage the spread of religious influences within state policy, and promotion of the market as the main driver of civilization. These efforts varied in backing and drive, and were largely unsuccessful in significantly changing the religious demography of the League. Throughout the League one could find practicioners of every major religion, and virtually every minor religion (barring a handful of extreme small faiths on unsanctioned colonies in the frontier), that as practiced at the time. Though Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism remained the dominant faith of those who did practice religion throughout the Age of Unity, overall trends since the latter days of the Pre-Stellar period saw religious practice in slow and steady decline, a trend that wouldn't be reversed until the Scourge.
Laws
The Stellar League was a strictly Frentierist state, and promoted the marketization of virtually every aspect of its economy. They were highly permissive of what products could be soled and owned, and during its peak were relatively lax on social controls as well. However, protection of property, especially Intellectual Property was rigorously enforced. During reconstruction and the Jred Scourge, the League was more autocratic. Seeking to impose its will, either as part of the political and economic shock therapy of reconstruction, or as a desperate wartime measure during the Scourge. At times, its critics outright declared the League to be a dictatorship, and it could be argued that the lack of democratic institutions at the League's end led to the direct result of its chief successor being itself largely autocratic.
Agriculture & Industry
The Stellar League managed the largest economy in galactic history, with the primary and secondary sectors being no exception. The League maintained a highly complex system of manufacturing goods, though it relied increasingly upons standardized components along the lines of the Standard Build Templates, particularly in the frontiers. Typically the production chains relied on raw materials from the further frontier moving into the middle regions which then produced manufactured goods, which were then circulated both to the outer frontier for economic development, and the core for consumption. The core would be a cultural exporter as well as handling the functions of state, but non-productivity was the norm. The League, given the lack of major outside political bodies, entirely self-sufficient with no external trade formally existing.
Education
The Stellar League's education system was highyl decentralized as a result of the realities of interstellar travel. Though the League would impose a standard ten year education program that would see sutdents educated in matters of maths, sciences, social sciences, and least two languages, in practice education was semiprivatized. Therefore there was a wide discrpancy on the educational standards between wealthier worlds and poorer worlds, especially those on the frontier. For the wealthy, the finest education could be procured with individualized learning and intensive programs to develop skills. Conversely in less developed parts of the galaxy, public education was underfunded or, functionally non-existent, meaning many had to rely on second hand materials, or indeed private charity schools for their education.
Infrastructure
The Stellar League's relative prosperity relied almost entirely upon the well functioning and extensive Jump gate network that faciliatated the higher speed logistics networks that allowed the high degree of economic specialization the majority of the League had. Jump gates are confirmed to have been used throughout modern Civilized Space, as well as many additional sectors. In addition, starports were often much better developed in the Age of Unity, compared to the era after the Cataclsym. This allowed the colonization and terraforming of much more hostile worlds, and its widely accepted that the majority of garden worlds in the frontier are a result of the League's efforts.
DISBANDED/DISSOLVED
Per Astra, Ad Prosperitas
3480 - 4105
Type
Geopolitical, Technocracy
Predecessor Organization
Successor Organization
Government System
Technocracy
Power Structure
Federation
Economic System
Market economy
Currency
League Ren
Legislative Body
The League Senate
Judicial Body
The League High Judiciary
Executive Body
The League Council
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