United Planets

The United Planets are a galactic nation first mentioned in 'Tall Tales in Space.'
Many of the Terrans of the United Planets consider themselves to be free thinkers and pacifists.

The United Planets consist of several hundred planets and orbitals and a few thousand deep space facilities. It is run from a central committee on a rugged planet orbiting Kochab, a star 126 light years away from Terra, the birthplace of mankind.

It is a merger of Terran humans and a race of aliens known as the Tasters.

There were wars at first, but soon the two cultures merged, with the seat of power on Kochab (known locally as My'her). Mankind flourished and spread throughout the Tasters Empire like a virus, soon taking over everything. One by one, the Tasters on the central committee were replaced by humans. Over the next few hundred years mankind came to totally dominate the empire and the U.P. was born.

They practice conscription, in the navy at least.

They have faster than light space travel

**Location**

The United Planets consists of most of the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way.

**Planets**

Kochab

Tau Ceti - Rewton is from here. It has tech modules

**Relations with other Nations**

The United Planets does not like the fact that Earth, the spiritual home of the Terrans is located within the FPSO and they have made several non-aggressive attempts to take it into their possession.

They have had a war with the Illusians.

There is a cold war between them and the Empire.

**Quotes**

Quote from Tall Tales in Space.

*But Taster ideology, politics and some religion remained. The style of government that suited such a wide area of space was known as ‘enlightened communism’ by some and ‘tyranny’ by others. The central committee was now in essence immortal due to longevity treatments and cybernetics. The duma had sat in session and not been dissolved for the last two hundred and fifteen years. No committee member had been replaced in over three hundred. The CC were more machine than man.
Freedom in the UP is restricted, Rewton explained, more so on some planets than others. Each planet has a governor in residence whose job it is to ensure tribute flowed back to Kochab.
Political officers on every planet in the UP watched over and guided the local councils and soviets encouraging correct political thinking. Capital punishment was encouraged, but not enforced on every system. Not everyone was happy with such a draconian style of government, but not much had changed since the days of the Tasters and seemed unlikely to with the CC so firmly installed.
And what had happened to the Tasters?
They had all vanished in a mass exodus four hundred years ago to the 'second arm', Terra, Kochab, even the Illusians, being in the third arm of the galaxy.
A very totalitarian communist style regime, yes, but one suited to the situation and much more enlightened than any form of government in history.*

Quote from Tall Tales in Space:

*So, Rewton started to talk about the United Planets. He saw no real purpose in hiding such basic facts and had never been trained in interrogation techniques or how to handle alien encounters. He was still a bit shaken up from watching all his friends die on the Hermes, and besides, like many of his race he was a free thinker and a bit of a pacifist.
In a fairly relaxed voice he revealed the following facts to his captor;
The UP, the United Planets, or sometimes the UFP, the United Federation of Planets depending on what area of space you lived in was a loose collective of several hundred planets and orbitals as well as a few thousand deep space facilities. It was all run from a central committee on a rugged planet orbiting Kochab, a star 126 light years away from Terra, the birthplace of mankind. How this came to be Rewton explained. As the human race, still fragmented into different factions explored the stars around them, such as Proxima Centauri, Tau Ceti, Wolf 359 and Ross 128 they met a more advance civilisation, the Tasters, coming the other way. By then Terrans had developed faster than light travel, the Tasters while older and more powerful still relied on generation ships to spread their genes around the galaxy. Here Rewton's knowledge of history got a bit vague, he suspected they may have had religious beliefs that disallowed travelling faster than light, as once you understood how to manipulated wormholes it was, while not easy, certainly doable.
There were wars at first, but soon the two cultures merged, with the seat of power on Kochab (known locally as My'her). Mankind flourished and spread throughout the Tasters Empire like a virus, soon taking over everything. One by one, the Tasters on the central committee were replaced by humans. Over the next few hundred years mankind came to totally dominate the empire and the U.P. was born.
But Taster ideology, politics and some religion remained. The style of government that suited such a wide area of space was known as ‘enlightened communism’ by some and ‘tyranny’ by others. The central committee was now in essence immortal due to longevity treatments and cybernetics. The duma had sat in session and not been dissolved for the last two hundred and fifteen years. No committee member had been replaced in over three hundred. The CC were more machine than man.
Freedom in the UP is restricted, Rewton explained, more so on some planets than others. Each planet has a governor in residence whose job it is to ensure tribute flowed back to Kochab.
Political officers on every planet in the UP watched over and guided the local councils and soviets encouraging correct political thinking. Capital punishment was encouraged, but not enforced on every system. Not everyone was happy with such a draconian style of government, but not much had changed since the days of the Tasters and seemed unlikely to with the CC so firmly installed.
And what had happened to the Tasters?
They had all vanished in a mass exodus four hundred years ago to the 'second arm', Terra, Kochab, even the Illusians, being in the third arm of the galaxy.
A very totalitarian communist style regime, yes, but one suited to the situation and much more enlightened than any form of government in history.
Certainly an improvement on the nearest alternative.*

On the people and technology:

Eventually he groaned, rubbed his eyes and sat up. He was
still in the same small metallic cell he had been in for the last week. Well, a
week possibly, he had no way of telling the time these days. Not that he had
ever had a watch or anything so primitive as that in the past, but all the
cybernetic implants and diagnostics that the advanced human race was born with
in this age had ceased functioning since his capture. He had not only lost the
power to tell the time, but his motion sensing and direction finding abilities
were also impaired. Still, all Naval Personnel were taught to function without
them, to deal with situations just like this.