Organizations in the Hub Universe

The Hub is a big place, and especially if you're going to be traveling between the stars it is good to have somebody to watch your back. Everybody in the Federation belongs to some organization, even if it's just their extended family, and organizations (and families) take care of their own to a greater degree than is true today. Here is information about various organizations that are known from the stories to exist, large and small. This is not an exhaustive list; if you want to belong to a government agency that you think might exist but isn't listed here, or to a type of organization that I didn't think of, please say something and I'll see if I can fit it in.

Governmental

The Federation

The Federation of the Hub is an organization started by a number of human and human-ruled planets at the end of the historical period known as the War Centuries. Its goals are twofold: to allow its civilization to grow and prosper unfettered so as to be viable on a galactic scale, and to prevent the recurrence of the Cluster Wars that ravaged so many planets and cost so many billions of lives. Founded just about two hundred standard years ago, it is still a young government and has not yet ossified into fixed bureaucracies. On the whole its citizens are fairly patriotic, as the War Centuries have stamped indelibly into the minds of the people that civilization as a whole must be protected from the forces that would destroy it. The Federation is governed by a Council (in Schmitz' stories it is not stated how one becomes a Council member) and has a police force, a court system, and a military, among other things. The Federation is often called the Overgovernment, differentiating it from planetary governments.

Federation Courts

The Federation's own system of jurisprudence is not seen firsthand in the stories, but presumably the courts, like the Federation Police, deal only with cases that are too large for one single planet or multiplanetary government to handle. Cases involving Hub-spanning drug and organized crime syndicates come to mind as possibilities, as do cases of treason against civilization.

Federation Intelligence

The Federation understandably wants to keep tabs on what is going on throughout its territory, especially since there are governments that want to keep the Federation from knowing what they're up to. Federation secret agents are often assigned to Restricted worlds, looking for signs that their governments are developing banned technology or preparing to conquer their neighbors. They may, of course, be assigned to look for banned technology anywhere, including in non-Federation space. Additionally, agents may be diverted from their usual investigations to help deal with threats to the Federation or to civilization as a whole. A recent incident involving certain Old Galactic artifacts that had been stolen by a Restricted government comes to mind.

Federation Navy

The Federation has its enemies, and the Federation Navy exists to protect it from them. It is unclear from the stories how many ships or personnel the Navy has -- in this game the number will be "enough." The Navy's main tasks involve defending the Federation from outside threats and patrolling Restricted worlds, although there are many miscellaneous tasks that don't fall neatly into these categories. It should be remembered that typical Navy ships can take up to four standard weeks to traverse the Hub's farthest reaches; if no fleets are in the area it can take time for them to arrive. It should also be stated that one of the things the Navy does not usually do is protect individual member worlds from each other; the Navy will only step in if a conflict between worlds threatens to grow without bound, if a world or government seems bent on unlimited conquest, or if forbidden technology comes into use. I would like to state right now that I have no idea what one would call a member of the Federation Navy: a sailor? A soldier? If anybody has any ideas, I'm willing to consider them.

Federation Police

Federation law deals only with problems that are too big for planets or multiplanetary governments to handle themselves, and this is also true of the Federation Police. The Narcotics Division, for example, battles Hubwide traffic in addictive substances, which are seen as a threat to civilization as a whole and are often handled by syndicates with a presence on many worlds.

Grand Commerce

In the stories we see only the name of this organization, but it seems to have the promotion of interplanetary trade as its goal.

The Grand Council of the Federation

We never see a meeting of the Federation Council in the stories, but we know a few things. It has over 200 members, which probably doesn't translate into one representative from each planet. It is probably not an elected body. There is a seniority system. Individual members of the Council often take on particular projects for the good of the Federation, such as dealing with a particular alien situation.

The Hace Committee is mentioned; it is apparently an ethics oversight committee within the Council.

The Outposts Service

When an independent world does not wish to actively join the Federation, sometimes the Federation manages to negotiate an outpost upon it, at least. The Outposts Service constructs and staffs these outposts on both human and alien worlds; they work together with Grand Commerce to try to promote trade, and they have diplomats to assist in negotiation and cooperation between the Federation and the planetary government.

Planetary Governments

Sometimes a planet will have several nations, with or without some sort of confederation to unite them. Sometimes a planet will have one single government. Sometimes several planets will be united under one single government. Any of these scales of government may be a member of the Federation. Or not: many independent planets exist, as well as other, smaller confederations of planetary governments. Any of these governments may possess military forces and/or intelligence services.

The Precolonization Service

When a habitable world without a native intelligent population is discovered, the Precolonization Service is usually given jurisdiction over it. "Precol" will survey the planet and prepare it for colonization, a process that usually takes decades, after which it is declared open for colonization. Precol is headquartered on Evalee, which is also home to the Precolonization Academy, where prospective Precol officers are trained for their careers.

The Psychology Service

The average citizen has only heard rumors about the shadowy Psychology Service. If you've been to Federation Court you know about the Verifier, a device that can determine beyond question the truth or falsehood of a statement and in some cases can visually reconstruct a situation that a witness is questioned about. At spaceports on some planets the local customs officials employ scanning machines supplied by the Service to locate contraband or illegal substances and to stop carriers of foreign diseases before the planet's population becomes infected. There are rumors that the Service is more pervasive than this and that their machines do more than advertised.

These rumors are true. The Psychology Service's real job is to protect the Federation and its citizens from psi-based threats to civilization, and it is well able to carry out its task, because it employs some of the strongest psi talents ever known and has information-gathering psionic machinery constantly feeding data to its correlating computers. Threats are dealt with, though rarely in a publicly visible or fatal way. The goal of the Service is, like the goal of the Federation, to preserve the ecological diversity and competition among the people of the Hub so as to ensure its strength against possible attack from without. However, the Service sees its job as easiest when the people of the Hub as a whole are not aware of its activities or of the existence of psi in general.

The Psychology Service will intervene, sometimes visibly, sometimes invisibly, when:

A psi is setting up permanent controls on significantly large numbers of people - since this is one of the factors that fueled the War Centuries, this is taken the most seriously. The Service will probably slowly insinuate a compulsion into the mind of the controlling psi, making them more likely to focus their talent elsewhere, or at least less likely to use their power for the sole purpose of accumulating more power. This preserves the psi's functionality in case his/her talents are needed in the future.
They detect a previously unknown Class Two or higher psi - the Service is always looking for new psis to recruit. When such a psi is found, a compulsion is usually installed that almost undetectably pushes the psi toward using their talents only in beneficial ways and seeking guidance, which will be provided by the Service. The Service doesn't take it too hard if a psi doesn't join up, although it will keep track of that psi for the rest of his/her life.
Someone becomes aware of the Psychology Service and the magnitude of its operations - if this person is a psi, the Service will usually attempt to recruit; in fact, the revelation of some of the truth behind the Service may only seem to be an accidental discovery and may in fact be part of its recruitment plan for this person. If the discovery is in fact accidental, the subject's memory will probably be altered.
A psi is operating openly anywhere except on an experimental planet where this is permitted - this is another situation where a compulsion is usually installed. The Service does not want it generally known that psis exist or have power, but it has no problem with rumors and folktales. Such a psi will probably start feeling pangs of guilt and questioning whether it is wise to operate so openly. The presence of actual psi predators, possibly working for the Service, usually helps this process along.

A subsection of the Psychology Service known as Symbiote Control seeks out and monitors various types of intelligent symbiotes that attach themselves to or otherwise prey on humans.

The Scouting Service

The Space Scouts are explorers, traversing the farthest reaches of known space and extending the Federation's knowledge and frontiers as they chart interstellar objects, explore strange phenomena, and map newly-discovered planets. It takes quite a bit of courage to do this job, because a good percentage of Scouts disappear without a trace. It's rare to encounter a Space Scout with only a handful of strange stories to tell. Only the best, or the luckiest, survive long enough to retire.

As with many other branches of the Federation, the Scouts have their own intelligence agency, seeking out information from the fringes of Federation space. Usually their investigations center around the doings of the various enemy alien and human planets or the dealings of criminals operating outside Federation jurisdiction.

Transcluster Finance

Private

The Ancient and Honorable Society of Retired Space Scouts: Space Scouts who survive long enough to retire usually join this organization. They have conventions where they get together to chew the fat and talk about the old times and the things they've seen. Some retired Scouts have their own ships and never can bring themselves to quit exploring. The Society takes care of its own, too; if a Scout is in trouble, retired or not, the Society will come to his or her aid. In the two stories in which it figures, it seems a lot like an "old boys' network," but judging from Schmitz' penchant for writing strong female characters there are undoubtedly a number of old girls in there as well.
Banks: The banks of the Federation are much more than just financial institutions -- when you open an account you often get an insurance policy as well. Some banks see it as much more potentially profitable for themselves if their clients, especially the wealthier ones, were to stay alive and earning (and depositing) money, and will sometimes assist if there is a potential threat. When a child is the beneficiary of a fortune, a bank will often be the trustee of the child's financial well-being rather than a law firm or the government.
: They're just like corporations today, although the largest corporations span the entire Hub and are probably more powerful than anything but the Federation itself. It is possible that some gigantic corporations may possess military might, and it is likely that many employ espionage agents. There are, of course, corporations of all sizes, from the largest down to the smallest.
Crime Syndicates: Basically, see Corporations, only these operate outside the bounds of Federation and planetary law. It is more likely for crime syndicates to be headquartered outside Federation space, to make it more difficult for the Federation Police and Federation Intelligence to interfere with their activities.
Detective Agencies: Sure, they have their divorce cases and the like, but in a Federation where the law may not investigate a murder that took place in interstellar space, for example, a private detective agency may be the only recourse for the victim's family or associates. It is not unknown for the family or other affiliations to take the law into their own hands in interstellar cases, but usually they will do so with the assistance of a detective agency, which tends to have resources for analyzing evidence and hunting down perpetrators.
Independent Fleets: The "I-Fleets" are a loosely-defined group of trading clans, each with a self-declared jurisdiction over several planets in I-Fleet space. See the Introduction for more information.
Information Services: I just wanted to mention these; it is possible to hire one to look up information about pretty much any topic. Like a clipping service, they will go through the literature and the media to find out anything that is known about the subject in question, which is an essential service in a universe with so much information to sift through.
Newscasting Services: If you are interested in keeping up with current affairs, it might be a good idea to tune into one of these on the ComWeb every now and then. Just like today, reporters will travel to the scene of important events so as to send back on-the-spot holographic video and to interview the locals and experts. They will interview prominent figures in government, entertainment and academia. Investigative reporters will work their way into corporations or governmental agencies to find corruption or expose coverups. "Adacee" is the name of one well-known newscasting service.
The Non-Direct Mail System: Whether it can fairly be called a "system" is open to interpretation, but the non-direct mail system is quite popular among the Federation's rough-and-ready citizens, and the Federation does nothing to shut it down. Records are scrupulously not kept about who sent a package or when it was handed off from one carrier to another, but special handling can be offered, such as the delivery of a package at a particular time if a certain code is not received.
Sporting Societies: These organizations sanction and regulate hunting, which is permitted by law in wild areas on many Federation worlds. Rules and regulations exist to clearly define the challenge rating of each hunted species and to control the types of weapons and protective clothing that can be used for each rating. Honor and rank are important in these societies; these are denied to those who do not follow the regulations, who may also be punished by the planetary government's legal system as well.
The University League: The "U-League" is a sort of interuniversity council, an organization dedicated to furthering academic cooperation between the Federation's thousands of institutions of higher learning and research. The U-League also provides a liaison between academia and the Federation Overgovernment, not unlike the role of the National Science Foundation or the American Medical Association.