Interplanetary Oversight Commission

The Interplanetary Oversight Commission, also known as the IOC or colloquially as the Government, is the largest and most powerful political body in the known galaxy. Tracing its roots back to late-21st century Earth, the Government exerts its authority over 14 habitable planets and moons, including the homeworlds of humanity, the Zoarari, the Myphym and the Epolians.

History
In the mid-21st century, in the wake of massive human loss and political instability due to climate change and environmental destruction, the United Nations began to transition towards stronger regulations over national governments and corporate powers. The UN's motions quickly gained popular support and momentum, and by the 2070s some - both within the UN and in grassroots organizations - began touting the idea of a world government. The plan was finally approved by the UN in 2099, granting citizens the right to work anywhere in the world and the right to vote directly on major issues, with their votes weighted based on their nation and culture of birth, their current place of residence, and how directly the issues would affect them.

The world government spent the next century smoothing out political issues, consolidating its power and stabilizing relationships with increasingly powerful multinational corporations. In the process they entered a space race with corporate powers that ended when the government developed near-light speed travel and sent an exoplanet exploration team to the TRAPPIST-1 system in 2160. 44 years later, that exploration team returned from TRAPPIST-1, bringing with them diplomatic representatives from not one but two intelligent species - the Zoarari and the Myphym - that, together, had discovered faster-than-light (FTL) spaceflight several years prior. Suddenly faced with the massive complexities of interplanetary relations, the world government created a new division to specifically deal with interplanetary issues: the Interplanetary Oversight Commission, founded in 2207.

The IOC oversaw the exploration and colonization of planetary systems for the next decade and a half, with tight regulations and little room for error. Corporations were largely shut out of the process, causing significant political issues on Earth until, in 2219, the Byron corporation stole a FTL-capable ship and used it to lead an illegal colonization effort into a previously-unexplored solar system. This kicked off the first corporate war between the IOC and a conglomeration of corporate moguls. The war was fought almost entirely in space, resulting both in the first known instances of military combat in space and the abandonment of strict laws about the ethics and biomedical procedures surrounding colonization. In 2244, the Revelations expedition, a massive IOC colonization fleet, was destroyed in space over the planet Troy by a corporate strike force; the resulting debris rained down on the planet, rendering it unlivable. In the wake of this tragedy - the destruction of one of the only known ideally habitable planets - and also due to resource fatigue, the corporate war ended in 2246 with a peace treaty that awarded two-thirds of known space to the eight corporations that had contributed the most to the war effort. Those living in space owned by the corporations were no longer citizens under the authority of the IOC.

Significantly weakened by the war, the IOC signed a formal alliance with the Myphym and Zoarari but were further weakened when a large contingent of Myphym, a government that made up nearly a third of the planet's population, refused to join with the IOC and allied with corporate powers instead. However, the IOC's comparatively conservative colonization policies paid off as several corporations overextended themselves and either went bankrupt or were forced to sell off some of their space. When the second corporate war broke out over territory conflicts between corporations in 2268, the Government was poised to make significant gains, which they did when the dust settled in 2287 and they made peace with Byto and Elliot-Russell-Wilcomb, the two remaining corporate powers.

Still, the Government used significant resources in the latter half of the war, and hostilities seemed to once again be brewing when in 2302 a Myphym/Zoarari ship made first contact with a new alien species, the Epolians. Only a year later, hostilities broke out between the Epolians and the rest of known space. The Contact War temporarily united the corporate powers and the Government, resulting in their victory. In the post-war bliss, the Government saw prosperity, significant profits and a morally problematic but economically beneficial occupation of Epolian space. The continued cultural and political oppression of the Epolians in the decades after the Contact War resulted in an Epolian resistance movement that was only stopped by Seven for the Species, a corporation that had languished for almost a century in Government space after losing their own space in the Second Corporate War. For their assistance, the Government granted them control of three solar systems.

Though the Government's history is fraught with conflict, and their current political power over the galaxy was tenuous at best before the Contact War, they are perceived by galactic citizens as the most powerful political body in the galaxy bar none.

Society
The Government lays claim to such a wide swath of space - and governs over so many different species - that it is difficult to make general claims about societal norms. That being said, the Government has also taken great pains to ensure a standard minimum quality of life for all of its citizens, whether they live on Earth, on an extrasolar colony, or in space.

Education
After languishing for many years in the late 21st and early 22nd centuries, the University tenure system returned to prominence with the emergence of the world government on earth. Now, the Government operates a galaxy-wide public school system in which Universities are highly involved from the elementary level. There are a few private schools in Government space, but they are somewhat frowned upon and operate under significant restrictions. Universities are publicly funded and highly involved in government research, and typically operate several campuses on different planets or in orbit.

Politics
The IOC's political system is at this point largely separate from Earth, though it began as a branch of the world government. Government space is divided into planetary systems, each of which elects a number of representatives proportional to its population. Representatives' ridings are divided geographically on planets - with one representative's riding comprising anything from a small continent to an entire planet - and by space station or cluster of stations in space. The homeworlds also have representatives, though the Epolians were only granted representation at the end of the resistance, and it is considered by the Epolians to be little more than a token. As with Earth's systems, voting is weighted based on stakeholdership, place of origin and current place of residence.

Many have noted that the political system tends to favor those living on planets, especially those on established colonies, over those in space. Those who live nomadic lives on small spaceships - by far the minority, but still millions of people of multiple species - are especially poorly represented: they vote according to the space station where they dock their ship most often, but their votes are often inconsequential compared to station residents, and since their votes as a whole are distributed across stations, their voices are rarely heard.

Voting rates are also far higher among humans than among other species. Though this is partly due to species affinity - the Zoarari, for example, find their own consensus-building political system far more efficient than human democracy - it is also due to the fact that the voting system was initially built largely without the input of other species. This results in a kind of cultural marginalization that means that the Myphym and Zoarari still often operate politically without humanity's input - though they make peaceful gestures towards cooperation and send representatives from their homeworlds and colonies to participate in the democratic process, they also handle planetary conflicts internally and make decisions about colonization and expansion unilaterally. The Zoarari are perhaps the most politically isolated in this way, though they are more communicative with the Myphym's planetary government on Those Familiar Shoals Rippling Past the Surface.

Quality of Life
Though there are still significant wealth disparities in government space, all citizens are effectively guaranteed a minimum quality of life. For those in more populous areas of space, the government ensures a universal basic income that covers costs of living and food; for those in remote colonies, the government directly pays for their housing and provides them with food, clothing and other necessities. Education and health care are fully public, though access to both can be difficult for spacefaring nomads.

Taxes
Taxes in government space are especially complicated. In addition to sales taxes - which are adjusted depending on location - and taxes on income, citizens are required to pay significant taxes for property ownership, again contingent on the location and size of the property.