Federation of Known Worlds

The Federation is a political grouping of 69 planets. Member worlds commit to promote trade within the Federation, and to change each planet's laws in line with a set of core decisions made by the Federal Councils.

These councils are made up of representatives from all member worlds. Each member of the council has a single transferrable vote when the council meets on any issue, but it is not necessarily the case that each world has the same number of votes. For example, the Federal Council on Justice makes laws which are divided into core rulings, and supplementary laws. A world which takes both of these sets of laws as its law is classed as a 'Fully Legislated' world, and may send either 4 or 5 delegates to the Council. Some federal worlds, however, have their own independant laws which are only overruled by the core rulings. These planets send only 3 representatives, as the decisions of the Council will have less impact on the planet. Meanwhile, worlds which rely entirely on their own legislature to make the law may send only a single representative (these worlds must agree that the core rulings will be enacted into their own laws)

Each world will be host to a Federal Council every 12 years. Each Council proceeds through the worlds in the order of settlement, with the 6 councils being held on worlds 12 places apart in the sequence. In every 69-year cycle, each council can be cancelled for a given year up to 3 times. This causes the interval to be slightly irregular, but in practise each Council is cancelled the same number of times, and there has never been any chance of 2 Councils occuring on the same world.

• Federal Council on Arbitration - selects and trains lawyers to act as magistrates and judges, and passes laws on intellectual property and civil actions between member worlds
• Federal Council on Communication - offers bounties for the discovery of accellerative discontinuity pairs between member worlds, and also petitions the Temple Grand Synod to influence temple ship routes
• Federal Council on Diplomacy - acts as an impartial mediator in any trade or political disputes between member planets, as well as representing the Federation as a whole in disputes with other worlds
• Federal Council of the Inquisition - employs a secret police force whose jurisdiction extends throughout Federation space, tasked with the investigation of piracy and organised crime
• Federal Council on Justice - establishes criminal law, divided into Core and Supplementary Rulings.
• Federal Council on Trade - negotiates import/export taxes between member worlds and with the rest of the universe