Faction:Confederation of Inhabited Worlds
 Factions
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Confederation of Inhabited Worlds
| Confed | |
|---|---|
| Species | Humans, Klk'k, Purth, Dgn and Mishtali |
| Homeworld (Origin) | Various |
| Capital | Mars |
The Confederation of Inhabited Worlds (Confed) is made up of partially-autonomous member states, and was created with a primary purpose being to arbitrate disputes between them in a more structured and less violent way than the Andolian-Lightbearer dispute was handled. In particular, despite the Andolians being invited to become members of the Confederation, its formation was greatly accelerated by fear of further Andolian military action. In addition to this, with the Klk'k representing a reasonably advanced alien species and the Andolian-Lightbearer war pushing home notions of the potential for interstellar war, a re-evaluation of the need for maintaining a unified defensive force was seen to be in order.
Each constituent state is allowed to maintain its own military forces, but it must submit some portion of its resources to maintaining the Confederation fleet, which is distinct from any state's military.
The confederation's rights over its constituent states are those and only those so ceded by the constituent states in the confederation constitution. Admittedly, exactly what rights were ceded is always a debatable issue. Likewise, the confederation's unicameral legislature has oft attempted to pass dubiously constitutional edicts. However, the constitutionality of the Homeland Security Forces is actually unimpeachable, as they were specifically called for in the constitution to bypass the previously tangled web of extradition policies between the constituent states and to force some measure of legal compatibility between said states such that outright and overt support for groups violently antagonistic to other member states would not be tolerated. While none of the member states is particularly ecstatic about the confederation's nature and its imposition on their internal affairs, all are, at least publicly, thankful for the unified front that allows humanity to operate alongside alien entities much larger than any single member state.
The civilian center of the confederation as well as the fleet headquarters is located on Mars since the Sol location is symbolic of humanity's common roots. Earth came with too much political baggage, and so Mars was chosen to be the center of the confederation. A hierarchy of civilian and military installations then extends out from Mars to the furthest reaches of confederation space. While sufficient function is distributed redundantly to prevent a catastrophic beheading, only the confed installations on Mars can be said to have been designed with splendor in mind, and thus hold no rivals among the other installations.
