Fiction:Phero Ecumene

The Phero Ecumene is a massive "pseudofeudal" empire located in the, initially formed partly in response to the growing threat of the. The central Quintet government acts as a collective lord over provincial Archons, who command largely independent militaries on it's behalf and oversee the systems they have been given.

While the Ecumene projects itself as a stable refuge from multitudinous problems plaguing the rest of Tuuros, it is hardly free of the galaxy's nature, with 33% of its territory consisting of slum-worlds and 39% just barely above that. Martial law is common in its outermost systems, which tend to be targeted by more aggressive foreign factions.

Government and Politics
To its people, the Ecumene is primarily governed by a democratically elected unicameral Parliament, and a Prime Magistrate who derives his or her executive and judicial power from the legislative body. However, a "shadow government" known as the Quintet, made up of five apparently immortal Pal'Xijennai, exercises a higher level of influence that most are completely unaware of. It serves as the supreme executive, legislative, and judicial body in the Ecumene, exercising near-total authority over its domain. The Ecumene in made up of 82 provinces, each governed by an Archon who serves an executive, legislative, and military purpose. Magistrates acting independently of the Archons serve as judicial heads within each province, operating in trios called Tribunals and overseeing provincial divisions of the justice system.

Military
The Ecumene Military is fundamentally fused with the government itself. All government officials are commissioned officers, and the Archons have effectively total control over their own feudal divisions of the military, commanding them on behalf of the Quintet government during wars in exchange for authority over their provinces. This system is both a blessing and a curse—while the mostly decentralized military is more unpredictable than conventional ones, such decentralization can hamper its effectiveness as a united fighting force. However, the Quintet has the authority to abolish Archon control of provincial military divisions and place them under the more centralized control of a Supreme Commander, if it is deemed necessary to overcome an enemy.

Though decentralized, each division follows the same basic organization of its forces.

Army
The Ecumene Army is composed of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, drafted in some provinces and volunteers in others, trained to invade and occupy enemy territories or fortify and defend allied territories.

Resident Species

 * Nech
 * Meopall
 * Berraka
 * Atriants
 * Tyle'ans
 * Chis'helxi
 * Settans
 * Esu'imxa
 * Centauran Heskron
 * Lieschi
 * Okanibaa
 * Esu'imxa
 * Centauran Heskron
 * Lieschi
 * Okanibaa

Underground
The Phero Underground (not to be confused with the Phero Subterranean Transit and Commercial Network, which is also referred to as the Phero Underground) is a massive web of contract killers, contraband salesmen, slave markets, hacker cells, radical cults, organized criminals, and others working outside the law. Its presence is most obvious in outer-rim slum and frontier worlds, where federal and provincial surveillance infrastructure isn't as developed as it is in the inner systems.

Nevertheless, the term "Phero Underground" can often be taken literally, as almost 50% of its physical substance exists in unmonitored but sophisticated subterranean tunnels. In most cases, an individual will strike a deal on the Ecumene's darknet from a planet's surface, then travel underground to finalize the transaction. While this may sound like an easy process, dark markets will often enlist hackers to review a customer's personal information to ensure the Underground is not found by security forces. If a detective or security officer attempts to sneak into the Underground, they will either be rejected immediately online or lured into a trap before being sold on a slave market, interrogated, or harvested for organs.

Unbeknownst to the public or even the Prime Magistrate, the Quintet is actually fully aware of the extent of the Underground through hypercovert Psal'Jinnai surveillance systems left behind by the old Psal'Jinnai civilization. They allow the Underground to exist in order to provide just enough disorder for the Ecumene population to cling to the government for safety.

Counterculture

 * Main Article: Phero Counterculture

The Phero Counterculture is an anti-urbanization, anti-surveillance, anti-militarization subculture that has gained widespread popularity among inner/mid-rim youths of all species within the Ecumene, with the Autonomous World of being a focal point of the phenomenon. Notable features of this subculture include extreme political and social activism, anti-urbanization and anti-industry sentiment, and disconnection from technology in protest of both immoral industry practices and the mass surveillance conducted by the government.

Trivia

 * TBA