(much of this page is pulled direction from Stahlfeder's notes, and needs to be refined and tweaked.)

The Coalition of Echoed Suns is an overarching democracy of allied planets across the galaxy.

The Coalition is responsible for maintaining the Sanctuaries around the galaxy, space stations that act like small cities in space for trade, commerce, repairs etc.

Any species that achieved faster than light travel is approached and offered to join the government that the Coalition offers. They protection against other races, pirates, and aide in general. While within the coalition, they must follow the rules, and are protected against anyone breaking the rules against them.

There are 41 “planets” (45 sapient species - 4 planets have dual races) that have achieved FTL. “planets” because 1 race no longer has a home planet, and it’s destruction by an invading force is what drove that race to be one of the founding members of the Coalition.

39 of them have joined the Coalition.

• No conquering of any sapient species. Even if they’re not in the coalition
• All sapient species on the planet must have equal representation on the planet and within the coalition
• No taking of resources from any planet that contains life (without the proper paperwork)
• Resources can only be traded from sapient species under fair deals
• Resources taken from planets with non-sapient life on it in a solar system with no Coalition claim can be freely taken under a certain volume without paperwork, a long as those resources are reported. (aka small amounts of flora/fauna/minerals/fuels enough to service the crew of the ship, or for research purposes)
• Lifeless planets in a solar system with no Coalition claim can take larger amounts of resources as long as it’s reported. (still heavily regulated)
• Completely barren solar systems can be mined/harvested etc with relative impunity, but cannot be claimed, and any operations on the planet cannot exceed a certain volume (like a mining operation), so that others can also partake in their own operations. (there is a LOT of bureaucracy involved in this)
• Since the galaxy is huge, there are a lot of unexplored systems, and there are incentives to explore for independents, with again, strict rules about how to proceed.
• There isn’t a Prime Directive of not interfering with sapient species without FTL, but since there is Bureaucracy involved in any sort of first contact or trade, it’s generally left to people who want to specialize in that sort of thing to engage in. (most planets with intelligent life on it have the same sort of resources that can be found much easier elsewhere in the galaxy)
• Basic laws that first world countries on earth have.

Every branch of the Coalition is heavily regulated in terms of what species fill each role, to aggressively ensure equality among all of the races. This is done to their detriment sometimes, but the equality laws were laid out when the coalition was founded many, many centuries ago, and cannot be changed.

The senate: Each planet represented within the coalition elects (or selects, according to local laws) a Senate member. There is only 1 for each planet, and for a planet with multiple sapient races, their advisor must be of the second race, and when one leaves the position for any reason, the next senator must be elected from the other race. (no planet has 3 sapient races yet, so they haven’t created laws for it). The Senate is responsible for ruling the galaxy. The idea is that by having a perfectly even ruling body, no one race can be favoured. They create laws, deal with politics, and in some cases, act as judges for very high profile disputes.

This Equality law extends to every branch in their coalition. (using current membership numbers as examples) There are only ever 39 admirals. Each admiral will have under their command, 38 captains. (They cannot have a captain under their command from the same planet) Within the crew, it is much harder to balance, but peoples in positions of authority must not have duplicate races. When an opening for a position comes up, it is done by merit, but only out of the pool of eligible races. This leads to very diverse crews, with the intention being that no one race can band together to secretly take power for their own race. Because of the rules, one never really tends to get attached to a crew or particular ship, since they might end up getting re-assigned to make the sliding block puzzle of balance work.

Pillars: Basic police force, generally in charge of law and order on Sanctuaries. Are separate from the space fleet, but will have officers on ships to achieve the same tasks outside of the general command hierarchy.

Phosphors: Sort of a political police force, they exist to keep the grifting and political backstabbing to a minimum, and investigate things at a higher level than the Pillars. If the pillars are a basic police force, the Phosphors are FBI detectives an internal affairs rolled into one.