Jack of Harts

The New England Federation legal code makes no differentiation between a member of the Great Families and a citizen of the lower classes. Everyone is equal before the law. Though some are more equal than others. It is extremely rare for a member of the Great Families to be convicted of the worst crimes. Officially this is because Family members value the peace of the Federation every bit as much as other citizens. In practice it is because they plead to breaking the peace long before they commit harder crimes and are exiled from the Solar System. Most Family members go to the Alpha Centauri or New New York trinary star systems. There they tend to join cadet Family branches and continue on about their old ways. That is one of the reasons those colony systems can be a bit more rough and tumble than Terrestrial Federation territory.

The New England Federation is truly a place where every need is provided for by the government. Every citizen is granted a basic living stipend that covers housing, food, and leisure activities. Their exact stipend is generated by a social credit system that calculates the citizens’ every daily interaction with other citizens. As the Federation strives for security, productivity, and harmony with all, interactions that encapsulate these ideals are rewarded. Higher social credit scores grant them larger stipends. Lower social credit scores generate tips on how to better interact with fellow citizens, or even invitations to find opportunities on other worlds if behavior does not improve. A low enough score grants them free one-way passage to Rikers Planet in the New New York system. This is one way the New England Federation maintains a secure and safe environment for all citizens.

The New England Federation funded and performed much of the early space exploration of our own Solar System, and then the colonization of the stars that followed our development of hyperdrives. Near limitless fusion energy reserves and advanced fabricators allowed them to build anything Earth’s space forces needed, and they harvested the Solar System’s wealth to do exactly that. Their large population was easily able to operate an industrial system that used minimal robotic or AI support, and could also send people to colonize other worlds. And they were happy to give opportunities to those immigrants who came through Ellis Island every day. Most of those opportunities were in the New New York trinary star system, or the many Alliance colonies the Federation supported, but they kept enough immigrants on Earth to maintain a healthy population curve there as well.