This is a brief introduction to the Federation of the Hub game that we'll be playing. I have invented some elements where they are necessary to play a game but less necessary to tell a story. I have also changed some insignificant details -- for example, we'll be using metric units. But I have tried to keep the feel of the Hub the same as it is in the stories.
It is interesting that in his stories, Schmitz never said exactly what the Hub was -- was it meant to be the center of the Milky Way Galaxy? An open cluster of stars within the galaxy? A globular cluster outside the galaxy? In this game, the Hub is more of the second idea: an open cluster, a region of space rich in stars, and in this case, star systems with habitable worlds. At the time of the stories and the game, humanity is well-established in the Hub, but it is continuing to colonize uninhabited worlds. And humanity is not monolithic. The Federation is an overgovernment, uniting many smaller governments for the good of all humanity, but not all human worlds and governments belong to the Federation, and there are alien species as well, not all of which are happy with humanity's upstart rapid growth.
Figuring largely in any story is the great Federation of the Hub, which at last count encompassed 1258 worlds and had a population of over 600 billion humans. It was founded a little over two centuries ago. The unit of currency is the Federation credit, although most member governments have their own currencies. The lingua franca of the Federation is translingue, which is spoken on every world that has regular contact with the Federation.
In the stories, British units such as the foot, yard, mile and pound are used, but for the sake of calculation we'll use metric units in this game, since it's expected that explicit units will show up during gameplay about as often as they do in the stories, which is not often. Standard units of time are defined: standard hours, days, weeks, months and years. A standard year is 360 standard days long, divided into 12 months of 30 days each; all other time units are the same as they are here and now.
In the Federation, monetary transactions are usually currency-free; identity and intent are established and money is transferred directly from account to account. There are also credit chips that take the place of carrying currency.
Great amounts of data can be carried in small packages, using chips that are probably not too dissimilar to today's flash memory chips. Note, though, that animated holographic recordings are likely to take up even more space than video files do today.
The concentration of star systems in the Hub produces a brilliant night sky, especially in planets near the Hub's core, and this spectacle is known everywhere as the Hub's starblaze. The starblaze is sometimes blocked out by nightscreens that have been erected over some large cities, but outside these cities the starblaze can be brighter than the full moon of the here and now, though not usually as bright as day.
Humans are not the first species to discover the Hub. From archeological evidence it appears that the entire Hub region was once controlled by a massive galactic civilization which humans have named the Old Galactics. Old Galactic artifacts are still found, sometimes on newly-explored planets, sometimes in space within newly-explored stellar systems. It is possible that some exist in deep space as well, but if so they would be extremely difficult to find. The Federation offers a bounty of one million credits to anyone who finds a significant and verifiable Old Galactic artifact, because OG technology has led to some significant scientific advances.
Around 30,000 standard years ago the Old Galactic civilization fell. It is not known why -- theories suggest that there may have been a plague, or perhaps civil war broke out, or perhaps they were conquered by another civilization (but if that is the case, where are the conquerors?). Whatever happened, the Old Galactics have left only their artifacts, and they may be the reason for such a high concentration of habitable planets in this region of space.
Old Earth's history is obviously beyond the scope of this document, but suffice it to say that human history has been marked by advancement through struggle. On occasion, though, struggle leads to violence, which can reverse those advances, so a balance must be struck. Such a balance was not struck, it turned out, during the history of Earth.
The nations of Earth reached out into space; it is not clear from the stories how long ago this was, but it was probably at least a thousand years ago. At some point during the exploration of Earth's nearby space, humans discovered subspace travel, and suddenly the stars were within reach and colonization became a reality. Habitable worlds were still few and far between, however, and sometimes extreme measures were taken to increase the number of people a planet could support -- hence the recently-rediscovered planet Marell, for example, where the human colonists were genetically altered to be six inches tall.
Then the Hub was discovered. Suddenly every star system contained at least one habitable world. There was an explosion in colonization. And, of course, once some colonies became able to stand on their own, they declared independence from their parent government. Some planets remained independent, while others formed alliances and confederations with each other. Meanwhile, experiments with biotechnology and genetic engineering were beginning to produce mutant and cyborg superhumans.
Although Earth no doubt tried to prevent it, its children fought. It is not clear exactly how the War Centuries started, but whole worlds attacked each other, and whole worlds died. Schmitz does not explicitly come out and say it, but it seems fairly clear that Earth itself was destroyed or rendered uninhabitable by the conflicts that raged throughout human space -- although Old Earth is mentioned, no character seems to be from it or its vicinity, and no one ever talks about going there or having seen it.
The cost of the conflict was tremendous. By the time humanity had paused to reflect, billions had died, and its home was no more. Several human governments banded together in an attempt to prevent the War Centuries from happening again. They formed the Federation of the Hub.
A little over two centuries ago, the Federation was formed. Many planetary or interplanetary governments signed on to the Federation charter, accepting Federation authority but maintaining their own sovereignty in purely internal matters. It is clear to the Federation and most of its citizens that attempts to create a super-race led direcly to the War Centuries and that the technology to do such things is still quite possible, so the Federation has made the technology illegal, and most citizens clearly understand why.
Citizens of the Federation tend to be quite patriotic; the scars of the War Centuries are still relatively fresh, and most see the Federation as the best way to prevent them from returning.
To readers of today, it might be useful to think of the Federation as similar to the United Nations, with one important difference: the Federation has a police force and a military and therefore has the ability to enforce its laws. Its laws, however, only have to do with matters that threaten civilization as a whole; the Federation deals only with affairs that are too large for a planetary government to handle by itself. The Federation's internal structure is left vague in the stories, because sociopolitical theorizing is less important to Schmitz than telling a good story (unlike some other science fiction authors whom I will not name), but it is ruled by a Grand Council with over 200 members and has branches such as the Psychology Service, Transcluster Finance, Grand Commerce, the Outposts Department, Federation Intelligence, the Space Scouts, the Precolonization Service, the Federation Police, the Federation courts, and the Federation military.
Many worlds or confederations of worlds have joined the Federation. In doing so they accept certain restrictions but also gain certain advantages. Federation member states keep their own governments and will have varied currencies and languages, and the Federation only interferes if there is a matter that affects the entire Federation or humanity itself. Each Federation member state will have a Moderator, a Federation official whose job it is to serve as liaison between the member government and the Federation Council. The member government may select any form of representation it sees fit to be its liaison with the Federation.
Some of the member states (such as Imperial Rala, Tranest, and the Devagas Union) have exhibited behavior that hearkens back to the War Centuries, such as attempted conquest of its neighbors, condoning production of illegal substances, or development of illegal technology; these "rogue states" have been put under Restriction by the Federation. Restriction usually implies limiting these governments' ability to make war on their neighbors by limiting the size of starship they are allowed to build or the level of technology they are allowed to employ. This is not unlike trying to keep Iraq from building nuclear or chemical weapons in our time, although it is somewhat easier to orbitally spot facilities capable of producing gigantic warships, especially with Federation scanning technology. Restricted States usually abide by the warship ban while channeling their aggressive energy in less obvious directions, such as circumventing the technology ban.
When the Federation encounters intelligent aliens, it will usually offer them Affiliated status -- which is basically the same thing as Member status, only with special considerations. The special considerations are individual to the species, because every alien species has its own needs and goals. Whether the alien government accepts Affiliated Species status is up to them, but usually the Federation manages at least to sign a treaty with them.
There are alien governments with known grudges against humanity, as well as others whose grudges or even existence the Federation is unaware of. The reptilian Wirrola have fought against the humans on and off since before the War Centuries, and the ocean-dwelling Parahuans simultaneously attacked several Federation planets seventy years ago, making a dangerous amount of headway before finally being routed by the Federation Navy. The Federation is much larger than any enemies it has encountered so far, but size isn't everything, and the Federation Navy is spread out among its planets; it takes time to marshall the forces. The Federation is far from invulnerable. If an invading force made enough headway in an attack to convince its allies that success was possible, more species might join in, and the Federation might be in trouble, finding itself under attack from many sides. Most Federation citizens are aware at some level that the current relative peace may be short-lived.
When a habitable planet is discovered, Federation surveys are done to discover whether it is suitable for colonization: this usually means that the soil can support viable crops and that there are no native intelligent life forms. If there is intelligent life, colonization plans are usually abandoned; the species is offered Affiliated status. But if it is suitable for colonization, the Precolonization Service sets up bases for development and further study, learning how to deal with any dangers the planet presents, and once Precol is satisfied, the planet is opened up for colonization. Eventually, once the Federation Council decides the planet is ready (presumably it would have to be self-sustaining and have a stable government), it names the world a Federation member world.
Sometimes a world or government that does not wish to become part of the Federation per se will allow the Federation to place one or more outposts on its planet or planets. The Outposts Department runs these; their mission is to promote trade (in cooperation with the Federation's Grand Commerce Department) and good relations between the Federation and the local government. Sometimes an outpost can lead a government to eventually join the Federation.
If a world or government does not wish the Federation to set up outposts in its territory, the Federation tries to at least sign mutual nonaggression and assistance treaties. Few governments refuse this offer, and sometimes continued good relations can lead to an outpost and eventually Member status.
A large region of space outside Federation territory is occupied by the Independent Fleets, or I-Fleets for short, which are various loosely-affiliated spacegoing gypsy organizations. Each I-Fleet has its own language and traditions, and they are constantly shifting alliances with each other and with the Federation and nearby governments as they pursue their goals of trade and expansion. I-Fleets each have a certain number of systems they control, and they will rarely let another Fleet's ships (or anybody else's ships, for that matter) into those systems: if you want to trade with those planets, you have to negotiate with their Fleet. An I-Fleet is usually run by a tightly-knit interweaving of several families, a clan, if you will, and members of the clan spend most of their lives in space. I-Fleet people are more at home on a spaceship than even the spacers of the Federation Navy or the Scout Service.
There are mysteries out there -- during the War Centuries contact with some colonies was lost and records destroyed, so there are planets full of humans that haven't seen anybody from another planet for centuries. There are planets that have never been explored because they are difficult to approach for one reason or another -- subspace disturbances nearby may require slow travel in normspace, for example. And there are plenty of planets out there that just haven't been discovered yet.
As usual, Schmitz focuses on the plot and the characters, not the technology, but some important points that appear in the stories must be mentioned.
Ships must travel faster than light to reach other star systems within any useful amount of time, and in order to do this they dive into subspace. This alternate universe is contiguous to normspace at every point, but by traveling through subspace and resurfacing in normspace, a ship can avoid relativistic lightspeed restrictions. Subspace can be disconcerting or nauseating if you are not used to it, so some elect to travel in rest cubicles, which allow occupants to sleep for weeks with no ill effects. And weeks it sometimes takes; a typical liner takes two weeks to travel from the center of the Federation to the frontier, although there are special fast ships that can make the journey in 9 days.
Disturbances in subspace exist, usually but not always linked to some sort of disturbance in normspace. A supernova remnant may contain subspace vortices that linger and pose hazards to navigation for hundreds of thousands of years after the big event. Gravitic storms can sweep across subspace, ripples from some distant supernova or stellar collapse.
The Federation Navy is experimenting with a recently-discovered space continuum known as pseudospace or Space Three -- the experiments have been publicized, so this is generally known information. Space glows a luminous pink there, with white cloudlike moving streaks in the distance, and the medium is extremely, unnaturally, laws-of-physics-breakingly cold; heat flows away from unshielded objects faster than it would at absolute zero. But pseudospace ships can travel unbelievable distances very quickly -- the hitch is that the direction is still very unpredictable. The Navy is working on it.
Gravity-manipulation technology has been around for some time; the gravity rider (think Star Wars landspeeders) was around before the War Centuries. So starships can have artificial gravity, and antigravity fields can be used to help lift enormous ships off the surfaces of planets. There are also antigravity materials which have inertial mass and no gravitational mass; aircars made from these materials do not crash if their engines break down but instead settle slowly. Most spacecraft incorporate these materials in order to make takeoffs and landings in gravity easier.
Long-range space travel in the Hub universe is very similar to sea travel, in other words, right down to the seasickness.
Most of known human space (with the exception of Precol worlds) is linked via the ComWeb, an information system not dissimilar to the Internet. There are public ComWeb booths as well as private terminals and personal devices that can connect. Text, hypertext, audio and audiovisual messages can be recorded and sent, or the ComWeb can act like an audio or video telephone if all involved parties are reachable -- and on the same planet. Realtime communication across interstellar distances via subspace is possible but immensely expensive. ComWeb communications can be encrypted, which is sometimes necessary, because it is possible for ComWeb communications to be tapped, either by law enforcement or illegally. There are information servers on the ComWeb, but it is unlike the Internet in that it does not seem that the computer systems of corporations, universities and organizations are connected to the ComWeb, at least not continuously.
Across interstellar distances, messages are typically recorded and sent via ship -- the faster the ship, the more expensive the postage. There are, however, long-range communicators and relays that can send messages instantly through subspace. These devices are extremely expensive to use, though, so they are usually only used for business, government, or military purposes, and even then prerecorded messages are sent compressed. Only the very wealthy can use the subspace relays for realtime ComWeb calls.
OK, you've seen Star Wars and Star Trek; you know what kinds of things show up in science fiction. Do they show up here? Let me try to cover some common themes.
Computers in the Federation universe are quite advanced and can usually both speak and understand human language. However, computers still carry out their programs. Computers with personalities and their own volition are extremely rare, probably because they are not highly useful. This does not mean there is no artificial intelligence, just that the AI you are likely to find is more along the lines of "expert systems" -- the computer has already been programmed to handle many tasks, from simple to complex, and all you need to do is direct it to carry out one of its programs.
The ComWeb is a useful tool for transmitting information, but unlike the Internet of today it does not link the computer systems of organizations, companies and universities. Information is sent between these entities, but the impression is that the connections are not persistent but rather are only made when necessary. The ComWeb is not highly useful for hacking into information that you aren't meant to acquire. The idea of donning virtual-reality gear to metaphorically transform the hacking experience into a more television-friendly image is not really useful, nor had anybody thought of it by the time Schmitz was writing.
Virtual reality for entertainment, however, is known, although not by that name. Sensations Unlimited is a corporation that produces equipment to play back recorded full-sensory experiences, some of them quite adult in nature. They are not interactive, however, and Federation law places some restrictions on what recordings may be sold.
If you mean humanoid-shaped artificially-intelligent machines, these exist but are rare. The human form turns out to be a pretty good shape for living creatures but not the most efficient form for a machine to have. If you are looking for a machine that can do everything a human can do, it is almost always less expensive to just hire a human to do the job.
What about artificially-intelligent machines in general? Of course. For example, there are medical robots, which basically look like an operating table with several mechanical arms capable of handling medical instruments, and can analyze blood samples, scan the body, inject medication, and perform surgical procedures with extreme precision. There are robot ambulances that can come to the aid of an injured person, carefully lifting him onto a stretcher, performing first aid and transporting him to a nearby hospital or infirmary. The Hub is full of these nonhumanoid robots.
A somewhat disturbing dramatic art form known as the Martridrama exists in the Hub; it consists of a computer that has been programmed by a dramateer and a number of Martri puppets that act out the computer's instructions. Martri puppets are biological in nature but are constructed rather than grown, and can have any form, including human. They have no volition of their own, although they do react to stimuli, and because of this no Martridrama ever plays out exactly the same way twice.
The only time travel that appears in the Hub stories is accomplished by a nomad of the time winds who hails from far in the future and runs across the Hub civilization by accident. Time travel technology is not known.
The Star Trek transporter is not known in the Hub universe, but there are portals: two points in space (OK, two flat surfaces of the same shape and size) can be "clamped" together, producing a portal that can take you from one side of a planet to another as easily as you would walk through a door. However, portals require a large amount of energy, so they are usually only found on planets (the planet Tinokti has an extensive network of portals) or large space stations. Instaneous transmission of matter can also be performed by psis with proficiency in the field of Teleportation.
Three-dimensional still photos exist here and now, but by the time of the Hub universe, many restrictions have been lifted: full-color still images called solidopics are common, and you might carry them in your wallet as we carry two-dimensional color photos. Projected three-dimensional images, both still and moving, exist as well; where today we might go to a movie theater to see a movie, Hub citizens might go to a solido auditorium to see a three-dimensional solido show. However, two-dimensional images will always have their place, especially in the case of computer displays. Solido images are insubstantial; this is not Star Trek's holodeck.
Invisible energy barriers exist, but it is hard to say whether this extends to shields around spaceships, because starship combat is not really covered in Schmitz's stories. For this game we will say that starship shields are impracticable. The Marsar Field necessary to protect ships in pseudospace is mentioned, but it is probably of a different nature. Force fields probably cannot be formed into just any shape and seem to be fairly blunt, so Isaac Asimov's invisible force knives are not possible.
Both beam weapons and projectile weapons exist in the Hub; there is a very wide variety. Obviously, projectile weapons are best used at short ranges, and spacecraft will use beam weapons. There are handheld projectile guns as well as handheld beam guns and blasters (pulsed beam guns). Some handheld projectile guns are nonlethal and merely stun (in the stories it is not clear whether they use chemical tranquilizers or some kind of energy shock -- for this game we will say that they use energy shocks of varying strength).
Since the Hub can get somewhat wild, wooly and Old West-like, especially on frontier worlds, many Hub inhabitants will carry weapons, and the Federation rather expects this. The only real exceptions are the core Hub worlds, where Federation law is never far away.
Probably an extension of gravitic technology, tractor beams and their counterpart, pressor beams, appear repeatedly in the Hub stories. Usable on large scale for objects in space, they can also be used on a small scale to immobilize and move a person, for example.
Very careful genetic manipulation of animals and plants is done, but it seems rare, probably because the Federation is very cautious about the possible consequences of such an altered species for any ecology it is introduced into. Sea beef are one example of a genetically altered organism (the hippopotamus) that has been adapted to another environment (ocean) and application (as a food source). Genetic engineering of humans simply does not happen, with the exception of secret experimentation; in the stories it seems likely that it is banned by the Federation and abhorred by most humans, since it was one of the causes of the War Centuries.
Small, mindless human simulacra exist, called protohoms; these are used for medical research and are similar to humans except for their size and lack of any intelligence. It is not stated in the stories how they are produced. The concept may seem to disturbing to us here and now, but it doesn't disturb most Hub humans in the least.
Like genetic engineering of humans, the production of superhuman beings (called "machmen" in the stories, as in "machine" + "men") via implantation of mechanical or electronic devices into the body is most likely banned by the Federation and abhorred by most humans because of the War Centuries. Occasionally some group of scientists will get the bright idea to start their own cybernetic super-race, but the negative attitude that most other humans have about such experimentation usually results in their discovery by the Federation and the subsequent end of the experiment. Implants on a lesser scale are less frowned-upon, especially necessary ones such as prosthetic limbs, although Federation medical science can usually grow and attach a new biological limb given a sample of the recipient's tissue.