United Nations of Earth

Having evolved out of the League of Nations and the United Nations of the 20th and 21st centuries, the United Nations of Earth is a supragovernmental organization representing the myriad nations of humanity's home planet. Though still not a world government, the UNE has gained importance over the decades. The opening of the first Tein Gates was pivotal for the organization, and most nations on Earth saw that it would be better to cooperate for humanity's exploration of foreign star systems rather than allow them to become the fiefdoms of individual states.

These days, the UNE has a substantial budget of its own and even its own armed forces, though many of the constituent states are still more powerful both in budget and in arms. Ironically, the UNE's influence is felt most outside Earth, as they have been given authority over the use of the Sol system's resources as well as systems such as Lovelace.

Though most power in the UNE is held by the governments of member states, the UNE does have a senate with universal franchise for citizens of member states. On Earth, the UNE is generally considered to be dominated by the largest and richest nations such as the North American Union and China. Those living outside Earth generally have a different view as they rarely interact with the individual national governments at all. Instead, UNE is seen to represent the interest of home planet in general, and indeed the conflict between Phenix and Earth in 2116 was mostly between the Colonial Assemblies and the UNE representatives even though the UNE mostly received its marching orders from the local powers of Earth.

Though the UNE would perhaps wish to represent all of humanity, the independent colonies have generally chafed against such ideas and are wary of uniting with an entity that is larger and more powerful, as it represents the vast majority of all humans alive. Thus, pan-human organizations across the colonies have been awkward and limited affairs, as the spectre of Earth dominance limits cooperation.