The Greater Spheres
The pre-blackout expanse of humanity had numerous sectors with hundreds of habitable worlds each, terraformed through centuries of impossibly advanced technology, travel within these clusters of systems became near instant with the use of Gates. Current Blackout campaigns take place within one of these clusters which the local inhabitants describe only as The Sector. Within this sector there are dozens of worlds organized into several political, cultural and military entities known as ‘Spheres’ and many dozens more which are unaligned or uninhabited.
The Spheres are the name colloquially given to the major political, military, cultural and economic Sector-wide factions. Though each of the Spheres work differently, they are considered to be on similar levels of power and influence.
The information on the following pages is written to match the year 310 PBE. Occasional systems will include a 325 PBE update.
The Federation
The Federation grew out of the former cradle of humanity, the Sol system. One of the first Spheres to re-establish interstellar connections with other inhabited planets, the Federation of Interstellar Republics started as a joint coalition of two hub worlds in the Sol system, Nova Luna (Formerly the Moon) and Mars. After a relatively short dark age period caused by the Blackout, the Federation rediscovered interstellar travel and with the help of the Spacer population in the (at the time) independent LunaDome orbital station and the remnants of the powerful Blacksun corporation in Novaluna. They immediately began launching manned and unmanned ships to see who else had survived the apocalyptic event.
The presence of several surviving Hub-worlds in their immediate vicinity (Such as Vozra, Azra, Savannah and Sophia) gave the fledgling federation a leg up over their competitors in re-establishing an interstellar faction, but also meant they had to be conciliatory and diplomatic in their first approaches as they were evenly matched with the other worlds they were trying to assimilate. This initial grouping of six powerful hub worlds, having re-established connections after close to two hundred years of isolation, settled on Lunadome as a neutral ground and established the first Federation parliament.
Nearly a hundred years later, the Federation parliament serves as the main ruling body for over a dozen hub worlds, twice as many rim worlds currently being uplifted from the post-blackout dark ages and two spacer representatives for the integrated Lunadome population.
Each world tends to send between two and ten representatives depending on their population and unlike other interstellar coalitions, the parliament’s decisions supersedes any policies and laws individual federated worlds may pass. Planetary governors tend to be drawn from important and popular political figures within their own worlds, but the Peacekeeper and Ranger forces that garrison each planet are drawn from a variety of other federation worlds; the idea being to have leaders who are popular among their own people but are keenly aware that the forces under their command are loyal to the Federation at large as opposed to them. Critics of the Federation have pointed out this leads to a considerable push for homogenization of member planets and magnifies the considerable influence of the Blacksun corporation (which has become fully entangled with the federation) over all worlds that join the Sphere.
Nevertheless, the Federation represents a powerful organized and mostly unified faction with a far reaching and well equipped professional navy and a vast amount of resources at their disposal. The following are some notable systems in the Federation, however, it is important to remember the Sphere has several dozen systems under its control and area of influence at the moment.
The Radinov Systems
The Radinov Systems are, in paper, a loose coalition of systems bordering the Federation and the central Spacer systems which share cultural and socio economic ties. Each planet is supposed to have complete sovereignty over its own citizens and its own systems of governance as well as independent armed and security forces. The very public secret, however, is that all these worlds are under the control of a complex and inscrutable web made up of criminal syndicates, corporate interests and wealthy plutocrats. This web, known colloquially as The Network, influences the systems in a terrifyingly effective display of soft power that can give even more organized Spheres such as the Federation and the Ascendancy pause.
The network’s public secret status, its seemingly entirely decentralized leadership and its constant flux state works both as its greatest limiting factor and strength at once, and it's in no small part the reason for its resilience. In the rare occasions where militarily superior powers such as the Federation have faced off against the Network, they’ve found themselves fighting a horrid war of attrition as there’s no clear end-game condition, no established chain of command to disrupt and an enemy that seems to be as ghosts- with most casualties and issues propping up after seemingly ‘winning’ tactical confrontations.
Eventually, they are brought to heel by a myriad of logistical issues, enemy propaganda, diplomatic pressures and discontent on all fronts as network assets act even within their own home worlds. A common Radinovi turn of phrase mentions the Network is everywhere and nowhere; they have fingers not only in all the pies, but also tarts, quiches and in the silverware drawer, for good measure.
When not faced with external threats, the Network turns against itself, with the so called Network Agents constantly scrambling and scheming to gain any sort of lead and leg up on one another, extending their own influence and colluding to eliminate any one person before they become too powerful- which serves as a self limiting factor that keeps the Network fluid, agile and decentralized at all times. Such is the Radinov Network’s capacity for occlusion that even how many worlds are under its sway is a heavily disputed fact, from the most conservative estimations of ten hub worlds up to a generous twenty five. The following are just some of the notable systems considered to be within the Radinov sphere.
The Ascendancy
The Ascendancy is a strange cultural and political faction in the newly rising sector; part martial cult and part military junta. While the Ascendancy holds an iron grip on their core worlds, their expansion has been slower than one would assume with long periods of interim peace between carefully orchestrated offensive wars. This is in part due to how wary the Ascendants are of letting their newly formed ‘culture’ dilute, how discerning they are of who can join their ranks, the limited number of Ascendants compared to the people within their sphere of influence and the level of training and conditioning it takes to replace so much as single fallen Ascendant.
The Ascendancy traces its origins to a single elite fleet of highly conditioned spacer warriors stranded in the Hades system after the blackout event; overwhelmed with injured, damaged ships, undersupplied and low on fuel, the fleet was forced to limp to the only inhabited world in reach, the unassuming and somewhat underdeveloped Prasinos. In a none-too proud moment, the fleet turned its weapon batteries on Prasinos and held the planet hostage for supplies, fuel and control of all its orbital facilities. Their ships; city sized space vessels designed to support staggering weapons systems and crews for short periods of time, were repurposed into a massive interconnected space station- still bristling with powerful pre-blackout weapons- which came to be called Homefleet.
It eventually became evident that the newly established invaders had no designs on planetary domination, as long as they remained supplied the spacers were content to let the people planetside govern themselves; no leaders were removed or replaced. Local leaders started to call the spacers for help against raiders, death cults or the warlords that had appeared after the Blackout event fractured the planet. For their part, many people on Prasinos became enamored with these space-born warriors who would descend to their world to deal destruction and retribution to the unjust and the power hungry, the spacers were quick to cultivate this sentiment, establishing themselves as the Ascendancy. A system was set up through which people on the planet who showed enough promise, discipline and skill could be made ‘Aspiring’ through enlistment and, after a harrowing trial known as The Gauntlet, become Ascendant themselves. With the mercenary company; Brightlance, serving as a path for people from other Spheres joining the Ascendancy.
The Ascendants require each world in their sphere supply and maintain one of their fleets (though the size varies depending on the production capabilities of the world), all orbital structures around the world must be under ascendant control and the planet can only trade with the Ascendancy and other Ascendant Sphere worlds - in exchange for this the planet’s citizens have a right to become Aspiring at any point, they count on Ascendant protection and they are able to govern themselves in any way they see fit as long as they don’t negatively affect the Ascendancy. It is understandable many Rimworlds have viewed this arrangement as positive and it's the reason rimworlds are more common in the Ascendancy; as opposed to being forced to conform to the Federation’s ideas of governance or being infiltrated and exploited for profit by the Network, they get to re-integrate to interstellar society at their own pace while under the protection of mighty Ascendant fleets. Currently the Ascendancy counts on ten full fledged core systems and half as many systems in the process of integration, with three to six open fronts at any given time- some true wars and others simply excuses to run Gauntlets for their Aspiring.