Government
From Republic
The structure of government of The Republic, its neighbors, and its forebears.
The Great Republic. The largest contiguous nation in the history of humankind. Founded through the hallowed institutions of rebellion, exploration, and hubris. The inheritance of the descendents of people called at times dreamers, pioneers, lunatics; ever conscious of the collective traditions and legacy of mankind, itself ever its own greatest asset and most dangerous enemy. The Republic, a young institution by historical standards, standing on the shoulders of giants, stands confident and adolescently naïve self assured certainty of its power and indestructibility. Much like its righteous neighbors, the greatest of them being the ideologically distinct Persian Kolektiv, and Free Tibet.
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The Praetorian Intelligence Service
Life
- The PIC
- Personal Identification Chip (P.I.C.): about one cubic millimeter, this small crystal is a non-volatile read-only holographic storage format for personal identification common in the Republic. The crystal is connected to a reader and antenna which allows communication at a distance of about one decimeter. Due to its small size, it is almost always imbedded into a larger object such as a card, a ring, or even imbedded subdermally. The crystal will contain the owner’s Citizen or Plebian ID number, genetic mapping and biometric data for use in verifying the identity of the owner. Optionally, the crystal may also contain important medical information such as allergies, security clearance, place of residence, hobbies, bank account or whatever else the owner wants. The former set of information is required to meet the Republic’s standard, the latter is added by the issuing province or at the user’s request. Interestingly, the Republic Government only sets the standard format and interface protocol, it does not generally issue the P.I.C.’s itself. The Republic deals with the Provinces and the Provinces deal with its citizenry in this way. Actually the Republic does not require anyone to have P.I.C.’s but most don’t go without one because they are extremely convenient. Not having one is a hassle because nearly all public and commercial institutions have come to depend on them. Only those individuals who are paranoid of being monitored by Big Brother forgo the convenience. Counterfeits are possible but are usually quickly suspected upon use when recent ID and biometric references do not match past uses.
- Public Services of Member Worlds
- Library
- Gymnasium
- Public Entertainment
- Etc
Law
- Inalienable Rights
- Central to the understanding of Republic government and law is the Right to Self-Determination.
- A Person's Genes
- Every individual, citizen or otherwise, is presumed to retain the copyright to their own genetic sequence upon birth. This right may be surrendered and is in most ways treated just like other intellectual property rights including its expiration. One difference is that the right is never surrendered before expiration except by explicit permission of the owner and usually only with term limits. I.e. one cannot lose the right by not taking active measures to protect it. Twins and clones could potentially piss off their “other half”, however. Celebrity clones from centuries ago might be possible. Michael Jackson had himself frozen upon his death, but his estate would have to surrender a sample for an entity to make use of it and his likeness is also a trademark…
- Minors, Adulthood, Citizenship
- Republic law establishes no “age of consent” or age at which a person goes from being a minor to an adult. Early in its formation, the Republic was concerned more with whether or not an individual was voluntary contributor to its establishment. Also, different constituent cultures within the Republic had different ideas on what constituted adulthood. Some defined ages that were considered unreasonable to others and some defined rights of passage, not linked to chronological age at all. In the end there are Citizens and Plebeians: one remains a plebeian until such time as one is able to demonstrate their own dedication, when one is allowed to do so is dependent on the province where the choice is made. There was a time when a universal age was proposed for defining adulthood/minor status, but this was ultimately rejected. Here are a couple of the arguments that ultimately cause the movement to fail. Due to an inherited genetic mutation on xxx, the humans there mature sexually and emotionally at a very early age and live short lifetimes by most standards, about 19 years. The proposal for an age of adulthood of 17 years left the inhabitants with a small portion of their adult lives left to consent to anything, many elderly or dying before ever having the chance to be a Citizen. The yyy are a non-human group who’s many individuals have applied for citizenship. They do not reach emotional maturity before 40 years! While the Republic has preferred to leave the issue of minor/adult/consent status to its local governments it does affect Republic issues because local governments define the rules by which one can consent to demonstrate Citizenship, a Republic matter, and it continues with some controversy today.
- Slavery, Sentience, Aliens
- The Republic guarantees certain minimum rights to Plebeians and additional rights to Citizens. Provincial governments may grant additional rights to either within their jurisdiction. Although most Provinces have laws prohibiting slavery, Republic law does not specifically address this. Even in areas where it is not prohibited, there is usually sufficient social disdain for the practice that is doesn’t generally occur. There are exceptions, however. While some cases of legal slavery are very sad there are yet others where slaves are protected with sufficient enough rights and monitored controls that they often fare better than their freed counterparts who must fend for themselves! Provincial governments are required to enforce these minimum rights and not complying becomes cause for intervention by the Republic. Rights of the individual did not enter the Republics area of responsibility until -123y. The legal definition of Human Being in this context was changed to mean Sentient Being shortly after in consideration of the bearlike guys. The actual language referring to Human Being was eventually changed to Sentient Being in -456y shortly after due to the pressure of advocates for other sentients.. What is Sentience? What about The Bug? Perhaps there are answers with memes. The debate goes on.
- Dueling societies and Euthanasia
- This is another area that the Republic leaves to Provincial jurisdiction. There is no Republic-wide ban on lethal dueling because of the Right to Self-Determination. Citizens are free to choose dangerous endeavors for themselves so long as all parties are consenting without duress and are competent enough to make decisions on their own behalf, the latter requirement being an assumed part of Citizenship. Most Provinces prohibit the practice of dueling, but portions or Texarcana and the One-hundred Nations are notable exceptions. Euthanasia falls into the same legal perspective in the Republic. Of course, irresponsible of behavior on the part of a Citizen is strongly frowned upon in any Province so someone who is challenging everybody to a duel for no reason just might qualify for the "Needed killing" law.
Economy
- Currency
- The Republic never established a standard currency, but for most this is completely transparent. Provinces issue their own currency and most transactions take place within a single province. The exchange rate fluctuates based on market values of the Provincial currencies. For frequent travelers such as Preatorian special agents, exchanges are handled automatically by agreement with their bank. Preatorian agents have their agency account separate from their personal accounts, of course. Actual cash transactions are extremely rare and are hardly anonymous since the use of cash signals the desire for anonymity and becomes suspicious. Many areas have laws that require cash transactions to be reported to law enforcement authorities. This is not the case on some Frontier where a dependable banking institution may not exist or on particularly Libertarian worlds.
The Republic
- Local Government Responsibilities
- define local laws
- enforce local & federal laws
- patrol internal traffic ways (planet side, system & inter-system)
- Constellar Responsibilities (rehash of the above)
- planetary government
- planetary law enforcement
- local Inter-planetary/Intra-system traffic
- Divisions of Levels of Government
- Planetary Government
- System Government
- Constellar (Provincial) Government
- Republic (Federal) Government
Navigators
The Navigators are the means by which interstellar star travel within the Republic has been made possible.
