[Space] 'Space Opera' Setting

[Frost]

Toliman
The closest habitable world to Earth and one of the most habitable anywhere Toliman was the first extrasolar planet to be settled receiving its first colonists in 2077 and subsequently becoming the preferred destination for colonists until the collapse. Toliman is presently divided into a number of separate nation states centred on a number of the small independent colonies planted there before the collapse.

The dominant power is the Free State of Toliman a putative libertarian utopia founded by the initial settlers in the early 2080’s. To an outsider used to Earth or the other colonies the Free State seems to be more like an ongoing riot than a country. It is a cosmopolitan, highly urban society with a definite anything goes mentality.

This freewheeling mentality is largely due to the, by the standards of the other settlements, overwhelming diversity of its founding population. Any search of early records will reveal settlers from more than two-dozen mismatched nations driven into space primarily by aggressive idealism. Their descendants retain this diversity, census reports compiled by the national council show that the 90 million or so citizens display a bewildering variety of genotypes, cultures and mother tongues that frequently threatens to overrun the nominally dominant Baseline, Western, English speaking paradigm favoured by the early settlement leaders.

The Free State government is democratic, decentralised and fairly informal, consisting of a series of councils of holding increasingly high levels of responsibility ranging from those serving city wards to the National Council its self. Whatever the responsibilities of the council they tend to be constituted upon the same model consisting of between five and fifty citizens selected by lot for a fixed term (normally between one and four years) exercising powers clearly defined by a written constitution. Councils deliberate (under normal conditions openly) over electronic networks rather than having formal meetings in a fixed location.

Local law exists purely to keep order and prevent abuses of other citizens (CR 1 in general). A surprisingly wide variety of rights are recognised and enforced by the national and local councils, at least in theory. In practice the councils are unable to act without a specific complaint and even when they do they don’t necessarily have the resources to do anything about it. Many petty crimes and smaller employment and environmental abuses tend to go unreported due to threats or bribery on the part of the culprits or fall to the bottom of the pile in favour of more urgent cases.

Technology in the Free States tends to push the limits of what is possible anywhere in human space. Even after a century and a half of restored communications Toliman based organisations and their agents still dominate a number of industries particularly those associated with power and information technologies admittedly largely on the strength of their reputation rather than new development.