The Philosopher's Union

The Philosopher's Union is a supranational organization that exists among space-faring species of the galaxy. It was founded after the end of the War of the Stone in 834 Anno Atomica (using human time for purpose of clarification), the War of the Stone having been waging since 300 AA (smaller wars between space-faring nations and species with Philosopher's Stones had been waged since before humanity even discovered alchemy). It was initially founded in the treaties the Early Space-Faring Species signed, forming numerous divisions. As of 3245 AA, the Philosopher's Union has taken on a role similar to 1st century AA Terra's League of Nations.

Political Division
The Philosopher's Union, using the treaties that founded it, has managed to fairly represent all space-faring species and nations equally, which was difficult to do. In its structure, it manages three branches of organization - legislative, executive, and technocratic. These three branches are split further.

The Legislature
The Legislature is split into the Representative Body and the Senatorial Body. The Representative Body manages the rights of intelligent beings, or Sentient Rights, and is designed to represent species. Each species, under the Philosopher's Union, is unified in an international treaty that functions similar to Terra's League of Nations (which now is what humanity uses). The Senatorial Body however represents each nation with spacefaring technology.

The Representative Body deals primarily with Sentient Rights and enforcing them - it hardly makes laws that impact how things are ran. It does, however, have the authority to call in the Allied Fleet to stop violations of Sentient Rights. Each species sends representatives proportional to its population, and currently it has nearly a thousand members.

The Senatorial Body deals with laws of trade, war, colonizaion, and other issues that could potentially lead to war. It has one member per nation as a senator, and there are nearly three thousand senators.

Executive
The Executive is split into the Council of Masters and the Allied Fleet. The Council of Masters is the head of the Philosopher's Union's government, with the ability to pass laws and declare individuals outlaws. The Allied Fleet is the unified military of the entire Philosopher's Union, and the first responder to any military conflict.

In brief, it is the Council of Masters that finalizes all orders and decrees. It signs laws, it can bypass the Senatorial Body and Representative Body, and it has one council member for each species (leaving it with twenty members). The Council of Masters also manages first contact with new species and nations, as well as alloting planets to colonial species that need room to expand.

The Allied Fleet is the navy and marines of the Philosopher's Union. While under the Philosopher's Union all species and nations can have their own militaries, the Allied Fleet is supplied by all of the members of the Union. It has a presence across the entire galaxy, and constantly sends exploratory missions to anomalous regions of space to find Philosopher's Stones and prevent an inbalance of power.

The Allied Fleet also has the Enochian Corps, an elite special operations force. The Enochian Corps is subordinate only to the Grand Admiral of the Allied Fleet and is seperate from the rest of the Allied Fleet's hierarchy, meaning that they cannot give orders to anyone except when the missions states so (and the Grand Admiral can give them command over any Allied Fleet member in a mission). They are responsible for anomalies in certain regions deemed too risky for the normal Allied Fleet, and their activities are not well known.

Technocracy
The Technocracy is the branch of the Philosopher's Union that deals with scientific research and advancement. It has no formal control over the population, but is able to have access to anything to further the cause of scientific research, including a newly found Philosopher's Stone (the broken ones are able to be accessed, but have been found useless. Merging them is forbidden even in the Technocracy). Workers in the Technocracy are held to a technocratic system of government and are able to get research grants to do nearly anything (related to advancement). It has no sub-divisions.

The Technocracy's hierarchy is as such:

1) The Grand Technocrat Supreme, at the top of the triangle. One of them.

2) The Technocrat Supreme, of which there are seven, each in charge of a College.

3) The Technocrat Dean, which each College has four of, each leading a Department.

4) The Technocrat, which each Department has anywhere from 50-100 of.

The Seven Colleges specialize in a field of science each, and each has four branches each.

Alchemy - Organic, Energetic, Inorganic, Atomic.

Physics - Quantum, Relative, Temporal, Photonic (Light speed and faster travel)

Biology - Carbon-based, Methane-based, Microscopic, Genetics

Planetary - Terrestial, Gaseous, Geologic, Geographic

Astronomy - Solar, Dark, Astrophysics, Biological

Mathematical and Logic - Computers, Probability & Statistics, Algebra, Geometry

Social - Political, Class System, Evolutionary, Interspecies

History
The Philosopher's Union, the oldest supranational organization around, having lasted 2,411 years. The Early Space-Faring Species, the thirteen original members of the Union, continued to play the largest roles in the organizational structure of the Union's nearly two hundred member species.

While the Union has been stable for most of its nearly two and a half thousand years, there have been three major conflicts that allow for marking out the passage.

The intial conflict was prior to the formation of the Union, the War of the Stone (nearly six hundred years of warfare, most of which were different wars). It is officially considered to begin when humanity first became space-faring, sparking a war with the domini in 300 AA, and ended officially in 834 AA with the Philosopher's Union forming.

The second conflict was the Mechan Uprising of the 1400s. The Mechan Uprising was led by Vivex II, the leader of the Mechans, and lasted from 1402 until 1459. The Mechans wanted to leave the Union and use a newly found stone for their own purposes (claimed to be for peaceful intentions, but never proven thus), and Admiral Zarquon of the Allied Fleet was asked to step in and crush the uprising. In the end, the Mechans were locked in their designated systems (Orius, Delphi, and Ov Asim) until 1500 to prevent any attempted uprisings.

The third and final conflict was the Foreign War of 2492 to 2500, when the only known space-faring civilization to develop an interstellar empire prior to the Philosopher's Union was found by the Allied Fleet. This was the Principate, consisting of two species (rakati and ferati) that had managed to develop interstellar travel between their home systems without Philosopher's Stones in the 100s AA (Terra Count). This war lasted a devastating eight years, and in 2498 the Enochian Corps was created to infiltrate the Principate's two homeworlds and confiscate their Philosopher's Stones. The two stones had made their homeworlds virtually impossible to attack head-on, but with the Enochian Corps' actions a swift military movement was possible and in spring of 2500 the Principate was forced to sign a treaty with the Philosopher's Union.

The Principate is the only independent government today officially speaking. While it is allowed to make its own rules, anything that violates the terms the Philosopher's Union wants to enforce on it is discouraged, and the Allied Fleet has invaded on more than one occasion to intimidate its government into compliance. This de facto control is controversial, but is unlikely to change soon.

Outside of these three conflicts, an economic collapse from the mid 2210s until 2232 happened, and in 3134 the 2,500th year of the Union was celebrated throughout its territories. So far the 3200s have resulted in few excessively interesting events.