Galactic Council

The Galactic Council is an interstellar diplomatic body, originally created by treaty between the Unathi and Skrell hundreds of years ago, and since has expanded to include dozens of species. The Galactic Council is responsible for maintaining peace, facilitating trade, authorizing contact with newly-developed species, and other diplomatic tasks.

The Galactic Council is headquartered on the space station Central, around the brown dwarf Reference, which is equidistant between Moghes and Qerr'Balak. The Central Committee, or "CentCom", is the most public expression of the Council's powers, being the body most involved in coordinating interstellar traffic, interstellar (or "space") law, and managing emergency response.

As conditions for membership in the Galactic Council, and thus access to the aid, trade relations, and diplomatic forum which each member relies on, there are certain rules, set in place by the ancient treaty that created the Galactic Council. The Skrell ultimately rule in cases where any of these rules may be called into question, much to the chagrin of every other member. For example, the question regarding the contact of the Vulfar, in which the Unathi saw an opportunity to contact a species that had met all of the requirements for contact (except the discovery of FTL) and could greatly benefit from interstellar trade and friendship. However, the Vulfar were not at all willing to join the Galactic Council, and the Skrell, knowing that the Unathi don't take 'no' for an answer in these cases, repeatedly insisted that the Vulfars' wishes should be respected.

Humans are welcome to sit in on the Galactic Council but have not yet been granted voting power or member status, as the Skrell are suspicious of their interventionist attitude and see them as an Ascent in the making; the Unathi disagree, and the Tajara are split between aligning with the Unathi and Skrell. The Ascent agree with the Skrells' assessment, except they see it as a positive and not a negative.

A species may only be contacted if:

• The species has developed radio technology.
• The species has discovered the theory behind FTL travel.
• The species has united its home planet, or at least has a polity large enough to speak for most of the species.
• The species is not actively at war.

Members of the Council must not, on pain of removal from the Council:

• Uplift any sapient or nonsapient species or individual entities.
• Produce an artificial intelligence with capacities far beyond an individual member of the species.
• Make war on another species, be it a member of the council or an uncontacted species. Any war between members of the same species are considered civil wars and are allowed as long as victory conditions are clearly defined.
• Engage in large-scale engineering projects such as but not limited to:
  • Stellasers
  • Planeteering (demolition, reconstruction, shell planets)
  • Dyson structures
  • Singularity manipulation
• Engage in an antiseptic civil conflict. Under these conditions, usage of nuclear, biological, chemical, CT, or orbital kinetic weapons is strictly prohibited.
• Go against Council dictates. After deliberation is concluded and a decision reached, any Council dictate is considered part of interstellar law.
• Fire on civilian vessels, or give quarter to any vessel that has fired on civilian vessels, where a civilian vessel is defined as a vessel that has all of the following:
  • Minimal shielding
  • No more than one weapon emplacement per 100 tons of volume
  • No weapons individually exceeding fifteen tons of volume
  • A civilian registration from the Central Committee.