Grand Concourse Treaty Organization

**Overview**Characters

**Associate Members**
 Trillic Khaganate
  Sanctum of Votum
  Arboros
  Ibi's Hollow

The **Grand Concourse Treaty Organization**, abbreviated **GCTO**, is a multinational organization gathering together all of the powers opposed to the Ascensionary. It is widely understood as an attempt to demonstrate that a pluralistic and diverse international order can function in an peaceful way without needing the kind of centralized hegemonic authority that the Aoshtanti Empire provided in ages past and the Ascendancy of the Broken Ring aims to provide in the present.

It was created in 14,565 by the Grand Concourse Treaty which was signed on the Karian capital of Herrath. The treaty establishes the primary organs by which the GCTO governs itself: the membership dues that every member must pay, the Grand Concourse Council, and the GCTO Military Committee. The organization is governed largely by the consensus of its members represented in the Grand Concourse Council.

## Structure

### Yearly GCTO summit

Once a year, the heads of state and heads of militaries of the GCTO meet in Asten to review the performance of the GCTO and to discuss any amendments to the Grand Concourse Treaty if necessary.

### Grand Concourse Council

The ultimate decisionmaking body of the organization is the **Grand Concourse Council**, which is composed of permanent ambassadors appointed by member countries. Each member has one permanent representative. The Council meets once a week in the meeting room in its headquarters on Asten, an ecumenopolis in the Republic of Karstedt. All decisions taken by the Grand Concourse Council are binding on the whole organization and typically take the form of resolutions. Resolutions must garner a simple majority of the votes cast to pass, but every member has a veto. The Council is chaired by the **Secretary General of the GCTO**, and most committees are also chaired and organized by them.

The Grand Concourse Council sets the annual membership payment that all members of the Grand Concourse Council must pay. The Council, with the advice input of both the General Manager and the Military Committee, draft a budget for the organization.

The Council appoints the General Manager, who oversees the civilian agencies of the organization.

The Council, with the advice of the Military Committee, may create regional commands containing multiple countries or areas of space and designate members of the military staff or of national militaries to oversee them.

### Military Committee

The **GCTO Military Committee** is composed of the highest-ranking military officers of every nation on the Grand Concourse Council and every other nation participating in the GCTO Unified Command system. The council meets once a week in Asten, usually through representatives which are themselves usually four-star military officers, before the meeting of the Grand Council to review the agenda and prepare the Chairman's recommendations.

### Unified Miltary Staff

The Military Committee also organizes and appoints the **GCTO Unified Military Staff**, a body of military personnel serving on Asten whose main purpose is to advise the military committee, draft strategy for the organization, staff the military bureaucracy, support member and allied militaries, gather and disseminate intelligence, coordinate research and development, encourage standardization, and so on.