Politics
This page examines the social structure that operates within the Frontier universe, and attempts to provide an explanation as to how they could work in the 33rd century.
Government and Economy relations
Essentially the main Governments can be boiled down to eight types:
- None/Anarchy:
- No form of Government is in operation and as such no laws are imposed on the system in question. No goods are registered as illegal, and little or no police protection is provided.
- Federation:
- A so-called "democratic" govermental system operating under the Federation, i.e. a federal government system where the main states have some democratic control over other states belonging to the Federation. Has perhaps some similarities with that of a US Republican government.
- Imperial:
- A system of government not unlike that of a Monarchy. In this case operated by the Empire, the supreme "Head of State" being Hengist Duval.
- Alliance:
- A collective of independent systems operating under a "pure" democracy.
- Communism:
- Classless idealised society whereby all property is publicly owned and each person is paid and works according to their needs and abilities.
- Feudal:
- Similar to that of a monarchy but with a strict hierarchy that results in little political/economic freedom: a vassal is granted land held by that of a superior in exchange for allegiance and service to that superior.
- Religious Dictatorship:
- A rigidly enforced theocracy-style government system whereby religion provides the political decree and to a certain extent the economic policies of the system.
- Martial Law:
- Strict army-enforced government system, usually present in systems trying to curtail anarchistic tendencies.
There is a direct correlation between the type of Government a Star System operates, and the economy it manages:
| Allegiance | Government | Economy | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Independent | None | None | Anenex (-2,2) |
| Independent | None (Anarchy) | Unstable - Survival of the best armed | Phekda (2,5) |
| Independent | Rule by force of local Barons | Feudal | Orerve (-3,-6) |
| Independent | Policed by the local corporations | Corporate and Capitalist | Latila (3,-10) |
| Independent | Corporate State | Corporate | Sirius (1,0) |
| Federation | Federal Democracy | Capitalist | Sol (0,0) |
| Federation | Federal Colonial Rule | Capitalist | Alpha Centauri (0,0) |
| Independent | Dictatorship | Capitalist | Lave (-3,-6) |
| Independent | Communist | Communist | Alkaid (-4,10) |
| Independent | Religious Dictatorship | Socialist | van Maanen's Star (0,1) |
| Independent | Independent Democracy | Capitalist | Diso (-3,-6) |
| Imperial | Imperial Rule | Strictly capitalist - no social safeguards | Achenar (1,-4) |
| Imperial | Imperial Colonial Rule | Strictly capitalist | Cegreeth (-1,-3) |
| Independent | No Stable Government | System in state of Civil War | Beinin (-2,-8) |
| Independent | Martial Law | Disputed System between Empire and Federation | Liaedin (4,3) |
| Alliance | Alliance Democracy | Capitalist | Alioth (0,4) |
The above table has a number of implications:
- People who declare themselves to be part of either the Alliance, Federation or Empire and refer to the "opposition" as being "Capitalist Pigs" are in essence being hypocritical as those systems ONLY operate a form of Capitalist society.
- The above table is "fixed": i.e. you cannot have a socialist economy in a system that does not have a Religious Dictatorship as its political body. This makes sense if you consider how the governments operate, for example it would be a contradiction to have an Alliance democracy operating a communistic economy, but this surely shouldn't apply to Independent systems who should be able to have a separate economy type to government type (within reason). The purposes of providing a fixed government-economy type structure as depicted in the table is that it makes life a helluva lot easier when programming - generating the random star systems and their politics/economies, to prevent a whole load of democratic governments operating communist economies and vice versa.
Acknowledgement
Thanks to Stuart Wilson for the information on this page.