ThirdComm

Rejection of Anthrochauvinism

ThirdComm, the third iteration of Union’s Central Committee, emerged from lengthy negotiations following the overthrow of the longest-ruling central government in Union’s history – the Anthrochauvinist Second Committee.
ThirdComm is defined by its rejection of SecComm’s Anthrochauvinist values and its re-adoption of the Utopian Pillars. The old doctrine of aggressive colonial expansion and reconquest has been replaced with a hands-off approach to outreach, spearheaded by the Union Administrative Department (UAD). ThirdComm bore witness to SecComm’s crimes – the Hercynian Crisis, the PISTON-1 attack against the Aun that brought about the change from the First Committee to the Second, countless colonial suppressions. Its response has been to pursue a slower, more moderated path toward galactic integration.

Speak Softly

ThirdComm, recoiling from the naked aggression of its predecessor, places much more emphasis on hegemony – the exertion of cultural, political, and economic authority – relying on the soft powers of commerce, travel, and communication to bring the galaxy under Union’s control. After taking power, ThirdComm immediately and dramatically reduced the size of the Union Naval Department (usually abbreviated as the Union Navy, or UN). Rather than relying on a centralized colonial force, ThirdComm’s agents implemented various naturalization processes and a new approach to building intergalactic solidarity through shared work: the Auxiliary Doctrine, which seeks to integrate the disparate cultures of the Diaspora into Union's ideological space through liberation struggles, cultural exchange and mixing, and a choice of civic or martial service.
As the armed forces were stripped back, other instruments of diplomacy filled the gap. Notably, the size and scope of the Union Administrative Department (UAD) and its portfolio has grown dramatically under Third‐ Comm. Where the navy was once the first point of contact for humanity’s diaspora, now the pale gray of an administrator’s suit has become Union’s symbol and its beacon. The UAD is a massive bureaucracy and the first point of contact for Union–Diaspora diplomacy and cultural exchange, embodied in the administrators it dispatches to all Diasporan worlds. The UAD approaches the galaxy with a desire to build consent, communication, and integration. This is a slow, titanic process, but it is ThirdComm’s greatest achievement and the feature that sets it apart from its predecessors.

Heavy Restructuring

In another early act of revolutionary fervor, ThirdComm dissolved the once-formidable Union Colonial Mission – a bureau with a history stretching back to the First Committee and humanity’s first forays into space – and replaced it with two new bodies: the Bureau of Colonial Administration (BCA) and the Union Department of Justice and Human Rights (DoJ/ HR). While the UCM’s mission had been to recontact, recolonize, and assimilate Diasporan and newly settled worlds into Union, populated worlds are not included in the scope of the BCA’s mission– its portfolio extends only to terrestrial worlds and moons capable of supporting viable Colonies that do not have extant indigenous human populations. While the DoJ/HR saves worlds and the UAD builds them, the BCA finds worlds and manages the establishment of new colonial ventures.
Meanwhile, the DoJ/HR is tasked with investigating and reporting on potential violations of the Utopian Pillars on Diasporan worlds, responding with force if necessary.

New Challenges

The Third Committee’s approach isn’t without tradeoffs and challenges; notably, many have criticized what a perceived lack of urgency in response to violations of the Utopian Pillars. These critiques have merit, though the reasons for this sluggishness are complex. Union’s many departments have long institutional memories, and reformists still face considerable resistance from old-school Anthrochauvinists embedded within their organizational structures. Some organs are staffed almost entirely by believers in revived or reinvigorated Anthrochauvinist ideologies2. Of these, the Union Economic Bureau (UEB) is the worst offender – or, for conservatives, the last great hope.
Further complicating the pacifist legacy of the early ThirdComm, a new generation of representatives – The New Solidarity Coalition – has consistently agitated a force-forward approach to Pillar violations. While these interventionists reject the Anthrochauvinist ideology, they insist that Union’s mandate demands a far more assertive stance – that Union’s hegemony demands not just stewardship, but cultivation. For them, the time is ripe for Union to make its presence known among the stars as an agent for humanity, rather than one of humanity.

Broadly, Anthrochauvinism is a political ideology that adopts a manifest destiny approach to humanity’s existence on the galactic stage. Humanity, Anthrochauvinist thought dictates, survived hell and persevered; the Great Filter has passed over Humanity, tested it, and found it worthy of continuing on. As such, it is Humanity’s right to claim the stars and populate them freely: no ground that can be walked should be denied to Humanity’s standard-bearers. Humanity’s burden is the charge of the builder – create, expand, and carry all upon the shoulder. According to the proponents of this ideology, Humanity is the final judge: let humanity be all, and let all be as we are – in ensuring the survival of the species, the ends justify the means.
In practice, Anthrochauvinism tends to be a conservative, right-wing political and social ideology. SecComm emphasized strong central control, the development and maintenance of a strong military and civil service, adherence to its political objectives, and sacrifice for the good of the species. Humanity was defined as it expressed itself on Cradle; more often than not, this led to a dramatic flattening of language and expression, and the atomization, assimilation, and de-contextualization of culture, dress, cuisine, religion, and arts. Cultural exchange was a tool deployed from Cradle to simplify management of the galaxy, with only the most “useful” artifacts of myriad cultures appropriated to bolster the aesthetic and ideological dominion of Cradle’s New Humanity.