Interplanetary Worker's League

So comrades, come rally

For this is the time and place, The interplanetary ideal

Unites the human race!

First Stanza of the IWL anthem, The Interplanetaire

The Interplanetary Worker's League is, nominally, a socialist federal union of different state members; in practice, its government and economy are centralized around its two core founding members, Vorodhz and Zhouxian. It is a one-party democratic union government by the All-Labor United Front, a big-tent 'coalition' encompassing almost every single majority political party within the League's planetary members. It roots its origins back to the 2080's unrest in broader Human space during the world wars of the late 21st century, with the overthrow of the local court of directors overseeing colonial development in the Lacaille system following severe unrest and a brief civil war. Despite its rocky start, nowadays it stands as one of the largest members of the Orion Confederation in terms of effective territorial span, with a little over one-third of its population living in border regions or space far away from the traditional center of humanity in or around a few dozen light years from Sol.

Overview

A collectivist state, it sports a modern welfare economy and a robust state oversight over resource creation and acquisition within its territory. All productive forces are overseen and organized by supercomputer-led planification centers in each planetary capital, managing quotas, setting expected intake and outtake of goods, and other forms of economic management. This command economy ensures, in broader strokes, a generally equitable distribution of goods to the populace of each League member, from land to labor, although there is a certain heavy expectation upon personal meritocratic achievement to justify to oneself these boons. Exceeding quotas and working above your expectations is looked fondly upon, albeit this has also led to a prevalent culture of workplace toxicity regarding out-doing your coworkers, as it then becomes frowned upon to do less than others. It's not uncommon to see workers fatigued and sleeping on the streets after leaving their workplace.

Within the League, the vast majority of people come out of three different social 'categories':

Vorodzhi - Zhouxianese

The founding planets, composed of the water world of Vorodzh and the vast, expansive continental shelves of Zhouxian, the average League citizen hails from either of the two super-earths. Being the most densely populated planets in the entire League, and the oldest, state presence and national pride are the strongest here. They serve as the flagship examples of what life can be like following the ideals espoused by the party, and as such have the greatest care put into their image- grand public halls, expansive holidays, and additional consumer goods are all funneled to the region. It also serves as the industrial and military heartland of the League, with its standing naval force stationed on the dockyard complexes above Vorodzh.

Special Economic Zone Inhabitant

The Special Economic Zones, or SEZ, are certain cities and regions within both Vorodzh and Zhouxian that serve as a flexible point of trade between foreign merchants and Leaguer society. Their existence was, by itself, unplanned and even unwanted, having only come into fruition as part of the negotiations with the newly-forming Orion Confederation in order to be brought within its fold, one of its demands was the creation of these limited-trade regions. Formally, the exchange of goods between the local economy and outer agents is prohibited as it presents unaccounted-for variables that fall outside the scope of economic calculation, creating mounting inefficacies and even security risks for the planet members. These zones ended up proving to be more effective at bringing these black market activities into more legal light, as well as bringing a steady intake of goods and capital into more resource-lacking planets.

However, at the same time, these zones present issues for the broader government. While the negotiations did not restrict political activity within these zones, the local government's hands are often tied when it comes to not upsetting the companies inhabiting it too much, for they wield a large degree of economic power. A more social-democratic economic model tends to prevail here in turn, with cooperation between state agents and enterprises both local and foreign. In turn, the population here tends to have a different, more libertine, and less hardline view on many subjects, as well as having a higher likelihood of being migrants elsewhere.

Cozaks and other Border region members

'Cozak' is as much of a despective term as it is a legitimate cultural identity, assigned to young 'colonial pioneers' who created many outposts and settlements amongst the edge of human space for the interests of the League. Being far away from the center of power of the league, the communities these Cozaks formed had a much more horizontal form of organization, with popular communes and more communal forms of living favored over the party-led vertical organization. This ended up being rather unpopular back at Lacaille, and there is a semi-constant tug of war inside the government of the League between these centralizing and decentralizing forces.

The people themselves tend to have an almost 'cowboy-esque' way of life, used to more rural experiences and lacking the massive industrial upbringing of the core planets.

A major hub for their inhabitation, and amassing over half of all border region population, is the space sector known as The Cosmodrome, a massive drydock-shipyard deep space complex orbiting a quaternary star system not too far away from Hadii's Folly. Built roughly a hundred and twenty years ago as a temporary stop for Orion scouting vessels, it came under League administration and became a valuable hub for information and material exchange between the budding People's Republic of Adhomai and their alleged human benefactors during the early days of the Tajaran conflict. Such activities were later suspended after the scandal of the Adhomaian Civil War, albeit it still remains a melting pot of Humans, Tajarans, and any other space travelers passing by, albeit with a so-called 'panopticon administration' overseeing local activities.

67TH FORWARD ECHELON GROUP, LNV "THE DECEMBRIST"

The 67th is an IWL naval detachment in near proximity to the Cosmodrome, not too far away from Hadii's Folly. Following the Tajaran situation, for purposes of power projection and intelligence, the Chairman Tso-class command and carrier vessel - "The Decembrist" - became stationed on space near these two locations. It serves as a base for League interests in the region, begrudgingly sanctioned by Orion, from where they can keep in check possible interests from other factions and their sworn enemy, the Hegemony.

The current active League infantry group near Hadii's Folly, the 4th Guards Naval Infantry Battalion, is deployed on this vessel.

History

Lacaille 9352, commonly known as just 'Lacaille', is a star system roughly 10 light years away from the Solar system. This distance put it as a poor host for Humanity's first expeditions into extrasolar space, and as such it was left beside for the first few decades of space exploration as much more attractive and affordable destinations in closer systems were sought. However, with improvements in better long-term travel techniques, cryogenization, and an explosion in material wealth from these early colonies came an opportunity for this system to be settled -- particularly after the economic crises of the early to mid-21st century that rocked the eastern regions of Earth. Several earth-based companies, outbid by their Western competitors on those more local systems, set to transport large numbers of these impoverished individuals with the promise of work and a new life to this system which laid ripe for colonization in that stretch of time.

Technical limitations of space flight at the time, imperfect physical understandings, and a lack of readily available fuel made these trips not only very costly but also long, as despite being such a short distance it was still a roughly round trip of 20~ years from Sol to Lacaille. Huge amounts of investment had been put towards these vessels capable of matching almost a 1/4 of the speed of light, but at the time it seemed impossible to push for more. Slowly, what this meant was that the sort of communities that would be set on the two super-earth planets on Lacaille only made sense as extractivist ones. Only colonial ventures that either promised future capital return on this costly investment for the corporations or immediately gave scientific data that could be sold were prioritized, and as such the first handful of communities were in essence mining towns with near-squalor conditions given the lack of support due to these great distances.

A number of settlements were established on the two planets present in the region, and due to the specific regions that the initial colonists had come from, they both came to be known as Vorodhz and Zhouxian.

There had been a growing disconnect regarding the vague 'union' of political entities emerging in the aftermath of the war between the distant cradle of humanity and those born on the local planets ever since the arrival of its first inhabitants, and the still-uncleared matter between corporate townships and actual political polities had yet to be cleared in human space, which exacerbated conflict as the colonists felt they were being squeezed for profit rather than building a fruitful home. For many years the Lacaille colonists saw little to no aid that they had been promised come their way from the homeworld as it was embroiled in the aftermath of the decades-long conflict. A period of intense depression and population shrink followed, but from it was also borne an idea of independence, seeing how they had weathered the storm by themselves -- yet despite that, once the dust truly settled on Earth as the reconstruction efforts reached their conclusion, corporate ownership sent delegates to re-establish communication with the system and see how their colonial investment was proceeding. Seeing that the local corporate quarters had been taken by storm, with a number of different radical councils set up through the different established cities on the planet, a general warning was issued that if they did not relinquish their stolen property - that being the planetary grounds they were illegally seizing - the companies would request military aide from Terran nations to retake what was theirs. That this threat was a hollow one given the state of things back in Sol seems to have been irrelevant given the response by the former corporate colonists, as this led to an intense period of militarization by the colonies, with the requisitioning of scrapper haphazard scrapper fleets for defense and the formation of a nascent state entity between the two planets going by the name of the Zhouxian-Vorodhz Commissariat For the People's Defence, or 'Narodxhan' as spelled in the local pidgin language.

"Article 1. The Interplanetary Worker's League

is a socialist state of the whole people, expressing the will and interests of the workers, sailors, and intelligentsia, the working people of all the nations and

nationalities of the systems that comprise it."

Exert from the Constitution of the League

A brief period of civil strife and skirmishing followed between the scant corporate forces and mercenaries under the control of the company charter administration and the armed colonists, but thankfully things did not escalate after the victory of the locals, and a conflict between the young colonial government and the Solar polities was avoided by astute statecraft and diplomatic plays that ensured the colonies undertook a debt roughly estimated to be the total cost of the investment in their creation in order to be formally recognized by the government

Sadly, the debt was never repaid to its full extent, and by the time it was clear it would not be repaid, the system was far too well established and with a respectable capability for self-defense for the companies to do anything. The independence of these corporate assets struck a ginormous blow to the once grand earth-based corporations, many going bankrupt or lacking the capital to continue operations elsewhere. This led to a butterfly effect in the now-present growth of extra-Terran megacorporations such as the lunar Nanotransen or the many others birthing in Mars.

After this rowdy birth, the twin planetary administration saw the need to expand to keep its hard-fought independence lest it be overshadowed by other equally expansionistic human factions. With the establishment of other colonies beyond Lacaille came two main issues- one, the issue of centralism, which had heavily concentrated political power during the independence conflict under the justification of 'wartime efficacy', and two, that of space piracy. The former dealt with striking an accord with the representatives of each planet and budding colony, reforming the state from a unitary polity into a federal union of equals -- however, the latter was not something the League could solve. Far too young, and far too technologically unfit compared to its inhuman foes, the loose border regions of the League saw constant harassment from human-borne piracy, and otherwise, with Vox raids decimating entire settlements before relief forces could arrive- if these even stood a chance at all. Despite their naval expertise and ease, they could at best battle external threats to a standstill, and this massive pressure was enough to prompt the League government to finally make peace with their brethren in Sol, culminating in becoming signatories of the Orion Accords alongside the rest of the human entities spread through space.

Nowadays, it stands aside from Sol as a 'haven' of rights and benefits often not found in Sol whom they categorize as 'corporate hellscapes', though the shades of the initial distrust against the central Sol government still exist. The citizens of the planets have a so-called limited reach in rights, as state oversight from the commissariat days has yet to be sufficiently cut down, and a general martial culture is predominant, with a system-wide obligatory year-long service period in the renowned Orion-wide Whangpon Naval Academy.

The Party, Government Organs and the Commissar State

While the form of government and economic model of the Interplanetary Worker's League may resemble human states of the past, it is dissimilar to them in a number of ways, particularly in regard to ideology. Following the world war that devastated the Earth during the late 21st century, the fruitfulness and efficacy of the Marxist-Leninist models of statesmanship came under question or were outright delegated as antiquated and no longer fit for a space-age human civilization, particularly as they came to be the losers of the conflict overall. In turn, this disillusionment with the old ideological models came to breed new forms of political thought centered around the worker's movement, and by the time of the revolutionary strife in Zhouxian and Vorodzh, the intelligentsia of each planet had more or less formed their own diverse sets of ideals that, while sharing some similarities, had evolved and 'improved upon' its past earthen iterations.

1. Membership of the A.L.U.F is open to any citizen of the League who accepts the Programme and the Rules of the Party, takes an active part in socialist construction, works in one of the Party organizations, carries out all Party decisions, and pays membership dues.

2. It is the duty of a Party member:

(a) to work for the creation of the material and technical basis of socialism; to serve as an example of the socialist attitude towards labour; to raise labour productivity; to display the initiative in all that is new and progressive; to support and propagate advanced methods; to master techniques, to improve his skills; to protect and increase public socialist property, the mainstay of the might and prosperity of the many League planets;

(b) to put Party decisions firmly and steadfastly into effect; to explain the policy of the Party to the masses; to help strengthen and multiply the Party’s bonds with the people; to be considerate and attentive to people; to respond promptly to the needs and requirements of the working people.

(c) to help, in every possible way, to strengthen the defense potential of the I.W.L; to wage an unflagging struggle for peace and friendship

among nations.

Exert from the Founding Principles of the All-Labor United Front

There is no one name, or strict classification for these ideals, for the All-Labor United Front is exactly that, a united front of different sectors and strata of society that share the similar goal of worker's liberation. There is however a set of dogmas, an official party line, that is indirectly enforced by the very nature of the state apparatus, 'anti-worker thinking' is heavily discouraged and those thoughts are perceived to be directly against the interests of the planetary proletariat are often met with imposed self-criticism sessions or demands to step down from one's post. A common issue that is railed against is the topic of careerism, the practice of focusing on the advancement of one's political career above sticking to personal integrity or morals. This excessive brown-nosing is, as some would say, the main cause of bureaucratic bloat in the League.

Organization of the League

There are a number of state organs that compose the broad, massive political body that is the IWL. Some of these are recent additions, while the others are little more than dragged-along qualities from the days of the revolution that still stick on to the government due to powerful interest groups behind them.

Each planet conforms a universal polity, a planetary union so that there are no extreme federal subdivisions and incredibly overcomplicated bureaucracies handling independent nations in each planet. At the base level, the citizenry of each planet elects through direct representation the members conforming to both their local congresses and regional bodies and the members that would conform the International Council for the entire planet. Inhabitants of the SEZ participate in this process too, though in an indirect manner, being only able to elect representatives to local congresses. From the International Council grows a scion, the executive power conformed of the Planetary Presidium, of which it holds two heads - the General Secretary of the planet, and a Commissar of the Union, equivalent in range to a head of government and head of state respectively. The latter in particular exercises temporary dictatorial functions in 'times of crisis and need', as they often hail from a military background, selected amongst the naval admiralty.

The International Council does, likewise, send its own delegates elected amongst themselves, as a form of planet-wide representation sent towards two superior bodies, the Council of the League and the Council of the Peoples. These two bicameral chambers, unlike the planetary chambers, dictate policy and laws for the entire League, which every member state must comply with, and as such is supposed to be held under higher scrutiny. Like before, from these bodies, the Supreme Federal Presidium is elected, its permanent executive body, and from it come two charges; The High Commissar of the League, the nominal head of state and commander-in-chief of all League forces, and the Premier of the League, the nominal head of government and equivalent to a 'president' - they often, but not always, are also the head of the party.

The Commisar State

One of the more flawed critiques of the League is its design as a so-called 'Commissar State', a despective term aimed to insult the often militarized, martial tint that government institutions tend to have. The original revolution on Lacaille was, in fact, headed by a martial council, due to the extreme concerns over an invasion from Earth possible all preparations were made to combat this potential threat, however with the passage of time and evident lack of any will from Sol to do this, the hands of state power slowly shifted from the hands of the armed forces back to the populace. Their unofficial power still remains however, not only in their role as power-sharers in each planetary union but also from the sheer political gravitas that the institution has, often heavily combatting any form of minimization of naval or military buildup and sometimes even pushing for its own interests apart from those that may be found in the representative, democratic chambers of the planets or even the entire League.

Detractors will call this further proof that the League is an indirect democracy, controlled from the shadows by a martial cabal of saber-rattlers and would-be revolutionaries. It was these Commissar-led factions that made possible the transfer of aid during the Tajaran civil war, and the subsequent crimes committed in that planet served as a setback of their interest due to massive public outcry, but they remain nevertheless a powerful facet of the League government.

Interplanetary Worker's League Navy

The primary military arm of the League, and the basis of their contribution to JSDF garrisons along the edge of Orion Confederation space, the League Navy consists of a number of battleship and cruiser squadrons that travel between the core worlds of the League and the outlying settlements on freedom of navigation operations and training exercises that keep the skills of their crews up to par with that of the more heavily funded, technologically advanced navies of the Tri-Star Compact, United Terra and Martian Coalition. An all-volunteer force, whose enlisted members sign on for a five-year term of service, and whose officers are pledged to at least ten years of active duty upon graduation from the academy, joining the League Navy is seen as one of the more prestigious occupations available to citizens of the League.

The League navy is also responsible for deploying ground forces when called upon via their small corps of Naval Infantry Battalions, which serve in the function of shipboard marines and ground forces in any conflict the League deems fit to become involved in. The Naval Infantry relies on local militia support from colonized worlds within the League when deployed in defensive garrisons, as their numbers and lack of integrated engineer units or heavy mechanized armor vehicles keep them mobile and easier to deploy via naval dropships, making them more suited to short, sharp actions when violence is called for.

Relations with other Factions

The Tajaran Nations

The IWL has either tense or amicable relations with the different nations found on Adhomai heavily depending on which one one would be referring to. They will often sympathize with the members of the People's Republic of Adhomai, with diplomatic summits happening on a bi-yearly basis (before the restriction of unauthorized contact between Tajaran factions and the rest of the galactic community), while holding more tense or outright non-compliant attitudes to the others. This behavior, while easily explained due to ideological similarities, also relates to the known aide that the League paid towards the PRA during its initial struggle in the planetary conflict before being prohibited - alongside everyone else in the confederation- from engaging with foreign factions with no oversight. Some will go as far as to say that it was the IWL that prompted the ideological shift in the different Tajaran hearths that sparked the flames of revolution, but little is known of the deals between humanity and Adhomai prior to the conflict that isn't under heavy Orion censorship and classification.

The Skrell & The Vikara Combine

Due to their distance and low level of direct interaction with humanity, they are seen as foreign kleptocrats under a tyrannical caste system. There is a known, unofficial prohibition on Skrell or Vikara Combine vessels docking with League-administered planets or shipyards by party directive under the guise of avoiding 'foreign espionage'.

The Orion Confederation

By some, an alliance of circumstances, by others, the force behind all the corruption in the league, it is undebatable however that the Confederation is the main lifeblood that kept the League from falling prey to the forces of space beyond human scope- as did many other nations that became part of its whole in the common interest. While the relation between the 'central government' of the Confederation and the League is more often than not cooperative, they are famously known as the 'trouble child' of the Confederation by Terran bureaucrats, especially given the heavy theoretical lexicon and justifications that drag on for hours in the confederate chambers whenever a dispute arises between any human faction and the League. There are also concerns of shady, non-reported acts performed below the watchful eye of Confederate officials by League agents, but they remain little more than rumors.

The Moghes Hegemony

As per the 100th Party Plenary Congress on 2286, following the themes laid out on the now-famous "On the Cult of Imperialism and its Consequences" speech, the main existential enemy for the league moved away from the bourgeois of Terra and onto the Moghesian Hegemony. This helped cool relations further with Orion, but it created an active antagonistic attitude with Moghes and the Naramands from the League. The destruction of "Xeno-imperialism" became paramount as the means to save the entire galaxy from oppression, as they uphold that letting the Hegemony grow unchecked would lead to a takeover of humanity, a fate much worse and seemingly more possible than a potential counterrevolution propelled by megacorps.

Seen as imperialists, slavers, and despoilers, the League is perhaps the most vocal of all human factions on their need to prepare and keep themselves at the ready against the Hegemony. It is seen as a 'vital, ulterior enemy' and the naval academies of the League often practice wargames under the condition of a Confederate-Moghesian war. While this distaste does not extend at all to the nominal species composing the Hegemony, there is an inexcusable bias against them in the form of excessive border checkpoints, profiling, and sudden frisks.

Other Human Factions

Be it the "technocrats AI-fanatics" of the Compact, or the "poorly-organized and pitiful Alliance" (at least as the League views its major neighbors), League officials will view the other human polities found within the league with either a minor sense of distrust, or complete monotony. It does place a heightened level of interest in the very minor, independent border settlements that signed into protection under the Orion Confederacy, given that one of the main ways that the League expands is by folding new members into it, and this is often done by courting these small colonies into agreeing to the terms and expectations that becoming part of the IWL implies, in exchange for more direct support from Lacaille than they would get under Terra. There is minor drama over how 'willing' and 'voluntary' some of these newer small members are, but it remains internal disputes to be had over spats in the parliamentary bodies of the Confederacy rather than any full-blown fracture.

Lore
Corporations	NanoTrasen, Frontier Megacorporations, Minor Corporations, The Syndicate
NanoTrasen Specific	NDV Marksman, Paracausal Monitoring Division
Other Organizations	ITV Talon, System Defense Force, The Orion Confederation
Worldbuilding	Extradimensional Mechanics, FTL Travel, Galactic Landmarks, Legends, Mysteries, and Rumors, Metaphysics and Paracausality, Technology of the 2500's, The Timeline
Contribution Data	Lore Submission Templates, Roadmap for Lore Development

Author: Seekssss, 30MAR24