Worldbuilding. It's like crack.

[gridlore]

Here's an outline for my SF game setting's government. Based heavily on the United Nations.

Essentially, the Terran Confederation government is a Parliamentary Democracy. Legislative power is vested in the General Assembly and Grand Senate. Executive and most Judicial powers are held by the Secretary-General and the Secretariat. Final Judicial authority is held by the Confederation High Court.


Legislative

The Confederations main political bodies are the General Assembly and the Grand Senate. The Assembly is based on population, one Assemblyman per 10 million citizens. 10 million is therefore the threshold for a colony to reach full membership in the Confederation. For each additional 10 million population, a new Assembly district is created and a new Assemblyman elected. The Assembly elects the Secretary-General from their ranks. Obviously, Sol and the older, established colonies dominate the Assembly. Like any parliamentary body, much of the work is done in various committees. There is no set schedule for elections, Assemblymen serve until an election is called in their home district. Many districts do have regularly scheduled elections, others allow members to serve until retirement or conditions demand an election. Bills are passed by simple majority. There are no parties in the traditional sense, but various factions form over issues and broker deals.

The Grand Senate represents governments. For most member worlds, this is a single world government. Earth is divided up into the traditional power blocks that existed at the time of unification. Along with the Cis-Lunar Republic and the Outworlds Coalition, Earth is divided into the North American Union, Eurozone, The East Asian Cooperation Sphere, Unión Soberana de la Gente Suramericana, and the Sub-Sahal Prosperity Zone (Africa south of the Sahara). Smaller nations that are not large enough for representation are treated as "guarded territories." Each recognized polity gets one Senator. The main power of the Senate is veto power over laws passed by the General Assembly. Senators also sit on the powerful Security Council.

Finally, there is the Colonial Moot. Meeting in St. Louis, this body has no legal powers, but is made up of voluntary representatives from smaller colonies and outposts that aren't large enough for a seat in the General Assembly. Widely derided as the "Kiddie Court", serious observers realize that any measure that affects the colonies should be vetted by the Moot before being offered on the floor of the Assembly. Many Moot Legates go on to distinguished careers in the GA and Senate once their home worlds gain full membership in the Confederation.


Executive & Judicial

The Head of State and Head of Government is the Secretary-General of the Terran Confederation. Elected by the members of the General Assembly from their ranks, the holder of this office holds broad powers is administering the affairs of state. The SecGen is assisted by the massed bureaucracy of the Secretariat. The Secretariat is the various government ministries and departments that manage day to day affairs. Each ministry has its own law-enforcement arm and associated court system. The major offices in the Secretariat include:

• Attorney-General


• Colonial Affairs


• Culture & Education


• Ecology, Health, & Environment


• External Affairs (the "Foreign Office")


• Internal Affairs (the "Home Office")


• Trade and Industrial Development


• Treasury

There are many others, and temporary offices can be created as needed either as a sub-branch of an existing office or as a new top level organization. Established organizations are led by Permanent Secretaries (Mr. Mdobe, the Permanent Secretary for the Treasury) while temporary leaders are referred to as "Standing Secretaries."

The Confederation does not maintain a standing military beyond the Peacekeepers. These forces consist of a fleet of corvettes carrying assault troops; suitable for suppressing revolts or rebellious colonial governments. Member worlds are encouraged to raise local defense forces but are not allowed to equip actual warships. Heavily-armed merchants for "piracy defense" are very common sights around prosperous worlds.

Law enforcement and intelligence is handled by the Confederation Marshals Service and the shadowy Special Intelligence Service. Marshals have the mandate to enforce the laws on colonies and outposts still under Confederation administration. Chronically under-manned and starved for funding, the figure of a Marshal and his team of four or five specialists arriving on a frontier world has become the stuff of legend. Marshals are forever accomplishing their missions with little or no support. One legend has a colonial administrator expressing shock that his call for aid had resulted in a single Marshal. The Marshal looked at the administrator, and calmly told the man that what did he expect? It's not that big a planet, after all. SIS has no such legends, only rumors. Along with traditional intelligence-gathering methods, it is whispered that SIS teams engage in domestic spying and black ops.

Security is managed by the Security Council. Consisting of 8 Senators (elected by their colleagues) and the Secretary-General, the Security Council controls the Peacekeepers, planetary forces called into Confederation service, and the SIS. Meetings of the Security Council are exempt from laws on open government. Critics accuse the Security Council of being an Imperial Court in the making.


Confederation High Court

While each office of the Secretariat has it's own system of courts, final appeal is vested in the Confederation High Court. The High Court's 13 members have the authority to review and rule on any lower court decision. While the Court does meet regularly at their chambers in Geneva, it's more common to have each of the High Justices out "riding the circuit" visiting different worlds to be briefed on legal issues and issue preliminary opinions on cases that might reach the High Court. High Justices can also convene ad-hoc courts to hear cases that require immediate attention. Judges are appointed for life by the Secretary-General, and confirmed by the Grand Senate.

So, what do y'all think?

Comments

[dalen-talas.livejournal.com]

Solid, if a bit idealized interstellar democracy, with lots of potential plot lines. This may be beyond the scope of your post, but it would be interesting to know about the history of the confederation, esp. about its governing principles.

What remains to be established is how efficient the confederate government is. With the LEF's (the Inqui^H^H^H^H^HMarshalls) understaffed and overstretched, it will fall onto the Navy (and the SIS, if you're feeling totalitarian) to maintain state integrity. If you play it the same way as Marshalls - small and overworked - I would assume that swift punitive actions are taken against worlds trying to build up their own Navies (possible scenario for an SIS game, btw). OTOH, a strong, omnipresent Navy may be the main force behind the centralized government.

The topic that ties with this is the confederate vs. polity government balance of powers: where the one ends, and where the other begins. Does the confederate gov't regulate just the inter-polity relations (e.g., trade, defense, inter-polity law enforcement)? How much does it influence polities' internal affairs (human/alien/mutant/telepath/etc. rights, environmental regulation), if at all? In what cases does the confederate gov't intervene in a polity's affairs, and what is the extent of such interventions?

Question three is fiscal policy: taxation, and dominant articles of the budget. How much trouble does the confederate gov't have with shaking the colonies down for space bucks? Does the Dept. of Treasury have its own, private version of SIS hidden deep in the ledgers?

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

One thing I'm pretty set on is no large standing military. The situation is analogous to the United States in the 1820s-30s. There simply aren't enough threats to justify the expense. Peacekeepers serve as the nucleus of a potential larger force drawn from member worlds.

Good eye, the real power is in the hands of the power blocks in Sol and the large, established colonies. They do jockey for power and prerogatives. The Confederation's real powerbase comes from the smaller member states and colonies. Together, they can face down the big players.

Member political units have a lot of latitude when it comes to internal affairs. There is some sort of universal declaration of rights, but a smart government can get around it easily enough. As always, a rich powerful government can usually get its way.

Do not mess with Confederation Revenue. They audit the SIS!

[10binary-cats.livejournal.com]

External Affairs (the "Foreign Office")

I can see this in two versions.

one) (where no high tech aliens have been contacted) being a backwater office, with a mix of ineffectual bureaucrats and those in departmental hell. ( "Got transfered to ExAffairs after that incident at the office Christmas party.....") AND being run on an ever decreasing budget.

Until the Aliens show up.

two) (with high tech aliens) the usual.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

There are a couple of external polities to deal with. 2-3 actual alien cultures, a off-shoot human culture based around genetic modification (and a rather fascist worldview) and New Israel, which maintains fanatical independence and backs it up with steel and very liberal banking laws. Plus any number of wildcat colonies. External Affairs might also get the exploration duties of the traditional scout service.

[10binary-cats.livejournal.com]

So there's still room for "Why am i doing the survey on LQ-45T-Z? Weeeelll, there was this Christmas party..."

do your genemod (fascist world view) people have a liking for snazzy uniforms?

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Snazzy uniforms and torch-lit parades. I'm really going transhuman on these guys. Loosely patterning them on Rome, with the Gene Lords actually owning the DNA of their vassals. Natural childbirth will be seen as quaint and unnecessary. The rich patrician families will be quite decadent and capable of excesses that would make Caligula blush. Their combat models will be.. fearsome. Individual rights and liberties? Don't make them laugh.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

I just realized that the world Jackson's Whole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson%27s_Whole) from the Vorkosigan Saga would also be a good reference point for the Gene Lords. Less planetary mafia and more sneering overlords, but the same complete lack of medical and moral ethics.

[10binary-cats.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh, so you're talking more D word than N word (no, not that N. the other N). Which leads to the question, if they're so good, why havn't they taken over already? You've mentioned your disliking of maintaining a (large) Federation Military.

I mean, if i was ExAffairs, I'd take each new Assemblyman and Senator and show them a Powerpoint presentation "History of Germany, 1900 to 1945"

Or is Something Else going on?

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

A couple of things. The Gene Lords have a much smaller population and industrial base. Internal conflicts and intrigues between the various Houses reduce effectiveness. And they mainly want to be left alone to be mad scientists with legions of genetically engineered slaves. They see the Confederation as a wasteland of undirected breeding leading to mobs of animals that are marginally useful, but would require mass culling before being integrated.

External Affairs and the SIS spend a lot of time watching the Gene Lords. Carefully.