Welcome to my world-building themed challenge for this year on F day.
I’m dithering over whether to talk about Farsight or the Federation, so I’ll do a snippet on each!
Farsight
One of the most important worlds in my Viridian System series, due to its influence on generations of students, and its supposed independence from both the Imperium and Federation (and presumably any other galactic power). Farsight is centrally situated in one of the spiral arms of the galaxy, making it easily accessible from many worlds (relatively speaking).
The fame of Farsight Academy, the premier tertiary education centre in the Alpha Quadrant, means that the planet has a thriving services industry (tertiary sector), such as banking, finance, consultancy, and software sciences – particularly research and development. As a result, the three main centres for the planet are a combination of office space, entertainment and consumer retail complexes, visitor and transworld services (for all the ‘foreign’ students) and residential areas. It prides itself in being modern but not flashy, and paying due attention to historical artefacts, many of which are housed in the museums or art galleries.
There are two Academy sites, which are covered in some detail in the Perihelix, and students who manage to pass the entry criteria usually spend six years studying and carrying out research there.
Header picture from http://www.theglimpse.com/top-ten-engineering-predictions-for-the-future gives a feel for the sort of look I have for Farsight.
The Grand Federation of Orchestral Manoeuvres (the Federation)
The second largest power in the Alpha Quadrant, the Federation is an alliance of 7000 worlds, run by appointed officials reporting to a Council of Six. It was based originally on trading agreements and a love of music, originated in the Lyra system where three inhabited planets, V’iola, P’csion and D’bass had been settled by some specialist ships in the Exodus from Old Earth.
The Federation is renowned for discipline and co-ordination of its efforts for the maximum efficiency of its operations. In practice, all Federation starships are run by a senior official reporting direct to a council member, who harmonises operations with his or her peers. The formation of a commonwealth of the Lyra system within the Rufus system only twenty light years distant changed the original intention of the Grand Federation, although operations manage to stick to the words of its original constitution, if not the intent.
The Federation is estimated to ‘acquire’ five new planetary members each year. New members are encouraged to adopt Federation governance principles immediately, with assistance from a newly appointed governor, who is always from another Federation planet. After a period of transition they are admitted to the Lyra-Rufus commonwealth, at which stage the governor may be a native of the planet. Researchers of interplanetary sociology like to point out that, so far, all native governors have been under fifty years of age and born within the Federation. That is how a Federation funded researcher would put it. An Imperium researcher would deny the influence of the Lyra system and put it all down to the aggression of Rufus 5 and 6.
The Imperium is featured on Monday (11th) and the Rufus system is the subject of letter R on April 21st.
Oh I envy the detailed realism of your world building! I love world building…at first. Then as I go, I realize just how much work it is and I always drop the ball and it gets away from me. But you’ve encouraged me to pick it back up and try, try again! Wonderful post!
Thanks for stopping by my blog and commenting!
Cheers!
Jen
Jen Chandler was Here
Yes – it is hard work! I have to keep a spreadsheet open when I’m writing, to double check everything and note what I’ve just made up as I go!
Thanks for dropping in, Jen 🙂
I’m very spreadsheet-dependent myself. Good luck with Camp NaNo!
Thanks! That just reminds me I haven’t updated my total on here today 🙂
Now that’s a fancy school I would love to go to 🙂 I wonder how intergalactic education works… 😀
@TarkabarkaHolgy from
The Multicolored Diary
MopDog
Well, a couple of days ago my asteroid miners were complaining about the class swot who got straight As in everything including spacetime cosmology. They were trying to work out gravity wells and failing 😉
Look, it’s a bit like Star Trek. The words just have to flow together 😀
Nice to see you Csenge 🙂
Sparing no expense in world building is quite the task and awesome to do too.
You’re right there, Pat 🙂
I like that picture. Not exactly what I saw of Farsight, but a pretty good match. I think I had some towers a bit more like the Jetsons or something 😀
Not sure about the Jetsons. I think the picture does the spaceport side well, and the amount of greenery. I imagine the Academy at Galileo would be more Uk 30s sandstone. Norwich’s city hall gives a reasonable approximation 🙂
One of these years I’ll do an A to Z of Norfolk. But given I suddenly did a list of World Heritage Sites from A to Z on Tuesday, maybe not next year!
Lovely, detailed world building!
Thanks, Noelle. Must catch up with your visions of your Rhe Brewster series. I was looking for a boggy moor picture the other day 😉
So pretty! I’ve read the books these are based on….at least I think they’re the same ones!
I’d be interested to know which books those were, Julie. These are my own inventions – but then, there’s nothing really new in scifi, it’s so difficult not to be influenced by something you’ve read, however long ago. 🙂
Seems to be the Federation is well organized and well thought out!
betty
http://viewsfrombenches.blogspot.com/
Thanks, Betty. I like to think of them as more autocratic, maybe even aggressive, compared with the Imperium, but then the Imperium is … well you’ll read about that on Monday!