UNITY

A united, coherent, galaxy-spanning government encompassing all of humanity and countless aliens granted human status, Unity has come to be synonymous with “galactic civilization” to most humans.

To the loyal, it stands as the beacon of all that is lawful, orderly, and uplifting.

To the cynical, it is the embodiment of suffocating control and enforced conformity.

To the extremist, it is deviation from mankind’s right to rule by fire.

For most- it is simply a way to live, a necessary mechanization of bureaucracy that ensures the slow, grinding progress of mankind. Tasked with a broad charter of “Defending the interests of humanity at large and in detail”, Unity functions as government, military, and culture. To ensure social cohesion, active measures are taken to encourage approved cultural trends, allowing a degree of monoculture to exist across a thousand worlds. Backed by massive military force, whether you live within its Core Worlds, in uncontrolled Fringe space, or in an alien polity, Unity is a force that must be accounted for and contended with.

In addition to the masses of humanity, Unity also encompasses alien species which were either “inducted” through warfare or that have chosen to join Unity in order to benefit from the coalescence of multiple minds and species working together.

As such, optimal cultural standards from a variety of existing Earth cultures were selected and amalgamated into one “Human” culture, mandated by law across each system. The bureaucracy carefully evaluates inducted cultures to select desirable traits that will be slowly propagated across the Core Worlds.

Cultural Exemption treaties are granted to harmonious and unique civilizations.

Acquiescing to Unity’s rules and structures means being rewarded with access to standardized trade rules, protection of the fleets, and a bevy of other economic opportunities.

Pavel Excelian, scholar of the Unity Academic Consortium, is quoted as stating:

“Worlds and planets of course can choose to be “free” of Unity’s folds - but that freedom comes often with the cost of famine, disease, poverty, and death. It is a freedom to die, rather than to live”.

 

In a utopian view, there are those who perceive and describe Unity as being the height of human evolution.

In a more realistic view, Unity is an organization that struggles under the weight of its own massive size. Corralling untold billions of sentient beings into cooperation is largely impossible, and in a drive for efficiency and mere function, Unity has become an impersonal bureaucracy that keeps itself busy mainly with basic security and safety, perpetuating itself and crushing dissent. It is this impersonal, suffocating red tape that pushes many to find freedom in the expanses of the galaxy.

As the Unity colonies expanded, it became obvious that there were many dissidents who chafed at the bureaucratic constraints that Unity used to bind and control communities over several worlds. On the main Unity worlds, there was a growing number of rebels and dissidents who proclaimed that they were willing to live with laws and protections, but wanted the freedom and ability to grow and develop cultural ties that Unity simply did not approve of. Intense suppression of these ideas led to increasingly violent protests, and thus many of the central worlds became like a boiler without a valve - ready to blow at any moment.

Thus came the “Fringe Expansion”, the brain child of entrepreneur and investor Jonathan Meeks. Devised as an exploration into the “fringe” planets of Unity galaxies, the project was originally proposed as a sort of galactic test tube - an experiment to release the pressure on some of the more populated and conflicted worlds by populating planets that did not possess a wealth of profitable resources, but were able to sustain life. It was hoped that these worlds could cultivate a more radical and vibrant culture, which in turn would feed valuable concepts back, where they could be assimilated cautiously before a given world was re-admitted into Unity.

Referred to simply as “the Fringe”, these worlds are formally under Unity control but for all practical terms are allowed to selfgovern, so long as the local governments and authoritative collectives maintain a reasonable level of control.

Individuals (both human and alien) saw the chance to establish hubs of black market trading, hideouts from Unity authorities, and a list of illicit, Unity banned activities to benefit from. Smuggling, crime, and petty warfare is rampant as warlords establish their claims to this or that sub-sector of space. Unity military patrols are common, both to fend off alien invasions and to intervene when planetary warfare threatens to get out of hand, though any sign of a war fleet tends to inflame local uprisings and rebellions as often as they quell them.

As the presence of hostile forces is well understood, most worlds maintain at least one Unity naval base for security. Special agents prowl the Fringes constantly, searching for destabilizing elements and external threats. These agents are often given wide-ranging authority and have been known to hire mercenary bands, salvage captains, and outright criminals to assist in their tasks.

Due to the lack of a central, governing culture, Fringe worlds tend to exhibit substantial variation. Some worlds are hellholes, where death waits at every corner. Others are far more environmentally palatable, where the supply of resources (food, water, air) allows for a basic order to be formed. Some worlds, like Zitian 6, are largely agricultural worlds where the inhabitants petitioned for the right to live a “low” tech eco-friendly society. Rashor 4, a “craggy, acid-aired mess of a world” however, attracts those looking to hide in the last place any Unity enforcement officer wants to go.

While Meeks envisioned worlds of peaceful, cooperative societies, the reality was farless idyllic. Far from the original idea of an interplanetary utopian monk, the sort of person that prefers to live outside the insanity inducing bureaucracy of Unity include free traders, gamblers, petty adventurers, mercenaries, pirates, bandits, revolutionaries, religious fanatics and many more, all mingling in the  cities, slums, bars, space ports, and waste lands of the Fringe worlds.

As a result of this largely unmitigated societal evolution, the colonies and societies within the Fringe worlds are widely varied. Upon entering a colony, almost any type of society can be encountered, from Fuel Cultists and monkpirates,to robots attempting to abolish speech. 

One benefit of living on the Fringe is that an individual can likely find a world that suits them and any particular quirks they may possess. In even the more mild and peaceful communities, citizens are unlikely to be scared of aliens and freaks because everyone there tends to be one or the other. There is often an unstated agreement that a person’s history in Unity is best left forgotten, though bounty hunters, Unity agents, and Tax Enforcers often disagree, leading to yet another sprawling gun battle in the star ports as the long arm of galactic law collides with those who are both heavily armed and inclined to be left alone.

Spanning around an estimated thousand worlds, though it’s doubtful anyone knows the exact number, a person who prefers staying one step ahead of the authorities can find plenty of opportunities to do so here.