Avastus Directorate

The Avastus Directorate is a technocratic direct democracy, which controls a single star system, Avastus, and a Venus-like world with a breathable atmosphere at certain altitudes, called Cyretha. Avastus has an advanced economy, and is one of the main producers of complex electronics and medical technologies in human space. While it enjoys trade with the largest states in the region, Avastus has been embargoed by several neighbouring states due to its alleged unscrupulous research practices. Avastian society is split between the majority resident population, who enjoy decent living conditions but no political representation, and the minority citizen population, who generally live in luxury and vote on all important political matters. The citizenry have largely embraced cybernetics and proto-transhumanism, with most replacing parts of their bodies with prosthetics, and some going so far as to transplant their brains into robotic bodies. Most of Avastus’ population is irreligious, partly due to policies repressing organised religion and public expressions of faith. A notable exception to this trend is a small Mormon splinter group, obsessed with discovering the soul code and creating a new race of sapient machines. The Avastus Directorate formerly controlled a second star system, Aeneas, but the logistics of maintaining an interstellar direct democracy proved insurmountable. Aeneas declared independence from Avastus in 2563, and quickly joined the Outer Systems Alliance.

Political System

The Avastus Directorate is nominally a direct demoracy, with all citizens able to electronically cast votes on major decisions and propose bills, while government bodies comprised of experts handle day-to-day governance and put forward most proposals to be voted on. However, many detractors have accused Avastus of functionally being an oligarchy due to its strict requirements for citizenship. The primary requirement is the passing of an intelligence test, which only the top 1% of human beings are estimated to be capable of passing without genetic or cybernetic augmentation. As a result of Avastus' stringent regulations on citizenship, a large majority of the state's population are residents without political representation, many of whom migrated to Avastus due to its high life expectancy and standard of living, which greatly exceeds the Outer Systems average, even for residents. While there have been small movements among Avastus' citizenry to extend citizenship to a larger proportion of the population, all such proposals have thus far been defeated in landslide votes.

Directors

The day-to-day governance of the Avastus Directorate is handled by elected officials known as directors and sub-directors. Candidates for such positions are determined by a complex algorithm, which selects a number of qualified experts for any given position from among the citizenry, who are then each given the option of running for office. Avastus' entire citizenry is then able to vote on who will take the position, though the vast majority abstain from most such votes unless the directorate up for election is directly relevant to them. The most important standard directorate is the Director of the Defence Forces, who acts as the commander-in-chief of the Avastan Defence Forces and de-facto head of state. In times of crisis, a Presiding Director can be elected by a two-thirds majority vote of the citizenry. The Presiding Director takes the role of the executive, which otherwise does not exist in the Avastan government. The Presiding Director is granted emergency powers, and able to functionally act as a dictator for the duration of the crisis, or until a three-quarters majority of the citizenry votes to have them dismissed.

Laws and Petitions

New laws and amendments are proposed by petition, due to the lack of a formal legislature. If at least 3% of the citizenry backs a petition, it is presented to the entire citizenry to be voted upon. In order to pass a new law, or repeal or amend an existing one, at least 60% of the citizenry must vote in favour of the bill. Most citizens are implanted with cybernetics that allow them to quickly be updated regarding new proposals and cast their - ideally informed - vote within hours. The few who lack such implants must make use of government-owned voting stations to stay informed and cast their votes, leading to most abstaining from the political process almost entirely.

Subdivisions

At its founding, the Avastus Directorate retained the old administrative divisions established by the ULE, but newly-established habitats and stations utilise a different method of subdivision. During its planning, each habitat or inhabited station in the Avastus system is divided according to the expertise of the director in charge of the station's design. As Avastus has no naturally-habitable world, most administrative divisions established since the Directorate's foundation are intrinsically tied to the layout of the habitat in which they exist. The exception to this is uninhabitable planetoids with significant populations on their surfaces, which are divided and re-divided by directors as needed.

Economy

Avastus has an advanced and diverse economy specialising in medicine, the manufacture of electronics, and information technology. In particular, Avastus has the most advanced cybernetics, genetic modification, and artificial intelligence industries in all of human space. Zeta Tucanae is by far Avastus' largest trading partner, with Orizont and Earth being the next largest. Avastus' integration into the regional economy is hampered due to trade embargoes from several nearby states, including Nuragia, Columbia, and Koyuk. Nonetheless, Avastus enjoys the highest GDP per capita, average income, and average standard of living in the Outer Systems, though the benefits of this status is primarily enjoyed by the minority citizen population.

Proto-Transhumanism

Transhumanism has been an especially popular idea in Avastus since before the state's independence from Earth, and has resulted in both cybernetic augmentation and genetic manipulation becoming widespread. During the first half of the 26th Century, cybernetics were favoured over genetic manipulation, with many citizens replacing much of their bodies with artifical limbs and organs. Many went as far as to transplant their brains and nervous systems into otherwise entirely robotic bodies. When the long-term consequences of these actions - such as depression, insanity, and catastrophic mechanical failure - began to be observed, and it became apparent that uploading one's mind to a computer was far out of reach, most Avastan citizens turned instead to genetic manipulation. Genetic manipulation - and especially genetic manipulation in mature subjects - has always been heavily regulated in the United Leagues of Earth, a fact that may have caused the initial preference for cybernetics in Avastus. However, the ULE has never stated an intent to enforce such regulation on other states, and so Avastus began government mandated genetic manipulation of both citizens and residents in the 2570s, with the Beyond Humanity Act 2571. The Act aimed to regulate the previously entirely voluntary genetic manipulation industry, with the ultimate goal of creating a truly transhuman species adapted to both the environment of Cyretha and life in space. The transhuman program expanded further throughout the late 26th Century, with most augmentation being performed on citizens, furthering the gulf between citizen and resident even as the resident population was undergoing lesser augmentation. Avastus' genetic and cybernetic augmentation of its population is still considered by experts to be proto-transhumanism, rather than transhumanism, as few consider any Avastans to be truly post-human. Regardless, Avastus remains a popular destination for medical tourism in the Outer Systems, with many travelling from across Human Space to purchase cybernetic or genetic augmentations that would otherwise be illegal or highly restricted.

Human Primacy

Human primacy is the belief that morality is determined by what furthers the overall interests of a person's species. If an action aids in the survival and growth of humanity, then it is moral according to human primacy. Such beliefs have been common among Avastus' citizenry for many decades, and have largely guided the actions of the Directorate for its entire lifetime. Human primacy has long been invoked to justify the aggressive pursual of transhumanism, and more recently has informed Avastus' distrust of the Mperi, whom they believe must hold to a similar ideology, or they would not have been as successful a species as they apparently have been.

Founding Date

2515

Type

Geopolitical, Country

Capital

Cyretha

Demonym

Avastian, Avastan

Government System

Democracy, Direct

Power Structure

Unitary state