January 2 - Adhocracy
When you study the many cultures crossing the slipways of our galaxy, there’s a lot to take in. An infinite variety of species, their many body types in no way resembling our own. Cultural traditions entirely askew to our own, timescales or processes simply not making sense to our minds. Food and drink of all shapes and sizes, capable of inducing any sort of emotion or thought. The most fascinatingly diverse set, though, has to be governments.
Let’s start with a somewhat sensible one, shall we? The grand aristo-bureaucracy of Ai’kten covers its entire surface, people working their whole lives in serfdom to form WK-4826. Its subsequent class stratification is an interesting one, too: you have the authors, those who create the forms of worship; and you have the writers, those who fill them in. The life of a writer is one of struggle and strife; the life of an author is one of simple elegance and luxury.
Next up, the perfectly communal threatstate of Stolip, a structure which could only emerge in our universe of quick galactic travel. The Stolips live in a perfect anarchic world: there is no great structure, no monopoly over violence, just people working together from compassion and kindness. There’s a catch, though. An empiric flagship orbits above, periodically sending men down to assess the world. If their world ever falls apart, society collapses, dictators take over, or anything of the sort: their world is annihilated from above.
And lastly, the adhocracy of Qin-Tan. This is by far the simplest government of those discussed. The Qin-Tain are simple people, none would deny this. However, they are ambitious above all else. There’s a constant strive for expansion and improvement. And so, their government is in a constant state of flux: if a dictatorship suffices, then suffice it shall. If a democracy would better suit the people, then so it shall be enacted. This intense, almost incomprehensible, flexibility allows the Qin-Tain to do some astonishing things.