The Universe

The Official Earth Government Website is here (external link)

Over recent centuries the Empire as passed from wielding absolute power over human space to a grouping amongst several others of similar power and wealth. That said it is still probably more powerful than any single other nationality, however, and the reach of old earth stretches out and influences all humankind. Imperial interstellar fleets are strong, with long traditions of service and sacrifice.

This page is in three parts, first, a description of the layout of the solar system, second a brief outline of the political structure and third a summary of the Inner Colonies of Quadrant Zero.

Current Economic Summary

1. Organisation of Sol System (Grid 535000)

Sol, the Home System, birthplace of humankind has a special place in the emotions of all humans. It is also the most developed and most densly populated star system in known space.

Main Planets

Mercury	Only minor mining bases. Too close to the sun.
Venus	Well developed and old domed colonies. Terraforming still underway - but it will be a long time yet before the planet is freely habitable. Population c400 million
Earth	Heavily developed both above and below oceans. Large numbers of orbital factories, O'Neil tubes, trading stations, military bases etc. Mainly located in high earth orbit, or at Earth L4 and L5 orbits. The majority of the population of 10 billion live in the megacities, and the average Earther is still very unlikely to leave the planet during their lifetime. The vast majority enjoy realtively comfortable lives, with a short working week and a wide range of cheap forms of entertainment keeping the bulk of the population at least reasonably contented. The planet is far from covered by cities, as it has the most advanced food-producing industrialised farming zones in the universe, generating high quality nutrient foods and drinks for the whole population. That said, luxury foods are a major item of interstellar import to Earth to add variety for those inclined to afford off-world cuisine.
Luna	Heavily industrialised, with large number of orbital utilities. Economically strong links with L4/L5 communities. Population 1.2 billion.
Mars	Terraforming well developed. Only minimal protection needed on the surface. Cities are still domed ( a legacy from pre-terraforming days) but the domes are not absolutely essential and there is an increasing amount of open housing on the surface. Well developed and industrialised. Population 900 million. Politically part of the Empire, but with strong links with New Mars and the Martian Confederation. They would probably secede if they could, but this is unlikely to be practical. Lots of orbital stuff. Deimos - Naval base. Phobos - Detection stations - hubbles and space traffic control radars and navbeacons for the inner system.
Asteroids	Strongly developed, and home to a large population of miners and factories (known as 'belters'. This has some political autonomy within the Empire, although officially a 'dependency'. The belters are tolerated due to their economic importance strategic location and history of being tough fighters. Estimated population 1.5 billion (although reliable census data is hard to come by).
Jupiter	Uninhabited.
Jovian Moons	Minor moons have leisure and research stations but not much else. Io - Orbital Military base - Marine Academy and Marine Training Facility. The settlements here are basically of the garrison town variety. The Marine Facility is very large. Permanent population approx. 3.5 million Europa - Jovian colony world. Population 5.3 million Ganymede - Jovian colony world. Population 3.7 million Callisto - Jovian colony world. Population 1.2 million. Achilles Trojan Asteroids (Jupiter L4) - mainly mining communities, with strong links to the belters. Est. population 7 million Patroclus Trojan Asteroids (Jupiter L5) - mainly mining communities, with strong links to the belters. Est. population 3.4 million
Saturn	uninhabited
Saturn's Moons	Minor moons have leisure and research stations but not much else. Tethys - Outer mining operation. Population 3.0 million Dione - Privately owned. Est. population 250,000 Rhea - Outer mining operation. Population 2 million Titan - Major Shipyard facilities. Population 0.5 million Iapetus - Civilian Shipyard facilities. Population 0.5 million
Uranus	Uninhabited.
Uranus' moons	Titania - Outer Fleet Base. Large supporting civilian population (approx. 2 million) Oberon - Minor colony world. Population 250,000
Neptune	Uninhabited.
Neptune's Moons	Triton - Outer fleet training establishment. Pop 200,000
Other Bodies	Cerberus - micro black hole, 77 au from Sol, 2.1 degrees above the plane of the ecliptic. This is a known navigational hazard of no significance (other than to astronomers and the personnel of the deep space research station orbiting it). Its M²⁵ zone is 9.5 au. HSTS. A large number (around 50) of HS transmission stations are located in stellarstationary orbits +90 degrees from the plane of the ecliptic some 28-32 au from Sol. These stations are operated by military, government and private commercial operators.
Early Warning Stations.	The Earth System has a number of detection stations in Solar orbit, usually at Lagrange points. Each detection station consists of a number of hubbles and active radar systems. Every settlement has active radar for navigation purposes. Earth has several hundred hubbles, as has Mars, Luna and the Belt. Neptune has quite a few hubbles also. These are to cover 'doppeganger points' (the term for blind spots) to prevent approaches using Sol as a shield. The Solar System Defence Net (which links reports from all sources, including patrol ships) claims to be able to report on 97% of all emergence from Hyperspace within 40 au of earth within 8 hours, and 99.99% of all in-system incursions within the orbit of Pluto with 24 hours.

Regional Government in the Solar System

Off Earth, the political framework is more varied. Within Sol System regional power is devolved a great deal, since conditions are political reality in the outer system is quite different. Also, the various colony worlds (especially the Jovians and Belters) won considerable autonomy last century during a series of particularly unpleasant rebellions.

Colonial Government

The Quadrant Governors operate as local Imperial representatives. Each Imperal Quadrant Governor has subordinate Planetary Governors on each colonial world. In the vast majority of cases the colony worlds have their own local system of government, and Earth merely provides an overseeing function with the Governers heading up a small Imperial Bureaucracy that ensures the colony behaves in the best interests of the Empire. The Governors, as representative of the Imperium take a lead on matters like defence and foreign policy, leaving domestic matters to the elected colonial governments.

Colonies have representation, in principle, on the Council Of Representatives. The distances involved, however, make active political representation difficult. More often there are local devolved CORs on a quadrant basis, mirroring the Home System.

To help the home government ensure that serious politcal abuse or potential regional rebellion is kept to a minimum, a specialist watchdog organisation exists called The Imperial Audit Office

See the answers to the internal affairs questionnaire for the Earth Empire

3. The Earth Empire Home Systems

Close to the Solar System are also mature and well developed colonies, among the first long term and viable homes for humankind outside their own system. As result they rival the planets of Sol in terms of population and wealth.

This section outlines some information about these Inner System colonies.

Name	Grid	Distance from Sol	Developed planets	Approx Population (bn)
Nasa	532996	5 parsecs	2 (Gospel & Wesley)
			Gospel	2.9
			Wesley	1.5
Mir	536995	5 parsecs	1 (Paradis)	2.5
Glenn	544997	9 parsecs	3 (Lisa, Burnes, Homer)
			Lisa	1.0
			Burnes	3.2
			Homer	1.3
New Luna	551991	10 parsecs	2 (Humorum, Procellarum)
			Humorum	2.8
			Procellarum	1.2
Europ	531986	13 parsecs	1 (Unity)	2.5
Lotus	525994	11 parsecs	2 (Reboot, Brotherhood)
			Reboot	5.0
			Brotherhood	1.0

Each of these systems and the worlds within them have many orbital systems, HSTS, hubbles and well developed economies. Each of them is considerably better developed than the outer colony worlds to be found in Quadrants 1-8.

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The Universe(of Starship Marine, Cruel Void and Hellfire) is © Jim Wallman 1996-2005. You may freely use this material in other games, works, websites etc for your personal entertainment - with appropriate credits as to authorship and copyright. It may not be resold or distributed with any publication for sale without the express permission of the copyright holder.