Jack of Harts

The Great Families of New England wished to build a place where they could live their lives as they wished, without any brash revolutionaries calling to “tax the rich” or any of the other similarly trite slogans. Part of that effort was a fundamental transformation of the kind of people who lived there. They had to be both peaceful and kind, unwilling to make waves, and happy to live in a supportive, all-encompassing community. They had to be willing to help anyone, but unwilling to call for any fundamental political change. They had to trust the government, and distrust those rugged individuals that sought fame and fortune in other lands. The Great Families spent literal centuries, starting even before they officially formed the Federation, building this ideal society from the inside out. It is, as the saying goes, A Better America, for Better Americans.

It is important to understand that the Great Families of New England are the true rulers of the New England Federation. They buy and mold the politicians. They craft the elections. And they make certain the government provides all the bread and circuses required to keep their citizens fit and happy. This is not due to any great goodness in their hearts. It is because healthy and content people are easier to rule. So they have arranged to make certain the Federation citizens are the healthiest and happiest people on Earth and beyond. Even their colony worlds have some of the highest standards of living in known space, and the most distant of their colonies benefit from some of the most advanced and complete colonial expeditionary programs in existence. The Great Families want to be left alone to live as they want to live, and they created a nation to protect their way of life.

The history of what exactly the New England Federation did during The War has been carefully suppressed. They certainly do not teach it in their schools. AIs are bad after all, and their official position is that they do not avail themselves of the services of Rogue AIs. And only a Rogue AI would enjoy the kind of destruction they were sent to visit upon the Shang. The Federation government has also never admitted to sending the AI drones out in the first place. They have roundly rejected the suggestion in fact. In this case, they are actually telling the truth. The Federation government did not send Rogue AIs to devastate the Shang homeworlds. The Great Families did. And the more you understand the difference between those two, the more understanding of how the Federation works you will get.