Pax Solar

*"There must be peace among the stars, or else there would be only slaughter between the gods we created."*

- The Judgment of the Symposium

Pax Solar, peace among all worlds under the sun, is the highest goal and purpose of the Symposium. To ensure progress and prosperity for all of civilization, this peace has been upheld for centuries and is to be preserved for millennia to come, for the alternative is only war and the regression into dark ages.

## The Great Game

Peace is maintained through an intricate balance of power between all major and minor nations of the Solar System. They are all enmeshed in the Great Game, the struggle for influence among each other. Whilst most seek to further their own interests first, all powers that be are united in the understanding of mutual dependence and profitable relations. Any one nation seeking to rise above all would inevitably face the United rest of the Symposium who would seek to maintain the status quo above risking the tyranny of one.

Thus, whilst the great game is a struggle between many factions, alliances, and ancient coalitions, it is equally an effort toward the common goal of maintaining the Pax Solar. It is this dynamic through which the direct instruments and powers of the Symposium, such as its independent fleet and the Harbinger's Order are controlled.

#### Rogue Nations

Those who act outside the Symposium and seek to disrupt the Pax Solar are deemed rogues and declared outlaws by the powers that be. Countless such rogue nations exist, either as exiles or enclaves throughout the Solar System and pose no danger to the greater whole.

Yet, there are watched with vigilance, especially with regard to the two ways in which a nation might become dangerous to the Pax Solar.

## Laws of War

War as an extension of the Great Game is ever-present in the Solar System and recognized as a necessary evil by most nations under the sun. In the interconnected, deeply entwined civilizations of Sol, however, a single violent confrontation could easily draw in allies and foes of two belligerents, and even hurt the interest of neutrals to a point where they would fend for their own right. Each ally would have compatriots and foes of their own, who would then themselves draw in even greater powers into the war. In this way, a cascade might erupt, becoming unstoppable until one or more of the greater powers in the Solar System would take note of the war and participate. It would not stop short of a true, interplanetary confrontation, spelling immeasurable death, and destruction between the sun-lit worlds.

To avert such a fate from which no progress could ever come, there exist great catalogs of commandments to be adhered to by all warring parties. They are designed to keep the war contained, making it a precise instrument rather than a blunt weapon.

Are these Laws of War not upheld, any party in the war will be met with the full force of the Symposium and presently dissolved.

## Tending to the Technolodendron

A much rarer, but nonetheless exponentially more dangerous threat to the Pax Solar poses the unsanctioned advance of Dangerous Arts, a mutant growth of the Technolodendron from which could arise a singularity, a weapon or new utility, shifting the balance of power uncontrollably.

Because of this, the Symposium has vowed to tend to the Technolodendron, allowing its growth to arise from a scientific community transcending the bounds of any nation.

Although it is rare for a single faction to be able to achieve a breakthrough of its own which would allow it to become a danger to the greater whole, a single instance like this would be too much. Thus, agents of the Symposium, first among them the Harbingers of the Order, are constantly vigilant, seeking out any perpetrator and bringing unkept branches of the Technolodendron back into the fold.