The Florian League

For 300,000 years, the Floriani culture remained in virtual stasis. Abandoned by their Ancient masters, the Floriani continued as they had done, changing only when one or another of the machines broke down. It was not until they recovered jump technology from a crashed Aslan scout ship that they made any attempt at real change. The Floriani are still highly conservative, expanding only to take advantage of needed resources. They have never attacked another interstellar power, although they have incorporated degenerate human colonies into the League (that said, the Floriani are far from pacifistic, and have shown no hesitation in using nuclear weapons and overwhelming force in war). They are guided by amoral logic in all political decisions.   The Florian government works on a system of lotteries. Randomly selected Barnai must serve a term on one of a number of councils (municipal, provincial or world after serving on a council, the Barnai’s name is removed from the lottery register so he will never be elected again. Theoretically, this serves to ensure no Barnai can establish a political power base and dominate the government. Leaving aside the fact that the very concept of ambitious, self-centred Barnai is bizarrely incongruous, this policy results in extreme conservatism as the elected officials spend most of their term studying and learning in order to make informed decisions.   Florian criminal justice is equally unusual. Instead of determining whether or not a crime has been committed based on evidence, their philosophy is to learn precisely what happened, then determine if it was a crime. Killing another Florian might be murder, or self-defence, or a charitable act, or the most efficient use of resources. The Florian system is utterly confusing to non-Floriani, and their equivalent of lawyers would be philosophers on any other world.   The Florian League has an extremely utilitarian approach to trade and contact with others. They trade only to acquire the resources they need but cannot obtain inside their own borders; the League has in fact closed its borders entirely in times of surplus. Similarly, diplomacy’s sole purpose for the League is to safeguard the League; the leaders appear to have no agenda save maintaining the status quo. The League has trade and diplomatic relations with the Imperium and several states to spinward in Beyond sector; they have occasional diplomatic talks with the Aslan, but refuse to trade with most Aslan corporations.