# The Grand Assembly ## Overview The greater systems assembly is a confederate entity with combined militia fleets who act as a loose peacekeeping force across many world-states within the Assembly. The Greater Systems assembly formed from the ashes of the Terran collapse and they are the closest culturally to any early 21st century human society. Which sells short their values and traditions. ## Beliefs As vigilants against a hostile universe in general, the Assembly fleets had came to value a protectorate mentality with community and the autonomy of worlds had to be given a protective layer by a strong citizen military force. The contradiction of a strong military and the need for world state autonomy is held together far more by fears of outside alien forces more than anything else- as internal scruples are viewed as something best left in the back seat. The Assembly is highly secular as a whole, with an active embrace of pluralism as needed when having a system filled with a wide range of heterogenous worlds. Yet often the spread of beliefs is something the Assembly inhibits through use of the military fleet system as to even have space travel you need be part of the space militias of their local world. And that often means regimentation to the human spirit. The Assembly for the secular realism espoused by the brass do not really follow it to the degree western societies once did. And this is due to the high populations of ancestral AIs made from the elderly to keep their knowledge for future generations. They are often not expected to have power and often don't desire it on most worlds, opting often instead for simulations of the times they liked best.. The wisdom of the dead elders is often touched upon, with superstitions existing in spite of the common knowledge they are AI simulacrums and not the phantoms of the dead. Still, such simulacrums make up a considerable part of the population and they have lots of activity in the fleets as an agent for stability. The various world states have their own internal cultures, but the world states of New Atlantis, the Ecumenical Necropolis and Janseen had attained the most power within the system. This is due to New Atlantis as the world state with undue control over solar sail systems while Janseen has the most experimental research done of the worlds. Janseen is notably close to Sol, which has remained a neutral space for human factions and the Assembly remains unwilling to violate that out of concern for the activities of the Silent Pact and potentially causing a huge war with the [[Virtue Coalition|Virtue Coalition]]. Meanwhile the Ecumenical Necrpolis is the AGI capital of the whole Assembly. ## Structure The Assembly is a layer atop of world states who formed it. It has gained considerable powers since its foundations, especially with the militia fleets that connect to the Assembly to form the backbone of their space force. It is an organization where admiralty has power and the world states give recognition to a prime human with the blessing of the ancestral simulacra. The simulacrum minds which haunt the Assembly have flowed from world to world over centuries and have acted a s a culturally unifying Force. Their occultist thinking had led them to genuinely believe they are spirits and not AIs and many accept this as so, even as the circuitry is in plain view. Their evangelizing is focused mainly on the human spirit and the general flow of the human spirit through all of as. This spirit, this human will had to them, been avidly suppressed in the past and that the identities of world states have allowed it to continue in times when the species is under siege. The contradiction of a system that claims autonomy where a significant share of the population is regimented into large militia - trade fleets isn't lost on the inhabitants, but such criticisms are rare due to the absence of any real alternative as far as anyone is concerned. The semi-autonomy of the junta as it gets often called or the suffering of alien conquest are the two options most see. The dark era that preceded the assembly and the split with the Virtue Coalition and Estate still haunts the government, of which is evasive of any centralization in its constitutions and institutions to avoid the unresponsive and unaccountable nature of the Terran elite from the Terran era. The fleet council system is a coalition of many representative diplomats from militia fleets. The nature of militia fleets may confuse as they act as traders and diplomats with the presumption of all spaceships being WMDs being the norm. In terms of standardization, the fleet council has various regulations as to the militia fleet weaponry in order to ensure maximum potential force whenever possible. Despite the siege culture and outside fears, internal threats are all too frequent as alien subversives are viewed as playing on rebellious groups to get said world-states as part of their systems instead. Aliens within the Assembly come mainly from the [[Tikali|Tikali]] and Ramuu. The Ramuu are viewed with much more dismay than the [[Tikali|Tikali]] who are viewed more symbiotically. Yet the dynamics of relations between the alien species within Assembly worlds has been contentious as some worlds are mostly [[Tikali|Tikali]] or Ramuu and thus meaning they have their own militia fleets within the system. ## Demographics -Darwinian- - 67% human - 22% Tikali - 4% Rasuu - 6% Uplifts - 1% Other Species -Synthetic- - 47% Androids - 48% Simulacrums/Uploads - 5% Special Frameworks (specialized drone swarms) -Uplifted- - 31% Terran Origin - 27% Vumarian Origin - 15% Murk Origin - 27% Other Origin --Overall-- - 40% Darwinian - 52% Synthetic - 8% Uplifted The overall population of the Assembly is 197 Trillion across 27 thousand recognized world states not including worlds claimed by world states as part of their jurisdiction as of 2850 AD The fleets of the assembly are high quantity in nature, numbering at 200 billion ships total across 45 thousand militia fleets of nomadic and world state origin. One must recall that the assembly is a culture that views space travel as a given right and that these 200 billion ships are usually civilian owned and made to be repurposed into various tasks. Yet still the ratio of 1:1000 is a product of ships often being populated by dozens or hundred and at times thousands of people. ##Technology The Assembly has across its many self-sufficient world states created a vast trove of industry to fuel their fleets. Of which are numerous, if reliant on high quantities to intimidate. Assembly manufacturing systems are advanced enough that space elevators and orbital rings along with orbital space ports or asteroid belt anchored cities are regular features of the assembly. The Assembly remains anchored to the concept of planets as culturally important as a product of so many of their worlds having emerged from a dark era from the comfort of partially terraformed or habitable worlds. Yet even they still focus on orbital manufacturing systems and networked solar sail high ways in sub-light regions. The mass manufacture of Fast-As-Light Travel systems is to the point where experimentation with missiles using FAL engines is common though rarely employed in practice due to missile swarms or lasers being much cheaper. Still FAL-Sniping of capital ships has been a staple of their deterrence schemes against imperialistic alien forces and resent the Silent Pact for not sharing blink drives to make orders of magnitude superior Blink Missiles with. The Assembly is a transhumanistic society unlike the posthuman nature of the Silent Pact. Yet the prevalence of ancestral uploads and the utilization of mind uploading to create a real after life has generated a general cosmovision that is shockingly superstitious for a civilization with the advancements of the Assembly. The spiritual networks filled with the simulacrums of the dead permeate the cultural life of the Assembly as well as the technological sector as the uploaded minds fill in the niche of GAIs (General Artificial Intelligences) from earlier eras with a strong cultural bias towards AGIs made from human memories and personalities over AGIs of fully synthetic origin. ## The Fleets The decentralized militia fleet system is the main feature of the Assembly, with thousands of fleets for each world ship. The size of these fleets varies heavily between the worlds, but overall is much more egalitarian than in much more centralized societies. The biggest assembly clients at best only have fleets a hundred times more expansive than the smallest. The fleets are highly flexible in their roles as it is assumed every spaceship is already a weapon of mass destruction. Thus there can't be genuine diplomatic or trade spaceships even if they shall take on the purpose and role of being diplomatic or trade ships. Instead the fleets have ships whose assignment is contextual to what the fleet needs. Specialization is rare in the Assembly beyond smaller ships, carrier ships and heavy ships. Assembly fleet cultures do vary, with ships ornamented with the designs of their local worlds to show their identity, which is staunchly both part of the assembly and separate. ## Assembly Societies The Assembly world states can be viewed as multiple societies part of the Greater Assembly with world states who ally with each other more than other world states. Indeed, should the assembly collapse it is often accepted these patchwork sub-factions would be what remains. ## Sapients of the Assembly Assembly society has a complicated relationship with aliens, as while they systemically despise the [[Vopson|Vopson]], they're more neutral or towards other species with Tikali cohabitation being very common in parts of the Assembly. Some species intrude no matter what like the rather frustrating Fosskemians or the Utanguis imperialists. It is very evident that the Assembly is one small part of a much more vast galaxy, which is why so many in the Assembly unify as a counter balance to a greater perceived threat. Yet the Tikali and Rasuu despite the prescence have been of ocassional contention, even if neither of them ever were a true threat beyond some cultural practices that humans found disturbing. Uplifted animals in the assembly get the worst deal, as uplifted animal life tended to be viewed even centuries later as more a curiosity than anything else. Meanwhile the uplifted animals have managed to gain a presence in the centuries since the depravities of the Terran Federation. Assembly Organization -Grand Admiralty The grand admiralty is elected by the fleets and is more a political than military position. The grand admiralty lacks much power but does act with similar power to a president. The Grand Admiralty has War making powers and is able to make declarations, nominate new Coordinators, gives high statuses to those within the fleets and has the personal power to break up large organizations within the assembly. Often the Grand Admiralty is arranged beforehand without anything resembling a party system in play as the Greater Assembly itself is a coalition government and the ideal is the Grand Admiralty is above the political squabbles of the worlds. The priority is meant to be on the protection of the Greater Assembly from external threats more than internal threats, even if in practice Grand Admirals have often been more part of the internal politics of the Greater Assembly worlds than they are claimed to be. -Coordinators (handles hundreds of fleets each, as the limbs and advisors of the grand admiralty elected by the fleets) The Coordinators are a secretive simulacrum faction whose main goals are the organization of the fleets. Coordinators tend to interact through the spiritual networks and have fragments of themselves distilled into many fleet ships with updating relay ships as a regular feature of every fleet. The need for large scale coordination is due to fears of alien invasion more than anything else, indeed numerous parts of the assembly have been built for centuries with invasion in mind. There is almost an eager anticipation of the invasions they view as inevitable (and do, thanks to meddling from multiple alien factions within Assembly space as is). -The Fleets The decentralized militia fleet system is the main feature of the Assembly, with thousands of fleets for each world ship. The size of these fleets varies heavily between the worlds, but overall is much more egalitarian than in much more centralized societies. The biggest assembly clients at best only have fleets a hundred times more expansive than the smallest. The fleets are highly flexible in their roles as it is assumed every spaceship is already a weapon of mass destruction. Thus there can't be genuine diplomatic or trade spaceships even if they shall take on the purpose and role of being diplomatic or trade ships. Instead the fleets have ships whose assignment is contextual to what the fleet needs. Specialization is rare in the Assembly beyond smaller ships, carrier ships and heavy ships. Assembly fleet cultures do vary, with ships ornamented with the designs of their local worlds to show their identity, which is staunchly both part of the assembly and separate. -Assembly Societies- The Assembly world states can be viewed as multiple societies part of the Greater Assembly with world states who ally with each other more than other world states. Indeed, should the assembly collapse it is often accepted these patchwork sub-factions would be what remains. The Societies include the Atlanteans, Purgatorians, Cooperatives, Stones and Estates. These six societies don't really have much in common with each other but cooperate on the common alien threat. -Sapients of the Assembly- Assembly society is peculiar in their xenophobia in that they have it, but view species such as the Tikali or Ramuu as friendly unlike the other aliens of the galaxy. Some species intrude no matter what like the much loathed Fosskemians or the Utanguis. It is very evident that the Assembly is one small part of a much more vast galaxy, which is why so many in the Assembly unify as a counter balance to a greater perceived threat. Yet the Tikali and Ramuu despite the prescience have been of major contention, even if neither of them ever were a true threat beyond some cultural practices that humans found disturbing. Uplifted animals in the assembly get the worst deal, as uplifted animal life tended to be viewed even centuries later as more a curiosity than anything else. Meanwhile the uplifted animals have managed to gain a presence in the centuries since the depravities of the Terran Federation.  Small example assembly Ship Assembly Features: [[Grand Assembly Ranking Structure]] [[Grand Assembly TimeKeeping]] [[Engineering Union]] See Also: [[Plexus Space]] #GrandAssembly #Galactic-Region/plexus #outdated #superpower #human