Orion's Arm - Encyclopedia Galactica - Shadow Federation, The

BY LETTER

Shadow Federation, The

Galactography > Other Major Polities, Empires, and Meta-Empires > Hiders

Image from Anders Sandberg
The symbol of the Shadow Federation; this informal federation is the closest that the Hiders have to a superpolity. Although many individual Hider clades welcome the Greensong Accord, the Shadow Federation itself has never formally ratified the agreement, nor in fact has the Shadow Federation ever formally interacted with any other body except the Deeper Covenant.

Shadow Federation - Data Panel
Definition	Hider Association - Superpolity
Symbol	none standard, although two white circles on black, the larger circle enclosing the smaller (above), is sometimes used
Origin	mostly Terragen, but some Xenosophonts are believed to be involved
Founded	not known, but was already established by the First Federation period
Population	not known
Psyche, Art, Culture	Metapsychology: Isolationist, paranoid, secretive Metaethics: Varies by individual member polity and clade Culture and Art: Varies by individual member polity and clade Languages: Varies by individual member polity and clade
Government and Administration	Individual Polities : a large number of unrelated polities, clades, and other small factions that share nothing beyond mutual distrust and dislike for the rest of terragen civilization. Government Type : Varies by individual member polity and clade Constitution: Varies by individual member polity and clade Legal system: Varies by individual memberpolity and clade Sentient Rights: Varies by individual member polity and clade , but generally very poor towards outsiders
Economics, Local Infrastructure	Economy: Varies Megastructures: usually not known, although possibly among some brown dwarfs Stargate Nexus: none Beamrider Network: none Known Net: limited, heavily encrypted Military expenditure: not known, possibly fairly high Trading Partners: some with the Deeper Covenant Longrunning Interstellar Disputes: repeated but mostly minor raids and incursions on all other metaempires
Sophont Travel	Hazard Rating: 5.0 to 9.9 Freedom of Movement for outsiders: highly restricted Environmental Requirements : varies according to clade

Very little is known about the Shadow Federation. Even the name is a tag applied to them by others. It is basically a loose alliance - less a federation than a confederation, if that - of any number of outside cultures, such as the Space People, the Haloists, the Backgrounders, certain radical and highly modified neochimp and other provolve elements (those who did not join the actual Federation), deep space adapted vecs, and other clades. At the time of the Shadow Federation's origin they were united by fear and hatred and paranoia of the inner solar system, the ruling AIs of Solsys, baseline normals, or other aspects of the developing First Federation. They chose instead to live in the blacknesses of the outer Oort Clouds, using stealth technology to avoid detection. Time moves slowly for these groups; they might spend decades carefully negotiating brief trades, and occasionally launching guerrilla attacks, striking at some threateningly obvious base, then cloaking and disappearing before the authorities arrive. Little is known of the subsequent development and spread of this association.

Appears in Topics

Hiders

Development Notes

Text by M. Alan Kazlev

Initially published on 18 April 2010.

Shadow Federation - Data Panel