The Council of Factions
The legally acknowledged factions in the Horizon gather in the Council of Factions on Coriolis. The purpose of the Council is, according to its by-laws, to “prevent and resolve conflict, and to develop the Horizon”. Each faction has one vote, as has the Governor. The Emissary from Xene has an observer status and cannot vote. After a vote in the Council, the outcome is made public, but not how the individual factions voted. It is usually pretty easy to deduce this anyway from listening to the factions’ council members’ statements before and after the vote, but not always. The example of the vote on whether the
Emissary should be granted observer status or not illustrates this: at least seven of the thirteen votes were needed for the motion to pass, but afterwards, eight factions spoke out in disappointment over the results. The Council usually presents a unified front however, with a smiling Governor who speaks of peace and understanding on the Bulletin shows. The Council can leave a decision to the Popular Assembly, but if they do, they have to follow the voice of the Assembly. This means that the Assembly is a tool mainly used to threaten or manipulate other factions on a specific issue, but a few insignificant matters are passed along to the Assembly each cycle so they won’t feel left out.
FACTION REPRESENTATIVES
The Bureaucracy
The massive bureaucracy that executes the decisions made higher up and which handles the daily affairs is a department of the government called Administrative Services. “Admin,” as it is often called, is located in the center pillar of the Core and it consists of a staff of bureaucrats divided into tiers. The three at the top are the chief bureaucrats sometimes called before the Council or the Assembly to defend their department or to write new memos regarding the station’s operations. Admin handles all the myriad of different licenses that exist on the station.
| Representative | Faction |
|---|---|
| Kemal Dargosian | Governor |
| Terminos Lete | Ahlam's Temple |
| Mandragor Ho | The Draconites |
| Jesibel Niales | The Free League |
| Wasimah Umm | The Church of the Icons |
| Tiera Yriedes | The Consortium |
| Harnek Mara | The Consortium (The Bulletin) |
| Dasaron Kai | The Consortium (The Colonial Agency) |
| Morwan Pasa | The Consortium (The Foundation) |
| Suhaima Taslim | The Legion |
| Sister Almas | The Order of the Pariah |
| Johar Quassar | The Zenethian Hegemony |
| The Emissary | Xene, observer status |
Military
Coriolis Guard
The police force on the station is the Legion-affiliated Coriolis Guard which is responsible for both internal and external security, as well as firefighting and emergency medical transport. The Guard’s most important job is to keep the streets peaceful and to sentence criminals with the proper fines and corporal punishment. Arrests are rarely made, and only when someone is to be handed over to the Judicators. The Guard despises the Judicators who they think are arrogant and authoritarian, a view shared by much of the station’s general population. The situation is not made better by the fact that the Judicators can order the Guard around, but the Guard can only ask the Judicators for help.
The Judicators
The Judicators are the criminal courts’ own detectives used to investigate serious crime. All judicators are recruited from the officers’ and pilots’ ranks in the Monolith and then given special training in the Judicators’ Forensics Institute in the Core. Judicators have far-reaching mandates: they can sentence criminals at the scene of the crime just like the Guard, but can also issue orders to both the Guard and to civilians. They are free to sentence a criminal to whatever punishment they see fit – even death, as long as they can explain themselves to the courts afterwards. They can detain, arrest, and interrogate freely, and in theory use torture. A new paradigm in interrogation techniques, based on the teachings of Ahlam, has limited the use of torture however, as the truthfulness of the confessions they produce has been questioned.
Capital
Government System
Oligarchy
Power Structure
Confederation
Currency
Birr
Legislative Body
When the Council of Factions is in doubt about the will of the people, they can ask the help of the Popular Assembly – although in reality, this rarely happens on any important issues. The Assembly always gets a say in legislative matters, however. This makes the Assembly a double-edged sword that on the one hand can be used to legitimize the decisions of the Council, but on the other hand could have the complete opposite effect. The members of the Assembly have not been elected – they are Coriolis’ 2001 taxpayers. 732 of them are wealthy individuals and the rest represent different companies or lobby groups.
Judicial Body
The criminal courts of Coriolis are separate from the Governor and the government. They enforce the laws created by the Council and the Assembly. In reality however, the courts are accommodating when it comes to sensitive cases, involving factionaries for example. The courts oversee the Judicators according to the idea that it is the preservation of law and order on the station that is important, not necessarily the methods.
Location
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