Completed and final version of the Qinglong Accord, pending approval.

[hider=The Qinglong Accord]
[center][color=darkturquoise][h2]The Qinglong Accord[/h2][/color]

[img]https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2F1l2eqq0z4at71.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3Db47e78875edffec7feb82fc4904672699a9265b6&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=36e663a690188741ece03fd458e3809be92cd6a3559c05de36839c42f13cf50d&ipo=images[/img]

[h3]Through Unity, Harmony. Through Harmony, [i]De[/i].[/h3]

[b][color=darkturquoise]Government Form[/color]:[/b]
One-Party Democratic Corporatist Republic ([color=darkturquoise]Unitarian Harmonism - Héxié Zhǔyì[/color])

[b][color=darkturquoise]Population[/color]:[/b]
Qingyuan (QGL-2): ~58.7% (~2.88 billion)
Mingxian (QGL-2.1): ~19.1% (~937 million)
Wuhua (QGL-3): ~3.3% (~161 million)
Jingyu (QGL-4): ~15.9% (~782 million)
Xuzhu Zhumin (Spacebound): ~3.0% (~147 million)
Total Population: 4.91 billion

[color=darkturquoise]What is Humanity?[/color]:
One more [color=darkturquoise]machine[/color], to be brought into harmony.

---
[/center]

[b][color=darkturquoise]System Name and Description[/color]: [/b]
Located in the Centaurus arms of the Milky Way, the population overseen by the Executive Machine is split across  the inner core of the [color=darkturquoise][b]Qinglong system[/b][/color], although largely centred around the capital and most populated world of [color=darkturquoise][b]Qingyuan[/b][/color]. Qingyuan is a relatively Earth-sized planet rotating a single k-type main-sequence star, joined by its natural satellite of [color=darkturquoise][b]Mingxian[/b][/color]. More recent developments has led to a small but stable population on the planet of [color=darkturquoise][b]Wuhua[/b][/color], while the human-inhabited portions of the system end at the frontier world of [color=darkturquoise][b]Jingyu[/b][/color], the border between the inner and outer system. A small proportion of [color=darkturquoise][b]Xuzhuren[/b][/color] or 'void people' exist in between these planets, serving to connect these bodies together.

The Qinglong system was highly unusual in many ways: Not only did it contain a planet already home to early life - Qingyuan, designated as a 'biocompatible world' but quickly adjusted to 'habitable world,' but also a second that was viable for terraforming and colonisation - Jingyu, classified as an 'easily terraformable planet.' Furthermore, Qingyuan's biospheres was comparatively young and homogenous when the Gateway opened, featuring only simple multicellular plant and microbial life that had yet to emerge out onto land. During the decade when the system was still connected to Sol, the [color=darkturquoise][b]Shennong Initiative[/b][/color] was able to rapidly build upon this primordial ecosystem, work that was continued after the Gateway sealed to transform Qingyuan into a true 'Garden World,' home to a host of Earth life, including species long since rendered extinct, yet born again thanks to advances in genetics and cloning. A curious quirk of this dramatic upending of the planet's normal evolutionary processes is that fossil fuels are almost completely absent and are unlikely to ever emerge with 24th-century life now inhabiting it.

While Qingyuan was heavily terraformed and developed, Mingxian and Jingyu received slightly different treatments. Mingxian is simply too small to allow for the conditions for life to emerge naturally or for meaningful terraforming efforts - it cannot sustain an atmosphere, its regolith is hazardous and toxic, while its slightly eccentric orbit causes strong seasonal differences that would dramatically challenge life. Instead, Qinglong used the moon to set up both heavy industries to support the ongoing effort and as a new home for their low-gravity R&D departments, a legacy which has held firm throughout Qinglong's history. Without an early ecosystem to use as a base, Jingyu's potential was unable to be fully unlocked within the first ten years, although automated terraforming facilities with minimal human oversight were set up to begin the effort. True colonisation was projected to occur with a second stage of the Shennong Initiative estimated to begin some 30-50 years after Qingyuan had been 'finished.' After Qinglong's failure, various governments in the system have made attempts at turning the frontier world into yet another vibrant home for humanity, although the current success of such projects is questionable, and unlikely to change in the near future. 

Crucially to modern Qinglong technology, Qingyuan and Mingxian are home to a seemingly physics-defying metal colloquially known as ‘lodestones,’ with the elemental name of Tàishǐum. Lodestones are remarkably unreactive [i]except[/i] for their natural magnetism, which is so powerful and violent that lodestone deposits are often found not in the ground, but instead hovering in the planet’s sky in gravity defying ‘islands.’ Although it is possible to create minerals with a similar composition to lodestones artificially, only true Tàishǐum has the specific magnetic power that makes it so highly prized. Naturally found only on Qingyuan and its moon, the leading explanation for this is that originally the planet was much larger, before being struck by another celestial object, which fused with it into the current planet of Qingyuan, while the ejecta was captured and accreted to form Mingxian.

[color=darkturquoise]Demographics[/color]: 
There are three main species from two distinct cultures that exist peacefully on Qinglong:

[color=darkturquoise][i]Homo Sapiens Sapiens[/i] ~93% (~4.56 billion):[/color] Humanity makes up the overwhelming majority of the population, the legacy of Qinglong Frontier Development's aggressive push to populate its personal fief.
[color=darkturquoise]Canxing Zholou: ~7% (~344 million):[/color] More recent arrivals to the system, the Canxing Zholou, or 'Voyagers of the Broken Stars,' are a refugee population of sapient aliens, split into two distinct sub-populations:
Sky Zholouren: ~4% (~196 million)
Earth Zholouren: ~3% (~148 million)

[hider=On the Canxing Zholou:]
Arriving in the Qinglong system around halfway through its isolation from its Gateway, two alien species, united under a single banner, arrived as refugees from between the stars. Although their relationship with humanity started rough, in the time since the Canxing have come to be seen as fellow sapient species, and many of them have integrated into Qinglong society. Although strict Taoism has faded in the modern Accord, the two species, who symbiotically evolved alongside one another as sister-species on their home world, have long been culturally tied to the symbolism of yin and yang, and the dualist taijitu is often used by more heavily humanicised Zholouren as a marker of integration, but also a way of asserting their uniqueness onto an alien society.

Sky, or Yang Zholou were originally gliding omnivores, their heightened senses and enlarged craniums helping them to search for food across long distances. Their early interactions with the Earth, or Yin Zholou is believed to be as hunting partners, with the non-obligate carnivorous Yins bringing down large prey and protecting Yang dens. Despite early assumptions, both species are highly intelligent and capable of tool use, a factor that has helped ensure both of them developed alongside one another, rather than dominating over the other.

Many centuries of specialisation have turned the Yin into true-born spacers, still capable of gliding, but now well adapted to zero-g living, while their mental capacity is particularly suited to abstract thinking and decision making. The Yang, meanwhile, retained much of their original abilities, forming the bulk of their great fleet's mechanics, engineers and life scientists. They share several traits, including ultrasonic vocalisation and infrared chromatophores on their skin developed to allow them to communicate remotely - wearing clothes is seen as the ultimate sign of assimilation.

Zholouren have brought many technological and cultural changes with them to Qinglong. The great Ship Minds that carried them between the stars are the foundation for modern Non-Biological Intelligences (and subsequent system of Networked Computational Minds,) while their expertise with genetics has led to a revival in a formerly under-explored area of Qinglong science. Perhaps some might find the strange bond they have with a truly alien species peculiar... but humanity has shed blood against the same Shenjian that once destroyed their home for nearly two centuries, and such a thing makes their many differences far more palatable. 
[/hider]

[color=darkturquoise]History[/color]: 
[hider=Qinglong: The Megacorporation (Years -10-0)]
[center][i]"Qinglong Megaconglomerate is proud to announce their ascension to the ranks of Gateways Colonial Administrator with formal settlement of the Qinglong system. Already, efforts are hard at work to forge the Twin Planets into paradises befitting of Earth's majesty - a haven for those seeking to leave our home for a better life. Endless potential is waiting to be grasped, and it needs you! Inquire today about securing your place among the stars!"

Qinglong Frontier Developments: Building Better Worlds[sup]TM[/sup]
- An advertisement dated 2291 CE, from the Qinglong Frontier Developments Subsidiary[/i][/center]

Qinglong ('Q-L' 'The Azure Dragon' 'QingCon') was a titan of Earth... And some might argue one of the many, many nails hammered into its coffin during the 24th century. A true megacorporation in each and every sense of the world, the Azure Dragon might have been born in China, but its reach soon grew to encompass the globe. A de-facto superpower by the time the Gateways hummed to life and humanity was able to expand their reach across the galaxy. Already at the cutting edge of 24th century technology and eager to plant their logo anywhere they could, the company recognised the Gateways for what they were:

[i]The[/i] opportunity to cement the Q-L name in the history books, [i]forever.[/i] 

The system they lay claim to was matched appropriately to the egos of everyone involved. A primordial, life-bearing world, perfectly suited as a testing ground for terraforming technologies that could hopefully prove their worth and be taken back to repair Earth itself. Qinglong's Frontier Developments Subsidiary thus began the [b]Shennong Initiative[/b]- a 'ground up' terraforming project that would use the newly named Qingyuan's unsophisticated biosphere as a blank canvas on which to paint a new Earth. 

Resources flooded into the system over the next decade. Although the Initiative was estimated to take almost 30 years, the Conglomerate pre-shipped almost all of the sophisticated terraforming equipment required for its conclusion to the system ahead of time. Taking advantage of the fact that it had virtually no financial oversight, the Q-L gambled that by eating a higher up-front cost, the Megaconglomerate would [i]appear[/i] to turn a profit long before the Frontier Development actually paid for itself, massively enriching its shareholders in the process. 

These early days were full of completely unwarranted optimism in just how well the whole affair would turn out. Grand, sweeping megaprojects were planned across the system, and the discovery of Tàishǐum only fuelled the fires of corporate greed. Talks quickly began regarding the construction of colossal space stations, or mass drivers on Mingxian to launch goods down to Qingyuan and across to installations on Wuhua, all accompanied by an advertising blitz to put any tinpot dictator rewriting history to shame.

As the atmosphere of Qingyuan stabilised enough for people to descend to the surface, the media frenzy only grew. Workers on Earth were offered ludicrously generous packages to tempt them to a star system entirely under the control of QingCon, complete with wage-garnished travel, cradle-to-grave 'loyalty contracts,' and subsidised parcels of land after service milestones. Company healthcare promised genetic screening and early model cybernetics not only for workers themselves but also their descendants, while every child born in the system was proudly displayed on adverts back home, along with new parents gleefully thanking the company for the chance to raise a family away from a failing Earth.

With such a colossal effort behind it, it was no surprise that the Qinglong system soon became home to a huge number of people drawn from every stratum of society. The common worker could find themselves setting up domes on Mingxian and Jingyu, planting trees across the rugged surface of Qingyuan or stripping it's massive lodestone islands, their every effort carried out under the auspices of a small army of scientists and researchers concerned with everything from food webs to astro-engineering to semi-autonomous drone swarms. Of course, all of this was done beneath the watchful gaze of QingCon and their leagues of administrators, middle-managers, division departments and of course the head office of Frontier Development itself, the first skyscraper to grace Qingyuan's virgin city of Xiwang, an impossible to miss beacon lit up with the company's comforting Azure Dragon logo.

Qinglong's 2300 New Year's party was said to be truly legendary; despite the now critical state that Earth was in, the sheer success of Frontier Developments was impossible to deny. Competitors like Morgan-Lott may have grumbled at the Azure Dragon's [i]creative[/i] financing, but with everyone sweeping their own shady practices under the rug even they had to admit that the plan was working. The system was set to be [b]the[/b] shining example of what a Gateways colony could look like when given appropriate funding and attention, and even as the Earth crumbled the Conglomerate's finances only climbed higher.

But their success was a bubble, mired in over-ambition and hubris, its share prices riding high on hype and vapour... And it only took a single day for it all to come crashing down.

[center][i]"A common urban legend regarding 'CoB day' is that upon realising what had happened the COO of Q-L Frontier Developments jumped from the roof of Head Office. It's wrong, he shot himself, but I think it's too late for us to ever shake that old 'what falls faster, a man or his shares?' phrase."
- Debate on the Urban Legends Reference Intranet Forums, dated 2678CE[/i][/center]
[/hider]

[hider=Qinglong: The Colony (Years 0-75)]
[center][i]"CoB Day ended Q-L's monopoly as quick as that." The interviewee snapped his fingers together. "You'd think their big flagship effort would manage better, but it just wasn't set up to endure such a catastrophic shock to the system, and it's not like the early colony was economically profitable enough to function as a corporatocracy even had they been... But Shennong had to continue. We were all dead without it."
- Archival record interview of first-generation colonial administrator dated 2346CE, used in 'Our Qinglong, our Home,' documentary published 2789 CE.[/i][/center]

January 1st, 2301, T+24 from the Gateways closing and the Azure Dragon was already collapsing underneath its own weight. Head Office had entered a state of complete anarchy, far-flung ships and systems suffered communication breakdowns and an atmosphere of absolute panic soon gripped the system. In an instant the very foundations of the New Corporate Ethic that Qinglong Megaconglomerate had championed were stripped bare to reveal them to be both completely rotten [i]and[/i] woefully inadequate for the survival situation that Frontier Developments now found itself in.

With the vertical relationship the company had maintained crumbling overnight, the horizontal connections between workers at every level would quickly replace them. When middle management failed, their lower-level subordinates, much more connected to the [i]people[/i] that Qinglong had seen only as bank accounts to carefully husband rapidly stepped up, and smaller-scale local organisations soon took shape, intensely reliant on each other to survive.

It is perhaps the ultimate irony that the very organisations that QingCon had so successfully quashed under their tenure - Unions, were what would salvage their flagship project from the brink of collapse. Elected industrial forepeople, research oversight committees and even security force sergeants that [i]should[/i] have enforced the hierarchy instead came together, working over the head of the flailing bureaucracy. 

What followed was a massive paring down of unrealistic ambitions. Half-finished space stations were scrapped for every spare bolt and lightbulb, lodestone shipments bound for Earth were pulled back to Xiwang to be used in first-generation fusion plasma plants, while the bones of skyscrapers were left forever unfinished as their steel and concrete was turned into fit-for-purpose urban expansion projects.

The one project that could not be abandoned was Shennong. Qingyuan had shown remarkable progress already, and was certainly capable of sustaining human life... But ultimately badly underprepared for full self-sufficiency. Although Qinglong had never prepared for this eventuality, in their drive to bamboozle the markets they'd managed to leave the colonists with enough in-system to press on. Even so, the dreams of an intricately designed and carefully monitored prestige ecosystem would now never be achieved. Plants and animals were unleashed to settle into equilibrium on their own, while targeted defoliants were deployed in order to destroy 'wilderness gardens' and replace them with more practical habitats. 

As months turned to years the new order of the system began to settle into place underneath a government that called itself the [b]People's Syndicates of Qingyuan[/b]. Their efforts, starting from the ground and growing to encompass the entire inhabited system, culminated in the elections of a Presidium and its leading Director for Qingyuan, along with Vice Directors for both Mingxian and Jingyu. The new order would be signed into law with the ratification of the [color=darkturquoise][b]Qinglong People's Constitution[/b][/color] in 2303, and the system was to be re-organised along syndicalist lines, with a market socialist economy replacing the hyper capitalist script-driven structure of the megacorporation. Former middle managers and administrators who had only ever attended meetings and stared at spreadsheets now drove combine harvests or organised union accounts, and as the years ticked over into decades, the system appeared to have succeeded perfectly. To defend frontier settlements and fend off early interplanetary criminal elements the Syndicates would restructure the old corporate security force into a citizen's militia known as the Joint Frontier Force, and this way of life seemed to have established itself as the new normal.

But, just like the NCE it had taken over from, the Syndicates were built on shoddy foundations. Although claiming to be a clean break from the old hierarchy, the ad-hoc nature of the government's founding had meant that many of its bad habits had been held over, including its legendary 'Merit Exam' system. As industries, markets and syndicates grew larger and more complicated, cracks began to form - first at the edges, then snaking all the way through society as the system raced back towards the knife's edge it had navigated itself away from following CoB Day.

The biggest issue was the Presidium itself. Although it had worked well in its earlier days, many of its byzantine systems were hodge-podged together over time rather than cleanly designed from the ground up, and there was increasing stratification between a bureaucratic literati class and the rest of the populace. Compounding matters was the moon of Mingxian, still a major industrial center and badly underrepresented in governance, while Jingyu's steadily growing population increasingly wanted more representation for itself.

Although historically the JFF had served as the colony's de-facto police force, poor oversight and weak control had led to increasingly more radical elements emerging within its society, and the demoralised forces couldn't be counted on to properly fend off interplanetary banditry or even maintain order on the capital. Capping off this potent blend of issues was the steady loss of a unified survivalist culture, as memories of CoB day waned and the first and second generations gave way to children to whom Earth was nothing more than cautionary tale relegated to the pages of a history textbook. 

It all came to a head in 2374.

[center][i]"You should have seen the capital in the 70s. I'd like to say 'good times,' but they really were anything but. Seemed every day there was another strike, protest or demonstration, and it wasn't the damn syndics who were stuck dealing with angry workers hurling brickwork. They let us take the crowd's fury, then promised trite concessions that did nothing but bring them back a month later before turning around and condemning us for not solving the problem."
- A JFF NCO recounting the events leading up to the Xiwang Coup dated 2372CE. Archival footage used with permission, 2763CE[/i][/center]
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[hider=Qinglong: The Directorship (Years 75-120)]
[center][i]"The tragedy of Earth is not that so many died. Death is an inevitable part of life. The tragedy is that so many died as victims. When the crisis came, they were helpless, unable to use their deaths to buy anything of value. Billions of otherwise intelligent people had been tricked into ignoring a fundamental truth: that no man has any rights if he is unable to personally defend them." 
Excerpt from Zhou Yīnuò's debut treatise 'The Lessons of Old Earth,' dated 2366CE[/i][/center]

It is impossible to understand the Accord as it exists today without understanding Yinuo Zhou. History may not have been [i]kind[/i] to her, but it certainly does remember her even four centuries after she passed away. No doubt, knowing such a thing would have brought a trademark wry smile to her lips even as she lay on her deathbed. 

[hider=The Intranet Encyclopaedia: Yinuo Zhou]
Zhou Yīnuò, (July 13th, 2326 - September 22nd 2412) was a Qingyuanren military officer, political theorist and politician who would rule as the unified Director of the Qinglong System from 2375 to her death in 2412. Although popular during her reign, Yinuo’s legacy is complex - equally praised for her decisive action at a time of intense instability and condemned as the herald of the tyranny to come during the period of Supreme Directors. She is nonetheless credited with laying the cultural and political groundwork for what would later become the Combine Council and finally the Executive Machine. She was responsible for widescale economic, social, military and political reforms, while her theories have only become more popular and studied following the Arrival.

Zhou was born in Xiwang City during the early colonial period: At the time, Xiwang was Qingyuan's only major city, its founding the culmination of the early successes of the Shennong Initiative. Her father, Yang Sheng-Ji, was the chairman of the city’s only microprocessor factory, while her mother, Dr Yang Wen (née Xiao) was a researcher and lecturer at the Xiwang Polytechnic Institute. Zhou joined the Qingyuan branch of the Joint Frontier Force in 2344, becoming a commissioned officer at the age of 18, taking advantage of the Force’s low service time requirement to complete two degrees - Human, Social and Political Science and Exoplanetary Studies within 4 years. 

Her upbringing gave her an insider's view of the Syndicate's internal levers of power, which combined with her sterling service and a finely-honed mind meant that she saw a steady and uninterrupted rise through the ranks of the QJFF. Zhou served several tours of duty as part of the JFF's space force, directed marine engagements around Mingxian and cleared several additional levels of Merit Examinations, with her rising stardom finally recognised in 2362 when she won a landslide JFF election to take the position of Military Chairwoman (a civilian advisory role.) She would use this position to consistently pressure the various directorships to strengthen pan-system administration, expand outwards across the Twin Planets and increase spending on the JFF's navy to better enforce order in space. 

In 2366, she would publish the first of several treaties- 'The Lessons of Old Earth,' in which she put forward the concept of regime in which only those who had directly contributed to the ‘security or betterment of the nation’ would be allowed to participate in its political sphere. While previously tolerated among career politicians in the Syndicates, this controversial publication led to a rare moment of agreement between members of the Presidium, culminating in Zhou being forced to abdicate her position as chairwoman in 2368. Rather than ease tension, this move caused resentment in the JFF to boil over, and they announced a massive series of strikes across both Qingyuan and its moon. With the army refusing to leave their bases, previously controlled demonstrations and protests became emboldened, with a grovelling Director forced to reinstate her before the year was out. She used this opportunity to discredit her opponents and massively increase the remit and power of the JFF, causing a boom in various feeder military industries who would covertly pledge themselves to support her most ambitious moves yet.

[See: Autumn Crisis, Mingxian Crisis]

In September of 2373, the Vice-Director of Mingxian threatened to withdraw the planet's support for the current government, citing the ongoing social unrest and precipitated by a growing feeling of competitiveness between the two bodies over both food from Qingyuan and industrial goods from Mingxian. The following turmoil would unseat the Director of Qingyuan - Chen Tanqiu, in October of the same year, shortly followed by the resignations of many other high-ranking members of the planet's Presidium, in an event that would be dubbed the Autumn Crisis.

The remaining political apparatus hastily scheduled an election for November 13th, but lacking much of its organisational strength the affair was marred with controversy over voting access and irregularities over counts, and there was a near-complete lack of faith that the new Director Zhu De could carry out his duties.

This weakness was what many in the nation had been waiting for, and Zhou was now excellently placed to carry out her plans. Having remained in her position throughout the crisis, she was able to leverage her influence with industrial interests and the JFF to make the fateful declaration that she and the military had lost all faith in the government. Her proposition to the crisis was simple and to the point: The JFF would step in to manage what the government could not. The state would be headed by an 'interim government' centralised under a single Directorship of the Qinglong System, and she nominated herself for the position. With the JFF and (now believed to be astroturfed) series of public protests supporting her ascension, Zhu De reluctantly stepped down in January of 2374. Although no formal election was held, she was appointed in a hastily assembled meeting of the Presidium to thunderous applause.

What followed was a sweeping set of reforms that aimed to rapidly bring a conclusion to the many different issues plaguing the nation. The power of the Directors had been limited both by the need for unity between the various positions and subsequent agreement by the Presidium - with the former no longer an issue and the latter powerless in the face of her support, she had effectively unlimited control over the system. Immediately, she worked to purge the growing literati out of government bureaucracy, crush the system of unions and councils and sweeping aside the many organically developed layers of bureaucracy in order to centralise power in the state. Once complete, many of these assets were then privatised in a gold rush that saw a class of wealthy business oligarchs emerge, some of whom could still trace their fortunes to the days of QingCon.

These oligarchs would go on to form powerful cliques that owed much of their success directly to Zhou, whose backing she could count on to form her largest powerbase throughout her rule. Such an arrangement did have downsides however, and a significant portion of her time would be spent mediating disputes between rival factions within the cloques.

With political and economic power centralised and the government flush with funds from its asset sell-offs, Zhou  continued her reforms by widening the state's social nets while simultaneously cracking down on the 'four evils:' unemployment, homelessness, famine, and unrest. The JFF was reorganised into two branches for planetary and interplanetary operations underneath a combined command structure, founding the modern QJDF. The QJDF's role as civilian law enforcement was finally broken off to form separate law enforcement and state security apparatuses, while formalised training and deployment broke the close links militia groups had to their communities. To combat the lawlessness in space she had fought against during her time in the field she instituted new border control regulations and laid the groundworks for a proper Interplanetary Navy, finally succeeding in temporarily crushing banditry. [See Beltway Bandits and New Guangdong]

The rest of her life was spent developing and maintaining the system she had forged, holding it together through political acumen and sheer force of will even after she survived several bouts with cancer and entered her eighties. She would only show noticeable signs of slowing in her final two years, slowly delegating more and more power to her Deputy Director as she retreated from public life. Her final treatise was completed in 2411 and published posthumously, to massive success.
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Some expected that the system of rule-by-one would collapse after the 'Iron Director's' nearly forty-year reign... But such hopes were quickly dashed by the new system's surprising flexibility after her departure. Although her designated successor Qi Zheng  had several political and personal weaknesses, he was able to ride out the waves of succession without everything collapsing around him. With the dangerous years of succession over and three years of largely controlled rule over the system behind him, many expected that the Joint Directorship would remain for centuries to come, and indeed while externally all seemed well, [i]internally[/i] growing disputes among the oligarchal cliques began to cause serious issues for Qi's power.

Unable to control the cliques like his forerunner had, Zheng's weakness was exploited by a cabal of powerful apparatchiks nicknamed the Gang of Five, who although nominally subservient, in practice held most of the keys to power within government. With their influence consolidated the Joint Director was inexorably sidelined, his power cut out under him piece-by-piece. Zheng was allowed to remain in his position  continued to be the formal head of state, but in practice this became a figurehead position with all true power consolidated under the newly formed position of Executor.

The Gang of Five implemented a series of slow reforms from Yinuo's autocracy, including token citizen representation in all levels of government (although in reality many of the newly founded or revived bodies were merely rubber-stamps for the will of the Executor and the cliques that backed them.) Fading from the political limelight, Zheng would quietly step down in 2420 citing health issues, retiring to live out the rest of his days managing a tobacco plantation and caring for his family. His funeral was attended to by a large number of both the remaining Zhouist loyalists and the rising powers within the cliques, including the four surviving members of the original Gang of Five. With his death, Qinglong had completed its subtle shift from total autocracy into hidden oligarchy, an age that would come to be defined by the Gang of Five's largest contribution: The Office of Executor.

[center][i]"The greatest threat to any autocrat is themselves. An autocrat must, if they wish to rule properly and prosperously, be adequately suited for the position that they ascend to. The ever-famous quote is the death-knell of an autocrat - to be corrupt is to undercut one's own authority, and thus guarantee one's fall."
- Excerpt from Yinuo Zhou's final treatise 'On Power and Rule,' dated 2413 CE[/i][/center]

[hider=Addendum: The Iron Pocketbook]

"A single mind is like the leaf of a tree - only when working in concert do they sustain the whole."

Or, to use the formal title, [i]Quotations from the Joint Director: The Words of Yinuo Zhou[/i] is one of, if not [i]the[/i] most published book in Qinglong's history, placing it on par with religious scripture and some of the most popular works of fiction produced in the system or surviving from Earth. Impossibly influential, it presents the Joint Director's political theories in an easy-to-digest format and accompanies them with quotes both attic and laconic, designed to be endlessly relevant across societal and planetary boundaries. 

Conceived of in a publishing committee beneath Qi Zheng, the first printing of the book was a rough compilation of excerpts from many of her most famous speeches along with a few new additions she'd provided from various drafts and the better parts of scrapped speeches. Early drafts were perused by apparatchiks, military elites, and Zhou's inner circle, leading to several stages of refinement before it finally reached its first open publication in 2399. Records from the time suggest that a little under a billion copies of this first edition were published and distributed, part of a concerted effort to center Zhou and her cult of personality in the psyche of the Qinglong Joint Directorate.

The book went through further refinement and printings over the course of Zhou's life and new editions and compilations, often featuring forewords that ground it within the context and history of its first editions or featuring margin annotations for classroom analysis are still published to this day. Indeed, this constant cycle of reappraisal and re-examination have ensured that it still sells very well, placing it among works like [i]The Prince[/i] and [i]The Art of War[/i] as a cultural touchstone. Several quotes from the book have become common aphorisms, and it is required reading in any academic course that touches upon history or society in the modern republic. 

"Harmony is not silence, - it is a drumbeat, to be marched to in lockstep."

The story behind its nickname of 'the Iron Pocketbook' has been the topic of debate since its inception. Some argue that it simply stems from Zhou's customary nickname of the [b]'Iron Director'[/b] while others point to its early publication history among the QJDF, with a plain grey cover, form small enough to be slipped into the breast pocket of a service uniform and mythical ruggedness. This version of the book was issued to every soldier when they finished basic training and even hundreds of years later modern officers may garner a few suspicious squints if they can't muster a basic argument or two on its merit one way or another.

Modern Qinglongren have a peculiar view on the book. For some, it is a key example of Qinglong literature, for most, a nostalgic curiosity. Tourist shops in Xiwang, including the gift shop of the museum established over her former mausoleum offer gaudy modern printings, while its quotability has earned it a permanent place in online meme culture.

Despite the reputation of Zhou and Zhouist thought in the modern Accord, the Iron Pocketbook has never truly left military circles. Graduating officer cadets commonly receive modernised grey-cover printings as gifts, and the QJDF's dress uniform still includes the same breast pocket as its Zhouist counterpart once did, still perfectly sized to slip Zhou's timeless wisdom into.
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[hider=Qinglong: The Executorship (Years 120-209)]
[center][i]"I like to think that we have achieved the impossible here. The Megacorporation may be dead, but we have built a better world. The Iron Director rests in her mausoleum, but our nation remains whole, undivided by syndicalist weakness. So ganbei! A toast to our accomplishments!"
- Recording from a private political dinner dated 2456 CE, made public in 2597 CE during the Rectification Campaigns.[/i][/center]

With the role of Director successfully sidelined, the Executorship had a strong foundation to grow and develop from. Unfortunately for the Executors though, little of this was thanks to the efforts of any of the people to actually take up the position. The now-distant legacy of Qinglong Megaconglomerate had always been one of top-down rule, while Zhou's grand upturning of society and keen political acumen had steered the nation towards minority governance in a far more effective way than mere cultural attitudes. The early Executors enjoyed the favour of cliques relatively unified behind them and widespread popular support thanks to the Gang of Five's careful reforms... But by the late 2440s, the final member of the Gang of Five had passed, and with them the last vestiges of the oligarchal clique's strong collaboration between each other.

With the cliques increasingly at each other's throats and factionalism becoming widespread, the unofficial checks on the Executor's [i]de jure[/i] nearly unlimited power rapidly began to break down. Despite the many successes of the 25th century, dissent from Mingxian and Jingyu was never fully eliminated, and with the Executor best placed to try to mediate disputes between the bickering cliques, power began to be brought back under a single position once more. Although its often difficult to exactly pinpoint when one era ends and another begins, most point to the formal dissolution of the office of Joint Director in 2511 to make way for the position of [i]Supreme Executor[/i] to be the end of the political legacy that Yinuo had started. Further Executors would rely on increasingly authoritarian measures both to control the population and to stabilise their influence against the Byzantine deep state of clique politics that had emerged.

Despite this political climate, the 25th century is usually seen as a time of progress for Qinglong as a whole. Yinuo's military reforms meant that the issue of interplanetary banditry and secessionist movements continued to be controlled, while a proliferation of genetic and cybernetic enhancements across society improved the length and quality of the average life. Many Executors saw the further terraforming and settlement of Jingyu to be a useful prestige project to refocus attention from their weaker areas of leadership, and the planet saw more investment into it than it ever had before, especially since Yinuo's reign had largely concentrated on expanding settlements across Qingyuan. Continued bread and games policies ensure that the populace remained, if not fully [i]happy,[/i] at least content with the way that the system was managed, and the easing of migration controls led to a boom in economic activity and frontier settlement. 

To say that this was an unstable tightrope to walk would be a gross understatement, and it didn't take long at all before the cracks were once again worming their way through Qinglong society. The increasing desperation of Supreme Executors led to more social unrest, while having a single powerful opponent to rally against meant that cliques were more often than not willing to work together to re-assert their power. With the position of Executor assailed on all sides, the deathblow to the autocratic regime arrived in a very unusual form in the year 2509.

[center][i]"We'd known that the galaxy harboured intelligent life aside from ourselves ever since the original days of QingCon, but after CoB day nobody ever thought they'd be relevant again, short of the Gateway opening itself back up. I mean, what, were aliens going to cross a few hundred trillion kilometres in slower-than-light spaceships just to say hello?"
- Archival internal interview of a naval deep-space monitoring officer dated 2511 CE, used in 'Our Qinglong, our Home' documentary published 2789 CE[/i][/center]
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[hider=Qinglong: The Councilship (Years 209-~298):]
[center][i]"Put yourself in our shoes. We had an unidentified fleet of xeno rapidly approaching the inner system. There were no protocols for this. There were no previous experiences to fall back to. A decision had to be made and there wasn't time to wait three hours for communication from Q-Y. You ask if I can sleep soundly knowing I fired upon refugees? I sleep just fine, your honour."
- Court room recording of the trial of Rear Admiral Mao Zhelan , then 121, during the Rectification Campaigns, dated 2598 CE.[/i][/center]

In late June 2509, the Qinglong Navy's much neglected deep-space monitoring systems picked up a large number of highly unusual signatures approaching the systems at a significant c-fraction and [i]slowing,[/i] in contradiction to all usual logic regarding interstellar material. Having spent the vast majority of its existence ever since the end of Zhou's reign as a brief pass-through deployment for up-and-coming personnel and a dumping ground for washed-up or politically disenfranchised officers, the initial response to this phenomenon was not adequately communicated back to the central government, and it soon became clear that this was no wandering asteroid or collection of deep-space detritus, but instead an honest-to-God alien [i]fleet[/i], rapidly approaching the system.

Some 200 years of total isolation had left the existence of intelligent alien life as somewhat of a footnote in the history of pre-CoB Qinglong Conglomerate. Because of this, naval doctrine was far more concerned about the day-to-day management of interstellar logistics, routine peacekeeping patrols and ceremonial displays than it was about the potential need to defend the nation against a literally alien threat. This lack of preparation came back to haunt the nation as the fleet approached, and while it clearly recognised attempts at communication and even responded to hails, no actual communication could occur. By the time the deep-system report was finally sent, the fleet had reached the outer system and had begun to disperse, although its core shifted to a collision course with Jingyu.

The vast span of space meant that, in the absence of clearly countervailing orders, flag officers were empowered to take strategic decisions with the backing of assigned political officers. While the Supreme Executor froze and the deep state bickered among themselves, rear admiral (or Haijun shao jiang) Mao Zhelan made the fateful decision to prepare his wing for full scale conflict and issued the order to fire. When the weapons struck home the fleet would rapidly scatter and although several increasingly long and incensed-sounding messages were sent out the ships did indeed begin to retreat back to the far system. 

At the time Mao's decisive actions were celebrated for ensuring the safety of not just Jingyu but even Qingyuan itself, briefly making him one of the most famous people in the nation. Such attention ended up being a double-edged blade however, as political interests dogged his military career desperate to use his reputation and influence for their own ends. Making matters worse, not just for Mao but also for the government, was the breaking down of the communication barrier between Qinglongren and the alien fleet, with the true details of their arrival and their intentions becoming clear.

The flotilla was a splinter from a nation located in a system some three dozen lightyears away, comprised of an ad-hoc assembly of 'Ark' ships designed to carry them away from their home system. Although there have been many different names for the refugees over the years and they call themselves a word that quite simply translates to 'the people,' the common 'human' name they've accepted is '[color=darkturquoise][b]Canxing Zholou (残星舟旅)[/b][/color],' or 'Voyagers of the Broken Stars' They had not come as invaders or colonists, but instead refugees desperately trying to keep ahead of the system-spanning advance of a what would quickly be dubbed the [color=darkturquoise][b]Shenjian Empire (神姦帝国)[/b][/color], due to its alien name being impossible to adequately translate. (Even the best attempts by modern, integrated Zhouluren have rendered something along the lines of [Untranslatable Proper Noun] Greater Star-Integration Hegemon, thanks to the difficulties of translating an already alien language through a different alien language and finally to Mandarin.)

The result was, to put it mildly, explosive. With Qinglong already having approached a crossroad prior to the Arrival, any last remnants of stability were shattered at this news. Unrest and panic unseen since the days of the Autumn Crisis spread across the system like wildfire, and no amount of desperate authoritarian measures could quell this level of social disturbances. No matter who you sided with - pro-Zhouluren integrationists, hardline militarists only caring for the approaching Shenjian, radical populists or extreme Zhouists, the chorus of voices all agreed on one thing: The Supreme Executor had to go. 

Seizing the opportunity, the re-organised cliques made their move against the position. Stepping out of the shadows that they had disguised their political power in for well over a century, they unseated the last Executor in a move oddly reminiscent of Zhou's own bloodless coup, announcing that until a proper solution to the crisis could be found, an interim council had taken charge to better manage the state's affairs.

Disbanding the position of Supreme Executor and reigning without a single authority figure bought the Council enough goodwill to ease the immediate unrest, but their margin was still slight, and once again the oligarchs had put themselves in a position where success could only come from the ever-fractious cliques putting aside their differences to work together. Scepticism was high as they re-asserted authority, and afraid to rock the boat many of the Executorship era mechanisms were kept on, although with their worst excesses toned down and the dispersed authority of the Council forcing them to act more collaboratively.

The first issue was, naturally, that of the Zhouluren and the approaching Shenjian, which the immediately revived deep space monitoring systems set about scouring the darkness between the stars to find. Rejecting the calls of those who saw the Zholouren as nothing more than a fifth column in the making, smaller portions of  Zholouren were reluctantly permitted entrance to Jingyu and Mingxian, while elements of their surviving fleet combined with new building projects created a segregated area of space around the barren fourth planet of [color=darkturquoise][b]Wuhua[/b][/color] for them to inhabit. 

With this issue 'handled,' at least for the time being, deep space scans finally bore fruit: although still some light years away, the Shenjian were indeed real, and although the vastness between the stars has always been difficult to glean information from, what [i]did[/i] come through was all bad news. The approaching fleet was large, organised, and worse, appeared to have a second, much smaller fragmentary fleet hot on its heels, of similar but distinctly different design.

Although the Council attempted to suppress this, the once formidable security apparatus that earlier Supreme Executors had used to their advantage was powerless in the face of a population well aware that [i]something[/i] was coming, and as soon as early rumours broke, the Council realised that it was best to be open about the trials to come, hoping that honesty would be the best defence against further chaos. They were mistaken.

Despite the necessity for singular, strong leadership behind a dramatic restructuring and expansion of the military, the Council lacked the political capital, and the trust of the population required to push these through. To unite the system fully against the invaders and perhaps finally bring something approximating order to the political chaos that once again racked Qinglong, the Council took a decision many saw as ludicrous given the situation: Reform.

Specifically, they launched the first of what would be several 'Rectification Campaigns,' aimed at righting some of the wrongs of the past and allowing the people into a government that had for centuries systematically removed their power in decision making. The cliques were reformed into a series of 'Combines,' corporatist institutions whose goals were no longer simply to empower their leaders, but instead ensure that those who made up their membership were properly represented across social boundaries, while drawing upon old Zhouist ideals to sell them as a fundamental part of ensuring the state's survival. 

The Combines would hold regular, internal elections to nominate members of the Unified Combine Council, a legislative and executive body that would navigate the reformed government through the trials that were yet to come... And they [i]succeeded.[/i] Against all odds, against what the cyclical failure of government in Qinglong's history suggested would be the natural outcome of this desperate roll of the dice, the UCC was able to scrape together enough good will, not only from industrial interests now formally represented in power, but also by the population of a system that began to see the first glimmerings of representative government take shape that the UCC was finally able to begin turning the gears of power once more.

For several decades, the UCC held the ship of state steady despite the ticking clock of the Shenjian fleet. Whenever internal pressure began to build up, a new round of Rectification Campaigns would be launched to release the strain, and bit by bit more and more of the clique's legacy were chipped away by a people who increasingly saw themselves as those who would spend the most in the defence of their way of life.

Exactly when the 'hard,' oligarchal Councilship truly ended is difficult to truly determine, but most place it somewhere within the third wave of Rectification Campaigns occurring at the end of the 26th century. These were primarily focused on two areas: stripping the newly reformed Qinglong Interplanetary Defence Force of its 'old guard,' largely consisting of admirals and officers who had made their name during the period of Supreme Executor that still held influence. Simultaneously, it also aimed to finally bring proper reform to the Merit Examination system, which still hadn't seen proper, systemic changes since Zhou had gutted the literati class in the aftermath of the Xiwang Coup.

Perhaps the Combine Council expected that this would be the final adjustment needed before they were ready to face the Shenjian, now estimated to be a mere decade away from arriving in the system, or simply didn't realise exactly how much influence the Merit Examinations still held within ensuring the Combines were dominated by the remnants of the cliques, but regardless of their intention, the outcome was simple: A new force had been birthed into the system, right as it was about to face its greatest trial. 

Its name? [color=darkturquoise]Héxié Zhǔyì.[/color]

"For centuries, we have struggled to answer the great questions that a society must tackle. For too long we have been Qingyuanren or Mingxianren, clique or combine or syndicate or soldier. We have picked apart the Lessons of Old Earth, and in so doing we stared at trees but not the forest. Now, as we stare destruction in its eye, we finally realise one thing: We are all Qinglongren, and we will live or die on how we react to that truth." 
- Remarks from pre-electoral meeting of the UCC by Chairperson Jia Jin - Dated 2299 CE
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[hider=Qinglong: The Synthesis (Years ~298-330):]
"Why do the Shenjian fight? For what reason have they purged the Canxing Zholou from their homes, and now seek to do the same to us? More importantly, do such things truly matter now? Does the anvil question the hammer's motives? Does the mountain wonder why the waves batter it? Or do they endure, unendingly and resolutely, until only one remains?"
- Excerpt from [i]Ruminations on the Second Arrival[/i] an independent micro-news intranet site, 2304 CE.

In late 2301 the Shenjian finally arrived and the QJDF rallied to meet them. The goal was simple - to hold the fleet at the edge of the system for as long as it was possible to do so, and bleed them for every mile of space they intended to take. Across planetary systems, crowds tuned into news broadcasts and live feeds with bated breath, while more and more soldiers were funnelled across to Jingyu in case the worse were to happen.

And slowly, as information filtered in from the front, it seemed that the worst had indeed happened. Initial skirmishes had gone in favour of Qinglong, but as soon as the Shenjian armada had closed the gap the battle had turned into a bloodbath. Footage from the front showed space turned into a vast junk field, with projectiles, lasers and missiles streaking across the void. Interplanetary wings desperately wheeled and juked to try to shake off weapon locks, while the hardened core of the defence fleet gave ground inch by inch, layered laser systems desperately intercepting anything and everything they could find... But giving ground nonetheless.

This period saw the true flourishing of Héxié Zhǔyì, and the societal movement that accompanied it - The Harmonious Progress Front, an ideology forged in the crucible of the system's darkest hours. The movement's actual form was still confusing  - it wasn't a political party - not really, the UCC already had bodies arguing for competing ideological vision that fit this concept better, nor did it have a single unified ideological vanguard to centralise and promote its message. Its symbols were diverse and varied; springing out of repurposed Zhouist imagery, taken from long-since archived megacorporate propaganda or blending Zholou and Human messaging together. Its adherents were decentralised and chaotic, and yet still managed to agree on its core principles, drawn from centuries of political and cultural synthesis in the system. Perhaps this was why its message, summed up best in the three-part slogan, was so effective at rallying the disparate groups within Qinglong together against their existential foe. 

Through Unity, Harmony. Through Harmony, [i]De.[/i] 

[i]"Totalitarianism is not a dirty word. It is the truest realisation of what all states should be: A system encompassing all, to work for all." - The Iron Pocketbook.[/i]

The movement's momentum grew like tsunami's approach... Or more accurately like the Shenjian, who had already begun to sink their teeth into the dwarf planets and scattered asteroids that lay at the very edges of the Qinglong system. The more ground the navy gave, the more the armada pressed and harried them, driving the Interplanetary Defence Force back past the system's ice giants, and then to the orbital defences arrayed around Jingyu itself, where many of the reserve fleets intended for further defence had assembled. The UCC's plan was clear - if the Shenjian managed to take the planet, no defence-in-depth would be able to bleed the momentum away from an army with a whole planet to call their own. 

Conscripts were hurriedly shuttled to the front, terraforming devices ground to a halt, and long-range rail cannons tried to pick away at the armada with mixed results. As the fleet reached the planet itself and drop-ships streaked down towards its surface, Qinglong held its breath, watching as the full weight of an unknown foe pressed down on the fragile shield arrayed around Jingyu. The defences buckled, bowed under the sheer weight of the force they opposed... But then, bit by bloody bit, the space war began to be won. Many of the Shenjian's support craft, along with significant portions of its naval reserves had been redirected to establish new bases in the outer system, and the rearguard actions had done their job at bleeding the armada during their approach. On the planet itself, Qinglongren stormed across muddy swamps churned by Shenjian war machines, the sky pinpricked by the flash of artillery pieces roaring their defiance at the alien invaders. As reinforcements for the Shenjian slowed, and the armada made its fateful decision to pull back from Shenjian, the human-occupied planets roared in jubilation - they would not perish today.

But it was clear the war was not over. The Shenjian had dug into the outer system and the tattered reinforcing fleet was only a few years away from providing them a fresh glut of ships and personnel. The battle for Jingyu had ended the armada's first push, but now the UCC was faced with an even less palatable outcome - a potentially unwinnable war of attrition. 

The next years saw society begin to shift and adjust itself to this new order, and Héxié Zhǔyì thought become the largest grassroots movement to ever grace the system. As even the upper ranks of the Combine began to be swayed by the siren song of harmony and unity, the fourth Rectification Campaign saw the birth of what so many had considered impossible within Qinglong: Democracy.

Initial voting for the Planetary Delegation saw a broad spectrum of candidates elevated to the halls of government, but contrary to the expectation of sceptics, the vast majority were willing to put aside their more ideological divides in order to work for the common good of Qinglong, forming a cross-Delegation agreement that took the name of the popular movement that had inspired it - The Harmonious Progress Front. 

Within twenty years, the system had sifted out inefficiencies and chaos like a prospector searching for nuggets of gold. The end of the period of synthesis came with the formal declaration that the Harmonious Progress Front would be the representation of the people's will within Qinglong's government, and in 2530 a new constitution was formally ratified declaring the foundation of the Qinglong Accord, a modern government for a modern solar system, strengthened against both the chaos of autocracy and the disorder of populism. In honour of the agreement, the Planetary Delegation would be renamed the Harmonious Delegation, and the Executive Machine hummed to life.

<"For hundreds of years, my people have lived in fear of what has chased us. When we arrived here, we thought that we had met our end, and that our long journey would be for nothing. Today, as I open this memorial to those lost in the Great Defence of Jingyu, my heart may be heavy with sorrow, but for the first time I, as do all Zholouren, feel something greater. Hope.">
- Ren Xuefeng, Humanicised Sky Zholouren, and first non-human member of the Planetary Delegation, closing comments from a speech inaugurating the Qingyuan "Great Struggle" Memorial Wall, 2513 CE. Used in 'Our Qinglong, our Home' documentary published 2789 CE.
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[hider=Qinglong: The Great Struggle (Years 330-500):]
"No flame is fiercer than conflict, no crucible tempers like war. Mark my words, the day that Qinglong burns is the day that it truly shakes the shackles of Earth and takes its own shape. I know not why, I know not when, but I know that one day it must happen. What I have done is merely the groundwork for the struggle that will come."
- Zhou Yinuo, private correspondence to her inner circle in a discussion about the QJDF's recent reorganisation, 2380 CE.

The Shenjian Armada had been deflected, but not decisively beaten in the Great Defence of Jingyu. As both sides licked their wounds and prepared for the conflict to reach another bloody apex, the power of the Executive Machine began to make itself apparent, the twin mechanisms of democratic representation and corporatist collaboration unified with the increasingly sophisticated aid of Non-Biological Intelligences, a technology only possible through cooperation with the Canxing Zholou. 

The centuries of the Great Struggle have seen Qinglong society entirely remade in the image of Unitarian Harmonism. State, people and ideology are bound together in a way that might come off as dystopic to some from old Earth, but they proudly declare themselves to be the 'perfected system,' having avoided the excesses of the past in order to forge a brighter, better future for not just humanity, but all sapient and peaceable species willing to work together. With the Gateways reopening, only time will tell how well the Accord can weather such a radical shift in situation.
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[color=darkturquoise]Culture and Society[/color]: 
The easiest way to get a glimpse into the Accord's culture is found within the requirements of their first and most important Merit Examination, appropriately named 'the First Merit.' Taking place over some six years between the ages of 12-18 for humans, receiving the First Merit is an important rite of passage, marking one as a legal adult, able to vote in Delegation elections, provide meaningful consent and to serve their initial two-year conscription ticket. Broken down into separate parts, it aims to ensure that every member of the Accord:

- Is of sound body and mind, to the maximum of the person's ability.
- Has received a fundamental education in literacy, numeracy, analytical and logical thinking, and the basic principles of science and philosophy.
- Is capable of mature social and ethical decision making, including conflict resolution, and working within a group.
- Is aware of 'practical and necessary skills with universal application to life,' including first aid, fire and food safety, domestic science, and an understanding of how to react to a varying set of natural and sapient-made disasters.
- Has basic technological literacy.
- Understands how to safely operate and maintain a firearm.
- Understands the history, politics, and planetary dynamics of the Qinglong Accord, including the structure of its government and the unique environmental conditions on the various inhabited bodies. Special focus is placed on the planetary body (or lack thereof) the individual comes from.
- Beliefs are suitable within the overarching framework of Héxié Zhǔyì thought.
- Is aware of their rights, duties, and obligations under the state, including but not limited to conscription, Universal Basic Access to life-sustaining goods and services and what legal culpability as an adult means.

Adjustments to the First Merit are allowed, but typically only within the framework necessary to ensure that no discrimination occurs on the basis of disability.

First Merit graduation is also an opportunity for a citizen to receive their first implant - the Neural Interface Suite, key to not only being able to talk with Canxing Zholou citizens directly verbally but also allowing them to interface with many fundamental elements of the nation's digital infrastructure. Indeed, the Neural Enhancement Suite is so crucial that it forms the foundation upon which every other one of the Accord's many, many implants are built upon, with further implants typically restricted behind higher or more specialised Merit Examinations.

[hider=A Note on Merit Examinations]
"Merit Examination" is a term that comes with heavy connotations to those unaware of how it is used within the Accord. To most, it conjures imagery of cramming schools, examination halls filled with students being scrutinised by invigilators and moments of relief or despair as the results arrive. While typed and invigilated examinations do make up aspects of almost all Merit Examinations, they're perhaps more accurately equated to apprenticeships or qualification programs that can take many years to finally complete and receive their associated Merit. 

The average Accord citizen will undergo potentially dozens of Merit Examinations throughout their life, receiving Merits that cover everything from battlesuit piloting to high-level Non-Biological Mind programming and anything in between. Almost every job is associated with at least one required Merit, and while it is generally preferred that people take on Merit Exams in their free time, many different societies and training courses exist both in and outside of Combines to ensure a person is constantly developing themselves across their lives. Some are near mandatory - vehicle handling Merits, the 'Boot Merit' awarded upon completing one's basic training and the Digital Infrastructure Merit that confirms a deepened technological literacy and allows a citizen permission to own and maintain their own intranet website. But many more are extremely limited in scope and scale, such as the Battlesuit Ace or Interplanetary Management Merits. These may often take the vast majority of a person's professional life to acquire and mark standout individuals worthy of respect and celebration for their accomplishments.
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But, of course, the duties expected of a citizen are only one part of a multiplanetary tapestry. As with most everything when it comes to the Accord, their culture and society are highly collectivist. Even non-immersive schooling involves a boarding element and 'Civic Engines' (or, as any other nation would call them, community centres,) form a core nexus of any settlement on Qinglong, being so central that one's local Engine is often referred to literally as Zhōngxīn - 'The Centre.' Indeed, their collectivist nature can be seen even through how they refer to each other, with 'cog' becoming a common species and gender-neutral way of referring to a fellow citizen.

This, naturally, radiates out to every facet of their society. Universal Basic Access policies ensure that citizens have, if nothing else, a roof above their head, food on a plate for them at an Engine's communal kitchen, comprehensive medical care and access to education and schooling. Community groups organised around specific activities or events, like the ever-popular Shooting and Virtual Entertainment Societies bring people together both at a local and pan-planetary level, while sponsorships and adoptive groups ensure that even those without a family like the Legacy Kin are able to enjoy these most primal bonds.

In a broader cultural sense, the Qinglong system obviously takes much from its origins as a Chinese Megaconglomerate. Many different Eastern spiritual and philosophical concepts have had a deep impact on Héxié Zhǔyì thought, Qinglong Dialect Mandarin forms the bulk of the human population's primary language and modernised cheongsam and changshan remain commonplace for formal or special events. The continued access to authentic ingredients has kept traditional 'Eight Cuisines' alive and well, although five hundred years of time to brew and a much wider range of ingredients has seen a truly dizzying variety emerge outside of 'Earth-Tradition Cooking.'

Four planets and three species have all provided their own contribution to the cause as well, of course, with the end result being a tapestry that while distinctly coloured by their origins, has a proudly unique Qinglong flair to each and every thread.

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[b][color=darkturquoise]Governance and Politics[/color]: [/b]
The Qinglong Accord is not merely the name of the nation, but is in fact the formal title for an agreement made between the then-recently flowered democratic bodies across the system and the Combines in order to form a single, unified government that could lead the state into war against the Shenjian, built on the foundations of Héxié Zhǔyì thought. This agreement laid out the mechanisms of government as follows:

[color=darkturquoise][i]The Executive Machine[/i][/color]:
The executive branch and highest ruling body in Qinglong system. Consisting of members drawn from both the Unified Commission of Combines and Harmonious Delegation, it is assisted in its decision making by a series of networked Computational Minds, used to ensure that not only is the body acting appropriately, but also is as well-informed as physically possible when taking any decisions. Having seen the issues that can arise when a single individual gains too much power, the Executive Machine uses a system of rotating chairpeople, with strict term limits and extensive scrutiny.

[color=darkturquoise][i]Unified Commission of Combines[/i][/color]:
One of the two legislative branches of government, the UCC draws its members directly from the Combines - massive overarching corporate bodies that organise, advocate for and represent their interests within Qinglong. High-ranking positions within the Combines is limited by gruelling merit examinations, exemplary service and extensive assessment by both humans and computational minds and as such are not decided by election. 

[color=darkturquoise][i]The Harmonious Delegation[/i][/color]:
The elected body of the legislature, the Harmonious Delegation is formed of elected officials from each of the system's inhabited bodies. This has earned it a reputation for being much more chaotic than either the EM or UCC, but equally, the body is known for its deeply human side and is the battlefield where the many variants of Héxié Zhǔyì thought compete to show their potential. 

[color=darkturquoise][i]The Harmonious Progress Front[/i][/color]:
The idea of a 'political party' is somewhat strange within the Accord thanks to its unique system of government, but nonetheless one does exist, and is considered the only legitimate political organisation within Qinglong. As the party is entirely synonymous with the system as a whole, exactly where the state begins and the party ends is up for debate, but its most crucial function when it comes to running the nation is its system of [i]Harmonisers[/i] and [i]Optimisers[/i].

Both have completed specialised Merit Examinations to receive their role and distinctions, but it would be a mistake to assume that they are 'classes' or 'strata' and Qinglongren do not see them as such. Any citizen may join their ranks, assuming they are fit for the role, and these roles are held alongside other jobs, duties or positions.

[b]Harmonisers[/b] are individuals dedicated to the overarching ideals of Héxié Zhǔyì thought and are found in every part of society. A Harmoniser might be one's designated first-aiders at work, serve in an equivalent position to chaplain in the armed forces or as the head of safeguarding in a crèche. Military harmonisers are sometimes referred to as 'commissars,' but in truth such a role is actually more accurately applied to:

[b]Optimisers[/b] are select individuals who work to ensure smooth societal functioning and while a great number make up the career civil service, they have a wide variety of duties. They ensure that Combines work alongside one another without issue, that quotas are met and act as watchdogs against corruption and other criminal activity, among other roles. Military optimisers do indeed make up significant portions of the commissariat and are responsible for ensuring that conscription quotas are both fairly applied and actually draft the required number of soldiers, alongside duties such as the maintenance of military news broadcasts and ensuring proper ideological loyalty among the troops.

[color=darkturquoise]Technology Overview[/color]:
Technology has improved steadily across much of Qinglong's history, in many ways thanks to the influence of Mingxian. At once part of Qingyuan and very distinct, its industries and research centres have been protected from many of the more dramatic swings in governance and rule that have occurred on Qingyuan. 

Tàishǐum forms a core part of a significant portion of the Accord's infrastructure, with its unique magnetic qualities making it vital for high-temperature fusion reactors, while lower qualities are more than suitable for mag lev vehicles both civilian and military. Their success at reaching the Mohorovičić discontinuity on Wuhua has proven themselves able and capable at massive engineering projects, while the QIDF demonstrates their capacity at aerospace engineering in each and every engagement.

The use of cybernetic and genetic augmentation has been a consistent throughline even since the earliest days of Qinglong Megaconglomerate, and modern cybernetics within the Accord are incredibly advanced, although typically limited behind requirement and the completion of a merit examination deeming one's suitability for the modification. Zholouren influence provided a boost to their otherwise flagging genetic engineering projects, whose benefits have made themselves known through fewer and fewer rates of heritable genetic conditions, improved lifespans, and a longer biological peak, and it is uncommon but not unheard of for citizens to reach their second century.

Perhaps more critically are their advancements in artificial intelligence, or as they're known, Non-Biological Intelligences. Prior to the First Arrival, genuine 'thinking machines' were out of reach for the Qinglong, but extremely advanced ANNs were able to carry out a wide variety of functions. With the help of the Zholou and their 'shipminds' though, these have evolved to become genuinely autonomous sapient brains. NBIs within the Accord are odd - The actual 'spark of consciousness' that brings them to life is somewhat of a black box and they fundamentally do not consider themselves 'people,' something which perhaps makes more sense when one realises just how divergent the experience of a mind without [i]any[/i] of the typical influences a biological one has. Instead, NBIs working together to form Networked Computational Minds are a cornerstone of the QA's digital and real-world infrastructure, able to process vast amounts of input data into coherent and actionable plans and intelligence outputs, a task which also brings them a great deal of pleasure. Because of this, the creation, training, and coordination of the efforts of NBIs is of paramount importance to the long-term security and prosperity of the Accord.

[color=darkturquoise]Military Overview[/color]: 
To call the Accords 'militarised' would be an understatement. The two centuries of total war that have followed the Shenjian arrival have been dubbed the 'Great Struggle:' an endless defence against an inhuman threat that expresses no desires other than domination. While this was key in the formation of a unified society, it also transformed the military from what has historically been an agent of oppression and enforcement into a core, intrinsic pillar of society around which much of the state is organised. The Qinglong Joint Defence Force is split into two components: the Planetary Defence Force, concerned with any and all in-atmosphere operation, and the Interplanetary Defence Force, which focuses entirely on space-borne operations.

The ranks of the QJDF are filled by both volunteers and conscripts. All citizens of the Accord are intended to serve at least two years in active service after they complete their First Merit, before spending a further five years in 'active reserve,' with an expectation that they will be the first reactivated should it be necessary. In practice, this all-encompassing military service requirement has required practical carveouts for individuals unsuitable or otherwise ineligible for frontline service, including those entering essential war or civilian industries or those with medical issues outside of the ability of the Accord to treat. Because of their physiologies and heavy incorporation into Qinglong's research sector, Sky Canxing Zholou are the demographic group with the highest rate of draft exemption, although regardless of demographics, military exemption is [i]not[/i] an exemption from service to the state, and individuals may find themselves tasked with civic duty such as community construction efforts, mandatory merit training, work within civic engines or as part of the emergency services.

A large body of the military consists of long-term volunteer soldiers - those who either entered conscription with the intent to continue their service there [i]and[/i] those who found themselves more suited to service than they expected during their two years. Forming the professional core of both branches of the QJDF, they spend significant periods of time away from their home communities in an extremely hazardous environment, with their sacrifice to the nation being heavily emphasised within Accord media. 

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The unique conditions of taking and engaging with the Shenjian on their terms - particularly when it came to attacking stations and disabled vessels, made new hardware designed for such a task essential. Early efforts led to models that were little more than heavily up-armoured EVA suits with simple powered systems, but these have since evolved and been adapted into a series of 'battlesuit' chassis being developed, the most famous being the all-environment Shishi Assault Suit, urban siege Xuanwu and top-of-the-line Baihu Elite Suits.

Piloting these suits requires an intense level of training and augmentation, including the implantation of a much more invasive set of neural implants to allow for seamless control over the suit, as if it were one's own skin. All battlesuits are also fitted with NBI Co-Processors, which graft onto the pilot, heightening autonomous reaction time and providing a much deeper level of information processing for better battlefield decision making. This interface is irreversible once implanted, while the constant use of co-processors can cause severe neurological and mental issues should a battlesuit pilot be parted from them. Because of this and the expense of producing the equipment, battlesuits form a tiny, but extremely well-known minority of the QJDF. Veterans often struggle to reacclimatise to civilian life, and many advancements in mental healthcare has been made in the effort of allowing these heroes of Qinglong to harmoniously rejoin the whole.
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The military is further bolstered by volunteer reservists, a population that includes the overwhelming number of people between the ages of 25-50. Having already received basic military training and with the Accord's strong gun culture (further cultivated and formalised with the existence of shooting societies,) these reserves act as a national guard for the purpose of disaster response and, particularly on Jingyu, as an organised fighting force that can immediately respond to threats to the community.

Between planets, the QIDF is responsible for one of the most complex tasks ever put before humanity: successfully managing a frontline that includes tens of billions of square miles of dead space, defending an ever-shifting configuration of planets against a threat that can approach from an almost unlimited number of vectors, and, occasionally, pushing back against them, to reassert the Accord's control over Qinglong system. Because of this, their fleets have taken on a distinctive role as interdiction forces, ensuring stable supply lines and preventing incursion past Jingyu's orbit, utilising heavy artillery craft, capital command ships and heavy-duty frontline cruiser-destroyers protected by point-defence specialised escorts. Most combat occurs directly between ships, but marines are still necessary for when an enemy craft has been disabled, or when a station has been rendered defenceless and ready to capture. 
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