I'm a writer and I'm working on a Science Fiction book that takes place in the future. I would like my book to have a large degree of depth, so I have posted questions on several forums. Military, science, and now political. Here is a brief explanation of my books main nations government. Each planet in the Republic is ruled directly by an elected council chosen of representatives from each province of that planet. Of those councilors, one is elected "High Councilor." The Republic High Council is made up of all of the High Councilors from each planet and one is elected as President of the Republic and serves a 5 year term and cannot be reelected for a second term. The rest of the council acts as advisers to the President as well as a form of balance to him. The High Council has the ability to remove the President or block his decisions if it's deemed necessary, but they must pass such a vote with a 75% majority. When a President's term of service is over the planet that he or she represents cannot run for that office again for 5 terms. The people are afforded a relatively high level of civil rights and freedoms such as the right to vote for their leaders and live their lives as they see fit, within the law of course. But my government was also forged from war and desperation. They were colonies of Earth but were cut off by a large war and as such had to take over governing themselves. The result was that the military plays a large role in just about everything. There are no civilian police departments, instead the military takes care of upholding the law and there are things such as ID checks and curfews in some places, especially large cities. That being said, the military does answer to the President who is elected by the people. First off, I'd like to point out that my government isn't supposed to be perfect. I'm not going for an ideal "utopian" government. So, what I'm looking for is thoughts on the pros and cons of my form of government when it comes to things like dealing with the people as well as other governments, etc etc. I'm also open to thoughts and suggestions in general. Thanks for the help!
Your government type is very cliché and too American , why there should be a president ? why the federal council should be the supreme authority over the local ones ? and above all why a future society would maintain 20th century political ideals? I think the major mistake sci-fi writers are make is to present the future societies stagnated into current forms while all the evolution has to do with technology , also the "cut off from earth" thing is very common scenario in gaming ( X series or The Fringe from the top of my head) . Take a look where the political situation is going , governments and regimes are becoming more and more "liberal" with very frequent spikes of conservatism that boosts the liberal agenda even farther . The global / planetary scenario will never play out because the main effect (IMO) space travelling will have is to give each group an opportunity to live the way the want in a distant planet away from centralised forms of government , laws they didn't personally vote for , police , the military , pressure groups and bureaucracy. If you can take your spaceship and go live in orbit of an uninhabited planet together with people that share the same ideas with you what is the purpose to endure any kind of oppression in the form of "social contracts" and why would central authority spend money to time to hunt you down ? you are not a threat to anyone you just went away.
Sounds oppressive, but cheap to run with only one law enforcement. How are the people taking it? You're probably going to experience difficulty governing with only one force, particularly a military one, it won't be popular, effective or specialised, but if you can manage it will be cheaper than multiple forces and some might support it on grounds of small government. UK Government is working toward amalgamation of various law enforcement agencies, via "restructuring" of departments and closures ostensibly to achieve smaller, better value for money services, but the risk to freedoms is apparent. It hasn't worked so far anyway. They are mucking about rebranding again and again from Customs, Border Force, Border Agency, HMRC, Home Office all a mess and nobody seems to know what they're doing at all from Media coverage.
Firstly You forgot about a division of power into executive, legislative and court system. The council can retain the power to block some of the decisions of a President and his government but 75%! Goodness. It is just the same as never. Of course if You are telling about a democracy. Authoritarian regime makes it possible, but then the parliament would never have a right of such a block. And all the senators, councilors and even Presidents should be subjects to the great Judge or something. And if You have different planets with such a big democratical limitations (Only 5 years of rule per planet and a limitation of one planet to have the power for more than 5 years etc. then You would need separate law systems, separate judges and separate governments. So it is a kind of confederation of planets. So my input is the following: 1) To add the legislative and juridical power into the political system 2) If the need is democracy than You need separate Governors and bureacracy center of the confederation which is the area for plots, adventures and other battle for power. The figure of the President under such a regime is a figure of a weak king under the parliament rule who makes his signatures under everything that is given to him. The true battle goes between the governors of the planets and if You want to add some fasist ideas it should be a kind of discussions between speakers and high Councilors in the parliament while the parliament is divided into race-parts. If not than mix the parliament on the democracy basis removing limitations for any planet to remain in power and so on. The head Judge in a democratic regime should be rather a beauracrat. Because with diffrerent laws at every planet it will be a nightmare and a mess in a law system. So it will be very difficult to break through to the Judge and make him to take some crime to the Supreme Court. But he can be very despotic to the planetory judges under him. 3) If You would rather create an authoritarian system than a 75% block will go finely. But the activities of the President will rather be like doing what he wants and telling the council some great inspiring speeches with lots of applause. The Judge under such a system is more like an executor and threr is no serious speakers in the parliament, but the team of President should consist of all these high councilors, who fight for President's trust and are like kings on their planet. The President than can manage against the plots of high councilors that want to take after him and to plot against them all promoting regularly new councilors into their positions. The rule is much stronger and the law is one on every planet. However every planet might have its tradition power (of some one or two rituals going deep into history). 4) Under the army there is only one aim - the victory in the war. so keep it in mind and don't spread any democracy during the war time. Only authoritarian, only cruel and tough guys around and only one aim. The conflict might also tell you that some of the generals might find it convinient to have war to retain power. As if they ubderstand that their rule is temporary, but they never plan to give it away to any other power but them themselves.
Every government eventually moves toward tyranny. The idea that liberalism in government is a good thing is misplaced but in fact can be used as a scenario to show the movement toward's tyranny, from forcing people to "follow orders" like banning smoking to reduce the cost of government to forcing people into a system they do not choose using our system for example. All for noble purposes but all with force of government as the solution. Any government that is "by the people" will move back to an authoritarian government model because everyone wants to enforce their version of utopia through government force. If this is such a military model of society, then I doubt that any representative government would last long and would be replaced with a figurehead controlled by the military or a military commander itself. Even then it will be fraught with politics as politics is always involved in the upper echelons of any military. A model for an extended military empire with slow communication and a legislative body would be to study the Roman system.
You have the usual very wrong definition of tyranny , the actual meaning is : brief period between republics where a highly popular person undertakes the project of correcting the faults republic created. Authoritarian or not all governments base their powers on the will of people and this is what they are trying to manipulate , in the era of free communications this task is impossible , i explained this practice as "spike of conservativism" . The existence of a military require the existence of an enemy otherwise it is just an expense , in OP's scenario the military has no reason of existence other than oppressing the population but the military is made out of the population , long story short think of what happen when Roman military was made out of oppressed Goths... Authority was created from the need to assign tasks that others had to follow , tasks require a process of production , in a future scenario where the production employs robots and citizens can share and print open source hardware for free authority has no role .
The book of revelations has been out there for years. On a brighter note, Walmart is hiring security personnel to count inventory within it's containers coming from China.
Read "Starship Troopers", probably the best in the genre you describe of a futurisic sci-fi blend of politics & military.
Hey guys, Thank you very much for the input so far! I will certainly work on the other branches of the government and add the judicial and such. @Mutmekep - Yes it is a Democracy of sorts, but at the same time it's a bit more oppressive and militaristic than the American government. I'm afraid inventing a completely new and original form of government is just beyond my expertise. Which brings me to the next issue about the military. I didn't include the current state of affairs in the universe. The war that separated the colonies from Earth is over, has been for 40 years or more. And as for the military needing a purpose, there is plenty of reason for them. The other two powers involved in my story are The Delmarian Kingdoms and Earth and it's remaining colonies that were not cut off from them in the war. The Kingdoms work as a sort of Monarchy and each territory almost has it's own sort of sub government because they are allowed to rule their territories however they see fit as long as they are loyal to the Emperor. And Earth wants control of the colonies back. Also, there are numerous pirate factions that formed after the war, so they are always involved in them down. @Viv - I'm writing it that at the moment things are pretty good with the people. There will never be a time when everyone is happy, but that's just how it goes. And I was wondering about what you said about the police force. Why does it have to be less effective or less popular just because it's military? The way I have it is that the military has sections that are trained to do specific jobs. So instead of having Police, Air Force, Navy, etc etc. . It's just that the military has it's own police departments, fighter pilots, etc etc. . @Yazverg - Thank you very much for your thoughts! I will be looking into your suggestions, keeping in mind of course that this is fiction and in fiction liberties also have to be taken [No pun intended lol] so that the book can work out and be fun. Anyway, thanks guys and please feel free to keep the thoughts coming!
