The Lore of Violet

Sol Alliance Nexus (SAN)
SAN is the unified government of humanity in space. Denoting the centrality of the Sol System it speaks to ambitions beyond the solar system if humanity can maintain its ever fragile alliance. This is the nexus of that alliance where decisions spread across deliberative bodies, representatives of the popular voice, and bureaucracy. The levers of power are primarily noted in the Executive and governors’ assembly. However, SAN does include a court with a chief justice and a parliament with members and constituent assembly elected by the people. The balance of power, nonetheless, titles towards the Executive and governors for the sake of centrality, longevity, and consistency.

Over the generations, SAN politics shifted the naming and branding of offices, including the creation of the primarch out of thin air. The Japanese names lend insight into how some positions were corrupted to what exists in Violet. Modern speakers of Japanese will know the kanji used do not reflect the modern government system. Take the therms 政官 and 新兵部卿 from chapter twenty-two of Violet. The meaning is “Government Administration,” and “New Minister of War” with kanji dating back to the Asuka period ritsuryō code of laws. While it is true that SAN citizens use a new dialect of Japanese, these kanji are pulled directly from traditionalist sentiment of the court politics adapted from the Tang dynasty’s legalistic government model.

The Executive
In many countries the head of state, if separate, performs culturally symbolic duties while the head of government is the chief political leader from the national legislative body. The Executive does not include a prime minister because there is none in space. The Executive includes a de jure leader titled the Secretary of State. The secretary of state can be elected by the governors or an appointed deputy secretary can fill a vacancy. The secretary of state, whose only responsibility is the survival of humanity’s future in space, with a constituency of stakeholders both of the present and future, is the leader invested with the utmost power by SAN’s constitution. The secretary of state, in the past, partnered with the “Spirit of the Architect” which is a non-corporeal, figurative head of state based around the precepts set out by the architect of SAN. However, by the time of Violet the secretary of state functions as a symbolic head of state with immense cultural sway even though the role is de jure the pinnacle of SAN government. This convention exists due to the populist push for the governor of Luna to act as the head of government. This governor, elected by Luna stakeholders (the largest population center) is concurrently the president of SAN within the Executive.

In effect, the Executive is a social and political convention designed to mitigate both insularity and populism so that the government focuses on survival over short-term squabbles. However, the shoehorning of the primarch into the Executive set off a chain of events culminating in Violet. The primarch is the otherwise-called minister of war even though SAN has no military because there are no alien invasions in space. There is a self-defense force with military level equipment made to fend off stray asteroids or violent agitators.

The Governors
In SAN each planet or significant settlement has a governor. Stakeholders directly elect the governors of Mercury, Venus, Luna, and Mars. The governor of the Earth shell, which is maintained by SAN, the asteroid belt, and outer system expeditionary (based on Ganymede) are appointed but the secretary of state can authorize direct elections by the relatively small stakeholder population. Under SAN’s constitution the secretary of state is the executive of the governors’ assembly. All governors are tasked with representing their stakeholders but their responsibility to the survival of humanity in space comes first. Their subordinate position to the secretary of state reflects this prioritization of all humanity over any regional constituency.

Planets and Periphery
Luna is the origin of SAN and the cradle of humanity in space. Earth is split from SAN physically by the shell which inhibits travel and communications outside of approved channels. Aside from Luna, the most comfortable part of space civilization is Mars. Mercury and Venus are populated by humans to oversee and manage robotic labour that extract resources. The asteroid belt is another source of critical resource mining. The expeditionary beyond the asteroid belt primarily live in colony ships until reaching a destination where upon they build a space station or prefabricated outpost. Most outposts are centered on science experiments and examining human adaption to live in the next phase of expansion. Population centers where people live “normal” lives are on Luna and Mars as well as aboard the colony ships.

The Thirty Years Crisis
There are times when the pursuit of humanity’s survival leads to widespread implementation of augmentation tech without the recipient’s knowledge. This crisis, recent in memory during Violet reflected the zealous rush for augmentation. An unknown number of people received forced experimental-stage tech resulting in scars, deformity, mental damage, and trauma. This, naturally, decreased trust in government among many who knew the full story. For the more agitated among SAN, it led to festering resentment and hate.

Node Kings
The Node Kings facilitate near-instant communication across a space civilization. These are immense nodes or hubs of communication infrastructure which intake and relay data through a mix of light-based transmission and particle entanglement. The latter is the most effective but, to manage bandwidth and demand, the most restricted. Only so many particle pairs and triplet units are entangled at a time. If a massive flood of data must transmit in the highest-priority channels, other communications will travel by light such as radio waves. The Kings use a wider net of smaller nodes and infrastructure scattered through space, often at Lagrange points, to meet the expectations of a digital space society.

Earth’s Shell
In order to intercede against global cataclysm, an organization built a metal shell to encase Earth until the environment, ecosystem, and human civilization crises rectified. It is a life support system implemented at the last feasible moment to radically turn the tide back (literally for coastal regions). For most all who know the history it is a visible reminder of global failure and shame to the point many among older generations refuse to teach that the light above is fake. To those outside the shell it encases mystery and memories ripe of humanity’s birth.

SAN’s Lingua Franca
SAN is a diverse, multicultural and multilingual society. Over the years English and Japanese use grew widespread and dominant. Naturally, most people learned both and unique Luna dialect | 月弁 arose. As with any population center with multiple dominant languages, some pockets favour one over the other causing literacy rates to fluctuate regionally and by medium of communication.