Some Desperate Glory

by Emily Tesh

The government of Earth and its colonies—formally known as the Terran Federation, less formally as Magna Terra, Earth the Great—is a self-described democracy. Outsiders, and some human dissidents, consider this an empty label; although human government includes democratic elements (indeed it is hard to find times when humans are not voting for something) these are, by and large, window dressing. Democratically elected local councils hold almost no power, and the various parliaments and congresses of the colonies are advisory bodies, not real legislative assemblies. Earth’s own chief assembly is famously ineffectual. The fact that some important decisions (such as, for example, the initial declaration of war against the majoda) are left to mass plebiscite should not be taken as evidence of democratic rule. Humans themselves will cynically point out that no popular vote is ever taken unless those in power already know what the answer will be. The actual operation of power in Magna Terra is best described as a militarized technocratic oligarchy with elements of authoritarian populism: or, as one human historian puts it, a dreadful international compromise that pleases no one. It is an accepted truism that nothing would ever have persuaded the infamously tribal human race to unite except the specter of an alien threat. On Earth proper, the Terran Federation must still maintain a light touch in order to avoid offending the powerful nation-states, which continue to wield outsize...