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Solar Organisation

Solar organisation
Image from Bernd Helfert

Solar Organisation - Data Panel

TerritoryThe Old Solar System (Solsys), excepting Earth, as well as Sirius A and B
Toposophic LevelThe highest transapients in the Solar Organisation are currently at the third toposophic level; however the most powerful entity in the Solar System is GAIA, who is currently at Fourth Toposophic level, but remains independent of the Sol Org

The History of the Solar Organisation

The Fall of the Federation

The First Federation retained its formal status for many centuries after de facto loss of control over the colonies. Though it was merely the solar system government, it retained the trappings of an interstellar Federation. Politically it was used as neutral ground, and very rarely as a neutral arbitrator, by the emerging empires, but the dictates of the Federation bureaucracy were generally ignored. The solar system's economy declined in absolute as well as relative terms as businesses moved elsewhere and those that remained were hampered by the Federation's legalism and the complexity of Federation regulations.

For a thousand years the vast distances of interstellar space had been the bane of the Federation. Many light years from Sol, rogue megacorporations, upstart colonists, and even petty crime lords were able to do as they pleased, breaking Federation laws, or worse, claiming to act under Federation mandate. This naturally caused frustration within the Federation government, and led to a growing militarist movement. As the megacorporations moved to richer pastures on the new frontier, and many of the transapient AIs likewise emigrated or abandoned the Federation to tend projects of their own, control of the Federation slowly reverted to the old hereditary baseline, nearbaseline, lesser ai, and Superior leadership. Apparently free of the memetic controls the departed or distracted transapients had placed on them, the Federation Council factions slowly reverted to a sort of multiparty rivalry, unified only in name and in their shared goal to see Solar greatness achieved across the known galaxy. Through much of the 20th century the tweedledum and tweedledee factions of "Solarist" and "Universalists" vied with each other over which one could best return a sense of pride and achievement to the Home System of Humanity, tugging the less enthusiastic but more pragmatic "Centralist" faction back and forth according to the tides of politics. Each side was backed by some of the AIs who had decided to stay in the Sol System, or to retain a presence there (many of the bigger AIs apparently backed both parties). Scarce resources were squandered in relativistic battleships and even more so on presents for swinging voters. Titan City, Oberon and the strategic Sung Base on Pluto were among the many polities that gained resources by cleverly playing the two factions off against each other.

When the first stargates were constructed, the Federation leadership saw its chance: once all systems were linked by wormholes, then it would be possible to unify all under a new Federation. In a rare act of unity, an alliance led by the general secretary Indira König (Universalist) and Speaker of the House Brent Nkumba (Solarist) steamrolled the administration of President Hans Chu (Centrist), pushing through the Stargate Governance Act of 2181. The Act ruled that while the higher toposophic beings who had created the wormholes might be beyond Federation jurisdiction, the persons megacorporations and using them were still under Federation governance. Any transits and any access should therefore be under Federation control, over and above any rights granted by the wormhole creators. This amazing case of groupthink and lack of understanding of reality was the final blow to the Federation. When their demands were ignored, the Federation leadership attempted to assert them through military force, in a series of ultimately unsuccessful campaigns. Most of the Federation's wayward outsystem "citizens" were quite capable of defending themselves; those who were not were able to call on aid from the stargate builders themselves, with devastating results for the Federation forces. The Federation also attempted an economic blockade, but that hurt no one but the Federation's own citizens in Solsys. This caused König and Nkumba's popularity ratings to plummet and led to grumbling even among their most ardent supporters.

Its fleet lost, and its economy subject to boycotts by all interstellar powers of note, the Federation government began to suffer from mounting popular discontent and internal criticism. The result was a desperate and crude attempt to impose order on the solar system through coercion (the infamous Copernicus Tyranny of Copernicus 2 to Darwin 15), which in turn led to the Solar Civil War of 2193-2200, and ultimately to the complete dissolution of the once-mighty First Federation.




The Postwar Period

From 2200-2600 the solar system slowly recovered and found a new place in the interstellar community. Initially, instead of being ruled by a single polity it was composed of many squabbling minor factions and shifting alliances. However, after skirmishes between the Moon Coop and Lagrange Association escalated into a dirty war in 2323, the various solar powers began to negotiate a common set of protocols for interpolity cooperation. The resulting Solar Organisation ended a long period of stagnation, and helped Solsys to reestablish itself as an important Inner Sphere polity.

Over the following centuries the solar system mainly became a tourist attraction and a kind of living museum. Adapting to the situation, the inhabitants often renovated their habitats and environments to reflect the "Golden Era" (usually the First Federation or First Interplanetary Age). Change became very rare.




The Refugee Problem

The Solar Organisation remained neutral in interstellar politics, and stayed out of the Version War. The war led to a major influx of refugees. Most of these were turned away, but those who did arrive spawned a 200-year period of internal conflicts as the staid solar system tried to adapt to the culture shock.




Anthropist Attacks

The single biggest headache the Solar Organisation faces is from extremist outsystem clades seeking to claim the Terragen home world and home system for themselves. Though it is not universally the case these are most commonly human nearbaselines of one sort or another, and so they are usually labelled "Anthropists" in the popular media. The most extreme groups of all are hostile to GAIA, and may even be so foolish that they try to reconquer Old Earth by force. Perhaps the most dramatic instance, and the most embarrassing to the Solar Organization occurred in the early 6th millennium when a militant splinter group from the Church of Human Rights, the now defunct "Branch Hominists" scavenged and cloned weaponry from the Version War and managed to sneak past both the security systems of the wormhole guardians and Solsys' insystem sensors by using some stolen "chameleon" technologies. While still in low-earth orbit, the ships of the attacking fleet suddenly and mysteriously popped like balloons, despite defences that should have been adequate against all standard transapientech weapons. Since then the Solar Organisation has beefed up security at the Stargates quite a bit, but it doesn't stop a new, and generally incompetent, crank group from making an attempt every so often.

Most recently, the Solsys authorities have been preoccupied by an ongoing conflict between the Authenticists and the Institute of Human Archaeology. Ongoing arguments between these groups threaten to break out into war once more, and given their considerable outsystem resources the Solar Organization may or may not be able to contain the result.

 
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Development Notes
Text by Anders Sandberg and M. Alan Kazlev
slightly modified by Stephen Inniss
Initially published on 24 December 2000.

 
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