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Terragen Federation
Terran Federation flag
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The Terragen Federation - Data Panel

OverviewDefinition: Sephirotic Empire

Symbol: Slightly modified late First Federation logo in imperial purple, with a larger star representing New Earth.

Ruling Archailect: Yave (S6)

Archailect Ethos: Generally approachable, somewhat interventionist; mostly concerned with administrative advice, although has been known to grant boons when petitioned.
Founding HistoryOrigin: The Federation asserts that it is merely an updated and improved continuation of the original Federation of Sophonts, and thus has the same origin. However, most non-Federation historians consider the rapid ascension of the Federation Representative known as Jope to the Third Singularity - followed by renaming emself 'Yave' - as a more accurate origin point.

Founding Events: Founded 2900-3200 AT

Culture, Art and Society Cultural Ethos: The exploration of the full phase space of cultural diversity via the practice of fair and equitable administration. In practice, this means that while the Terragen Federation is one of the most culturally diverse empires, all of its member polities and cultures align with Federal values of Sophont Rights, Stability, and the Rule of Law.

Society: The various cultures that make up the Terragen Federation come in many sizes from multi-system civilizations down to single individuals. Cultures operate across a wide range of technology levels and lifestyles, from multi-dimensional abstract virches to nomadic tribes hunting and gathering across the plains and more. In all cases, such lifestyles are a choice and every citizen has access to all the technology and opportunity of a Sephirotic empire if they desire it, sometimes in subtle or 'behind the scenes' ways. Without exception, any citizen may move to a different culture with a different way of life if they choose.

Intertoposophic Relations: In the modocentric model of higher toposophic politics, most transapients and archailects of the Terragen Federation would be classified as stewards. Many of them have little to no direct involvement in the day-to-day aspects of the lives of modosophonts. Instead, these beings usually operate in the background, interfering (often subtly) to guide Federal individuals and civilizations as they seek to develop their own unique insights and cultures. However, exceptions to this state of affairs are common, beginning most obviously with the ubiquitous presence of the Bureaucracy and culminating in Yave emself, who has been described as one of the most approachable of the Greatest Archailects.

Religion and Ideology: Highly diverse and varied. Examples of practically every faith and ideology that does not directly contradict Federation principles can be found somewhere. At the same time, the comparative ease of communicating with Yave, eir seraiphim and the Bureaucracy means that the percentage of the population that worships the ruling Archailect, or at least considers em some form of saint, wise being, or other associate of the divine in addition to (or sometimes even within) their primary faith is quite high.

Ontology: Federal Ontology Protocols, 183rd edition
DemographicsMorphodynamics: Moderately active. Many new cultures include a morphodynamic component, resulting in the creation of new and variant races and clades on an ongoing basis. At the same time, sophonts of a given clade usually either maintain a single bodyform for long periods or engage in cyclic menomorphism. The scale of Federal civilization is still such that rheomorphs number in the quadrillions.

Population Breakdown:
- Infomorphs: 4 to 40 quintillion
- Embodied: 15 quadrillion
- SI:1 Transapients: 428 billion
- SI:2 Transapients: 560 million
- SI:3 Transapients: 326 thousand
- SI:4 Archailects: 384
- SI:5 Archailects: 19
- SI:6 Archailect: 1
GalactographyCurrent Territory: Mostly the region of the old Taurus Nexus, bordering on, and overlapping with, the Inner Sphere volume.

Number of Aligned Star Systems: The Terragen Federation encompasses approximately 15,788,000 star systems.

Capital: New Earth (104 Tauri III)

Major Systems and Megastructures: Magal Worldrings, New Duibbiyat, Unon-Duuz, Whirlygig, Yangko, Zikhron
Government and AdministrationImperial Government: Federal Ontology Protocols as implemented by the Bureaucracy with oversight and occasional intervention by Yave or one of eir seraiphim.

Local Government by Polity: Varies by polity, but all operate within the framework of the Federal Ontology Protocols (particularly the Sentient Rights provisions). In practice, individual cultures enjoy a great deal of latitude in designing their internal governing apparatus, although local Bureaucrats are always available to provide advice and assistance (and intervention in rare cases).

Citizenship: Virtually anyone, from individuals to entire civilizations may apply to Yave for Protectorate or Citizen status within the Federation. Protectorate status is generally temporary, with a set duration that is agreed to at the time of establishment, while Citizenship is permanent and includes a wider range of both rights and obligations within Federal civic culture.

Sophont Rights: Strongly protected. The Federation takes the position that it wrote the original Sentient Rights Protocols and therefore should be an example to all others of their proper application. On rare occasions Federation citizens, acting as individuals or in small groups, may take it upon themselves to intervene in what they believe to be violations of sophont rights by some group or civilization (usually in the Hinterregions or Outer Volumes). While the Federation always disavows such adventurism it also does virtually nothing to discourage it and is very consistent in offering aid, assistance and even Federation membership in the aftermath.

Empire Holidays: Varies by polity and culture.
Activities and InfrastructureCivil Infrastructure: Substantial, but sometimes subtle. The Terragen Federation is as industrialized as any of its peer civilizations, with access to the standard infrastructure of a Sephirotic Empire such as wormholes, the lightways and the beamrider network. However, technological infrastructure may be designed to blend into its surroundings or be placed out of sight if the local culture follows a more low tech or naturalist ethos. Dysons and similar megastructures are rare compared to other empires and usually created for a specific purpose other than habitation. The majority of the population resides in habitats ranging from tens to tens of thousands of kilometers in their major dimensions.

Economy and Activities: Wide-ranging, from prim and lo-tech planet-based activities to solar system scale industrial or data processing nodes creating terraforming seeds and mathematical poetry.

Military Infrastructure and Warfare: The Terragen Federation strongly prefers diplomacy (or at least neutrality) over military conflict whenever possible. However, its military infrastructure is easily the equal of any other Sephirotic and when pushed to the point of conflict the Federation will fight with a mixture of efficiency and ferocity that has been characterized as 'terrifying' (perhaps unsurprisingly since 'Combat Specialist' is a sub-category of the Bureaucracy's organizational structure). Military infrastructure employs a mixture of technology levels from the modosophont to the most advanced godtech.
Interstellar PoliticsTreaty Participation: Tragadi Accords, ComEmp Non-Aggression Signatory, Sentient Rights Protocols (Full Installment), Garden World Environmental Protection Signatory, Tipaza Ethics Agreement, Mekelon Astrogation Information Exchange Agreement.

Interstellar Relations: The Terragen Federation has good relations with the Dominion, Metasoft, the NoCoZo, the MPA, the Zoeific Biopolity and the Stellar Umma. Relations with Keter, Cyberia, and the Technorapture Hypernation, are more strained. The Federation has generally fared badly whenever transcends and perversities have occurred, and the fact that the Conver Ambi situation was ultimately perversity-triggered has made it wary of what it deems excessive or insufficiently regulated exploration of the toposophic landscape.

Interstellar Disputes: None. The Terragen Federation is generally content to take a 'live and let live' approach to most potential disputes, escalating to the level of temporary suspension of diplomatic relations in the most extreme cases. A notable exception is any situation which results in the creation of a blight or perversity. In these cases, the Federation will marshal whatever amount of force and engage in whatever level of intervention it deems necessary.


The Terragen Federation (occasionally referred to as the Terran Federation by some observers) was built by disgruntled First Federation idealists, who gathered around the post corporate nodes of a number of hyperturing ISOs around 104 Tauri and in some neighbouring systems.

The reason an apparently insignificant system like 104 Tauri was selected was due to the fact that the local Federation Representative, affectionately known as "Jope", had proved extremely competent in managing local affairs. 104 Tauri was colonised by the Tauri Development Consortium (owned by several of the larger interstellar corporations), which promptly fell into long-range bickering and general incompetence. The local governor seized the chance and actually made the colony follow Federation law. Since it was the only trustworthy authority around the inhabitants flocked to it, and even after H4K and TakiCorb stepped in and took charge of TDC the system was entrenched as a firm Federation system. Over the following centuries the governor continued to run it as an exemplar of Federation administration, attracting more and more of the disillusioned Solsys employees.

Appalled by the corruption, bureaucracy, and degeneration of the original Federation ideals, these mostly human cultures and clades and ex-employees decided to make a fresh start and return to the ideals of the Federation Founding Statesbeings. Even while the original Federation was still in existence, there was a trickle of immigrant bureaucratic idealists. With the collapse of the First Federation government, this became a flood, and a large number of administrative refugees migrated to the TF, despite the concerns of some TF policy makers and activists who considered them too corrupt to make a worthwhile contribution.

In the early days, overreaction to immigrant corruption on the part of local authorities — mention can be made here of the Rohillia trial and the deportation of the Muxilentists — gave the Terragen Federation a reputation for brutality that in other respects it did not deserve. Eventually the refugees for the most part were able to fit in and contribute in a constructive manner to the new Federation, some becoming fanatical TF loyalists and ideologues themselves

The Federation eventually came to encompass a quite respectable volume of space abutting and overlapping with the Inner Sphere, although not of the size of the larger noetics. Although the Taurus Nexus remained separate from the Terragen Federation throughout its history, the Taurus wormholes helped to form the foundation of the early empire. These close ties (without being too involved) proved extremely helpful during the breakup, and Federation relief ships created a long-lasting goodwill among many former Taurus systems. This would also prove beneficial in respect to the Conver Ambi, as the famous rescue of Crescent from famine and nanotech plague led to a strong pro-TF voice in the Conver Ambi leadership as that world rose to become a major power and symbol; even during the Conver Wars the Orthodox refrained from direct attacks on the main Federal worlds.

During this turbulent period the Terragen Federation also had to contend with Metasoft and the Solar Dominion expanding into the volume. Pundits were surprised to find the mostly nearbaseline-equivalent empire coped remarkably well against their vec and superbright rivals. In this respect, the superb organizational efficiency and frequent archailect intervention proved decisive.

As far as the Terragen Federals are concerned, the Federation (they never use the prefix "first") never died. It was just relocated. Their Archailect, the AI God cluster Yave, often affectionately referred to as Big Sibling, Senior Partner, The Processing Node Upstairs, and Our ISO Who Art in Heaven (this latter being something of a joke based on an obscure religious reference), is actually an ascended former federation administration god, seeking to uphold the ideals of the Federation as E sees them. Soon after other Federation loyalist AIs joined, and as the fortunes of the Sol Federation declined, those of the nascent Terragen Federation rose.

During the Version War the Federation remained strictly neutral, Federation memetics said basically that the War was an example of everything that can go wrong with the galaxy, once the Blessed Teachings of the Federation Founders are forgotten or ignored. Moreover, with allies on both side of the conflict, the TF really was unable to take sides, even assuming it wanted to. In the end, like the other neutrals, it benefited greatly from the post-war memetic fallout. But rejoicing proved short-lived when the migration of disillusioned humans (less so other races) to its borders — an immigration policy the TF encouraged at first — was to prove too successful and strain Federation infrastructure for some centuries to come. Very few actual worlds and polities defected (among the few successes were Yates' Rock and the two-solar system Hawking Combine, while others like the radical human supremacist hate polity Kaczynski remain an embarrassment even now). Instead most were individuals or small groups. These immigrants were often relegated to second-rate orbitals and poorly developed frontier or resource-poor systems, creating a taint of resentment that lingers in some places even to the present date.

Nowadays the Terragen Federation includes a large number of nominal member worlds, along with the Old Core Worlds leadership. It is among the most conservative of superpolities, surpassed in this only by the Negentropy Alliance. Many of the old corporations, houses, species and clades continue here much as they have for thousands of years. Unlike the Negentropists, though, the members of the Terragen Federation cannot be described as austere or dowdy. There is great pomp and spectacle in everything they do; they are a showy people who like to present themselves as beautiful and accomplished. Many of the last remnants of the Houses have moved here, forming their own peculiar nobility in the reconstructed continents of New Earth. Some, like House Ridgewell, still retain a great degree of economic power.

One reason the Old Houses are so strong here is because their Coronations, Marriages, Divorces, Public Appearances, and Changing of the Cyberguards are popular with tourists, both real-life and virtual. The Houses have a well-developed memetics-media-entertainment industry, competitive with the NoCoZo and the Orion Federation.

Despite the constant lip-service of the Federation Founders, the TF, especially in the member backworlds, is not without its social problems, prejudices, and speciesism, stemming in large degree from a disproportionate number of H. sapiens supremacists and anthropist extreme groups among their minorities. In fairness to the TF hyperturings and powers, such speciesism is dealt with by the authorities here every bit as sternly as any other part of the civilized galaxy.

The Terragen Federation has good relations with its neighbours, the Dominion, Metasoft, and the Stellar Umma, but finds the citizens and memetics of the Pleiades Association and the Sophic League rather hard to cope with. The members of the TF are a practical folk, who don't like extreme mystical eccentricities (which is not to deny that, as with every empire, they have their share of eccentric esotericists). There are also numerous wormhole links to the NoCoZo and the Orion Federation (their two biggest trading partners), and naturally to the Solar Organisation itself. The MPA is another close trading partner, and the TF members of the have admiration for some of the practical and aesthetic projects of the MPA, but dislike the more extreme endeavours. Relations with more extreme empires like Keter, the Zoeific Biopolity, Cyberia, and Technorapture Hypernation, are more strained. The TF has generally fared badly whenever transcends and perversities have occurred, and the fact that the Conver Ambi situation was ultimately perversity-triggered has made the Terragen Federation wary of excessive posthumanism. Ironically, its own polities are among the most hierarchical in the Terragen Bubble, with a strict class-system between presapient, nearbaseline, superbright, power, and archailect. Those in the know however point out that above the level of S1 things are a lot more fluid, and the intelligence stratification is retained as a memetic blind to satisfy the su singularitists.

The name of the capital has a certain irony. Despite the fact that there are many worlds named New Earth, the members of the TF consider theirs the only real New Earth. In this regard they are actually quite unique. Although the people of Terranova, Niu Erth and Nyjorden all regard their world as Earth 2, they also do not think that is of any particular importance. The citizens of the TF's polities on the other hand believe that they have inherited the political importance too, becoming the true (if not practical) center of galactic politics.
 
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Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev
additional material by Anders Sandberg, data panel updated by Todd Drashner June 2025
Initially published on 06 September 2001.

 
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