Glossary

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Abitus Transitus: (coll. Abitus, A.T.) Documented position in space from which a FMT Transit is initiated, as established in the Lex Astrographica.

Body Politic: the aggregate people of a politically organized nation or state. In the Republic, this usually refers to the Citizen population only, excluding Plebeians.

Constellation: (中文: xīngzuò 星座, xīngtuán 星團) one of the semiautonomous, political subdivisions of the federated Republic. Each Constellation consists of a single Patron System and its Client Systems. A Constellation has one democratically elected Senator to represent the interests of its body politic in the Senate. The Constellation, through its Senator, has a weighted vote within the Senate proportional to its Citizen population. Note that while a constellation's representive within the Republic Senate is democratically elected, the constellation's own internal form of governance can vary greatly. While many Constellations have a tradition of democratic rule, some do not. Constellations within the Republic have a constitutionally protected right to practice self-rule within a broad range.

Descendus: the power of the Senate to remove and reappoint a co-consul of the Triumvirate by 5/6 vote. Descendus is reserved for flagrant violation of law or abuse of authority. However, since the Senate is both legislative and judicial, the Senate decides what is a “flagrant violation of law or abuse of authority” according to it own interpretation. Although it has never been used in the history of the Republic it does act as a sort of weak check on the Triumvirate’s veto power.

Forced Macro-scale Tunneling: the quantum effect, related to tunneling , whereby large macroscopic objects will displace over macroscopic distances without traveling through the intervening space. This effect is used by modern starships to effectively travel faster than light.

Incessus Transitus: (coll. Incessus, I.T.) The approximate field or area of most likely arrival to a system by following an established transit according to the Lex Astrographica.

Lex Astrographica: (coll. Lex) The official database of astrographic navigational data which includes the specific, established starting and ending locations of and computational, navigational targets for interstellar FMT transits performed by both Navigator and Navigationl Computer. Other data includes relative planetary positions and vital statistics over time for all surveyed systems, and proper relative motion of systems.

Locus Transitus: (coll. Locus, L.T.) Generic term for any position or set of positional coordinates associated with performing a FMT Transit.

Province: within the Republic, an informal grouping of star systems which are associated by common history and/or culture. Provinces tend to correspond with Constellations but both shift astrographically over time and so are not necessarily the same, so there is no easy rule. Some Constellations have many provinces while some provinces overlap all or portions of many Constellations. In ordinary conversation, Province and Constellation are sometimes used interchangeably, even though they are not the same thing. Provinces have no legal standing.

Senate, the: the supreme council of state in the Republic. This is the legislative and judicial arm of the Republic consisting of one Senator from each member Constellation.

Transitus: (coll. Transit) An established (often named) FMT route between two systems, as recorded in the Lex Astrographica.

Triumvirate, the: this is the executive counterpart to the Senate. It consists of three Citizens elected/appointed by the Senate to be co-consuls. The Triumvirate enforces compliance of the Republic and is chief magistrate over Republic security. The Triumvirate has the power of veto over the Senate when all co-consuls agree (this helps to prevent the Senate from singling out the one-out of three that disagrees with the Senate’s rulings and prevents the Triumvirate from casually rejecting enforcement of the Senate’s policies), except in the case of Descendus.