User:Meriad/LexiCon

Lexican Confederation
The Lexican Confederation, officially the Lexican Confederation of Independent Planets and Territories, is a  of  s in the North-Western Sector of Galactium Ordion. The Lexican Confederation is composed of six constituent planets, and has a total population of 53.6 billion, and borders Alvos to the galactic west. The confederation is overseen by the Commission of Sages under the direction of the Cobalt Diet. Each independent planet is ruled by a democratic government where all inhabitants have the ability to vote for representatives, who collectively determining public policy.

The central institution of the Lexican Confederation is the state-supported Great Library of Maktaba, which seeks to preserve scientific, cultural, and linguistic knowledge about sentient species across the galaxy. Because of its dedication to preserving knowledge, the confederation does not maintain a standing military, and exercises foreign policy through its cultural influence and diplomatic policies alone.

History
So, basically, the Ordic League leadership, along with some of their groupies and various pacifist hippie groups, hijacked a couple of generation ships, and ran off towards the center of the galaxy in order to establish a society free from past human stupidity and nukes. While en-route to their future home, they accidentally ran into Nero’s species, and had to figure out how to communicate in some manner and avoid getting killed, as well as milking as much scientific information and FTL technology out of their xenos counterparts as possible. This encounter, in collaboration with the near-death of humanity, made them value sentient life to a much greater degree, and thus to practically forswear open warfare entirely. It also leads to the foundation of the Great Library of Maktaba.

Upon encountering a system containing a planet with a viable biosphere for human habitation, including a nearly identical atmospheric composition, the forerunners of the Lexican Confederation carefully survey it to determine if sentient life is present. They encounter a sentient (but not technologically advanced) species similar to Ordic squirrels, which call themselves Rakkil (singular: Rakka). The prospective terraformers make contact with this species, and they come to an agreement regarding Lexican settlement. The planet, named Istar, is only settled by humans in a very small region, a section of the planet inhospitable to the Rakkil. The Lexicans settle on Istar for the twenty-six years it takes to terraform the neighboring (and much larger) planet of Luthien and make it suitable for human habitation. The completion of this terraforming project marks the formal establishment of the Lexican Confederation, with Luthien being the capital.

Coalition of Planets
The initial government structure of the Lexican Confederation was the Coalition of Planets, a loose confederation of the governments of the planets of Istar, Luthien, and Lexium. The coalition was essentially a non-aggression treaty between the governments, with little unity in terms of foreign or domestic policy aside from a collective security agreement and pacifist approach to external politics. This coalition was guided by the Keepers of the Library, a council composed of a single elected official from each planet charged with protecting the fledgeling Great Library taking shape on Luthien. Due to the constant bickering between the planets regarding domestic policies and how to respond to emerging external threats, the coalition was disbanded 150 years after its formation by a referendum on all three planets, and replaced by the much more powerful confederation model of government in place to this day.

Politics and government
The Lexican Confederation operates under the framework of a  of  s, where individual planets exercise their own internal affairs but pool their collective sovereignties on external policy and defense. The powers of a tradition are afforded to the Commission of Sages, a commission composed of seventeen high-level officials within the structure of the Great Library of Maktaba, the confederation's central government institution. These Head Librarians are elected to their posts when a position on the Commission becomes open, whether by the death or resignation of a sitting member, and are selected on the basis of their service to the library, knowledge in a particular area of study, or other considerations. The Commission has virtually unlimited power over the confederation, as there is no supreme legal document such as a constitution that enumerates specific legal powers to the Commission; rather it derives its authority from the traditional power afforded to the Keepers of the Library prior to the reformation of the Coalition of Planets into the present-day structure of the Lexican Confederation. In practice, however, the Commission exercises very little tangible authority over the planetary governments of each of the constituent states of the confederation, instead dictating much broader policies that are then open to interpretation, within reason, by the individual planetary governments.

The  of the confederation is the Cobalt Diet, which meets in formal session in the central meeting chamber of the Great Library of Maktaba every nine years. The Diet is formally composed of the combined legislatures of every independent planet and territory, in which each sovereign entity is afforded three votes and each territory is afforded one. For sovereign states, the allocation of votes is not formally delineated. The formal purposes of the Cobalt Diet are to discuss the accomplishments of the Great Library since the last formal session, re-endorse the mandate of the Commission of Sages, determine whether a territory should be granted the rights and duties of a member of the confederation, and to determine whether or not the confederation should be disbanded. Outside of these formal roles, the Cobalt Diet is also permitted to pass non-binding directives which request certain actions of the Commission or the Great Library, to select certain categories of material within the Great Library which may be redesignated for a specific purpose, or to impose restrictions on access to certain areas of the library to certain species or political entities. In practice, however, the meetings of the Cobalt Diet are almost entirely formal, and are generally terminated within five days of their opening. For reference, the Diet's meetings legally last for one year from the initial opening, and cannot last more than three years.

If specific legislative action must be taken that concerns matters relevant to every state within the Confederation, or if any of the traditional roles of the Diet need to be exercised during a non-meeting year, the Commission may request at its discretion an emergency meeting of each state's legislature. It may then present an identical bill to each planet's government to be signed, effectively forming a sexicameral legislature. If the bill passes by a supermajority of the legislatures, then the Commission may take action with regards to the contents of that particular bill.

Legal matters within the confederation are handled by the governments of each individual sovereign state in whatever manner may be efficient for them. Matters that cannot be settled by the independent planets may be brought before the Commission of Sages for deliberation and arbitration.

Great Library of Maktaba
The central institution operated by the government is the Great Library of Maktaba. The Great Library was created at the same time of the foundation of the government, and was originally dedicated to documenting as much as feasibly possible about human and alien culture and biology in order to safeguard against the extinction of an entire species, like what nearly happened to Ordic humanity. Since its establishment, the type of information contained in the library has evolved, and now includes scientific, linguistic, and historical information as well. While the library is technically accessible to any sentient creature in the universe, the security surrounding both the planet Maktaba and the library facilities themselves are high enough that actually gaining physical access to the vaults of physical documents can be very very difficult. Because of this, it is common practice for information-seekers to land and stay in the Corax system, two and a half light-years away, and conduct research from there using universally-accessible digital interfaces.

In their continual efforts to document all sentient life, the librarians continually conduct research missions across the known universe, and are generally granted access to the archives and territories of most countries. The librarians, because of their immense knowledge of linguistics and alien cultures, are generally the preferred entities for making first contact with other species.

Lexican Research Initiative
Due to its dedication to the preservation of all sentient species, the Lexican Confederation maintains a very small armed forces. Instead of a traditional navy, the Lexican Research Initiative acts as the de-facto means of power-projection, indicating the confederation's interest in areas of space through the presence of research vessels. The Lexican Research Initiative, generally abbreviated LRI, is governed by a Chairman, who is appointed and serves at the pleasure of the Commission of Sages. The Chairman of the LRI is currently Virgil Flint.

LRI research vessels are generally armed with light armaments, and can defend themselves if forced to do so. Despite its generally peaceful role, the LRI does operate a number of purpose-built warships, nominally for the purpose of protecting endangered research sites and ensuring the territorial integrity of the Confederation. These vessels are heavily armed despite their small size, and only rarely have to participate in actual combat situations. The most common warships are Sentinel-class frigates and Grand Vizier-class gunboats.

In addition to the Lexican Research Initiative, the Confederation also maintains a separate force dedicated to planetary and atmospheric combat, the Confederal Marines. In addition to atmospheric craft, the Marines also operate several dozen large vessels that transport its forces to the battlefield. These transport ships are the largest vessels operated by the Confederation.

LRI Fleet Vessels
Century-class Research Cruiser — Length: 520 meters. Standard crew size: Approx. 900. 9 in service. Reference link

Inquisitive-class Research Frigate — Length: 478 meters. Standard crew size: Approx. 750. 14 in service. Reference link

Sentinel-class Cutter — Length: 280 meters. Standard crew size: Approx. 280. 8 in service. Reference link

Demographics
While the Confederation was founded by human expatriates, it is only around 78% percent human. A number of other species make up the remaining portion of the population, primarily the Rakkil (17%) and various other species. Within the Confederation, there are members of nearly every known sentient species in the universe, primarily as a result of the Great Library’s documentation and research work.

The current population of all six planets of the Lexican Confederation is 53.6 billion.

Systems:

Oracle
 * Delphi — 14.6 billion

Damocles
 * Tempus — 5.6 billion
 * Terra Firma — 11.2 billion

Corax (Malitia & Amicitia [binary star system] )
 * Luthien (capital) — 10.7 billion
 * Istar —4.1 billion

Maktaba
 * Lexium — 7.4 billion  —  The Great Library