The Compact name given to the polity controlled by the machine race known as the Ciphers. The extent of this empire is unknown; during the negotiations for the Treaty of Omega Serpentis, the Cipher representative provided the Compact with evidence of dozens of transformed machine world-based systems elsewhere in the galaxy, whose locations, if they exist, are unknown. To date, two such machine world systems, each time falsely believed to have been the Cipher capital or home system, have been destroyed by the Compact races, at the conclusion of the First Cipher War in 2314, and at the end of the Galactic War in 2485.
In addition to their machine worlds, the Ciphers control an unknown number of worlds bearing indigenous organic civilizations. Several of these were liberated during the Galactic War and now fall under Compact jurisdiction under the Articles of Protectorship. At least four more such worlds are known to exist, and given the estimated interstellar scope of Cipher influence, many more may remain undiscovered.
The Ciphers seem not to possess a government in the traditional sense, and depending on the nature of Cipher consciousness may not require one (see “Ciphers” above). There is also little pattern to the manner in which they rule over their subject species. Each of these biological civilizations is kept at a different level of social and technological development. Some, like Byas, were maintained at an Earth Bronze Age-equivalent level, while others like Sukat were permitted to retain an industrial civilization. In some cases, the Ciphers seem to have a relatively light hand, merely observing and intervening to prevent any developments they deem unacceptable, while in others the machines interfere almost constantly and at every level, experimenting with different forms of social and cultural order, conflict, and even biology.
Ciphers have performed similar experiments on captured populations of humans and other Compact races during their wars, often with horrifying results. Populations on Cipher-occupied worlds have been culled seemingly at random, while individuals and small groups have enduring everything from vivisection, to forced breeding, to psychological torment by means of virtual reality environments. In other cases, as at Rāma in 2313 and Zevka in 2375, entire worlds have been wiped out. The purpose of these experiments and seemingly random massacres has never been ascertained.
Similarly, the reason for Cipher vacillation between extreme belligerence and peaceful coexistence has yet to be determined. It is now believed that, given the resources of their empire, the Ciphers were fully capable of wiping humanity from existence during the First Cipher War (2312 – 2314), without much difficulty. Evidently, they chose not to, instead accepting a limited defeat at the hands of the human-virgonid alliance. Why remains a mystery, and has defied all preexisting human expectations regarding the behavior of a potential artificial civilization, largely based on the concept that a machine intelligence would be entirely rational. But if the machines saw humans as an existential threat, why would they not eliminate us? And if they did not, then what logical reason would they have to fight us at all, given that they precipitated the war?
The Compact may never be able to answer these questions, but many experts on the Ciphers now believe that all their conflicts with us have been one massive, interstellar experiment of some kind. Like the others, its purpose is unknown, and we are left to wonder: what happens when it is over? Will the Ciphers disappear and leave us to our own devices, or will we finally witness the full extent of their power—and if the latter, even with all the advances we have made over the last five centuries, will we have any hope of survival?
A human interstellar polity centered to anti-spinward of Earth, the Free Worlds Republic began as a group of fiercely independent and unauthorized wildcat colonies, first founded between 2225 and 2260 in an effort to escape the restrictive policies of the Earth-governed Terran Interstellar Union. Contact and conflict with the nearby Kyran clans prompted these colonies, led by the Frontier system, to form a military alliance against the hostile aliens. Shortly after the allied victory over the Kyrans at the Battle of Frontier in 2272, the alliance was formalized as the Coalition of Free Worlds (CFW), which would then evolve into the more unified Free Worlds Republic in 2320.
The Coalition was described by its first commander-in-chief, legendary Admiral Rance “Starbird” Wolfe, as “diverse worlds united by a single spirit,” and the same largely holds true today. The Republic is governed by an elected bicameral legislature and a popularly elected president, with an independent judiciary. Even in the era of the Compact, the FWR maintains a loose federal structure, with each of the member worlds or system-states retaining a wide latitude in domestic affairs. Similarly, each of the larger worlds, such as Freedom, Beacon, and Jayu, are split into multiple smaller provinces and states, each of which retains significant control over local affairs, and so on down in some cases to the municipal level.
Mandatory service is perhaps the most salient federal law enforced by the FWR. At the age of 21, all citizens must choose between two years of military or community/civil service. Most choose the latter, resulting in a lower degree of automation in the FWR compared to the other human polities. However, a significant portion (around 25% in peacetime) choose military service of some kind. Most often, these individuals choose to serve in their local Planetary Defense Forces, but service in the ICDF also counts towards the two year quota. Individuals who refuse either military or community service lose the right to vote in federal elections or run for federal office; only on some worlds, such as Freedom and Horizon, do they also lose this right at the local level.
Free Worlders tend to guard their liberty zealously, and are renowned for their bluntness, and their openness regarding political issues and debates, leading to a reputation for being argumentative. While in-utero elimination of various diseases and conditions is common in the FWR, most forms of post-birth gene editing are prohibited. Conversely, cybernetic augmentation is only loosely regulated at the federal level, resulting in a much higher degree of adoption throughout the FWR relative to the TIU or the UCC.
A loose federal system uniting all three major human powers with the Virgonid Greater Hive, the Interstellar Compact has its roots in the military alliance between the TIU, the VGH, and the CFW, secretly signed in June, 2313 in response to the growing Cipher threat. In 2340, the alliance was formalized and expanded to include the new UCC, as well as associate members the melakeen, the xirān, and the uthal.
Continuing conflict with both the Ciphers and the Kyrans led to closening ties and cooperation between the allied powers. In the contentious Monocerotis Summits, annual negotiations occurring at V616 Monocerotis between 2390 and 2400, the Articles of Compact were ultimately agreed upon, and the Interstellar Compact was formally inaugurated following the first interstellar elections in December 2401. The full members of the Compact are the Terran Interstellar Union, the Free Worlds Republic, the United Citizens’ Councils, and the Virgonid Greater Hive. The melakeen and the xirān maintain a status as associate members, essentially permanent military allies of the Compact with special trading and migration rights.
The Compact’s remit is almost entirely limited to military and foreign affairs, as well as trade and monetary policy. The Articles guarantee certain basic political rights, in order to ensure equal participation in the Compact electoral process, but otherwise domestic affairs are left entirely up to the member state governments. The Compact is governed by two primary branches: the Interstellar Parliament and the Interstellar Executive.
The Parliament is divided equally, with 25 seats going to each of the four full member states. The electoral process for these representatives is determined by the member states themselves: in the UCC and the TIU, they are chosen directly by the electorate; in the FWR they are elected by the planetary legislatures; while in the VGH, they are selected by random lot. Parliament is tasked with passing laws, setting taxes, and declaring war.
The Interstellar Executive is led by the Executor, who serves as the Compact head of state and commander in chief. As with Parliament, the method of the Executor’s election varies by member state. The TIU and UCC vote directly, while the FWR and the VGH send electors to a convention, the former chosen by election, the latter by random lot. The Executor conducts foreign policy, serves as commander in chief of the military, and breaks deadlocks in Parliament. He or she appoints an Executive Cabinet, with ministers of state, the economy, the navy, communications, and foreign affairs. These ministers must be approved by Parliament before they take up their duties.
By far the two biggest draws on the Compact budget are the Interstellar Compact Defense Forces (ICDF), in particularly the Interstellar Compact Navy, and the Interstellar Compact Reconstruction Authority (ICRA), which is tasked with administering the Protectorate Worlds liberated from the Ciphers at the end of the Galactic War.
The highest known level of Kyran social and political organization is referred to as the clan in Compact nomenclature, though this label is somewhat inappropriate in its traditional definition. Kyran clans may comprise millions or billions of individuals, and most members appear to have no kin relationship to one another. However, the ruling castes of each clan are closely kin-related, and it is from these ruling families or houses that the clans derive their names. Each known ruling house seems to be comprised exclusively of members of one or the other ruling species, either Pterochid or Stepharchid—Clan Harag is ruled by Pterochids, Clan Rhyllok by Stepharchids, for example. Cooperation between clans ruled by opposite species is extremely rare; constant warfare is more the norm.
Indeed, warfare has been nearly the only form of interaction between the Compact races and the Kyrans, since humans first encountered them in the mid-23rd century. The continued survival and relative technological sophistication of the Kyran species insist that warfare cannot possibly be their sole cultural and political occupation, however central it clearly is to their dominant cultures and belief systems. However, like a cosmic inverse of the reclusive ara’, they seem completely uninterested in peaceful coexistence with aliens, or even other Kyran clans, instead pursuing violent confrontation of varying degrees whenever possible. Only vague cultural and pseudo-religious explanations for this behavior have been offered by the Kyrans themselves, leaving the Compact races, particularly the Free Worlds Republic, to grapple constantly but blindly with the Kyran threat.
Much of the Kyrans’ most advanced technology seems to have been pilfered or otherwise derived from that of other species they have conquered or warred with over the centuries. Indeed, Stardrive was only acquired from humans after several border conflicts with the FWR; prior to that, and unique in known galactic history, the Kyrans pursued the conquest of neighboring stars and alien peoples solely through the use of sublight generation ships, displaying an extraordinary commitment to warfare and conquest.
Thanks to their inability to match the technological development of their Compact adversaries, the Kyrans remain a constant, but manageable, threat to galactic peace. Given their vast numbers and apparently inveterate aggression, many analysts fear that were all or most of the Kyran clans to unite under a single ruler, they would become an existential threat to the Compact. However, constant internecine warfare among the Kyrans suggests this possibility is remote.
Centered on Earth, the TIU is a massive, federal parliamentary democracy encompassing humanity’s original colony worlds, mostly settled during the 22nd century. The TIU has its roots in the Global Union State, declared in the aftermath of Earth’s Third World War in 2063. After the conclusion of the First Contact Crisis (2081) and the signing of the Treaty of Mars (2104) brought the GUS and the Virgonid Greater Hive into close cooperation, Earth’s government used the jointly developed Stardrive to launch several officially sanctioned colonization efforts to nearby habitable planets.
Initially, these colonies were de jure ruled directly from Earth, while being de facto independent due to the lack of effective interstellar communication. When the Terran Interstellar Union was established in 2204, creating a parliamentary system in which each colony would participate in an overarching interstellar legislature as well as their own, in practice little changed—except that planetary legislatures now had more of a vested interest in obeying Earth’s dictates.
In response to the exodus from Earth and the colonies of wildcat settlers that would eventually form the Coalition of Free Worlds, and the growth of independent corporate colonies in the 23rd century, the Earth government loosened its hold on the established colonies. By the advent of quantum entanglement communications in the late 24th century, this equilibrium was well established enough to resist new Earth government attempts to establish stronger controls.
Nonetheless, the TIU federal government remains stronger than that of the FWR, and the TIU tends to be more culturally homogeneous. The TIU is also more conservative in the field of transhumanism than either the FWR or the UCC, in part a relic of the backlash against both cybernetic and genetic augmentation following Earth’s Third World War. While still employing both technologies today, in both the military sphere and the civilian market, citizens of the TIU tend to be more similar in appearance and capability to the humans of old Earth in the 21st century than their counterparts in the other powers. Culturally, they are often seen as being polite and friendly, more eager to find common ground than to argue with or impose their views on others.
One of the main Compact member states, the UCC began life as the Organization of Interstellar Growth and Development, colloquially known as the Corporate Worlds (2300 – 2314). The OIGD itself was an amalgamation of the colonies founded by the Big Four private space corporations since 2208, which retained their independence from the TIU.
In the course of the Corporate Worlds War (2312 – 2314), a number of revolutionary groups rose up against the OIGD government, angered by years of increasingly totalitarian surveillance, rapacious economic policies, and the war itself, particularly the use of the Ciphers against the other human powers. The governing boards of the OIGD were overthrown, and a number of Citizens’ Councils set up in their place, which immediately made peace with the Alliance.
The Citizens’ Constitution of 2315 established a unique form of government in the new UCC, a two-house representative democracy with no specific leader, or head of state. The upper chamber is the Citizens’ High Council, a body of thirteen members elected directly by the populace across the UCC. The chairperson of the high chamber is chosen on a random, rotating basis every 4.6 months, to ensure that each member chairs once during a five year term.
The lower house is the Assembly, a larger body with hundreds of members, also elected every five years. Since there is no means of equally sharing the responsibility of leading the Assembly, the task is left to an AI speaker. Programmed to be completely impartial, the non-voting AI’s only task is prevent the Assembly from descending into bickering and chaos—which, occasionally, happens regardless. Should the Assembly deadlock, the issue is sent up to the High Council for a decision.
The local governments of worlds and municipalities within the UCC follow a similar pattern, with Citizens’ Councils serving as an upper chamber; however, there is a wide variance in the structure of the lower Assemblies. In some cases, the entire populace (in theory) serves as this body.
In contrast to the FWR, cybernetic augmentation is largely forbidden in the UCC, while genetic modification is widespread and almost completely unregulated. This results in the widest variance in the basic human form among United Citizens, many of which resemble depictions of humanoid aliens from 20th and early 21st century Earth fiction. That being said, the basic modifications which nearly all citizens receive from birth create a recognizable “typical” United Citizen, much as standard cybernetics do in the Republic. This basic suite of genetic enhancements means that despite having the widest variance in appearance and other surface characteristics, the UCC populace has the lowest variance in general ability.
The UCC government provides its citizens with an extremely generous universal basic income, and relies heavily on automation to fill most non-creative jobs. This is in part a dividend of the UCC’s constitutionally enshrined pacifism, engendering resentment in certain other corners of the Compact, particularly the FWR; it is charged that the UCC can only provide such a decadent life for its citizens because it relies on the military protection of the other Compact member states against threats such as the Ciphers and the Kyrans.
A urexiite colonial society located between the Inner Sword Arm and the Rexa Span. As the name suggests, their political organization is a democratic republic, one of the few genuine examples of such in the explored galaxy.
Far from major trade routes, on the inner fringe of the explored galaxy, the republic is largely isolated from the galactic economy and politics. It is the farthest permanent urexiite colony from their home system. They maintain limited trade and a non-aggression pact with Tolvaadus Hypercorporation, but have few other official relationships. It is renowned through the galaxy as one of the few places where indenture and its trade is wholly illegal.
Another human-style label applied to an essentially untranslatable virgonid term, the Greater Hive concept refers to the virgonid interstellar state, the body of the entire species, and to the longstanding alliance between virgonids and humanity. While outsiders instinctually try to distinguish between these three concepts, the virgonid themselves find no distinction necessary.
The political embodiment of the Greater Hive is the only pure direct democracy in the known galaxy. All decisions are reached by scaled consensus; a decision to declare war is voted on by the entire adult virgonid population, to found a new settlement by the population of the world in question, to levy a new tax by the population that will be affected, and so on. By the standards of other species, such mass consensus is astonishingly easy to reach. Genuine political disagreements are vanishingly rare. Even most ships and space installations are governed by consensus rather than having a human-style command structure; only military vessels have a designated captain, though he or she is also chosen by the consensus of the crew.
The original Greater Hive concept dates back to around 9000 BTSY. Like humans, virgonids spread across their homeworld from a single point of origin, before being fractured by environmental factors around the time they attained sapience, roughly two million years ago. The virgonids’ short generations mean they can evolve quickly; by the time the local hives that expanded from these colonies came back into contact over the succeeding millennia, they had changed so much biologically that they invariably regarded each other as existential threats.
The planet gradually descended into a state of near-constant total war, each hive trying to wipe out the others with which it was in contact, sparing none. Many hives were annihilated or absorbed, until a handful of super-hives dominated the habitable zone of their homeworld, a ring along the tidally locked planet’s terminator line. The war between these hives continued for centuries, until several of the hives began developing a theory of science.
These scientist-genealogies quickly determined that the planet’s resources were growing scarce; if unrestricted wartime breeding and devastation continued for a mere few decades more, they would be depleted, and the entire species would inevitably go extinct. The only solution was for the hives to unite, and restrict their birth rates until the planet’s environment had a chance to replenish itself.
Once this Hive Unification concept was disseminated, it was adopted with extraordinary rapidity; thousands of years of warfare were set aside in a matter of months. The disparate virgonid peoples joined together and interbred, keeping their numbers in check. In the space of a century, the planet’s environment indeed recovered, and the modern virgonid physiology still known to us today was established.
