POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SYSTEMS IN THE STARFIRE ERA

In the 800 years since the first extra-terrestrial colonies were founded, many of the basic concepts of politics and economics have changed radically. Historically distinct entities such as "government", "corporation", and "party" have blurred together and no longer apply to 29th century institutions.

The descriptions below are only broad outlines. Details of organization, including many internal checks and balances, are omitted.

SOL SYSTEM

In many ways the most conservative of human societies, Sol System still retains much of the distinction between public and private property and institutions common in the 20th and 21st centuries. The distinction between governments and corporations is explicitly clear in international law, though the two are allowed to overlap in certain cases, the most obvious of which is Lockheed Corporation which is recognized as both a government and a corporation. A strong tradition of private capitalism limits government regulation of the economy; tariffs are illegal under international agreements made centuries ago. The standard form of government is single-vote representational democracy.

THE REPUBLIC OF MARS

The oldest planetary government, Mars is a bicameral parliamentary democracy. Members of the 50-seat upper house, the Senate, are elected by region. Members of the 500-seat lower house, the People's Assembly, are elected by political parties on a proportional system. The President of the Senate, chosen by the senators, serves as Prime Minister and chooses a cabinet from among members of both houses to supervise the government bureaucracy. The Senate also appoints the judiciary and serves as the highest court.

The Martian government is a social welfare state and is responsible for many aspects of the public welfare, including health care, education, food distribution, public order, cultural promotion, and emergency services. A variety of sales, property, income and poll taxes finance the government.

THE JOVIAN LEAGUE

The individual nations of the Jovian League each have representational governments which tend to be similar to that of Mars, though many also incorporate aspects of Lunar political theory. The League Council consists of one member from each nation and has no enforcement powers.

THE UNITED FEDERAL STATES OF LUNA

Though Luna traces its roots back to the Lunar Revolution of 2176, the current government only goes back to the Lunar reunification of 2531. A presidential democracy, the federal president is elected by popular vote and oversees a small independent executive branch. A bicameral Congress is split between a Senate, with one member from each state in the union, and a 200-seat People's Assembly, with representation from each state based on population. The 7-man Federal Court is appointed by the president with the assent of the Senate.

Luna is divided into 66 independent states, each of which has the right to secede at any time. Each state has its own president, legislature, and judiciary, and the federal constitution grants most powers to the states, allowing the federal government to rule solely in matters of defense, foreign affairs, and inter-state commerce, transportation and communication. Each state even maintains its own military forces, which make up nearly half of Luna's defense forces. Many of the state governments are similarly divided into provinces or cities.

All levels of Lunar government are restricted almost entirely to providing police, defense and basic emergency functions, paid for by a single poll tax. Education, civil arbitration, product regulation and consumer protection, health care, issuance of currency, unemployment insurance, and public transportation are all handled by private corporations, and the government is specifically forbidden to "meddle" (the very word used in the constitution) in these private affairs.

Elected officials on Luna are notoriously underpaid. Graft and corruption are not uncommon, but most Cookies don't mind. The people's ability to recall any official with a simple petition signed by 10% of the registered voters tends to deter excess.

LOCKHEED CORPORATION

Lockheed maintains a unique dual role as both a corporation and a government. As a government, all inhabitants of the Belt and the trailing Trojans are citizens of Lockheed. Simultaneously, all inhabitants are also employees of Lockheed or one of its subsidiaries (which handle duties such as entertainment, medicine, and social/personnel services). Children are wards of the company, receiving education and job training based on their interests until age 18 when they become employed by Lockheed. At age 16 they are considered shareholders with the right to vote and hold office in the local Shareholders' Councils.

Lockheed's territory is divided into 785 provinces, each consisting of an asteroid or cluster of asteroids. Each province has a Shareholders' Council, in charge of local administration and justice, and a number of District Managers, in charge of production and business functions. District Managers are promoted to the positions through review boards and personnel exams and can only be removed by Lockheed Corporate. They must carry out the decisions of the local Shareholders' Council, unless overruled by Lockheed Corporate itself.

Lockheed Corporate, in addition to being the central corporate headquarters, includes the national government aspects of the system. The main governmental body is composed of 3 parts: the Executive Board, the Inspector General, and the Shareholders.

The Executive Board is composed of the Presidents of the divisions and departments of Lockheed and the Inspector General; they determine the direction of Lockheed's progress, administer the company, propose the budget, and serve as a court for all capital offenses.

The Inspector General is elected annually by the Shareholders and serves as a direct reporter of company activities to the Shareholders. Aside from the duties of being a voting member of the Executive Board, the IG is responsible for a monthly report to the Shareholders on all corporate affairs. The office of the IG is inviolate and completely independent of the authority of the Shareholders' Councils, District Managers, or the Executive Board. An individual may only serve once in his lifetime as Inspector General, though many members of the IG's staff are themselves former Inspector Generals.

The Shareholders as a whole vote annually to approve new Executive Board members, elect the IG, approve the budget, and decide matters of Corporate policy.

THE HABITATS

Over 62,000 sovereign nations exist among the habitats, most with populations of only a few thousand. (The smallest nations often have only a few dozen persons and are really just individual homes. Over 2000 nations tie for smallest population, each with one inhabitant.) Among them almost any type of government/economic system possible can be found. Some generalizations can be made, however, about the larger habitats. (The smaller ones are usually run as independent companies, clans, communes, or families.)

Habber governments usually mirror the Lunar model, though without the federal division into states. Many are true anarchies, with no government at all; a "Council of Dwellers", or a similar body run by consensus, makes any decisions necessary to run the habitat itself. Many habitats are private property, owned by individuals or corporations; inhabitants are renters, not citizens, and have only one right: the right to leave if they don't like the place. Others follow the Lockheed model, in which all inhabitants are shareholders in the ownership of the habitat.

SATURNIAN MOONS

Most of the Saturnian nations have governments similar to either Mars or Luna. The exception is the Tethys Empire, which is an aristocratic monarchy.

AURORAN SOCIAL SYSTEMS

The diversity of social systems among the 50 billion Aurorans is so enormous that only a general discussion of types can be attempted. The Aurorans continue to experiment with social systems that defy any attempt to categorize them as mere governments or economic systems. They distinguish between many types of entities such as nations, tribes, corporations, municipalities, unities, parties, interest groups, caucuses, states, territorial administrations, security organizations, clans, feudal treaty groupings, congresses, regulatory committees, soviets, resource allocation councils, judicial assemblies, and business enterprises. Each of these types of organizations governs a different part of society, and all co-exist in a complicated and constantly changing inter-locking web of powers and responsibilities. The very idea of "national sovereignty" is considered an antiquated concept. Any individual Auroran will usually participate in, be represented on, and/or be employed by a number of these bodies, depending on his place of residence, occupation, heritage, and personal choice.

Most (but not all) Auroran organizations are democratic in nature, but the Aurorans have taken "democracy" to its limits. The most common form is that known as "variable representation". In variable representation democracy, there is no one-man/one-vote equivalency. Instead each voter casts multiple or fractional votes, depending on individual occupation, age, wealth, residence, the specific issue under deliberation, or any number of other factors. For example, when electing the board of a municipal hospital certified doctors may receive as many as ten votes, while persons who have not passed a basic health care course may receive only a half or no vote. This practice extends to all forms of organizations, in which certain members may carry more voting power than others, all based on intricate voting matrices.

KUISTI

The government of Kuisti is known simply as The People of the One God. It is a federal tripartite government, with a system of checks and balances.

The legislative branch consists of the People's Congress, a body of 516 members chosen by equal population electoral regions; the citizen representatives are restricted to a single two-year term each decade. The Congress's chief function is economic regulation; 80% of all personal wages go to the government, which provides all basic services including food, housing, education, medical care, transportation, etc., buying goods and services from producers and redistributing them to the people.

The executive branch is headed by the Priest-King, the secular and religious leader of the people. The Priest-King also indirectly governs the church hierarchy, which is headed by the High Priest, traditionally a chief advisor of the Priest-King. A number of ministers and ad hoc advisors assist the Priest-King in governing the nation. The Priest-King's chief duty, however, is to provide leadership and set policy for the People of the One God. The Priest-King is elected by the people from among five candidates chosen by the clergy, and serves for life. By tradition, the Priest-King has always been a member or former member of the clergy.

The judicial branch is divided into two parts, the Tribunal and the Judges. The Tribunal courts, one of the largest agencies of the government, handle civil disputes and minor infractions based on a large set of regulatory precedent. The courts are small and quick, and can only impose fines or loss of services as a punishment. The Judges try only the very few cases involving the 16 Commandments of the One God, the only laws of the People. Those found guilty by the Judges are put to death.

In addition to the central government, each colony of Kuisti has its own government, the only one of significance being Kaliss. Each world has its own Congress and a Deputy-King, though the Congress of Kuisti handles overall policy. The Deputy-King of Kuisti itself has the additional duty of serving as interim Priest-King between the death of one Priest-King and the election of a new one. Below the world level, a number of semi-autonomous regional governments also operate. The entire governmental structure is designed to be very responsive to the people, and communities have great say in local governance.

THE TYRELL CORPORATION

The government of Tyrell is best described as a corporate autocracy. All aspects of government are centered in one body, known simply as the Board. There is no set number of seats on the Board, which has varied in size from 3 to 34. The Board itself chooses new members, invariably drawn from among the wealthiest and most powerful citizens of Tyrell.

While Tyrell is run as a single corporation, the corporate structure is divided into a large number of divisions, each with its own internal hierarchy. While the divisions still carry the names of their old functional duties (Transport, Personnel, Industrial Research, Off-World Mining, Entertainment, Housing, etc.), they have since diversified and consolidated until each stands very much as a semi-independent corporate-state, often in direct competition with one another. Inter-divisional competition can be quite violent, and often escalates to the point of small brush wars. The Board encourages such activities as they keep the divisions competitive; they only step in when the violence threatens to disrupt overall production.

All inhabitants of Tyrell are employees of the corporation, which provides all goods and services. Access to luxuries is based on rank within the company. There is some freedom available in the ability to switch between divisions (though this has not always been the case). The vast majority of the population consists of low-paid workers who do little more than watch and maintain the automated machinery which does most of the actual work. Higher positions are achieved by merit; though family ties and friends can assist advancement, only skill and guts can maintain a position in the cut-throat internal politics of Tyrell's managerial ranks.

CIMMER

The planet Cimmer has no centralized government, but is divided into fifteen regional "nations". True sovereignty, however, lies at the level of the clan, an extended tribal grouping usually containing many thousands of individuals, often reaching the size of a small city. Each clan holds its own territory and sends a representative to a national council, which is little more than a forum to discuss agreements or arbitrate disputes between clans.

The clans of Cimmer are nearly self-sufficient entities, though there is much trade between them. The chief duty of each clan is protection of its members, and all clan members are active participants in a heavily armed militia.

Internally, clans are ruled by three officers, usually chosen by consensus of the people, though elections are sometimes used. The clan chieftain is responsible for organizing defense, militia training, and emergency services. The clan judge investigates crimes, administers justice, and arbitrates disputes. The clan skald is responsible for representing the clan in the national council, maintaining external communications and news services, maintaining and updating clan records and libraries, and supervising education of children. Each officer usually has only a small staff paid with tax revenues, but may call upon any clan member's services when in need.

The economy is officially capitalist, with individuals owning and controlling the means of production and services, but clan needs exert a strong influence on business practices.

KALAHARI

The Corporate citizens of Kalahari are still governed by Acme Adventures, the company of their ancestors. Despite its corporate past, Acme Adventures in the modern day has come to represent an aristocratic plutocracy dominated by the wealthy stock-holding families. The general employees serve much the same function as peasants in a feudal society, their lives governed by the wealthy who control where and how they live and work, having no say in the government. In exchange, the employees are provided protection from the barbaric Outlanders who seek to destroy their homes, plunder their factories, kill their spouses, and steal their children, who would be forced to spend short, brutish lives dwelling in grass huts and eating grubs.

Very little is known of the Outlanders, who have no access to interstellar communications. From what little solid information has been gathered, they appear to be broken up into a large number of independent towns and villages, though a loose confederation exists to coordinate resistance against the Corporates. Due to the almost monotonously pleasant weather of Kalahari, many of the Outlanders actually do employ woven grass screens as movable exterior walls in their homes. The fact that these same homes are equipped with indoor plumbing, electric lighting, microwave ovens, bio-manufactured carpets, automated cleaners, and state-of-the-art computers are facts often unknown or ignored by the average Corporate citizen.

ATHENE

Little can be said of the Athenean social system, partially because the Atheneans rarely discuss their internal affairs with outsiders, but equally due to the fact that no one really understands what little they do say about it. Athenean social governance makes Auroran politics look childishly simple, with a surfeit of overlapping offices, agencies, and voting strategies. The Athenean legal system can only be described as bizarre. A single improper citation of a reference by a senior researcher is punishable by forfeiture of all assets, privileges, and titles, forcing the condemned to leave his family and move to another city to work as a janitorial supervisor. On the other hand, under many circumstances murder (even mass murder) is not considered a crime.

Athenean economics are equally complex. In addition to the dual monetary systems of currency and work credits used on most other worlds, the Athenean economy also recognizes various transferable privileges and information credits as established means of exchange. Other odd practices, such as accepting intelligence test scores as collateral on loans, are also common.

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