Terran Empire
A loose and ever-decaying national polity that contains the bulk of unmodified Human civilisation.
Demography and Population
Populations in different provinces exhibit widely varied class structures, making a unified description near-impossible.
The overarching social structure of the Terran Empire is a High Aristocracy of ancient houses who typically wield power in the form of formal titles of leadership, economic power and simply always knowing the right people. The actual financial state of any given lord or their dependents is highly fluid - untold fortunes could be lost maintaining their status or gambling for opportunity one year, and remade by favourable loans or ruthless use of eminent domain laws the next.
The other Terran power broker is the Imperial Navy, an occasionally meritocratic organisation and the last vestige of standardisation and commonality. Doing thankless and dangerous work a very long way from the palaces of the great and wise, the unifying force of the stellar Navy is their long and storied tradition of excellence. The good name of the Navy is worth everything to Terran soldiers, perhaps more than the Empire itself, and a skilled and respectable admiral is owed unquestioned loyalty by fellow officers and lowly ratings alike.
Territories
Known Provinces -
Solaris
The very core worlds of the Empire, containing the origin system of the baseline Humans. Some of the wealthiest and most prestigious worlds lie within Solaris Province, far from the reach of lesser factions. Tiatholon Province
The southernmost province of the Terran Empire's eastern border. Near to Kitsune space and the lawless regions towards the southern edge of the Perseus Arm, making it a hinge on which the defence of the Empire potentially rests. Polaris
Forming most of the hard border between the Terrans and the Empire of Summer, the Polaris province has seen some of the hardest fighting of the war. Its significance has kept some of the Terran Navy's star admirals focused on preventing (or exploiting) an attritional style of warfare that threatens to spill over into a broad and uncontrollable front. unspecified province
(insert description here when specified)
The very core worlds of the Empire, containing the origin system of the baseline Humans. Some of the wealthiest and most prestigious worlds lie within Solaris Province, far from the reach of lesser factions. Tiatholon Province
The southernmost province of the Terran Empire's eastern border. Near to Kitsune space and the lawless regions towards the southern edge of the Perseus Arm, making it a hinge on which the defence of the Empire potentially rests. Polaris
Forming most of the hard border between the Terrans and the Empire of Summer, the Polaris province has seen some of the hardest fighting of the war. Its significance has kept some of the Terran Navy's star admirals focused on preventing (or exploiting) an attritional style of warfare that threatens to spill over into a broad and uncontrollable front. unspecified province
(insert description here when specified)
Religion
Officially, worship of previous emperors as ancestral spirits.
Unofficially, countless sects and faiths exist and no real effort to dislodge subsector- or province-specific beliefs has been made in centuries. So long as words of loyalty are given to the emperors, and the tithe for their upkeep is paid by those responsible, there is nothing to punish...
The exception to this is the worship of posthuman colony ships, such as the nominally Kitsune goddess Invictus , which is officially treated as seditious idol worship. While looked upon unfavourably by those in the core provinces, out on the fringes of the empire there is simply too much cultural difusion to stamp it all out.
Possibly in response to the presence of offshoot mutant factions such as the Kitsunes, recent efforts have been made to centre the religion on the Terran Empire's eastern border in Tiatholon Province.
Foreign Relations
Officially, the Terran Empire is the ruler of all humanity and the sole legitimate government of all children of earth. As a result, they do not and never will recognise any foreign post- or transhuman government as sovereign. This goes from official empire-wide policy to ideologically defined terms and names - documentation describes the Tri-Star Commonwealth as the "Tri-Star Pirate Clique" and the Empire of Summer as the "Chiefdom of Sestin".
That said, such unpleasant realities as peace and trade treaties, strategic weapons limitation pacts, cross-border legal affairs and anti-piracy operations still need to be dealt with. The Terran government (or often its provincial delegates) engages in all the actviities a state would normally perform with its rivals, but treated with a healthy layer of legal (and mental) gymnastics to keep up the lie.
The particulars of foreign policy are governed by equally strong desires to preserve peaceful stability over their various borders, and to win prestige through power politics and conquests abroad.
Trade & Transport
Inter-province protectionism is near-universal. Authorities often post garrisons at natural chokepoints in FTL lanes and funnel traffic through tightly controlled Market Worlds where tarrifs can be managed. Organisations that cross provincial borders will often move money and work between provinces if possible - in Eagles, of course - and so rival authorities often vary their laws and tarrifs to lure in, entrap or steal lucrative corporations form another.
High Aristocrats and admirals alike are powerless to stop financial trickery or intra-Empire smuggling efforts, in part because they often have a stake of the profits themselves. When the Imperial Navy dips its toes into smuggling, it's almost always a sign that naval assets are underfunded or the crews too infrequently paid by their apparent masters. Many a battlefleet has given better escorts to smuggler bands than to legitimate convoys in an attempt to balance their own expenses in times of economic crisis.
Technology sharing across Terran space is a confusing and difficult patchwork, with different provinces specialsing in different fields to different degrees. Due to closed borders and jealous protection of powers, military non-standardisation is an inevitability, with warships carrying any number of weapon types in any number of configurations when viewed across the Empire. When technology does bleed across these barriers, it is often by corporate interference, outright espionage or in rare cases a decree by the Imperial court to address strategic weaknesses or especially harmful flaws.
Education
Usually organised by planetary or station-level government, who also set the curriculum. Political indoctrination is patchy, but generally halfhearted at best. The only political statement being made is that the Terran Empire is a lone wellspring of civilisation in a galaxy of savages.
The level of education available pretty closely matches the technological levvel and political stability of the planet. When Terran worlds become unstable, a political theory routinely emerges that claims educating the poor is a threat to planetary unity. In reality, this as often as not gradually renders the planet a local backwater, worsening the instablity...
Governance
Technically, provincial authorities are meant to use local custom to raise court representatives, local authorities and ministers. By custom, the highest authority in a province is the head of the greatest High Atistocratic family, who wields the economic, legal and political power to hold the province together. For the past 800 years or so, military power has also been controlled by the aristocrats as they can arrange recruitment and supply for local bases on the empire's behalf. This has led to the rise of the semi-official rank of Lord Admiral, senior naval commanders with considerable authority limited to a single province. In more prestigious provinces, the Lord Admirals are known as Proconsuls. In reality, the High Aristocrats rarely leave the Solaris province, where ancient power and prestige makes life far more interesting than their comparatively parochial home provinces. Legislative and executive power is actually wielded by the Lord Admirals, themselves younger sons of past High Aristocrats or the lords of cadet branches.Maps
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Tiatholon Province
Tip of the spear and an area where the Terran Empire is potentially at its weakest.
Founding Date
~3000 yrs ago
Type
Governmental, Senate/Parliament
Alternative Names
Hummus (derogatory)
Successor Organizations
Demonym
Terran
Government System
Monarchy, Absolute
Economic System
Mixed economy
Currency
The Eagle is intended to be a general-purpose currency, introduced in the early days of the Empire to act as a seamless medium of exchange between various local credits and coinages. Never envisaged as a universal currency, as the local currencies ould always be impossible to stamp out.
In order to defend the prestige of the imperial coin, moving any amount of Eagles into an account for the first time requires authorisaton by a financial body on Earth. Not only has this led to an ongoing rise in sham accountants who work only to rubber-stamp accounts for an eye-watering fee, but it also has tied the Eagle to the realms of officialdom, and de facto to civil service corruption.
Anyone who pays in Eagles is likely to be a well-connected criminal, a wealthy magnate of exceptional breeding, a provincial or court functionary, or often all three together...
Major Exports
Genovials, also known as nanite vials or Twist, are highly illegal within the Terran Empire, due in part to their general distaste for polluting the general purity for humanity's heritage.
Despite being illegal and among the highest of criminal offences to possess, Genovials are widely smuggled throughout the empire, especially where money flows freely. Rumours among the discontented poor place the vials at the centre of secret masked parties held for the very elites of society - temporary mutations especially of the head lend the thrill of anonymity and transgression to an event where everyone present is already effectively above the law.
Whether true or not, the fact remains that someone is buying the vials, since enough remain in circulation to slip across the border and enter various splinter states beyond the border where laws on genetic purity can be a little more permissive. It is unknown how many of the great and powerful partake of the vials.
Controlled Territories
Neighboring Nations
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