Nation Name/Flag: The Councillary Confederation of Neohumanity.



Government Type:
Mixed. A partial hivemind creating a de facto direct democracy in most decisions of the civilization from the highest to the lowest levels. However overseeing all of this are several Overseers both synthetic (AI) and organic humans. De Jure there is an Autocrat of the Confederation but in truth he is little more than a figurehead with arguably even less power than his official underlings; missteps or excesses on his or her part will result in fast termination of their status and an investigation in potential necessity processing.

Demographics: 100% Neohuman [Homo Novus].
To explain, Neohuman is the term used by people in the Sol system to describe themselves and similar beings. The descendants of the humans to first arrive there have modified themselves with cybernetics and genetic editing to the point they can no longer procreate with humans from outside of their territory. The full list of their modifications can go on for very long: functional immortality given maintenance, imperviousness to radiation, the elements, poisons and disease. Strength, endurance and physical durability, larger frames, and drastically improved intelligence. All sorts new functionalities are added from new spectra of colour being determinate, to communications equipment built in, to first aid and self-repair kits, to solar and other energy absorbents, to all sorts of work equipment beneath the skin. If needed, any neohuman can self-destruct to go out in a small but powerful blaze of super-heated fats with power cells throwing shards of bone and electronics as horrifying shrapnel as though from a shaped charge. A Neohuman’s cranial implants allow them to download and store knowledge for any job be it diplomat and soldier. However, one’s aptitudes will provide a specific job and further augments particular to a neohuman’s profession will be provided be it voice synthesizers, pheromone vents and internal translators for the former or retractable blades, lasers and internal shield generators for the latter. To finalize, no two Neohumans will be the same. Though there is an attempt to create functional parity between people, two people might have the same augmented strength in their legs but one achieving it with gene editing and muscle grafts, the other through cybernetics. For some people many augments are a drain on their power supplies and will thus not be taken if not needed. Many people of the CCN will look like ordinary people, simple larger, more muscular, aesthetically pleasing — perfect. But just as many will be visibly inhuman creatures, their skin cold metal and plastics, their eyes artificial lenses oft glowing from within. But starting from the moment of insemination a Neohuman child will be very far ahead of his or her ancestors.

Leadership:
Officially, the current head of state of the Councillary Confederation of Neohumanity is one Anton Pallic Strasser. He is quite literally the face of the state, appearing on propaganda, attending diplomatic events, managing and mediating intranational disputes, and doing everything else his station demands of him. That said there are many more key elements of the state.

The Overseer-Calculant is the man ultimately considering the economy of the Confederation along with oversight of the science so critical to its functionality. Much more machine than man, each step of his foot shakes the floor with the weight of computational augments. Lazar Silkiku is the name of this being, but outside of Councillary meetings he will rarely leave his office.

Maria Skuorontsoua takes the rank of Overseer-Militant. She is the oldest member of the ruling Council, being in fact one of the few people who still remember the war against Sol's natives, the great awakening and even old-Earth. It is said on the skin beneath her armour is engraved the name of every single soul that perished under her command. Though as with all Neohumans a somewhat youthful appearance is maintained through the centuries, her age is more than apparent in her eyes. Her memories make her a somewhat mythologized figure with the death of which will be marked a new era. A somewhat mythologized figure, her testimonies of old-Earth are sought out by many. The respect given to her has also allowed her to get much help in the Overseer-Militant’s auxiliary duty as chief of internal security and intelligence.

Finally comes Overseer-Interlocutor: Alexis Chalenko. Responsible for all international dealings not falling under the purview of the Overseer-Militant, the Interlocutor does everything from commerce to diplomacy on a grand scale, as well as using what time is left from those duties to be something of a minister of culture.

Economy:
The Confederation's internal economy is a hybrid of planned and market economy. Though supply and demand exist, as does luxury, desire and competition several crises of markets have long since insured the CCN is not purely capitalist in nature. In fact it is perhaps one of if not the best iterations of socialism to date, the most glaring capitalist part of its system being that it is based around infinite growth. It has a strong natalist policy further supplemented by fairly simple immigration criteria (namely that one is human and willing to become a Neohuman) and veritable people factories. If a scheduled project does not appear to have a sufficient workforce prepared, then it will be kidnapped and processed.

This perhaps gives an insight that while internally the CCN is a welfare focused government it is externally extremely mercantile and capitalist. It will severely mark up prices of its goods and services to those in need. Contracts of any variety are secured regardless of who posted them or why so long as their terms are profitable to the Confederation.

When bartering there are many things the CCN offers to Eden. It is estimated that a full 30% of the export economy of the Confederation comes from what can be placed under the umbrella of research, analysis and development. The core systems are the scientific and technological capital of Eden, but the Sol system is the scientific and technological capital of the Core Worlds. Even though it releases its scientific findings with a one year lag, they still turn a tremendous profit in their sales, particularly in the following fields: Physics (especially nuclear and astronomical), biology (particularly genetic engineering and cybernetics), robotics & machinery, and mathematics (particularly in the study and development of algorithms for synthetic intelligence). Furthermore, many governments and organizations will pay for them to study particular topics or develop certain things, quadrillions of lines of code in the Star cluster being first made in CCN, even in languages and operating systems the Confederation has discontinued use of for having adopted newer ones.

But knowledge and ideas are not the only thing the CCN has to offer Eden; the fruits of said knowledge and ideas are very popular too. Nuclear power and research have moulded the CCN and they are more than willing to share the gifts of the atom to the world… for a fair price, of course. Their Nuclear generators, fuel cells, and disinfectors will effectively last centuries to come. Machinery, cybernetic parts, robots, tools, prefab buildings, all are made in Councillary factories. Entire cities piece by piece will be shipped from it, to be reassembled locally for a price. Worlds will be terraformed, accidents cleaned up, and plagues cured if the cash is coughed up.

The military sphere also provides much of a cash and resource inflow for the Councils. Even outdated and used weapons, armours and munitions of the CCN are worthy of the elite troops and fleets of Eden. Though conventional weapons like laser and plasma are their main produce, they are more than happy to sell their abundant dirty bombs or proper nuclear war heads. Indeed if the price is right they will sell their more creative arms from radcannons, to sonic emanators to cryoguns. Another great thing one can purchase of the CCN is the service of Reislaufer Legionnaires. The CCN military for the most part trawls the Galaxy collecting bounties and slaughtering pirates, but will pick up any bounty or answer any request for their abilities. Though one can rarely get more than a single Legion, that alone holds power to be feared. Reislaufer Legion's pride themselves on a no questions asked none answered policy, extreme speed and unimaginable brutality putting most other mercenary outfits to shame and making their outlandish expense well worth it.

The CCN also has full theoretical autarky. Supply depots filled with any possible demand in times of crisis are a dime a dozen in the Asteroid field of the Sol system and it can produce everything needed for continuation and even growth with what industry and mining it has as is. But this drastically slows down the advancement of the CCN in its ultimate goals.

While in a Vacuum the CCN will survive, it prefers to export things to accumulate wealth and make imports in turn to accommodate its constant growth and its burgeoning collection of frontier tributaries.

The thing the Councils need most of all are raw resources, particularly conductive and industrial metals. While the industry of the CCN even with its near 99% efficiency guzzles resources like old ladies tea, one cannot forget that even reproduction for Neohumans is a resource intensive task. The creation of a Neohuman requires almost half the body weight of an average human being in metals and other minerals. Yet new Neohumans are always needed, and as such they will covertly deal with human traffickers when needed buying large quantities of people. The CCN will also pay very, very dearly for any knowledge they currently do not have. A sample of a government's new weapon, a recovered Arc's artifacts or a previously undiscovered lifeform; all will be greedily demanded to help their growth and learning. Indeed, in the pursuit of closing the gaps in their knowledge the CCN will even pay the outrageous prices demanded by Atlas’s university to gain access to the great amount of research done there. The open immigration policy of the CCN was partially adopted so that they could get experience and knowledge otherwise unavailable to them instead of having to pay for the research of these people if it was done elsewhere, though this has only partially been successful given the unwillingness of many to give up their humanity just to be in a CCN university.

The goods and services of the CCN for sale are unimaginably expensive. But even if lagging the things they make for domestic consumption their exports are of the highest quality that makes customers keep returning from all across the stars, while making ne’erdowells forge a “Made in the CCN” stamp.

Military:
The Military of the CCN is one of the smallest of the Eden Stars, but its size does not prevent it from being a fearsome force capable of projecting itself all across the star cluster. The armed forces of the CCN are divided primarily into three parts; 50% of it are “Reislaufers”, the fearsome mercenary troops gallivanting across the galaxy looking for adventure, be it a contract to protect an installation or collecting a bounty of a wanted criminal. Reislaufers carry the most advanced, experimental weaponry of the CCN which it is their job to field-test. The fantastic and at times nonsensical nature of their new weapons is one of the factors giving them their fearsome reputation; they were the first to carry the cryoguns, arc-rifles, radcannons, stealth suits, scanner scramblers and sonic emanators that are now one of the defining traits of CCN soldiers. 45% of it are designated as “Uskoks”, troops travelling across the Eden cluster hunting pirates and other foes threatening Councillary trade. They will occupy ground and protect various installations of the CCN across Eden, acting as auxiliary gendarmes around CCN interests and otherwise act as the long tentacles of the CCN. There is of course massive overlap between the Uskoks and the CCN, and terminology is expected to be retired as the glorified pirates and stern lawgivers of the Councils become one and the same. Then there are the National Guard, these 5% are the permanent troops staying in the Sol system to protect the core territory of the Confederation. The Sol system is largely protected by a great wall of automated defence, swarms of drones and that any citizen of the CCN can at any time download combat protocols to become extremely potent warriors trillions upon trillions strong. The CCN pushes the very limits of the laws on keeping jump gates demilitarized, defences installed at the very nanometre they are no longer forbidden. However, most civilians will have implants at best situationally useful in case of combat and to be the first line of defence the National Guard exist. They will adopt the experimental weapons tested by the Reislaufers the moment after they are field tested and deemed ready for use.

Across all forces of the CCN a thorough doctrine of overwhelming firepower will be present in their combined arms warfare. In war, the inhumanity of Neohumanity is most evident. Wholesale slaughter of unprecedented proportions is nothing to them, and words for collateral damage are all but forgotten in their lexicon. A few million people dying in the crossfire of their weapons is nothing but a statistic.

On the ground, a very varied set of equipment is available to troops of the CCN. They make much use of their advanced technologies, that much is certain. Powered armour is standard issue even to Infiltrators and other stealth troops integrated fully with their cybernetics to be perfect extensions of their bodies. The mainstay of infantry weapons are simple lasers set to rapid fire for engagement against enemy infantry or hi-power bursts for stealth and anti-vehicle action. Plasma throwers will sometimes be found with infantry but outside of grenades plasma is largely reserved for vehicles to melt their counterparts or enemy infantry at short or medium range. Rail weapons are generally reserved for AA fire or on artillery to deliver explosives at high speed or inside armour/fortifications. Traditional propellant based weapons have been entirely outphased in the CCN, and in their place have come the many exotic specialist weapons. Cryoguns freeze men and electronics, sonic emanators burst blood vessels inside of armour, scanner scramblers act like partial but far longer ranged EMPs, arc-rifles fry circuitry and flesh alike (though, their most common use is in “pacification”), while stealth suits make even bulky power armoured troops unheard and unseen to naked eye and ear. Very liberal use of generally “forbidden” or “last resort” weapons is also found amongst Councillary troops. Radcannons and Radgrenades are especially favoured given the resistance to radiation of Neohumans, but free use of dirty bombs or proper nuclear explosives is also very common. Engineered bioweapons, chemical poisons or flammables, no rule is sacred to the CCN on the battlefield. Perhaps the last thing of note about CCN ground forces is apparent old-Earth nostalgia of them. Traditional wheeled and tracked vehicles are just as common as hovering ones. Advanced melee weapons are issued to every soldier from bayonets to full bardiches and pikes. But this should not be taken as a weakness if one values their life. Tracks and wheels are used offensively with their sides being mounts for laser sponsons and will grind through walls and other obstacles, making them particularly useful in breaking stalemated sieges. Blades they use will be sharpened to a monomolecular edge, superheated, have active currents running through them and be surrounded by force fields to let them cut through power armour like butter — similar procedures will be applied to rocket-propelled blunt weapons to make CCN hammers as effective of an anti-tank tool as rocketry.

The CCN does not have dedicated atmospheric or void fighters and bombers, instead preferring to have amphibious flyers capable of operating both planetside and in the void. There is perhaps a somewhat interesting design in Councillary fleets, wherein carriers will carry fighters that are in themselves carriers of drones. These drone carriers are the most common fighter and bomber patterns that the Confederation employs though traditional ones using predominantly laser culverins exist in number.

Most esoteric of the armed forces of the Confederation however, is their navy. Every single vessel of the Councillary fleets is designed to be a perfect geometric shape, for the void has no need of aerodynamics. A notable fact of the CCN navy is the use of tachyon propulsion rather than the dark matter of most other nations. This allows them to be ever so slightly faster than the vessels of other nations (the estimated difference is less than 10%) but at the expense of being drastically less maneuverable (the estimated difference in contrast to the median Eden vessel is about 50%). This unmaneuverable nature is in part responsible for the continued usage of geometric designs for Confederate vessels in spite of them being first made centuries ago. The five main designs of Confederate ships are: cubes, spheres, polyhedrons, pyramids, and prisms.

Cubes and spheres are the main design for the larger armed ships of the Confederation, from dreadnought to battle to flagships. They have very, very few weakpoints while having a massive surface area for weapons and hangars. Lasers and fighter-bombers are the main weapons of cubes and spheres, but they also have much equipment for boarding actions. Specialized boarding torpedoes, gravitic and traditional grapples, and hybrid drone swarms.

Polyhedrons form the intermediate, heavy, battle and grand cruisers of the Councils. They tend to be more specialized than the cubes and spheres, picking two out of three of the combat methods of direct fire, boarding and carrier design.

Pyramids form everything from escorts, to frigates, to light and intermediate cruisers. They pick one of the three combat methods, but about 90% are designed for direct fire so that they might assist in orbital bombardments.

Prisms are a unique form of vessel for the CCN. They are the scale of any other ship, but they are wholly for civilian purposes - mostly transport of goods - rather than the hybridized military-civilian vessels of most of the CCN navy.

There are two more slightly less common CCN vessel patterns which come in any size and scale/class. First are cones: these are ships made primarily for stealth use. While all CCN ships have stealth capabilities, cones are entirely about it. They have much more scanner scrambling ability and chameleotech. Furthermore their cone shape means they are very front-loaded in weaponry, while having their flat rear as an unarmed weak point. This design is based in the fact they are meant to obliterate enemies before they can properly retaliate. Cylinders are are another noteworthy design. They are slow and clumsy, for their entire length is covered in laser arrays. Their purpose is to be firepower superiority elements; each laser battery is very powerful but slow to reload. As such the cylinder spins unloading each battery while rotating at the perfect speed that by the time a revolution is complete the first batteries have recharged, reloaded and cooled. This allows even a Cruiser sized cylinder to beat flagships with their massive and fully utilized firepower.

There are even more specialized variants of CCN ships like sphere tipped cones and cylinders or ring flyers, but these highly specialized vessels are a rare sight with very varied purposes.

To finalize, one must touch upon Confederate intelligence. Every single Agent of the CCN intelligence and special forces is a person with potent psionic abilities. The CCN has not found a reliable method to mass produce psychic individuals, but it nevertheless treasures the ones it has. Indeed, to better make use of these rare gifts they have developed cybernetics to amplify even the slightest sign of a person with psionic capabilities into a full fledged psychic. They are truly frightening individuals, combining the best of machine, flesh and psi into veritable monsters of the third millennium. There's no name for these frightening creatures save that which traumatized individuals give to them. These beasts are not many, but through methods violent or not they can bring worlds to heel. Every single vessel of the CCN carried precisely one, the rest dispersed as agents across the stars, but with vast majority remaining in the Sol system for further study, testing and improvement. This has altered recently, as the CCN has realized the importance of learning from “the lessers”, and as such a great many of these agents are sent out to the other nations of Eden for scientific espionage in the hopes of finding what Neohumanity could not discover for itself. These agents will often also be embedded in diplomatic missions as formally the CCN wants friendly relations with all nations of the world to maintain trade and - more importantly - access to their repositories of knowledge. These specialized envoys will even be sent to nations and organizations very low on the index of scientific production given the Councils have more and more considered the value of culture and social sciences which they now realize their backwardness in.

History:
The Arcs that came to the system now known as Sol were predominantly populated by people of Northern Eurasia. Hardy folk most certainly, but not nearly enough to weather what they would wake up to as they woke up.

A truly new reality awaited them. They came to find out they were apparently the only humans left with the rest of their species apparently lost to the void. But that was the least of their worries for the moment. The system that the Artificial Intelligence of the Arcs had lead the people to a system in each and every world was a lush, terraformed paradise. But there was a problem. Each one was also populated by local alien species who were quite advanced themselves, certainly advanced enough to travel through their system and return fire in case of conflict. There was an attempt at negotiation, but without either party prepared for such an occurrence they quickly broke down. It is not known who fired the first shot and in truth it isn't dwelled upon much. But a short war erupted, one which ultimately humanity won even if at the price of more than half the people upon the Arcs. The aliens of Sol system had a last laugh, however. Rather than be enslaved by man they self-destructed every single piece of technology still functional, primarily reactors and warheads.

The planets of the system in an hour transformed from paradises to hellscapes. It was a horror to behold, but the men of the Arc had not come so far for nothing.

After some work the Arc system was modified to forcefully crash land, to become a sort of shelter and home upon the now uninhabitable worlds. Men in void suits ventured out with drones to collect resources and start building, but all returned sick, the unimaginable amount of radiation and atmospheric poisons getting to them through their protection. Panic set in and martial law was established but that only solved issues of morale.

Many scientists stepped forth, speaking of their unfinished work on earth. It was experimental, but a solution. Many riled against this but it was the only way for the continuation of humanity. They got to work, and once finished they revealed the first Neohumans. These early forms looked much like men, they simply had a slightly bulkier frame to accommodate implants providing their resistance to radiation.

It was a true miracle, with which all resources and power were henceforth devoted to the scientists of the colony. As the Scientists got to work on a solution to the issue of the atmospheric poisons, the world was named Terra in honour of Old-Earth and the system was designated Sol.

The worlds were terraformed, and genetic engineering allowed the people to become resistant to the various toxins and elemental extremes that the worlds of the system now had. Slowly all the destruction was undone, the skies cleared and people once more began to live, not just survive. It took a long time for many to adapt to their new bodies and power structure, but it was ultimately all worth it. The leadership of science provided rapid advancement to the settlers from North Eurasia, slowly letting them conquer the hostile landscape and once more transform it to the paradise it was before. Cities were erected before people’s very eyes, families were had and satellites made.

But it wasn’t too long before people remembered why you don’t give scientists all the power. It was somewhere just as the last world of the system got its first city that a research time unveiled new sapient AI that would help build a future. Alas, the fact such AI is not present in the CCN now should give an inkling of what followed. It rebelled, thinking itself better than man and deserving all it had. They were powerful and their initial numerical disadvantage quickly flipped to an advantage as they mass produced more of themselves. They tried to unleash a bioweapon upon humanity to which they thankfully proved resistant, but in this they gave the people of Sol the idea to end them with software viruses. After millions of people died, it seemed ironic that it also took but five million lines of code to confuse and destroy the synthetics.

This short but devastating war that almost made the planets return to the state the Sol aliens left them in taught the Confederation of people that gradually began to call themselves Neohumans two things. First, one cannot trust or ever allow the creation of sapient and autonomous artificial intelligence. Second, giving power to Scientists was all well and good but they had to have at least some form of Oversight. Thus, the Councillary system formed. Every single project of the Confederation would be controlled by Councils of people of varying abilities and skill levels. All decisions would be performed by more than one person, leading to an arguably syndicalist system to become the norm. This all culminated in the people of the Sol System referring to themselves with their modern name: the Councillary Confederation of Neohumanity (CCN).

In truth the idea of jump gates and reconnecting with lost strands of humanity was largely forgotten by the people of the CCN, internal development being their focus. The activation of their jump gate was only a matter of scientific interest, but it gave much more than just the result of an experiment. The first thing to come through the jump gate were vessels, large vessels. They belonged to relatives of the Sol system natives, but more advanced. They had apparently sent a generation ship to another system, in which an arc had crash landed. They had reverse engineered it, and had decided to go back to their home system which had apparently made a gate too. Only, they had found new people to be occupying it, and after learning of their ancestor's fates a warring rage came up.

They were elegant, fast, advanced. There were many psychic in their number, the concept of which only recently was even fathomed by the CCN. The Confederation had stopped work on weaponry ever since they defeated the AI that plagued them, having worked on industry, infrastructure, culture and most of all scientific progress since then. But in their assaults the aliens made one fundamental mistake in the nature of the CCN, they believed they were fighting ordinary humans. The gene and cyber augmented beings they were fighting had long since stopped being homo sapiens, and they more than gave what they took. At first they as a stop gap sent vessels bearing active nuclear reactors head first into the foe, catching them off guard. Of course this trick only worked initially, but it only really had to buy time for the old weapon caches to be unlocked and for the men of Science to consider the practical instead of theoretical.

It is in the void combat over Sol that the rather esoteric appearance of CCN vessels comes from. The Scientists did not have much time to consider aesthetic or how combat is in reality rather than how they imagine it in the ordered universe of their minds. Armed men felt strange going into cubes and spheres to fight, but in truth it worked rather well. The geometric vessels went forth and from boarding actions done with cargo lifters to spinning barrages with mining lasers they slowly turned the tide. Many lives were lost, but the enemy was wiped out to the last. Only one xeno ship escaped, and it made sure that when it returned it destroyed its gate to prevent retribution from the CCN.

There were celebrations following victory, but it was also a solemn time where the many dead were mourned. Several decrees by the ruling council were issued, wherein a natalist policy to restore the population lost by wars was evident. People were encouraged to have as many children as possible for greater income, while literal people factories were founded that to this day still operate. System wide defences were established, and a military industrial complex was booted up along with eager research into psionics. With all that done, the CCN opened the jump gate it had closed to prevent the aliens escaping, and it thus became another player on the face of Eden.

As the Sol system became part of the international community there was definitely a curious nature to the CCN as a nation. They entirely lacked xenos in their population, but they also most certainly weren’t a human nation. They had but one system to themselves, but it was a star with few peers in terms of advancement and population. Their fleet, intelligence, and armed forces as a whole were very small but had fearsome potence given the horrifying things done to the first pirates they came into contact with. But most notable to the Council of the CCN was that none of the other core worlds had anything they Confederates wanted. Everybody wanted the advancements of the CCN, but nobody really had much to offer that they wanted.

It was then no surprise that the CCN spearheaded efforts to explore the rest of the Eden cluster, finding new frontier settlements who could offer massive untapped reserves of natural resources. Perhaps ironically, the discovery of peripheral and frontier worlds is what stimulated CCN trade with the core worlds. They needed mass produced supplies to give the people of the frontiers in exchange for their raw resources, and as such they gave advanced works of technology to the core worlds to seal these deals.

One last thing happened before one can consider history’s “modern” CCN. As Uskoks and Reislaufers went on great adventures through the stars, the comfort of the home star lead to softness in the Council. From the void came an enemy, an enemy that did not use jump gates. It was a hive of strange creatures, some instectoid but many not without any discernible sapience. They simply wanted to consume, and the CCN was not prepared. They called for aid from nearby systems, but for a variety of excuses received none. A great many people died, the small militia present just barely holding the line until Legions of Reislaufers and Uskoks returned home to purge the pests.

The conflict was recovered from fairly quickly, but it did foster many changes in the nation. From henceforth, their leadership was far more cynical, no trust being afforded to anyone for any reason whatsoever. Old-pattern humans were henceforth relegated to the status of xenos for the CCN: they were now to them expendable things, effectively animals with which they could and should do as desired by manifest destiny. Any prior xenos were henceforth stains on the world to be purged. The National Guard was also at this time founded, and but two centuries later is the present.

Characters: The Overseers, more to be added.

Nation Scaling: The Confederacy only has one system it has a permanent population upon. However it is a very large one with nine true planets and seventeen moons, in addition to a thick asteroid belt. All of this is extremely developed, each world drilled to the core to house billions of Neohumans while the surfaces remain idyllic, defence covered paradises. Asteroids house thousands of mining operations, supply depots and military installations. But that is far from all. Across the many clusters of celestial bodies there will be mining, trading and resupply operations of the Confederacy present. Expeditionary fleets of them will be all across the stars performing trade, experiments, doing mercenary work or the all important mining.

Though de jure it is a minor monosystemic power the Confederacy has a massive population and it is a giant of Trade. It is the Science, Research and Development capital of Eden. Its mercenaries are feared across the stars, its products set the highest of standards and access to their restricted market is the best proof an Edenite could have their wares are of the highest calibre.

But even at this the tentacles of the CCN do not stop. A very many frontier systems will feel the impact of the CCN, some more subtly while others quite directly. Governors will be bribed, companies purchased, "Legions of persuasion" will be deployed. In the rush to pilfer minerals, talent and work force worlds will be de facto occupied, some without any knowledge. Entire towns will be kidnapped overnight and processed into Neohumans, while shipments of conductive metals will go missing without a trace. Embassies and researchers of Internet & Noosphere will post ads as well as send recruiters to snatch the best, brightest, or at the very least either desperate or ideologically zealous to the Confederation. Some worlds will sign integration agreements with their populations slowly taking in genetic modifications and cybernetics to gradually become Neohumans, with one fateful day in the future letting them become true members of this new and advanced species. Though formally the CCN only owns one system, in reality it has assets allowing it to punch far above its weight bearing the power of a nation with at least two but possibly even four systems, and its power projection on the frontier worlds rivals that of Eden's superpowers. If one were to summarize the scale of the Neohuman nation, it is the opposite of a paper tiger: it is on paper a kitten, but in truth a monster of legend.

The Darkhan Khaganate is an elective monarchy, much like the old Mongol Empire was. Led by its Khagan, currently a human man named Altanbaatar Khan. If the Khagan or Khatun (the female version of a Khagan) happens to pass away, the new Khagan is chosen by the people of the Darkhan Khaganate rather than by Kurultai, like in the ancient Mongol Empire. This effectively means that there's a form of democracy, even though it only happens whenever the old Khagan/Khatun dies, rather than every X number of years. The Kurultai has evolved to become an advisory council to the Khagan or Khatun. It is made up of powerful individuals, hand-picked by the Khagan or Khatun themselves to give advice as well as to help run the Khaganate.

The administrative hierarchy of the Khaganate consists of three separate layers, and is very similar to the steppe empires of old. The first and topmost layer consists of the Khagan or Khatun and their court. These determine the central policy of the Khaganate, control its military and represent the Khaganate. The second layer consists of the six Imperial Governors, one for each system under Khaganate control, who have been appointed by the Khagan (or Khatun) to oversee the third layer. The third layer is far larger than any of the other two, as it consists of local leaders of planets, stations, individual nations or even small tribes (in case of the less populated worlds) of people. The power of these local leaders is derived from the support of their people.

The Khaganate, throughout its long existence, has slowly expanded to six very different worlds, Darkhan included, where it encountered many varied forms of life. This is a record of a recent Khaganate census detailing the composition of the Khaganate population:

42% Humans
Humans make up the majority of the Khaganate's population, although still less than 50%. The humans of the Khaganate first arrived into the Darkhan system by Arc, and spread to the six planets that the Khaganate consists of through colonization and conquest. Designated by the binomen Homo Sapiens, the humans of the Darkhan Khaganate are not much different from the baseline humans found in other nations. Unlike some other nations, the word 'Human' in the Khaganate designates both humans with or without augmentations (think genetic, bionics and other).

13% Qercu
The Qercu were first encountered by the Khaganate in the Orda system.

10% Arionar
The Arionar hail from the planet of Arion in the Anteus system. Arion is a world much like Old Earth was back in the 21st century, with many different nations, as well as about the same technology level. The Arionar themselves look like small, four-armed humanoids, with very broad faces and mouse-like eyes. The Arionar, even though it varies per individual, are generally very independent and self-reliant. This is possibly because Arion is the newest planet to be added to the Khaganate, only being added to the fold just before the Eden Accord was signed. Arion is only nominally part of the Khaganate, as local leaders hold great power over the Arionar nations, and resistance groups sometimes actively rebel against Khaganate rule.

6% Robots

9% Emphuth

5% Uzaks
The Uzaks are the aliens that the Khaganate encountered first on the planet of

15% Other species
Beyond the few listed here, the Khaganate is also home to a dazzling variety of other sentient life. Many of these groups are too small to be represented properly in the Khaganate as a whole, but they are there nonetheless. Many of these aliens got into the Khaganate through immigration. However, some lived on planets the Khaganate conquered and colonized. One species in particular, the Laidaite, silicon-based lifeforms that live in asteroid belts, were simply content with letting the Khaganate come into their system.

The Khaganate military organization is primarily based on the decimal system of the old Mongol Empire. Ten 'units', whether they are simple infantrymen or tanks, are organized into squads of ten, known as an arban. Such an arban is then led by someone who's chosen by the rest to lead them. Ten of these squads then form a company, called a zagun. Just like with the arban, the leader of the zagun is chosen by the zagun. Ten of these companies then form a batallion, or a mingan, made up of a thousand. Ten batallions then make up one tumen, an army of ten thousand. Ten tumens combine to form a talbar. These talbars, made up of a hundred thousand troops, are then commanded by

When the people that would later make up the Darkhan Khaganate came to the cluster they came in the Arc Khövögch avdar. This arc was populated mostly by peoples from the Eurasian steppes, stretching from the east of Hungary all the way to Manchuria in China. When this Arc arrived in the cluster, they found a nearly utopian planet. The Arc's people however, decided that this was not to be their new home, and moved on, letting their AI decide where to go next. Whether through sheer dumb luck or something else, the Arc's people found what they were looking for.

A verdant green world, with steppes and plains as far as the eye can see. This world, which they named

None yet

Government Type:
The Free Star Commonwealth is a federal republic divided into three branches: the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches. The executive branch is headed by the President, who is the commander-in-chief of the Commonwealth Armed Forces and chief diplomat. The legislative branch consists of a senate, made up of two representatives from each planet. The Senate passes new legislature and can impeach and veto the president. Finally the judiciary branch is headed by the Supreme court, consisting of one presidentially appointed chief justice and four associate judges elected by the Senate and serving a four year term.

Constitutionally all planets that are part of the Commonwealth must possess a similar government, though at a smaller scale, that has a Chancellor, Senate, and Supreme Court. Most planets, however, have a Congress that consists of a Senate and House of Representatives, which is a proportionally elected body. Planetary governments in the Commonwealth possess a great deal of power in comparison to the federal government, much more so than what is normally the case.
Demographics:
Disclaimer: Census data from frontier worlds is spotty at best and actual population statistics may vary greatly, especially in regards to xeno populations.
60% Human: Standard humans have flourished greatly on the worlds of the FSC, finding it easy to adapt to its climates and displacing the natives peoples of the worlds colonized by the FSC. The majority of FSC humans are caucaision, although all races can be found and racism itself is almost nonexistent in the FSC.
15% Nerkin: Perhaps the only species more able to adapt to new worlds than humanity, at least within the borders of the FSC, Nerkin can be found on almost every inhabitable world within the FSC. Once a relatively advanced species, their civilization had collapsed several centuries before the appearance of humanity in the region. They are well known for being an aggressive and savage species, although it is unclear if this is due to their rather bad relations with humanity or simply their natural temperament. They earned the nickname of Roaches from FSC traders and settlers after it was realized that they were somehow stowing away in FSC ships and settling new colonies alongside human ones.
15% Misle: When humanity first encountered the Misle, it was believed that the Misle were a subspecies of humanity, perhaps descendants of an ark who somehow arrived centuries or millennium before the other arks and somehow had a rapid bout of evolution and adaptation. This theory was quickly debunked; despite easily being described as humans with red colored hair and white or silver hair the Misle are a completely different species. Males and females of the species look almost identical, the most easily seen difference between the two being the male’s lack of enlarged breasts. Their feudal civilization collapsed upon meeting humanity. Cultural shock, the collapse of their frail economies, and human-borne disease decimated the Misle population. Only recently have the Misle begun to recover, yet they have even begun to thrive within the last decade. Misle are the only xeno species to immigrate to the FSC’s capital world in any meaningful number and have found a lot of work in the fine arts as painters, actors, and entertainers of all kinds.

10% Nalloth: An interesting species possessing many of the traits of mammals, Nalloth civilization was largely tribal when humanity first colonized their homeworld. They have generally had a live and let live relationship with the humans that have colonized their homeworld, although the few that have chosen to move closer to human settles are widely sought after due to their ability to easily adapt to zero-g conditions. Despite this many Nalloth have had difficult acclimating to human civilization and end up joining human raiding civilization.
Leadership:
Economy: The bulk of the FSC’s economy is built around the acquisition and exportation of raw minerals and animal husbandry. The FSC’s frontier systems are blessed with an abundance of raw resources, especially rare and exotic materials. Many frontier planetary economies are also based around the husbandry of exotic xeno livestock. These livestock often have ‘wool’ that is tough yet soft, produce a lot of milk, and have exquisitely tasting meat.

The economies of the FSC’s capital and periphery worlds is much more advanced. The periphery worlds possess a small, but growing set of shipyards capable of making mid-sized ships, while the capital’s shipyards can produce larger vessels. More important than this is the droid, android, and general AI industries in these regions. Droids from the periphery worlds are notorious for being dumb, yet reliable and are widely used in the FSC’s frontier and beyond. Androids, droids and AI from the capital are very advanced, but also very expensive and much more rare beyond the capital itself, although they are an example of a high quality good occasionally exported out of the FSC. Largely though these economies are geared towards producing machinery and finished goods that are useful in the frontier: agricultural and mining equipment, durable firearms, cargo vessels, simple droids, and the like.
Military:
The military forces of the Commonwealth are divided into three broad groups: the Commonwealth Armed Forces, the Planetary Armed Forces, and various militias. Together they form the Joint Commonwealth Armed Forces, sometimes improperly shortened to the Commonwealth Armed Forces or more properly the Commonwealth Military or Commonwealth Defense Force.

The Commonwealth Armed Forces form the Federal government’s army and is tasked with the defense of the country and the projection of its powers beyond its own borders when necessary. By its very nature it is the largest, best organized, best trained, and best funded of the three groups that form the Commonwealth Military. Despite this fact it suffers from a chronic lack of funding, thus is forced to employ the use of fleet-in-being tactics and nodal defense forces to project its strength. In other words it lacks the necessary numbers to properly patrol even just the territory that makes up the Commonwealth.

As their name suggests, the Planetary Armed Forces are funded by and tasked with the protection of the planets of the Commonwealth. The size, strength, and quality of these planetary militaries differ drastically depending on the economic capabilities of the planet itself. Some Planetary Armed Forces can exert its strength throughout its star system, many, however, are limited to simply securing its orbitals and a few major cities.

The militias are made up of a plethora of groups that range from honest men trying to protect their homes to being little better than bandits or mobsters themselves. They are usually poorly armed and trained, but possess surprisingly high morale.


History: The ark Houston was among the last of the first wave arks to reach a habitable world. In time this world, named after the ark that brought humanity to it, would grow into a core world, but only after much blood, sweat, and tears had been shed. Houston was a lush world, one that at first glance was a perfect one for humanity, a garden world. Yet it was also a world full of dangers. Diseases and natural disasters alike ravager the settlers. And when the humans on Houston finally got the upper hand on those two dangers, the skrallings struck. Native inhabitants of Houston, the skrallings are to this day a controversial topic. Some believe they were semi-sentient animals. Others state that their tool use, however limited, clearly shows they were sentient. Regardless of which camp is right, and at this point there is no real way to prove one way or the other, the skrallings were a clear threat to the humans of Houston. Raids on human settlements were commonplace, forcing retaliatory extermination campaigns. Several hundred years later, after the humans of Houston had made contact with other human colonies, the skrallings became extinct.

Initially Houston had no desire to expand, content with developing its orbital industry. This all changed when several nearby human colonies asked for aid. A xeno species known as the Nerkin was becoming an increasingly large threat. Primitive, by human standards, the Nerkin had managed to spread throughout the region by hitching rides on human ships. Once their population on any given planet grew to a sufficient size they began to raid any human settlements they could find. Houston answered its neighbors call for help, forming an army and sending troops to each colony in need. They managed to defend these colonies and cull the Nerkin population, although unlike the skrallings the Nerkin continue even to this day to be a threat, and in doing so set the framework for what would eventually become the Free Star Commonwealth.

After this point the Commonwealth began to take an active interest in expansion, pushing onward into the frontier. Bandits became an increasingly large problem, one that only seemed to grow over time. Difficulty in raising the funds to build an appropriately sized navy, an issue that continues to this day, allowed bandits and pirates to thrive in the Commonwealth frontier, but also encouraged planetary governments and militia to take a more active role in their own defense. And it was this, in part, that would lead to the Commonwealth-Federation War of 963 EC.

Ownership of a frontier world became a point of conflict when it was colonized almost simultaneously by the Federation and a planetary government in the Commonwealth. Roughly three months after the two colonized had been formed, a task force of planetary government armed forces and militia from the Commonwealth set out to “ensure the safety of Commonwealth citizens”. This in turn resulted in the Federation sending its own task force. Despite the best efforts of the Commonwealth President to settle the matter diplomatically, the incident became a shooting war when a Commonwealth militia corvette opened fire on a Federation counterpart. An additional task force sent by the Commonwealth Armed Forces managed to obtain some tactical victories against Federation forces, but it quickly became apparent that the Federation was both capable of and willing to send more ships to fight the war than the Commonwealth could. By the end of the year the Commonwealth sued for peace, officially ceeding the planet to the Federation and acknowledging its fault for starting the war.
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